Mercedes Lackey - SE 4 - Chrome Circle

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Chrome Circle

by Mercedes Lackey and larry Dixon

Serrated Edge 4

CHAPTER ONE

Gently bending the speed limit, eh? Turnpikes were fine things, out here in the Southwest; long

stretches of arrow-straight macadam where you could really burn up some hydrocarbons. With one eye

on the radar/laser detector and one ear on the CB radio, Tannim was confident there weren't too

many Smokies, plain brown wrapper or otherwise, that he wouldn't know about long before he had to

back down.

Heat waves distorted the landscape on either side of the Mustang, and made false-puddles on the

asphalt ahead. Tannim had forgotten how hot it was in Oklahoma at the end of May, and how intense

the sun-glare got by midmorning. Despite the protection of his ultra-dark Wayfarers, he still

squinted against road-shimmers, the glare of sunlight off the metal and glass of other vehicles,

and the occasional flash from reflective debris beside the road. In Savannah, Georgia, it was

still spring; here it was already summer, and the long grass in the median showed the first signs

of sun-scorch. Not as much as there would be by the end of June, but enough to make the ends of

the cut stems noticeably brown, even at the speed he was moving.

One good thing about traveling by day. No ghosts. Usually. He wouldn't have been entirely

surprised to have seen a weary spirit trudging along the shoulder, equally weary ox beside it,

pulling a wagon that would not have been much larger than the Mach I Mustang he drove now, laden

with all the worldly goods the long-dead pioneer owned. Or an Osage or Cherokee, trying to defend

the last corner of the homelands he'd been promised.

He chuckled at his overactive imagination. In all the times he'd driven this stretch of the

turnpike, he had yet to see a ghost, and he wasn't likely to this time, either. Not unless there

was another Ross Canfield somewhere down the road, existing in an endless loop of time and

replaying the mistake that got him killed, over and over again—until Tannim or someone like him

happened by to free him.

Shoot, by now, Deke Kestrel's cleaned up every highway ghost between here and Austin.

The Mach I's air-conditioning worked overtime against the heat outside the car. This morning in

the motel outside Little Rock, the weatherman on CNN had predicted temperatures in the upper 90s

for all of Oklahoma. Tannim suspected it was closer to 110 than 90, at least out here on the open

road with no shade. He recalled working on his first cars in heat like this, spending every free

moment during the school year and most of his summers out in his old barn, with no a/c and

scarcely a breeze to dry his sweat. He'd come a long way from that barn, and the kid with all the

dreams. Never had the dreams included anything like what had really happened.

Funny, when I was a kid, I thought the things I "saw" were nothing more than oddball

hallucinations, entertaining as hell, but no big deal. Like an imaginary friend, only better, some

a lot sexier than any imaginary friend a high school kid would imagine. I just chalked it up to

puberty, but they're still on my mind. Hell, back then I even thought Chinthliss was an "imaginary

friend," and I figured that still seeing him just meant I had a better imagination than everyone

else. Until the spring dance, I never knew it was all real.

How old had he been? Young enough to think he knew everything; old enough to impress that visiting

writer playing chaperone with his "maturity." Then things at the dance got ugly. Somebody there

was using the emotions as a power source. I noticed, and so did that lady writer—Tregarde? Was

that her name? She not only saw what I saw, but knew it was trouble. An adult, seeing it as sure

as I did. It wasn't my own little fantasy anymore. Showed me I'd have to stop playing around with

magic, or it'd eat my lunch. He'd had a long talk with Chinthliss that sleepless night. Given how

things looked on the surface, intensive psychotherapy seemed like a fine option until his not-so-

imaginary friend had confirmed it all. The magic he'd been playing with was real; the things he'd

been seeing were real. In pilot parlance, it was time to get out of the simulators and take a real

stick, or give it up. I grew up on heroes; I opted for taking a shot at becoming one and doing

something about the bad guys. Clever me, I thought that just having magic would let me take care

of everything. Always happened that way in the comics.

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Since then, he'd seen things no "rational" person believed in anymore; he'd been shot at and

beaten up and chewed on—as his often-aching left leg reminded him—by creatures nobody'd ever heard

of outside of myths and horror movies. The magic had brought him good times, too, but plenty of

moments when he wished he'd never taken the particular path his life was on. Sometimes he wondered

if it had been worth it. If the green-eyed kid had known what was going to happen to him, would he

still have gone for it? Or would he have sold off every piece of chrome, burned his little

notebooks, and gone into accounting?

Well, maybe not accounting. Maybe art, like my folks thought I would.

His eyes itched, and he groped reflexively for the package of antihistamines on the seat beside

him, popping one out of the foil and into his cupped hand without taking his eyes off the road.

This was the time of day when people suffered highway hypnosis, especially people in cars with no

a/c; more than once he'd had someone in front of him start to swerve into his path as they dozed

off. And there were always the "Aunt Bee" and "Uncle Josh" types, who thought forty-five was way

too fast to be driving; you could come over one of the deceptively gentle rises and be right on

top of them before you knew it. Especially out here. But the double-nickel was just too slow, and

the sixty-five limit wasn't much better.

He washed the bitter pill down with lukewarm Gatorade, and tossed the now-empty foil packet in the

back seat with its crumpled brethren. Hopefully the pill would kick in before his nose started

again.

Right. Your Majesty, may I present the Incredible Hero Mage with the dribble-nose. He'd learned

pretty quickly that magic was like any other ability—you needed to be aware of it to use it, and

not only did it not solve everything, it didn't solve most things. It was about as miraculous as a

lug wrench. Hell, he couldn't even cure his own allergies with it!

He never had any trouble remembering why he'd left Oklahoma; his allergies never failed to remind

him, usually long before he crossed the state line. He sighed and downed another mouthful of his

drink. The planet must dump every substance I'm allergic to on the state when I head this way. The

only good thing about his allergies was that by the time he graduated from high school, they were

so bad that he needed no excuse to leave the family farm. Not when I can't get within twenty feet

of a cow without my eyes swelling shut. Never mind that the antipathy between Tannim and farm

animals seemed to be mutual. Cattle took a perverse pleasure in chasing him, geese hated him on

sight, chickens went out of their way to shed feathers on him, and as for horses—

The only horses that don't try to flatten me come under sheet metal hoods.

That was most of the reason for his sinking feeling of dread as he approached the outskirts of

Tulsa, headed ultimately southward toward Bixby. His father's last several letters and phone calls

for the past year had all been about the changes he was making. Since he had resigned himself to

his son's career-track in car testing and racing and Tannim was not expected to take over the

family farm, his father had decided to turn the farm into something more lucrative. Not

incidentally, it was also now more likely to sell when he retired. The old homestead was no longer

a farm, it was a ranch. A horse ranch. Doing well, too, it seemed.

Quarter horses. Just what I need. They're going to take one look at me, and I know what they'll

do. Tannim had never once gotten within a foot of a horse without it stepping on him, kicking him,

biting him, or attempting other assorted mayhem on his person. Dad would expect some help, even if

it meant that Tannim had to take allergy pills until he was stony. Well, Al told me that Joe likes

horses. Maybe I can talk him into helping Dad out, and getting me off the hook, at least until we

can head back to North Carolina and Georgia.

Young Joe was the other reason for this trip, besides the Obligatory Familial Visit, though the

connection between the young man who now called himself "Joe Brown" and Tannim was a convoluted

one.

Yeah. Once upon a time.

It all started with Hallet Racetrack.

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Hallet International, the small and slightly silly monument to the desire of men and women to hurl

their bodies as quickly as possible around a loop was not all that far from Tulsa, or more

importantly, Bixby, where the old family farm stood. And last summer, Hallet was where two

Fairgrove Industries mechanics had been sent to help out in track-testing the first Fairgrove

foamed-aluminum engine block to leave their hands.

Fairgrove also "employed" Tannim as a test-driver, mechanic, public relations, and general

"outside" man. Or, as Rob had called him, a "gentleman flunkie." He also drove for their SCCA

team, but he'd have done that without the pay.

So far, so good. Ordinary enough; plenty of racing concerns had a guy who was that kind of jack-of-

all-trades. And plenty of racing concerns hoped to become big enough one day to field engines or

parts of them to other teams. But that was where the ordinary took a sharp right and snapped at

the apex.

One of those two Fairgrove mechs that had found themselves out in the heart of Oklahoma just

happened to be a Seleighe-Court Sidhe.

In other words, Alinor Peredon, "Al Norris" to the real world, was a genuine, pointy-eared, long-

haired, green-eyed, too-pretty elf-guy, just like the kind that clogged sci-fi bookstore shelves

and played Tonto in the comic books. So, too, was the head of Fairgrove, one Keighvin Silverhair,

Tannim's long-time friend and employer.

The other mech, a laconic fellow by the name of Bob Ferrel, was human enough—but he just happened

to be a wizard. A minor wizard, whose magics mostly had to do with making engines purr like

kittens, but a wizard nonetheless.

Not that he's in my league, but he isn't bad in his own area. Al's better, of course, but you

don't dare send an elf out into the Land of the Mundane without a human helper to keep him from

blowing his cover. They may be competent enough Underhill, but out here in the wild world, they're

rubes.

Perhaps if Tannim had been sent along on that little junket, things would have turned out

differently.

Then again, maybe not. Some way or other, though, I'd have wound up with severe bodily injury. I

always do. Why is that?

Somehow Alinor had gotten himself mixed up with a desperate mother, her kidnapped and mediumistic

child, and a looney-tune preacher. The preacher called himself "Brother Joseph," and manufactured

bargain-rate zealots that made skinheads look like cupcakes, and called his little social club the

"Sacred Heart of the Chosen Ones"...

... add in a Salamander from the era of the Crusades, the ghost of a murdered child, and a bigger

bunch of incendiaries than the Branch Davidians. Naw, I don't think anything would have been any

different if I'd been there, aside from my hospital bills. The situation was too unstable. The

Feds would still have moved in, and the Salamander would still have blown things sky-high. Nasty

creatures.

Alinor and Bob had to handle the whole mess on their own; Keighvin Silverhair and Tannim had their

own fish to fry at the time. A spiteful bunch of Unseleighe Court creatures had made themselves

nuisances over a crucial period out at Roebling Road Racetrack in Georgia. They'd almost cracked

up the Victor GT prototype, and they'd managed to cream Tannim's good knee while they were at it.

Coincidence? Maybe; maybe not. The Unseleighe had ears and eyes everywhere; like Murphy's Law,

they always chose the worst possible time to act.

For the most part, Al and Bob had handled it all very well. Alinor had been rather sloppy towards

the end, though; he'd had to play fast and loose with the memories of several of the humans

involved, and he'd had to do a quick identity switch on himself. But by and large, there hadn't

been too many loose ends to deal with, and most of those had been taken care of within a month.

All except one: young Joe, the teenage son of the lunatic preacher Brother Joseph, a boy who had

taken his own life in his hands to expose the crimes going on in his father's compound. He'd

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turned informer partly out of a revolted conscience, but mostly hoping to save the little boy Al

had been looking for—Jamie Chase, the kid who'd been kidnapped to the cult by his own father.

When everything was over, Al had forgotten there would be one person around who still knew

something about the supernatural goings-on. He couldn't really be blamed for that. He was a

mechanic, not a military strategist or superhero. Young Joe still had unclouded memories, and he

had no relatives, nowhere to go. For the short-term, the Pawnee County Deputy Sheriff, Frank

Casey, had been willing to take the boy in. Joe was eighteen—barely—but did not have a high school

diploma and was not particularly well socialized. Frank felt the young man deserved that much

help.

Young Joe had seen a little too much for his own peace of mind, and not enough to keep him from

getting curious once most of the furor had died down.

Turned out that he was both curious and methodical. It wasn't hard for him to find out some of

what had gone on, not when his little friend Jamie Chase and Jamie's mother Cindy were spending a

lot of time with Bob at the track. Between one thing and another, he'd managed to ingratiate

himself with Alinor and Bob before the test runs ended, and that was when they discovered that the

kid was a potential wizard himself. He was telepathic and also had that peculiar knack with human

machines that Bob, Al, and Tannim shared.

Now, there were several options open to them at that point, including shutting his newly awakened

powers down. But while he was not quite a child, he was still close enough to that state to

qualify for elven assistance, at least so far as Alinor was concerned.

Alinor had an amazingly strong streak of conscience, and was quite a persuasive master of argument

when he put his mind to it.

He had stated his case, articulately and passionately, to his liege lord, Keighvin Silverhair. In

the short form, Al wanted "Joe Brown" brought into the Fairgrove fold, as many other humans had

been in the past. Bob backed him up. They both felt the kid had earned his way in; certainly Jamie

would have been dead two or three times over if Joe hadn't protected him.

Joe sure was emotionally and spiritually abused by his old man, which qualifies him for help as

far as my vote goes. Poor kid. I wouldn't have wanted to go through what he did for anything. Then

you figure out what he must have felt when they told him that the compound went up and that the

Feds shot it out with his dad and killed him. Poor Joe; everything and everyone he knew either

went up in smoke or is rotting in a federal pen. And rescuing that little Jamie kid by going

public and turning his nut dad in—that took some real guts. From all Al said, the cult played for

keeps; people like that usually find ways to deal with "traitors." Permanently.

Keighvin listened and Keighvin agreed, allowing Al and Bob time enough in Oklahoma to reveal

something of their true natures to the boy. If he accepted them, he could be invited to join the

human mages, human Sensitives, and elves of Fairgrove Industries. That organization was loosely

affiliated with SERRA—the South Eastern Road Racing Association, which itself had more than a few

non-mortals and magic-wielders in its ranks. And if he freaked, they would wipe his memory clean,

shut his powers down, and let him go join the normal world.

Joe didn't freak; in fact, he was relieved to find some kind of explanation for what had happened

at his father's compound. Either the kid was very resilient, or this was a side effect of being

taught so many half-baked, conflicting notions that nothing really seemed impossible anymore. Bob

was convinced that the kid would make a first-class Sensitive and a fine assistant to Sarge Austin

back at the Fairgrove compound. Sarge would make a good role model and father figure for young

Joe; a true rock of stability, with honest, simple values. The one place where Joe had actually

been happy was military school—working under Sarge should do wonders for him. The only potholes in

the road were the facts that the kid was barely eighteen, being watchdogged by the Feds, under the

temporary guardianship of the local sheriff, and they couldn't just kidnap him.

So they reached a compromise, worked out with Frank Casey: Joe would finish his last year of high

school in Oklahoma, so that he had a genuine diploma. When he graduated, someone would come from

Fairgrove to pick him up with a "job offer." And meanwhile, Al and Bob would keep in touch with

him through letters, phone calls, and occasional visits, by means both mundane and arcane.

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Enter Tannim, who hadn't been back home in more than a year. The elves felt very strongly about

the ties of kith and kin, and took a dim view of people who treated such things carelessly. Around

about March, Keighvin had begun to hint that it would be a good idea for Tannim to "spend some

time with his family." By the end of March, the hints had turned about as subtle as a ten-pound

sledgehammer upside his head.

In April, Tannim thought he might get off the hook; a major disaster Underhill and in the more

mundane lands of North Carolina had left Elfhame Outremer in ruins and all of the Seleighe Court

in shock. Virtually everyone on the East Coast was needed to help put the pieces back together

again. But by the middle of May, with Joe about to graduate, Keighvin's hints turned into an

order. Tannim would go visit his family, and while he was there, he would pick up young Joe and

bring him back to Fairgrove. But not until he had spent at least two weeks in the family bosom.

Go rest, he says. Spend time with your family. They miss you; they need to know you're all right.

Relax, he says. Like I'm going to be able to relax around my parents! I can't tell them more than

a tenth of what I really do! And good old Chinthliss—if he gets wind of the fact that I'm not

busy, he'll want to show up, and the last time he showed up—

"Hiya, boss!"

Tannim yipped in startlement and rose straight up in his seat, narrowly avoiding running off the

road. He was no longer alone in the Mach I.

Lounging at his ease in the bucket seat next to him was James Dean, famous boyish good looks,

Wayfarer sunglasses, red leather jacket, and all. There was just one small addition: in fancy

chrome over the right breast of the jacket was a tiny logo composed of two letters.

FX.

"Mind if I come along for the ride?" Foxtrot X-ray asked with a lopsided smile.

Tannim calmed his heart and his temper with an effort. There was no point in getting mad at Fox;

the Japanese kitsune-spirit operated by his own rules. There was no point in complaining. Fox

wouldn't understand why Tannim was upset. And Fox was good-hearted. He'd done Tannim plenty of

favors since they'd met.

"Can anyone see you but me?" Tannim demanded, his attention torn between his sudden passenger and

the road. Having a James Dean lookalike along was going to complicate an already complex

situation... .

Why couldn't I just be gay? It would be a lot easier to come out of the closet than to explain any

of this to my parents...

"Of course not!" Fox replied. "Why? Do you want to show me off? That could be fun—"

"No!" Tannim shouted. "No, I do not want anyone else to see you! Not my parents, not the

neighbors, not the people in the next car—"

"Oh, they won't be able to see me," Fox said, shrugging dismissively. "I don't know whether your

parents have the Sight, but even if they do, I can keep them from seeing me if you really want.

They won't think I'm real, and that's half the battle. Half the fun, too!" Fox cracked a vulpine

grin. "But what about that kid you're supposed to pick up? He could probably see me even if I

shield from him, unless I made a point of not coming around while he's with you. That could be

fun, too. I could make it a game. You sure you want me to stay hidden?"

Tannim paused a moment before saying anything, thinking hard. It could be useful to have Fox

appear to Joe—could it cause problems as well?

"I don't know," he said finally. "Just do me a favor and stay out of sight until I get a feel for

the situation, all right?" It was useless to ask Fox to just go away; there wasn't a chance in the

world that he would if he thought Tannim was going to be doing anything really interesting. Fox

had more curiosity than a zoo of raccoons, and every resource imaginable to indulge that

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