The Chrome Borne Read online

  "So," Joe said, with a tension in his shoulders that told Tannim he was bracing himself for the answer to his question, "just what comes along besides the ordinary stuff in this job?"

  "How about me?" said a voice from the backseat.

  Tannim looked into the rearview mirror. His jaw dropped.

  Oh, it was Foxtrot all right. But he was a five-foot tall fox, a cartoon-style fox, only one with three tails and a little collar with "FX" on the gold tag dangling down in front.

  But just as startling as Fox was Joe's reaction. His eyes were wide with surprise, but also with recognition.

  "Long time, no see, Joey," Fox said genially. "If I'd known it was you they were talking about, I'd have come for a visit months ago!"

  Tannim said the only thing he could say under the circumstances. He pointed to the back and locked onto Joe's eyes. "You know this lunatic?" he asked calmly.

  Joe's mouth was still wide open, his eyes dazed. "I—uh—he was my imaginary friend," the young man managed, weakly. "When I was a kid."

  "Not so imaginary, Joey," Fox replied. "Of course, I'd much rather look like this—"

  The whole figure shivered, blurred, and changed back into a leather-jacketed James Dean lookalike. "Hard to pick up chicks when you look like a stuffed toy," Fox offered, leaning back in the seat. "Well, most places. By the way, what are you doing here? You were supposed to be in Georgia."

  "It's a long story, Fox," Tannim interjected, and sighed. "Well, at least now I don't have to worry about you freaking Joe out by showing up out of nowhere."

  "Yeah," Joe said faintly. "He already started years ago."

  Tannim decided that he might as well seize the moment and use it for a short lesson. "I told you weird things show up around me. This is one of them," he told the young man as he pulled the Mustang out onto the highway. Thank God he didn't materialize while I was actually driving. "Fox isn't human, never was, never will be."

  "Hey!" Fox exclaimed, feigning injured pride. "I resemble that remark! I happen to come from a very distinguished pedigree!"

  "Pedigree is right." Tannim nailed the throttle for a quick pass around a slow-moving haywagon. "He's just what you saw as a kid: a fox-spirit, a shape-changer. Take a good look at him. No, really look at him, the way Alinor taught you."

  Joe turned around and stared at Fox, who posed for his edification, magicking a white sparkling gleam off his teeth as he grinned. As Tannim had hoped, the order to look at Fox steadied Joe considerably. Having your imaginary friend from childhood suddenly pop up as real was enough to take the starch out of anyone. "Well, he's just a little see-through," Joe said slowly. "That means that he's a spirit, using everything he's got to make people like us see him. And there's a kind of an outline around him, and it isn't like a human aura."

  "Good," Tannim said with satisfaction. "Right. He's a kitsune—to be precise, a Japanese fox-spirit—and don't ask me how he ended up in Georgia, 'cause I don't know."

  Fox smirked. "I'll never tell. My lips are sealed."

  "I wish," Tannim muttered. "Anyway, he's tricky—that's what he enjoys doing, seeing new things and playing tricks on people. He has absolutely no ability to change anything in the real world, unlike a human ghost, but he's pretty hot stuff Underhill or in the spirit plane. The reason you can see and hear him is because you can see into the spirit plane and he is making the effort to be visible. He's kind of half here and half there—and again, that's unlike a human ghost, who can choose to be all here and affect the material world in a limited sense."

  Joe nodded, his forehead wrinkled with concentration as he tallied this with whatever Bob and Alinor had already taught him. "So there's things like ghosts that can be here, and things like Fox who can't, really?"

  "Pre-cisely," Fox replied for Tannim. "I can make you think I can affect the real world, though." He snickered. "Like I did to you, hotshot, with the soap."

  "Yeah, well I'd like to know how you did that trick with the radio, though," Tannim grumbled.

  "Hey! It's Fox-on-the-radio!" The kitsune's voice came from the four speakers, even though the radio was off. "Betcha caller number three can't guess how I'm doing this!"

  Fox put his hands behind his head, leaning back, looking unbearably smug. His mouth had not moved at all.

  "I know!" Joe said suddenly, looking pleased. "It's because since he's really talking with his mind, he's just making us think his voice is coming from the speakers instead of his mouth, which it isn't doing either."

  A bit tangled, but Tannim got the gist of it, and muttered imprecations under his breath. Fox looked crestfallen.

  "Awww," he said. "You guessed! That's not fair!"

  "Life's like that," Joe and Tannim said in chorus and complete synchronization. They exchanged a startled glance, then both broke up in laughter. Fox pouted for a moment, then joined them.

  Either he's handling this really well, or he's so blitzed by Fox and all that he only seems to be. I think my bet's on the kid. "Well now that Fox has joined us, I was wondering if you wanted to tool around Tulsa for a while." Tannim looked at the young man out of the corner of his eye. "Keighvin told me to outfit you while we were here, and I can put it all on the company card. I kind of figured you didn't have a lot of stuff."

  "Take him up on it, Joe," Fox advised from the backseat. "Tannim's a Fashion God."

  Tannim flashed the kitsune a withering look. "I'm supposed to get Nomex for you—that's fireproof underwear, basically, real popular back at Fairgrove. Some jeans and boots, too, and a few other things. And—" He paused. This was a delicate subject. "And personal gear. It can't be a lot, since the Mustang will hold only so much, but Keighvin seemed to think you ought to get yourself the same kind of things you'd be furnishing a dorm room with. You know, CD player, clock-radio, that kind of thing. And clothes."

  Joe's face darkened. "I don't take handouts," he said stubbornly.

  Tannim sighed. "Look, it isn't a handout, all right? You're going to be meeting people, some of them important. If you're gonna be Sarge's assistant, you'll have to escort Big Guns from places like Goodyear and March and STP all over the plant. You can't do that wearing jeans and a t-shirt. And as for the rest of it, well, if you had anything to move, Fairgrove would be paying moving expenses, right? But you don't, so you're getting it in gear."

  Now Joe looked confused. "I don't know," he said uneasily. "I never knew anyone who got a job with a place like Fairgrove. I don't know what's right."

  And until you get to Fairgrove, you won't ever meet anyone who's gotten a job like this. "Trust me," he said persuasively. "It's perfectly normal."

  For Fairgrove.

  "If you say so, sir," Joe replied, looking very young and uncertain.

  "I say so," Tannim said firmly, taking the Mach I onto the on-ramp for the interstate. And in his head, though he was certain it was only in his head, he heard Fox snickering.

  "That's right, he says so! Now how much would you pay?" the radio blared in Fox's voice. "But wait, there's more if you order by midnight tonight! You get two free neuroses, a fixation, and your choice of—"

  Click.

  * * *

  There weren't a lot of bags in the back of the Mustang, and not just because Joe had balked at purchasing too much. It had occurred to Tannim that "shopping for Joe" could be the way out of the house that he had been looking for. In fact, "shopping for Joe" might become his salvation. He could use it as an excuse to flee the house even when Joe wasn't with him.

  So, Joe was now wearing a good pair of Bugle Boy pants and a snappy shirt ("You want to impress my folks, don't you?"); and there was a bag of Nomex jumpsuits in red and black in the trunk of the car, and a box containing a clock-radio. It was not the one Joe had selected; Tannim had switched it on him for a pricier model with a CD player in it. But since it was going to remain in the trunk of the Mach I until they reached Savannah, Joe wasn't going to find that out.

  Fox was gone; he'd lost interest in the proceedings early on and s
imply vanished. He'd claimed he had a karaoke tournament to judge. It hadn't been easy persuading Joe that clothing could look good and be comfortable, but Tannim had managed.

  The kid looked really good, actually. He was probably going to cut a wide swath through the secretaries at Fairgrove. Tannim guided the Mach I through the traffic of south Memorial on the way to Bixby, feeling relaxed and pleased with himself. Modest, polite, and a hunk. And he has round ears. Uh huh. They aren't gonna know what hit them. He isn't going to know what hit him. Oh, things are going to be interesting around there.

  Well, heck, why limit the mayhem to the secretaries? There weren't too many unattached female mechanics and engineers, but there were a few—and the elven ladies would probably be just as intrigued with the polite young human.

  Tannim grinned, but only to himself, and freed a hand just long enough to pull his hair away from the back of his neck to let the sweat dry. Joe's mere presence would get some of the ladies, human and elven, off his back. Not that they weren't charming, but they tended to get possessive, and there just wasn't a one of them that Tannim found—right.

  Yeah, throw Joe into the pool and see all the lady-fish go into display, ignoring me. Good plan! Keighvin would see to it that they didn't eat him alive or get him into any trouble, physical or emotional. And if he didn't, Bob, Al and Sarge would. Do the lad some good. Loosen him up.

  With those thoughts to elevate his mood, he pulled into the driveway and into his "spot" beside the horse trailers, reflexively checking his watch as he turned off the engine. Right on time for dinner, just like Mom asked. Perfect. The folks always said, "tardiness is the height of conceit, punctuality the height of respect."

  His parents came out to meet them, both obviously very curious about Joe. They climbed out, and Joe waited diffidently beside the passenger's door while Tannim made introductions. He charmed Tannim's mother immediately with his politeness, and impressed Trevor Drake with his soft-spoken attitude. Supper was waiting for them, and it went much more smoothly tonight, since Trevor could not say enough good things about Keighvin Silverhair and Fairgrove, and Joe could not say enough good things about the food. He completely won over Tannim's mother by volunteering to do the dishes afterward, and by insisting that he help clear the table. Tannim vetoed the former, and helped with the latter. "You and Dad can go enjoy the horses," he said. "I'll give Mom a hand. I'm not allergic to dishwashing."

  So Joe changed back into his jeans and t-shirt for a trip to the stables to inspect the horses, leaving Tannim alone with his mother.

  "I was a little worried about this Joe," she told him, as she stacked the dishes he rinsed in the dishwasher. "We saw so much about those awful people on the news, and I was afraid he'd be—oh, I don't know—just someone I wouldn't feel comfortable around. But he's a really nice boy, honey." She paused to fix him with a look he knew only too well. "He's so polite, and he looks respectable."

  She did not say "why can't you be more like him?" but Tannim knew that was what she was thinking.

  "Well, Mom, when your father puts a gun in your mouth to discipline you, you learn to be polite pretty quick," he said, off-handedly.

  "He didn't!" she exclaimed, eyes round. At her son's nod of confirmation, she turned just a little pale. "Well, the poor boy," was all she said, but Tannim sensed the thoughts running around in her head. Joe had just gone from "that nice boy" to "that sweet, mistreated boy" in her mind, and he had an idea what might come next. Actually, he was all in favor of it.

  Joe and Trevor came in then, talking horses. Tannim joined them at the breakfast bar, letting them do all the talking, just observing. Joe had relaxed a good bit; Tannim knew his dad probably wasn't like anyone the young man had ever met in his short life, and that was all to the good. Expose him to something normal, and let that show him how abnormal his own parents were.

  "Listen, Joe, you don't have much to pack up now, do you?" Trevor asked, finally.

  "No, sir," Joe replied, looking faintly puzzled. Tannim held his peace; this was what he thought might be on his parents' minds.

  "Well, it's a long way out to Pawnee—if your guardian doesn't mind losing you a little early, why don't you come move into our guest room until you and Tannim leave?" Trevor asked, making it very clear that he meant the invitation. "That way you and my son can talk whatever business you need to, and he won't be spending a lot of time driving around in the heat."

  "I think that's a great idea, Joe, if you'd like it," Tannim seconded enthusiastically. "A really good idea, in fact."

  It means I can continue some of those magic lessons without worrying about interruptions. I know every good place around here to go where we won't be disturbed. And maybe if my folks feel like they've got a replacement son, they won't look at me as if I'm not really what they wanted.

  Some of the same might be going through Joe's mind. "I can call and ask him," he said tentatively. "If he says it's okay, I can pack up tonight and be ready in the morning."

  "Go call," Tannim's mother urged, adding her vote to Tannim and her husband's. "I'd love to have you here. Tannim doesn't eat enough to keep a bird alive, and I love seeing someone who appreciates food."

  Joe blushed and excused himself. Tannim grinned at his folks. "Thanks, Dad, Mom," he said sincerely. "Joe is going to need a lot of help getting used to the way things are in this world. I think we can help him out quite a bit in two weeks."

  Absolutely true, complete truth, but not the way they think.

  "I kind of figured that, son," Trevor said warmly. "Boy's been sheltered in a pretty peculiar sense. He knows everything there is to know about the way lunatics think, and nothing about the way normal folk tick. And we raised you, so we know how to talk to lunatics. We can translate for him."

  Tannim mock-threatened his father with a hand and then said, "Well, you have a point, actually." Tannim patted his mother's hand. "And he could use seeing a lady who stands up for herself, too. Where he comes from, women are supposed to go hide themselves in the kitchen and let their men do all the thinking for them."

  "Well, he won't get that here," she replied, forthrightly. "I think he's lonely, honey. It would be nice if we could make him feel as if he had a home to come back to, if he wants."

  Well, it sounds like they've adopted him! Heh. He could sure do worse.

  "Thanks, folks," was all he said, but he put feeling into it.

  At that point Joe returned. "Frank said to make sure I wasn't making a nuisance of myself," he reported, looking anxiously at all three of them. "And if this is going to be an inconvenience to you—"

  "Well, if you're worried that much about it, you can give me a hand with the horses," Trevor said comfortably. "Tannim can't; boy takes one look at 'em and starts sneezing. Help me run some of the friskier ones on the lunge, maybe saddle up a couple of the mares and give them some exercise in the mornings. Some of those ladies are getting a little pudgy."

  "Could I?" Joe's face lit up. "You have beautiful horses, sir. They're so great, are you sure you can trust me with them?"

  Hoo boy, wait until the kid gets a look at the elvensteeds. Did Al ever show him Andur and Nineve in their true forms? He thought back over what Alinor had told him in his briefing. No, I don't think he did. Didn't want to put the kid into overdrive. A Sidhe was bad enough. Heh. He and Rosaleen Dhu are going to get along just fine, and that'll make him one of Keighvin's favorite "sons."

  "If I didn't think I could trust you with them, I wouldn't have asked you to help," Trevor said, invoking logic. "That's a lot of cash tied up in horseflesh, son, and I know you'll be as careful with them as I am. I saw for myself you can handle them fine, and you know your way around a barn. So, can you move in tomorrow morning?"

  Tannim sighed. The way his father said "morning," he knew that Trevor meant it. That meant rising at seven A.M., no excuses.

  "Sure thing, sir!" Joe was eager now. His blue eyes were alight with anticipation. "If I can tell Mr. Casey that you want me to help out, he'll kno
w I'm not imposing on you."

  "Good, it's settled then." Tannim's mother nodded firmly. Her curly hair bounced with the nods. "I'll have the guest room ready for you, and we'll expect you tomorrow morning."

  Joe looked at his watch. "In that case, Mr. Drake, Mrs. Drake, I'd better be getting back. I don't want to wake up Mr. Casey coming in."

  Tannim rose, stretching. "Right. Mom, Dad, I'll get Joe here back to Pawnee, and I'll probably take the long way home. It's a nice night for a drive."

  He watched his mother's face twitch as she repressed the automatic response of "don't stay out too late."

  He winked at his father and led the way out for Joe. The sun had set while Joe and his dad had been out in the stables; now it was full dark, with no moon. Their feet crunched on the gravel on the driveway, and off in the distance, the whisper of a distant highway beckoned. It really was a good night for a drive, and Tannim intended to take full advantage of the solitude. He'd been promised some rest, and he was, by God, going to get some. He found driving restful, particularly when he had no place to go and no time he had to be there.

  They climbed into the Mustang, and Tannim joined the stream of traffic on Memorial. Joe was far more talkative on the way back; for a wonder, Fox did not appear. Joe was a lot more relaxed now than he had been when they first drove out here. Tannim took that as a good sign; he already liked young Joe, and it seemed that Joe was far more comfortable with Tannim than the boy had expected to be.

  "So, how are we shaping up?" Tannim asked, as he took the turnoff to Pawnee, headlights cutting twin cones of light through the darkness. "Me and Fairgrove, I mean. Are we anything like you thought?"

  "I—" Joe faltered for the first time during the drive. "Sir, you're not at all what I expected. You're not like Al or Bob, I mean."

  Tannim threw back his head and laughed. "Yeah, I can imagine! Sieur Alinor Peredon would probably be horribly offended if you thought he was like me! No, I'm not like anybody at Fairgrove, and neither is anyone else. That's the beauty of the place. You're supposed to be yourself, and no one else."