The Otherworld Read online

  She hadn't intended to tell him her life's story, but he seemed content to sit and listen to her, shaking his head and tsking at the right moments. Finally, she thought, as she prattled on about her husband, the cult, and her missing son, somebody who'll listen to me!

  Finally the old man nodded. "Miss, you ain't had nothin' but bad luck, that's for sure. Sounds to me like this fella is a pretty hard-core racing fan. And hard-core fans tend to hang out with the pros in the pits. I haven't seen your son, but maybe someone else has. Would ya like to come have a look see?"

  Without hesitation she accepted, and soon found herself waiting for a break in the race, so that they could cross over to the pits. When the break came, another wave of heat came over her, and she thought with a touch of panic that she was going to pass out.

  Not again, she thought, and willed her strength back.

  The moment passed, without her new friend noticing. He escorted her—with an odd touch of gallantry—past a short cinderblock wall where a man waited, watching who came in. One nod from her heaven-sent escort allowed them through.

  When she entered the pits her senses were assaulted with the sights and smells of racing. Everywhere she walked, she stepped over oil-marked concrete, bits and pieces of race cars lay strewn everywhere, usually in the form of washers, bolts and brackets—she thought irresistibly of a dinosaur graveyard, strewn with bones.

  A blast of something aromatic and potent, which she identified a moment later as high-octane racing fuel, threatened another fainting spell.

  Too overwhelmed by sight and sound, smell and vibration, she stood, trapped like an animal caught in the headlights.

  Then the sound, at least, stopped. In the temporary absence of engine roar, she found her ears ringing, and when she turned to see where her friend had gone she saw him rushing off to a race car that had just pulled in. I guess I'm on my own now.

  The people she saw were either frantically going somewhere in a huge hurry, or doing nothing at all, some even looking bored. It was this latter group that she tried to talk to, praying under her breath that she wouldn't get in the way. She hoped she knew enough from her racing experiences with her husband to tell when a crew was seconds away from swarming over a car, or when they were just trying to kill time.

  She approached one team, who seemed more intent on barbecuing ribs than changing tires on a race car. Men stood around a portable grill, holding beer cans in beefy fists, and stepping back when the grease flared. Some of them were apparently drunk, and while this reminded her uncomfortably of her ex-husband, she went up to one anyway.

  "Hi, I'm looking for my son, this is a picture," she said, holding the photograph out. "Have you seen him?"

  The man's features softened briefly, but when he saw the picture, they hardened. He said curtly, "No, I haven't," and looked at her as if she didn't belong there.

  Another, younger man, who might have even been the driver, smiled broadly and shook his head, and then promptly ignored her presence, as if she had faded into invisibility. She asked the next man, and the next, feeling like a scratched record.

  No, we haven't seen your son. Are you sure you're in the right place?

  Then, one large man staggered over to join the group, a hulk with a barrel-chested torso that could have stored a beer keg, and probably had.

  "I might have," the big man said, belching loudly. He's so much like Jim, she thought, wondering if this man might even know him. "But then again, I might not. What's the story, lady?"

  "He's my son," she repeated. Does he know something? she thought madly, hoping that maybe he did. Has he seen Jamie or is he just playing with me? "My husband, his name is James Chase, do you know him? He sort of took Jamie away, we're divorced and I got full custody. James took him out of school, in Atlanta, and they were last seen in Tulsa."

  "Maybe you should go look in Tulsa," he said rudely. But then he continued, his eyes narrowing with arrogant belligerence. "And what's this crap you're saying about kidnaping, anyway? And how the hell did you get full custody? Must have cost you a lot to take a man's son away from him."

  Cindy became very quiet, shocked into silence. The man moved in closer to her, exhaling beer fumes in her face.

  "What kind of a mother are you, anyway? Jesus Christ, lady, if you were a decent mother maybe your son wouldn't have gone away with your old man. Would he?"

  His unfairness and hostility conspired with the heat to glue her to the spot, unable to move, like a frightened kitten cowering away from a pit bull. The man continued the tirade, with angry enthusiasm—really getting into shouting at a woman half his size—but she didn't hear any of it. The heat was catching up with her again, and a race car started up and was revving loudly nearby, drowning out all the senseless noises the man was attempting to make.

  But in the nightmare the day had become, she could read his lips. Let it go. Just let it go, lady, the boy's probably happier with his father anyway. Go find another hubby and raise some more brats.

  The cars roared away.

  "And no real woman would—"

  That was the last straw. Unable to take it anymore, without even the noise of the nearby car to completely take away the man's unpleasantness, she turned violently and stumbled away. She didn't want him to have the pleasure of watching her cry.

  She walked slowly, so that her blurring eyes wouldn't betray her into a fall, vaguely aware of the man shouting behind her, unaware of where exactly she was. The tears surged forth now, breaking through a wall she didn't even know was there. She leaned on an oil barrel, faint again from the heat, and let the tears come freely. There weren't many witnesses here, and what few there were didn't care, didn't matter. . . .

  * * *

  "Al, what is it?" Bob asked, moderately concerned. "Anything important?"

  Alinor shrugged, feeling the source of the emotional overload coming closer. She must be in the pit area by now. Perhaps I shouldn't involve Bob yet . . . until I know a little more about what's going on here.

  "Oh, I don't think so," Alinor said, forcing a yawn, but Bob didn't look like he believed him. He knows me too well, Al thought. He doesn't look it from the outside, but for a young human he's darned sharp.

  "I'm sure you won't mind if I tag along. The car's going in anyway," Bob said slyly, as more of a statement instead of a question.

  "Yeah, sure," Al said, too casually. To say "no" would certainly tip him off. Perhaps the gods intend for him to be involved in this one after all.

  "I've got a—feeling. Not sure if it's anything," Al said conversationally, as they walked toward the core of the paddock, the pit area where most of the cars came in to refuel. "Might be nothing, but then it might be—"

  Al stopped in mid-sentence as he watched Bob's eyes tracking like an alert scout's, first to the racetrack, then to a group of men clustered around a grill.

  Then came the emotion again, piercing his mage-shields like nothing he'd felt in a long time, and he put one hand up to his temple, reflexively.

  "Is this what got your attention?" Bob asked calmly, pointing at a large man who was yelling at a small woman holding a photograph. From the emotion and thought-energies he was picking up now, Al knew that the picture was of the child she had lost. He had seen the man before, and knew he was a first-class misogynist, a male chauvinist pig, an egotist, a jerk. A general pain in the rear.

  In short, Al didn't like him. And he would be perfectly pleased to have a chance to show the bastard up.

  Saying nothing to Bob, he approached the pair. He privately hoped Bob would stay back and remain out of the situation long enough for him to find out precisely what was going on.

  The woman paled and turned away from the bully, obviously fighting back tears. When the man took one step after her, Al intervened, wishing he dared land the punch he longed to take, but knowing he had to be far more surreptitious than that.

  You don't need to follow her, Al sent, winding the impulse past the man's beer-fogged conscious. Go back to t
he party. Leave her alone.

  The man paused, shook his head, and crushed the beer can in his right hand.

  He hadn't noticed Al's little thought-probe as coming from outside himself. Now Al was confident enough about keeping his powers a secret that he sent one final nudge: She doesn't matter. Besides, there's more beer at the barbecue.

  This last item seemed to get his attention away from his victim. He turned and walked uncertainly back to the barbecue, directly for the ice chest, ignoring the ribs being served. No doubt of where his priorities lay.

  Alinor waited a moment before approaching the woman, who had obviously taken more than she could bear this afternoon. For a moment he thought she was going to pass right out and fall into the barrel she was leaning against.

  She is in such pain over her child, Al anguished with her, waiting for the right moment before going to her. I must help her. There is more about this than is apparent on the surface.

  "Excuse me," Al said softly, coming up behind her. "Are you . . . all right?"

  She sniffled, as if trying to get herself under control, then turned slowly around. Their eyes met briefly before she looked away, and he sensed she was embarrassed about her appearance. Her eyes were puffy and red; obviously, she'd cried more than once today. "Yeah, I'm fine," she said, between sniffles.

  Al calmly watched her, waiting for her to respond to the fact that he was not buying her story for even a minute.

  Her jaw clenched, and she choked on a sob. "No. I'm not all right," she said, contradicting herself, but finally admitting the obvious. "Please. I don't know who you are, but I need help. This guy helped me get in here, but I don't know how to get out. The rules. Whatever."

  And then she burst into sobs again, turning away from him.

  Saying nothing, knowing that there was nothing he could say for the human that could possibly help her at that moment, he took her hand to lead her to a little grassy area near the track that was reasonably quiet and shaded. He sent Bob for cold drinks and told him where they'd be. Bob rolled his eyes, but cooperated nonetheless. Al ignored him.

  He'll remember soon enough what it means to help a human in distress, Al thought. It will all come back clearly to him when he sees what's wrong. He was on the receiving end once. I don't know what it is involved in this yet, but I can tell this isn't going to be light.

  He saw to it that she was seated in a way that would keep her back to most of the track-denizens, and handed her a fistful of napkins to dry her tears.

  Then he waited. The revelation was not long in coming. When she had composed herself sufficiently she showed him her son's picture and began her plea, her words tumbling over each other as if she feared he would not give her a chance to speak them. "That's Jamie, my son. My husband . . . I mean, my ex-husband kidnaped him from his school in Atlanta, and—"

  "Now wait, slow down," Al said softly. "Start from the beginning. Please."

  Cindy nodded, took a deep breath, then explained to him what had really happened, telling him about the cult and the eerie change that had come over her husband. The parts about her ex-husband's alcoholism reminded him of Bob's past history, and Al was grateful the young mechanic returned with the drinks in time to hear it. He saw Bob's eyes narrow and his lips compress into a thin, hard line, and knew that the human had been won over within three sentences.

  The story aroused many deep reactions in him, from the near-instinctive protective urges shared by all elves, to the feeling that this was only the surface of a larger problem. There was more here than just one little boy being kidnaped.

  There is death here, he thought, with a shudder he concealed. None of the Folk cared to think about death, that grim enemy who stole the lives of their human friends and occasionally touched even the elven ranks. But he knew it, with the certainty that told him his flash of intuition was truth. There is death involved, and pain. And not just this woman's pain, or her son's. He was not one of the Folk gifted with Fore-Seeing, with the ability to sense or see the future—but he had a premonition now. This wasn't just about one small boy.

  As she finished the story, Al studied the photograph, engraving the image permanently in his mind. Now I must help, he thought with determination. I could never turn away from something like this. And, with ironic self-knowledge, It was time for another adventure, anyway.

  "And that's it," Cindy concluded, as if she felt a little more heartened by his willingness to listen. "I'm just about at the end of the line. And I think I'm going crazy sometimes. Can you, I don't know, ask around? I don't know what else to do."

  "I'll do anything I can to help you," Al said firmly, looking to Bob for support. The human shrugged—both at Al and at his own willingness to get involved—sighed and rolled his eyes again ever so slightly.

  "I'll take that as a yes," Al told him, then turned to Cindy. "When you feel a little better, we can start asking around the track. I know the people here who would be sharp enough to notice something odd about your ex-husband and your son." He laughed a little, hoping to cheer her a bit. "Most folks here, if it doesn't have four wheels, it doesn't exist."

  She looked from him to Bob and back again, grateful—and bewildered. "Th-th-thank you, Al. And Bob," she said at last, looking as if she didn't quite believe in her luck. "What can I do to, you know, pay you back?"

  She sounded apprehensive, and Al did not have to pry to know what she thought might be demanded in return for this "friendly" help. "Not a thing," Al quickly supplied. "But I do need a little more information about your son and your ex. We know he likes races. What about some other things he enjoys? What might attract him here in particular, and where else might he go around here?"

  No, he had not been mistaken; the relief she felt at his reply was so evident it might as well have been written on her forehead. Thank God, I won't have to—he isn't going to—

  Al sighed. Why was it that sex could never come simply, joyfully, for these people? Along with the curse of their mortality came the curse of their own inhibitions.

  Ah, what fools these mortals be, he thought, not for the first time—and turned his attention back to the far more important matter of a child in danger.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jamie winced. Jim Chase ignored him and banged on the pickup truck's balky air-conditioner, which was threatening to break down for the third time that week. The once-cold air was turning into a warm, fetid blast, and anybody with sense would just roll down the windows. Jamie perched on the sticky plastic seat beside his father, staring glumly at the Oklahoma countryside. He counted cows as they passed a pasture, something Jim had taught him to better pass the time. Meanwhile, the hot air coming from the truck's dash made sweat run down his neck, and he was trying his best to ignore it.

  Jim's large fist pounded the air-conditioning controls, which had no effect on the temperature; the interior of the truck was quickly turning into a sauna. Jamie calmly reached over and turned off the blower, then cranked down his own window. The air outside was just as hot, but was drier, and at least it didn't smell of mildew.

  His father muttered something about a compressor, a word Jamie barely recognized. It sounded expensive, which meant it would stay unfixed. Jim was still a genius when it came to technical stuff. But when he was angry, or when he drank joy juice, the genius went away. Like now.

  Jamie decided to see if at least he could get his father to stop doing something stupid. "Daddy, isn't the compressor in the motor? Under the hood?"

  Jim's calm words seemed to come with great effort. "Yes, son. The compressor is in the motor."

  "Then why are you bangin' on the dash like that?"

  Jim laughed, a little, at that. "Good question," he said, leaving the dash alone and unbuttoning his shirt in the heat. Jamie wished he had brought more of his clothes on this trip; he'd managed to scrounge around for a used tank top at the vacation place, and it was the only clothing he had that was cool enough to wear on these excursions. Even though it came down to his knees, and fel
t more like an apron, it was more comfortable than the one shirt he still had.

  Overall, this had been the longest and weirdest vacation he'd ever been on, especially since Mom wasn't with them. At the vacation place, however, he had been to a kind of school, which didn't make any sense at all. You don't go to school on vacation, he tried to tell his dad, but his father had insisted. Jamie attended class in a single room with one strange old lady named Miss Agatha who hated blacks and Jews and had a big gap between her front teeth. She taught them her hate along with readin' and 'rithmetic, or at least tried. Hate was wrong, he knew, but since he was surrounded by adults who seemed to think differently, he didn't question them.

  Much.

  The classroom was filled with other children who were just as confused as he was. Most of them were there because they weren't old enough to be in the Junior Guard. The kids in the Junior Guard didn't have to go to school, so it was something Jamie wanted to join, if for no other reason than to get away from Miss Agatha. He even lied and told them his age was ten and not eight; you had to be at least ten to join the Guard and use an AK-47. But they hadn't believed him.

  Jamie had thought of this vacation as one big adventure, in the beginning. But in the past couple of days, he had begun to sense something wrong. He started asking his father questions—about the whereabouts of his mother, and why he was gone from his school for so long. And why he didn't have any spare clothes.

  He'd kept up an incessant barrage of questions, couching the questions in innocence so that he would stay out of trouble. He might only be eight, but one thing he knew was his dad. James had bought it at face value, looking pained, not annoyed, whenever his son brought up the subject of his mother.

  Finally today his dad had told him that they would be seeing Mom on this trip to Tulsa. Why, Jamie had asked, didn't Mom come to the vacation place? It was a surprise, James had replied, and that seemed to be the end of that.