CHAPTER TEN

Looks like a rock to me,” I said, as I kicked my boot against Gus’s boulder. In the bright morning light, Gus’s glade was lovely. Quiet and peaceful, when it wasn’t being attacked by Alfar purists, the boulder dominated the small open space surrounded by trees.

“Stop kicking it. It’s like his girlfriend, or something,” Iris chided, pulling me away by the elbow.

“It’s a rock,” I reminded her.

“Don’t judge. I’m schtupping a goat and you seem to be falling for Man’s Best Friend.”

I frowned, turning to where Anyan and Caleb were deep in conversation, also trying to figure out what secrets the huge hunk of stone in front of us could reveal. The four of us were trying to figure out where, and how, Gus’s rock could contain some kind of magical lock. Meanwhile, Nell and Trill were off, partly trying to track down Phaedra, but mostly working sentry duty to make sure the Alfar couldn’t enter our turf again.

“It is sort of humiliating,” I admitted to Iris about Anyan’s other identity. “I mean, he is a really big dog. But why a dog? Why can’t he be something more respectable… like a wolf. I could say, quite proudly, ‘I’m shagging a werewolf!’ Instead, I’ll say, ‘Yes, he’s a dog… but a great big dog! Really huge! And fierce! And he wubs it when you scratch his belly,’ ” I concluded, gently scratching at Iris’s tummy as I did so.

She laughed, wiggling away from my tickles. “Oooo, so you’re shagging, are you?”

I winced, realizing what I’d said too late. “Not exactly. But we’ve done our best. We keep getting interrupted… invading evil, and all.”

“It happens,” she said drily, carefully trying not to put too much emphasis on her words. I’d realized quite quickly that Iris didn’t want to dwell on what had happened to her. Yeah, it was an elephant in the room, but she wanted us all to act as normal as we could about that elephant. For her sake, we tried.

We both clammed up, giving the men a totally not talking about either of you stare as they walked in our direction and then past us to examine the other side of the rock.

“I gotta say, you and Caleb are pretty adorable together,” I whispered, once the coast was clear.

“Yeah,” she said and smiled, her eyes glowing gently as she hunkered close when the satyr and the barghest teamed up their magic and began blasting the rock with various probes. “He was totally unexpected. I sort of wondered if I’d ever feel like this again. Then, with what happened, I was pretty sure I never wanted to feel anything again. Till out of the blue Caleb showed up. And it was… it was like everything became new again.”

“Wow. That’s amazing,” I said, and she nodded, a small smile gracing her lips.

“And he’s hung like a yak,” I heard myself adding, much to my own horror.

“That helps, too,” she giggled, wrapping an arm around me. “Should we go see what the boys are up to?”

I nodded, and we strolled over to Anyan and Caleb, who were doing something that felt like trying to crack the boulder in two.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Iris hollered, racing over and standing up on her toes to flick both idiots in their earlobes. “What do you think you’re doing? That’s Gus’s rock. Think about his feelings if you turned it into playground pebbles.”

Both men stopped, looking at each other guiltily. Caleb shifted on his haunches, his hooves clomping nervously, and I wondered what it was like sleeping next to him. Talk about cold feet.

“So, no destroying the rock, yes?” Iris demanded. Both men nodded their heads, sheepishly.

“Good,” Iris continued. “So, what have you big dicks discovered?” We all looked at her, a bit shocked.

“Dick as in detectives, duh,” she said, rolling her eyes. Iris acted so young, and so contemporary, that is was easy to forget she’d been alive when people could still say “dick”—either for “Richard” or for “detectives”—without giggling. “What’s up with this rock?”

“Um, well, we’ve tried to strip it of any glamours, in case something’s written on it, but there don’t seem to be any. We’ve tried to probe it, to see if there’s something inside, but it seems solid,” Caleb replied.

“You tried to crack it in half, because you’re asshats,” I added, helpfully. Anyan used his power to poke me in the belly, and I oofed in response before strengthening the shields I’d let go weak around my friends.

“It seems to be just that: a rock. Nothing carved on it, nothing in it. It’s not giving off any power of its own, except some residual Gus juice,” Anyan concluded, causing both Iris and me to shudder at that last image.

“So, it’s a rock,” I said, before going poetic. “And not a lock.”

“Yes. It appears that way,” Caleb answered me, his voice dissatisfied.

We all backed up a step to stare at it. There had to be something here, or Phaedra wouldn’t have risked her best people. Unless Phaedra wasn’t the diversion…

Maybe Phaedra’s entourage was the diversion, I thought, my brain thrilling at my genius. But right before I could speak, Iris beat me to the chase.

“So, like, have y’all tried under the rock?”

We all blinked at her, as my purported genius flew out of my ear to join all the other vapid ideas floating about the air above our heads.

“I mean, maybe there’s something under it. Maybe they weren’t trying to do anything to the actual rock besides move it,” my succubus friend clarified, as we all shook our heads at our own obtuseness.

“Of course,” Caleb breathed. “Iris, what a great idea.”

Iris flushed almost purple, her eyes shining. I don’t think I’d ever seen her look so pleased with a compliment, and I knew she had entire volumes of poetry written to her beauty by enraptured humans and supernaturals alike.

“Never thought to look under the rock,” Anyan said, obviously feeling sheepish.

“It’s my fault,” I said. “I was sure they were trying to steal it. I never thought they might be trying to move it.”

“Well, we can’t be sure I’m right till we get it up and over,” Iris reminded us. “You don’t think Gus will care if we move it, do you?”

“We can put it back. He’ll be none the wiser,” Anyan said, as I felt him rev up his magical engines. Caleb added his own strength to Anyan’s, and as they were both earth elementals, their power was uniquely suited to moving stones around. That said, it was a massive stone, heavy enough to give the strongest single-elemental (or double-elemental, in Anyan’s case) trouble.

So I wove my power through theirs. They’d been trying to lift and carry the stone with their magic, which was silly. We didn’t have to move it to Eastport. We just needed a peek underneath.

“Let me, guys,” I said, interrupting their attempts to lift it out of the way. “Just funnel your power through me…”

And they did, the odd feel of their earth magic making my spine tingle. I couldn’t do much with their power besides channel it, but that’s all I needed.

I created a wedge with my own power, directing it toward the base of Gus’s rock. Then I rammed it home with Anyan and Caleb’s power. Exerting more pressure as I widened my wedge, the boulder began to shift, slowly. By then, the boys realized what I was doing and the three of us poured our magic into upsetting the boulder. Finally, it wobbled, began to tip, and then it slowly toppled to its side.

“I was right!” Iris exclaimed, as if not quite believing it herself.

And she was. For lurking underneath Gus’s boulder was a hole, just about wide across for the biggest of us to get through. Where it went, nobody knew. But I was pretty sure we were about to find out.

“It’s like something from Zelda,” Anyan said and frowned. I know I felt a bit weak from all the magic we’d poured into moving the rock. I’m sure he did, too. Only difference was, I could already feel him pulling strength from the ground he stood on. I was going to have to wait for a swim to recharge.

We all gathered around the hole, peering down into the darkness.

“We should call Nell and Trill,” Caleb intoned. “They’ll want to be here.”

“Tell them to bring ropes,” Anyan said in agreement.

“Lucy,” Iris said, giggling. “We got some spelunking to do!”

I sighed. That should have been my line.

“Careful, Jane. Not too fast… let out a little more rope… there you go… I got you,” Anyan coached, until I felt his hand on my hips.

It was dark in the cave, despite the mage light Anyan had already set aflame. He didn’t want to go too crazy with the magic until we knew what was down in the cave. A lot of supernatural alarms were set only to magic, so as not to blow up random passing humans or animals. This also explained why Anyan and I had gone down the hard way, instead of apparating. Who knew what was waiting for us under Gus’s rock? But if it was something old and powerful, as Blondie and Anyan suggested, it might not take kindly to a display of powerful magic.