Badder (Out of the Box Book 16) Read online

  Badder

  Out of the Box #16

  Robert J. Crane

  Badder

  Out of the Box #16

  Copyright © 2017 Ostiagard Press

  All Rights Reserved.

  1st Edition

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  1.

  Before

  “In my day, we ruled the world as gods, and all who beheld us quaked in righteous fear at the sound of our approach.” Her granddad’s voice always filled Rose with a sense of reassurance, that quiet desire to just put her chin in her hands and listen as he spun his tales. She looked up at him now with a smile of wonderment, eyes starry and glazed, as he talked of his own life and the days before. “We battled and fought amongst ourselves, and humans ran, fearful, from the clash of men and women so strong as to defy their ability to understand it in terms that didn’t blast their heads off as surely as if a Brigid had done it for them.” His thick Scottish brogue was the stuff of the Highlands, and it was deep, and rich, and Rose couldn’t get enough of hearing it.

  “Rose.” The stern sound of her mam’s voice made Rose jerk her head around. She found the lady herself standing there, disapproving, hands on hips. Her fiery red hair caught the midday light reflected through the window to the living room. Rose looked back at her granddad to see his eye twinkle, and he winked at her.

  “We’ll finish this later,” he said, unfurling himself from the footstool where he’d sat and held court, telling her his tales. He stood, strong and tall, hair still dark and full. She knew he was already some two thousand years old. He didn’t look it. He didn’t even really look a granddad, at least not compared to some of the other granddads around.

  “No, you won’t,” Rose’s mam said darkly, green eyes flashing, hands still firmly planted upon her hips.

  “Ye’re a wee scunner,” her granddad said. “Ye’re my daughter, I’m not your son.” He didn’t sound very serious, more mocking of the idea that she could command him than angry. The twinkle in his eye showed he had a good humor about it all.

  “Aye, and she’s mine,” Rose’s mam said, “and she doesn’t need you filling her head with nonsense tales of the past.” Her voice went a note higher. “Those days are long gone, Father. We don’t live like that anymore. We have to exist with the humans now, and not try and rule them. You know that.”

  “I know that,” he said, and waited for her to turn. “But it was better before,” he whispered to Rose once she’d turned away. Judging by the slump of her shoulders, Rose’s mam heard that, though. He clapped Rose on the shoulder lightly. “All right, enough o’ that for now. Go on, then. Go outside for a bit, have some fun. Maybe go find Graham. No need to be hanging about inside on a beautiful day like today.”

  “Granddad, it’s raining,” Rose said, looking at the open shade over his shoulder. Grey skies were visible, and hints of moisture were coming out of the sky.

  “But lightly!” he said. “That’s what we call Scottish sunshine, and you better drink it up while you can.” He favored her with a grin, then placed his hand on her back and gently pushed her toward the door. “Go on, then. Come back before tea. And don’t go doing anything daft, you hear?”

  Rose lingered, drifting toward the door. “I hear you, Granddad,” she said, sighing as she left.

  Outside, she discovered he’d been right about the sunshine. It broke its way through the clouds, revealing the sparse nature of the rainfall, only a few drops coming every square foot. It was a light drizzle at best, and the village was still awake, and still functioning in spite of the minor precipitation. Rose took in this overly familiar scene with a practiced eye; she’d lived here all her life, had yet to leave, and—well, really, why would she?

  Over to the east stood one of the rounded hills that rose like a mountain over the village. It was tall and looked smooth, but it was easily climbable if you knew what you were doing. Hills dotted the ground to the west, too, and the sea was just a bit to the north. Somewhere south—far south—was Edinburgh and Glasgow, and beyond that England and Europe and—

  “G’morning, Rose,” Hamilton said, greeting her with that same twinkle she saw in her granddad’s eye. “How are ye doing this fine day?”

  “Aren’t you a cheery bastard?” his counterpart said, Tamhas. He wore a grumpy look, eyes narrowed. He was always good for a grouse. Granddad had told her that this old silver-haired bastard had been the finest warrior he’d ever seen. Tamhas had a keen eye, like a hawk, always looking around; she knew he’d traveled all the way to Asia at one point and come back knowing every martial art known to man—or so Granddad claimed.

  “How can you be unhappy on a day like today?” Hamilton asked. He was always bright of eye; an actor by trade, classically trained. He’d done quite a bit of work in Edinburgh, Glasgow and even as far away as London before giving it up and coming back home. That had been long before Rose’s time.

  “Because it’s raining. Again.” Tamhas seemed to sound like a hawk.

  “Did somebody take a wee piss in your tea?” Hamilton winked at her.

  “Good morning, Hamilton, Tamhas,” Rose said softly, almost afraid to interrupt their banter. They were like this all the time. She tried to appear nonchalant, and asked, “Have either of you seen Graham this morning?”

  Hamilton and Tamhas exchanged a look that made Rose’s cheeks burn. They’d sussed out her intent, that much was plain. “Aye,” Tamhas said, his cranky disposition suddenly lightened in ways that made Rose feel very sorry she’d asked. “I saw him go out that way, toward Miriam Shell’s house.” He put a hand up, pointing the way.

  Miriam Shell was a widower. She’d married a human, so that was hardly a surprise. Rose’s granddad had said she’d been born almost two hundred years ago now. He also said she was a randy old creature, and at that thought Rose felt herself pale.

  Hamilton slapped Tamhas across the chest, drawing a sharp look in reply. Hamilton gave her a kindly look, his hints of grey hair matching the sky. “He was just helping her with some of her chores, lass. Nothing untoward.”

  “Mmm?” Tamhas seemed to get it now. “What? Oh. No, yes—didn’t mean to imply anything.” He lowered his voice, as though he could speak to Hamilton without her hearing it, his lips moving subtly. Rose caught it, though. “You know she’d have him splayed across the bed in two seconds if she thought she could get away with it.”

  “Aye, but you dinnae need to say it where the lass could hear you,” Hamilton said under his breath—deep under his breath. “You know she and the lad have a thing going on.”

  “We do not ‘have a thing going on’,” Rose said, blushing heartily. Hamilton and Tamhas both looked up, quite startled.

  “You…heard that, then?” Tamhas said. He looked ashen.

  “Aye,” Rose said, still blushing furiously. “There is nothing between Graham and me, I’ll have you know.”

  “Sorry to suggest otherwise,” Tamhas said with a little harrumphing. “You’ll find him at Miriam Shel
l’s. Perhaps you should run along now, just…check up on the lad.” He seemed a bit…strained now, and Rose didn’t know quite what to make of it. He nudged her, and pointed in the direction of Miriam’s house. “Go on, then. Don’t let us keep you.”

  Rose started that way, unsure if she should say something else, or just go. Hamilton and Tamhas were both watching her carefully, scrutinizing her as though she were something strange, a bizarre creature that defied explanation. Hamilton nodded at her, encouragingly, but he couldn’t hide the fact that he was watching her carefully as she started toward Miriam Shell’s house.

  She tried to put it out of her mind, but it was difficult. The village felt strange this morning, however, and Rose didn’t know quite how it was so. An owl was hooting in the distance, birds were chirping, seemingly louder than they’d been before. She rubbed at her eyes; did the day seem especially bright?

  Rose walked the short main street toward the outskirts of the village, only a few houses from her own, until she reached Miriam Shell’s dwelling. It was an old house, but well kept, the shingles taking the drizzle well, little streams of water trickling down off the gutters.

  “Good morning, Rose,” Miriam said, stepping out of the house, her dark hair tousled. She watched Rose’s approach with careful consideration. “You look a bit wet.”

  “It’s Scottish sunshine,” Rose said, feeling a little drop here and there between the rays shining down between the clouds. “Have ye seen Graham this morning? I heard he was helping you.”

  “Aye, he gave me a hand,” she said, not sounding particularly pleased about it. “And little else, the thick lad.” She shook her head. “You have a real prize there, Rose. A real prize.”

  Rose just stared at her. “I’m…nae sure what you mean…”

  Miriam gave her a knowing look, full of mirth. “I’m sure you do.” She shuffled on her feet, then announced, “Graham! Rose is here asking after you! What should I tell her?”

  The front door opened seconds later, snapping hard back and rattling, then shutting of its own momentum. Miriam looked vaguely scandalized, and said, “Now then! Take it easy or you’ll be back to fix my door soon enough.”

  “Sorry,” Graham said, coming out of the house and almost tearing the door off the hinges as he did so. His hair hung to his shoulders, chestnut brown, and he was freckled in just the right ways, Rose thought. There was a single one that sat in the middle of his nose, and when she spoke to him, she’d look right at it. “So sorry, Ms. Shell—”

  “It’s Miriam,” she said, with the air of a woman who had corrected him many times, and halfway through seemed to give up on correcting him any more. “I think we’re done for today, though if you’d like to stop back after—”

  Graham straightened. “After what?”

  “Oh, I assumed you two were going to go for a walk or some such thing,” Miriam said dryly. “Unless ye’d rather keep working.”

  “I’d love to go for a walk,” Graham said, looking right at Rose, his hair catching a ray of sunshine stretching down from the clouds and giving a luster.

  “Errr,” Rose said, quite caught in between what Miriam had suggested for an activity and Graham’s sudden leaping at an invitation she hadn’t even proffered. But…would it really be so bad to go on a walk with him?

  No. No, it would not.

  “Let’s go then, shall we?” Rose said, almost gulping as she said so, and Graham nodded, hurrying to reach her, as though Miriam might drag him back inside if he weren’t quick enough.

  “Do be careful,” Miriam called after them. “You’re of an age that two of you could quickly become three of you.”

  “What does she mean by that?” Graham asked as Rose felt the heat burn in her cheeks, and she quickened her pace to get away so she wouldn’t have to respond.

  “She was right about you,” Rose said, cuffing him on the arm as she headed toward the road out of town. “You really are thick, aren’t ye?”

  Graham followed her as she led the way, down the village road and toward the winding path that forked from it, descending down a hill toward the springs where the village drew much of its water. It was a rocky creek, winding its way from the Highlands toward the sea in the distance. Rose walked a pace or two ahead of Graham, and he seemed to have to hurry to keep up, but she didn’t mind that. The wind was brisk against her face, and she liked that, too, brisker than she recalled it being for how it had felt when she’d been standing still. Now it practically howled at her, coming at her with strength that it hadn’t possessed when she—

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Graham asked, and Rose tossed a look over her shoulder. He was fifty meters back, and struggling to catch up without breaking into a run. “I thought we were going on a walk together, but…” He stopped, drew up short, and stared at her across the distance. His mouth hung slightly open. “Rose…I think you manifested.”

  “What?” Rose stood up a little straighter. It seemed the grass on either side of the road was alive with bugs a-buzzing, things she’d never noted before. Her skin crawled with the chill of the sparse, sprinkling rain, the sensations filling her in a way she couldn’t recall feeling before.

  Graham strode up to her, eyes bright and wide. “Did it happen? Can you feel it?”

  Rose swallowed, and even that mere act felt more…more rich, somehow. Everything felt brighter, louder, and more…more so. It was as though someone had turned the volume knob for her senses up to their maximum level, and she’d not really noticed it except as a distraction. “I…I feel a bit strange…”

  “That’s what it feels like!” Graham sounded as though he might wet his pants. He’d manifested his powers a few months ago, but then, he was also almost a year older than Rose. They were two of the only kids in the village. And at sixteen and seventeen, they were still kids to all around them, what with some of the adults, like her granddad, having lived thousands of years.

  He studied her as though she were some novel new specimen. “Do you feel anything else?” He lowered his voice as he got closer. “Can you feel your power?”

  “I don’t know,” Rose said, wondering what a power actually felt like. Her granddad and mam were both Thors, but her grandma had been a Poseidon. The line was hereditary, wasn’t it? That’s what her granddad always said in his stories. She tried to imagine how it would feel to conjure lightning, and concentrated—

  “Do you feel anything?” Graham eased closer and took hold of her by the forearm. It was such a little thing, but his eyes were aglow with excitement.

  Rose felt flush with an excitement of her own. He’d touched her before, of course, but for some reason it had been awhile since, as though their budding self-consciousness were holding them back. They’d touched all the time when they were children. The only two in the village of similar age, it was as inevitable as them butting heads. And oh, how they’d butted heads, though mostly that seemed behind them now. “I don’t…I don’t know if I feel…anything…”

  She closed her eyes and concentrated, but it was hard. Graham’s palm felt delicate against her forearm. She was suddenly self-conscious about the little hairs that ran along her flesh. They were tiny, sure, and faint, but they were there, and she suddenly hated them furiously and wished she’d done away with them with her granddad’s straight razor the way she did to the hair on her legs during summer, and under her arms. She flushed, feeling the dark heat roll over her skin—

  Rose jerked her eyes open in time to see Graham’s roll back in his head, his hand locked on her arm and his body shaking. Her skin was alive, was afire, and she felt hard breaths rolling into her lungs. Graham sagged to his knees and she followed him down, didn’t want to let go, fear and fright mingling to work on her. There was a cold clutch of terror conjoined with this strange pleasure. It was almost akin to that she felt sometimes when she was alone, by herself, at night, and she reached down—

  “Graham!” she cried, catching him as he started to slump. She lowered him to the ground
, bearing his weight easily. She’d manifested, all right. Yesterday she couldn’t have lifted him, couldn’t have held him up like that.

  But today…today she felt like she could have carried him for miles if she needed to.

  And, she realized as he shook in her arms, she might just need to.

  She touched his cheeks, placing both palms on them, and that feeling of tingling pleasure, that slow burn of fire across her skin in a way that she—well, she actually rather enjoyed it—had never quite felt before, ran through her like someone was ringing a pleasant bell that resonated through every fiber of her body. Rose shuddered too, her hands locked on Graham’s cheeks, holding him against the storm that was surging through him—

  “ROSE!” Her granddad’s voice crackled like thunder out of the clouded sky, and she looked back to see him hurrying toward her, her mam in tow, and Tamhas and Hamilton following behind, along with Miriam Shell and a few others.

  “Get your hands off him!” her mam screamed, and the command jolted through Rose so hard that she complied immediately, taking her hands off Graham’s cheeks and skittering away from him, leaving him to stop shuddering all by his lonesome, as the others came thundering up.

  “Oh, my,” Miriam Shell said from a few feet away. She’d drawn up short, and observed the scene from a little distance like a detached spectator. She looked at Rose and seemed to gulp. “Oh, my.”

  “You’ve no need to gawp like an idiot, Miriam,” Rose’s mam said, staring at the widow with undisguised fury. “Save for the fact you are an idiot, in which case you still have no need to gawp.”

  “She nearly killed the boy,” Miriam said in reply, though a bit hollowly.

  Rose’s granddad was on his knees next to Graham, as were Tamhas and Martial. “He’s not dead,” Granddad said. He looked up at Rose, and there was a spark of reassurance there, almost buried beneath something else—worry, she thought.