Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega #2)(9)
Anna got out of the car slowly and strolled across the road, Charles at her side. The statue had been attacked with chalk recently, and the bright pink and green colors only enhanced the oddity of the creature. Fingernails and the lines of knuckles had been drawn on the creature's hands. Pink and green chalk flowers followed the contours of the Bug's fender, and on the back window-cement-covered glass-someone had written "Just Married."
Peripherally, Anna sensed they were being watched. Above the troll, in the notch where the bridge met the top of the hill, three or four street people observed them warily. One man set aside a newspaper he'd been reading and started down toward them.
He was a little above average height, though he slumped until he appeared shorter. He wore a battered canvas duster that was liberally splattered with muck. Mismatched Nikes adorned his feet. The right shoe had a hole in the toe and the left another along the edge of his heel, exposing the dirty, sockless foot inside. The jeans he wore were new and stiff, though as mucky as his duster. She caught glimpses of layers of shirts-a red flannel shirt over a yellow plaid button-up that almost obscured a graying white tee.
Anna took note of the man, but with Charles at her side the stranger wasn't a threat-and Anna was more interested in the troll. So she let Charles deal with him as she climbed up the back of the Bug and onto the creature's arm, then higher still until she could rest her hand on his overlarge nose.
"Like my little troll, eh?" the stranger said to Charles, his voice rough like that of a man who'd smoked a pack a day for years. He didn't smell like cigarettes, though. His scent, rising through the air to Anna's nose, was earthy and magical, sharp with a predator's musk.
"Was it a real one?" Anna asked him, safe upon her perch, safe with Charles.
The stranger looked up at her and laughed, exposing ragged, blackened teeth as sharp as he smelled. "Well, now. It might be that the artist saw somp'n. Somp'n he out ter not have seen, wolf-kin." He patted the cement arm she stood on, and she took a wary step back. "Happen though, he built me a friend, so we're all happy. Even the Gray Lord, there, she thought it were funny. Didn't hardly hurt me at all for gettin' seen and not tellin' her."
The fae could hide what they were. Could look just like anyone else. But the hunger that shone in his eyes when he looked at her was as immortal as she was and a lot older.
Her wolf didn't like him, and Anna narrowed her eyes at him and let him hear her growl. He should know that she was not prey.
He laughed again and slapped one thigh with a hand covered in a worn fingerless glove. "If'n I forgot meself so bad as to take a bite"-he snapped his teeth together and in the darkness under the bridge she saw the spark when they struck-"she'd chew me up and feed me to them great octopuses that live 'round here, she would." The thought seemed to amuse him. "Though a good meaty bit of wolf-flesh might be worth it."
"Troll," said Charles.
He had been having so much fun with Anna, he'd forgotten about the real threat. Reminded, he jerked around, crouched, and hissed.
Charles took out one of the plain gold studs he wore in his ears and tossed it at the fae, who caught it with inhu manly quick hands.
"Take your toll and go, Old One," Charles said.
"Hey, Jer," came a worried and thin voice from above them. "You don't go bothering them, or the police'll have us outta here. You know they will."
The troll in human guise held the bit of gold up to his nose and smelled. His face twitched, and his eyes swirled with an eerie blue light before they settled down and became just eyes again. "Toll," he said. "Toll."
"Jerry?"
"No troubles, Bill," he called up to his... what... friends? His roommates, his bridgemates, who were more human than he. "Jest saying good afternoon."
He looked at Charles, and for a moment an oddly noble expression crossed his face, his back straightened, shoulders thrown back. In a clear, accentless voice he said, "Word of advice for your payment. Don't trust the fae." He laughed again, devolving into the man who'd greeted them in the first place, and scrambled up the hill and under the bridge.
Charles didn't say anything, but Anna slid off her perch and followed him back to the car.
"Are trolls really as big as that statue?" she asked, belting herself in.
"I don't know," Charles answered. And smiled at the startled look she gave him. "I don't know everything. I've never seen a troll in its true form."
She started the car. "A toll is supposed to be for crossing his bridge. We didn't cross the bridge."
"But we were trespassing. It seemed appropriate."
"What about the advice he gave?"
He smiled again, his face lit with amusement. "You know what they say, 'Don't trust the fae.' "
"Okay." It was a common piece of advice. The first thing people said and the main point of most stories about them. "Especially when they tell us not to, I suppose. Where to now?"
"Back down the Troll road. See those docks down there? Dana lives on a houseboat at the foot of the troll."
***
HE'd only visited Dana at her home once before, but Charles had no trouble finding it again: it didn't exactly blend in.
There were four docks; three of them had a number of boats of various kinds secured to them. The fourth had only one. A houseboat two stories tall, it looked like a miniature Victorian mansion, complete with gingerbread trim in every color of an ocean sunset: blue and orange, yellow and red.