Night Broken (Mercy Thompson #8)(57)
“I think I overreacted,” said Zack before I could say anything. He sounded humiliated. “I’m sorry.”
“Nah, kid,” said Laughingdog. “Not overreacting when you don’t know me. But someone needs to teach you to do something more effective than just locking down.” He frowned at me. Apparently it was my fault that he’d scared Zack.
Kyle sat down on the other end of the couch from Zack. “Give him space and leave him alone,” he said.
Kyle was a divorce attorney; he had experience dealing with broken people. I’d only been a broken person, so Kyle was the person to listen to.
I nodded at Kyle to give his assessment my support. Adam, after looking around, pulled a wingback chair over until the back was resting against the edge of the couch. When he sat in it, it put him between Zack and everyone else in the room, and it gave Zack a barrier between him and Adam. I sat on the chair arm.
Laughingdog moved to a chair that was across the room but still gave Zack a good view of him. He looked at Kyle.
“You know,” he said, “I can do a little rough since that seems to be your thing—and you look like a man who likes the boys rather than the girls.”
“Not interested,” said Kyle shortly.
“See,” said Laughingdog to the room at large, though there was no doubt to whom he addressed his words. “That’s how it’s done. ‘Go soak yourself in oil and light a match’ in two short words.”
“What did you want to talk to me about, Gary?” I asked. If I let Laughingdog keep talking without direction, someone was going to get hurt.
He looked at the burn on my cheek. “I think you met the guy I came to warn you about. If you put Bag Balm on that, it will feel better. Might even keep it from scarring. I was hoping to find you before he did, but making phone calls from”—he glanced at Kyle—“making phone calls to tell someone that an angry volcano god is going to attack her is hard enough when you know her well enough that you do have her phone number. It also takes me time to come off a Seeing like the one I had when you came to visit me. Took me a little longer to decide I had an obligation to find you and give you a little clearer warning. Getting here … well, for such as you and me, it wasn’t a big thing, but it took time, too.”
Don’t tell Kyle the lawyer that the man talking to us had just escaped from prison. I got the message, not that I needed it. Adam had told me before we came in that Kyle’s best defense was not to know that Laughingdog had escaped from prison.
“What do you know about this ‘angry volcano god’?” Adam asked slowly.
“Some. Not a lot, but hopefully enough that you can find out more. I got a lot of random information. Do either of you know what ‘El Teide’ means?”
Kyle frowned. “In reference to what?”
“To Guayota,” Laughingdog said.
“Coyote?” asked Zack.
“No. Guayota,” said Kyle. “Starts with a ‘g,’ and it’s the name of one of the gods of Tenerife.”
“Tenerife?” I asked.
“The Canary Islands?” asked Adam. “Tenerife is one of the bigger islands in the Canaries, right?”
I’m a history major, so once Adam jogged my memory, I pulled up a few random factoids—I am a magpie of history trivia. Spain had conquered the islands that were not far off the coast of Africa over the course of a century, just in time for them to be used as supply ports for Columbus and most of the Spanish explorers of the New World.
I knew a couple of other very random things. First, at the behest of the King of Spain, Canary Islanders had settled what became San Antonio, Texas, and set up the first official government in Texas. Second, the original natives of the islands hadn’t been of African phenotype. That and the local island story that there was a mysterious island among the Canaries that disappeared and reappeared had been used to fuel all sorts of Atlantis rumors.
None of what I knew appeared to be useful in the present situation, so I kept my mouth shut.
“That’s right,” Kyle said. “My folks used to vacation there every year—still do for all I know. I haven’t talked to them much since … well, since. Anyway—” He spoke quickly, to get the attention off events that were still painful. Kyle seldom spoke about his family, who had disowned him when he’d told them he was g*y. “There was this old woman at my parents’ favorite hotel who watched kids so that the adults could go play. The native Canarians who worked at the hotel swore she was a witch—there are a lot of witches on the Canary Islands. Before I met Warren, I pretty much dismissed all of that as superstition, but now … anyway, the story of Guayota was one of her favorites. One hellish vacation, I heard it five times in three days.” He frowned. “She’s the only one I heard it from, so you should check it out somewhere else. I’m pretty sure she made parts of it up.”
“Keep going,” I told him. “We’ll consult Wikipedia and the library later. Promise.”
“It would be nice,” Laughingdog said with feeling, “to hear something to put what I know in context. It might even help me make some of the odd things more useful. Please, tell us this story about Guayota.”
“Okay,” Kyle said. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I know.” He leaned forward, and I don’t know how he did it, but with a bit of body language and a little warble in his voice, he called to mind a little old lady. I’d always thought that he’d had some drama training at some point. “There is a huge old volcano on Tenerife called El Teide. It’s the tallest peak in Spain and one of the tallest volcanos in the world. The old people who once lived on the island called it Echeyde, which means either ‘hell’ or ‘the gates of hell’ depending upon the person you ask. Guayota lived in El Teide, either guarding the door, ruling there, or both. Only the old ones could tell you for certain, and they are gone long, long ago.”