Elisabeth Waters
Lucy arrived home from work wanting nothing more than a long hot bath and a quiet evening. It was good to be back on the streets after a rotation in Juvenile. Juvenile was a tough assignment, especially when you had children of your own; it made you only too aware of all the awful things that happened to children in this world. But walking a beat, or, in Lucy’s case, bicycling it, was hot and physically tiring.
She could hear voices coming from the kitchen, presumably one or more of the children, but she didn’t go that way. They knew that she had just come in; her home security system was the best that money could buy and thirteen-year-old hackers could improve upon, and she had passed three cameras already. But, by family custom, nobody spoke to Mom when she got home from work until after she’d had a bath and a chance to unwind. So Lucy continued unmolested upstairs to the master bedroom, took off her gunbelt, unloaded the gun and locked it away, shed her clothes and the bulletproof vest, and started filling the tub. The attached bathroom boasted a tub that would hold several people (assuming, of course, that they were very good friends). The tub also had a built-in Jacuzzi. Lucy climbed in, turned on the jets, and soaked until she had dishpan hands, feet, knees, and elbows.
Feeling considerably more human, she put on a robe and went downstairs to join the rest of the family for dinner. She found her husband George and their twin daughters, Diana and Cynthia, at the kitchen table. There was no sign of dinner. Piles of reference books surrounded them, and all three were busily reading. She picked up the nearest book. “Elf Defense?” she asked incredulously, noting the title.
Diana, who at age fifteen was already showing the makings of a fine reference librarian, looked up. “Well, hard data on this problem is a bit difficult to find. After all, Mom, not that many people really believe in elves these days. That’s why we didn’t call the police.”
“When?” Lucy said hollowly, “and about what? And where’s Michael? Is he spending the night at Jimmy’s?”
Cynthia seemed totally engrossed in the book she was studying, which, Lucy, reading upside down, saw was titled Psychic Self-Defense. Diana looked at her father, who also looked as if he would rather not answer that question.
“Maybe you should sit down, dear,” he said.
Lucy grabbed the nearest chair and sat. “All right, I’m sitting down. “Where’s Michael?”
“He was kidnapped by elves this afternoon.”
Lucy shot back to her feet. “Elves?”
“Now you can see why we didn’t feel that calling the police would be appropriate,” George said.
“We didn’t want to be laughed at,” Cynthia added, looking up from her book.
“I’m not laughing,” Lucy pointed out. “Start talking.”
“I wasn’t here,” Cynthia said quickly. “I was still at the hospital.” She did volunteer work there three afternoons a week.
“And Daddy was writing,” Diana said. This meant that Daddy’s brain had been in another universe at the time. “So I guess I’m your only witness, Mother.”
“All right, then, Diana. What happened?”
“Do you remember Precious? That girl last month with datura poisoning?”
“How could I forget Precious Gift of the Goddess? It’s not an easy name to fit on bureaucratic forms. But, as far as I know, she’s in foster care now, so it’s hard to see how she could have anything to do with this.”
“Maybe you should see the note.” Diana handed over a small parchment scroll. Lucy unrolled it. It was written in silver ink, real silver, judging by the weight of it.
The handwriting was spiky and obviously intended to look elvish in origin, but Lucy had been born with the Sight. This note was written by a human, a very angry human.
“You took my last-born from me,” she read aloud, “so I have taken yours. The fair folk will not be cheated.” She frowned at the signature. “‘Morgana.’ Are we talking about Precious’s grandmother here?”
“Is her name Morgana?” Diana asked in surprise. “I though it was Janine.”
“She calls herself Morgana,” Lucy said, “and she’s definitely a mortal. So where do the elves come in?”
“They took Michael,” Diana said, “and they left this note.”
“What makes you think they were elves?”
“They opened a gate,” Diana pointed out into the yard, “right there, next to the hummingbird feeder.” Lucy looked. There was definitely a gate in the back yard, a hole in the side of the hill with a silvery grey light coming from it. The light turned reddish at ground level, and Lucy, squinting, saw that the red area was just above one of her good cast iron skillets. She could feel a faint pull though it as well, a tugging at the bond that stretched between her and each of her children. Since Diana and Cynthia were in the kitchen with her, Michael was obviously on the other side of that gate.
Diana continued with her story. “They came in here and grabbed Michael—we were sitting at the table. He broke his glass against the table and tried to slice them with the broken edges, but it was like it didn’t touch them—”
“Are you sure it did?”
“—but I hit one of them in the face with the serving spoon I got at RenFaire, and the handle left a burn mark.” She pointed to the spoon in question: a copper bowl riveted to a wrought iron handle. “A human would have been marked by both the copper and iron, not just the iron, and he would have been cut or bruised, not burned.” She shuddered. “And you should have heard him scream! They bolted back through the gate faster than I could move. I threw the skillet at them, but I missed. Mom, I’m sorry; I tried, I really did!” She burst into tears, and Lucy reached over and grabbed her in a hug.
“I know you did, honey, and this isn’t your fault.” She patted her sobbing daughter on the back. “Don’t worry. We’ll get Michael back.” She looked out the window again. “Besides, you may not have hit them, but you appear to have locked their gate open. That will make going after them much easier.”
“I found it!” Cynthia said suddenly, and Diana pulled away from Lucy and grabbed at the book. Diana had always been good at blocking her emotions with her intellect.
“Great!” She scanned the page quickly. “We’ll need salt. Daddy, do we have any sea salt left?”
“Third cupboard from the left,” George said automatically. “What did you find?”
“The formula for making holy water.” Diana said. “According to my research, such as it is, iron and holy water are the main weapons against elves.”
“Actually, Coke works, too,” Cynthia said. “At least it did on Precious. She got a can of it while she was in the hospital and it really did make her drunk. And she says she’s only part elf.”
“Getting someone drunk isn’t much of a weapon,” Diana pointed out, pulling several two-liter soda bottles from the recycling bin. “And first you’d have to get all of them to drink Coke—and you can’t count on their having watched enough TV advertising for that.”
“Iron,” Cindy stared into space, obviously trying to think of good sources of iron. “Would steel count?”
“I should think so,” George said. “It’s an alloy of iron.”
“Are you going after them, Mom?” Cindy asked, eyeing Lucy as if measuring her.
“Yes, I am.” At least I’ve been Under the Hill before, Lucy thought, even if it was years and years ago. And the elves generally don’t hurt children, so Michael should be okay for a while anyway.
“Then I’ve got the perfect thing for you to wear,” Cindy said. She ran from the room to fetch whatever it was. Diana had filled a large mixing bowl with water and was now casting salt into it, murmuring prayers as she did. Lucy waited until she had finished the process and was pouring the water into the empty soda bottles.
“Diana, why did you say Morgana’s name was Janine?”
Diana looked at her and bit her lip. “I did some research at the county courthouse, after Cindy first met Precious. I didn’t mean to pry into your private life, Mother, but Precious said that she and Cindy had the same blood, and I was curious.”
“The files at the courthouse are a matter of public record, Diana; it’s hardly prying into my private life. Putting a camera in my bedroom is prying into my private life.”
George smothered a laugh. “I think Michael understands that now.”
“He had better,” Lucy said. “So, Diana, what did you find out?”
“I started with Precious’s birth certificate, which took a while to find because it was under ‘Goddess, Precious G.’ Her mother’s name is Laurel, and for father it says ‘unknown.’ So I looked up Laurel’s birth certificate, and it says father unknown, but the mother is Janine Kennedy. I had brought our family genealogy notebook with me, and when I checked your birth certificate the mother’s name was the same and the age was right. So it looks as though Precious is our first cousin.”
“As far as I know, that’s correct,” Lucy said. “You never met your grandmother; she didn’t approve of my career choice or my choice of husband. As far as I’m concerned, she’s no loss. Dad left her when I was ten, but I had to visit her until I turned eighteen.”
“Do you think she might have Michael at her house?” Diana asked. “I’ve got a recent address for her.”
“How recent?”
“Last summer. She changed her voter registration, to switch political parties. She’s registered as Peace and Freedom at the moment. It looks like she changes every few years—her deleted registration wasn’t very old either, but her address hasn’t changed since Laurel was born.”
“It hasn’t changed since I was born,” Lucy said. “Her father left her the house and a trust fund. It’s too bad; if she’d ever had to work for a living she might have had to learn to interact with mundane reality. Then at least she might have told her granddaughter that datura is poisonous.” She sighed. “But once she finished school and married, she sort of pulled away from the real world. She was more interested in elves than people for as long as I can remember. It drove Dad nuts, and Laurel’s birth was the last straw.”
“Laurel really isn’t his, then,” Diana said. “Is that why he divorced her?”
“Diana!” For the first time in this conversation Lucy was shocked. “Of course he didn’t divorce her! Divorce is wrong. You know that—or didn’t they cover that in confirmation class?”
“Yes, they did, and I know it’s wrong, but lots of Catholics still get divorced, and if she was committing adultery, that’s a mortal sin.” Diana giggled suddenly. “And if she had a child by an elf, that’s miscegenation.”
“What’s miscegenation?” Cindy asked, coming into the room carrying a double handful of what looked like a pile of small metal rings.
“Mixing of races, in this case interbreeding between human and elf,” Lucy replied briskly. “What do you have there?”
“So Precious really is part elf?” Cindy asked. Diana nodded. “Well I guess it’s better to have an elf for a father than to have a mother so promiscuous that she can’t say who fathered her child.” She spread the metal out on the table. Lucy looked at it incredulously.
“You’re joking, right?”
“No, Mom, really. It’s stainless steel, and Dad says that counts as iron, and I’m sure it will fit you. We’re pretty close to the same size.”
George coughed. “I bet it would look great on you, dear.”
Lucy glared at him. “I am not going anywhere in a chain mail bikini!” She turned on Cindy. “And where did you get this, young lady? I haven’t seen it before.”
“At the RenFaire.”
“You wore this at the Renaissance Faire? I’m amazed you didn’t get sunstroke.”
“No, I bought it at the RenFaire. I’m planning to wear it at a science fiction convention in May.”
“We’ll discuss that later,” Lucy said. “But I assure you that I am not going outside the house in that. I’ll wear my bulletproof vest; the breast and back plates in it are steel.”
“But they’re covered by fabric,” Cindy protested.
“That doesn’t matter as long as it’s not silk,” Diana said. “Silk insulates, but I don’t think Kevlar does.”
“I still think she’d be better off in this,” Cindy said.
“Not if I have to come out by another gate somewhere else,” Lucy pointed out. “I’d be arrested for indecent exposure, or at least picked up for psychiatric evaluation.” She scooped up the chain mail. “Put this back in your room, Cindy.”
Cindy took the bikini, but stood there frowning. “Maybe if you drink holy water it will help protect you.”
“Salt water is an emetic,” Lucy pointed out. “I don’t think that throwing up would improve my efficiency.”
“I can fix that,” Cindy said. “I’ll be right back.” She dashed out of the room again.
Lucy sighed. “While Cindy has her next brilliant idea, I’ll go get dressed.” She went back to her room, dressed in blue jeans, sneakers, a t-shirt, her vest, and a sweat shirt. She stuffed her keys and ID into one pocket and looked at the gun drawer. No, she decided, it probably won’t help against elves, and if I shoot it I’ll spend days doing paperwork. And it would be impossible to explain the circumstances to a review board. She took the handcuffs off her belt and shoved them in another pocket and picked up her police-issue flashlight before returning to the kitchen.
In her absence the girls had gathered together Michael’s water pistol collection, and Diana and George were filling all of them with holy water. Cindy was mixing something in a pitcher. She sampled a spoonful of it, then nodded. “This is it.” She poured a glass of the liquid and handed it to Lucy. “Here, Mom, drink this.”
“What is it?” Lucy eyed the glass suspiciously.
“Oral rehydration fluid,” Cindy explained. “It’s what they give babies who’ve lost a lot of fluid. In addition to water and salt (holy water in this case) it has baking soda and sugar. It won’t make you throw up, and it should help spread the holy water throughout your body.”
“I don’t believe this,” Lucy said. “The scientific method as applied to search and rescue operations Under the Hill.” She drank down the liquid in a long gulp.
“I think it’s working,” Cindy said, watching her. “You look brighter somehow, sort of a glow.” She grabbed a sports bottle and filled it from the pitcher. “Take this with you, and give some to Michael when you find him.”
It was working all right; Lucy could feel it, and when she looked at her hands she saw that Cindy was right. Even in the daylight they glowed brightly. Also, she could feel a much stronger pull coming through the gate now. “Did Michael have any holy water with him?” she asked.
“Just one water pistol,” Diana said. “He filled it at mass last Sunday. It was tucked in the back of his belt and his t-shirt covered it, so they may not have found it yet.”
“Or wanted to handle it if they did find it,” Lucy murmured.
Diana took a net tote bag out of the kitchen closet and started to load it. “Eight water pistols, filled. Two two-liter bottles of holy water as additional ammo. One sports bottle of potable holy water for defense. One flashlight. And the bag has both short and long handles so you can either carry it or sling it over your shoulder.” She frowned anxiously. “Can anyone think of anything else?”
After a moment, three heads shook. “Okay, that’s it then,” Lucy said briskly, picking up the bag. “Wish me luck.”
A ragged chorus of “good luck” followed her out the door.
She crossed the yard to the gate and stepped through, being careful not to touch the skillet. It seemed to be doing a fine job right where it was.
~o0o~
She paused just on the other side of the gate to give her eyes time to adjust to the difference in light. They were only half-adjusted when the groaning started.
“Oh, my head, my eyes!” Even through the groaning, the whispery voice was familiar, although it had been twenty-five years since Lucy had heard it.
“Moth?” she asked, bending over the slight grey figure lying at the side of the path. “What are you doing here?”
Moth whimpered and tried to shrink further into the ground. “Don’t get so close! It hurts!”
“Sorry.” Lucy backed off a bit. “Must be the holy water.” Her eyesight was adjusting and she could see him more clearly now. He was obviously in pain, and he had a burn mark across his face. His hands were blistered as well. “What happened to your face?”
“Hit with cold iron I was,” he said. Aside from the burn marks, his appearance hadn’t changed since he had been one of Lucy’s childhood playmates. “Do I know you, mortal?”
“I was Lucy O’Hara,” she said briskly. “We used to play together when I was a child.”
“And now you’re a woman grown—no doubt with children of your own.” Moth sighed. “You mortals grow so quickly.” He looked at her and shook his head. “I remember you; you lived in the yard with the datura and the wisteria.”
“Yes.”
“Well, Lucy,” he said in a persuasive tone only too familiar to the mother of teenagers, “could I trouble you to move that pan out of the gate?”
“The iron pan? The one that’s holding the gate open?” Lucy asked in mock innocent tones.
“You always were a bright little thing.” Moth admitted.
“Brighter than you, it would seem,” Lucy said, “if you got tricked into tangling with my children. Why did you do it?”
“Your children?” Moth looked horrified. “The boy is yours? I swear by the Queen’s throne, I had no idea. Morgana said he was hers, that he’d been kidnapped and needed to be rescued.”
“My mother talked you into this?” Lucy was incredulous. “Don’t you know she’s crazy?”
Moth groaned piteously again and touched a careful finger to the burn mark on his face. “I’m certainly getting the message now. I suppose the girl that hit me was your daughter?”
Lucy nodded.
“Didn’t you teach your children any manners?” he asked sternly.
“Yes, I did,” Lucy said. “I also taught them that if anyone ever tried to grab them they should fight like hell.”
“They’re a credit to your teaching,” Moth said with feeling. “Now will you please move that wretched pan so I can get this gate closed?”
“Yes, of course I will, Moth,” Lucy said promptly. “Just as soon as I get Michael back and home safe. Where is he?”
“What’s it worth for me to tell you?”
Lucy smiled grimly. “I haven’t forgotten what I learned as a child, Moth, and I am not in a good mood right now. You opened this gate—for the sole purpose of kidnapping my child—and you can’t leave here until the gate is closed. Obviously,” she gestured to his hands, “you can’t grasp the pan long enough to move it yourself, so until I come back this way with Michael, you’ll be stuck here. I should think that would be reason enough for you to tell me how to find Michael as quickly as possible.”
Moth ground his teeth together. “He was taken to Lord Cedric. His chamber is just the other side of the Feasting Hall. The path leads right to it.”
Any path Under the Hill led to the Feasting Hall. Lucy didn’t bother to ask about distance; distances Under the Hill tended to be arbitrary and changeable.
“Thank you, Moth. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.” She hesitated slightly. “I’m sorry my children hurt you, but my world isn’t a safe place, and my children have learned to fight when they are threatened. You should not have frightened them.”
Moth didn’t answer, and Lucy shrugged and hurried down the path.
~o0o~
As she approached the Feasting Hall, she heard angry voices, punctuated with occasional screams. “Get that gun away from him!” someone cried out. Lucy pulled two water pistols out of the tote bag and slung it over her shoulder. With a pistol in each hand she stepped into the doorway.
“Freeze!” she shouted. “Police!” Mentally she groaned. As if they’re going to be impressed by the police. Some habits are so hard to break.
“Mom!” Michael was struggling in the arms of a tall and rather beefy looking man, dressed in the silks the elf lords favored. “Shoot ’em in the face—it blinds them temporarily!” He twisted and squirted the man holding him. The man blinked and shook his head, glaring at the boy. Michael looked bewildered. Everyone else in the room froze, looking from them to Lucy and quickly back at them again.
“He’s a mortal, Michael,” Lucy said. “Holy water won’t hurt him.”
“That’s right,” the man said defiantly. “Nothing you can do will hurt me.”
“This will hurt you plenty!” A shot rang out behind Lucy, and a bullet passed over her shoulder and buried itself in the wall above the man’s head. “Let go of my brother or die!”
“Cynthia,” Lucy spoke through gritted teeth, “give me the gun.” She held out her right hand. Cindy, dressed in her chain mail bikini with her mother’s gun belt over it, took the water pistol from Lucy’s hand and replaced it with the gun.
“Mother,” she spoke in an urgent whisper, “we called Precious right after you left, and she said her father is a mortal! That’s why I came after you.”
“And how did you get my gun and ammo?”
“Would you believe you forgot to lock it up?”
“Not for one second. We’ll discuss this later, young lady.”
She turned back to the man holding her child. He had pulled out a dagger and was holding it at Michael’s throat. “I think we have a stand-off here, cop,” he said, sneering on the last word. “Drop your gun.”
“Not while you’re holding a knife on my child I won’t,” Lucy said promptly. “Besides, if I drop the gun, it might go off again, and someone could get hurt.” Cynthia edged in to her mother’s right side, squirt gun at the ready, obviously prepared to deal with anyone who tried to take the gun by force.
There was a tinkling of bells as someone came through the door to Lucy’s right. Lucy risked a quick glance in that direction before returning her gaze to the man who held her son. As she had suspected from the sound, it was the Queen. “Hold your fire,” she murmured to Cynthia. “Do not shoot at anyone unless I tell you to.”
“Right,” Cynthia gulped, suddenly noticing that she was in over her head.
Lucy remembered the Queen as capricious, but not actively malicious. And the elves did value children. But right now the Queen’s main emotion seemed to be annoyance. “What is the meaning of this disturbance?” She looked at Michael and his captor. “Lord Cedric, whence comes this child?”
“I claim him as replacement for my daughter, taken away by the police.”
“You can’t keep me, Michael pointed out, “I’ve been baptised.”
“You can’t be a changeling, true,” Lord Cedric acknowledged, “but I can hold you hostage until my daughter is returned home.”
“But she nearly got killed there!” Cindy protested.
“Does he mean Precious?” Michael asked. He twisted to look up at the man who held him. Lucy held her breath waiting to see blood drip down his neck, but apparently the knife blade wasn’t tight against his throat. “You want Precious returned to Morgana?” Michael continued. “Are you nuts?”
Cedric glared at him. “You think she’s better off in foster care, boy? I was in foster care before I came here; I know what it’s like!”
“So do I!” Michael snapped. “I’ve been visiting her. And she says she’s a lot happier there than she was at home!” He looked at Lucy. “If I have to stay here to keep Precious away from Morgana, Mother, I’ll do it. Precious deserves better than that.”
“Anybody would,” Cindy said from beside Lucy. “Morgana’s a psycho. Did you know that she gave Precious drugs? And she’s got Laurel addicted.”
Lucy sighed. “I know, Cindy. That’s why Precious is in foster care.”
“Why isn’t Morgana in jail?” Michael demanded.
“These things take time,” Lucy reminded him.
“Yeah, the wheels of justice make the mills of God look like a fast food joint.”
A cynic at thirteen, Lucy thought. What a world we’re raising our children in.
“So I’ll stay here,” Michael continued. “I don’t want Precious hurt again.”
Cedric looked at him incredulously. The Queen looked on with faint interest. Lucy decided it was time to intervene.
“Your chivalry is noted, Michael—as is your willingness to miss next week’s English exam,” she added with a grin. Cindy giggled. “But I think we can work out a more reasonable solution.” She turned to Lord Cedric. “You don’t want Precious in state-sponsored foster care, right?”
“Absolutely not. And that is non-negotiable.”
“I understand. It’s not an ideal solution, especially for a child with her unique heritage.”
“But if he’s mortal—” Michael began.
Lucy silenced him with a look. “My sister Laurel’s father was not.”
“That’s true enough,” the Queen said coldly.
Oh-oh, Lucy thought. Cindy opened her mouth; Lucy stepped on her foot. Cindy hastily shut her mouth and tried to look like a statue. Michael caught on that this was not a good time to discuss Laurel’s father and shut his mouth. “I am Precious’s aunt,” Lucy continued, “and this can be documented with our birth certificates. I can therefore petition the court for custody of Precious, and I see no reason why the petition should not be granted. Once Precious is living in my household, you,” she addressed Lord Cedric, “will be able to visit her and see for yourself that she is well and happy.”
“And I suppose you want your son back now.” Lord Cedric looked her straight in the eyes.
Lucy returned his stare. “Yes.”
“What guarantee do I have that you will do as you say?” he asked distrustfully.
“My word,” Lucy said firmly, meeting his eyes unflinchingly.
“Why should I trust your word?” he asked.
“Because I say so!” Both Cedric and Lucy turned in surprise at the Queen’s words. “She and her children are free to leave and are to do so immediately.” Cedric looked bewildered by the Queen’s decision, but Lucy noticed that the Queen squinted slightly when she looked toward Lucy and Cynthia, and that the other elves were all looking elsewhere. She looked straight at Cynthia for the first time since the girl had joined them and noticed that her skin had a bright glow to it. And there was quite a lot of skin exposed. You could light the hall with her, Lucy realized, and I’ll bet that she’s hurting their eyes. That’s why the Queen wants us gone. Her idea about drinking holy water is really paying off.
Cedric released Michael and shoved him toward Lucy. “Go then,” he said, “but remember—I know where you live.”
“Good,” Lucy said, smiling sweetly. “Then you’ll know where to visit your daughter.” She slipped her gun carefully into its holster on Cindy’s hip, put her arms around her children, and herded them up the path, back to the mortal world and home, pausing only long enough at the gate to retrieve her cast-iron skillet and say goodbye to Moth.
~o0o~
Lucy came home from work feeling pretty good. It had been a beautiful day, nothing had gone wrong during her shift, and life was going well at home. George had just sold another book, her children were all doing well in school, and Precious had settled into the family and was catching up on the things she had missed, like ice cream and television. Precious had also proved to have quite a green thumb (or maybe a bit of outside help) and the garden was in full bloom. Lucy walked around the house, admiring the wisteria that covered the back arbor with purple flowers.
The wisteria, however was not the only thing in the back yard. Michael and Precious sat at the picnic table, talking with Moth. All of them got up when they saw her, and Precious ran to give her a hug. Michael and Moth followed behind her.
“Aunt Lucy, may we go visit my father for a while?” Precious asked.
“I’ve done all my homework,” Michael said, answering Lucy’s next question before she could ask it. “And Moth says he’ll take us through the gate and bring us back.”
Lucy looked at Moth. “I’ll take good care of them,” he assured her.
“I want them back by dinnertime,” she said. “Our dinnertime, today, in two of our hours.”
“Very well,” Moth agreed.
As they started across the yard to the gate, Lucy added, “and if they’re not back by then, I’m coming after them.”
“They’ll be back on time, Lucy,” Moth said fervently. “You have my word.”
Author’s Note
“Blood Calls to Blood” was written for CHICKS IN CHAINMAIL, the first of Esther Friesner’s Chicks anthologies, which was published in August 1995. The ideas came from several places: the local Renaissance Faire, where one actually could buy chain-mail bikinis, my experiences in the Citizen’s Police Academy run by the Berkeley Police Department (if your local PD runs one, I highly recommend it), and life with a professional author—and her library. PSYCHIC SELF-DEFENSE is a real book, and the instructions for making holy water are on page 176 of the hardcover edition.