Wild Ways

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  The finest in Fantasy and Science Fiction

  by TANYA HUFF from DAW Books:

  THE ENCHANTMENT EMPORIUM

  THE WILD WAYS

  The Confederation Novels:

  A CONFEDERATION OF VALOR

  Valor’s Choice|The Better Part of Valor

  THE HEART OF VALOR (#3)

  VALOR’S TRIAL (#4)

  THE TRUTH OF VALOR (#5)

  SMOKE AND SHADOWS (#1)

  SMOKE AND MIRRORS (#2)

  SMOKE AND ASHES (#3)

  BLOOD PRICE (#1)

  BLOOD TRAIL (#2)

  BLOOD LINES (#3)

  BLOOD PACT (#4)

  BLOOD DEBT (#5)

  BLOOD BANK (#6)

  The Keeper’s Chronicles:

  SUMMON THE KEEPER (#1)

  THE SECOND SUMMONING (#2)

  LONG HOT SUMMONING (#3)

  THE QUARTERS NOVELS, Volume 1:

  Sing the Four Quarters|Fifth Quarter

  THE QUARTERS NOVELS, Volume 2:

  No Quarter|The Quartered Sea

  WIZARD OF THE GROVE

  Child of the Grove|The Last Wizard

  OF DARKNESS, LIGHT, AND FIRE

  Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light|The Fire’s Stone

  Copyright © 2011 by Tanya Huff.

  All Rights Reserved.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1564.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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  First Printing, November 2011

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  ISBN : 978-1-101-54809-7

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  For Heather Dale,

  who sang about Selkies and inspired the whole thing.

  ONE

  A MELIA CARLSON’S OFFICE was large and the wide window overlooking Halifax Harbor kept it well lit in spite of the traditional dark woods of the paneling and furniture. Nothing in the room screamed money, but everything said it quietly, well aware—given the quality of the furnishings—that shouting wasn’t necessary to make the point.

  All right, Algoma Hill, the Lauren Harris painting hanging across from her desk, screamed money but only because the price paid during the So-theby’s auction, while unfortunately not a record, had been high enough to make the front page of even the American papers. She’d purchased it anonymously, of course, but the people it had been bought to impress recognized it and exhibited the expected sticker shock. So much easier to attract investors when her personal salary allowed her to purchase a painting by one of the Group of Seven.

  And they said that when her father died, the company had died with him. She may have been a competent Vice President of Exploration and Development, but they didn’t hesitate to announce that a fort . . . thirty-six-year-old woman with a twent . . . fifteen-year-old engineering degree couldn’t run the second largest oil company in the Maritimes. She wasn’t a member of the old boys’ club and she wasn’t a hot, young Ph. D who’d picked up an MBA on the way to a petrochemical doctorate. Worst of all, at least to those running the largest oil company in the Maritimes, she had no extended family to help her. They said she’d run the company into the ground in two, three years at the most. Several of them had offered to take the company off her hands.

  A year later, a year of betting everything on one roll of the dice, and she was on the verge of gaining the rights to one of the biggest fields in the North Atlantic. After that debacle in the Gulf, no one else had the balls to try for it, to spend three hundred and sixty-five days quietly working behind the scenes convincing the decision makers to make the right decision. And they all had. The moment the Minister of the Environment stopped faffing about, appearing to weigh the potential of spilled oil against jobs and tax income, and issued the drilling permit, the barges would be out of Sydney Harbor so fast they’d look like jet skis.

  Granted, even given near guarantees of five hundred million barrels accessible of a three billion barrel potential by the best geophysicists in the business, there was no oil at all until drilling replaced science. Which was why the drilling platform had to be in place as soon as possible. Once they started production, they’d quickly surpass Hibernia’s fifty thousand barrels a day.

  The board of directors had given her until the end of the year to get the permit. She’d been promised it by the end of the summer.

  They could shove their sexist, patronizing, dumbass . . .

  When the door opened, she raised her head, her expression neutral, and met the worried gaze of Paul Belleveau, her executive assistant.

  “It’s happened,” he said, “just like she told you it would. The Ministry of the Environment is being pressured by Two Seventy-five N, the same Hay Island group that stopped the seal hunt.”

  “Nice to have so much free time,” she muttered. Two Seventy-five N were a group of crazy environmentalists run by an old Cape Breton family. The name referred to life jacket buoyancy. Measured in newtons, one newton equaling one kilogram of flotation, a two seventy-five newton life jacket was intended for extreme conditions. Amelia admitted it was a clever name and despised the anti-development, anti-growth rhetoric the group clung to. Until recently, she’d believed the group’s successes could be laid at the door of deep pockets and an underemployed membership with time to meddle, but new information had revealed they were so much more.

  “We’re front page in the Herald,” Paul continued. “There’s articles in both the Globe and the Post, and their objection to the well was the lead on Canada AM’s business report. Mr. Conway isn’t returning my calls, but his aide . . .”

  “The chatty one?”

  “Yes. He says that the minister is talking about a class two environmental assessment or even asking for a Royal Commission on offshore drilling, so he doesn’t actually have to make a decision.”

  Royal Commissions could take years and were the traditional way politicians avoided handling hot topics while still looking like they gave a shit. With the investment Carlson Oil had already made in this well, they’d never survive the delay. She could feel the edges of her very expensive manicure cutting half moons into the equally expensive wood of the desk.

  “Rallies and protests against the drilling are in the planning stages,” Paul finished, “although reports from the legislature say Mr. Peterson has already added us to his inventory.”

  Gandalf Peterson—he’d had his name legally changed—sat in front of the provincial legislature Monday to Friday, eight thirty to five thirty, protesting the Sable Island wells with a rotating series of sandwich boards. He was out there rain or shine, whether the legislature was in session or not, reasonably well behaved unless he recognized
one of the industry players; then all bets were off. One of the most recognizable, Amelia made it a point to walk directly past him whenever she had to enter the building, accepting his vitriol as evidence of a job well done.

  “All right.” She took a deep breath and forced her fingers to release their hold on the edge of her desk. “She told us what was going to happen and she was right about everything up to and including Mr. Peterson. That leads me to believe her when she tells us she can fix things in our favor.”

  “Ms. Carlson . . .”

  “You don’t believe her?”

  “Believe her?” Paul shook his head. “I’m not sure I believe in her. Or them. Or any of this.”

  “Any of this?” Had the Botox allowed her to arch a brow, she would have. “And yet, you still cash your paycheck.”

  “I believe in you.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that.” When he smiled, Amelia took a moment to admire the effect. While undeniably gorgeous, with the shaved head and neat goatee she felt only black men could successfully pull off, Paul’s good looks were surpassed by his skill at the job which was surpassed in turn by his extreme discretion. He’d been with her just over two years, cut from the herd of brand new MBAs the company employed, and she didn’t know what she’d do without him.

  Beyond the obvious: work twice as hard and get half as much done.

  “All right,” she said again, although it wasn’t. “She’s proven her point. Turn her loose.”

  “No love, we’re from Cape Breton.”

  “But you say b’ye like you’re from Newfoundland. How’s it going, b’ye. You want another beer, b’ye? What’s up with that?” Charlie glanced around the tiny table at the four men who’d asked her to join them for a drink between sets—Fred Harris, Tom Blaine, Bill Evans, and Bill McInna, although Bill McInna had told her to call him Mac. Not that it really mattered what she called him since after tonight’s gig, she’d never see them again and they all seemed like the type to think call me anything you want but don’t call me late for supper was a lot funnier than it was.

  “They got the b’ye from us, didn’t they?” Frank grinned and raised his beer. The other three returned the salute. “I mean, yeah, this here’s the Newfoundlander’s Bar . . .” The bottle became a pointer—at the flags, at the photos, at the fish mounted on dark walls barely visible behind the Friday night crowd. “. . . but it ain’t just the b’yes from the Rock heading west looking for a way to keep body and soul together, is it? Economy’s in the shitter all through the Maritimes. DEVCO’s closed the coal mines, steel mill’s been shut in Sydney . . .”

  “Used to make good money there,” Tom sighed. He was the oldest of the four, late thirties Charlie figured, and the one with the strongest family ties to the east. She could almost see them stretching out and away, linking him with the people he’d left behind. It was one of the reasons she’d sat down. Her family, the Gale family, understood those kind of ties.

  “Used to make good money,” Frank repeated. “That’s my point, isn’t it? And those suits in Halifax are telling us we should just be quaint for the tourists; like the Rankin family can put a roof on the house and oil in the furnace of the whole God damned place. Freezing our asses off in Fort McMurray, paying nearly three grand a month rent on a shithole apartment north of the downtown, complete with a leaky ceiling and rotten windows, that’s the best option we’ve got left.”

  “And now they’re talking layoffs.” Bill glared at the wet ring his bottle had left on the tabletop. “Investments are down, aren’t they? Gotta cut the costs of getting’ the oil out of the tar sands, so they’ll find guys willing to work for less.”

  “It’s how they built the fucking railroads,” Mac growled.

  Frank rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Mac, you’re a welder; you’re good. They bring in cheap labor from overseas and it’s the rest of us poor buggers that’ll be heading home and back on the dole.”

  “Don’t be giving him any sympathy now,” Tom said before Charlie could speak. “B’ye just bought himself a brand new F250.”

  “Needed something that’d fit the new ATV in the back, didn’t I?” Frank laughed. “And who knows, maybe it won’t be so bad going home. I hear rumors offshore oil’s expanding again, and we’ve got mad oil field skills.”

  Bill laughed with him. “Yeah, and the fishing’s already for shit, so when the drilling platforms break up and dump a few million gallons of crude, who’ll notice, eh?”

  “How long can you tread water?” Tom snorted. Charlie knew he was quoting, but she didn’t know what.

  “When my brother called . . .” Something in Mac’s voice said this was important and Charlie wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. Frank and Tom and Bill turned toward him, closing him in the circle of their attention, closing out the rest of the bar, their silence pushing back the ambient noise. They’d have closed her out as well, but Charlie refused to go. “When he called, he said he heard Carlson’s trying to get permits to drill near Hay Island.” Mac picked at the label of his bottle. The other three watched him watch his moving fingers.

  Hair lifting off the back of her neck, Charlie froze in place, breathing slowly and quietly through her nose so as not to spook them. If they remembered she was here . . .

  “Hay Island. That’s the seal rookery,” Tom said at last.

  Mac nodded. “My brother says there’d be a couple hundred jobs on the rig and more in the refinery they say they’ll build by Main-a-Dieu, but his wife, well, she’s against it.”

  “Yeah, well, she would be, wouldn’t she?” Frank’s grin twisted into a curve that hinted of secrets.

  Charlie had a Gale girl’s objection to secrets she, personally, wasn’t keeping, and it struck her that this particular secret wouldn’t be pried loose by smiling and looking interested—no matter how few women there were in Fort McMurray. Prying free this particular secret would require a completely different skill set. She’d drawn her finger through a puddle of condensation and sketched out the first curves of a charm when a familiar hand landed on her shoulder.

  “Charlie, come on!” Tony, the drummer for Dun Good, had to lean forward and shout as the noise of the crowded bar rushed back in to fill the space around the table. “Break’s over!”

  Wiping out the half drawn pattern with one hand, Charlie set her empty bottle down with the other and shoved her chair back to a chorus of protests from her companions. “Sorry, boys, music calls.”

  The music was, after all, why she was here.

  By the time she picked up her guitar, grinning at the raucous welcome the band’s return to the stage evoked, she’d almost forgotten how that secret had licked a frisson of strange across her skin.

  Almost.

  Later that night she almost asked Mac what he’d meant, but, by then, they were trading other secrets.

  The drive south from Fort McMurray to Calgary took almost nine hours. Theoretically. They’d managed it once in nine and a half but only by keeping rest stops to an absolute minimum. Fortunately, in the last fourteen months of intermittent touring, they’d become old hands at covering the less well traveled parts of the western provinces and had two coolers of food stuffed in between the stack of amps and the box that held the snow chains and the twenty-kilo bag of clay kitty litter no one wanted to remove in spite of it being almost the end of July and nearly thirty degrees. Why tempt fate? They had six drivers—the band plus Tony’s wife Coreen and Taylor’s girlfriend Donna, who’d joined them at Provost just after they’d crossed back from Saskatchewan—and, of the six, Charlie was, by no means, the most disdainful of posted speed limits.

  Since Donna’d had no actual obligations during their last gig at the Newfoundlander’s Bar, she’d drawn short straw as first driver.

  They were on the road by eight, five of the six passengers completely unaware of the charms sketched under the grime covering the old school bus, charms that had ensured an almost miraculous absence of mechanical difficulty considering the vehicle’s age. Ch
arlie’d done what she could for the gas mileage as well but suspected it’d need a full circle of aunties to drop it from Oh, my God to merely appalling.

  Of the three aunties she had available out west, Auntie Gwen had suggested they switch it to bio diesel, Auntie Carmen had sighed damply, and Auntie Bea had said, “If you choose to ride in that death trap, Charlotte Marie Gale, rather than Walk the Wood as any sensible person with the ability would choose to do, do not assume we will ride to the rescue after the inevitable fiery crash.”

  The aunties were big believers in you made your bed, you crash and burn in it.

  And, while Charlie was one of the family’s rare Wild Powers, it wasn’t as if she could take the whole band through the Wood. Of course she’d thought about it, even worked out the charms she’d need to handle the remaining iron in the bus, but had balked, in the end, at explanations. They were a country band; beer and Jack did not set the stage for the truly inexplicable.

  “They told me this road was only busy on Thursday nights,” Donna muttered as half a dozen tanker trucks roaring north on 63 nearly sucked the bus over to the wrong side of the two lane highway. “They needed to define busy.”

  Sitting in the first seat back—Board of Education back-cracker seating having been replaced by the bench from a wrecked Aerostar—Charlie picked out a complex pattern nearly at the top of her fretboard and said, “Yeah, well, what do they know.”

  “Excellent point. What’re you playing? It sounds familiar.”