Traitor's Son: The Raven Duet Book #2

Chapter 1

Jase sat in the small park near the border station’s pedestrian gate, wondering if his father’s client would let him speed on the way back to Anchorage.
Driving the most ’treme car ever made, he’d found there were three kinds of clients. The sane ones, who were dying to see what a vintage Tesla could do. The stodgy ones, who wanted to creep along observing all the traffic laws. And the liars, who happily urged Jase to make good time and then ratted him out to his father afterward.
Jase could usually tell the sane from the stodgy, but liars were harder. He was contemplating his dismal record at spotting them when the first shots sounded. And until the screaming started, Jase didn’t even recognize the rattling bangs as gunfire.
He jumped to his feet, staring in astonishment as people ran from the line of cars parked on the Canadian side of the checkpoint. The people who’d been loitering in the park on that side of the steel-ribbed fence scrambled to shelter behind planters, or tried to cram themselves behind the big “Welcome to Alaska” sign.
The sign on Jase’s side said “Welcome to Canada.” Should he get behind it? It looked pretty flim—
More shots decided that question, and Jase lunged for the nearest tree. Diving for cover wasn’t as easy as it looked on d-vid. The hard-packed ground was dotted with gravel, and his palms stung. His knees felt like they were bleeding, even through the fabric of the suit the firm made him wear to pick up clients. And the tree wasn’t very big.
Should he try to make a break for better shelter? None of the shots were coming his way, but it sounded like a war had broken out on the Canadian side. Jase hoped, with a sinking dread, that none of the screaming people had been hit. The thought of someone in pain, maybe even dying, made his stomach twist.
Something scuffed across the ground behind him, and Jase looked around. More people were hiding in the park on the Canadian side, but there wasn’t as much screaming now, even though the shots continued, accompanied by the breathy turbine sound of revved motors. It didn’t quite sound like cars, though, more like the bulky hum you got from a big electric bike. Hogs? A drug gang? But dealers, of all people, would have enough sense to dump their stuff before they tried to pass—
Something hit the tree above his head with a loud pop, and Jase flattened himself against the trunk—no doubt getting sap all over his suit, but better sap than bullet holes!
Something rattled through the branches and fell beside him. Not a live grenade, which had been his first panicked thought, but a fist-sized stone. There was a gunfight going on just a few hundred yards across the border, and someone was throwing rocks at him?
Jase lifted his head cautiously. He saw the girl on the other side of the fence even before she started waving, because she was the only one who wasn’t looking in the direction of the shots. Her dark hair was cut in ragged wedges—her frizzy curls didn’t work nearly as well with the current style as his straight black hair. She stared at Jase for a long moment, then turned her attention to something in her hands. Was she tying string?
She wore biker leathers but didn’t seem to be part of the battle, which sounded like it was trailing off. She looked up again, making sure she had his attention before she straightened and threw something small over the top of the twelve-foot fence. It lit about five feet from Jase, with a soft thump. Not a stone this time.
It was clearly intended for him, so Jase scrambled out to retrieve it, snatching it up and scrambling back a lot more quickly when another burst of shooting broke out. This time the shots sounded farther off; the nasal whine of the bikes was definitely moving away.
Jase looked down at the object in his hand. It was a medicine pouch, with half the beads falling off and leather that looked really old. Museum-piece old. Why would biker drug girl give him this?
Did he look like someone she was meeting? Or was this package so hot she was desperate to get rid of it?
She was now crouched behind a planter, ignoring him, which was probably wise. The cameras on top of the wall were in constant motion. They might have missed her throw, if she’d timed it right, but the more she ignored him the more likely it was the customs cops would do the same. And if that pouch held what he thought it did… he should turn it over to the customs officers, immediately.
He knew he should. But not all illegal drugs were harmful, and even the ones that didn’t nuke your brain were worth a lot of money. Maybe a year’s worth of car payments, despite the pouch being so…
Had any of those bullets hit his car?
***

Jase ran his hands over the midnight blue carbon fiber curves. He didn’t see any bullet holes, but the showers he’d driven through earlier had left dust splatters that might conceal damage. He had just made certain that his car hadn’t been shot, when a voice behind him said, “Jason Mintok? I’m Lloyd Hillyard.”
The client! Jase spun and saw a gray-haired man in a suit that looked a lot less rumpled and dirt-stained than his.
“I’m sorry! I was waiting by the gate, with my sign and everything, when… Hey, you were on that side! What happened over there?”
The older man’s smile looked tired. “I don’t know much. We were sitting in line when a lot of shooting started, and both my driver and I lay down on our seats. A few minutes later lots of bikes whizzed past us, and then it was over. I heard some speculation about drug gangs, but I don’t really know anything. The customs agent who checked me through seemed pretty upset, though.”
“Did they get them? The bikers?” If they’d been arrested, would they talk about the girl and her medicine pouch? He really should have given it to the customs officers. A little late for that, now.
“I suppose they’ll catch them somewhere down the road, but they’re long gone at this point. The agents over there seemed more concerned with keeping everyone calm, and making sure no one needed medical attention.”
The agents on Jase’s side of the border had done the same—though glancing around Jase saw one man, probably a plainclothes cop, who wasn’t reassuring people or managing the traffic that had begun to flow through the scanner tunnels again.
It was the man’s eyes that gave him away, a cold flat gaze that inspected everyone, and then dismissed the person when he didn’t find what he sought. He had the strong-boned features of a pureblood Native, and if that sleek leather jacket was as expensive as it looked, he made more money than Jase thought cops could make.
The intent gaze found Jase, who promptly looked away. This was definitely not the time to try to explain that some girl he’d never seen before—honest, officer—had thrown him a packet of contraband.
“Are you ready to leave, sir? We’re already running late, if you want to reach a town in time for dinner.”
This man looked like a stodgy, nonspeeding client.
“So we won’t reach Anchorage tonight?”
“Not unless you want to get in at one in the morning.” The cop was coming toward them. Jase punched the button that opened the roof, then darted around to open the passenger door. “We’ve got a ten-hour drive to the city. But you’ll make that Sunday afternoon meeting with no trouble, I promise.”
The client got in, then fell the last six inches to the seat, unaccustomed to sports cars.
“It’s the low center of gravity that lets it handle so well,” Jase told him apologetically. He was so accustomed to getting in and out of the Tesla that he forgot that other people weren’t.
He put the top back up and started the car, swinging out onto the road. The plainclothes cop stood gazing after him, but he didn’t shout or wave for Jase to stop. A clean getaway. Jase tried not to feel like a criminal. It wasn’t his fault that biker girl had chosen him as her accomplice. And if that cop hadn’t looked so scary, he might have come forward and explained that. Maybe.
Mr. Hillyard was looking at the thumbtack logo on the steering wheel.
“A Tesla? With tires?”
“The mark fourteen is the last Tesla Roadster made with tires,” Jase told him, beginning to relax as they left the border behind. “All the later models are pure maglev. This one’s just maglev boosted. It takes a bigger charge, but that’s because it can use more power! It’s got 375 pound-feet of torque, and…”
Mr. Hillyard’s eyes had glazed over.
“It’s already a classic,” Jase said, changing direction. “My dad says by the time I’m ready to settle down and sell it, it will be worth twice what I paid.”
Not that he intended to sell it, no matter how much its value appreciated. If Jase ever got that grown-up, he wouldn’t recognize himself.
The client settled into the passenger seat, which was already conforming to accommodate him, and pulled the safety web over his chest. The magnetic locks clicked into place.
“By the time you want to sell it. This is your car?”
“Well, it really belongs to my dad’s law firm. But I’m buying it from them as fast as I can. And before they agreed to hire me they made me take several driving-safety courses. I’m very safe. Really.”
Jase set his teeth against the impulse to babble. If the client asked, Jase would have to admit he was sixteen and had only had his license for six months. But if he didn’t ask…
Mr. Hillyard stretched out his legs. “Roomier than it looks. So where will we stop for the night?”
Definitely not interested in making good time, which was probably for the best. Jase’s father had threatened to revoke his driving privileges for a year if he picked up one more ticket.
“We can stop at Tok if you want to quit around seven,” Jase told him. “But if you’d like to run a little later, we could reach Glennallen by ten.”
***

Mr. Hillyard was a good pickup, not unfriendly, but once they’d started driving, he’d opened his com screen and gone to work, which meant Jase didn’t have to entertain him. And some of the curves that descended into the valley west of the border were a driver’s dream. Jase had dropped down to the recommended speed limit as he swept down the hillside, as he always did carrying stodgy clients, but he still had to pay attention to the road. He didn’t notice anything until Mr. Hillyard said, “What’s that?”
That was a brown cloud hovering over the road at the bottom of the hill. Jase slowed a bit more.
“Dust?” He didn’t see any roadwork.
The cloud swirled and surged toward them, resolving itself into thousands upon thousands of bees.
Nerves prickled up the back of Jase’s neck. He slowed to a crawl, not wanting to coat the Tesla in bug goo.
“I’m glad you put the top up,” Mr. Hillyard said. “Is this the right time of year for bees to swarm?”
“I don’t know.” Their small hard bodies pinged off the car’s metal skin and rapped against the windows. “I guess. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Jase was very glad he’d put the top up. The bees were outside and he and the client were safe inside, but his heart still beat faster. He could hear their mindless buzzing over the swish of tires on pavement, like a distant chain saw.
Quite a few of the bees had landed on the car and were crawling around the door and the edges of the windows. Between the black and yellow bodies traveling across the windshield and the swarm still in the air, Jase could hardly see the road. Mr. Hillyard reached forward abruptly and punched the button that closed the outside air vent.
“Just in case. Perhaps you’d like to drive a bit faster?”
Jase grimaced. “I’ll have to wash the car. Bug guts are pretty sticky.” But he increased his speed a little as he spoke. “There’s a drive-through wash in Tok, but it’ll take a sonic scrub to get it really clean and the closest place for that is Anchorage.”
Bees were bouncing off the windshield.
“Maybe you’ll be out of it soon,” said Mr. Hillyard.
If anything, the cloud ahead of the car was thicker than the cloud behind.
“I think they’re following us.”
Mr. Hillyard frowned at the spinning swarm. “That’s crazy. Why would they?”
“I don’t know. I used a different car wax last time, but that shouldn’t…”
The bees were following them. Jase could see patterns in the cloud, brown wisps surging forward to cling to his car. He’d thought bees were attracted to flowers, but there was nothing flowerlike about the Tesla.
This was too weird.
“I’m going to speed up,” he warned the client, and took the Tesla from thirty to seventy in about two seconds.
The acceleration threw Jase back in the seat, but he’d been expecting it. The bees hadn’t expected it, and scores of small bodies burst against the windshield—emitting tiny flashes of light as they exploded.
“Whoa! Did you see that?”
Jase turned on the vibro sweep to remove the disgusting remains, and in moments the windshield was clear. Cleaning the headlights and grill wouldn’t be that easy.
“Some sort of phosphorescence?” Mr. Hillyard sounded as baffled as Jase felt. “I didn’t think bees did that.”
“Me either.” Jase watched the swarm in the rearview screen; the bees were still flying after him, though they were falling behind. Falling behind a lot more slowly than Jase had thought they would. Those bees must be going almost sixty, and he increased the Tesla’s speed a bit more.
The client, he noted, made no objection.
“Maybe they caught the sunlight at just the right angle as they burst.” Mr. Hillyard sounded a bit unnerved. “I’ve never heard of bees swarming a car, either. Do you have a different species of bees here?”
“I don’t know.” On a list of things Jase cared about, different species of bees were near the bottom. “Though if they’re going to be a driving hazard, I guess I’d better find out.” He looked at the rearview again. “They’re gone.”
But he kept his speed just over the limit for another half hour… and Mr. Hillyard still didn’t complain.
***

Jase drove through the auto wash in Tok, though the Tesla wasn’t as crusted with bug guts as he’d expected. He found quite a few places where the homicidal bees had given their lives to mess up his finish, but instead of the adhesive stickiness he expected, their remains seemed oddly dry. Almost flaky.
The old-fashioned water car wash removed all the residue, and Mr. Hillyard eventually stopped looking for more swarms and went back to his com screen.
His client’s silence gave Jase time to think, and soon worrying about weird bugs gave way to speculating about that mysterious leather bag in his pocket. His first chance to examine it came that night in Glennallen, after he saw Mr. Hillyard safely into his hotel room.
Jase took a few minutes to go back out to the parking lot and spread a cover over the Tesla. There was no rain in the forecast, but he preferred not to come out in the morning and find his car covered with bees. He’d throw away that new wax as soon as he got home.
When he reached his own room, Jase kicked off his shoes and sat on the bed, pulling out the small pouch before he even took off his suit. Judging by the way it squished there was some sort of powder inside, and the girl had done a lousy job with her knots. The cords that had wrapped neatly around it had come loose, tangling in his pocket, and Jase had to unscramble them before he could tackle the final knot that closed the neck.
His grandfather would be appalled that anyone would use a medicine pouch to smuggle something harmful, and the old man had dumped enough culture guilt when Jase was little that his conscience twinged. But he wasn’t the one who’d chosen that disguise for their drugs.
Was it time to try again with his grandfather?
Jase groaned aloud at the thought. Getting to his grandparents’ house would take eight hours, and the last time he hadn’t gotten past the front door! The time before that his grandmother had let him in. His grandfather had asked his gruff question, always the first thing he said to Jase these days. After Jase had answered, he’d turned on the TV and refused to say anything more.
But Jase couldn’t change the answer.
His parents and his grandmother said that the gulf between his father and his grandfather wasn’t his fault, but Jase couldn’t help but feel things would be different if he’d been better at it, when his grandfather had tried so hard to indoctrinate him into Our Way of Life. He could still hear the capital letters the old man put on those words.
But even if he wasn’t cut out for any of the Ananut paths, he couldn’t shake the thought that someday he might be able to get through to his grandfather. They’d both tried, in the beginning. That had to count for something, didn’t it?
It was time to try again.
He’d go next weekend, Jase resolved. Unless his father’s firm had another job for him. He was trying not to hope too hard for that, when the medicine bag’s strings finally loosened.
There weren’t any drugs so powerful you’d get in trouble just touching them, right? If this was the kind of stuff that nuked people’s brains, he could always flush it. He would flush it, as soon as he knew what it was.
Jase opened the narrow neck and looked in, but there wasn’t enough light to see anything. He tipped a small amount of the powder onto his palm. He knew nothing about drugs, but to him it looked like…
“Dirt?” The word sounded loud in the empty room.
Small brown crystals that looked like fine sand. Powdery dust that left a pale yellow smudge on his palm. It smelled dusty, not the chemical tang he’d been expecting. Jase quashed the temptation to taste it before he’d even stuck out his tongue. And he’d better wash his hands. Thoroughly.
He really didn’t know about drugs. There probably was one that left yellow smudges. And it probably turned you into a raving imbecile with a single touch. And it didn’t show any sign it was going to affect you for about twelve hours, so you started to believe you were a flying goat just as your car was doing sixty around a forty-mile-an-hour curve.
Because your car could do that.
Jase tipped the drug, dirt, whatever-it-was, back into the pouch and tied it closed. If they didn’t even store it in an air-tight container it couldn’t be too lethal, but he’d wash his hands anyway.
He didn’t know about drugs, and he wasn’t stupid enough to want to change that, not on a personal level.
But he’d bet Ferd knew someone who did.
***

The next morning they set off early—at least Jase thought 7 a.m. was early. And it didn’t matter that the sun was up, because this time of year it rose at four in the morning! Some Alaskans didn’t seem to need much sleep in the summer. Jase wasn’t one of them.
Fortunately the day was clear, with only a scattering of clouds, so they might make it all the way to Anchorage on dry roads.
After Glennallen came a long flat stretch where the swampy icky woods were dotted with swampy meadows and swamps. Then there was a hilly stretch where Jase let the Tesla out just a little, because it hugged the curves so sweetly.
When you lived in the only state in the U.S. that didn’t have speed sensors outside the cities, you had to take advantage of it sometimes.
Mr. Hillyard, who’d been silent all morning, finally looked up from his screen. “This is incredible.”
“It’s got almost no drift on curves,” Jase told him, “because the battery weight is balanced over the tires. Maglev cars may use less power, and they can go fast if you don’t have to worry about braking. But for real performance nothing beats tires.”
He flexed his hands on the steering wheel. In a car like this the driver could feel the road’s surface through the wheel, through the way the car handled.
“That’s probably true,” said Mr. Hillyard. “But I was talking about the scenery. That glacier over there is the third I’ve seen this morning. What’s its name?”
“I don’t know. Alaska’s full of glaciers.”
“The car’s pretty incredible too,” Mr. Hillyard admitted. “Though I’m surprised your parents would buy it for a sixteen-year-old.”
If he was questioning Jase’s father’s parenting judgment, would he question his legal judgment as well?
“I’m paying it off,” Jase said quickly. “He didn’t just give it to me. It’s got one of the best safety systems on the road, even today. And I have to keep my grades up, and pay for my own insurance and maintenance. Dad’s firm has clients all over Alaska and northern Canada, with documents that need physical signatures, and more discretion than you can get dumping them at a small-town post office. Or clients who need someone to pick them up, discreetly.”
His father had explained why this client had to come in for an off-the-books weekend meeting, but it had to do with proprietary contracts and competitors, and Jase hadn’t paid attention. Most of the clients he drove had competitors they were paranoid about. That was why they let the firm transport them, instead of taking a public flight.
“You’re doing a good job,” Mr. Hillyard assured him. “I just… Does your mother approve?”
“Not really. But she… Hey, how do you know I’m sixteen? I didn’t tell you. Do you know my parents, or something?”
When a client was also a friend, Jase’s father usually mentioned it.
“I don’t know your parents.” Mr. Hillyard’s gaze fell, his fingers fidgeting with the dead com board. “But I know about the lawsuit, of course. If you were three during Mintok v. the Native Corporation Acts, that was in 2081. So you’d be sixteen now.”
“And three-sixteenths.” Jase had intended to sound cool and nonchalant, but some of the bitterness leaked in.
“I’m sorry,” the client said. “But surely that case made it matter less. Legally, not at all!”
The law didn’t decide what mattered. Not as far as Jase could see.
“Of course, sir. We’ll reach Anchorage in a few more hours. Do you want to go straight to the firm’s guest apartment? Or would you like to stop somewhere for lunch first?”
***

It was early afternoon by the time Jase finally deposited the client, and then commed his dad to report, and added that he was going to stop by Ferd’s on the way home.
His father, already dressed up for the client’s meeting, said, “Tell your mother.”
So Jase commed her too, then drove up the hill to Ferd’s house. Flattop Mountain was less a mountain than a long ridge that formed the southern border of the city. His father said the view, which let residents watch the big freighters coming in to dock, added a zero to every house price. Jase’s mother said it was worth it. Ferd’s house was one of the more modest homes on the hill’s lower slopes. On the top were mansions. Jase’s house was somewhere in between.
He didn’t have to com Ferd. He pulled into the driveway and beeped the horn, and several minutes later Ferd came out, hopping as he finished pulling on his shoes. He tumbled into the passenger seat as if he belonged there, then turned his wildly freckled face toward Jase.
“Bro, that shroud. It’s just wrong.”
Jase eyed Ferd’s neon green stretchie, decorated with a rotating spiral of DNA. It appeared to be mutating as it spun. “The suit? I was working. Everyone wears a suit to work. Your father wears a suit.”
“Exactly. My father.”
“Oh for… I’ll change later! Do you know someone who knows about drugs?”
“I know someone who knows something about anything,” said Ferd. “Why?”
Jase drove to a turnoff, where they could park overlooking the city. This time of day no one would be nuzzling there.
Ferd’s eyes grew wide as Jase told him about the shootout at the border station, the girl, the pouch, and his own conclusions.
“But if it’s something harsh I’m flushing it,” Jase finished firmly. “And if it’s as new as I think it is, it’s probably a nasty one. Because why disguise it in a medicine pouch, if it’s not so new that the border scanners can’t detect it?”
“Let me see. It probably is new. Designer. And if the scanners can’t detect it…”
Ferd untied the pouch and tipped a small sample of the powder into his hand.
“Whoa.”
“Do you recognize it? Know what it is?”
“Not a clue. You’re right, it looks like dirt. A totally new drug. Bro, this is terminal! If the scanners won’t detect it… Well, whoa.”
“Terminal? What happened to ’treme?”
“’Treme is completely last year,” Ferd said. “Terminal is now the cool way to say cool.”
“You were saying ’treme just a few days ago,” Jase protested.
“Then it’s last week. Or month. Whatever. Focus in, bro. A designer that can pass scanners would be worth serious money!”
“We don’t know if it can pass the scans,” Jase reminded him. “She threw it over the fence.”
“Was she hot?” This was a question that could distract Ferd even from money.
“Nothing special,” said Jase. “And if it’s a new designer, it’s probably harsh.”
“Not necessarily,” Ferd said. “Buzz and Finn are designer, and they’re very mellow. Riffle and Keloscope are new, and they’re designed not to burn your brains out.”
“I should go straight home and flush the whole package.” Jase knew he should.
“Bro,” said Ferd, “it’s your car. I’ve got a cousin who’s in college in the city.”
“Can he tell—”
“No, but his roommate is a chemistry major. In more ways than one, Manny says. He’ll be able to tell us what this weird dirt of yours… That would be a good drug name. Dirt.”
***

Jase agreed to bring the dirt to school and meet Ferd, who would provide a proper container and then get the stuff to Cousin Manny’s roommate. “He’s a chemist, bro. It’s going to take time.”
Jase dropped Ferd off and went home, where he finally changed out of his suit while he told his mother about the shootout at the border—minus the biker drug girl and the pouch. At least it explained the sap and other stains on his suit.
It had made the news, a biker gang and a bag of drug money that had somehow ended up flying all over the road on the Canadian side of the station. Despite all the shots that had been fired, there were only two minor injuries. No mention of a girl at all.
“I wish you’d commed,” his mother said, her gray-green eyes serious. “I knew you’d be at the border right around that time, and I was worried.”
“So why didn’t you com and ask if I was OK?”
Jase pulled a stretchie over his head and felt better. Ferd was right about a suit being halfway to a shroud, but the firm’s drivers had to wear them.
“I almost did.” His mother sighed. “But I didn’t catch the news till evening, and your father pointed out that if you had been injured we’d have been notified hours ago. I’m trying to accept the growing-up you. It’s not easy.”
“Um, OK. Whatever.”
It made her laugh and hug him. In front of the mirror over his dresser. And because some part of him was still thinking about the three-sixteenths comment, for the first time in years Jase noticed how much paler she was than his dark, square, undeniably Native self. That was one of the things that had made the court case so devastating—that he looked one hundred percent Alaska Native.
He would visit his grandparents again, next weekend, Jase resolved. Even if it meant putting off finding out about the “dirt.”
By the time he went to bed he’d stopped thinking about his grandparents, consciously, but that night he had a Native dream.


An elderly Native woman sat in a grove of pine trees, the bushy kind that grew wild in the lower forty-eight and some places in Alaska too. The woman’s smile was warm and inviting. Grandmotherly. Jase noticed that the hovering mosquitoes left her strictly alone. And given the antique leather clothing she wore, it wouldn’t be because her repel-vacs were up-to-date.“Oh, carp. I know I’m feeling guilty about keeping that pouch,” Jase told her. “I admit it. But did they have to send an ancestral grandmother to scold me?”Her smile faded. “So you do have it. Where is it?”“Look,” said Jase, “if it’s something that nukes people’s brains I really will flush it. But if it’s harmless what’s the problem? Do you have any idea how much auto insurance costs for a kid my age driving a Tesla?”She looked confused by this, but she pulled the smile back on with an ease that made Jase wonder about its sincerity.“I’m not here to scold you, boy. I’m here to warn you. In a short time, if he hasn’t found you already, you’ll be approached by a very handsome young man. You mustn’t trust him!”“Is it his stuff? Is he a dealer?” The girl had no way to identify him… unless she’d seen him get into the Tesla and drive off. There were maybe a hundred Teslas in Alaska, but Jase’s was the only one old enough to have tires.“He’s evil,” the old woman said seriously. “He’ll try to corrupt you, and ultimately destroy you. You must not trust him. Don’t even talk to him if you can avoid it.”Evil and corruption were pretty much what drug dealers did. And Jase was about to become one? He should probably think about that, but for now…“OK. But if I’m supposed to avoid him, it would be nice to know what he looks like.”Jase would gladly avoid the person to whom that little pouch really belonged—and who’d probably just shot up a border station too! But how could a manifestation of his own subconscious warn him away from someone he’d never seen?To his surprise, the old woman held up cupped hands and a wavering image formed between them, like a palm-sized holo-generator.“That’s ’treme! Will it be on the market soon?”The old woman scowled. “Look at him. Has he found you yet?”Jase peered at the teenage boy who smiled between her hands. “No. He looks young, for a dealer. Is this a current ID?”The guy in the luminous image looked only a few years older than Jase, but he was man-model handsome, which was one strike against him already.“He’s not… he’s not to be trusted,” the old woman repeated firmly. “You’d be far safer if you gave us the pouch. Where are you now?”“How can I give you something in a dream?” Jase gestured to the woods around them. Though he was sitting in his own bed, which looked very out of place in this wild glade. “It’s back at my house, anyway.”Tucked behind some half-full coolant jugs in the garage, where neither his parents or the cleaning woman ever poked around.“Where is your house? Are you in Whitehorse? What’s your name?”It seemed to Jase that his subconscious should know that already. And her grandmotherly smile had evaporated.“What’s your name?” he demanded.The way she hesitated before replying reminded him of the last lying client he’d driven.“Please, may I come to where you are? It might make this easier.”“Sure,” said Jase. “Why not? And make what easier?” As far as he was concerned, he could go back to sleep anytime now. This nosy grandmother was beginning to annoy him.For a moment he thought he’d gotten rid of her, because the woods vanished and his own room appeared around him. But then his closet door opened and the old woman stepped out. She was still clearly a Native, but the archaic leathers had turned into jeans and a rain jacket.“How come you came out of the closet instead of through the hall door?”It might have been simply because the foot of his bed faced the closet, and the hall was off to the side, but she shrugged.“I’d guess that’s where some of your dreams center… unless the pouch is in there.” She turned toward the open door, clearly ready to look.“Hey! Keep out of my stuff. What do you want, anyway?”She’d already lost interest.“Not there,” she murmured. “Not that it matters.” Her gaze went to the window and she frowned. “It can’t be that dark. Not in Canada, this time of year. Where are we?”“It’s not dark,” Jase said. “I opaqued the window. And we’re in Anchorage, not Canada.”“Alaska!” Now she looked angry, and it wasn’t his fault. Whatever the problem was.“Who are you?” she went on urgently. “Where is this house? Its number. I need the number.”“You mean the address,” said Jase. “And I’m not going to say, because I don’t want you in any more of my dreams. I’m going to wake up now.”He could almost feel his sleeping mind, fighting for awareness. He tried to help it along, but the woman stepped forward and grabbed his arm.“Oh, no you don’t! Tell me the number. Tell me who you are.” Her expression was frightening-fierce.“Ow! Let go!” Jase struggled against her grip, which made it hurt worse, and finally broke through to wakefulness.

“Low light,” he ordered, and the bedside lamp snapped on.
His lungs heaved and his heart beat wildly. His blankets looked like he and Ferd had been wrestling on the bed, as they had when they were kids.
The rest of his room was undisturbed, the closet door still closed. Not that he expected it to be… That was a nasty one! He hadn’t imagined a monster in his closet since he was five, damn it!
“Window clear,” Jase ordered, and then turned off the lamp as the window slowly depolarized, revealing the brilliant twilight of an Arctic summer night.
Usually Jase had to darken the window to sleep. Now he simply turned away from the light and closed his eyes.
It was just a stupid dream. But there was no harm in leaving the window clear till morning.
***

He was drying off after his shower when he noticed the bruises, a row of dark splotches on the back of his arm where the dream woman’s fingers had dug in. The sight shocked him, until his rational mind kicked in. He must have picked them up when he was diving behind that tree, back at the border. When they began to ache, he’d dreamed up the old woman to account for the pain, which explained the weird dream too.
It was odd that the bruises hadn’t bothered him yesterday, but he’d probably been sleeping in a position that put strain on them or something. They still ached, as he put on the collared shirt and blazer that Murie Preparatory Academy required its students to wear, even in the summer.
He’d have to remember to get the pouch out of its hiding place before he took off for school.