CHAPTER THREE
Neither my Mama nor my Dad were cowboys. Why does Rin start all his diary entries about his parents like that? My parents were both proper kelpies with a big lake they shared with me when I was still little. There were lots of fish and even the occasional idiot human to munch on, so I guess we were happy.
I'm happy now that I'm living with Rin, but it's a different sort of happy. My parents weren't snacks. Maybe that's how I should start this.
Neither my Mama nor my Dad were snacks. I didn't want to eat them, they didn't want to eat me, and we were happy in our lake far, far away from my lake now. It was across the ocean, Jim once told me, but the old lake went bad and I had to move.
Dad got sick first. I remember the months when his skin was green instead of healthy blue and Mama got more and more worried. She left one day to go find a seelie sidhe who might be willing to heal my dad and the lake that had gotten him sick. I guess Mama didn't know that sidhe were grumpy and mean.
For two months before Dad had turned green, humans had been doing work on the far side of the lake. There had been too many humans for Mama and Dad to safely catch and eat, so they left the humans alone. Once the humans had left, Dad had gone to investigate what they had been doing and had come back sick. There was a new pipe, he had told us, and it was dripping yuck and slime. Mama and I stayed away, but it was too late for Dad.
He died while Mama was gone. I was sad, but there wasn't anything I could do. I waited for weeks and weeks and then I started turning green. The lake was turning sludgy as the pipe continued to drip. Even though I had stayed on the far side of the lake, I started feeling ill.
I didn't want to leave my happy lake, but Dad was dead, the fish were dying, and Mama was still gone. I needed to find her to tell her about Dad and the lake going bad before I got too sick myself.
To this day I still can't believe I left my lake. Most kelpies only leave their lakes to move into another with their most loved one, like Dad had when he moved into Mama's lake. Jim says that's what saved my life. Breathing in the tainted water and eating the sick fish had been what had gotten me sick, Jim told me, and leaving had given me a chance to get better.
I never found Mama, but she had apparently found Jim and gotten his promise to stop by her lake to pass on the news that she was still searching. When Jim had found the lake dirty and me missing, he had gone searching for me. We eventually found each other and he brought me across the ocean to a new lake that was close enough to Underhill that he could continue keeping an eye on me while he looked for Mama to tell her about my new lake.
Jim never found Mama either, but he keeps stopping by to see how I'm doing all the time. I think he likes Rin and Rin's Mama because he stayed to help with the horses instead of going back Underhill.
I like living with Rin even if I'm out of my lake much more than any kelpie can usually stand. I moved into Rin's lake, his house, and I'm never planning on leaving.
Working at the Saratoga Race Course as a security guard was a trial in patience, purposeful ignorance, and just plain stubbornness. It certainly wouldn't ever win any awards for best workplace of the Capital Region, which many other businesses in Saratoga Springs, New York, had earned. Rin hated his job, but he also loved it.
He remembered his interview a year ago, when the Director of Security had asked him about his job requirements, and Rin had told the director about his messed-up legs. Rin had watched as the director added a note to Rin's file about finding him a position that was primarily seated. On his first day of work a few weeks later, Rin had found out that he was on a walking patrol where sitting wasn't allowed, and there was no way he could be switched to a more appropriate spot.
And yet, he did get to walk around the yard. The patrons were noisy, drunk, rude, and demanding. They also had a bad habit of stopping Rin to ask where the bathroom was when it was only two feet away and the sign for it was as evident as the nose on Rin's face. However, cutting through the center of the backyard was the fenced horse path. Every day, Rin got to see the racehorses led down the path before each race. The horses whinnied, stamped, and argued, but they were loud and beautiful. Rin remembered walking at Mama's side down that exact same horse path. She or one of her handlers would be holding the horse Mama had entered into the race. They would go into the paddock to saddle the horse and greet the jockey, and then Mama's horse would go win the race.
They were some of Rin's happiest memories, and he relished the chance to relive them even as he detested the work he had to do to have that opportunity.
He could come during the season as a patron instead, but he didn't want to waste the money on gas and admission. This way, he at least got paid.
Rin parked the car in the free lot—employees didn't have parking, so he could either pay with the rest of the patrons or hope that the free lot still had open space when he arrived—and double-checked that the doors were locked before walking across the lot toward Union Avenue. The track itself was across the street. He slipped through the broken fence around the parking lot and jaywalked across the road. It was easiest to sneak in through the service entrance so he didn't have to interact with any lost and confused patrons before his shift actually started. The security office was tucked away in the most out-of-the-way and inconvenient a location as the track could find: on a floor halfway between the first floor of the grandstand and the second. Rin said hello to the other guards he recognized from the previous year, slipped around the new guards for this year who had no idea what they were supposed to be doing, and let the sign-in machine scan his fingerprint. He stopped by the gun cage afterward to get outfitted with his walkie-talkie. He first had to convince the woman inside that his post required one before she finally allowed him to sign one out. Rin made certain that it actually worked before he moved away so the next person could get whatever they needed.
Everyone was wearing the same uncomfortable uniform of navy-blue pants, a navy-blue, collared shirt, a navy-blue hat that read Security on the brim, and a shiny badge that somehow still failed to make the uniform look official. Everyone, Rin included, looked like an awkward mishmash of different shades of faded navy, in uniforms that added ten pounds to everyone's frames. It was a sad sight, but it made the overpaid higher-ups happy.
"Roll call!" someone yelled from deeper inside the security office. Rin trooped back into the hallway with everyone else. "Make two straight lines," the sergeant who'd yelled added.
It was Sergeant Savern, a stickler for rules without a lick of sense in his head, as Mama would say. Savern liked things done properly, but Rin didn't think Savern actually understood the mechanics of why and how that was accomplished. Still, he was a unionized import from Belmont, one of the two downstate tracks, and therefore got preference and deference at Saratoga that he didn't deserve.
"Button that shirt. Go shine your shoes! When roll call is over, go get a razor from the gun cage. Your facial hair is embarrassing!" Savern walked up and down the line, searching for reasons to yell at the assembled civilian security guard unit. He thankfully missed the fact that one of Rin's regulation-black shoes had a hole he had duct-taped shut. Rin couldn't afford to buy new shoes for a cracked job like this one, not when boots for the farm were much more important and there were more than enough other places for the money to go.
The captain from the previous year had apparently been made Director over the summer, Rin saw as now-Director Summers stepped out of the Director's office with a spiffy new hat and a uniform that made him look like he was still working for the state police. Rin always wondered why they tried to emulate the police so closely with their civilian force at Saratoga, but it was easy to see that Director Summers was reveling in this chance to return to his heyday. Rin could understand that sentiment, since he wouldn't be working this particular job if he hadn't wanted the same thing.
"Welcome," Director Summers said after Sergeant Savern had made a formal introduction. "I'm expecting to have a great meet this year, and with your help we can make that happen! Make sure to speak with your sergeants about how your individual posts work. This year we're going to emphasize customer service, so make sure you're very welcoming. Smile and listen when a patron asks for help." He continued along that vein for a while more, but Rin tuned him out. It was the same speech the previous Director had barked at them last year, just changed enough that Summers probably thought he was being original.
Eventually Savern yelled, "Dismissed!" and Rin headed out of the security office toward his post as the two lines dispersed into a disorganized mass of confusion.
"Patrolman Roark!" Another sergeant Rin didn't recognize, but who apparently knew who Rin was, yelled and waved from farther down the hall. There were other security guards milling around him. Rin frowned and switched directions to walk over there. "I think we're all here," the sergeant continued gamely when Rin reached him. "Welcome to sector seven. I'm Sergeant Freed. Our duty is primarily the horse path, which includes much of the backyard and the Big Red Spring. I'll be assigning your posts now. Any questions?"
Rin raised his hand. "I'm sector seven, post thirteen," he said when Freed looked at him. "Do you want me to wait until you're done here, or go assume my post now?"
"Post thirteen, post thirteen," Freed mumbled under his breath as he flipped through a stack of papers in his hand. He pulled out one sheet near the bottom and read through it. "Thirteen is on patrol in the yard from the Big Red Spring to the playground with occasional help in the paddock during big races," he read. "Is that the post you want? I was thinking of putting you on the horse path itself, near Gate B."
"I had post thirteen last year," Rin argued, "and I would like to have it again." The last thing he wanted was to get stuck on the horse path, a position where he would have to stand in exactly one spot—except when any horses came up the path, at which point he would have to pull a dirty chain across the pedestrian portion of the path to keep the idiot patrons from meeting up with an irate horse. It was one of the worst positions on the track.
"I suppose if that's what you want," Freed said, sounding extremely reluctant. He slowly held out the paper in his hand for Rin to take. Rin didn't miss his sidelong glance at another man standing nearby, and suddenly Rin understood what he had gotten in the middle of. Both men had to be from downstate. One was a sergeant who had pulled strings to get his friend placed in his sector. Giving his friend Rin's roaming position meant that they could both wander around together. Having someone to talk to during the long day was nice, so Rin did understand, but he had seen this sort of thing happen last year in the jockey escorts, sector four, and knew it was essentially a way for the unionized downstaters to skive off work without actually appearing to be doing exactly that.
He took the piece of paper with his post's description on it from Freed before Freed could change his mind.
"I'll be down to check on you," Freed said in dismissal. Rin left quickly to keep the situation from escalating. Given a few days, the problem would take care of itself. Freed would manufacture a new roaming position just for his friend, so he would still get what he wanted and none of the higher-ups would dare to stop him because he was unionized and no one wanted to start a fight against the union.
Rin reached the first floor again and shook himself out of his thoughts. It was only eleven thirty and the first race wouldn't go off until one o'clock, but patrons were already filling the grounds. He crossed the horse path at the Gate B intersection, glad yet again that he wasn't stuck there for the entire summer, and headed towards the Big Red Spring—one of the sulfur springs that had given Saratoga Springs its name—in the far corner.
Rin's route was simple. He started at the Big Red Spring, walked along the fence line of the paddock, then followed the fence outside of the horse path until he reached Gate A, which was near the security office. His job was to ensure that no one was placing their tents or umbrellas too close to the fence in order to keep loose or flapping fabric from scaring the horses as they walked by. He followed the sidewalk that cut through the middle of the yard parallel to the horse path on his way back. It took him past the large mutual bay between Gates A and B, where he checked in with the guard stationed on the chair outside the bay door, and past two smaller mutual bays closer to the Big Red Spring, again checking in with the guard sitting outside of those bays.
That was his day. For seven hours he walked that circle, only pausing to give patrons directions or to correct a misplaced tent. Midway through the day, he had an hour for lunch, which he ate in a tiny back room near the security office that had somehow been dubbed the security break room even though every employee on the track had access to it. Eight hours after he had scanned his finger to sign in, Rin scanned his finger to sign out. His feet ached, his legs ached, and his head ached as he left through the service entrance. He jaywalked across Union Avenue, took the shortcut through the broken fence, and found his car for the twenty-minute drive home.
*~*~*
Blue galloped along the drive as Rin drove the last few yards to the house. He parked next to Mama's car. Blue shifted into human form as Rin slowly and stiffly got out of the car. He grabbed Rin and yanked him into a hug.
Mama says take a hot bath. Dinner will be ready soon. Before Rin could answer, Blue dragged him into the house and up the stairs. Blue got distracted with turning on the tap and making sure the water was the right temperature, which gave Rin a moment to get his shoes off and to start peeling himself out of his uniform.
The tub filled quickly, steam rising into the air. Blue waited expectantly, sitting on the floor next to the tub, for Rin to get in. Last year, Blue had been willing to stay with Mama to help with dinner while Rin washed off the stench of the track. Apparently enough had changed in their relationship that Blue wasn't going to leave. It was too bad Rin was too tired to take advantage of the situation, what with Mama distracted downstairs and Blue waiting happily for him to strip naked.
His tired fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt as he slowly took all of his clothes off and stepped into the tub. The water was warm, and Rin couldn't help groaning as he finally took his weight off his feet and as the heat sank into his aching muscles. Blue reached across Rin's body and grabbed the body wash. He dunked a washcloth into the water and then squeezed some soap onto it and rubbed the cloth together to make a lather.
Lean forward, Blue instructed. Rin complied, and felt the washcloth rub down his back. Blue rumbled happily as he finished Rin's back and moved on down his arms. Rin had thought he was too tired for any fun just a moment ago, but the feel of Blue's warm hands combined with the comfort of the water had him getting hard.
Blue hummed softly and leaned his head against Rin's shoulder as his hand drifted from Rin's arm to his chest and farther down.
You're a delicious snack, Blue whispered. He tilted his head to nibble lightly on Rin's neck as he dropped the washcloth into the water and grabbed Rin's length in a firm grip. Rin groaned and tilted his head to the side to give Blue's teeth better access at the same time as his hips arched involuntarily upwards. Water sloshed around him as Blue's humming grew louder along with the pace his fist was moving.
They had never touched like this before. Awkward fumbling in the dark of night or first thing in the morning before Mama knocked had never led to skin touching skin or Blue's breath in Rin's ear as they both panted and groaned.
With Blue's hand stroking him and Blue's teeth in Rin's neck, Rin couldn't help whimpering and coming hard. The water calmed around them as Rin panted and his heart rate slowed. Blue's head was resting on Rin's shoulder, his teeth thankfully no longer in Rin's skin. Rin tilted his head slightly, forcing Blue to look up, and pressed his lips against Blue's.
Blue rumbled deep in his throat, a sort of purring sound Rin only heard when Blue was particularly happy. Rin pulled away slowly, his lips wet and aching from the kiss.
"I guess I should finish cleaning up," Rin said, his voice deeper than normal as he stared into Blue's wide eyes.
I have to change my pants, Blue grumbled. Next time I'm going to eat you while we're in the bath together.
Rin laughed as Blue stood and pawed disgustedly at the damp spot on the front of his pants. "I'll finish washing. You go get changed, and we'll both help Mama with dinner."
I'm hungry, Blue agreed. You're a satisfying snack, but you fill things other than my stomach.
"Right here?" Rin asked hopefully, placing his hand over his heart.
Duh. Hurry up. Mama's making steak!
Blue left the bathroom in search of clean pants while Rin reached forward to unplug the drain. The water was gross from the dirt of the day and from coming in it. He let it all drain out, then turned on the shower to finish getting clean. Blue continued humming happily in Rin's head as he quickly scrubbed and rinsed, and then he met Rin at Rin's bedroom door with a pair of clean pajama pants.
He was feeling shameless, Rin decided. He and Blue had finally done something sexual in their relationship, and they weren't going to change in any way because of it. There was a new dimension, but Blue was still Blue, and Rin still loved Blue for that.
Rin let his towel drop to the floor as he took the pajamas from Blue, who grinned and whickered at the sight, then leaned forward to briefly press his lips against Rin's.
I like kissing too. We'll have to do that a lot!
Rin had no issues with that. He yanked on the pants, and then leaned forward to take a longer and much more involved kiss from Blue. Rin was half hard again when he pulled away, but he knew that Mama's lack of yelling at him to help get dinner ready was a very temporary thing. He didn't have time at the moment to do everything he wanted with Blue, but once Mama was in bed across the house, there would be plenty of opportunity.
"Let's go have dinner," he said, taking Blue's hand in his and pulling him out of the room and down the stairs.
"Just let me help, Lizzy," Rin heard Jim saying as they approached the kitchen. He couldn't help freezing outside the kitchen door to overhear more. "You've at least one shed that's rotted through and won't last the winter, and you've barely got enough hay stockpiled for the rest of the summer. You'll be paying through the nose in March to get feed for your three horses. I'm not talking about a lot of money. Just a small loan to get you through the next three or so years. You'll pay me back as soon as you start winning stakes races again."
"I've managed this far on my own, and I can keep on doing it," Mama insisted stubbornly.
"But you don't have to," Jim replied just as stubbornly. "It's not charity, just good business. If you're too focused on rebuilding your stable, how can you properly look after the horses in your barn?"
"I'll think about it," Mama said with a tone of finality in her voice. She was done talking about it, at least. Whether she would actually think about it was another matter entirely. "Stop hovering outside the door, boys," she added sharply. "The table isn't going to set itself."
*~*~*
How do you help your family, your most precious snack, when you know they are hurting? I know you don't have any answers, Rin's journal, but I didn't either. I didn't even know what a house was until my snack explained that the building with all of its rooms and such was his equivalent to my lake. You can't swim in the house--even the bathtub is too small for that--but it's still a comfortable, wonderful place to live.
I'm good at sneaking around and reading stuff I'm not supposed to. Rin, I know you'll roll your eyes when you read that since I'm writing in your journal again, but I am. I know what it means when Mama's letters are threatening to repossess the house, or the car, or the horses. It means the lake will be gone and Rin will be forced to wander the wilderness until someone like Jim takes him in and helps him find a new lake.
I would follow you on that journey, Rin, but it's not something you or I want to have to do. But what could I do to stop it from happening? I hoped Jim would have some funds to help, so I asked him. I knew that if he came here and met my family, he would help them like he had helped me. Well, once he gets past Mama being stubborn, of course.
So, no, I didn't forget sending Jim that letter. My pretty snack, will you forgive me for that? I can't lose another lake or another family and this will solve everything. I just know it will!
You're off at work now, doing everything you can to help out. Mama's working too and Jim was busy scowling outside Demon's paddock. I admit, I'm a little bored and lonely sitting here on my own, writing serious and sad things in a book because saying them aloud is so much harder. It would be better if my snack were here with me, keeping the boredom away. Being bored isn't very fun.
Jim says I should practice my glamour to fill my spare time, that I shouldn't have horns or blue lips in human form and that I don't look very horse-like when I'm in horse form. I'm around humans, he explained, so I should look more normal to them. But my snack likes my horns!
But there is somewhere I can go where I'll be practicing my glamour and I'll get to see you, my pretty snack! Maybe I can apologize for lying to you, and I won't be bored too.
"Hey, Mister! Is the ghost going to be around this season?"
Rin turned around, automatically plastering a smile on his face. There were three people standing there. They looked like a small family: mom, dad, and little girl. The girl was hopefully clutching a plastic bucket to her chest. Rin could see cucumbers inside and fought not to roll his eyes and offend the family. Freed had echoed Director Summers's customer service is the top priority speech this morning when he'd met with sector seven, and Rin didn't want to get in trouble for ignoring that policy so early in the meet. The downstaters were the only ones who could get away with that with impunity.
It was the dad who had so rudely spoken, but Rin knelt down onto one knee to speak with the girl. "The ghost hasn't been seen yet," Rin answered, "but it's still early in the meet. I'll bet he'll show up soon."
"Damned publicity stunt," the dad muttered under his breath. If it was a publicity stunt put on by the track, it had clearly worked because the family had come. The ghost wasn't a stunt, although Rin was one of the very few people who knew that for certain.
"Really?" the girl asked with a gap-toothed smile. "I brought him a treat!" She held out the bucket for Rin to see. There was a lone carrot at the bottom, probably an addition by a parent who doubted the magical ghost horse that had suddenly appeared at the track last season would actually eat cucumbers.
"I can't promise that he'll show up today," Rin said, "but if he does, he'll love eating your snack."
"I knew it," the girl said with a wide grin up at her mother. Her dad rolled his eyes, but they all wandered off happy without a word of thanks to Rin. They saw his uniform, as ill-fitting as it was, more clearly than the man wearing it. That was what the track wanted, of course: a unified force where the roles of the individuals who comprised it were the same, while the faces of its makeup were interchangeable. That was the way the track worked and Rin had learned to live with it.
He continued along his route, pointing out bathrooms and mutual bays to oblivious patrons as he went. The worst security problem he had ever encountered was a missing family member, but the track was very proud of their statistic of never actually losing someone permanently. Lost children and grandparents were always eventually found. His radio crackled almost constantly with what other patrolmen and women were doing around the track. There were a lot of money escorts needed today, his radio informed him over and over again.
Another hour passed uneventfully. It was monotonous, but he earned ten dollars—minus taxes—for doing almost nothing. He really shouldn't complain. The horses for the races went by twice in that hour, once when he was patrolling along the horse path, so he got to see them closely. The races weren't stakes races, and the horses weren't spectacular-looking like a horse running in a Grade I would be, but it was exciting to see all the same. It was why he had taken this job, after all. He had even discretely paused near one of the TV stands to watch a couple of races. He wasn't supposed to be so derelict in his duties, but Rin couldn't help watching anyway.
A glance at his watch told him he still had another forty-five minutes before his relief came to give him his hour break. His stomach was beginning to rumble, and he thought fondly of the chicken salad sandwich Mama had made him with the leftovers from dinner.
"Patrolman Jack to the security desk," Rin's radio squawked.
"This is the security desk," a second voice squawked back.
"There appears to be a…um…blue horse? A loose horse swimming in the infield pond," Patrolman Jack said hesitantly.
Rin sighed and rolled his eyes. Blue's presence at the track was inevitable. When he had done this last year, he had caused so much drama in the security office. At least the rest of the day would be more interesting. Rin could practically hear them swearing in the security office. Unfortunately, they were smart enough not to broadcast it. He could've used a good laugh.
"Keep an eye on that horse if you're able to, Patrolman Jack. Lieutenant Cristobel will meet with you to assess the situation."
"Ten-four!" Patrolman Jack replied. Ten-four in security guard terms was stupid speak for someone too hopped up on the power of their badge to simply say they understood. For actual, sworn-in policemen and military personnel it meant that, but a security guard was a civilian handed a badge. All too often that façade of power went to people's heads. Rin had seen it happen very frequently at the track. Every once in a while, he heard stories about guards caught patrolling with nunchucks or something else idiotic and getting fired, but that was an extreme case. Most of the hopped-up guards bought themselves big belts they could then hang a dozen "useful" gadgets from. It usually ended up being an empty mace holder, an empty handcuffs holder, and so on, because ordinary security guards weren't allowed to carry that sort of stuff. It made Rin roll his eyes whenever he saw it, but it was funny enough that it helped keep the day moving.
Rin continued walking for a few more minutes and the walkie-talkie thankfully didn't squawk in his ear. Patrolmen like Rin were told to never, ever be on their cell phones, yet the security desk preferred that the patrolmen call via cellphone instead of radio. It left the radio open in case of a real emergency. The desk was probably confirming Patrolman Jack's location that way.
Rin knew Blue would be long gone by the time anyone actually reached Jack, so he wasn't worried; Blue knew better than to eat someone where Rin might find out about it. There was no way Rin would respect Blue if he knew Blue had eaten someone while living in Mama's house, and Blue definitely knew that. It was a firm discussion they'd had last year when Blue had first shown up at the track. Besides, there were always cucumbers to eat if Blue got hungry, and that was almost as good to Blue.
The horses for the next race were being led along the horse path and into the paddock as Rin walked by, so he paused to look. There was a brown mare Rin liked the look of. Her hot walker, a surly-looking Hispanic man, was wearing the six jersey. She looked eager and happy. Her eyes were bright, her steps high, and her muscles sleek. It wouldn't surprise Rin if she won the race. There were always other factors at play in a race, though. The ability of the jockey, the state of the track itself, and whether the horse actually felt like running that day all played into the eventual outcome. He had seen races when a favorite refused to break from the gate entirely.
"Patrolman Arnold, Patrolman Griggs, Patrolwoman Morales, and Patrolman Roark," the radio squawked. "Report to Lieutenant Cristobel at the top of the stretch."
Three different versions of ten-four sounded from the radio. Rin hit the button to reply and said, "Patrolman Roark confirms." He took the sidewalk that ran parallel to the horse path so he could stop by the two seated guards at the mutual bays to warn them he had been called away. They didn't merit radios, although that was most likely because the track simply didn't have enough to give them.
As the horses ran around the track they passed the top of the stretch, or the final turn, as they headed toward the finish line. Saratoga had created a little picnic area there as part of the grandstand seating—first come, first served, and Rin never wanted to be there first thing in the morning when patrons were rushing to get the picnic benches along the rail. It was also next to the service entrance Rin used to get into the security office in the morning. Either Lieutenant Cristobel hadn't wanted to bother walking all the way to the finish line, which was the best place to cross the rail and get onto the track, but was also a long walk from the security office, or Patrolman Jack was stationed there. Rin felt sorry for the poor guy if that was the case.
He made his way to the group of guards forming around the man wearing the white uniform shirt, an honor given only to Lieutenants and up.
"Listen up," Lieutenant Cristobel said once everyone was present. "We think it's the same horse as last year. It can't get out of the track without help, so we're going to corner it for the outrider to catch." An outrider was the horse and rider who helped keep the racehorses in line before and after a race. If a horse escaped its handler or jockey, the outriders were supposed to catch it. What Cristobel hadn't mentioned was how the mystery horse had gotten onto the infield in the first place, given the space was completely enclosed. The little girl from earlier in the day hadn't been wrong in calling "it" a ghost.
An average patron could not access the track and the infield where the lake was. The track was surrounded by a safety fence. Outside that fence were the grandstand and clubhouse on one side of the track, and the far side had the barns. There were three entrances for horses: one near the top of the stretch and one by the barns—both of which were locked during the races and only opened to let the tired horses out when the race was complete—and the last was the entrance for the horse path that was mostly only used during the races themselves. The only entrance that was unlocked for people to get onto the track was in the winner's circle at the finish line, and only the horse owners, trainers, and hot walkers were allowed that privilege. Every entrance was watched closely by security and it was inconceivable that a horse could sneak through.
Of course, security just didn't have the ability to account for someone like Blue.
Rin and his fellow patrolmen were being sent on a wild goose chase. At least it broke up the monotony of the day, but Rin was going to be late for his lunch hour because of this.
"I'm just waiting on confirmation that the horses for the next race are going to be held in the paddock until we clear the infield," Cristobel finished. They waited for a few more minutes, more than enough time for the horses to come out from the paddock saddled and with their jockeys onboard. Since the bugler didn't sound the call to post, Rin felt it was safe to assume that Cristobel could use the key he was holding to open the padlock on the gate and let them onto the track.
Finally. Cristobel's cell phone buzzed from where it was hanging in a case on his belt. Cristobel answered curtly, then listened for a few long moments. His face was getting cloudier the longer the person on the other end spoke. He hung up and swore loudly, attracting quite a few alarmed stares from the patrons nearby.
"The damned ghost has vanished," he snarled. "The outriders swept the infield a second time and now they can't find any sign of him. The bigwigs want to go ahead with the race. Head back to your posts, but keep an eye out for that damned horse."
He strode away, heading back towards the security office as the bugler began to play and the horses began to appear on the track. Rin shared a wide-eyed look with the other patrolmen, but no one wanted to stick around to gossip and get yelled at. Rin was the only one heading back through the grandstand and out into the yard. He passed the stairs to the security office, then crossed the horse path at Gate A and resumed his route.
Two minutes later, a blue horse trotted past him, a very familiar little girl's bucket hanging between his teeth. He vanished behind the large mutual bay between Gate A and Gate B. Rin couldn't help following, but he circled the bay twice and didn't see any sign of Blue.
For the next half hour, the radio squawked almost constantly as sighting after sighting was reported. The girl who did reliefs appeared exactly on time and Rin was glad to hand over his radio to her.
"See you in an hour," he said, wondering if she had ever told him her name.
"Have a good lunch," she replied absentmindedly. She was craning her neck to look around, no doubt hoping to see the ghost horse. Rin wished her luck a touch too sarcastically in his head as he headed toward the security break room where his lunch was waiting.
When Rin's hour was over, he packed up what was left of his lunch and headed back outside. Blue was waiting at the foot of the stairs in his human form, grinning widely up at Rin as Rin descended.
"You cause so many problems," Rin couldn't help saying. He was smiling as he spoke, though. Seeing Blue was always welcome, and Blue's hijinks did help to break the monotony of Rin's day. It also made Rin's coworkers actually have to do work, which was a nice change too.
Blue whickered lightly under his breath. I was bored. Now I'm not.
Rin's smile widened and he stepped forward to pull Blue into a hug. "We can't have that," he murmured into Blue's ear.
"Roark! Get back on your post!" Sergeant Freed stomped up to him, a disgusted sneer firmly plastered on his face. "You can fraternize with your boyfriend on your own time." Rin stepped away from Blue, although he didn't go far. If Freed had a problem with Rin being gay, he could stuff himself. A glance at Rin's watch told him he still had five minutes before he needed to be back on his post, not that Freed had bothered to learn something as important as his patrolmen's' break hours.
"I'll see you at home?" Rin asked Blue. He hadn't turned his back on Freed—he didn't want to appear to be ignoring his Sergeant—but at the same time, he wasn't about to lose his five minutes. Especially since those minutes were with Blue, and Rin wasn't getting paid for them. His hour off was his own time, unpaid, and Freed wasn't taking any of that from him.
Blue grinned and nodded, then turned and trotted off. Rin nodded to Freed, who was still scowling at him, and headed back to let his relief move on to her next position.
*~*~*
Rin held back a yawn as he parked his car next to Mama's on the drive. He pulled the key and climbed out onto the hard-packed dirt of the yard. Blue was lying in the empty paddock, curled up in his most horse-like form and napping in the sun. He opened one eye when Rin walked over to the fence.
I did too much today. Even Blue's voice sounded sleepy. Go have a bath and come nap with me.
Rin laughed. He was tired too, his legs aching from all the walking. It was a good ache, though, that spoke of well-worked muscles, not injured ones. There would always be metal holding his bones together, but he was healed enough to appreciate how his legs felt now.
It didn't take long to shower and get dressed in something loose and comfortable. Blue hadn't moved from the paddock in the interim, but a strange car pulled up the drive just as Rin stepped outside to go curl up with Blue.
James Wesley was easily recognizable. His hair was bleached platinum blond, but his goatee was still dark brown. Both his ears were pierced, and heavy diamond studs hung from the lobes. He was wearing an expensive suit despite the heat of the afternoon and the fact that he was walking onto a dirty farm.
Rin remembered him mostly from the days when Mama still raced her horses. There were the horses she had managed to gentle for him, plus all the races where her own horses had beat his to the finish line easily. His smile had always been false and touched with Botox, and he hadn't changed in the years since.
Wesley strode across the yard toward Rin, who had paused halfway out the front door, but he stopped short midway and turned to face Blue in the paddock. He stomped over to the fence and swore loudly when he got a good look at Blue.
"I knew it! I knew it!" he yelled, whirling to face the house again. "I knew you were cheating me!"
Mama came up behind Rin and gently pulled him aside so she could get around him. Jim appeared at the entrance to the empty barn, a frown on his dark face.
"Cheating you?" Mama asked sharply, stepping out into the yard.
"That right there is a blue yearling, clearly one of Demon's get," Wesley hissed. His face was a little too stiff from too many surgeries for his mouth to turn into a proper, glowering frown. He looked almost comical, but Rin didn't feel like laughing. "I knew something was going on when I saw the sudden influx of blue roan colts and fillies hitting the markets lately. I told my myself, no, Lizzy wouldn't do that to me, but it turns out I was wrong. You probably had a foal off him in the first week and have been selling them for profit, all while telling me Demon wasn't ready yet."
Mama was gaping at him, her mouth hanging slightly open in shock even as anger stiffened her spine. Blue hadn't bothered to pay attention before, but he jumped to his feet with a whinny at Wesley's loud exclamation. Blue's glamor was perfect, his coat believably shaded with no evidence of horns or pointed ears, but the fire in his eyes was pure malice.
I'm going to eat him, Blue growled. He stalked forward through the paddock slowly, only to freeze in place when Jim jumped the paddock fence and hurried over to drop a heavy hand on his shoulder.
"Was this your scheme all along?" Jim asked. His eyes were cold and hard, but they were human-looking. With his glamor in place, his skin was a dark shade of brown, as were his eyes and hair. The points to his ears were gone too. That didn't stop him from looking dangerous as he left Blue and walked to the fence that separated him from Wesley.
While Jim outwardly looked calm—albeit definitely still angry—something in Jim's voice had Rin wanting to take a step back. There was a dark, sibilant hissing tone that said Jim knew how to hunt and how to kill, and that the human standing in front of him would be perfect prey. It sent a punch of fear at Rin's chest, making his lungs and stomach clench until it was hard to breathe and all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball and hide until the danger had passed.
"Let Lizzy Roark do all the hard work," Jim continued, and Rin had to lock his knees to keep from running into the house where he would be safe, "then after an appropriate amount of time, accuse her of defrauding you so you could reap the benefits without having to pay for her services?"
"Jim O'Malley?" Wesley said. His voice and stance had turned from aggressive to scared the second Jim spoke. His back curled slightly, and he shuffled his expensively clad feet in the dirt as he stepped back toward his car.
"I think you need to get back in your car and drive back home. Shelve your scheme, and as an act of goodwill, I think you should let Lizzy have Demon and the colt."
Some of Wesley's spine resurged as his back hit the apparently steadying metal of his car door. "My lawyer will be by with paperwork in a few hours, Elizabeth Roark. I'll have your entire farm for this!"
Those words were almost scarier than Jim's. Mama didn't have the money or the clout to fight even so weak a threat. They would lose their house and the horses, and the gleeful glint in Wesley's eyes said he knew that perfectly well. He had backed them into a corner, which left them with two options—only one of which Wesley was aware of. They could either give Wesley everything he wanted, or Mama could accept Jim's money. The first would ruin them as thoroughly as a legal battle, the second would neatly indebt them to Jim, who claimed he only wanted to help. Rin wasn't so sure that was Jim's only motive, but now wasn't the time to dwell on that. Thankfully, with his last words still hovering in the air, Wesley got back into his car and sped off back down the driveway with a spray of dirt as his tires spun for a moment.
"I could have handled him without your help," Mama said. Some of the anger tightening her voice was left over from Wesley, but Mama was an independent woman who had never appreciated a man telling her what to do. She didn't seem to be the least bit effected by Jim, but Rin had to take a few deep breaths and steady himself against the jamb for a long second before the fear began to dissipate and strength returned to his legs.
Jim just grinned in response. "I know you could have, but Blue would have finished it for you."
Mama frowned over at Blue. "If you live in my house, you won't be eating any humans," she scolded.
Blue let out a snort as his form shimmered and his human body replaced the horse. He still nodded to Mama to show he understood her before hopping over the paddock fence and hurrying to where Rin had remained, hovering in the open doorway.
"What if he does sue us, Mama?" Rin had to ask. His voice was soft and shaky as the reality of their situation set in. They couldn't afford a lawyer to fight off Wesley's claim. They could lose all their horses, the farm, and their house to Wesley's greed.
"One day I'm going to catch that bastard milkshaking, and no one will have to worry about trying to keep a step ahead of his cheating," Jim grumbled. "The way I see it, I need to have someone look into where all these alleged blue roans in the market are coming from. If I can trace them back to Wesley and Solomon, any lawsuit he comes up with will get dropped in a hoofbeat. But, I have to admit he might have given us both a solution to our problems."
This time Mama let out an angry snort of disbelief. She quickly covered her mouth and nose with a hand, as if to say a lady wouldn't have made that type of sound. It was another holdover from her childhood, Rin knew, and it made Jim's smile grow slightly. Rin wasn't exactly certain he liked where Jim and Mama's relationship appeared to be going. A very large part of him wanted to step in between them so he could glare at Jim.
The other, smaller part won by reminding him that Mama might enjoy meddling with Rin and Blue, but she had never outright done anything to forbid their relationship. Rin didn't have to like Jim and Mama sharing a smile, but he would let her get on with it. And then he and Blue would kill Jim the second he hurt Mama.
"What's your idea?" Rin asked, trying to refocus himself on the more important issue.
This time Jim's grin wasn't at all friendly. It had an edge to it Rin usually only saw when Blue flashed his pointed teeth.
"We can pretend that Lizzy contracted with me at the same time as Wesley. After all, to the rest of the world, Jim O'Malley is reaching fifty years old. It's not inconceivable that a man of my alleged age would look for help with his own recalcitrant horses, and Lizzy is the best in the business. Lizzy, you were merely diversifying your opportunities to get back into the game, and unlike with Demon, you were immediately successful with the stallion I brought you. I say we pretend Blue is the result of one of mine and one of yours, and have Blue run at least one or two races this season. He'll look the part, if Wesley is correct and there are suddenly a number of blue horses on the market. No one will remark on the oddity of it.
"It'll get your name back in the spotlight," he added to Mama. "People will see you and remember how honorable you were, which will help deflect some of the vitriol Wesley will be spewing. Blue will win his races, which will bring in enough money into the farm to start the repairs you need. That way you won't have to borrow any money from me to restart your breeding and training program."
"I'll still be using your horses," Mama pointed out. "And I didn't think you had a blue stallion in your stables to pass on those traits to Blue."
"Think of using my horses like a breeding fee from me. Instead of my paying you money for each resulting foal, you'll keep the foal. It's about even in the end, and soon enough you'll have enough horses that are outright yours, you won't need any of mine anymore. As for the blue sire, I do have a black stallion I always felt was too flighty to actually race. I was thinking about breeding him if I found the right mare. It really wouldn't be hard for me to change his paperwork to say he's a blue roan darkened with age."
It all sounded like a good idea to Rin. "Get your horses back on the track, Mama, and you'll start winning races again. The money will come back, you can quit your waitressing job, and start buying new breeding stock for even better horses."
"Mary and Tildie are the two best results from before," Mama said softly. "With them, another stallion, and a few of your mares for breeding stock, I could do it. And imagine if I could keep Demon too!"
Blue had his arm wrapped around Rin's waist, but he hadn't added anything to the conversation. Rin looked up at Blue and saw he was frowning.
"Do you want to do it?" Rin asked softly. He turned so he could wrap both his arms around Blue's middle in a loose hug. The entire plan hinged on Blue, but no one had even asked Blue what he wanted.
It'll help Mama, Blue replied slowly. But I'm better at swimming than running.
"I can teach you. Teach you both, actually." Jim looked at Rin thoughtfully, then glanced sidelong at Mama, who grinned conspiratorially with him.
"Both?" Rin asked.
Jim nodded. "Have you ever wanted to be a jockey, Rin?"