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  A drought-ridden Arizona town hires a very special kind of rainmaker: A siren.

  But when it comes time to pay for her services, Mayor Archer Bertrand has a change of heart. After all, the old races are legally non-people and can’t sign contracts.

  That was just his first mistake.

  This short story is set in the old races-inhabited world of Magorian & Jones, written by Taylen Carver. It is not commercially released, but provided free to readers and fans of the series.

  Check the details once you have enjoyed The Man Folk of Falconer!

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Special Offer – Free Urban Fantasy

  About The Mad Folk of Falconer

  Title Page

  The Story So Far…

  The Mad Folk of Falconer

  Special Offer – Free Urban Fantasy

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  About the Author

  Other books by Taylen Carver

  Copyright Information

  ABOUT THE MAD FOLK OF FALCONER

  Everyone in Falconer is going crazy.

  Harley von Canmore is a firebird, and Police Chief of the tiny town of Falconer, in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. Harley’s town is nearly all Old Race people, which creates challenges she never faced as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officer.

  It is Imbolc—St. Brigid’s Day—and a peculiar madness seems to be infecting everyone in Harley’s town. She figures it might be because they’re starving in a way only the Old Ones could suffer. When the madness strikes the town’s shot-gun wielding mayor, who is purely human, Harley must figure out the root of the problem before the whole town tears itself apart…

  The Mad Folk of Falconer is part of the Harley Firebird urban fantasy series of novelettes, which is set in the same world as Taylen Carver’s Magorian & Jones series.

  1.0: The Dragon of Falconer

  2.0: The Orc Who Cried

  3.0: The Shepherd of Fire

  4.0: The Mad Folk of Falconer

  …and more to come.

  Urban Fantasy Novelette

  THE STORY SO FAR…

  Harley von Canmore is a firebird, one of the rarest of the Old Races. The Old Races are former humans who survived the Tutu virus, only to metamorphose into other creatures. Goblyns, who are called orcs in North America, are the most common. There are also hobgoblins, dwarves, fae, angels, dryads, dragons, salamanders, sirens, avancs and water leapers, each aligned with one of the elements; Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

  The town of Falconer, in the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, had a population of one thousand people. Without exception, all contracted the Tutu virus. Now the residents are becoming Old Ones, without official status in Canada and scrambling to survive. The town’s mayor, Akicita Frazier, hires Harley to police the town.

  Harley was a decorated Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer before her change. She resents the loss of that career and is in denial about her new life as a firebird. She also serves two masters; the law, which she has sworn to uphold, and Campbell von Havre, a dragon elemental to whom firebirds are subject. Her cop instincts tell her Campbell is not the simple businessman he appears to be, but he does seem to put the good of Falconer first.

  Campbell seems taken with Harley on a personal level, but Harley knows their disparate ethics will clash sooner or later. In the meantime, she must maintain the law, while learning to use her new skills to do it, even though the work challenges all her beliefs and ethics.

  Now read on…

  THE MAD FOLK OF FALCONER

  A water leaper was sitting on the doorstep of the Lord of the Rinse laundromat, eating a steaming bowl of noodles and vegetables, when Harley walked to work that morning. The leapers’ wings were tucked in behind her, sitting neatly in the corner of the deep doorway. Her legs stretched out, her ragged mukluks, patched and darned, pushed up against the plate glass on the other side of the doorway. The step had been carefully brushed free of snow and slush and was dry—although the leaper had to be freezing, sitting on concrete.

  Falconer folk without any clear domicile were a common sight, although Harley and her two lieutenants, Bohdan Kask and Mojag Bear, had worked hard to find spare rooms, or even a mattress in a corner, for many of them. It was February, and Alberta was experiencing historically cold weather—they’d had a -45C day just last week, which broke all previous records.

  The bright blue bowl in the leaper’s thin-mitted hand steamed, obscuring her worn, aged face and the mildly elongated ears. Her breath also fogged the air as she scooped squiggly noodles and dark green bok choy with two fingers of her bare right hand. She was bolting the food, as if someone might whip the bowl away at any second.

  When Harley turned back to face her, the leaper pulled the bowl up against her chest, her faded blue eyes watching Harley warily.

  Harley lifted her gloved hands. “You know who I am?”

  The leaper nodded. Her arms moved more firmly around the bowl. They were trembling.

  “I’m not going to take your breakfast,” Harley assured her, halting with her boots nearly touching the front of the step. “What’s your name?”

  “Violet.” The woman’s voice shook, too.

  “Do you have somewhere to sleep, Violet? Somewhere inside?”

  The leaper looked troubled.

  “Did one of the other policemen take you to a house and show you a room or a bed?”

  Again, the silent nod.

  “You’re not staying there, though?” In Harley’s experience, lots of homeless people would rather sleep on the streets than indoors. State-provided or non-profit-provided shelter came with obligations and formalities, or just plain unhappy conditions they didn’t want to put up with. It had shocked Harley to learn that the homeless weren’t desperate enough to take just anything. Their pride was as strong as anyone else’s, for pride was often the last valuable thing they had left.

  Violet’s mouth turned down at the corners, creating deep folds and wrinkles around her chin. “People there, they’re too noisy. Moving around. Can’t think there. Can’t sleep.”

  Harley nodded. It sounded as though Violet was one of the folk who’d been assigned a pallet in the old high school gymnasium. “It’s not perfect,” Harley admitted. “But it’s warm, Violet. These temperatures…you’ll die of cold out here.”

  “I just want to eat,” Violet muttered. Harley could see the stubbornness setting in.

  “I’ll let you eat in a moment,” Harley promised, for food was the other major issue for Falconer at the moment. Everyone’s indoor crops were failing. All the homes that had been converted to grow-ops raising vegetables were uniformly reporting that plants were failing to thrive, even under grow lights. As more than half the population of Falconer had changed to one of the Old Races, who had no official status in Canada, no one had the money for store-bought food. Someone had clearly given Violet a bowl of food. They’d even microwaved it for her.

  “Aren’t you cold, Violet?” Harley asked. One last try, then she’d leave the woman alone.

  “Not cold,” Violet replied. The words were slurred. But she scooped another small handful of noodles, swallowed them and licked her lips.

  “You’re shaking with the cold.” Harley pulled off her glove and laid her fingers against the woman’s forehead. “Shh… I’m just making sure you’re okay,” she added as Violet pulled back away from her.

  Violet sat back up. “You’re nicer ‘n they said.” This time, the slur was distinct.

  “Thank you,” Harley said, her tone dry. She dropped her hand, puzzled. The woman was far warmer than she should be, sitting out here on concrete and dressed in just a thin coat, one that had been slashed in the back to make room for her wings. Yet she was definitely shaking. Harley had felt it under her fingers. And now her speech was impaired.

  “Have you been drinking, Violet?”

  Violet looked at her, the faded blue of her eyes steady. “Where would I get booze? Besides, it’s all being saved up for later.”

  “Later?”

  “Later today.”

  “Why later today?”

  Violet gave her another look, this one of disappointment at Harley’s ignorance. “It be Imbolc, lass. Don’t you know your seasons?”

  “Well…it’s winter,” Harley said diplomatically.

  Violet shook her head and her whole body shifted at the movement. “Imbolc. St. Brigid’s day—it be spring, soon. Later here than anywhere else, because spring starts late. This year…” Violet trailed off.

  “This year…?” Harley coaxed.

  “This year, we all need to appease her.” Violet shrugged, but as she was already shuddering hard, it barely showed.

  “Appease…St. Brigid?”

  Again, the disappointed look. “On account of the crops failing. St. Brigid is pissed, see. We need to get sweet with her again, so the growing season goes right.”

  Harley pressed her lips together. “And there’s a…a…an event later today?”

  “Sunset, eh?” It wasn’t a question, but the typical Canadian expression that implied both parties were in agreement on the statement just made.

  Perhaps the sunset event was nothing more than sending up a silent prayer to the Celtic goddess, and maybe the event would be attended by just one person. Even if it was more, Harley wouldn’t intervene. The town could do with all the help it could get. Why shouldn’t that help com
e from old deities? The world was populated by old races, after all. Harley wouldn’t dismiss any idea, these days.

  From further up Mountain Avenue, where it bent around the back of the town and became a provincial highway once more, Harley heard the heavy snarl of a big engine. It would be the first car to come down the street since Harley had turned into the Avenue herself.

  “When you’ve finished your meal, you should go back inside,” Harley told Violet.

  Violet grimaced. Harley knew she would make up her own mind about that. As there was nothing else she could do for the woman if she didn’t want the help, Harley put her glove back on, and turned to look north along Mountain Avenue, the direction from which the gunning engine sounds came.

  The electric blue Ford F-150 truck roared down Mountain Avenue at a speed that was dangerous. There were no other cars, for few Falconers could afford the running and maintenance of a car, anymore. Old Ones could neither legally own a car, nor hold a driver’s license. But there were plenty of people out walking, most of them heading to their jobs. Even some of the Old Ones had jobs, just as Harley did. They were all in-kind arrangements—swapping food, shelter and other valuables in exchange for labor.

  The Ford was running at a speed that in summer would merely get the driver a speeding ticket. But in this cold, with the streets pure ice, most of it black, dry and invisible…

  Harley snapped out her wings. It was automatic, that snap, when a few weeks ago, she would have had to think through every movement.

  “Holy gods, look at those pretty wings!” Violet cried, behind her. Across the street, some of the pedestrians also glanced over, startled. Some of them stopped at the sight of her wings out at full span. Harley had got used to that, too. Her wings weren’t white like an angels, or black like a water leaper’s. They were a spectrum of all the colors of fire, running from deep red at the bones, to white at the feathered edges.

  “Stay tucked in right there, Violet,” Harley told the water leaper, and took off in a running leap into the air. She didn’t reach for height. She just needed enough elevation to hover. It took work to hover, but she wasn’t about to stand in the middle of the street with that big truck barreling toward her.

  She came down until her boots hung just above grey-white gleaming ice, where a hard downstroke would lift her up out of the way of the truck’s grille, if she had to get out of the way in a hurry.

  Harley lifted up her hand, palm out, in the classic “halt” gesture. She brought her gaze to the driver’s face, staring at his eyes. She ignored the gasps and exclamations sounding from either side of the street.

  The Ford’s brakes came on and the truck skidded. The driver corrected, turning into the skid, only to have the back of the truck fishtail in the opposite direction. He fought the wheel, still skidding, the big tires trying to bite into the slick ice.

  The truck slowed, then stopped…and Harley only had to back off by a foot.

  The driver stared at her through the screen, his eyes large.

  Harley drifted down to the ice, folded her wings away, adjusted her sunglasses and moved around to the driver’s window.

  He lowered the window. “Officer…I…” He actually looked dazed. Tanned, golden olive skin, clear features, strong brows and an even stronger jaw. High forehead, high cheekbones. Black hair, satin smooth and gleaming, cut short. Stoney tribe, she guessed.

  “You’re a firebird, aren’t you?” he said. “Chief Canmore,” he added, confirming it for himself.

  “You were well above any speed considered safe under any conditions,” Harley told him, ignoring the question. “All these people and all this ice. What were you thinking?”

  At least the driver was human. If he hadn’t been, she would also be dealing with an idiot who was not licensed to drive. She got her notepad out of the big pocket of her coat and the pen.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” the driver continued. “Sorry. I’m a good driver—I have advanced training. But you’re right. There’s too many people around to…” He shrugged.

  The advanced training wasn’t a lie. He’d controlled this big vehicle throughout the wild skid. “License and pink slip,” Harley said.

  He grimaced. “Right.” He lifted himself up and took his wallet out from his back pocket, then reached over to pluck the insurance papers out of the glove compartment on the other side of the truck.

  Clearly, he was a tall man. Most people couldn’t reach across the width of these big trucks as he had.

  He handed her the card and insurance slip. She turned them around and held them at the top of the blank page in her notebook. Falconer didn’t run to official speeding ticket pads. She wrote the ticket swiftly, adding in his name.

  Tiriaq Frazier.

  She paused and looked at him again, startled. “You’re Akicita’s brother?” Akicita Frazier was the mayor of Falconer.

  “Guilty,” Frazier admitted. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I just came from the house…” He grimaced.

  The Frazier family house was at the top of Mountain Avenue. Three generations lived there, including Akicita’s grandmother, her sister and her sister’s children.

  “I’m afraid I still have to fine you,” Harley said, with not a hint of apology in her tone.

  “I wouldn’t expect anything else,” Frazier replied.

  She looked up at him again. His dark eyes stared back at her. He gave her a small smile.

  Harley finished writing the ticket. It took concentration to recall the standard phrasing she used on the few occasions she’d had to write these. She signed the bottom, added the date, and tore the ticket from the pad. “You can pay the fine at the town hall. If you can’t pay cash, there are various ways you can settle the debt, including work projects—there’s always something needs doing in Falconer.” She returned the license and insurance slip, along with the ticket.

  He put them all in a bucket in the console and looked back at her. “I’ll pay it right now. I know the town needs the cash.” His voice was deep. Pleasant.

  “The town needs everything,” Harley said honestly. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a green thumb, do you?”

  “Something needs growing?”

  “Everyone’s crops are failing and no one can figure out why…and why the hell am I telling you this?” She stepped back from the side of the truck. “You’re free to go.”

  Frazier’s smile was full of amusement. “What would you have done if I hadn’t stopped in time?”

  “I backed up a foot, as it was,” she pointed out.

  “And if I’d flipped the truck? That’s not something a firebird could fix. Or do you have a couple of dragons around that could have put it back on its wheels?”

  “I know one dragon,” Harley said, thinking of Campbell von Havre, the town’s shady businessman. “Not that he’d help you right the truck again. I guess you’d just have to figure that one out.” She took another step away.

  He got the motor running once more, put the truck in gear and reached for the controls to raise the window and paused. “By the way, the home-grown crops that are failing?”

  “Yes?”

  “Nature has cycles. This is a fallow time. Even plants sitting indoors in heat and with light know that.”

  “What is that? Some sort of tribal wisdom?”

  Tiriaq Frazier grinned, a full-bodied smile that showed even, white teeth and made the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepen. “It’s called gardening.”

  Harley could feel her cheeks heat. “I kill plants just by looking at them. I’m better at making fire dance.”

  “I believe you. Nice to meet you, Chief Canmore.” He drove off, this time barely above a crawl, put on his indicator and turned right at Bethall Street. The town hall was on Bethall, a hundred yards along and across the road from the storefront that was Falconer’s police station. Perhaps he was paying the fine right now as he’d said he would.

  Harley crossed the icy street and stepped back onto the pavement. Violet had deserted her doorstep. But plenty of other people stood staring at her. Some of them grinned. Some waved.

  Harley waved back, even though she was late for work and wanted to hurry away.