Wendigo Rising
Author: James Hunter
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Dark Fantasy; Bigfoot; Fantasy; Mystery Supernatural Witches and Wizards; Paranormal and Urban Fantasy; Fantasy Action and Adventure; Warlock; Mystery; mage; Urban Fantasy
Description: **A rural town riddled with corruption. A cannibalistic Sasquatch. An apocalyptic bombshell... Bigfoot is real. Yancy Lazarus knows because there happens to be a nine-foot-tall, walking myth standing in the road, flagging him down. Yancy just can't escape his reputation as a supernatural fix-it man even when cruising through the forgotten backwoods of Montana. Turns out Bigfoot has a serious problem on his hands: one of his own has gone rogue, developing a taste for the flesh of humans and Sasquatch alike. A greater Wendigo has risen for the first time in thousands of years, and if Yancy can't
Publisher: Independently published
Rights: James A. Hunter (Adam W. Strode)

Contents

Summary

ONE: Chiye-tanka

TWO: Urgent Business

THREE: Indignity

FOUR: Wendigo

FIVE: The Best Made Plans

SIX: Apeshit Crazy

SEVEN: Calling in the Cavalry

EIGHT: Leads

NINE: Complications

TEN: Reunion

ELEVEN: Dirty Birdy

TWELVE: The Ol’ Mill

THIRTEEN: Fright Fest

FOURTEEN: Little Brothers

FIFTEEN: Sewer Stink

SIXTEEN: Drama Queen

SEVENTEEN: Science Fair

EIGHTEEN: Lucky Tip

NINETEEN: Old Wounds

TWENTY: Details

TWENTY-ONE: Seal Bearer

TWENTY-TWO: Avengers Assemble

TWENTY-THREE: What the Fu ...

TWENTY-FOUR: Party Time

TWENTY-FIVE: Battle of the Bands

TWENTY-SIX: Dueling Banjos

TWENTY-SEVEN: Battle at High Noon

TWENTY-EIGHT: Of Monsters and Men

TWENTY-NINE: Intelligence

THIRTY: Heart-to-Heart

THIRTY-ONE: Foolhardy Plans

THIRTY-TWO: Grudge Match

THIRTY-THREE: Die Slowly

THIRTY-FOUR: Form Yancy-Tron

THIRTY-FIVE: Screw You

THIRTY-SIX: Loose Ends

Books, Mailing List, and Reviews

About the Author

Dedication

Special Thanks

Copyright

Summary

Bigfoot is real. Yancy Lazarus—mage, bluesman, and rambler—knows because there happens to be a nine-foot-tall, walking myth standing in the road, flagging him down.

Yancy just can’t escape his reputation as a supernatural Fix-it man even when cruising through the forgotten backwoods of Montana. Turns out Bigfoot has a serious problem on his hands: one of his own has gone rogue, developing a taste for the flesh of humans and Sasquatch alike. A greater Wendigo has risen for the first time in thousands of years and if Yancy can’t stop the creature it could be a slaughter for the residents of a rural Montana town.

But even with the monstrous threat looming on the horizon, Yancy has bigger fish to fry. He’s working as an agent of Fate, attempting to put the kibosh on a nefarious scheme, aimed at upsetting the tenuous balance between the supernatural nations. When your boss is Lady Luck, however, nothing is ever left to chance, and his two cases may have more in common than it appears. If he can’t figure out the missing link it could usher in a new world order: an age of inhuman creatures and walking nightmares … one where Yancy Lazarus doesn’t exist.

ONE:

Chiye-tanka

Bigfoot is real. I know the existence of this nigh-mythical figure is pretty controversial in a lot of circles; tons of drunken bar brawls and fistfights have started over this very topic. Money, religion, politics, and Bigfoot: these are the things best avoided in polite conversation. Unless, of course, you want someone to punch you in the nose or call the men in white jackets. Don’t believe me? Next Thanksgiving, ask your assorted family members their thoughts on Bigfoot and see where the conversation goes. It’ll be entertaining, that much I can promise.

Me, though? I’ve never been one for polite conversation, and I’d love to see the crazy-police try to haul my ass in.

Plus, this isn’t some delusional, government-conspiracy, paranoia thing. I know Bigfoot is real. There was one standing in the road, flagging me down.

Jeez, my life.

I’d glimpsed one years ago and at a distance. A rare encounter. The creatures—Chiye-tanka, for those in the know—are elusive as hell and covet their privacy like paparazzi-weary celebs, evidenced by the fact that no one has ever managed to get much on ’em despite what basically amounts to a nationwide ape hunt. They’re monstrously big and about as inconspicuous as a pro wrestler sporting a neon pink tutu, but they’re also faster than the Road Runner high on speed, uncannily quiet, and boast some crazy-impressive skills with illusion and glamour constructs.

Apparently, the creature standing in the road was the slow kid in the class, the one sitting in the corner with the dunce cap, because this big, hairy roadblock was taking approximately zero percent of the usual Bigfoot evasive precautions. Might as well have been wearing a road guard vest and waving a friggin’ hand flare.

He was colossal, nine feet easy, all mud-colored hair and muscle. Lots and lots of muscle—heck, his muscles had muscles with their own gym membership. He was built on the same scale as a gorilla, only bigger. Much bigger. His face was leathery black and flat, surrounded by flecks of silvered hair. He had deep recessed eyes of brilliant green, which regarded me with a strangely thoughtful expression.

He didn’t look particularly pissed off, which was good since I was sure he could throw me into orbit with those big ol’ monkey arms. Either that or put an asteroid-sized dent in the hood of my ’86 El Camino—part car, part mobile home, and one hundred percent badass—the worse of the two options in my book. I braked since there was no point in trying to run the walking carpet over. With my luck, a collision would level my car without putting so much as a dent in Kong. I slowed to a crawl, the engine rumbling beneath me as I tried to decide what in the hell to do. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel.

Dammit.

Whatever was going on here couldn’t be good. The way I figured it, there were two likely options. Either he was here to put the hurtin’ on me, or he was going to ask me to get involved in some ridiculous problem way out of my league. Could be I was wrong, but I seemed to remember something about the Chiye-tanka being non-violent, peacenik types. Which left me with option B: he needed help. People—evidently ginormous hairy ones included—are always asking me to stick my fat nose where it doesn’t belong. Always asking me to fix things, like I don’t have anything better to do. Needlessly complicating my life with their problems. I must have some kind of invisible sign hanging over my head that says, Sucker Here, Please Ruin My Day.

Considering how huge the creature in the roadway was, I figured his problem was bound to be proportionally as large, which meant astronomically, certain-death BIG.

I reluctantly pulled over onto the thin shoulder, dropped the car into park, and popped the door. Creedence Clearwater Revival poured out into the serene mountain air, filling the green Montanan forest with its twanging guitar riffs. I palmed my behemoth pistol from my shoulder rig and slipped out of the car, keeping the steel doorframe between me and Kong—in my opinion, a little caution never goes amiss. I did, however, keep the pistol well out of sight. I wanted to be able to blast some pancake-sized holes in this hairball if things got too crazy, but I didn’t want to frighten him unduly.

“What’s up, Fluffy?” I asked, leaning casually on the door. “Need a hand with a flat or something?”

He looked supremely unamused, his flat, deadpan face not twitching in the slightest.

“Come on, Squatch, I don’t have all day”—I made a curt move-it-along gesture with my free hand—“places to be, money to gamble, scotch to drink. You know how it is. So what can I do you for?”

The Bigfoot said nothing, but his lips turned down just a bit at the corners.

They say it’s not wise to poke sleeping bears, and I bet needling a giant ape-man with wisecracks probably falls into that category, too. But then no one’s ever accused me of being particularly wise. An asshole, sure. A jerk, absolutely. A degenerate bad-apple with a gambling problem—hey, the truth’s the truth. But wise? No, never that.

“Tough room,” I said, ignoring the voice of caution in my head. “Listen pal, either you start talking or get outta my way before I call animal control.”

There was a blur of movement, so fast my eye almost couldn’t follow—it was like watching the wind: one moment everything’s still and the next there’s a swirl of motion. The damn Bigfoot moved like that. In the span of an eyeblink he’d covered the twenty yards between us, appearing mere feet from my open car door, well inside my comfort zone.

“You must call no one, human.” His voice was a deep, guttural thing that sounded like boulders being pushed against one another. Rough, primal, intense. I guess it would be like hearing a gnarled, old grizzly bear attempting to speak.

“It was a joke, Tiny. I’m not gonna call anyone,” I said, simultaneously angling the barrel of my gun up toward his groin.

Even really big, highly-deadly, super-fast monsters shudder at taking a bullet to the ol’ family jewels. Especially from my hand cannon. Most regular handguns won’t do much against the movers and shakers of the supernatural community, but my piece isn’t any regular handgun. It’s a specialty item, handcrafted by the Dökkálfar and acid etched with runes of power—think the ill-behaved-Frankenstein-spawn of Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson. Only bad, bad things lay at the end of the muzzle.

“Animal control wouldn’t have a clue what to do with you, anyway. Now just tell me what in the hell you want. Clearly banter isn’t in your repertoire, so I’d hate for you to blow a fuse, Einstein.”

“You, mortal mage, will help me,” he said matter-of-factly, crossing massive, tree-trunk arms across his broad chest. His stiff posture said there was no more discussion to be had; he expected full compliance, or there would be consequences.

He needed a favor. Boy, did I call it.

I opened myself to the Vis—the force underlying Creation, energy, existence—and drew in power and life, preparing to defend myself against Kong.

“Well, gee,” I said, “thanks for asking so nice and all, but I’ve got stuff to do. I’m supposed to wash my hair today.” I gave his unkempt coat a once-over. “Maybe you should consider doing the same. Now if you could kindly vamoose so I can get rolling.” I made a little shooing gesture with my visible hand.

“Unacceptable,” the Bigfoot said, shaking his massive head back and forth slowly. “You must help …” He paused as though warring over just how much to tell me. “It is … urgent,” he finally said, as if that would really put the nail in the coffin of debate.

“Well,” I said, with a roll of my eyes, “now that I know it’s urgent, that changes everythinggggg. Here I was thinking you just needed a fourth for your volleyball game.”

“Excellent,” he said, sounding rather pleased with himself. “I will veil your car. You will follow me.”

“Jeez, big guy. You don’t really do sarcasm much, do you?”

He canted his shaggy mug to one side, his brow knitting as he considered my words.

“Look,” I continued, “I’ve got approximately negative-thirteen interest in helping you out. If I go with you, bad things will happen. I’ll end up hurt—maybe dead—and I’ll be stuck with you for company. Ain’t gonna happen, amigo. There’s an old Polish proverb: ‘Not my monkey, not my circus.’ I think it applies here. So move.”

I thumbed back the hammer on my pistol with an audible click. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and his lips pulled away, forming an outright snarl filled with lots of large blunt teeth.

Maybe I’d been a little rash there at the end, with the whole cocking-the-hammer-back thing.

“Hey now, Fluffy, let’s not go and do anything we’ll both regre—”

I don’t even know what happened. One second I was talking reasonably and the next, there was a terrible shriek of ripping metal and I was sailing through the air. Maybe Kong hadn’t wanted me for the volleyball team, maybe he’d wanted to use me as the ball. I was heading right for a shit-ton of pine trees, all of which would hurt like a bitch if I collided with ’em. Using the Vis pumping through my body, I wove a complex construct of air and water, infused with the strength and suppleness of the forest before me.

A shimmering dome of shifting green—emerald to pine to jade, and back again—encompassed me in a tight globe. Seconds later, I collided with the trees loitering at the side of the road. The snap-crack of branches followed, intermingling with a snatch of John Fogerty belting out the chorus to “Fortunate Son.” My shield was not rigid but elastic, and though it broke a bunch of smaller branches on impact, it largely molded itself to the shape of the tree trunks. All the while, it exerted a steady pressure on me, pushing at me, redirecting my fall away from all the dangerous pointy things. It also cushioned my tumble when I finally came down on the pine needle strewn ground.

But only a little. My right shoulder still took a nasty hit. I’d live, though. I’ve had worse, a lot worse.

I couldn’t say the same thing for my poor, beautiful El Camino. The driver-side door had been torn rudely from the frame and lay off to the side like a gruesome casualty of war. Twisted out of shape, the hinge snapped clean through, the black leather upholstery ripped to hell. My car. My friggin’ car! You don’t mess with my car. You can screw around with me and there’s a chance we can work things out, but damage the Camino? Now that was unacceptable. In my book, that’s an automatic invitation to Hurtsville.

“You turdbag!” I shouted, gaining my feet and leveling my hand cannon at the damn dirty ape. “It’s royal rumble time now, Kong—and I know the way this movie ends: with you taking a dive off the Empire State building.”

The Sasquatch stood motionless, his lower body concealed by the bulk of my ride.

“No, human mage,” he said, shaking his head again. “It is not good for us to fight.” His words said no, but his posture, body language, and tone all said, yes, please introduce me to a world of ass-kickery. “You must help me,” he said after a moment, still not a request, but a statement of fact.

“It’s not good to fight?” I yelled. “Well, you should’ve thought of that before you ripped the friggin’ door off my Camino, ass-clown.” I fired twice at him, both well-aimed shots that should’ve taken him in one of his beefy shoulders. I could’ve fired to kill, but honestly I don’t much care for killing. Plus, he hadn’t actually tried to kill me—I’d be dead if that was the case—though he had ripped the door off the Camino, which almost warranted a death sentence on its own. I was firing in hopes that I could scare him off before things got any further out of hand.

There was another flutter of movement, so quick it seemed almost like a figment of my imagination. The Bigfoot was standing exactly where he had been, but there wasn’t a mark on him. Not so much as a graze. Son of a bitch. Now that’s fast, maybe even Jimmy-John fast.

Guess I didn’t need to worry about shooting to kill.

“Human,” he said again, his voice gruff yet pleading, this time almost genuine. “It is not good for us to fight.” He raised his overly long arms into the air, palms out, as though to say he meant no harm. “The Chiye-tanka are people of peace. I acted”—he hesitated for a long breath—“rashly. I do not wish to harm you or your property further. But it is urgent.”

“Next time,” I said, “try diplomacy before you resort to thuggery and property damage.” I pushed my left hand out and called up a hurricane of unseen force, which rushed out like a striking viper. The blow caught the Bigfoot full in the chest, lifting him up off the ground and into the air—his eyes widened in surprise, his thick arms spinning and flapping in frantic motion. While the creature was still airborne, I brought to bear another working, this one a powerful gale composed of woven ropes of air interlaced with spirit and raw will.

My construct swatted the airborne Bigfoot from his flight like some giant tennis racket, spiking his hairy ass into the pavement like a well-placed serve. A crater of asphalt blossomed around him. That’d teach him to go screwing around with someone else’s stuff.

The leathery-faced creature rolled, and there was a brief flash of dark hide, followed by a gust of wind streaming past my face, ruffling my hair in its wake. The Bigfoot’s bulk filled my vision. A calloused hand suddenly encircled my throat—not choking me, but squeezing enough to let me know he could. Hell, he could probably pop my damn head off like a GI Joe action figure without breaking a sweat.

“Human, desist your hostilities,” he said. “It is not good that we fight—the Chiye-tanka are people of peace. I require your aid.” His hand loosened, the immense weight and pressure around my neck vanishing. He slowly shuffled backward, obviously taking care to move at a speed I could observe while putting a comfortable amount of space between us. Once more, he raised his thick arms into the air, a gesture of surrender.

That asshole had busted the damn door off the Camino … but I guess he also could’ve busted my head right off my shoulders. He hadn’t.

Well, shit.

I cautiously raised my gun muzzle upward, finger clear of the trigger, making sure he could see the weapon. Then, slowly, I holstered the pistol and brought my hand back into view. My own white flag, though I hadn’t let go of the Vis—the more dangerous weapon by far. Pragmatism over heroism is one of my life mottos, and it’s kept me above ground for over sixty years. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.

I sighed deeply, already regretting what I was about to say. “Alright, Curious George, why don’t you just tell me what’s so friggin’ urgent that you had to rip the door off my car. And it better be good, Kong, or I’m boogying. And when I say good, I’m talking world-ending-caliber problem, you dig?”

The Bigfoot’s eyes widened—a brief glint of shock—and a moment later, something rough and fuzzy collided into the back of my head. I dropped to the ground in a heap, the bones in my legs seeming to turn into Jell-O all at once. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of reddish locks—another Bigfoot, this one smaller than the first, though still gargantuan.

Things dimmed at the periphery of my vision and, a moment later, the lights went out, unconsciousness enveloping me.

TWO:

Urgent Business

I woke up in a cave. Thin sunlight streamed in from an opening somewhere out of sight, while a small fire crackled next to me in a circular stone fire pit. I was lying on some sort of pelt covered with long brown fur, soft and shaggy—my guess was a bear hide. Surprisingly, my hands and feet weren’t bound, though I noticed my gun was absent from its holster, and my Vis-imbued K-Bar wasn’t in the sheath on my belt. I moved at snail-speed, rolling over onto my side; even that minimal movement left me weak and woozy. My head felt damned heavy from the blow which had knocked me unconscious.

I stretched out an arm, tender from sleeping on the stone floor beneath the pelt, and examined the back of my noggin for any serious damage. A decent-sized goose egg, but the skin was unbroken—no scab or dried blood matted my hair. That was something at least. I pushed myself into a sitting position, taking it nice and easy since it didn’t seem like I was in immediate danger.

There was a red ceramic jug beside me, filled with cold, clear water … well, to me it was about the size of a large jug, but to a Bigfoot it might’ve resembled a mug. I wrestled the jug from the ground and took a few sips. The water was cool against my parched throat, soothing and refreshing. After a couple of deep pulls I set the jug back down—a bit of liquid sloshed over the side, darkening the floor—and scanned the room.

The chamber was a rough oval with a pair of tunnels stretching off at opposite ends of the cave: one toward the sunlight, and presumably the exit, and another twisting out of sight deeper into the rocky expanse of the mountain. A second pelt—definitely bear, now that I got a solid look—lay sprawled across the floor on the other side of the fire pit, but there didn’t seem to be any other furnishings, save for another earthen mug like the one I’d been drinking from and a wide bowl made from the same dark clay. Not exactly the Ritz, but it was actually a fair bit nicer than some of the places I’ve woken up, especially after being KO’d.

“He awakes, Father,” came a low, smoky voice, which had to belong to one of the monkey men. No human voice, with the exception of Berry White, ever hit that deep bass register. Whoever the voice belonged too, however, I was sure it wasn’t the Sasquatch I’d chatted with before, which probably meant it was the hairball who’d given me the love tap to the back of the noodle.

“So he is,” responded a second voice, which I instantly recognized as my conversation buddy from the road—Papa Kong, apparently. Now normally that kind of lame dialogue would’ve produced a monstrous eye roll from me … but this time it just scared the bejesus outta me. Those voices were awfully close—like poke you in the eye close—but I couldn’t pinpoint where they were coming from. I mean, the room was decent-sized but not huge, nor did it feature a host of hiding spots, especially not hiding spots that could accommodate a pair of friggin’ Squatches. Yet I couldn’t find hide nor hair of the speakers.

“Do not be alarmed, human mage,” said Papa Kong. “We will show ourselves now. Do not attack us, we harbor you no ill will. We only require your help.”

The wavering shadows, cast along the far wall by the meager fire, shimmered and expanded—a pair of giant ape-men, lounging on their haunches, blinked into view. That was a scary good illusion construct, though it wasn’t really a construct at all, at least not in the way I understood it. A lot of supernatural creatures are like that: they can’t touch the Vis, at least not in the way a mage can, but the Vis is in them. It moves through ’em like blood. They use it as naturally as an arm or leg, not drawing from an external source, but flexing their own internal Vis muscle. Not nearly so versatile as a mage’s abilities, but what they could do, they did extraordinarily well.

“My daughter wishes to apologize for striking you after a truce was struck,” Papa-Kong said. “She was overzealous and we are not accustomed to dealing with outsiders. The Chiye-tanka are people of peace.”

I took in the second Squatch. A little smaller than her father, with thick, lustrous hair of rusty-red. Other than that, they looked near enough the same to me.

“Her I can forgive,” I said, staring Kong right in the eyes, “but you want to talk about overzealous—you ripped the door off my car. That’s strikes one and two right there, buddy.”

“The damage is regrettable,” Kong replied evenly. To me, it sounded like he regretted it about as much as a sheisty politician reneging on a campaign promise.

“It is urgent,” he offered for what felt like the bajillionth time. “The People require your aid.” He paused and looked away, clearly uncomfortable speaking with me. After a moment of quiet, the daughter nudged his arm with one palm, urging him to continue. “We, we need your help,” he mumbled at last.

“This is the most back-assward way of asking for help I’ve ever heard of,” I said. “You busted up my car, knocked me out, and stole my shit. Give me my pistol and knife back, then maybe I’ll think about hearing you out.”

“No.” He shook his head, his face a stoic mask. “If I give you your belongings, what is to prevent you from leaving? You hear me first, then I will give you what you ask for.”

“Boy are you starting to piss me off,” I grumbled under my breath. “Fine. Whatever. Just give me a second to get my head clear, okay?” I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. I didn’t have time for this crap. Usually, my calendar is as wide open as the fields of Kansas. Most days, weeks, and even months, I whittled away with beer, bars, blues, and a bit of gambling to keep the bills paid, but, for the first time in a long time, I was actually doing something important. World saving important.

A couple of months back, I’d taken on a decrepit old Lich who’d been unleashed upon the world by some shadowy mage hiding amongst the Guild of the Staff’s member roster. I’d managed to put the Lich down like the rabid dog he was, but the asshole who was really responsible for the whole fiasco was still at large, pulling strings and stirring up more trouble. And all in a bid to unbalance the supernatural nations and set himself up as the supreme ruler over the whole shebang.

Now usually, that’s exactly the kind of shit-storm I try to steer clear of, but unfortunately my new boss, Lady Fate, had told me in no uncertain terms what would happen if I refused to act: one scary-ass future, sans Yancy Lazarus, complete with roving bands of mutated zombies and a couple continents worth of dead bodies. I’d seen that future firsthand, and it wasn’t a pretty sight, let me tell you. Just to give you some perspective, the sight was actually more gruesome than the grisly damage to my Camino.

So, despite my better judgment, I was running down a lead which the Lich had given up during an intense interrogation: “the White Seal is in play.” No friggin’ clue what it meant, and as leads go it was about as weak as non-alcoholic beer, but it wasn’t like I was swimming with options. I’d asked around for two months, pumping sources along the mystical pipeline, looking for answers in every crevice and crack I could think of. Ultimately, my effort yielded nothing more than a giant pile of wasted time. At least until a few days ago when one of my supernatural informants over in the Hub dropped me a tip that some guy out in the Montana boonies might know something. A doctor who went by the name of Arlen Hogg.

And now that I finally had a name to go on? A solid lead to run down? A friggin’ Bigfoot with a gorilla-sized problem waylaid me and ripped the door off the Camino. Par for the course, as far as my life goes.

But despite the fact that I couldn’t waste time hanging around in this cave, playing Dr. Phil for a pair of walking carpets, I figured hearing ’em out was the quickest way to get back on the road. Listen to their sob story, explain why I couldn’t help, and then mosey my grumpy ass along. I’d hit up an auto body shop in Missoula and finish out my day at a dive bar, drowning in a pitcher of beer. Unfortunately, I had a feeling that getting anything useful out of Kong was gonna be like pulling teeth from an ornery lion. He didn’t exactly seem like the conversational sort.

“Okay.” I rubbed at the five o’ clock shadow clinging to my jaw as I considered where to start. “Keep it simple, stupid,” I said, more for myself than for the ape. “Let’s just start with your name, Kong.”

“I am not Kong. I am Chief Chankoowashtay.”

“Come again?” I asked, scratching my head in puzzlement. Maybe it was just me, but I felt like my tongue wasn’t designed to say that combination of sounds. “You know what, never mind,” I said with a shrug. “We’re already making progress. Now tell me, Chief Chan-koo-wash-tay,” I pronounced the name slowly, a small child sounding out a particularly difficult word. “What exactly is the nature of your problem?”

“It is ur—”

“I swear”—I held up a hand as though to physically hold the words at bay—“if you tell me it’s urgent one more time, I’m gonna jump off a bridge. I understand it’s urgent, very important, vital. No need to break out the thesaurus. I’m reading you loud and clear. What I want to know is what exactly the problem is and why you think I can help. Specifics here, Hairball.”

He harrumphed in frustration, snorting like a bull as he crossed his arms and turned away. “It is complicated.” He refused to look at me. “Confidential. Not for outsiders. The People are in trouble and require assistance. Is this not enough, mage? Are you not a fixer of problems?”

I pushed myself to my feet and held out my left hand, conjuring a small globe of flame, which danced and bobbed above my palm. I may have been weaponless, but I was far from defenseless. “I’m done with this shit, Chief. I don’t have the time or patience to play stupid, bullshit games. So either tell me what the hell I can do for you or give me my weapons back and point me in the direction of my car—which, by the way, better not have anything else wrong with it.”

Chief Giant-McGrumpy-Pants scowled at me over one shoulder, a rumble building deep in his throat as he uncrossed his monkey arms and flexed his giant hands. Guy looked like he was interested in crushing something small and fragile, like, say, my skull. But before impending violence could creep any closer, She-Kong stepped forward, positioning herself in front of her father, cautiously placing a restraining hand against his barrel chest.

“I am Winona,” she said, looking at me. “Please, forgive my father. My people … we rarely speak this way. The People communicate here”—she placed one hotdog-sized digit against her temple—“thought to thought, mind to mind. You understand this?” She tilted her head and regarded me the way a curious scientist might examine some strange, and especially unintelligent, life-form.

Sounded like some kind of heavy-duty telepathy. I’d run across creatures that could tap into your mind or view portions of your thoughts and memories. A whole species that communicated in a purely telepathic way was new to me, but not so unusual. Not in my circles. I nodded my understanding, and, against my better judgement, dismissed the weaves for my fireball, letting it flicker briefly and die.

She’d clocked me, true, but I got the sense she wasn’t interested in hurting me further. And, truth be told, I wasn’t too keen on blasting a woman into orbit, even if that woman happened to be eight feet tall, built like an MMA fighter, and desperately in need of a hair-waxing parlor.

“Fine. Whatever,” I finally said. “Listen, if you want my help you’re gonna have to get over whatever hang-ups you folks have. I can’t fix something unless I know what’s broke. You understand that, right?”

She nodded her blocky head in agreement and primly folded her hands in front of her. “Yes, I do understand the problem. As my father said, these are delicate issues, not to be spoken about with outsiders. We are a private people with no great love for magi—”

“Well, I got a simple solution for you then: fix your own friggin’ problem, lady. It’s not like I’m beatin’ down your door trying to get involved in your super-secret-Bigfoot business. You’re the one ‘asking’ for a favor—and by ‘asking’ I mean kidnapping and unlawful restraint—not the other way around.”

“This is the problem,” she said, offering me what I could only assume was supposed to be a reassuring smile. It was not reassuring in the least; the smile actually made her look more terrifying—though at least she had blunt teeth, instead of pointy ones, which meant she probably wasn’t going to try and nibble on me anytime soon. “I want to tell you,” she continued, “but I do not know how. I do not know what is wrong. It is the People, they are not as they should be,” she said, voice pleading, eyes wide and filled with unshed tears.

She paused for a long beat, shoulders slumped as she searched for just the right word. “One of our people …” Her lips drooped into a frown as a forlorn look darted across her face, quickly replaced by a mask of neutrality. “He, he has done a terrible thing—he has done that which ought not be done.” She turned, just a fraction of an inch, looking toward her gigantic father for guidance. After a second the chief flicked one hand, a little wave as though to say, It must be done, tell him. She grunted in acknowledgment and turned back toward me.

“He has slain his kin,” she said softly, barely a whisper. “Eaten the flesh of his butchered blood. Whatever he once was”—she faltered, wiping a hand across her broad cheek—“he is no more. He is lost. He has become Wendigo-tanka.” The last word was a fearful gasp, like just saying the name was an agony she could hardly stand. “Not only this. He has somehow captured the minds of the People, turning them against our ways. It is a thing of magic, beyond our ability to undo. And he is working with a man. An outsider. A human. This is a thing not done by the People.”

“Let me stop you there,” I said. “First off, if this Kinslayer guy has enthralled your people, how come you two are okay?”

“It is complicated,” she replied, “a thing of our kind. My father, as chief, and I, as heir apparent, possess powerful mental wards, ancient safeguards protecting us from such trickery.”

I nodded my head. “Okay. Now what exactly is a Wendigo-tanka?”

The Wendigo I’d heard tell of were creatures that’d once been human: typically men and women who had fallen on hard times and wound up doing the unthinkable. Men and women who turned on their loved ones, their friends and family. Murdering. Eating. Surviving. Dark, grisly shit right there. Apparently dark enough that sometimes those sick, evil sons of bitches attracted malignant hunger spirits, which could transform your regular Joe-blow-cannibal into a living, breathing, murder machine. They were pretty rare as living-nightmares go, so, thankfully, I’d never had the misfortune of running across one.

The Wendigo-tanka, however, was new to me.

“Enough of this,” Kong grunted. “He is a monster who has turned his back on us, betrayed ancient trusts. Abandoned the old ways of our people. He is a traitor. A usurper. An abomination.” The chief nearly spat the last, then fell silent. “What else must be known?”

Winona hesitated for a moment, pausing with her mouth closed as tight as a bank vault—obviously she was talking with Kong on some level I wasn’t privy too. Maybe some slight disagreement over the whole traitor, usurper, abomination line?

“Fine,” Kong replied, answering some unheard question before turning to look at me again. “Perhaps it is better if you see him for yourself.”

“Come again?” I asked.

“My daughter believes it is best if you see this Kinslayer, Achak, and his human pet.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “Look, I haven’t even agreed to help you yet. Shit, from everything you’ve said so far, I think I’d rather have a colonoscopy with a garden rake than get up and close with your psychotic buddy, Achak.” I fidgeted with my jacket as I thought. “Seriously, this sounds like an awful, ridiculously stupid idea.”

The chief was in front of me in a heartbeat, crouched down on his hands and feet like a charging silverback, which is pretty much what he was in my book.

“The abomination is a murderer. He has devoured his own flesh and bone. He is a traitorous creature, who has taken my rightful place as chief.” He snorted, and a gust of hot air, which smelled vaguely of jungle vegetation, washed up against my face. “He threatens to undo the world—” The chief abruptly stopped talking, face stony and rigid.

I took a step back. What the hell was it with supernatural assholes always getting up in my grill? Hasn’t anyone ever heard of personal space?

“Not to be a mondo dickwad here,” I said, “but why should I give two shits? You lost your job. That sucks. Sorry. But I still can’t figure out why that’s my problem.”

A deep howl filled the small cavern, sounding like a force of nature heralding doom and destruction across the land: Kong. “Mark my words, human,” Kong said after his inarticulate howl died. He looked bigger than he had before, like there was something inside him, bubbling below the surface, eager to burst free and crush me like a fallen sparrow’s egg against the concrete.

“If you do not help us, it will mean war. War between the People and all of humanity. This is Achak’s intent. The tribe will descend from the forest. They will lay waste to your towns and cities, they will crush the bones of your women and children, they will rip the limbs from your warriors and bathe in their blood. It will mean the death of my people, but not before many thousands of your kind perish.”

“Whoa there, big fella, just take it down a notch, huh?” I raised my hands, palms out, in a sign of peace. I wasn’t sure just what was going on here, but one thing was for damn sure: I did not want to pick a fight with Kong while he was all riled up. “No need to get all hot under the collar,” I said, trying to sound supportive instead of terrified. Not sure how that one played out.

Winona moved over to her father and placed her hand in his, a gentle, tender display that seemed to break through whatever dark thing lived within the Sasquatch chieftain.

“Look,” I said, “I guess I can spare a little time. Doesn’t mean anything—I’m not agreeing to help you, not yet. But I’ll go and take a look with you, alright? Just give me my stuff back and we’ll boogie.”

The chief lowered his head, gave Winona’s palm a brief squeeze—which, by the way, probably would’ve shattered all the bones in my hand—then nodded at me, a curt dip of his chin. He looked better now. Whatever spell had momentarily possessed him seemed to have moved on for the time being. Yeah, there was definitely more going on here than they were letting on about, but I kinda figured now wasn’t the time to push it.

“Yes,” the chief said, “your weaponry.” He became a haze of arms and legs and hair. In less than an eyeblink, he was before me—all nine hulking feet of him—with his hands held out, my monster pistol in one hand, my K-Bar in the other

“Damn it, Kong,” I said. “You’ve gotta stop sneaking up on me like that. That’s a surefire way to give a guy a friggin’ heart attack.”

“My name is not Kong,” he responded, apparently unconcerned about my objections. “It is Chief Chankoowashtay. We have already discussed this. Come, let us go see the Kinslayer.”

THREE:

Indignity

Kong led us from the cave, following a winding passage which eventually let out in a secluded clearing surrounded by a spattering of green pines and firs. I glanced back and found the cave entrance to be almost invisible, just a thin, craggy cut in the rock face of a pitiful excuse for a cliff. The eye instinctively slid over the opening, which told me there was some sort of illusion or glamour construct at work there too. The weaves for the working were hidden from sight—a complicated safeguard against those with the ability to see through conjured illusions. I still wasn’t quite sure what kinda hoodoo these apes were slinging, but it was powerful.

“Alright, so where to?” I asked, turning back to take in the dense forest stretching off in every direction. It all looked identical to me. There wasn’t any sign of a well-worn path or foot trail, just dense, unspoiled wilderness.

“We will lead you,” Kong said, “but my daughter must carry you.” Winona was beside me in a flash, scooping huge hands beneath my armpits and hoisting me into her arm, leaving my feet to dangle in the air.

“The hell are you doing?” I said, struggling against her, wiggling and squirming to free myself from her grasp. “Put me down right friggin’ now.” I couldn’t see Winona, since she was behind me, but I offered Kong a glare fierce enough to peel paint off the wall. “I am not some booger-nosed toddler, and I refuse to be carried around like some little girl’s teddy bear.” I felt Winona shrug her burly shoulders before gently placing me back on the ground; leaves crunched underfoot.

“Deal with him,” Kong said to Winona, his words terse, clipped, and annoyed.

Winona stepped around me and squatted down, sitting on her heels so she could look me in the face. Her eyes, just like her father’s, were a startling shade of green. But they were kind eyes, very different from the chieftain’s. While he looked perpetually a hairsbreadth away from opening a great big ol’ can of whoop-ass, she looked like the kind of person who cried during Bambi, helped old women cross the street, and nursed baby birds back to health.

I think Kong and I shared a bit more in common than I’d like to admit.

“My apologies, mage,” she said.

I turned away from her scrutiny, not wanting to meet those eyes any longer. “Stop calling me ‘mage,’ my name’s Yancy, alright? If I’m gonna be stuck with you and your inarticulate, ill-tempered, poo-flinging father, the least you can do is get my name right.”

“I do not fling poo,” Kong growled, his shoulders knotting with tension and barely concealed fury. Winona shot him a warning glance, and I once again got the sense that some mental communication passed between the two. He snorted and turned away, his eyes scanning the forest, obviously ignoring us. I wasn’t sure what the relationship dynamic between these two was, but I sure found it odd that the chief was unmistakably a giant ball of smoldering anger. I mean, he kept saying the People were peaceful folk, but he couldn’t go three minutes without trying to pick a fight—guy was worse than a drunk Marine on liberty.

Another trait we shared.

“Again, my apologies, Yancy,” she continued as though nothing out of the ordinary had transpired. “To get close enough to observe the Kinslayer and his human allies, I must carry you. This is not to be offensive, but you humans are very slow and very, very loud. Even your most skilled woodsmen sound like a young buck crashing through the forest. If you walk, the Kinslayer will hear you. Holding you will also make concealment easier—I can extend my own veil over us both. Now, would you prefer to cling to my back like an unruly whelp, or shall I carry you as a babe?”

She delivered the whole spiel completely straight-faced, so either she was being genuine or she was the reincarnated, Bigfoot-version of Bud Abbott—arguably the greatest comedic straight man of all time.

Unfortunately, she also made remarkably good sense; the Chiye-tanka were renowned in the supernatural community for their prowess in the woods. A field-mouse farting in the wind was louder than a Chiye-tanka strolling through the forest. And they had hearing that dwarfed the human capacity by miles. So yeah, probably I wasn’t gonna be able to sneak up on a community of bloodthirsty Sasquatches on high alert.

Dammit. That meant I was gonna have to let her carry me … boy, I swear, some days my life is just one big, undignified slap to the face.

“Fine,” I eventually consented. “You can carry me.”

“Front or back?” she asked, no mockery in her gruff voice, which almost made things worse. Having her give me a piggyback ride would be slightly less humiliating, true, but then I wouldn’t have my hands free, which meant no gun and no offensive Vis constructs of badassery. That sounded like a losing proposition all around. “I guess the front would probably be for the best,” I muttered.

She nodded and moved, her immense feet flying into motion as she covered the space between us. She scooped me into her heavily muscled arms and cradled me like a newborn.

Without any words passing between them, Kong burst into action, darting away into the tree cover, his long limbs eating up ground like a starving dog going to town on a juicy steak. Winona flowed a second later, and really there was no other word for it. She was running, but the ride was as silky smooth as good scotch.

Wind beat against my face, blowing my hair back, plastering my clothes to my body, but the experience felt more like riding my motorcycle than being carried by a running she-ape. The forest whizzed by as we maneuvered through the brush, zipping and zagging between trees, weaving around moss-covered boulders, leaping downed logs. If it wasn’t for the friction of the air tugging at every inch of me, I would’ve said we had somehow become one with the wind.

We followed Kong like that for maybe ten minutes, trailing deeper and deeper into the Montana wilderness, covering untold miles in that brief span—we had to be moving along at fifty or sixty miles an hour, and doing it without making a sound. Graveyard silent. Eventually, our speed diminished until we were moving at little more than a brisk jog. Kong glanced over one meaty shoulder and gave us a curt nod, a signal that we were nearing our intended destination.

“We will put up the veil, but you must remain very, very quiet,” Winona whispered into my ear, the words almost below the range of my hearing.

I nodded my head in understanding and opened myself to the Vis—the power bubbling and broiling just below the surface of the material world. Life-giving force and energy rushed into me, filling my limbs with a surge like a jolt of electricity; time crept to a near standstill as my mind and senses sharpened and focused, noting and cataloging the scenery as we moved. The power felt alive inside of me, a seething mass of thinking flame just begging to be used up, to be turned loose.

I wasn’t sure what kind of horror show we were walking into, but I sure as shit intended to be ready for anything. I quickly prepared the weaves for a standard friction shield in one hand and a javelin of air in the other. I wanted to go with a flame spear, but the trees were pretty dry this time of year, and I didn’t want to be responsible for starting a statewide blaze. I’m not exactly the pinnacle of moral excellence and responsibility, but forest fires are nothing to screw around with. A lot of innocent people could get hurt that way, and I’m never game to see that kinda shit go down, not if it can be avoided.

I watched as a nearly invisible blob of purple light oozed away from Kong, first encircling him, then snaking across the ground and encompassing Winona and me. The world dimmed perceptibly around us as the working bled over us, creating a close-fitting second skin of violet, which moved as we moved. This had to be a veil, but it wasn’t like any I’d ever seen before.

Without a thought, I breathed out a wispy probe of spirit and air, a delicate working which would allow me to get a read on any constructs, veils, or barriers without setting them off. I could sense the power at work around us, but it wasn’t a formal construct.

When a mage makes a construct, it’s almost like constructing a machine. The working has a specific purpose, and is composed of the necessary pieces to make the thing work. Air, water, earth, fire—those are the primary elements, though there are others—basically, just a bunch of scrap metal, held together by the nuts and bolts of spirit and will. Then, once the mechanics are taken care of, the construct is guided and controlled by an operator: the mage. Easy-peasy, though, I’ll admit, that kinda takes the “magic” out of the whole thing, but there it is, nonetheless.

But what the chief was putting out was almost organic, vastly simple in some ways, yet simultaneously complex beyond my understanding. What he was doing almost seemed like real magic, at least to me. It also served as a subtle reminder that although these beasties couldn’t call up a firestorm or rip the earth asunder with their power, they shouldn’t be underestimated.

After a few long minutes of waiting I finally let the weaves for the probe vanish and focused instead on preparing some nasty, hard-hitting offensive workings, just in case things got ugly. Heck, knowing my life, things would get ugly, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Another fifteen minutes passed by molasses-slow, and I started to feel both irritated and antsy. The way Kong and Winona talked, you’d think the world was gonna spin out of orbit and careen into the sun in the next five minutes. But instead of doing something productive, here we were standing around with our metaphorical thumbs up our asses. Hurry up and wait, the story of my life.

After another fifteen minutes of twiddling my thumbs, I couldn’t take it anymore. Holding in the Vis was a deadly battle in its own right, and the longer I held my constructs in the wings, the more difficult the fight became. The weaves were already slick, wriggling and writhing in my mental grasp—not a good sign. Not to mention, my legs were also filling up with pins and needles as they quietly drifted to sleep. Surely there had to be some better use of our time.

“What the hell are we waiting for?” I finally hissed into Winona’s ear. “A friggin’ party invitation or what? Let’s get this show on the road, already.”

She stared at me, her thick lips pulling back into a snarl that told me Shut up better than words ever could. I scowled back at her, folded my arms across my chest, and clenched my fists into tight balls—two could play at this game of pissed-off chicken. And I would win, because I knew that between us, I was the ornerier by far. Hell, I could take home Olympic gold in the ornery-stare-down competition. After a minute of strained, awkward silence, she finally pressed her eyes shut and slumped forward, wilting in defeat.

Her brow furrowed in concentration and I felt something brush at my mind. The sensation was a little like walking face-first into a spider web. She was speaking to me telepathically, though nothing was getting through. Nothing intelligible, anyway.

I had some heavy-grade defenses in place to keep outsiders where they belonged: outside. But if I wanted answers, I was also pretty sure this was the only way I was gonna get ’em—she didn’t exactly seem like a regular Chatty Cathy, not now that we were so close to our destination. The last time I’d disengaged my mental barriers wholesale, my brain had been invaded by a friggin’ harpy and I’d had the pleasure of reliving the worst days of my life over again. Wasn’t gonna make that mistake again.

So instead of just dropping my mental wards like a sack full of hot potatoes, I carefully unraveled the individual Vis-conjured shields encircling my mind. You see, my brain is a little like an onion: stinky and often offensive, but, more relevantly, wrapped up with thin layer after thin layer of potent, eye-watering protection. I dismantled seven layers of defenses before I could hear Winona’s words inside my head—faint and oddly distorted, though clear enough for me to make out.

Your mind is well fortified, she said. There might’ve been a hint of approval in her words. Strong defenses speak to a strong mind. We will need such strength to overcome our enemy.

You can flatter me later, I thought back. Now tell me what in the hell we’re waiting around for. My legs are going numb hanging around here.

This is what your kind calls a stakeout. We must be patient. The humans will arrive any moment. They pick up a new shipment of chattel every third day. When they pull up with their vehicle, then we will move. Not before.

Human chattel? I asked, genuinely confused and more than a little alarmed.

Patience, she thought. It is best for you to see. Easier that way. Things were quiet for a moment, though her presence remained in my mind. Uncertain and lingering, almost expectant. Like there was something more she wanted from me.

Since we’ve got nothing better to do, can I ask you a personal question? I asked. She didn’t reply, but neither did she shoot my request down, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and wade right into the thick of things. What’s the real deal with Achak—I got this feelin’ that maybe you and your pops don’t exactly see eye to eye where he’s concerned.

There is no disagreement between me and my father, she replied. Achak is a traitor. And anything he was, anything once between us, is now gone.

Yeah, I sent, but what was he to you—before this all started, I mean. I’ve known you for all of two hours and even I can see it hurts you to talk about him. Every time his name comes up, you flinch away. A new silence settled over the conversation, one so long and heavy, I thought she’d somehow managed to close the mental link between us without me noticing.

Then: He was the favored son of our People, my father’s apprentice. We were betrothed, he and I. After our marriage, he was to succeed my father as Chief and bear the old trusts. Silence fell as profound as a dark, still night. Our people have been dying and fading, she sent abruptly. Only a handful of us are born every decade. Soon our people shall dwindle completely and be no more. A faint memory, you understand this? Achak had many plans. He believed we could become what we once were. Many of my People were fool enough to believe him. Including me …

This time, I keenly felt the presence of her mind withdraw from me, pulling back, leaving me empty and alone. Guess that meant our conversation was over. I quickly replaced my downed defenses while I waited to get further word. The whole time, her tale circled and spun around in my skull. I’d been there, too. Poor kid.

It was another twenty minutes, and the sun was sinking below the tree line, painting the sky red and gold, when I heard the rumble of an engine break through the tranquil mountain air. Without preamble, we were moving again, this time practically creeping through the foliage, drawing up on a small clearing, which housed a rundown motorhome and a dusty, old access road.

FOUR:

Wendigo

We loitered thirty feet from the clearing proper, watching in silence as a black panel van, coated in road dust, pulled in. The engine rumbled for a moment as the driver dropped it into park, then died as he killed the motor. Two men slid from the van and circled around until they stood in front of the motorhome, hands cautiously raised skyward.

The driver, a short dumpy guy with thinning hair, moved a little closer. “We’re unarmed,” he said, his high-pitched voice brimming with nervous energy. “We don’t want no trouble. We’re just here for the test subjects.”

For a long beat everything was silent and still, then there was a faint rustle as a pair of Sasquatch guards materialized, one flanking either side of the motorhome entryway. Their eyes were glassy and unfocused, and both were smaller than Kong, similar in size with Winona. Both were also far, far bigger than me. And woo boy, there was definitely something wrong with those hairy sons of bitches.

A faint aura of red, invisible to the naked eye, but visible to my Vis-enhanced sight, confirmed that someone had monkeyed around (pun certainly intended) with their heads. Some kind of heavy-duty compulsion for sure, though I wouldn’t be able to determine the extent of the damage without a closer look-see. A look-see I wasn’t likely to get, at least not without putting those two out cold.

No, nothing I could do about that just now.

So instead, I focused on the two human henchmen. I hauled out my cell phone and brought up the camera, hoping to catch a picture of the driver, his passenger, or a plate number for the panel van. I glanced down at the screen—not only was I too far away, but my phone had a “low light” warning displayed on the screen. That wasn’t gonna be any help. I slid the phone back into my coat pocket and fixed my attention on the scene unfolding before me, committing the details to memory for later.

One of the Bigfoot guards grunted, a harsh bark that filled the early evening air with menace. A moment later the motorhome door swung outward, revealing yet another hulking ape-man, who unceremoniously ushered out a trio of bound and gagged humans: two men and a woman.

All three wore several layers of dirty rags. They were filthy, and I mean grimy to the bone; the level of uncleanliness told me straight away all three were likely homeless. Either that or they’d been held captive for months and months without access to a proper washroom. Since all three also had open sores on their dirt-caked faces—a common symptom of meth use—I was gambling on the former.

They might’ve been homeless methheads, but that didn’t give anyone the right to tie ’em up, hold ’em against their will, and treat ’em like animals. Like slaves. Anger reared up inside me like some mean-ass mama bear watching someone mistreat her delinquent, wayward, druggie cubs. Let’s face it, I’m basically a dirt-caked hobo myself, so these were my people.

A part of me wanted to throw subtlety to the wind and pull a Moses instead: Walk right out into the open, demand these furry clowns let my people go, then bring on some Old Testament ass-smiting if they didn’t comply. Although God and I aren’t exactly on friendly terms, I’ll give Him this—sometimes, wrathful judgment and seventy-five-pound hailstones of doom really are the only way to get shit done.

Winona tensed up around me, her muscles going taut, her hair bristling against my skin, as though she could sense the fury radiating off me. Once more something thin and faint brushed against my mental barriers. I lowered my guard, letting her words trickle through, a faint whisper in my mind:

Patience. All will be made right. Wait for the Kinslayer.

Yeah, patience. Always patience. I pushed my growing indignation away, setting it onto the back burner of my soul where it could simmer on low heat. That way it’d be nice and hot when the time finally came to serve up a heaping plate of assault and battery. I’ve always heard revenge is best served cold, but I prefer it melt-your-face-off hot with some barbeque on the side.

The two human drivers moved forward—their motions slow, deliberate, and painfully non-threatening—taking possession of the three captives and hustling them into the panel van. The passenger, a short, bulky guy, also balding, but pretty ripped, loaded up into the back with the prisoners and pulled the sliding door shut behind him. Presumably to prepare the captives for transport, while also, quite wisely, getting his ass the hell out of Dodge.

Something about the passenger tickled at the back of my mind. I didn’t recognize him, but he seemed oddly familiar. It was in the way he stood and moved: back straight, a cocksure swagger in his step, one hand resting near his belt, as though preparing to draw a weapon.

I pushed the thought away, my attention snapping back to the Sasquatches. Even from thirty feet away, the tension in the air was palpable—the Chiye-tanka clearly weren’t all that hunky-dory with their human teammates.

The third Bigfoot guard crouched low and hunched in on himself, squeezing his bulky frame through the narrow doorway. Once clear of the motorhome, he stood up to his full height, his head clearing the roof by a good half a foot. “You have your test subjects, now leave,” he said, his voice a dull monotone.

The dumpy driver hesitated, running one hand across his pudgy face. “I, I …” He faltered and turned away, giving the van a once-over. After a moment he turned back toward the hairy guards, determination, or maybe fear, carved deeply into the lines of his face. The question was, what could make a guy like this more scared than facing down three borderline-hostile Bigfeet? “That’s to say,” he continued, “the Doc … well, he says we need more blood. His orders, not mine, you understand. I’m just doing my job is all.” He shrugged apologetically and twisted a golden wedding band hugging one fat finger.

A handful of trees behind the motorhome shivered and swayed as something pushed past ’em and strode into the clearing, its gait stately, sure, feral, and confident as a lion strutting his stuff across the rolling Serengeti. And when I say something, what I mean is, I had no figgin’ clue what in the hell I was looking at. Human? Oh no. Not even in the same ballpark. I mean, if human beings were tennis, then this guy was Australian rugby—assuming rugby players wore spiked pads and wielded chainsaws. He kinda sorta resembled the Bigfoot guards, but only because he was also giant and fuzzy.

The son of a bitch was easily as tall as Chief Kong McGrumpy-pants, but was clearly designed for a different purpose. Kong was all thick muscle and squat limbs, but this guy was a friggin’ beanpole: tall and gaunt, with the kind of ropy sinew you see on speed skaters or wolves too long without a fresh kill. I still bet he was plenty strong enough to rip me into a hundred bite-sized mage nuggets, especially since he sported a mean set of razor-tipped claws on the end of his long, slender fingers.

The strangeness didn’t end there, however. Whereas Kong, Winona, and the three other Chiye-tanka I’d seen thus far were some shade of black, brown, or red, this ugly S.O.B was albino white, his hair pale and ghostly with splotches of creamy skin showing through in spots. His head was all kinds of screwy too—skull elongated and lumpy, his muzzle more closely resembling a wolf’s than an ape’s, and his eyes … well, the goofy bastard didn’t actually have eyes. Just maggot pale flesh stretched tight over his eye sockets.

Creepy, and sorta familiar, but I was sure I’d never run across a baddie like this before. Guess this was just a night for deja vu.

Now—because my life isn’t bizarre enough—this freak show was also wearing a golden tiara. An honest to goodness tiara. The kind of dainty trinket you might expect to see on a Disney princess: all delicate, lacelike curves and studded with diamonds with a fat ol’ ruby right in the center. The tiara would’ve been as funny as a tuxedo-wearing-bear-riding-a-tricycle except the damn thing reeked to high heaven of Vis-wrought power.

“You get no more blood!” the thing said, his lips pulling back in a vicious snarl, revealing inch-long fangs instead of blunt teeth like the other Sasquatches had. “I am Achak, Chief of the People. I am Wendigo-tanka. I am no pet, no dog brought to heel before his master.” He stretched out his lanky arms, flexing his massive hands, the claws glinting red in the dying light of the day. If I were that unlucky shithead driver, I’d be hightailing it for the van, and then I’d be looking for a new pair of pants. But this dumpy guy stood his ground. I mean he was scared, sure—the tremble in his knees told me as much—but still he stood, like maybe he knew the creature was a pet on a leash, despite his protests. A rabid dog, not tame or safe, but muzzled.

“It’s, it’s not from me,” the driver stammered, averting his gaze. “The Doc’s orders. Says he needs more viable test material. We just don’t have enough—”

“And what care have I for the orders of man?” The Wendigo said the last word, man, as though it tasted foul in his mouth—telling, considering this asshat had murdered his family and eaten their corpses.

“I don’t want no trouble,” the driver said, “but you know the Doc is close with the Boss. And no one wants to piss off the Boss”—he paused—“not even you.” The last was a mere whisper, but if I could pick it up with my enhanced hearing, the Wendigo sure as shit could too.

The monstrous pale creature wheeled in a circle, arms held out like a fighter going into the ring. He lifted his snout to the darkening sky and let out a wail of challenge—one-third screech owl, one-third wolf howl, and one-third murder victim. A wave of goosebumps raced over my arms and legs.

The goosebumps weren’t just a product of the bloodcurdling scream, either. They were due, in part, to what the dumpy driver had said: “No one wants to piss off the Boss.” I had a sinking feeling in my gut that maybe this whole Wendigo shit-storm was part of something much bigger than I’d first thought.

What if this mess was directly related to the traitorous shitbird mage aiming to take over the world? I mean, here was a wannabe, an upstart—the Wendigo—who’d managed to get his hands on some kind of deadly Vis artifact, the tiara. That was an MO I’d seen recently. And I was in this neck of the woods to investigate the first good lead I’d found in months. The driver had even mentioned a doctor; I was looking for a doctor, too, a geneticist. What were the friggin’ odds? Since I was working as the mortal agent of Fate—literally, the Hand of Fate—I was guessing this wasn’t a coincidence.

Probably Lady Luck would pop her head in at some point, drop me a folder with the details for yet another suicide mission, and then wish me the best of luck, which, of course, she would laugh her ass off at—Lady loved her some bad puns.

Still, I couldn’t jump the gun just yet. Take it from me, assumptions can get you into a lot of unnecessary and painful trouble—in this case the pain of evisceration. Besides, I wasn’t ready to kick this baddie’s teeth in without knowing a little more first, and that meant I needed to figure out what kind of power his sparkly, diamond-encrusted headgear was packing. If the Chiye-tanka were acting as out of character as Kong and Winona suggested, then that trinket was probably the culprit.

I’ll take Evil Accessories for $1,000, Alex.

After a few more tense beats of posturing and chest pounding—both figuratively and literally—the Wendigo lowered his arms and skulked toward the human driver, a willful pit bull obeying at last. I’ll give the driver credit, he didn’t flinch or sprint away shrieking, which said there was probably more to him than strictly met the eye. The guy pushed one hand into his jacket pocket, dug around for a second, and brought out a pair of plastic test tubes, like the ones used to draw blood at just about any medical clinic.

The Wendigo plucked the tubes from the driver’s outstretched hand, his monstrous palm quickly swallowing the plastic containers like a Rottweiler downing a couple of hotdogs. With great care, the Wendigo extended a claw and slashed a thin line across his forearm—blood, green and viscous, oozed to the surface like mucky sewage. He pressed one of the tubes into the wound, capturing the fetid liquid as it seeped and bubbled.

It was now or never, best to act before I lost my nerve. I whipped up my invisible probe of spirit and air—the same one I’d used to examine the veil Kong had used to mask our approach—and extended it outward, watching it slither like a snake wriggling through tall grass. Hopefully, I’d be able to use a light touch, get a read on the Wendigo and his fancy head-bling without raising an alarm, and slip out undetected. A calculated risk, but nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that sage-wisdom-jazz.

The probe brushed up against the Wendigo without issue, splashing over his skeletal body like a fine mist. There was power at work in him, and it made me want to puke my guts out, then scrub my tongue with a belt sander. I could taste him—his aura held the tang of spoiled meat left out in the sun for a few days, then thoughtlessly thrown into a car trunk to rot for another week. There was something inside the Wendigo. The Bigfoot’s presence was obvious, but there was a second presence which had taken up residence. A demonic essence, attached to his soul.

A positive ID of the demonic culprit was impossible without a much more detailed examination, but my guess was a greater Guttur Belua. Slimy, nasty, gluttony spirits that worked for Beelzebul, one of the actual fallen angels of heaven and a chief prince of hell. Definitely not the kind of guy you want to bump into in a dark alley—heck, Beelzebul was the kinda thing even monsters didn’t want to bump into in a dark alley.

Really, what the Kinslayer had done wasn’t all that different from something I’d done to myself a long, long while ago, back when I was still a young mage. Like the Wendigo, I’d bound an elemental spirit, grafted it right into my soul—Cassius Aquinas, an Undine of Glimmer-Tir, who lived inside my head, attached to my subconscious mind. What the Wendigo had done was similar, only on a larger scale and fueled by some Grade-A evil power. Like a Nazi-drowning-a-bagful-of-puppies, evil.

I shifted my construct away from the Wendigo, homing in on the tiara perched so primly atop his misshapen head. Which is when everything went to shit.

A crow, jet-black and the size of a large rooster, uttered a terrible shriek, which brought every head up and caused my probe to falter, just a hair. Instead of slipping in undetected and stealing a glance like a pro, my probe smashed up against the tiara’s wards—the equivalent of shattering someone’s windshield while they’re sitting in the driver’s seat. Needless to say, the Wendigo’s eyeless face swiveled right toward us, locking onto our exact position. Pretty much the worst-case scenario.

The beastly thing howled, the sound accompanied by a blinding flare of light from the crown—blood-red like the stone at the circlet’s center. The combination was disorienting and left me dizzy and blinking splotches of white light from my eyes. It was actually a good thing Winona was holding me, or I probably would’ve fallen right onto my ass. It took a few seconds for my eyes to clear, but when they did, I realized we’d stepped right into a metaphorical heap of shit. The purple veil, which had been covering us seconds before, was completely and absolutely gone, and all of the evil, villainous types were staring right at us.

FIVE:

The Best Made Plans

Everything happened all at once, chaos everywhere, like a bomb blast ripping into the night with heat, energy, and hectic motion. Kong closed the distance on the malformed Wendigo, one giant fist whipping through the air like a jet-powered rocket. The albino badass took the blow on his chin and staggered back a step or two, unprepared for the abrupt onslaught.

I only had a moment to watch the action, though, because Winona dropped me to the forest floor and rushed past me to intercept the formidable trio of Sasquatch guards. I landed rather badly on the ground—by which I mean with the grace of a brain-damaged squirrel—fumbling my gun in the process.

I searched the ground, but it was slow going—and it didn’t help one bit that I couldn’t take my eyes off Winona. Let me just say up-front, for being a bona fide peacenik, Winona was one mean brawler. She danced among the guards, skillfully positioning her body to keep her attackers from surrounding her even as she smashed her balled fists into ribs and necks and faces. She also fought as dirty as a prison inmate backed into a corner: groin shots, biting exposed limbs, scooping up branches and brush to fling in the eyes of her opponents. My kinda lady … well, except for the giant, hairy, socially awkward part.

The guards took their beatings in stride, handling the devastating attacks like drug addicts immune to pain, brushing off blows that would’ve put me in a pine box. She was good, but not good enough to hold off all three of those brainwashed guards indefinitely. She needed help, and one glance toward Kong told me he had his hands full to the max with the Wendigo, who had recovered from his initial surprise and was currently going to town on Kong like a hungry monkey in a banana factory. Shit was outta control, but I figured if anyone could handle the pasty freak, it was Kong.

My hand finally brushed against the cool steel of the pistol barrel. I snatched the piece up in a hurry, slid it into its leather holster, and scrambled to my feet. I couldn’t very well shoot the Chiye-tanka guards—poor bastards were victims, too—and I needed to take the human driver alive if I could swing it.

And speaking of the dumpy human driver, he pivoted toward me, his eyes growing wide with shock as he realized his clandestine shindig wasn’t quite so clandestine after all. His hand darted beneath his coat lapel, drawing out a compact SIG-Sauer P229, which he leveled at me before squeezing off a rapid-fire burst of shots. Apparently, he wasn’t worried about taking me alive.

I threw out my left hand, palm forward, gathering in my will and sending up a shimmering mist of reddish light made of compressed air and wispy strands of radiant heat intertwined with my spirit. A quick and dirty friction shield, my go to against bullets and other life-threatening projectiles. Most of the rounds didn’t come close to touching me, instead burrowing into a nearby tree with the crack of splintering wood. The last two shots careened harmlessly into my shield, the lead rounds emitting a short-lived blaze of light before disintegrating into a fine spray of slow-moving and harmless powder.

The driver gave the misty reddish shield a once-over, his eyes growing even wider in panic—buggy-eyed assface looked like he was gonna have an aneurysm—before turning away and sprinting for the van. Smart move. Guy knew when he was out of his depth, and this situation was the equivalent of treading water while a school of red-bellied piranhas closed in, the metallic scent of blood driving ’em into a feeding frenzy.

Sadly for him, my Vis workings move a helluva lot faster than a short, overweight, middle-aged white guy running through the woods. I pushed my right hand forward: a concentrated spear of silver force swept across the ground, kicking up leaves and debris in its wake, before slamming into the driver. The force swept him from his feet, pitching him into a gnarled tree on the opposite side of the clearing. His head bounced off scaly wood with a sickening thwack, his limbs going limp in an instant. Hopefully the bonk to the head would put him out long enough for me to deal with the Sasquatch-death-brigade tangling with Winona.

Winona was still holding her own, but the guards were starting to play it smart: one was engaging her head-on as the other two circled in from opposite directions. Only a matter of time before one of those brain-dead shitheels managed to get behind her, and then it would be game, set, match. The one circling right was closest to me, so he was the one I set my sights on. I hurled out another blast of silver force, this one as broad as a small Volkswagen, which slammed into the belly of the approaching mass of muscle and hair, doubling the creature over as he wheezed and fought for air.

A wallop like that should’ve put him down like it had the human driver, but apparently these fellas were made of sterner stuff. Before he could recover and mount a proper offense, I unleashed one last bolt of energy, this one packing enough raw force to flip a friggin’ car. The construct connected with the underside of the Chiye-tanka’s fuzzy chinny-chin-chin, and the sucker went ass over teakettle, head smashing up against the forest floor over and over as he tumbled along the ground like a giant bowling ball. After three or four revolutions, the Bigfoot broadsided the panel van, rocking the vehicle up onto two wheels, threatening to overturn it. The van tottered for a moment like that, deciding whether to fall or settle. After a tense moment, something shifted inside, forcing the precariously balanced vehicle down. It bounced on squeaky shocks as it came to a rest.

With my path temporarily clear, I sprinted toward the van. I wasn’t about to let those prisoners get carted away to only God-knows-where, to have only God-knows-what done to ’em. I was their only shot—call me nuts, but I kinda got the vibe that Kong and Winona weren’t too terribly concerned with a few human vagrants … well, maybe Winona would give a shit. Kong, though, would probably just scowl in disapproval while he crossed his tree-trunk arms. Not to mention, the two Sasquatches were still rather busy.

Winona had things more or less in hand, now that it was only two on one. Her primary opponent was starting to lose a step or two, his guard dropping, his shuffling footfalls erratic, clumsy, undisciplined—he was brawling like a boxer on the ropes who knew there wasn’t much juice left in him.

And Kong was still getting the beat down of the century—like watching a bout between Mike Tyson and some kid’s pet bunny. Hell, the Wendigo might as well have gift wrapped Kong’s ass and given it to him in one of those fancy holiday baskets. Just embarrassing.

A variety of cuts decorated Kong’s body like campaign medals, matting down his hair in places and making it spike up in others. His left arm was bleeding massively and hung limply by his side. His right leg, likewise, seemed about ready to apply for a handicap permit.

And the Wendigo? That asshole was doing just peachy—shrugging the tussle off like it was some warm-up stretching before the real workout began. Well, at least now I knew what the Wendigo-tanka was: an offer-no-quarter badass who could probably give a bazooka-wielding Mr. T a run for his money.

The van engine rumbled to life, capturing my attention. The dumpy driver was still down, sprawled up against a tree with his chin resting on his chest, which meant his partner in crime must’ve decided it was high time to haul ass, regardless of whether his partner was on board or not.

Shit, shit, shit.

Help Kong or stop the van? Shit!

I deliberated only for an instant before staying the course and heading for the van. Kong was tough, he’d survive another thirty seconds. Probably. Maybe.

But if I didn’t stop that van, there was a damn good chance those three schlubs chained up in the back were dead souls walking.

Ten feet out, I pulled my pistol, planted my feet, assumed a hasty shooter’s stance, and raised the hand cannon. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, I reminded myself as I inhaled deliberately. The gun barrel came to a steady, natural rest on the exhale. I pressed the trigger as the van pulled away in reverse. There was a soft bark from my revolver, and a breath later one of the van’s front tires damn near exploded in a shower of black rubber.

The van kept moving, creeping back, riding the rim like the driver didn’t have two shiny-shits to give about further damaging the vehicle. I pivoted—slow is smooth, smooth is fast—and aimed in on the rear wheel. We’d just see how far that asshole could get on two blowouts—

A spattering of forest debris blasted me in the face as I pulled the trigger. Leaves, twigs, and dirt hit me in the teeth and scratched at my eyes, and I jerked away on instinct. I tugged at the trigger and the gun barrel veered from true, sending the second shot far off course, burrowing its way harmlessly into the forest undergrowth. I threw out my left hand in frustration, and a bright lance of flame sliced through the gathering darkness like a torch, shearing off the front bumper of the retreating van.

The attack was a knee-jerk reaction—a damn stupid move considering where we were and the serious hazard of throwing around flame here—so I let the beam sputter and vanish before it could do any serious damage.

The van pulled away, limping off, simultaneously triumphant and defeated—it seemed to mock me, to cry out, I will live to fight another day, asshole, hahaha, as it puttered away.

I didn’t watch the retreating vehicle long; I couldn’t afford the luxury.

Rather, I rolled out left, ready to defend against whatever had launched all that debris into my face in the first place.

Off to my right, Winona was duking it out with the third guard and doing a damn fine job of holding the creature at bay. But even a quick glance told me her tank was almost on E; still, though, she fought, employing a conservative defensive strategy: letting her opponent swing wildly while she ducked, dodged, or took the blows on her bulky shoulders and arms. Eventually the guard would tire himself out, and Winona could strike when she was sure she could land a solid, knock-out strike. Good for her.

Kong was on the ground, hands clutched to his head, his breath jagged and labored. The Wendigo was heading right for me, his eyeless gaze like a viper’s tracking a juicy field mouse. He didn’t seem to be in a terrible hurry now that the van had managed to hightail it outta here. No, he was moving toward me at what seemed a leisurely pace, a broad smile splitting his face … well, it was either a smile or a snarl, it’s hard to tell on a guy that ugly.

I hefted my pistol again, took a quick pause to line up a shot, and blasted the remaining four rounds downrange. But instead of trying for a tight grouping, this time I purposely moved the gun in an arc, starting left and sweeping right, spreading the bullets around a bit.

If this guy was half as fast as Kong—which seemed likely considering how he’d just used the chief as a floor mop—then he wouldn’t have much trouble dodging a tight group. There was a distorted smear of white, the Wendigo dodging my rounds, and the whole while he had that stupid grin on his face. A grin like that was a real Screw you. It said, I’m better than you and we both know it, puny, hairless clown. Now I will eat you and make tea cosies from your skin.

Three rounds whizzed by him, chewing through more tree cover, but the fourth round smacked right into his guts with a wet thud, which threw up a spray of sludgy, green blood. The Wendigo faltered, his lips pressing together as one lanky hand reached toward his abdomen, curiously examining the jagged edges of the wound as if he wasn’t quite sure what had happened.

He didn’t seem particularly bothered by this new development, which didn’t bode well for me. Not a bit. After a second, his hand dropped away, and his smile resumed—and this time I was pretty damn sure it was a smile—followed by another burst of crimson light from his sparkly tiara.

I didn’t waste a moment—in the mage business, bright flashes of unexplained light mean trouble. I holstered my weapon and brought both hands up, pulling deeply from my reservoir of power, channeling a nasty construct of air, water, and heat—lots of heat. The energy built inside of me, muscles tightening, pressure mounting in my skull, pressing in behind my eyeballs like a terrible sinus infection. When I could hold it in no longer, I dropped the barrier containing the construct. An orange geyser of Vis erupted like a giant fire extinguisher.

Except this bad boy wasn’t meant to put out flame. No, it was a jet of superhot, high-powered steam fashioned to boil the meat right off someone’s bones. A nasty, bloody construct I rarely used because the results were more brutal than watching a high-speed motorcycle wreck. But if there was ever a guy who needed his skin melted off, it was the Wendigo. Shit, no skin would probably be an overall improvement in the looks department.

Boy did I feel like the smallest fry in the carton when my gout of skin-melting steam slammed into an invisible dome and simply funneled around the Wendigo—wilting leaves, cooking pine needles, sloughing bark off nearby trees. For a long beat I couldn’t see a thing—the orange construct obscured my view completely—but then the construct dissipated. The Wendigo was left standing unharmed, like completely unharmed: even the bullet wound in his abdomen had sealed up good and tight, leaving only a small pink scar of puckered flesh in its place—and even that was fading to white.

Holy shit, but that shiny tiara packed one helluva punch. Not just freaky-deaky compulsion power, either, but Vis shielding constructs and heavy-duty healing capabilities. If that wasn’t a real shitpickle, I didn’t know what was. The Wendigo casually strutted forward, doing his damnedest to make me piss my trousers, and let me just say he was not too far off from getting the job done.

“Hey there, princess,” I said, putting all the confidence and swagger I could muster into my words. “I’m feeling generous today, so how about I give you a pass? Just grab up your lackeys, agree to quit your evil shenanigans, and get the hell outta here. In exchange, I won’t murder you, take your body to a taxidermist, and have your head mounted in my El Camino. You know, kind of a warning to all future generations about why it’s never a good idea to mess around with a pissed off mage. Sound like a deal, Cupcake?”

“Your words are empty,” he spat. “We will rise up and claim our place.” He snarled, lips pulling back in a rictus as a growl built deep down in his throat, the sound like rolling thunder in the night. He crouched, hands brushing the ground, back arching, long legs tensing. Before I could blink, the hairy bastard was in front of me, one gangly arm swinging through the air, wicked claws aimed right at my throat.

I stumbled back, moving at friggin’ sloth-speed, desperate to get the hell away from this freak show, while simultaneously calling up another construct: a shimmering blue dome, strands of air woven together with faint traces of earth and bound in a column of will, meant to stop incoming objects outright. The shield formed as quick as the thought—the Wendigo’s claws skidded across the defensive barrier with a blaze of red light.

Whatever power that tiara possessed pushed back on my shield, a rippling wave of force pounding into my chest, scooping me up off my feet and tossing me back a good four or five feet. I coughed and sputtered, clutching at my belly. Holy shit, felt like getting slammed in the stomach with a mallet. Hey, at least my shield managed to stop the Wendigo’s claws from tearing my throat out and splashing my blood all over the ground like bad abstract art. Small victories.

I reinforced the shield, pumping in ever more energy, solidifying it into a nearly impenetrable wall, before pushing my Vis-imbued senses out into the world, searching for something, anything, I could use as a weapon.

There was a ginormous boulder, speckled with green moss, peeking up from the ground not far away. Thing had to weigh a good half ton.

Yeah, that’d work. I wove bands of earthen power and will down into the ground, dislodging the rock from its ancient resting place. It was slow going—the damn thing practically seemed rooted in place. Sweat broke out on my brow, dripping into my eyes as I wriggled and worked the boulder free. The Vis was becoming slick and wily, difficult to bend and manipulate. I was pushing things to the limit—I’d already done some substantially heavy lifting—and my body was losing the focus I needed to safely handle my power.

The Wendigo approached more slowly this time, circling cautiously as he moved, hands lashing out and brushing up against my shield in curious examination.

The rock was almost free, but I needed a little more time and a good distraction for my plan to succeed. The Wendigo shifted his weight, sliding in between a pair of towering fir trees, their trunks mostly bare of branches or needles. He was preparing to attack, to throw his weight against the shield and smash my will into pieces, like a ship crashing against the rocky shoreline. I could read it in the lines of his body, in the way he hunched his shoulders and dropped his snout. In the way his hands brushed at the ground.

Inspiration hit me in the face like a sucker punch: I couldn’t use fire here, but with a little deft maneuvering I could turn this whole forest into an armory. I’d had a remarkably good hand here, if only I’d been playing things right. I’m so used to just bashing the crap out of any opposition that I rarely take the time to focus on my surroundings. But now that I saw it, I realized I could give this shitbag a run for his money. Work smarter, not harder, right?

First, I pulled the same cheap trick the Wendigo had used on me. Left hand outstretched, I channeled another wave of silver force, but instead of aiming for my Vis-protected enemy, I aimed at the forest floor, kicking up dirt, pebbles, and pine needles into a mini dust devil of inconvenience. Sure, once my construct washed up against the Wendigo’s shield, it fizzled and died, but all the shit it’d been carrying kept right on going, a brown cloud swirling around that pale bastard.

Okay, so I couldn’t directly hit or effect the Wendigo with any Vis workings, but his shield wouldn’t stop natural things from passing through.

I could work with that, too. And thankfully, the dust cloud—though little more than a nuisance—bought me the time I needed to unleash my next pair of attacks. As the dirt swirled and battered against the Wendigo’s pale skin and fur, I wove another construct, this one a liquid beam of purple with three slithering prongs. This was a tricky bit of work—a pairing of water and radiant heat, married by a dump truck of willpower to make the opposing forces play nice together.

I lifted my hands into the air, manipulating the prongs like a puppeteer, forcing two of the three strands into the trees to either side of the Wendigo while roughly shoving the third into the ground near the Wendigo’s clawed feet. The previously solid forest dirt turned into a stew of muck and mud, a quagmire drawing the hefty Wendigo downward, knee-deep into the earth as he struggled fitfully to free himself. All the speed in the world wouldn’t do him much good if he couldn’t move.

As the Wendigo fought, my two other beams seeped into the trees, the water and heat absorbing into the bark and sap. I ripped the heat away in a frantic, sudden jerk, directing that energy into the ground, dispersing it into the stony soil below. The rapid heating and cooling flash-froze the water and sap in the trees, causing it to expand and explode outward with an accompanying gun crack of noise, propelling shards of bark and wooden shrapnel through the air like a pair of claymore mines.

Jagged pieces of tree bounced into my shield with hurricane strength before toppling to the ground. A damn good thing I had the blue dome in place as a safeguard. The asshole Wendigo didn’t have any such protection. The wood tore into his flesh, carving away chunks of skin and ripping hair off in great swaths. He howled and clawed at the ground, crazy with rage and eager to free himself so he could turn me into an afternoon snack. Eventually, his claws found purchase in solid ground, and his arms flexed and strained as he began to winch himself free, despite my best efforts.

I put an end to that shit a heartbeat later when I whipped the half-ton boulder through the evening sky, smashing it into his arms and torso with a sickening squish, which might’ve been mud or which might’ve been a body exploding. I was praying for the latter.

The Wendigo’s howl died away in defeat, which was pretty convenient for me, since the shield protecting me faltered and died at the same time. The Vis slipped through my fingers, unruly and fighting against me, no longer bound by my intent. With one last effort of will, I pushed the power away and shut myself off from the well of energy before the Vis could burn me up from the inside out.

My legs gave out beneath me and I crumpled to the ground. I lay in the dirt, staring up at the darkness overhead, watching stars twinkle as my chest rose and fell. Not to brag or anything, but they don’t call me the Fixer for nothing. Assuming that hairy creepball survived, this little lesson would teach him why it doesn’t pay to take advantage of the homeless: we stick together and will bury you in mud before crushing you with a giant rock.

I lay there for another minute, just breathing, trying not to move, when a faint whisper of movement drifted to my ears. Probably Kong or Winona.

I pushed up onto my elbows. Shit was I tired. My mouth fell open as the boulder I’d tossed onto the Wendigo rose into the air and sailed through the night, crash landing deep in the tangles of greenery. The Wendigo hauled himself from the ground, a zombie newly back from the grave. From the moonlight shining overhead, I could tell he was covered in mud and blood, but I could also tell his wounds had all knit together, closing up nice and tight, leaving him good as new.

Well, shit. I had about ten seconds before he was on me, I could barely move, and I couldn’t use the Vis to save my life. In this case literally. Great.

SIX:

Apeshit Crazy

“Now let’s be reasonable about this, Princess,” I said, scrambling back, unable to gain my feet. “You gotta know that if you punch my ticket, the Guild will come for you—they’ll bring the fire. I’m talkin’ scorched earth, Hairball. They’ll drop the Vis equivalent of a nuke on your nasty ass. Turn this whole forest into a parking lot if they have to—you and all your buddies will be dead.” Lies, lies, lies. Shit, the council might throw a party for this clown, maybe award him a medal. Hopefully he didn’t know that.

My shoulder blades brushed up against the rough bark of a tree—I scooted back a little more and used the trunk to prop myself upright, then I dug my iron out of its holster. It was empty, and he probably did know that, but at best, it would cause him to hesitate, and at worst, I could use it as a club when he started mauling me.

He slowed and stopped short, eyeless gaze locked on me. Weighing me, measuring me, trying to decide whether or not I needed killing. Deciding whether or not I was bluffing through my teeth—a terribly stupid idea on his part. If I’d been in his shoes, I would’ve smashed me flat like a cockroach under the heel of my boot the second I had an opportunity. No thought, no consideration, just smash, smash, smash. Dead. But not this guy. No, he craned his neck forward, inhaling deeply, his pink nose flaring in and out as he breathed. Finally, he nodded his head as though he knew my scent, or maybe was acknowledging some unheard set of instructions.

He turned away from me.

Something flew through the air like a circus-grizzly launched from an oversized cannon: a flash of reddish hair, thick muscle, and blunt teeth. Winona, pulling my bacon out of the fire. She smacked into the Kinslayer’s ribs with the force of an actual cannonball. The Wendigo lurched and swayed as Winona slid beneath one of his gaunt arms and shimmed up onto his back, one of her arms snaking around his throat in a modified sleeper hold.

Though, truth be told, the way her muscles strained made me think she was actually trying to pop his head right off his neck instead of merely trying to incapacitate him. The Wendigo moved again, this time scary-fast, digging claws into her forearm—blood welled up and spilled into her hair from the puncture wounds. He pried her arm away with a jerk and whirled simultaneously, grabbing her by the neck with his free hand and hefting her into the air, where she dangled helplessly.

She beat at his arm and chest, clawed at his face. He seemed utterly unconcerned. A smile spread over his twisted features as his fingers squeezed ever tighter. Winona’s eyes bulged while she gasped for air and, a few beats later, her arms ceased their manic thrashing, suddenly slack and unmoving.

For whatever reason, this freak show had given me a free pass, but it didn’t appear Winona would be afforded the same chance. I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a speedloader—a circular metal plate with six rounds preloaded in position. I flipped out my revolver’s cylinder, slammed down on the ejector rod—letting the spent brass rain down—slid home the fresh rounds, then pushed the cylinder shut, locking it in place with my thumb.

I leveled my pistol, which was a damn bit harder than it should’ve been, and aimed for the Wendigo’s upraised arm. I calmed my breathing—Winona didn’t have long, but a shitty shot could just as easily kill her, so a few extra seconds of concentration was worth the cost. I lined up the pistol barrel, sighting in along the top, then pulled the trigger once. There was a nearly inaudible click, followed by a flare of light and a pop like a firecracker exploding. Winona plunged to the ground, suddenly free from the death grip.

The round had taken the Wendigo just below the bicep, and now the son of a bitch’s arm swung lazily back and forth, dangling in place by a thin tether of gritty sinew.

I swiveled my pistol inward by a couple of inches, preparing to pump a few more rounds into his chest and guts—maybe I could even manage a head shot. The dickbasket probably wouldn’t be able to heal that. I was lining up the second shot when Kong appeared in my peripheries, a few feet out from the Wendigo, crowding into my field of fire.

Except Kong didn’t really look a whole helluva lot like Kong, not anymore. The basic features were kinda, sorta the same, but this new, upgraded version of Kong was easily three feet bigger—had to be nearly twelve feet tall—and he’d put on a couple hundred pounds, easy. Not to mention his hair had turned the color of a nosebleed, his eyes were glowing cigarette-cherry-red, and he’d sprouted thick spikes of gleaming black bone all along the outside of his hands, arms, and shoulders. Guy looked like he’d just come off the set of Mad Max … just imagine the role of Immortan Joe as played by Bigfoot.

Super-Kong the Terrible lashed out with a massive kung fu chop, but the Wendigo moved like a greased-up pig on a skateboard, throwing his one good arm up into a defensive block. Fast as the Wendigo was, however, Kong was faster and a helluva lot stronger. Kong’s blow crashed into the Wendigo’s arm, breaking that puppy down shotgun style with contemptuous ease. There was a flurry of strikes as Kong laid a savage beat down on the pale usurper—

I caught a glimpse of Winona’s face as she wheezed and massaged at her throat. Her eyes were wide with terror, and the terror wasn’t caused by the pale-faced Wendigo taking the ass-whooping of all ass-whoopings. It was caused by the red, beastly thing her father had become. Her eyes glinted with a spark of fearful recognition.

After a solid thirty seconds of pure savagery, the Wendigo broke contact, stealing back a few paces, one bent and broken arm clutched to his chest, the other twisting at his side. Green-black blood marred nearly every inch of his flesh and hide; looked like he’d just gone fifteen rounds with a friggin’ wood chipper.

Super-Kong threw his head back and roared, the sound shaking leaves from the trees, as he beat on his chest in the most apely display of badassery I’d ever seen. The Wendigo obviously agreed with me, since he didn’t hesitate for more than a short eyeblink—he became a ghostly blur, turning and loping away at full speed.

The Wendigo sprinted toward the trailer, paused just long enough to drag his claws across the throat of the dumpy driver I’d knocked out cold, then disappeared into the night, invisible the moment he passed into the tree line.

Super Kong regarded Winona and I for a long, uneasy beat, his glowing-red gaze shifting back and forth between us, as if he was trying to remember us but couldn’t. Not quite. Finally he lifted his face to the sky, issued another tree-shaking bellow, then pivoted and bound off into the dark, following the same path the Wendigo had taken.

Winona wasted even less time than the Wendigo had. She pushed herself to her feet and hustled toward me, her lanky legs covering the distance in no time at all. She regarded me solemnly, her shoulders knotted with tension, her face screwed up in a grimace of pain and fear. “Can you walk?” she asked without preamble.

I nodded and held out a hand so she could help me to my feet. She hauled me upright and carefully held me by the arm as I tested my balance. A little shaky on my legs, but I could move.

“We need to leave. Now,” she said, completely glossing over the whole my-father-transformed-into-a-raging-doom-beast thing.

“Hold the phone. How’s about you tell me what in the nine-hells that red-doom-beast was? Or maybe you’d care to tell me where you learned to fight like that? I thought you Bigfoot folk were people of peace and all that jazz.”

“The Chiye-tanka are people of peace. We hold no ill will toward any and seek the harm of none. This does not mean we do not stand ready for war. But we have no time for this—we must go.”

“When we get outta here,” I said, offering her a level stare, “you’re gonna start talking, you understand?”

She shifted back and forth on her bulky legs, shoulders swaying as she moved. “Very well. But later. The guards …” She swept a hand toward the trailer and the dispatched Chiye-tanka littering the forest floor.

“Yeah. I know we gotta split before these assholes wake back up, but we need a few things first.” I pointed toward the bumper I’d sheared off the panel van. “You pry off that license plate—I’m gonna check the corpse and the motorhome.”

She regarded me as if I were a madman spouting gibberish. “But the guards,” she said again, as though that should obviously convince me of the need to leave.

“Stop wasting time,” I snapped, stepping toward the corpse. I halted and looked back over my shoulder. “You asked for my help—I need leads. That license plate is a lead, and so is that corpse. Now do what I say.”

I stomped over to the corpse, not bothering to see if Winona complied.

The Wendigo had done a number on the driver, even in passing. A quartet of thick slashes zagged across his neck, deep enough to nearly decapitate him. The wounds were red and angry and ugly. Maybe this guy deserved the death sentence—I didn’t know for sure—but even I wouldn’t have wished that on him. But, there never really is a good way to die, I guess, and at least this had been quick.

I faltered for a second, averting my gaze. This has to be done, I reminded myself. I took a deep breath and held it tight so I wouldn’t have to smell the coppery blood or the scent of voided bowels, then bent over and rummaged through his pockets. The guy had a well-worn wallet with some cash and an ID, one of those magnetic keycards for a hotel, and a cheap black throwaway cell phone. The prepaid kind you can snag at any Walmart. I hastily pocketed the items and moved away from the corpse, letting out my pent-up breath, taking a sweet drag of fresh mountain air.

I headed over to the motorhome, yanked open the shitty screen door, and pushed my way inside. I immediately regretted not holding my breath for this leg of the search, too. The interior was neat enough, but man did it reek: the sour-sweet stink of unwashed bodies, the potent scent of septic waste, and the musky, wet-dog smell you sometimes catch at the zoo. Only here the odor was confined, condensed, and magnified by the tight space. It was enough to make me gag, though I kept the contents of my stomach on the inside where they belonged.

All the way in the back was a sprawling pallet composed of a few blankets, a bearskin pelt—just like I’d seen back in the cave with Kong and Winona—and a handful of piney boughs laid out across the top. Probably where the Bigfoot guards slept. There was a small, relatively clean kitchenette and a miniscule faux-wood desk with an office chair. The carpeting had been torn out, and a variety of steel rings, attached to thick chains with hand and foot restraints, had been set into the floor. Seeing those chains told me that the three human captives I’d seen tonight weren’t the first—this set up was for an ongoing and fairly sophisticated operation.

First, I went up front to the driver’s seat and scoured the glove box, searching for a vehicle registration or insurance. There was a pistol—a loaded Saturday-night special with an open box of bullets—but no paperwork. I slammed the glove box shut and moved back to the desk, pulling open the drawers.

A few pencils and pens, another disposable cell phone—an identical make and model to the one I’d pulled off the corpse—a couple of blank yellow legal pads, and a file folder with a few spreadsheet printouts. I flipped through the papers, just a quick, cursory scan. The pages were chock-full of numbers and dates, but there were no explanatory notes anywhere to be seen. Still, it looked promising. I’d scrutinize it more thoroughly when I had more time on my hands.

Folder in hand, I strode out of the motorhome to find Winona waiting at the entrance, her eyes scanning the night, constantly making a circuit of the three guards incapacitated on the ground.

“Do you have your leads?” she asked, voice low, unpleased.

“Yeah,” I said. Before I could say anything else, she scooped me up in her arms—this time no asking and no warning—and bolted from the scene, back to the direction we’d come from.

SEVEN:

Calling in the Cavalry

I was back in the Bigfoot cave and bored out of my skull as I watched Winona meditate. She sat cross-legged on a bearskin pelt, her face blank and tranquil, her eyes closed, her breathing deep and steady like the ebb and flow of an ocean tide. She wasn’t asleep, even though she sorta looked like it, even sitting up. She was scanning for any sign of her raging monster-machine father, Kong. She’d been at it for close to an hour now, with only a few brief pauses to tell me she’d found nothing. Since she was occupied and, thus, completely unhelpful, I resigned myself to coming up with something that remotely resembled a game plan.

This whole thing was a friggin’ mess, and figuring out how to clean it up was like trying to figure out how to pick up a turd: no matter which end you grabbed, you still ended up with shit on your hands. And since I was stuck in a friggin’ cave with absolutely zero cell reception, there was only one thing I could think to do.

I snagged an earthen bowl as big as a large cook pot and took it over to an uneven rock ledge protruding from one of the walls. I placed the bowl at the base of the natural bench and filled that puppy up with ice-cold water from one of the massive jugs which passed as a Bigfoot mug. I wrestled my feet free from my boots and socks—the cool cave air felt damn good on my bare skin, though the stone floor was so cold it almost seemed hot. I quickly hopped onto the low rock shelf and, without giving myself time to think, plunged my toesy-woseies right into the pot of frigid liquid.

The water was so ice-cold, my breath hitched in my chest, but I ignored the sensation and leaned up against the cave wall, closing my eyes even as I opened myself to a minute flow of Vis—my batteries were running on low, but this, at least, I could handle. Slowly I let go of my fear and anxiety, clearing my mind, feeding all those unhelpful thoughts and emotions into the fires of the Vis as I released a weave of water and will, boring deeper inside myself as I sought to connect with my inner man.

And by “inner man,” I mean Cassius Aquinas, the shit-talking water-elemental who lived inside my head, permanently bound to my subconscious mind by the Vis.

A picture took form in the emptiness, though this place was a helluva lot more real than any mere picture. This was the place Cassius called home, and when I was visiting, it was as real as any physical location on Earth. Plush carpet, dark wood wall paneling, and mahogany furniture—all old, finely made, and smelling of lemon oil and leather. A padded leather chaise sat against one wall, while a hulking desk sat against another. An antique globe, which also served as a flip open liquor cabinet, rested between a pair of burnt-leather club chairs. On the wall in front of the paired chairs hung a ginormous wall-mounted flat screen, which I used to review memories when the need arose.

Cassius was already lounging in one of the club chairs when I arrived, a glass of scotch held in one turquoise-tinged hand. Ignoring the blue skin, he looked just like me: an average guy of maybe forty, with short dark hair and an unremarkable height and build. He was dressed a helluva lot better than me, though. I was sporting a pair of travel-worn jeans, a black T-shirt, and my standard black leather jacket, which helped me stay below the radar by maintaining a subtle glamour, while also doubling as covert, modern-day body armor. By contrast, he was wearing a pair of dark silk pajama bottoms and a plush navy blue bathrobe. Smug douchehole.

“Don’t you look comfy?” I headed over to the empty chair and plopped down. A second later another glass of scotch appeared in his hand. He held it out as an offering. One which I gladly accepted. Since this place was only imaginary, he always had the absolute best alcohol—never had to skimp, because everything was always on hand and always free.

“I figure with all the shit you’re dragging us into,” he said, “there probably isn’t much time left for me on this mortal coil.” He pressed the back of one hand to his forehead, a mock display of concern. “So I might as well live it up now while I can.” He smirked, raised his glass in salute, and took a quick pull.

“Don’t be a drama queen,” I said, then took a long sip of my own. The scotch went down smooth and landed in my gut with a soft explosion of warmth which spread all the way up to my throat and out through my limbs. “This isn’t that bad. That shit with the Lich was worse than this. Arrested. Poisoned. Powerless. Way worse.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.” His lips compressed into a tight line. “Did you see that sparkly tiara? Thing was packing heat, my friend. I have a bad feeling about this one. Like this is the tip of an iceberg and everything’s all downhill from here.”

I nodded my agreement, then took another drink. “So where do we start?” I asked.

He hooked a leg over an armrest and bobbed his foot for a moment. “I’d say we start by finding the Camino, driving our happy ass down to someplace with a warmer climate, and then hitting a few bars. Bars far, far away from Montana, the Hub, or anything that has even a whiff of the supernatural.”

“This shit’s connected to everything else, Cassius, I’m sure of it. You remember future Seattle, right? If we don’t get ahead of this thing now, that’s what we have to look forward to.”

He rolled his eyes and sat up, hunching forward so his elbows rested on his knees. “God, you’re such a goody-goody,” he mumbled, then fell quiet. “Alright, alright. Look, if we explore the tiara angle, that’s going to be the more dangerous option. At the least, it’ll mean a trip into the Hub. We’ll probably have to pick a fight, or several fights, with some nasty, mean-spirited dickheads to get any answers.”

“Yeah,” I interjected, “but I bet it’s the quickest route to the bottom of this pile of crap. And hunting down leads on the tiara could pay big dividends. If we can get a bead on that shiny piece of head candy, we can figure out how to stop the Wendigo—assuming we can stop him—and it might also give us a link to the corrupt asshat in the Guild. I bet if we run a check with James, we’ll find the tiara should be locked up nice and tight in the Guild vault.”

“Okay,” he said, “fair point. But tackling the human angle is easier. Think about it. What would motivate a monster like that Wendigo to do what basically amounts to bitch work for a bunch of humans? Whatever they’re doing must be big. And it’ll be a whole lot easier to cram a stick into the spokes of the human-experiment machine than it will be to go another round with the Wendigo. Plus, if we bust up the human side of the operation, this whole thing might just implode without us ever having to go Hub side. So we track down Doctor Hogg and see if we can find the other goon from the van. And let’s not forget about these three—”

The flat screen on the far wall blinked to life, displaying an image of the three prisoners from the motorhome. They were dirty, tired, and scared. I could see fear and despair tattooed into every inch of ’em. Faces long and dejected, shoulders slumped in defeat, numb feet shuffling along lethargically. Fear, despair, and resignation. These folks knew they were going to die, knew they were walking to their demise, and knew there was nothing they could do to stop it.

“If we’re gonna do something asinine and idiotically heroic,” Cassius said, staring at the dirty faces on the screen, “let’s at least do it for a good reason.”

I nodded. “Yeah, okay. Hogg and the goon first.” The picture on the screen shimmered for a moment, replaced by the meager clues we’d managed to capture from our dust-up with the Wendigo and his boys. First, was the dead driver’s ID.

I’d already gone through the wallet. There was some cash—a couple of twenties, a few fives, and a handful of crumpled ones—all of which I pocketed for my trouble. The ID was the only solid clue there, and even that was about as worthless as wings on a fish. His driver’s license was issued by the fine state of Washington, so all the ID gave us was a name, Cliff Bradford, and a dead-end Washington address.

“It’s useless to us,” Cassius said, as though reading my thoughts, “but Ferraro could do something with that info. With her help, we could walk right into the sheriff’s office and run a check on Cliff Bradford and on the license plate we ripped off the panel van. She could trace those cell phones you found, too. They’re burners, but it might turn up something.”

Nicole Ferraro was an FBI agent who’d helped me out with the Lich case. She was a hard charger who was smart, capable, and well connected. If I brought her in on this, not only would I have an extra gun in my corner, but I’d actually be able to utilize official government offices to get shit done. Way easier than going all secret-squirrel, trying to finagle everything through back-channel means.

Unfortunately, I’d left things with her on a bit of a sour note … the last time we’d been together, she’d invited me back to her place for the night, which had been great. Hell, better than great. Awesome.

But I hadn’t wanted to stick around, so I’d left her a note on the nightstand and slipped out in the early morning before I had to do the awkward goodbye dance. I’ve never been one for longs goodbyes, anyway. Easier that way. Since then, I’d left her a couple of messages on her home phone—she was always at work, so I knew it was a safe bet that I’d miss her—just checking in, letting her know how the search for the shot-caller in the Guild was going.

“She’ll help us even if she’s pissed,” Cassius said, once more picking up on my unease. “She’s not nearly as petty as we are.”

Good point. So it would be a little awkward. Whatever. Not like that was a first for me. I could live with awkward. I’d just have to cross that burned-down-husk of a bridge when I came to it. Right now I couldn’t call her anyway, not until I got back to civilization.

Pushing aside my complicated thoughts about Ferraro, I turned my mind to the file folder from the motorhome, the one I’d already looked through a half-dozen times. It immediately popped up on the screen, the pages laid out in three rows of three pages each. The document was some kind of shipping manifesto. In the far left hand column was a list of dates, spanning back a solid couple of months—two, often three, shipments per week.

There was also a column detailing the number of “test subjects” being transported. Three each go, with additional info listed about each subject. Where they’d been picked up—mostly from a city called Missoula, a short drive north from Lolo—general physical condition, gender, age, and another designation that didn’t make sense to me: H or NH. The majority of the subjects fell into the H category, but there were a handful of NHs as well.

I wasn’t sure what it all meant, but one fact was as glaringly obvious as the sun at high noon—these assholes had kidnapped a shit-ton of people. Nine a week for two months put the total at seventy-two “subjects.” Seventy-two people captured, held against their will, traded like property, and experimented on.

My blood boiled just thinking about it. I saw those three prisoners from the trailer, chained up and herded like fat moo-cows bound for the slaughterhouse. The longer I sat here doing nothing but pissing my time away, the less likely those three would make it out alive.

“Okay, so you know what to do?” Cassius finally asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Yeah, yeah. I got it.”

“Be safe out there,” he said. “Remember your ass isn’t the only one on the line.”

My mind skipped from the prisoners to the nightmare version of Seattle, where mankind had officially been put on the endangered species list. I set my glass down on the table and stood up, fading down and out toward my body.

“I was talking about me,” I heard faintly. “It’s my ass on the line too, so don’t muck this up.”

I opened my eyes. The cave was unchanged, and Winona still sat unmoving on the bear pelt across the cave. I pulled my feet from the water, wove a small flow of air and heat to wick the moisture away, shimmied my socks and boots back in place, then headed over to the meditating Bigfoot. I poked her in the shoulder, just to make sure she wasn’t dead or comatose. She didn’t budge. Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, but her eyes didn’t flicker open, nor did she acknowledge me in the least.

I poked her a bit more forcefully—a hard jab to the meat of her shoulder. Several times. After three or four “pokes,” she finally shook her head back and forth as if she were coming out of a long sleep, then blinked her eyes open. “Why are you disturbing me?” she said, her voice groggy.

Hell, maybe she had been asleep. Did the Bigfeet sleep sitting up? I sure as shit didn’t know.

“There is no sign of my father. I must resume my search—”

“I don’t care,” I said, cutting her off. “You recruited me to help, and I’m not doing anyone a damn lick of good sitting around here on my ass, spinning my wheels. I gotta get moving.”

She was quiet, the silence stretching itself into something uncomfortable and claustrophobic. “Very well,” she said eventually, clearly far from thrilled at the prospect of me leaving. “I will take you to your car.” She paused for another beat, scrutinizing me, her distrust evident. “What is it you intend to do?”

“I intend to get shit done,” I said without hesitation. “Don’t worry about the how. I’ve got a few leads to run down. I’ll contact some people, see if we can’t get to the bottom of this sheisty business.”

She nodded, though her mind was plainly elsewhere—she was worried about Kong.

I wasn’t. No one was gonna be laying the hurtin’ on Super Kong anytime soon.

She stood gracefully, moved over to the far wall, and waved one hairy mitt across a blank, smooth section of rock. The stone glittered and wavered, melting away to reveal a carved nook recessed into the wall. There were a couple of books stowed away, a few ancient-looking vellum scrolls, and an odd assortment of antique trinkets. She rummaged for a moment, carefully moving items aside, before finally pulling out a clear quartz gem, about the size of a small cell phone, with veins of pink marbled throughout.

She brought the stone over and hesitantly presented it to me. “An attunement stone,” she said by way of explanation. “It is bound to me. When you need to speak with me, hold it to your head.” She placed it against her ear, the way someone might hold an actual cell phone—though it looked like a kiddy toy in her oversized paws. “Project your thoughts through the quartz. The stone will amplify them. It will allow me to hear you, so long as you stay within a hundred miles. You understand this?”

I’d never used an attunement stone before, but it sounded similar to my scrying stone. “Yeah, I got it, sister. Now listen up. I know you’re not in any kinda state to answer questions, but we need to have a serious sit down, y’dig? You and your pops haven’t been honest with me, and if you expect me to wade through this crapalanche and find us a way out, I need some friggin’ honesty. And if you and your old man can’t trust me with the truth, then you can find someone else to play your errand boy.”

Her jaw clenched and she folded her arms as she kicked my ultimatum around in that colossal head of hers. “It is understood,” she replied. “The matter is … it is the secret business of the People, and I can’t speak of it. But once I recover my father, I will convince him of the need. He … He will tell you. I swear it true.”

I nodded. “Good enough for me. Now get me outta here, huh?”

The trip back to the Camino took twenty minutes or so, all of which passed by in a haze of dark trees and slapping wind as I rode in Winona’s arms.

My car wasn’t far from where I’d originally been flagged down, tucked away amongst a sparse thicket of trees. I didn’t see my baby until we were right up on the thing. It’d been veiled by either Winona or Kong—I could feel the ward both concealing the car and urging on any passersbys: Keep on trucking, nothing to see here. Winona dispelled the veil with a faint effort of will, then set me down.

“You will contact me when you know more?” she asked. The way she said it made me think it was more of a demand than a question.

“Don’t sweat it, Furry-pants, I’ll be in touch.”

She merely gave me a little smile, then turned and disappeared into the woods as quietly, quickly, and smoothly as a shadow blending into the night.

I pulled the keys from my pocket and made my way around to the driver-side door. The door was gone—a quick glance through the camper shell window revealed that Kong had shoved it rather roughly into the camper. Inconsiderate jerk. I sighed, climbed into the driver’s seat, buckled on my seat belt—I was driving without a friggin’ door, after all—and got the engine going. At least that was still working like a champ.

I checked for oncoming traffic and pulled out onto the black top, putting the pedal down hard to get up to speed, and the night wind rushed into the cabin like a hurricane. I sighed again. Just my luck. I couldn’t do anything with the driver’s ID, the license plate, or the cell phones until I got ahold of Ferraro, but I still had one option to explore.

I thought back to the room key I’d lifted off the driver’s corpse. He’d been staying in room nineteen at some place called the Motor Carriage Motel, in Lolo. I could use a shower and a bit of shut-eye, and the Motor Carriage Motel sounded like an excellent place to kick back.

EIGHT:

Leads

Lolo was a nice enough town, though not the type of place I’d necessarily pick by choice. It was identical to nearly every other small town across the sprawling sweep of America. An idyllic place housing a couple thousand residents. A place where everyone knew everyone else. Where buildings were old, but well made. Where there was still a local butcher and maybe only a single Walmart. It was the kinda place where being local meant having a family history that went back multiple generations. A good place for passing through, sure, but not for cooling your heels. Far harder to blend into a town like this, where strangers were rare and noted.

Not to mention, finding a good bar that didn’t cater to locals only was damn near impossible, and trying to find a piece of action—a high stakes card game, say—was a long shot, even with my kind of luck.

The Motor Carriage Motel wasn’t listed on Google, which ought to tell you something, but a quick stop off at a gas station yielded an address close by. Trying to explain away the missing driver-side door to the attendant wasn’t so easy. Despite the Camino’s eccentric appearance, it usually flies under the radar thanks to a pair of glamour wards built into both door panels. Since Kong had oh-so-kindly torn one of the panels off, however, the glamour was working half-strength at best, which meant I attracted a lot of quizzical looks as I puttered through town. That asshole, Kong.

I pulled out my cell as I drove, brought up my contact list, and scrolled until Ferraro’s number rolled onto the screen. I thumbed the green “send” button and waited. The phone rang once, twice, three times, then clicked to life, someone rustling around on the other end.

“This is Ferraro.” She sounded groggy and dazed, like maybe I’d woken her up. “Hello, this is Ferraro,” she said again, sharply.

“Yeah … Hey, it’s Yancy. Yancy Lazarus,” I said after a second, wiggling uncomfortably in my seat.

A tense quiet followed, a pause long enough to make me think she’d hung up.

“I was wondering when you’d get around to calling,” she finally said, sounding more awake and alert already. “I take it this means you’ve got a solid lead on the Shelton case?”

Now it was my turn to fall silent, my quick wit bailing on me now that I really needed it. “Wait … so you’re not pissed that I haven’t been in touch before now?” I asked, both incredulous and slightly offended. I mean, sure, I was glad she wasn’t mad, but I’d kinda hoped she would miss me a little.

“I’m getting some feedback on my end,” she said. “It’s difficult to hear you, sounds like you’re in a hurricane. Do you have a window open or something?”

I glanced at the gaping hole next to me, which let a constant blast of wind into the cab’s interior. “Yeah, something like that,” I said.

“Well, can you roll it up?”

“Sorry,” I replied, “no can do. It’s complicated.”

“Figurati,” she grumbled. “Fine. Hold on a second, I have the feeling I should just put some coffee on now.” I heard her shuffling around, followed by the splash of a running tap. “Okay,” she said eventually. “Now, to answer your question, no, I’m not pissed at you. I knew what kind of man you were before I got involved. I’ve been tracking you for years, Yancy—I know you’re not the type of person who hangs around, who puts down roots.”

She hesitated again, the silence telling a different story entirely. “I’ll admit there was a part of me that hoped things could be different, but that was on me, not you. Fire burns, that’s its nature. You can’t change it, and to expect otherwise is a good way to get hurt. Men are the same. Now, what’ve you got?”

I cleared my throat. Boy, was that a relief. Oddly, though, her acceptance also made me feel unclean. Guilty. But I brushed it off. After all, she was right. I liked Ferraro a lot, but I wasn’t gonna do the suburbia, white-picket-fence thing, not even for a gal like her—that wasn’t my life, not anymore. Shit, I wasn’t sure that’d ever been my life.

“I need your help,” I said. “I’ve got a bunch of missing people, at least one corpse, and a small army of flesh-eating Bigfeet. I’ve also got a solid hunch that it might be tied to Randy and the Guild.”

“I’m sorry—I’m just waking up. Did you say Bigfeet? As in the plural form of Bigfoot?”

“Yeah, Bigfeet … well, the technical term is Chiye-tanka—I think it’s Native American or something—but yeah, Bigfeet. Giant ape-men and ape-women who live in the forest. They also have some pretty large feet, so there you go.”

The Motor Carriage Motel loomed into view, its neon sign a torch in the dark. “Listen, this whole shit-storm is one giant complication, I’ll fill you in when you get here. I’m in Lolo, Montana. Little dirt speck of a place, but it seems alright.”

“Hold on,” she said. There were a few audible clicks of a computer mouse, followed by the chatter of some rapid-fire typing. “Lolo, Montana, is in the Bitterroot Valley,” she said, as though reading off a fact sheet from some database. “I’m in Seattle, just got done working a case.” Another round of keyboard clacking. “Okay. I can be there in eight hours if I leave now.”

“That’s a helluva long haul,” I said. “You sure you can make it?”

She snorted. “Back in Iraq, I used to pull convoys that would last forty-eight hours straight. We’d get by on a few hours of sleep and make up for the rest with coffee and caffeine pills. If I could do that, I can certainly do this.”

“Alright, I’ll be at the Motor Carriage Motel, but give me a ring when you get into town, and we’ll figure out a place to meet up.”

“Sounds good, I’ll see you then. And Yancy, stay alive until I get there, okay?”

“Can do, ma’am.” I smiled despite myself and hung up on the call as I pulled into the motel parking lot. Had to admit, I was looking forward to seeing her again. It’d been a tough couple of months working this case all by my lonesome. It’d be good to have some company for a change, a partner watching my back again.

The Motor Carriage Motel was an older place, just shy of being run-down, laid out in a “U” shape. There was an empty outdoor pool and a big sign advertising vacancies. The parking lot, situated right smack dab in the middle of the U, was far from empty, but the one car I wanted to see—the panel van—wasn’t present.

Well, that’d been wishful thinking anyway.

I scanned the motel, searching for room nineteen, which ended up being a bottom, corner unit on the end of the U opposite the rental office. The parking space out front was empty, the curtains, drawn, and the lights, out. Looked empty, but it was also late, just past ten. So if someone was staying there—like maybe the other rent-a-thug from the motorhome—he could be catching a long blink. Seemed unlikely considering the events which had transpired this evening, but a guy can always dream, right?

I pulled the Camino into an empty space near the office—a single story, tan-brick building attached to the right hand side of the motel proper. Unlike room nineteen, the office shed warm, amber light onto the black asphalt, and I could hear the muted chatter of a television. I parked and killed the engine.

Now that I had phone service again, it was worth taking a look at the two disposable cells I’d lifted from the clearing. I fished one out of my pocket and pulled up the call log—there was only a single number listed. I highlighted the lonely number and pressed the call button, holding the phone to my ear as I waited. Something vibrated in my coat, buzzing against my side. I fumbled around for a moment and pulled out the second burner phone. I ended the call and watched the second phone cease its merry dance. The second cell only had one number listed there, too. Figures, one lead already shot. I tossed both phones into my glove box.

Hopefully the motel would turn up something more fruitful. I slid out of the car, moseyed over to the office entrance, and yanked the door open. An overhead bell let out a jingle, almost inaudible with the din from the TV—Jimmy Fallon, doing his Late Night hashtag shtick.

“Be right there,” someone called from the back.

I glanced around as I waited. The interior was nicer than I would’ve bet on from outside. The floors were clean, and there was a loveseat, a coffee table, and a pair of armchairs, all well maintained and neat. There was the customary counter, of course, and the flyer rack featuring local attractions—no motel could be without one of those—but the computer on the check-in desk was new. The sharp scent of red curry lingered in the air, which left my mouth watering and me thinking about how long it’d been since I’d last eaten. Ten or twelve hours ago, at least.

I pushed my greedy hunger out of mind as a door behind the counter swung out and a plump Indian man with burnt copper skin, sparse black hair, and wire-rimmed glasses scooted into the room. He wore dark slacks and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and a giant, earnest smile split his smooth face.

“Hello,” he said in slightly accented English. “How can I help you tonight, sir?” His friendly grin widened—positively infectious, that smile. My gut instinct said subtle was the ticket: rent out a room for the night, wait around to see, and break into room nineteen. Simple and straightforward. But as I stared at the beaming motel clerk, I decided to go with a more direct approach. After all, if that didn’t pan out I could always fall back on the illegal, break-in-and-steal-shit option.

I pulled out the driver’s wallet, flipping it open to reveal the driver’s ID before casually laying it out on the counter. “I found this guy’s wallet in a gas station bathroom,” I lied. “He had a room key in it”—I fished it out of my pocket and laid that down too—“room nineteen. Just wanted to make sure he got his stuff back. Is he in? Or does he maybe have a roommate I could leave this with?”

The clerk’s smile slipped as he glanced down at the ID on the table. There was a wink of recognition in his brown eyes; he shuffled back a small step as though to put some extra distance between himself and the offending ID. “Sorry, sir,” he said, “that guest is not in right now. You can, of course, leave the wallet with me. I will make certain he gets it back.”

A fat bead of sweat rolled down his forehead; he absently swiped at the moisture before reaching out a shaky hand for the wallet.

“No worries,” I replied. “I’ll just hang on to it, if it’s all the same to you.” I snatched up the brown billfold and room key and dropped both back into my jacket pocket. “I want to rent a room anyway, so I should be around when he comes back.”

The clerk’s smile was gone now, vanished completely, as if I’d stolen it by mention of the pudgy guest from room nineteen. “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” he said, backing up another step toward the connecting door. “We are full up just now. My apologies, sir. Truly.”

I pivoted and cast a peek toward the parking lot. The large sign pronouncing the motel’s name had the “vacancy” light on full tilt.

“Your sign says you have room,” I replied, turning back to him. Now he was a few inches from the door leading away from the office. His gaze darted left then right, his fingers dancing nervously against each other as he shifted in place.

And that’s when I saw it: a brief ripple, which ran beneath the surface of his dark complexion, accompanied by a glow of yellow eyes. If you were a vanilla human—a Rube, not in the know—it’d be the kind of thing your brain wouldn’t really register. Your conscious mind would dismiss it, but your reptilian brain, the part responsible for your survival, would send out a warning: there’s something off about this guy, it would say, better just leave this whack job be. You’ve probably had that queasy and uneasy feeling at some point, and usually it pays to heed that extra survival sense.

Except I wasn’t some Rube and this wasn’t my first rodeo—this guy wasn’t human, and I knew it all the way down to my toes. “Hold it, bud,” I said, slipping a hand under my coat lapel and drawing out my hand cannon. He froze, his eyes locking onto the pistol, roving over the black metal and gold scrollwork, brushing over the sigils of power and ancient runes imbuing it with deadly force far beyond mere hot lead.

“Now,” I said, hefting the pistol, though not pointing it at him—not yet, anyway, “I know you aren’t human. I also know that the guy staying in room nineteen is involved in something dark and dirty. And I think you know it, too. This doesn’t have to get messy, so unless you’ve got something to hide, I suggest you open your gab and start bumping your gums, comprende?”

The change came over him in a wave, his human face melting away to reveal a giant man-rat with a dark copper pelt, yellow eyes, and buckteeth. His hands were brown and claw-tipped, and a bald pink tail whipped around behind him, dancing as nervously as his fingers had a moment before.

“You’re a halfie?” I asked. Most halfies and other critters from Outword could conjure up a rudimentary flesh-suit to conceal their true appearance, though they often looked wrong in subtle ways. The skin too saggy, the limbs disproportional in places, and the eyes … The eyes were almost always wrong. Not quite human.

He nodded and let out a high-pitched squeak, his pink nose twitching as he sniffed at the air, taking in my scent. “Me and my family, sir,” he replied, still in accented English, though his voice now held an inhuman squeal. “Please, please don’t hurt me. We’re not involved. I swear, I don’t know what they’re doing. I’m not involved!” he cried out again, lifting his hands toward me, pleading. “I keep my head down and don’t make waves”—his voice grew oddly quiet as his tail jerked to and fro in agitation—“otherwise, they’ll-they’ll take my family.” He fell silent, nose still twitching, whiskers bobbing in a frenzy, eyes flashing around the room, seeking a way out.

I lowered my gun and pushed it back into its holster. Guy was about to wet himself, which was totally reasonable, given the circumstances. Listen, if a maniac ever shows up at your doorstep and pulls a monster-killing gun on you, it’s okay to be nervous. I won’t judge you, honest. But it also told me he was probably being honest. Guy didn’t seem like much of a fighter, and I bet if he did know something, he’d roll faster than a log down a hill.

“I’m new in town,” I said, “and I got a serious bone to pick with the guy in room nineteen and whatever business he’s involved with. So here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna tell me everything you know—everything, even stuff you think is insignificant, y’dig?—and then I’m gonna search room nineteen for evidence. After that, I’ll scoot along and you can pretend this never happened. Sound like an agreeable plan?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Lolo is a sanctuary town,” he said in a rapid-fire burst, eager to give me anything so I’d go away. “The majority are human, of course, but there is a thriving halfie community here, too. And some fullbloods.” His tongue flitted over his teeth as he thought. “Mr. and Mrs. Robertazzi are Blemmyes, but vegetarians—good people, truly. The Lippmans are brownies, from the Autumn Court, and Deanna Leblanc is a dryad. She’s with the Spring Court, I believe. But it is a good community, sir, a great place to raise kids.”

“And the sheriff?” I asked. “I’m assuming if Lolo’s a sanctuary town, the law must be clued in.”

“Yes, yes. Lolo doesn’t have a proper police force, but the Missoula sheriff, Jack Kelly, knows of us. About the community. He’s human, a member of the Lucis Venántium.”

The Lucis Venántium was a secret order of humans devoted to policing, hunting, and executing any of the supernatural threats that dared to prey on hapless mortals. Their ranks were largely filled with law enforcement and military types, though soccer moms or stay-at-home dads occasionally found their way into the fold too. Guys and gals who’d once been plain ol’ Rubes, but who’d stumbled upon the supernatural and refused to leave things be.

If the sheriff was with the order, that’d make this way, way easier. Though it did make me wonder why he hadn’t already stopped whatever nonsense was going on ’round these parts. If the halfies knew there was trouble afoot, it stood to reason the sheriff knew, too.

“Good to know,” I said. “Now what can you tell me about the guy in room nineteen and whatever sheisty business he’s involved with?”

“Nothing, nothing,” the rat-man stammered. “I swear it. There are two of them—Mr. Bradford is human, the other is a halfie, of what sort I do not know. I let them use the motel, but that is all. And I don’t want to know anything else. People have disappeared. Humans. Halfies. Anyone who dares to step out of line or starts asking too many questions—one day they’re just gone. Poof.”

Suddenly, the “H” and “NH” designation from the spreadsheet I’d scored at the motorhome made sense: “Human” and “Non-Human.”

“Everyone’s afraid,” he said. “Please, just leave me out of this. I can’t help. I’m, I’m just a halfie. I’m trying to keep my family safe. That is all. Please understand, sir. Please?”

He looked up at me, his yellow gaze growing wide as he held out his hands, a plea for mercy. Guy had some damn good puppy-dog eyes, considering he was a giant, talking rat.

I sighed, nodded, and stepped away. Whatever was underway here, this schmuck wasn’t a part of it. I’m not the brightest kid on the playground, but I’ve got street smarts in spades, and I can tell a bullshitter when I see one. This guy was scared. Scared and honest. Not everyone is cut out for heroics, and that’s cool. Hell, I’m not cut out for heroics … that shit’s for the birds. I’d much rather be drinking a cool beer while playing a dirty-blues set in some hole-in-the-wall tavern than running down clues and sticking my neck out like a Thanksgiving turkey. This guy had his priorities straight. Good for him.

“Keep your head down and forget I was ever here, got it, partner?” I said, pushing the door open with my foot.

“Yes, of course, of course, sir. Thank you,” he squawked, then ducked back through the connecting door, swinging it shut behind him.

NINE:

Complications

I beelined across the parking lot, straight for the currently dark room nineteen. Probably, the clerk would go hunker down in the back and pretend I didn’t exist—the smart thing to do—but it still made sense to hurry things along. Sure, he would probably hunker down, but, hypothetically, he could also phone in our little chat to whoever was running this operation. I pulled the room key from my pocket and slid it through the bulky automatic lock above the doorknob. A small green light winked on and off, followed by a small click granting me admittance to the room.

I cracked the door a smidge, then pulled out my revolver and opened myself to the Vis, conjuring up a small blue orb of light, which floated an inch above my left palm. I used my shoulder to push my way inside, preparing myself for the worst: mutilated bodies, a McThug poker tournament, or an interdimensional portal into the far-flung regions of Outworld, complete with a gibbering, face-eating slug monster.

You know, the worst.

I crept along a short hallway—scanning a tiny closet and bathroom in passing, both clear—which let out into the main bedroom. I swept my left hand around the room, letting the conjured light wash over everything. Much to my shock, there actually wasn’t a terrifying, face-eating monster waiting to punch my ticket or turn me into snack food.

Well, how about that shit?

Guess everybody catches a lucky break once in a while … except this didn’t feel like a lucky break.

There was this sense, sitting deep in my gut, which said, Oh no, you don’t get off that easy—just you wait, this is gonna blow up in your face yet. I waved my hand, dispelling the weaves for the orb, though not releasing my stranglehold on the Vis, and casually flicked on the light switch. The overhead bulb buzzed for a moment, then burst to life; astringent white light spilled over the room. There was a pair of full beds. The sheets on one were rumpled and bunched up at the end of the mattress. The covers on the other, by contrast, had been hastily thrown in place, though clearly someone had slept there.

Meant two people had been here: one neat, one messy, both in a rush to leave—which pointed toward the pudgy, now dead driver, and his partner.

First, I checked the nightstand positioned between the two beds, which turned up a whole lot of nothing. No gun, no journal describing their nefarious plot, no incriminating or helpful evidence of any kind. Why couldn’t bad guys be less paranoid and more helpful? Ugh. I spotted a black suitcase sitting on a luggage rack near the TV, which looked promising. I glanced back toward the door for just a second. Dammit. I couldn’t shake this terrible sense of impending disaster looming over me. I’ve learned through years and years of poor decision making and awful consequences to listen to that little voice yammering away on the inside.

But no one burst through the door, guns blazing. Everything was quiet and still, which only intensified my unease.

I flipped back the lid of the black suitcase—in one side, there was a neat pile of folded clothes, and in the other was a messy heap of dirty laundry, which reeked like an old gym sock that’d been shoved into a sweaty jockstrap. Nasty. If there was anything worth finding, however, it’d be under the dirty clothes—I mean, what better place to hide sensitive stuff than in a mound of dirty underwear? That’d be the one place no one would want to check. Considering I’d pawed through the pockets of a corpse earlier in the evening, this didn’t seem so bad. A little perspective is important in life.

I pulled the clothes out, letting them drop to the floor, not caring a lick if anyone realized I’d been here or not. Sure enough, there at the bottom was a thick unmarked manila envelope. Yahtzee.

That, my friends, is what we call pay dirt in the clue-finding business.

I pulled out the envelope, brought it over to the bed, fumbled with the metal clip holding it shut, then up-righted the contents onto the mattress. There were four different passports inside—two for the driver, and two for his partner. There were also driver’s licenses, credit cards, and a fat stack of cash—both US dollars and Canadian bills, a couple thousand dollars, total.

The money I stowed in my coat pocket—I’m not ever hard up for cash, not with my supernatural luck at the poker table, but I’ve never been the kind of guy to pass up a wad of cash, either.

As to the other stuff: I’ve been on the road for a good long while, flying low, living under the radar, so I knew an emergency go-bag when I saw one. This was definitely that. There was also a file folder marked “Insurance” across the front in bold, black Sharpie, which sure as shit got my attention. I flipped the file open and found a stack of papers and photos—if I had to gamble, I’d say it was the stuff someone would need to run a successful blackmail scheme.

I spotted a copy of the shipping manifesto I’d seen earlier. There were a few lab reports, filled with pages and pages of technical, scientific mumbo-jumbo, which meant nothing to me. But best of all, there were photos. Photos of the motorhome interior, complete with prisoners chained to the floor—that one made me want to burn the friggin’ motel down on general principle. There was also a picture of a roly-poly son of a bitch with a swatch of brown hair, sporting a too-small lab coat. It was labelled “Doctor Arlen Hogg.”

The same Arlen Hogg I’d come to Montana in search of.

It was the last photo, however, that kicked my teeth in and knocked the wind out of me like a two-by-four right to the gut. A photo of Doctor Arlen Hogg having some words with a man I knew very, very well: James Sullivan, Lieutenant Commander of the Fist of the Staff—the Mage special enforcement division—and my only true friend in the Guild. I stumbled back a few steps, suddenly light-headed and sick to my stomach. I plopped down onto the bed, which squeaked under my weight, staring at the photo, my hands trembling minutely. I couldn’t breathe … this … it didn’t make sense.

The hell was this?

There had to be some reasonable explanation for this photo, some way to reconcile why my buddy James was talking with this Doctor Hogg, who was clearly up to his lab-coated elbows in whatever evil hijinks were afoot. There had to be an explanation, dammit!

Something. Anything.

Except I could only think of one good one: James Sullivan was the dickbag traitor in the Guild. The dead driver’s words floated through my head: I don’t want no trouble, but you know the Doc is close with the Boss. No one wants to piss off the Boss. I studied the photo of Doctor Hogg chatting with James. Close with the Boss—a perfect assessment based on the photo. But that couldn’t be right. It couldn’t. If James was running the carnival, why had he helped me put Randy down?

Then a terrible thought hit me like a pool cue to the back of the head. How did I know Randy had been dealt with? I didn’t have any eyes or ears in the Guild except for James. He was my only link to the inside these days, so there was no way for me to confirm a friggin’ thing he’d told me. If James was the Big Bad, then the Guild might not even be aware there was a traitor or a problem. Shit, James even had history with the Lich—taking down Koschei had been one of his first major assignments with the Fist. He’d only bragged about it a million friggin’ times.

I pushed myself onto shaky feet, shoved all the evidence—passports, IDs, papers, and surveillance photos—back into the manila envelope with numb hands, and made for the door. I needed fresh air.

Needed to think.

Needed to get out on the road where there weren’t so many walls closing in on me like a prison cell.

I slammed the door behind me, not caring who heard or who I woke, then shambled over to the Camino. I climbed into the car, brought the engine to life with a roar, and peeled out of the lot like a wildebeest desperate to escape the tearing jaws of a pursuing lion. Except I couldn’t get away from the thing hunting me: dark thoughts, broken trust, and consuming despair.

My gut had told me true: that room was a bomb waiting to blow up in my face. And boy how it’d blown up. Sure, nothing had tried to tear my limbs from my body or string me up from the ceiling by my intestines, but sometimes the worst blows aren’t the ones to the body. Hell, assuming you live through the bodily wounds, those puppies tend to heal nice and clean. No, usually the worst wounds are the ones that tear into the soul, the ones that eviscerate hope and crush your faith in people. Crush faith in those closest to you. In yourself, even.

I whipped the car through the night, taking turns at dangerous, reckless speeds and not caring. I drove for a solid half-hour, beating away thoughts of the traitorous asshole, James, with a baseball bat of will. It was midnight when I finally pulled the Camino onto a wide shoulder and into a patch of swaying grass next to the road. Weary down to my bones, I hurt from my tussle with the Wendigo, and my soul felt wrecked—shattered like a fine crystal vase dropped from the top of the Sears building. I needed rest. Sleep.

Ferraro would be here in the morning, and maybe, with a few hours of shuteye under my belt, I’d be able to make sense of all this. Maybe I’d see something that made it all click into place. Some other explanation, one that didn’t flay my mind with thoughts of betrayal.

I turned off the Camino, hopped out of the cab, and made my way around to the camper, popping the hatch and crawling in. I took a few minutes to draw deeply from the Vis, tossing up a hasty illusion to mask the car, making it blur and blend into the tall grass around it. With that done, I turned the mini heater on, stripped down to my undershorts, and tracked down my iPod—stowed away in my jacket pocket.

I thumbed through the various artists and albums—a time like this called for the perfect sound track.

I pulled up B.B. King’s 1968 “I’ve Got a Mind to Give Up Living.” A tune so gritty, dark, and down-and-out that it’d make a guy want to head over to Tombstones R’ Us, pick up something big and heavy, and promptly cave his skull in with it, just to get life over and done with.

An organ wailed as the track kicked on, crying out its misery like a child who’d lost its parents. King’s guitar followed, his fingers dancing up and down the strings with that twangy funk only he could manage; the sound was the shouted lament of a scorned lover. Guy was a genius. The interplay of soft and loud notes blew me away every single time. A pair of saxophones joined the fray, offering up a snippet of Chopin’s “Funeral March.” The overlay—dancing and twirling together like water and oil, like yin and yang—made me want to throw myself into the ocean.

I pulled out a pack of baby wipes—the poor man’s shower—and slowly, delicately began wiping dirt, sweat, and blood away from my aching flesh. Systematically cleaning my body as the music washed my soul. As I let B.B. and the gang say what I couldn’t. I let that music be my catharsis. It carried me away, until King faded, replaced by Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “Been Drinkin’ Water Out of a Hollow Log.”

An acoustic guitar and slide guitar worked in concert—the beat occasionally manic, wild, and crazed, followed by dips of profound melancholy. My heart sank as Fred, one of the greatest Delta blues men to walk the planet, belted out his woe in a smoky, hard-knock voice. He was the real deal: a black Mississippi cotton picker who played the slide guitar with genuine beef-rib bone. If there was ever a man to know the pain in living, it was ol’ Fred.

I bent over and rummaged around in a small drawer beneath my cot, liberating a half-full handle of shitty, corner store, get-me-plastered whiskey. I unscrewed the cap, put the cool glass to my lips, and tilted my head back, chugging down a stream of flame until the last drop of amber liquid vanished down my throat. I gasped for air, belched long and loud, and dropped the empty bottle to the floor with a clink.

“Fuck!” I screamed, yelling my anger into the lonely night, purging it from my system.

I lay back onto my little bed and closed my eyes.

My phone woke me up about six hours later, its shrill ring bouncing off the inside of my aching skull. I blinked open bleary eyes. Early morning light trickled into the camper through the windows, stabbing at my pupils like a makeshift prison shank. I rubbed at my face for a moment before swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, sitting up, and pulling my phone free. I glanced at the time. 7:18 AM. Too friggin’ early.

It screamed again: Pick up, pick up, pick up, it commanded. You’ve got a pile of shit to wade through today, so stop being a lazy slacker. Dickhead phone.

I pressed the green talk button and held the phone to my ear as I stifled a yawn with my free hand. “Yeah,” I said, though the word came out muffled and barely intelligible.

“Did I wake you up?” Ferraro asked, sounding concerned.

I pulled the phone away from my ear with a wince—it was like having a friggin’ loudspeaker next to my ear. “Yeah, you did actually,” I mumbled, arching my back and flexing my muscles, getting my post-wake-up stretch out of the way.

“Good,” she said. I could practically hear her sadistic grin through the phone. “I’ve been driving for seven hours solid, so that makes me irrationally happy. Where are you?”

“In the Camino on the outskirts of town—not exactly sure where. You?”

“Pulling into Lolo, now. I’m starving and I need coffee. A lot of coffee. There’s a bar up ahead, the Feed Trough—says they do breakfast. Can we meet there? We’ll catch up, you can fill me in, then we’ll get moving.”

Coffee. Breakfast. Feed Trough.

My stomach growled like an angry dog who’d just caught the scent of a postal worker convention. Coffee, pancakes, maybe an omelet? Hell yes to that, multiplied by a factor of a gajillion, then smothered in sugary-sweet maple syrup. Chow and coffee wouldn’t set everything right, but it’d be a step in the right direction.

“Yeah, sounds good.” I tried to stifle another yawn. “I’ll be there in a few.”

TEN:

Reunion

I pulled up to the Feed Trough fifteen minutes later. The joint looked exactly the way you’re probably thinking, given it had a name like the Feed Trough. The building was a sprawling single-story fire hazard made entirely of old wood, which appeared to have been built sometime before the civil war and renovated approximately never. It looked like exactly the kind of place I wanted to have breakfast—I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that whoever was the spatula-slinger in this greasy spoon could cook one helluva breakfast. The kind of breakfast so packed with delicious cholesterol that it’d take a year off your life. My mouth was already watering at the notion.

Maybe I’d do steak and eggs. Seemed like a fitting breakfast for a guy who’d recently survived an attack from a cannibal Bigfoot. A celebration meal.

I pulled into a sparsely filled gravel parking lot populated by a trio of vehicles. There was a pair of motorcycles—one a beefy Goldwing bigger than a small car, the other a slim QLink Legend with studded leather seats and saddlebags—and a charcoal, nondescript sedan. Ferraro opened the driver-side door of the sedan and gave the Camino a long, hard look as I pulled up next to her.

She wore a pair of dark aviator sunglasses, shielding her eyes from the bright glare of the new morning. She slid them down onto the tip of her nose, eyeing me over the top of the wire frames. “You had the window down, huh?” she called. A nearly invisible smirk graced her lips as I crawled out of the gaping hole where my door had once lived, back in the happy days before Kong-ageddon.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I pocketed the keys and trudged to the front door before she could offer any more sass. She followed behind, wisely heeding my desire not to mention the Camino, though that damn smirk was still tarrying on her face. I just knew she was dying to say something else.

The inside of the Feed Trough was all slick wood, neon signs, and firearms. Seriously. Must’ve been twenty shotguns and assorted rifles hanging on the walls, damn near encircling the room with steel. Interspaced between the guns were a few trophies from all the things those guns had killed: a mounted elk head, a whitetail deer, a pair of moose antlers, the head of a humongous big horn sheep, a whole friggin’ black bear, and—oddly out of place—a record-holding pike. I didn’t see bullet holes in the fish, but I had my suspicions.

A polished, well-stocked bar ran along the right-hand wall, which made my head throb just looking at it. I led Ferraro to a square table bordered by a couple of burgundy-colored chairs and plopped down with a sigh. A lean waitress with a mess of brown hair and tired eyes moseyed over a minute later, walking with an I-got-time-to-kill gait. She offered us glasses of water and a pair of menus.

“Steak and eggs with a big ol’ pile of hash browns,” I said, not bothering with the laminated paper, letting my stomach take the lead on this one. Trust your gut, I always say.

Ferraro considered only for a second. “I’ll have the same,” she said, “and coffee. Bring a pot if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure thing, honey,” the waitress replied, offering us a lopsided, unenthusiastic flash of her teeth and a quick once-over, before turning away and heading for the kitchen. I’d wager they didn’t get a lot of outsiders like us passing through these parts.

I picked up my water and took a sip, eyeing Ferraro over the rim. She looked good, better than I remembered.

Tall, just shy of six feet, with medium-length black hair tied back into a tight ponytail. Strong features, Mediterranean complexion, chestnut eyes, sharp as daggers, and enough athletic muscle to give me pause. She wore black tactical cargo pants, a practical white T-shirt, a lightweight sage-green fleece, and a Glock on one hip, offset by a golden FBI badge on the other. She also had attitude through the friggin’ roof. Hell, Aretha Franklin should’ve been following her around, belting out “Respect” whenever she entered a room.

“Seriously, what happened with the door?” she asked. “You said there was a murder. I’m assuming you killed whoever did that, then stashed the body somewhere?”

“I see you finally discovered your sense of humor,” I replied. “It was locked up in the evidence locker, am I right?” I set my glass down and leaned back in my bar chair. “And, as a matter of fact, I didn’t kill the assbag responsible for that. It was Bigfoot.”

“Wait, is this one of the flesh-eating Bigfeet you mentioned earlier?”

“No. No, this was the good one. Well, good except for the part where he ripped my door off—his name is Chief …” I faltered for a second. What the hell was his name? “Err, Chief something or other. I can’t remember. Chankoo-koo, Chwack-wack, Chi-hua-hua—something with too many syllables, kinda earthy sounding. I just call him Kong, ’cause you know, giant, hairy ape-man with a chip on his shoulder.”

“I forgot how ridiculous your life is,” she said, shaking her head. “Okay”—she held up a hand—“I’m now more confused than when I showed up. Please, just start at the beginning, give me a brief rundown of the past few months, then walk me through what the situation in Lolo is. I’ll ask questions—try to be the professional, here—and we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Don’t treat me like a child,” I said. I was her senior by like thirty-five years. Whippersnappers these days don’t respect their elders.

“Stop pouting, start talking,” she said, not even a hint of a smile on her face.

The waitress came up to the table, bearing a brown plastic tray laden with a pair of plates, a set of coffee mugs, and a large pot of delicious, life-sustaining coffee. She unloaded the tray—my steak almost overflowed its plate, leaving barely enough room for the pair of eggs and the heap of hash browns crowding in around everything.

I looked at the waitress. “Marry me,” I said, and kinda meant it.

She rolled her eyes, offered me a half-grin with some actual warmth in it, then dropped off the check. “Let’s see how you tip first, honey,” she said, before walking away, putting a dash of extra sway to her hips.

Neither Ferraro nor I talked for a while, both absorbed in the near-sacred act of coffee preparation and face stuffing. That’s one of the things I liked about her: she was good with silence and knew sometimes no talk was needed. After getting down a cup of trucker-fuel and half my steak, I leaned back and filled her in, beginning slow and building up steam as I rolled on.

I told her about my lead on Doctor Arlen Hogg and the unfortunate assault on both my person and my car by Chief Kong and his daughter, Winona. I filled her in about the Wendigo, the motorhome, the slave racket, the human goons I’d tracked back to the Motor Carriage Motel, and the info the motel clerk had given me about the sheriff and the town of Lolo. I told her about everything.

Everything except the picture of James I’d found in the manila envelope. I wasn’t ready to deal with that shit yet.

There was some other explanation, dammit, but Ferraro wouldn’t see it that way since she didn’t know James like I did. The way I reckoned, we could deal with whatever was happening in Lolo, then I’d pop by Boston to visit James and, if necessary, beat a confession out of him. I was reasonably sure it wouldn’t come down to that. Probably. Maybe.

Fine, it was a total crapshoot.

Ferraro interrupted now and then, asking clarifying questions, dragging out info I didn’t realize I had, ironing out the details until I felt like I’d gone through the whole story three or four times. She jotted down notes in a pocket-sized travel notebook, underlining some words, bullet pointing others—drawing solid lines between one piece of evidence and another as her keen mind worked over the goings-on. An FBI agent settling into a case: cool, professional, efficient. I was glad she was in my corner.

She tapped her ballpoint pen against her bottom lip as I finished speaking. “Paying the sheriff’s office a visit is the next logical step,” she said, setting down the pen and notepad, returning her attention to the unfinished eggs before her.

I’d already cleaned my plate and had plopped down a trio of twenties—courtesy of the slave-trading, asshole driver—pinning them in place under my coffee mug.

“We’re going to have to play this one close to the vest,” she said, “not show him all the evidence we have so far. If the sheriff’s with this Lucis Venántium group, then he has to know something’s going on. But he hasn’t done anything, hasn’t contacted anyone, why? Could mean he’s complicit. Either that, or this Doctor Hogg and his associates have something on him—blackmail maybe, or they could be holding a hostage.

“A family member, a friend. We’ll just have to feel him out, watch for any tells.” She paused, picking up her cup of coffee and staring into the black pool. “When we have some time, I’d also like to know more about the Lucis Venántium.” She fell quiet again, absently swirling her mug with one hand.

I took the time to look at her. Really look at her, seeing the dark circles under her eyes. How her fingernails were ragged, as if they’d been ceaselessly gnawed on. She wasn’t just tired from a long drive. No, the tiredness was in her, it’d taken deep root—she was probably having dreams. Nightmares. Nightmares about the things she’d seen on our last case. I couldn’t blame her one little bit. That job had been as scary as a giant human-centipede, which, by the way, we’d actually fought our first time out of the gate. It’s not easy to bounce back from something like that, believe you me.

“Not sleeping?” I asked, reaching a hand across the table to take one of hers. It felt weird, unnatural, but she needed a little comfort, I could read it in her face. I’d been where she was, once upon a time. Unlike most of the mage-folk running around out there, I hadn’t been born into the community, hadn’t grown up around magic and monsters, parallel worlds or alternate time-streams. Well, at least not outside of novels or movies. My first experience with the supernatural had been just as traumatic as Ferraro’s, and it’d taken me years to work through the pain.

“Honestly?” She averted her gaze for a moment, then gave a rueful shake of her head. “No. I close my eyes and it all comes flooding in. The Metus, the Hub, Shelton. I keep seeing Fast Hands put those rounds into you. Watch you fly apart in a spray of blood”—she set her mug down and ran a hand over the Glock at her hip—“then this terrible feeling spreads through me like fire. Helplessness. I’ve never been helpless, not like that.”

She looked up, her jaw clenched tight, the features of her face hard with resolve. “I want to know more—I need to know more. I can’t feel like that again.” She lapsed into silence for a beat. “You know, I never had PTSD, not even after all my tours in Iraq. But one mission with you and I have to check the closet before I hit the rack.”

“It gets better.” I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, even though the motion and gesture were uncomfortable for me. As awkward as a giraffe at a midget convention. I’m not the guy people come to for comfort, support, or a shoulder to cry on. Mostly, I’m the guy to come to when the crying’s done and the only thing left to do is kick some ass.

“Once we put the kibosh on the business here,” I said, “I’ll put you in touch with some of the folks in the Lucis Venántium. They’ll educate you better than I ever could, since they’re all in the same boat as you. Just plain old mortals, going up against things that’re bigger, faster, stronger and still beating those bastards into line. They can teach you the tricks of the trade, give you a slot in the organization if you want it.” I paused, thinking about how I’d felt without my powers … that’d been one helluva terrible ride. “They’ll help you get your swagger back,” I finished.

“You really believe that?” she asked, a rare crack of vulnerability showing through her tough-girl exterior.

“You kidding me? I’ve walked more than a few Rubes through their first experience with the supernatural. Trust me, you’ve adapted better than anyone I’ve ever seen. Your baptism into this wonky world was just a bit more intense than most folks deal with. But trust me, since you haven’t completely come unhinged this late into the game, you’ll weather the storm.”

She gave my hand a return squeeze, then pulled away and slid out from the table, her cool, professional demeanor already glued back in place. I offered the waitress a nod and a wave, before following Ferraro out to the parking lot.

“We should take my ride,” she told me, no suggestion implied, while offering the Camino—sans driver-side door—a distrustful look. “Definitely going to afford us better concealment, plus you won’t have to worry about falling out.” I thought her mouth almost twitched in amusement, but it was hard to tell. When Ferraro had a mind to, she could throw on a poker face that was damn tough to read.

I grumbled for a moment. She was probably right, but I wasn’t happy about it. “Fine,” I conceded after mulling it over. “We can take your car, but only on two conditions. One, you never mention what’s happened to the Camino again. Ever.” Her lips definitely twitched that time. “And two—I get to choose the jams. I’m not gonna suffer through endless hours of shitty pop music.”

She pushed on her Aviators, muttered something about me being an “irresponsible, juvenile man-child,” then consented and headed over to the car, popping the locks with an electric key fob.

I opened myself to the Vis, feeling its power burn just out of reach, and allowed myself to breath in some of its life and force, just a trickle. I wove a hasty glamour construct, a few thin strands of air and water intertwined with a great, and complex, crisscrossing pattern of willpower, which I invested into the hidden sigil built into the Camino’s remaining door panel.

I tied the working off, and its power radiated outward. The construct, coupled with the sigil, would ensure the townsfolk didn’t pay much mind to the strange and mangled vehicle in the parking lot. No parking tickets, either. Ah, the power of Vis really does seem like magic sometimes.

For a moment I thought about holding onto the delicious energy flowing in me, surging through my veins, sharpening my senses, and making life all-around better. All those nasty memories about losing my power made me want to hold it tighter. But, at last, I pushed the Vis away, knowing the dangers that lay down that path. Burnout. Insanity. Death.

I took a minute to grab my iPod from the Camino’s cab and a black gym bag, filled with goodies, from the camper. Gear in hand, I made for Ferraro’s sedan. I tossed the duffle into the backseat, then slipped into the passenger seat and set to work putting on some tunes. Today I needed something up-tempo, something to pump me up for the asskickery which was sure to come.

I opted for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” ’Nough said.

ELEVEN:

Dirty Birdy

Ferraro and I cruised on over to the US-93, a wide cut of two-lane asphalt, and headed north for Missoula, home of the sheriff’s office. The trip took about twenty minutes, which gave us plenty of time to talk strategy specifics. Those specifics amounted to her taking the lead since she was an FBI agent with an official title and not just some wandering, homeless, delinquent gambler. Basically, she’d do the talking while I stood in a corner and looked intimidating—relegated to backup muscle.

Lolo might’ve been a dirt-speck, but Missoula was a good-sized city, one hundred thousand strong, at least. We drove past the Missoula police department, a plain, but functional red and tan building with cruisers loitering in the parking lot. Instead of stopping there, we made for the actual sheriff’s office, which turned out to be one of those big ol’, multistoried, white-columned government buildings that every state seems to have. We pulled into an open spot across the street, parked the sedan in front of a single-story pawnshop—didn’t want the sheriff to see what car we’d arrived in, just in case he was a dirty-birdy—and hoofed it over to the main entrance.

A fresh-faced, bushy-tailed young man of maybe twenty greeted us with a smile and a friendly “How can I help you today?”

Ferraro flashed her badge, offered a tightlipped smile, and fed him a line about an FBI investigation, which promptly earned us an invitation to see the sheriff, whose office was on the second floor. As we were ushered upstairs, I silently mulled over the idea of getting a phony shield—this was way, way easier than the flaming hoops of bullshit I usually jumped through to get these types of things done. Hoops which consisted mostly of threatening people, elaborate layers of lies and tomfoolery, occasional torture, and enough Vis constructs to make me want to sleep for a week.

Definitely something to be said about doing things through official channels.

We were curtly guided into the sheriff’s office—the man himself sat behind a mahogany desk, chatting on the phone. He gave us a friendly grin, just a quick glint of teeth, then held up a just-one-moment finger. Fine by me, since it gave me a chance to study the man behind the desk: in his late forties with short brown hair peppered at the sides with gray, and a crazy handlebar mustache, which made me instantaneously wary. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of facial hair—ever since I left the Corps I’ve sported facial hair of one variety or another for ideological reasons.

But a mustache like that only existed to be twirled in a dastardly fashion by a scheming scoundrel who ascribed to the Snidely Whiplash School of Villainry. Now if I could only find his top hat and black bad-guy cloak, I’d have him dead to rights.

“Okay,” he said into the receiver. “Yes, yes. I understand … Alright, I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up the phone and set his eyes on us. He didn’t move his hands, but I thought for a second he was going in for the mustache stroke. “To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from the FBI?” he asked, his voice dry and dusty, professional, though tempered with annoyance. Sorta long-suffering.

Ferraro closed the door with a snap, and the tension in the room ratcheted up a notch. She casually ambled over to the sheriff’s desk and laid out the evidence I’d gathered from the motorhome and the photos I’d lifted from the motel room: a snapshot of the prisoners chained to the motorhome floor, the picture of Doctor Hogg, the phony passports, and the physical license plate I’d snatched from the panel van.

“Care to tell me what you know about these,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Her tone was the kind a supervisor used to dress down a shitbag subordinate who’d managed to screw the pooch worse than the crew of the Titanic.

The sheriff looked over the photos, his face flat, unreadable. “Can I ask what this is pertaining to? And who your partner is?” He glanced at me, his gaze lingering only for a moment. “He doesn’t look like any Fed I’ve ever run across,” he said after he’d finished his evaluation.

“Don’t worry about him,” Ferraro replied, offering me a quick glance over one shoulder. Play it cool, the look said. “He’s an undercover operative”—she halted—“deep, deep ops. Now, I think you know exactly what this is pertaining to.” She settled her hands on her hips in a move that said, I ain’t-taking-no-shit-off-some-local-so-get-with-the-program.

He sighed and ran a hand over his mustache. The evil bastard. He lifted up the passport of the dead driver, his eyes scanning the picture. “Well, this one here belongs to a meth dealer from ’round about these parts. Cliff Bradford, which you can plainly see for yourself. He’s a small-time pusher. Been around for a good couple of years now, but originally he came over from Washington state. Had quite a few priors. Used to be a fence, if I remember correctly. Smuggled computer parts or something like that. He did some prison time before he ended up here. We’ve had a few dust-ups, but he always comes away clean. Sneaky shit.

“And this …” He picked up the license plate next, holding it out at arm’s length. “I can have my boys run it if you want, but I already know what they’ll tell you. Belongs to that fella right there.” He pointed to the passport of the unknown thug: the short, bulky, balding passenger. “Strange character, that one. Rolled into town with this fella.” He gestured toward the photo of Doctor Hogg.

“Both of ’em set up shop down in Lolo a few months back. But this guy, well, he was a real odd duck. Something off about him. Gave me the willies, so I ran his van looking for priors. Found a name, but not much else. What the hell was it?” He set the license plate down and drummed his fingers on the desk. “Steve something. Quick fingers Steve, maybe. Something goofy like that.”

Ferraro froze in place, her face going stony and rigid. “Fast Hands Steve?” she asked, almost disinterested.

But I knew better. If Fast Hands—an insane, no-good halfie—was somehow mixed up in this mess, it was bad news bears. Ferraro and I had tangled with him both in Outworld and in a future, shadow-version of Seattle. Future Fast Hands had dropped the bomb that he’d managed to murder Ferraro at some point in that timeline, so if he was here, it was possible he was holding a metaphorical death warrant with Ferraro’s name on it.

The sheriff snapped his fingers. “Yeah, that’s it. Fast Hands Steve. Goofiest gall-darn aliases I’ve come across in a decade. You know him?” He sounded genuinely interested in the connection, but I also heard an underlying hint of something else. Like worry. Could be, he was simply keeping his cover as a member of the Venántium solidly under wraps, but my gut told me otherwise. This dirty bastard was putting out more smoke than a forest fire. He knew something, and he was staying hush-hush about whatever it was for one reason or another.

“You mentioned Doctor Hogg. What can you tell me about him?” Ferraro asked, bulldozing over the sheriff’s question about Fast Hands without giving it even a passing acknowledgement.

“Well, like I told you,” Sheriff Kelly said, “Doctor Hogg moved into town a few months back. I’ve been working to get a bead on him, but I haven’t managed to turn up much. Based on his connection with some local drug dealers, like Bradford there, I’m guessing he’s cooking up some new kinda meth.” He hesitated, eyeing me long and hard. “This is drug related”—he pointed a digit at me—“he’s with the DEA, right?”

“Don’t worry about him or what organizations he’s with,” Ferraro snapped. “Pay attention to me. Now, I’m going to be candid with you, Sheriff Kelly.” She placed her hands on the desk and leaned forward. “I know you’re a member of a clandestine organization known as the Lucis Venántium. An organization which is predominately concerned with policing dangerous, supernatural beings.” She pulled away, folding her arms across her chest.

His eyes widened in shock, quickly chased away by fear, before settling on blank neutrality. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice was like his face: oddly neutral. No smirking, no laughing, no threats, none of the typical reactions I would’ve expected.

“Sheriff, I understand the need for confidentiality,” Ferraro said. “Denying your involvement, however, is pointless. My sources are impeccable. You are a hunter with the Venántium, but my investigation is not about you or your organization. I have good reason to believe there is a very real threat to this community. A dangerous creature known as a Wendigo, who is likely working in concert with Doctor Hogg and his associates. Tell me what you know.”

The sheriff wiggled in his seat, fidgeting with his pen while great beads of sweat formed on his forehead. He looked at Ferraro, then averted his gaze, latching onto me instead. After a few moments of study, his eyes flared in shock, and he couldn’t help but raise one hand to his mustache, pinching the end between two fingers and twisting it slightly.

“I, I, I know you,” he stammered. “You’re a Guild operative. I’ve seen your picture before.”

Well, shit. So much for doing things the official way. I sighed and eased my body away from the wall.

I turned and carefully closed the door blinds, making sure our meeting was really and truly private. I faced the sheriff once more and held out my palm, conjuring a globe of brilliant fire, which bobbed and weaved above my hand like a small sun.

“I’m not just any Guild operative, bud, I’m Yancy Lazarus. I’m the guy who gets called in to fix the kinda problems you’ve got on your hands right now.” I let the ball of light flare in my hand, throwing out a wave of uncomfortable heat—the beads of sweat on the sheriff’s head turned into small rivers of perspiration. “You wanna take a guess about how exactly I go about fixing those problems?”

Sheriff Kelly glanced between Ferraro and me, a look of bewilderment crossing his features as though he couldn’t understand how she could stand by and do nothing.

“Now listen up,” I said. “There are people missing, folks who are neck deep in shit, and I’ve got a hunch you know something. So, listen to my partner here”—I nodded toward Ferraro—“and answer her questions truthfully, or I’ll start fixing things right here in this office.”

I felt like an asshole for laying it on so thick—I hate it when muscle-headed thugs put this kinda pressure on me, but what’s the point of having a reputation if you don’t use it once in a while? I leaned back against the wall, the flame still hanging above my outstretched palm.

“I’ll say it again,” Ferraro continued, cool, calm, and collected as if nothing out of the normal had transpired. “I believe there is a very real threat to this community. There is a dangerous creature, known as a Wendigo, that is working in concert with Doctor Hogg and his associates. I’m not sure what they’re doing, but it isn’t good. Now, tell me what you know.”

The guy wriggled in his seat, his gaze shifting between Ferraro and me, clearly as nervous as a cat in a dog kennel. “Shit,” he finally said. “Look, I don’t know what’s happening. Some vagrants have gone missing. A few druggies. Hell, even the dealers are cutting back. They’re all into something new, and hell if I know what it is. But things around here have been better than ever. Violent crime has dropped by half. Arrests are down. Drug infractions are at their lowest level in fifteen years. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s the best gall-darn thing to happen to this town in my life.”

He stopped for a beat, placing one hand on the desk and drumming his fingers restlessly. “I’m not supposed to mention it,” he finally said, “but it was someone from the Guild who told me to keep my nose out of this business. Tall guy, broad shoulders, fancy dresser—Sullivan, was his name. Told me this was a Guild sanctioned operation. Some kinda research.”

It was amazing how fast this conversation had just gone from progress to train wreck.

Ferraro visibly tensed at the mention of James’s name.

She wasn’t the only one, either. I felt like a 105 round had exploded in my guts.

According to my math, the photo from the motel room was strike one, and this eyewitness testimony from the sheriff was a big ol’ strike two. More and more it appeared my oldest friend in the Guild—my only friend in the Guild, really—was involved in all of this. I couldn’t believe he was behind everything, but it was increasingly likely his hands weren’t clean. Dammit, James.

“Alright, partner, tell me where in the hell I can find Hogg,” I said, slickly glossing over the sheriff’s statement about James and the Guild. “I’ve got some questions, and I reckon he’s got answers.”

Sheriff Kelly shook his head. “Look, I’ve kept away from whatever the doctor and his boys are cookin’ up. If there’s something goin’ on here, maybe you need to take it up with the Guild. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve really got some other matters to deal with.” He smiled, but the sweat kept rolling right on down his face.

I tweaked the flaming globe floating above my hand, pulling out the flows of heat and adding in strands of magnetic force, wispy strands of electrical current, and a dash of earthen power. The ball turned an icy blue, cool and crisp like a winter morning. “Alright,” I said, “I’ll take it up with the Guild. But you listen here, pal, if I find out you’re involved in any of this, I swear you’re gonna regret it until you’re fat, old, and bald—assuming you live that long.”

I edged forward—Ferraro’s hand shot out and wrapped around my free arm, holding me back in a white-knuckled grip.

She leaned into me. “We’re finished here,” she whispered in my ear.

I nodded my head, just a fraction of an inch, then I offered the sheriff a grin that promised pain, lots of pain to come. I lashed out with the sizzling blue construct in my hand. The blue orb zipped across the room, exploding into him with a little clap of air and a soft sizzle of electric force.

He let out a shriek, his rolly-chair wobbling as his hands roamed over his body, searching for any wounds or damage.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “that was just a little foretaste, to let you know I’m not bullshitting you the way you’re bullshitting us.”

“Get him outta here before I have him locked up for assaulting an officer,” the sheriff spat, shooting daggers at Ferraro and me in turns.

Ferraro let go of my arm, moved to the desk, scooped up the evidence, and casually, almost dismissively, placed a business card on his desk. “If you think of anything or track down any leads, I expect to hear from you.”

He picked up the card, crumpled it in a tight fist, and dropped it into the trashcan. “You think you can come in here, waving around your badge, tryin’ to thump me over the head with your authority, making threats and accusations? I damned well know this isn’t some official investigation, so you can expect zero cooperation from me and my department. Now leave.”

“You’re right,” Ferraro said with a nod. “It’s not an official investigation. Yet.” Her voice was frosty as the Rockies. “But that can change.” She turned, hooked one arm around my shoulders, and guided me out of the room before I could nuke his office. We headed back down to ground level, her silent and fuming.

“That could’ve gone better,” she said as we exited the building and crossed the parking lot, bound for the sedan. “I’m not sure if he’s actively involved, but I know there’s a lot he’s not telling us. We aren’t going to get anything else useful out of him—not after that little stunt you pulled. What was that, anyway?”

“Hey, no worries.” I shrugged myself free of her arm. “I’ve been around long enough to know when I’m being worked over. And that guy? That guy was so full of shit, it was leaking out of his nose and all over his mustache. He wasn’t gonna give us anything useful anyway. Guy’s dirty, I know it.”

“Oh yeah, and how exactly do you know it?” she demanded, scowling.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked, then snorted. “Did you see his friggin’ mustache? Of course he’s a bad guy. Plus, I had a plan. I mean it was kinda on the fly—I didn’t expect him to recognize me like that—but I still had a plan.” I pushed my hand into my coat pocket and pulled out a clear crystal stone about the size of a tennis ball.

She glanced from the orb to me, her forehead scrunching in what could only be sheer consternation. “Fine. Tell me,” she said.

“It’s a scrying stone,” I said by way of explanation. “I grabbed it to talk to James—”

“Speaking of which, we need to have a long talk about him, too,” she interrupted. “Did it never occur to you that James might be our suspect? He fits the profile, and he certainly had the means.”

“We can talk about him later”—I waved a hand through the air as though to wipe the words away—“for now, let’s focus on the sheriff.”

She eyed me with a blend of annoyance and skepticism, but eventually nodded.

We headed for the car, talking as we walked. “The construct I cast on the sheriff—it’s a temporary resonance working—won’t last long, but for a few minutes we’ll be able to pick up anything he says on this here stone.” Ferraro pulled out the key fob and unlocked the car; I popped my door and slid in the passenger seat. “When he started giving us the runaround, I knew I could shake him up. Now we just have to sit back and see what he gives us.”

“Assuming he’s in on it,” Ferraro said, pulling her door closed behind her.

I rolled my eyes. “Of course he’s in on it.” I held the stone up between us, weaving a small flow of spirit into the orb. It glimmered for a moment, then issued a soft, pearly glow, which trickled through the cab like a night-light.

“What the fuck have you dragged me into?” the sheriff asked, his voice a sharp whisper before falling quiet, only to be replaced by the indistinct buzz of someone gabbing at him through a phone. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pick up the words from the other end of the line since they were faint and partially concealed by the whine and squeal of feedback.

“Why am I asking?” the sheriff whispered after a moment. “I’m asking because I’ve got an FBI agent snooping around and—you’re not going to believe this—a mage from the Guild.”

Another pause.

“Yeah, well I didn’t sign up for this,” Sheriff Kelly replied. “You’re not paying me enough to cross guns with the FBI or the Guild. You said this’d be easy money. No complications—your words. And now my career could be on the line. I could lose everything. And my guys are starting to get antsy—they’ve seen things, Doc. If you expect us to send along any more bodies for you to experiment on or extra protection from my end, I’m gonna need more money to spread around. A lot more money. Triple the agreed upon price.”

“What do you mean?” Sheriff Kelly asked to some unheard question. “No, no, I’m still in—no need to take this higher …” He paused again, a long hold. “Shit. Fine. Fine, but they’re on to you and they know about Fast Hands and Bradford—”

A long, tense lull in the conversation, interrupted only by a few bouts of static.

“Oh shit. Oh no. Bradford’s dead? This can’t be happening. Shit, shit, shit.” His breathing was heavy, panicked. I could envision him yanking on his mustache as he swore. “This guy from the Guild will kill me if he finds out about this. You understand that, right? That’s what the Guild does to people who pull this kinda thing …” Another pause. “You think I don’t know it’s too late to turn back now? Dammit, I never shoulda listened to you,” he muttered. “You’d better get your ducks in a row over there,” he said more loudly, “because they’re comin’ for you …”

Silence, static.

“What? Are you outta your mind? No, I can’t swing by—I’m gonna stay as far away as I can manage, y’hear? If this Fed and this Fixer guy are worth their salt at all, they’ll probably sit outside this building, waiting for me to make a move …”

“Yeah, okay,” the sheriff finally said. “I suppose I can send over Wisner and Stutzman, but you’d better get this ironed out.” He slammed the phone down into the receiver with a thunk.

There was the shuffle and rustle of feet moving across the floor, followed by the creak of a door opening. “Get me Wisner and Stutzman in here right now!” he bellowed, then slammed the door with some real heat. The connection faded and fizzled, the light from the orb sputtering and dying as the construct in his office lost its giddyup.

I slipped the orb back into my pocket and swiveled in my seat, smirking at Ferraro as I arched an eyebrow—smugness radiated off me in palpable waves.

Ferraro scowled, her lips pulling down at the corners as she crossed her arms across her chest. “Don’t look at me that way,” she said. “You got lucky—you could’ve blown our only solid trail.”

I barked a short laugh. “Clues and plans are great, but always follow the facial hair.” I pointed toward the building as two young officers—one slim, tall, and Native American, the other squat, broad, and white—hurried off toward a cruiser parked in the front lot. They started the engine and drove away, slowly and leisurely, so as not to draw notice. “Wisner and Stutzman?” I asked.

Ferraro growled something inarticulate and feral, then pulled out onto the street, flipping a hard U-turn to get us moving in the right direction, before dropping back, ensuring we could track the cruiser without getting made.

TWELVE:

The Ol’ Mill

“You didn’t look surprised when the sheriff mentioned Sullivan,” Ferraro said as we ghosted behind the cruiser, which had turned onto the US-93 South, bound for Lolo. “So, I’m inclined to think you knew something and didn’t bother to share it with me.” She fell quiet, letting the statement sit between us like an unruly third wheel.

After a few minutes I sighed, reached back into my duffel bag, and pulled out the picture of James and the good doctor. I unfolded it and held it out where she could get a good look, even driving. She glanced down, studying the photo for a flash before returning her gaze to the road.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she asked, disappointed, like a grade school teacher who’d discovered her star pupil cheating on a test.

“Because I knew you wouldn’t understand. I know what it looks like: there’s a traitor somewhere high up in the Guild, who has some serious mojo and access to the Guild vault. You already said it, James fits the bill to a tee. Now, with this photo and the statement from the sheriff? Everything points to James. But I know him. I’ve known him for years. I’d trust him with my life, and this”—I slapped the glossy picture with the back of my hand—“well, I know he wouldn’t do something like this.”

She nodded slowly, pressing her lips together. “I can understand why you might feel that way, Yancy. But here’s the thing, betrayal is awful because you never see it coming. When someone betrays you, it’s always the person you think would never be capable of it. That’s why you need to follow the evidence. People lie, but evidence doesn’t.”

“Except sometimes the evidence does lie,” I said, absently running one hand along my pant leg. “I mean, this shit is too perfect, if you catch my meaning.”

“In the law enforcement field, that’s what we call a slam dunk,” she said. “If there’s an abundance of evidence all pointing at the same suspect, then that person is likely guilty.”

“Or,” I said, cutting in, “it could be a frame job. I’ve been on the wrong end of a frame job, so I know what it’s like to take the rap for something you didn’t do. Besides, it’s not like a picture—or even an eyewitness—means jack shit in our circles. Lots of things can appear to be someone. A talented mage using an illusion could do this. Or a doppelganger, specter, or even a minor demon lord. This”—I slapped the picture again, as though I might be able to beat a confession out of it—“is only circumstantial evidence at best.”

“I’m not saying James is guilty,” she replied. “But the evidence does strongly point that way, and we can’t afford to ignore it.” She paused for a beat. “And, if it is a frame job—though it might not be, and we should prepare for that possibility—we still need to run it down. I’ve found that frame jobs can often reveal a great deal about who the real culprit is.”

The red taillight of the cruiser flared in front of us, and the car disappeared as it pulled onto a forest access road. We slowed, crawling past the turn off, giving it a careful look.

A narrow gravel strip path, jutting off from the highway proper and descending into the pines.

“Let’s find a place to stow the car,” I said, watching the access road, though there wasn’t anything to see.

“We don’t know how far back they’re headed,” Ferraro replied, pulling the vehicle to a stop and thumbing on the hazards. “We might never catch them if we try to go in on foot.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I unfastened my seat belt and turned in my seat, rummaging around my gym bag once more. “I’ve got an off-road ride for us. We’ll find these dirty douches no matter how far they go.” My hand wrapped around the quartz stone Winona had given me and pulled it free with a tug.

Ferraro eyed the stone with an equal degree of scorn and suspicion. “Great, more rocks,” she said with all the enthusiasm of a dental patient awaiting a root canal. “And what does this one do—let us listen to their car tires?” she asked, then paused and shook her head. “You know what, forget I even asked.”

I opened myself to the Vis, held the stone up to my ear, and wove a faint stream of will and spirit into the crystal. For a second nothing happened, but then Winona’s voice exploded in my head:

You have found something? she asked without preamble.

Yeah, I thought back. I’ve got a couple of dirty cops headed out to some undisclosed location off the US-93. Pretty sure they’re headed to home base. Can you find me?

Yes. The voice inside my head paused. You need only think of your surroundings, draw a picture of it in your mind. The curve of the road. The lay of the trees. The crest of the hills. I will find you.

Just you? No word from Kong yet?

Kong? she sent, confusion running through the thought like a strong breeze.

I sent the best image of her father I could manage—the normal version, of course, not the big red death-dealing version.

Oh, she sent. He is resting. Recovering. We will speak of him later. Show me where you are.

“Can we hurry this along?” Ferraro whispered in my ear, her frustration evident and understandable since, from her perspective, I just sitting with a friggin’ rock next to my ear like an absolute moron while the bad guys got further and further away. She couldn’t know I was actually having a telepathic conversation with a Bigfoot. Heck, that sounded so friggin’ ridiculous I’m not even sure telling her would’ve made any difference.

“Shhh,” I hissed back, focusing. I surveyed the landscape, visualizing the highway stretching on for another thirty feet before gradually winding left and disappearing into the Montana wilderness. I pictured the access road, the brown gravel, the rutted dip from truck tires, a massive and jagged boulder protruding just to the right of the turnoff. I sent Winona an image of the tree line, mostly tall ponderosa pines, interspersed with some firs and a few junipers.

Winona’s mental fingers pried into my senses, a disconcerting and uncomfortable sensation akin to having someone crawl into your pants while you are still wearing ’em. Suddenly my nose was picking up the crisp smell of a slow blowing breeze and the musty scent of deep earth and gravel.

This road leads to an old lumber mill, long abandoned. This is where the prisoners go? she asked.

How’s about you hightail it over here and we’ll go find out together.

It will not be long, she sent, the connection fading then snapping shut.

I pulled the crystal away from my ear and tossed it back into the black duffle. “Alright,” I said, turning toward Ferraro. “Lady Bigfoot will be here soon, so let’s get geared up to kick ass, take names, and then politely set those names on fire with a blowtorch.”

“Lady Bigfoot,” Ferraro mumbled under her breath. “The company you keep baffles me.” She hopped out of the car and moved toward the trunk, which clicked open a moment later.

I followed suit, grabbing my gym bag out from the back, then sliding out of the car so I could get some fresh mountain air. And by “get some fresh mountain air,” I actually meant air coated in rich, delicious nicotine—Ferraro refused to let me smoke in the car, and I needed a friggin’ cigarette.

I pulled a half-crumpled pack of Reds out of my pants pocket, shook a smoke free, and lit ’er up with a small blaze of Vis-conjured flame. Smoke and warmth filled me up, instantaneously loosening the tightness in my shoulders and chest and slowing my heart. I took a few content puffs, pushed the packet back into my pocket, and set about gearing up. I already had my pistol and K-Bar, but a few extras wouldn’t go amiss.

First, I slid on a pair of fingerless biker gloves, which I’d augmented with a few nasty extras: steel plating affixed into place over the finger padding and short silver studs protruding from the knuckles. In the past, I used ’em to beat the holy-living-shit out of fairies and shapeshifting asswads, but I’d since upgraded them. A couple of complex sigils worked into the leather and imbued with Vis had turned these puppies into a pair of portable Tasers—weave a little spirit into the sigils, the circuit would snap closed, and the silver spikes would turn into friggin’ cattle prods.

I added a can of OC spray to my belt, opposite my K-Bar. Then, because I love to play things safe, I tucked a sleek, subcompact Glock 26—affectionately called a Baby Glock, ’cause it’s just so cutesy-wutesy—into a leather holster in the small of my back. Having an extra ten rounds at my disposal could be the difference between having a mouthful of ribs in my future and having a mouthful of graveyard dirt. I also tossed a couple of speedloaders for my revolver into my jacket pocket.

I felt like Batman, complete with my own kickass utility belt. If I could only get sound effect words to appear when I punched bad guys in the teeth, I’d have it made.

I tucked my duffle back into the cab just as Ferraro came around the side of the vehicle wearing clear ballistic shooting glasses and decked out in a black flak jacket, complete with mag pouches, flashbangs, and a med kit. She had her Glock on one hip, a steel collapsible baton on the other, and a sleek military-grade M-4—with an uber-sick broomstick handle and rail-mounted light system—dangling from a three-point sling. I gotta admit, I felt a little self-conscious. Honestly, she looked like a way bigger threat than me, even at my most menacing.

“Glad I’m working with a real professional,” she said, eyeing my coat, my travel-worn jeans, and the cigarette hanging from my lips. “I have to wonder whether you’re always so on the ball or if this is only to show a rookie like me how things are done.”

“Mock all you want,” I said, pulling another long, sweet drag from my smoke, “but I’d wager you my next year’s casino winnings—which, believe you me, is nothing to scoff at—that you’ll change your tune when you see me lay into these shitheels with my toys.” I gave her a lopsided grin and blew a plume of gray smoke out through my nose.

But she wasn’t smiling at my dig. In fact, her eyes had grown about two sizes too big, and her rifle was slowly, yet quite deliberately, moving up into her shoulder pocket. It was the way you might move if you happened upon a giant, pissed off grizzly with paws bigger than your head, which told me our guest had arrived.

“Ease up,” I said, swiveling to the rear. Winona lurked just inside the tree line on the opposite side of the road, a hulking mountain of muscle and hair, effortlessly blending with the forest around her. “Winona, it’s cool. This”—I patted Ferraro’s shoulder—“is Special Agent Nicole Ferraro. She’s with the FBI, but she’s clued in. She’s gonna be riding shotgun with us on this one.”

Winona nodded her shaggy head, then blurred across the road, appearing before us in a heartbeat.

Worry oozed off Ferraro like perspiration after a hard-hitting workout. This was probably the first time Ferraro had witnessed any overt supernatural wackiness since our last mission together, not counting the few workings I’d performed. In this game, even a few months away from the crazy could leave your average vanilla mortal questioning their sanity. A few months was more than enough time for your mind to concoct all sorts of elaborate lies, lies capable of explaining away the uncomfortable truth of the preternatural.

But when a giant ape-creature appears within spitting distance, all that shit comes crashing down like an avalanche of madness. Confirmation of the crazy. Confirmation that all those walking nightmares haunting your thoughts were as real as it came.

Ferraro pushed out a deep breath with a soft sigh and let her weapon hang on its sling once more. “I’m Ferraro,” she said, voice even and level. She was one cool-headed cat. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She extended a hand, which hardly quivered at all.

Winona considered the proffered limb gravely for a moment, then abruptly broke into a huge, slightly terrifying, smile. She grabbed Ferraro’s hand and pumped with enough energetic force that Ferraro’s whole upper body shook.

“I am Winona Treesinger, daughter of Chief Chankoowashtay. It has been many long years since our kind has worked openly with the little brothers and sisters. It is a good omen.”

“Hey, wait just a cow-farting-second,” I interjected. “Let me get this straight, with her it’s all handshakes, hugs, and good omens? You’re yanking my friggin’ chain, right?” I turned to Ferraro. “When I met She-Kong and her pops, it was physical assault, property damage, and blackmail. What the hell?”

Ferraro shifted her cool, level gaze to me. “Obviously they’re good judges of character.”

I threw my hands up in frustration and pitched my cigarette, incinerating the butt in a flash of heat and a puff of smoke, which left gray ash behind. “Fine,” I said. “Whatever. Let’s just get this show on the road, already.” I paused, looking at Winona. “Can you carry us into the mill and veil us both?”

The Bigfoot considered the request for a beat, like maybe she was running through some sort of Sasquatch shorthand in her head, before finally nodding.

“She’s our off-road vehicle?” Ferraro asked, trying very hard not to sound insulting or incredulous.

“Yep.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Hope you like piggyback rides.”

Winona moved quickly, scooping one of us up in either arm like an overworked mother toting around a pair of unruly, weapon-wielding toddlers. A surge of power enveloped us, a purple field of energy bleeding out from the Bigfoot, encompassing our party in a second-skin of near invisibility. And then we were moving.

We flew through the woods, Winona’s steps as sure and steady as if she’d run this same path every day for a thousand years: her feet naturally avoiding every pitfall, every loose rock, every protruding root. Now that I was doing this in full daylight, I got the sense that the forest was making way for her. As if the trees were pulling back to clear a path, like troops scattering at the passage of a general.

It took us less than twenty minutes to cut our way through the dense vegetation—and never mind that we didn’t even take the road. We found ourselves on a steep slope on the forest’s edge, overlooking a giant mill. A real mutt of a building.

On the left sprawled a dilapidated structure, equal parts wood and red brick, which looked to be the mill proper. A big ol’ storage loft, made of rusted corrugated steel siding, clung to the right side of the mill. Next to that, connected by a thin copper pipe, was some kind of silo, three stories easy, with a smokestack protruding from its top like a curved hitchhiker’s thumb. Since I know approximately jack shit about mills, I couldn’t tell you what any of that equipment was for.

But I can tell you this: the place was creepy with a capital C, and bear in mind I’ve been to places creepy enough to give Wes Craven uneasy dreams.

The building sat in a depressed clearing, surrounded by towering trees on every side. The sun was out and shining overhead—only a handful of wispy clouds floated in the sky—yet the place dwelt in perpetual shadow. I mean, we’re not talking dark as night, but a blanket of dreary gloom definitely hung over everything, sapping the color and life right from the air, muting sounds, and radiating an aura of get-the-hell-off-my-lawn-you-damn-kids. A cursory glance of the property told me why.

A cadre of totem poles surrounded the building, though these suckers weren’t your run of the mill totems. True, these bastards were superficially similar in style to their Native American counterparts, but they’d been carved with obscene and mystical creatures of Outworld. Multi-headed Hydras, with shimmering green scales and ruby eyes. Eyeless, tentacle clad horrors, from the inner regions of the Ether. Hideous Wyrms—massive creatures with slicing pincers and a thousand chitinous legs—the dusty gods of the Deep Downs.

The ancient, mythological beasts depicted were all symbols of the spirit world, each of them physical manifestations of evil, and each was inscribed with ancient sigils of power. Sigils so old and nasty they set my teeth on edge just lookin’ at ’em. Made me want to bathe in a vat of hand sanitizer.

I heard a sharp intake of breath from Winona, which told me she knew what we were looking at, too.

“What am I missing?” Ferraro whispered, sensing the general mood and tasting the bad juju brushing up against us like a muggy New Orleans night.

“See those pillars?” I waved toward the totems. “Someone’s used those things to punch a makeshift hole in reality. They’ve created a semi-permanent weak spot, so that the mill exists partly in our world and partly in some dark, shitty place either inside the Hub, or in a realm adjacent to the Hub.”

“This is the magic of our People.” Winona rumbled, her muscles flexing, tightening, clenching. “The totems are sacred to the People and a treasure to the little brothers and sisters who still follow the old ways. Only Achak could have done such a thing. This …” She stopped, her breathing heavy. “This is against nature. Against all our ways. It is as perverse as the Kinslayer himself.” Instead of sounding angry or offended, she sounded sorrowful. “Another crime the Kinslayer must answer for,” she whispered.

“Easy there.” I patted her arm. “We’ll scorch this place good and proper.”

Ferraro quietly cleared her throat and, being the only real professional among us, politely pointed to the trio of Missoula county police cruisers parked in front of the mill. Four uniformed officers stood at intervals around the building. Undoubtedly there were a few more officers we couldn’t see, likely on the backside of the property.

“I’m okay with burning this place down,” she said, “but maybe we should come up with some sort of plan first. ‘Let’s set it on fire’ works in some circles, but let’s keep in mind there are innocent people inside, not to mention valuable information. So how do we get in and what should we do about these dirty cops?”

I thought about it for a moment. I didn’t want to kill these corrupt assfaces. They probably didn’t even know what was going on inside that mill. Sure, they were bad guys, and yes, they absolutely had some serious comeuppance heading their way. But the kinda punishment they deserved was not hot lead—it was a set of cold iron bracelets, some thick steel bars, and a tattooed cellmate named Huge-Hank. Ferraro’s office could handle a few dirty cops; generally, if the regular ol’ justice system can tackle an issue, I say let it.

But we couldn’t sneak in unobserved, not with the front door locked up tight, and even if we could, I wasn’t too keen on leaving armed enemies at our six. The chances of taking them all out using less than lethal force without also starting a firefight was slim to nil. I glanced at the horror-movie mill and offered Ferraro a wicked smirk as a plan formed in my head.

“I know just what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna scare these sons of bitches so bad they’re gonna be checking under their prison bunks until they die of old age. Make ’em leave without ever firing a shot. Here’s the plan …”

THIRTEEN:

Fright Fest

You might not know this about me, but I’m a horror movie fanatic. If there’s a flick with a monster, a serial killer, a small platoon of brain-dead college kids “looking for a good time” in a haunted house, or anything with a “B” label on it, I’ve probably seen it. Doesn’t really make sense, me liking horror movies. With the asstacular, crazy-pants life I lead, it seems like watching a horror flick would be too much like taking my work home with me.

But I love horror movies because they give me a chance to see my nightmares splashed up on a big screen, safely contained for my viewing entertainment. Nightmares on display for me to jump at in fear or laugh at in their sheer absurdity. There’s just some small comfort in being scared out of your britches while also being somewhere safe and secure. That shit’s cathartic, like going to a session with a shrink, except with more blood and screaming. Though maybe not that much more blood and screaming.

So, I know my way around a good scare, and I knew the setup for a scary-ass creature feature when I saw one: Secluded woods deep in the middle of BFE, check. Old, creepy lumber mill, check. Illegal and nefarious goings-on perpetrated by a mad scientist, double check. Human-eating forest monster, you’d better believe it. Hell, this place had so many monster movie check marks, it’d hurt my hand to write ’em all out. And I was positive those Rube cops down there—stupid schmucks with more dollar signs in their eyes than common sense in their heads—felt that creep-factor too.

“This is the most absurd plan in the history of plans,” Ferraro called over her shoulder as she monitored my six. “You’re absolutely certain you’re a professional fix-it man?” she whispered, half-seriously. “I honestly can’t believe you managed to evade me for almost four years. You drive an El Camino with a camper shell and your best plan of attack is to put on a high school haunted house.”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” I replied softly, glancing back at her. “We’ll get to the shoot-’em-up part of the plan quick enough, Ricky-Recon. For now, just hold your hard-chargin’ horses, sit back, watch my tail, and see how a master works.” I cracked my knuckles for effect, because it seemed like the kinda thing to do.

That earned me an eye-roll—one so colossal I feared the g-force might cause her eyes to fly from their sockets—and a disbelieving shake of her head. But then she went back to scanning the rear, occasionally stealing glances toward the mill.

I opened myself to the Vis, letting its power flood into me and fill me up as I shoved my emotions and hurts away, letting them burn like kindling in the fires of Creation itself. My senses sharpened:

The musky stench of the mill and the almost tangible evil reeking off the place was a pungent scent in my nose. Ferraro’s rock-steady heartbeat filled my ears like a backup drum beating out the time, followed by a murder of crows cawing in the distance, before taking wing and fluttering through the woods. The crows’ call tugged at my memory, but I pushed it away as unimportant. I focused on the mill, my eyes picking out the crumbling brickwork, rotten boards, and rusted metal, despite the distance and the poor lighting.

I peeled back my mental defenses, opening my mind a fraction of an inch, and established a link with Winona. You ready to rock this shit, sister? I asked.

I am ready, she sent. She was all sharp focus and coiled tension, a rifle trigger squeezed to the point of release.

Alright, I sent, first let’s set the mood.

I held up my hands, arms swaying back and forth, my fingers moving and twitching as though I were throwing down some funky ol’ beat on the black and whites. Fine flows of air, slithered through the trees, leaves rustling in their wake. A soft moan settled over the clearing, the ominous sound of an approaching storm, or perhaps an approaching horror. I watched in satisfaction as the four officers, visible from our vantage point, shifted on weary feet, glancing around in nervous anticipation. This wind wasn’t natural, and they could sense it.

That, my friends, is what they call atmosphere in the horror-show biz.

With another small effort of will, I cut the flows of air—the wind died as suddenly as it’d started, ushering in an unnatural silence. In preparation for this little demonstration, I’d had Ferraro stack a small pile of baseball-sized rocks not far from me. I conjured a new flow, a braid of air, earth, and magnetic force, which scooped a handful of the stones up into a sling of Vis-wrought power. I swept my right arm out, and the stones responded in violent motion, streaking up and outward, scattering into the forest in every direction.

A moment later, the unnerving silence hanging in the air shattered, torn apart by the thud, crash, and snap of tree branches breaking as my stone barrage touched down.

The officers responded predictably enough. Pistols flew free of holsters, shotguns were raised to the ready. The officers spun almost as one, eyes frantically searching the woods for any sign of movement or some clue about what in the hell was going on. I could almost see the goosebumps standing up on their arms and the hair rising at the nape of their necks like a platoon of Marines at attention. I wanted to cackle in madman glee. Dance, puppets, dance on your strings … Bwahahaha!

The squat white guy we’d followed up here—either officer Wisner or Stutzman, I wasn’t sure which—hefted his pistol. “If there’s anyone out there,” he yelled, a tremor in his voice, “you’d better get gone! This is an active police matter. So if you don’t stop dickin’ around, I swear I’ll run you in—and that’s if you’re lucky enough not to get a bellyful of lead.”

Okay, Winona, I thought after my temporary evil-villain hysteria passed, give the big mouth a glimpse, just a second, got me?

Understood, she replied.

I watched the tree line near the big-talkin’ deputy, grinning like a friggin’ fool and feeling like some shithead kid up to no good on Halloween night.

Officer Loudmouth’s eyes swept back and forth across the perimeter, never ceasing their frantic search. Winona, using her ridiculous Sasquatch speed, appeared like a wraith just at the edge of the tree line, but it wasn’t Winona as I knew her. She was little more than a hulking black shadow with glowing eyes the color of spilled blood. It was a simple—well, simple for her, anyway—illusion, and holy shit was it scary. I’d been expecting something along these lines, and seeing her still sent a wave of chills scampering along my spine.

The guard’s anxious gaze passed back over the previously vacant spot—he jumped as he caught a glimpse of the Winona-shaped thing staring at him like he might be next on the menu. The officer froze, jaw dropped. After a long, slow delay, he finally glanced down, fumbling at the radio attached to his shoulder. When he looked back up, Winona was gone, vanished as though she’d never been.

The terrified cop was hyperventilating now, shuffling toward his cruiser. He thumbed the button on his shoulder radio. “This is Stutzman, over. There’s something out here—I. Shit, it’s big. Fast as hell, over.”

It was high time to crank their paranoia up another couple of notches. I let fly the last few stones I had while also blasting off a powerful wave of raw, unshaped force and will, letting the invisible and malformed working sweep out across the clearing. It wasn’t a proper construct, but with all that extra energy and interference in the air, their radios would work about as well Dish TV in a blizzard.

“This is Rankle, over,” someone radioed. “I think I mighta …” I heard the crackle as the signal failed. My last round of stones crashed into the forest, sending out a cacophony of noise.

Stutzman’s eyes grew to approximately the size of teacups, and none of his fellow officers seemed to be holding their composure much better. “Say again, over,” Stutzman hollered into his radio. “Rankle, repeat your last! I did not copy, over.”

There was another crackle of static, followed by a brief snippet of speech: “I said … something … woods …” then the radio transmission fizzled completely.

Ready for the coup de grace? I sent to Winona.

Which one should I take? she asked, stern, serious.

One of the guys from the back—make sure no one sees you.

Oh, no one will see me, she said. I could hear glee and adrenaline through the link—I think she might’ve been secretly enjoying this.

And Winona, make sure he squeals, but don’t hurt him too bad. Just put the fear into him, then put him out cold. You know how to do that, right?

Yes, she paused, and in my mind, I could almost see a smile forming on her face. I’ve had practice. She sent a brief image: me standing with my back to her, my hands upraised as I talked to Kong, followed by a pair of hairy hands flashing out, colliding into the back of my skull.

Har-har, guess everyone’s a friggin’ comedian these days.

The connection fell silent, as did the clearing. All the officers down there seemed to instinctively know something was coming down the pipe. Each held their breath in anticipation, shoulders knotted, hands fidgeting on pistol grips.

The quiet didn’t last long.

It was abruptly punctuated by a long shriek of terror so pure it made me want to scream like a three-year-old girl. Then the sound cut off as though sliced by a knife blade, the quiet carrying a terrible sense of finality. If you didn’t know better, there was only one conclusion you could arrive at: someone had just met a very unfortunate end.

“Screw this!” Stutzman hollered into his radio. “A new boat ain’t worth dying over.” He scurried toward his cruiser, the extra weight around his middle jiggling as he ran. There was a bustle of motion as all the remaining officers decided Stutzman had nailed it right on the head—that the extra money, or that new, shiny four-wheeler, wasn’t worth biting the big one for. Cruiser doors damn near sailed off their hinges as the officers scrambled to get inside their vehicles. Engines fired up with a dull roar, followed shortly by an exodus of dirty cops, the boys in blue gunning it for the exit and safety.

There was a part of me that felt hugely satisfied at scaring the bad out of those asswads, but another part of me felt sick. Sick at the idea that those jokers could put on a uniform, swear to serve and protect innocent people, then give up and run away at the first sign of trouble. Look, I’m normally the person who commends pragmatic and anti-heroic acts of self-preservation—I’m forever a realist at heart, and heroics are exactly the kind of stupid bullshit that’ll get you killed. But if you put on a uniform and pledge yourself to the service of others … well, that shit means something.

It was a crusty, soon-to-retire cop named Harvey who’d taught me that lesson not so long ago, and it’d been a lesson written out in blood. My mind flashed back to the last time I’d been stuck in police custody. Trapped in a small-town police station, without my powers, while a psychopathic, shapeshifting fear-monster hunted me down, murdering anyone unlucky enough to get in its way. I thought about those officers—led by Ferraro—who’d boldly stood in the way, giving that mean ol’ son of a bitch the finger while pumping it full of lead. I thought back to officer Harvey, who’d figuratively taken a bullet for me, because that’s what a cop was supposed to do.

Well, good cops anyways, I thought as the last cruiser pulled onto the road and out of view. Those crap-sticks would get what was coming to ’em. Once everything settled, Ferraro would serve these jokers some well-deserved justice.

“Fine,” Ferraro finally said, drawing up next to me. “I guess your ‘scare-them-silly tactic’”—she air quoted with one hand—“was less moronic than I thought.”

I was a little flabbergasted. I never get compliments. Like ever. From anyone. I turned the words over in my mind for a moment, looking for some barb or attack. But after a moment of examination, I found they were genuine. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. “Thank you,” I said slowly, carefully, waiting for the punchline to land. But it didn’t. How ’bout that shit?

Winona’s bulky frame appeared just off to one side a second later, the sudden presence forcing a jump out of me, which I tried to brush off as readjusting my jacket. “Good work out there, Furry-Pants,” I said, then cleared my throat. “What’d you do with the cop?”

She shrugged meaty shoulders. “Knocked him unconscious, handcuffed him, and discarded his weapon in a stream several miles away. He should be well in a few hours’ time.”

“That’s top-shelf work right there,” I said, and meant it.

Ferraro nodded her approval. “Now, if we’re done congratulating ourselves,” she said, “how about we get down to business, bust down that door, and find some answers?”

“You’re the federal agent,” I replied. “So please, lead the way, Warrior Princess.”

FOURTEEN:

Little Brothers

We stacked up against the outside of the mill door, Ferraro nearest the entryway, with me behind, pressing into her back. Winona—giant and hulking as ever—crouched on the opposite side of the entrance, attempting to be inconspicuous. Not working so well, but she was being a good sport about this military-style tactics business. I mean, I had combat training with the Marines and an extensive history with the Fist of the Staff—the special-operations, wet-works department of the Guild—not to mention a shit-ton of field experience. And Ferraro not only had her combat experience as a Marine officer, she was also, hands down, one of the most capable law enforcement agents I’d ever run across.

This was all new for Winona, however. She was as wet behind the ears as a dog playing in sprinklers, yet she seemed to be handling everything in gigantic-stride.

Ferraro had her M-4 up and at the low-ready, buttstock lodged in her shoulder pocket. I had my pistol in one hand and a flashbang in the other, primed and ready to go. “Alright, let’s do this thing,” I said, giving Winona a tip of my head.

The Bigfoot moved like the wind, pivoting on one leg and lashing out with one appropriately named big-foot, which hit the rickety wooden door like a battering ram, tearing it off its frame and sending it clattering into the gloomy interior of the mill proper. As soon as the door was open, I moved—pulling the pin, depressing the spoon, and lobbing the flashbang into the hostile territory, making sure only my hand was visible before ducking back behind Ferraro. A brilliant burst of light and a pop followed after a four count—the flashbang was a little like a grenade, at least in appearance, but nonlethal. Just an assload of light and sound meant to disorient potential targets, giving us a few vital seconds to clear the room.

As soon as the flashbang sounded, Ferraro dashed forward, keeping low as she maneuvered inside, immediately sweeping her weapon high—checking for overhead assailants—before swinging right, clearing her slice of the pie as she moved. I followed close on her heels, clearing left, preparing the weaves for a lance of flame or a javelin of force while simultaneously holding my pistol out and at the ready.

Ferraro’s weapon-mounted flashlight cut shallow swathes in the darkness, but it was still damn hard to see, which I hadn’t been prepared for. The gloom on the outside was unnatural, sure, but it was still daylight. The rickety boards should’ve allowed in some light, even if only a thin trickle.

But it was dark as sin in here, dark as midnight in the deepest ocean. Even worse, the interior was also radically different in both shape and size than what I’d expected from my survey of the mill’s exterior. The place should’ve been a couple thousand square feet, and that was a generous estimate, but this place was bigger than a baseball stadium. Buildings in the Hub could be like that sometimes. Drastically different inside, expanded in their physical dimension since they were built into the endless and flexible Ether—the black space existing between the worlds, which was also home to a motley crew of terrifying, eldritch beasties.

I’d never seen a place like this outside of the Hub, though. Inworld—what Rubes might think of as Earth—is mostly fixed, its laws more rigid than places in Outworld. Even the Vis, which seems like magic, which seems to defy the laws of physics, is actually just an extension of the natural laws governing reality. I reminded myself that this place, whatever it’d once been, was no longer some crappy, run-down mill. Nope, this place wasn’t even a true part of Inworld, not anymore.

I focused on the half-formed weaves in my hand, pushing a flow of will into the fire construct, tweaking it minutely, dispelling some of the ambient heat, willing an orb of flickering orange flame to life. The molten mini sun hung, suspended in the air, a foot or so above my hand, its warmth beating down on my skin. I glanced around, taking in the scenery, which was … let’s go with rustic.

Giant rusted out gears dotted the floor next to an old truck axle, scarred and corroded with age. A set of pitted railroad tracks, with a serviceable handcart in place, curved off to the right and dead-ended at a brick wall. I spotted a ginormous old-timey band saw, complete with a conveyor belt, and a series of chains and pulleys, undoubtedly used for hoisting logs into place.

Remember how I said I’m a fan of horror movies? Well, all the telltale signs that we’d stepped into one were sitting right in front of me, glaring at me, promising me terror and pain to come. Creepy building, poor lighting, giant death saw. Karma sure can be a bitch when she wants to—I briefly wondered if Karma and Lady Luck ever got together and plotted ways to make my life more difficult.

Ferraro slinked back over to my side; Winona followed her lead and pulled in on my left.

“Che palle,” Ferraro swore, voice low as her eyes searched the darkness before us. “This doesn’t make any sense—everything about this situation is wrong. Everything. We should retreat. Pull back and reassess. Obviously we missed something important—this place is too big to clear on our own. Too many unknowns here.”

I stole another look, taking in the cavernous space with the feeble light available. As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. There were innocent people trapped in here somewhere, and I wanted to get ’em out, but it wouldn’t do anyone any good for us to get caught in a trap and eat the end of a gun barrel or worse. I backed up toward the door, but Winona’s giant hand landed on my shoulder and stopped me in my tracks.

“We may not leave that way,” she said, sweeping her other arm toward the entryway we’d come in just moments ago.

Ferraro spun, sketching her flashlight beam over the surface of the wall. Son of a bitch. The door was gone. Winona had blasted the friggin’ thing off its hinges—sections of shattered wood dotted the ground a few feet away—but the wall was now just old wood, solid and unbroken.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Ferraro said again, frazzled, her brow scrunching as her eyes bore into the unblemished wall. “We came in right there.” She shone her flashlight onto the busted up door to emphasize the point. “Winona, we’re going to need you to punch a hole back through.”

The Sasquatch shook her head. “This is a true thin place now,” she said, her words deep, equal parts fear and reverence. “Whoever has done this thing … they have fashioned a true axis mundi. A connection point between the spirit world and Earth. When we crossed the threshold, we crossed into a different realm, one sharing a tenuous connection with Inworld. Such places are a rarity, even for my people, who regularly travel the worlds—often they do not correspond to reality in the way we understand. There is surely an exit somewhere, but such places are often designed to waylay intruders. They are nearly impossible to escape if you do not know the path.”

“God, what a mess,” I mumbled, going through scenarios in my head.

There was a rustle of movement off to my right and another off to my left, which ripped me from my thoughts.

Ferraro tensed at the noise, resuming her scan of the gloomy, nearly formless interior of the not-mill. This situation sucked more than a black hole, but there was nothing to do for it. With that wall buttoned up nice and neat, there was no going back—at least not the way we’d come. All we could do now was suck it up and soldier on. And I sure as shit wasn’t gonna stumble around in the dark for the next decade, looking for an exit while nasty, unseen things stalked my trail. Hell no to that jazz.

Winona’s nostrils flared in and out, pulling in great whiffs of musty air. “Be on guard,” she said, body tensing as she lowered herself onto all fours, a gorilla preparing to charge. “We are not alone in this place.”

Yep, that settled it. We needed light, and we needed it yesterday.

“Watch your eyes,” I said. “It’s about to get bright in here.” I pumped more energy into the blob of fire hovering above my palm, feeding it more will and more air, letting the fire consume the oxygen and burn hotter and brighter until the temperature was almost too much to handle on my unprotected skin. Perspiration broke out across my forehead and trickled down my chest and arms in rivulets, leaving my clothes suddenly damp and sticky.

Still I held, forcing more and more Vis and oxygen into the tight ball of flame. Finally, when I knew it was time to put that bad boy to work or watch it blow up in my face, I threw my hand skyward, forcing the flaming orb high overhead, affixing it in place some twenty feet off the ground. It dangled there, shimmering and burning like a personal sun—a breath later the orb exploded, a wave of orange light shooting out, the ripple from a stone tossed into a pond, illuminating the area around us in a giant strobe of light.

The horde of creatures, silently padding toward us on all sides, froze as the mill filled with light, as though by not moving we might not see them. But see them I did, and I’d probably keep on seeing them in reoccurring nightmares for the next ten years.

Short little freaks—not a one of ’em stood much over four feet, though they were broad in the shoulders and through the chest. Humanoid in shape, but far closer to reptiles in nature: slick gunmetal scales ran over their exposed flesh; flat faces, with slit-eyes and mouthfuls of needle-like fangs; long, lashing tails, dragging through the dust and debris of the mill.

The sparse clothing they wore was uniformly tattered and bloodstained—probably taken from some unlucky victim—and each wielded a rusty blade of one sort or another. The creature closest to me held a gleaming set of garden shears, while the one behind him bore an old machete. Another, off to the right, wielded a tarnished straight razor.

I’d seen their like before, but I’d never had cause to tangle with ’em. The Little Brothers of the Blade. The misbegotten spawn of the Lamia—repulsive reptilian women who were themselves the misbegotten spawn of Echidna, the ancient Mother of Monsters. The Little Brothers were all-around nasty sons of bitches, dwelling beneath the Hub in the miles and miles of meandering sewer ways. Little assholes ran the black market organ trade, catching unwary prey and parceling them up for anyone with a little extra cash.

Human eyes might go to a pack of Sun Dogs, Ahuizhotl, bizarre creatures from Central America—part dog, part ape, all vicious predator—who found eyeballs to be an aphrodisiac. Bear in mind that the Aztecs, folks who considered human sacrifice just another day at the office, were scared of the Sun Dogs, so that oughta tell you everything you need to know.

Or maybe the internal organs would be ground into a paste, shoved into the stomach lining—the nauseating human equivalent of haggis—and sold to the Jorogumo, who considered the dish a delicacy. Oh, and what is a Jorogumo you ask because you don’t already have enough grade-A nightmare fuel? Giant, lute-playing, spider women—their name literally means whore spiders—who routinely seduce men of ill morals, luring them to their lair, where the poor schmucks would have their innards sucked out with a festive bendy straw. Fine, I made the bendy straw part up. Still, you just try to get that crazy-ass image out of your head.

And humans weren’t the only ones on the menu either. Halfies, magi, full-bloods, other Hub dwellers. All had bits and pieces which could be harvested and sold off for the right price. The little shits even cannibalized their own departed, selling scales, glands, fangs, and poison sacs. You name it. No one in Outworld liked the Brothers, but mostly they were a cancer people simply avoided.

The light washing over the space sputtered and died, all the pre-stored energy running dry. The Little Brothers charged the second the light overhead faltered, the pitter-patter of their footfalls filling the mill’s interior.

“Ferraro, cover me!” I shouted, sprinting forward to meet the onslaught as I conjured an awesomesauce cyclone of flame around myself … well, a whirling tornado of light, technically. It looked like flame—which would hopefully be some small deterrent to the Little Brothers—but, in reality, it was only a flashy gimmick, a bluff designed to dazzle folks and put out some serious wattage like a portable laser light show.

Sadly, it wouldn’t burn a sheet of notebook paper. Heck, a blow-dryer produces more heat. The construct also marked me out for the enemy—the working provided a twenty-foot radius of illumination, but anything inside that warehouse could see me from a mile off. I was counting on that fact. I put myself front and center to draw the baddies in, exposing them so Ferraro could pour lead into ’em while Winona waded into the creatures like the living wrecking ball she was.

A guttural howl of inhuman indignation rent the air, Winona venting her frustration, followed by a tight burst of controlled rifle fire from Ferraro.

I put both ladies out of mind as the first lizard-man leapt at me from the top of the band-saw conveyor belt. I hefted my pistol and fired once into his chest. There was a pop of light, nearly invisible against the manic tornado of flame swirling around me. The creature tumbled backward as a crater blossomed in his chest; blue-green blood splashed the floor as he fell.

Before I could take a breath, I spotted another overgrown gecko, this one closing in on my left as two more converged on me from the right. I swiveled at the hips, firing a pair of shots into the dastardly duo—one holding a scythe, the other sporting a lab coat and a bone saw—blasting a pair of colossal holes into the baddies. The Brothers crumpled like a pair of paper cups, legs giving out as muscles went slack in death.

At the same time, I extended my left hand toward the other beasty, focusing my will into a spear of flame, thick as my wrist. The construct erupted outward, smashing into the oncoming lizard and setting the filthy rags he wore aflame. He shrieked as the fire spread, running up his scales and down his limbs, and cloying, sickly sweet smoke poured off the poor bastard.

Pop-pop-pop. The shots came from behind me—Ferraro, laying down more fire—and the burning lizard-man pitched over to one side, his struggle ceasing. More shots rang out, and the Little Brothers fell back a step, giving me room to work.

A band of four or five creatures approached from straight ahead, low-crawling along the ground like giant monitor lizards rushing in for the kill. Bad move. I slammed my right foot down onto the floorboards, channeling Vis through my foot and into the unfamiliar ground. The floor shook and rattled as an invisible ripple of power darted out, lurching through bedrock and toward the oncoming creatures. A heartbeat later, jagged spikes of stone and shattered lengths of wood tore free from the earth, skewering the crawling creatures in place. Yowls of agony filled the air as they writhed and wriggled, unable to free themselves.

A pack of eight broke into a run on my right, angling for Ferraro. I threw out my left arm, hand flying open—a gout of silvered force rolled out, sweeping over the ground and scooping the gigantic two-ton band saw into the air. The massive contraption of metal and gears hung suspended for a moment, hovering in flight, before I slammed it down with a slight effort of will. The machine crashed into the Little Brothers with bone-pulverizing force, smashing them into the floor with a sickening squish. Disgusting. Abhorrent. Nauseating.

But now was not the time for second-guessing, nor was it the time for compassion. Now was the time for death, quick and brutal and terrible.

With another wave of silvered force, I snatched up a pair of giant rusted-out cogs and sent them zipping through the air: two-hundred-pound metal Frisbees of death. I didn’t see the disks land, but I certainly heard the massive clanks as they collided into the floor, followed by more inhuman wails.

The downed creatures were already out of mind as I formed my next working. Using thick, braided strands of magnetism, I pushed out a cone of force, directed at one of the hefty chains dangling limply from the rafters. With a heave of willpower, I tore the chain free; the wood beams holding it in place cracked and burst, raining down splinters of rotten wood. I drew more energy in, only to redirect it back into the chain, twisting and contorting the metal until the links ripped apart. I funneled in massive flows of flames, and the steel bubbled and melted in an instant, leaving me with a hundred globs of coal-red liquid metal suspended in the air.

The advancing Little Brothers slowed, unsure for the first time. They should’ve run.

With a scream, I threw my left hand out; the balls of smoldering metal cruised into the air and descended like a volley of arrows. Flaming hot arrows, which seared flesh and charred bone. A chorus of howls and shrieks followed, accompanied by the rancid scent of roasting meat. I stumbled a step and dropped to one knee, suddenly feeling woozy and lightheaded. I needed to bring it down a notch or I was gonna run out of juice, and now would be a very bad time for the ol’ gas needle to hit “E.”

I shook my head, clearing away the pinpricks of light crowding on my peripheries.

More of the Brothers had already replaced their fallen kin, a small army now flocking toward me like a family of hungry gators smelling something warm and savory and delicious. There were so friggin’ many of the creepy bastards. And even though Ferraro’s rifle dropped encroaching creature after encroaching creature, they were still closing in. I pushed myself to my feet and leveled my pistol, firing three more precise shots, each round ending a Little Brother, but doing virtually nothing to halt the tidal rush of snake-men.

I lashed out with another fire beam, zigzagging my palm back and forth, scorching the front-line attackers, but failing to stop those who were taking shelter behind their brethren, using them as living shields.

The creatures were pressing in, ever closer, ever tighter. A noose pulling snug around the throat of a doomed man. Around my throat. At this range, and with these numbers, the flame lance was more a danger to me than them—if one of those assholes caught fire and tackled me to the ground, we’d both burn to death. I let the construct unravel as I holstered my handgun. With a small effort of will and a whisper of power, I muttered the phrase “gladium potestatis.”

A thin, single-edged azure blade, about three feet in length, and looking as fragile as lace, appeared in my outstretched hand. Sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, my Vis-wrought katana was exactly the right tool for the job—

One of the Brothers struck with a lightning-quick, overhead machete blow. I calmed my breathing, brought my sword up to the ready, Chudan, and flowed into action. Deflecting his steel with a rapid uke-nagashi counter, letting his pitted weapon slide off the surface of my upraised katana, before swinging the blade around and up, its razor-edge cleanly slicing through his neck, spilling a gout of goo. I spun, flicking through the outstretched wrist of another Brother; the limb, holding a wicked buck knife, clattered to the floor as the creature reeled back, screeching.

Ferraro’s rifle fire was now a constant cadence, broken only sporadically as she reloaded. The screeches and squeals of the Brothers drifted through the air, coupled with booming howls from Winona, who was lost somewhere out of sight.

I was a whirlwind of light and motion, spinning and ducking, diving and rolling, slashing and hacking, as I moved through the hordes of Little Brothers. Claiming an arm here—kesa giri—and a leg there—yoho giri. Making any Brother bold enough to come close pay a hefty price. Except I knew I couldn’t hold out like this for long, and the Brothers seemed to know it. I’d been fighting for all of a friggin’ minute, and already my arms were shaky, my breathing was ragged, and my movements were slowing. This was a war of attrition, and all they had to do was wait.

FIFTEEN:

Sewer Stink

Something bit into the back of my leg, parting my jeans and the flesh beneath in a bright, scarlet flare of pain. The wound wasn’t deep, but it hurt worse than a broken beer bottle to the noggin, and by the time I wheeled around, my attacker was already long gone. Classic pack fighting tactics. Dart in at the exposed flanks, dish out small hits, and retreat just as quick. Wear your assailant down with a thousand small wounds.

Another Brother came at me from the side. I stopped his hatchet from cleaving my chest open—yay for me—but not before another slice ran across my other leg, this one deeper. I stumbled, my leg buckling from the strain and pain.

The Brothers moved in unison at the sign of my momentary weakness, throwing themselves at me as one. I slashed wildly with my blade, making a few of the pint-sized baddies pay the piper, but a barrage of bodies still pressed into me, unhindered. My jacket, cleverly concealed body armor, prevented the blades from getting into my vital bits, but the blunt force from the blows was devastating. I dismissed the sword with a flick of my hand and groped at my belt for the Baby-Glock, concealed in the small of my back, and the K-Bar at my hip. I wrestled both free—knife in my left hand, gun in my right—and went to work. Slashing here and popping off random shots there.

The Glock ran dry faster than I would’ve believed, and as the slide locked back, I realized this was probably it for me. It wouldn’t be long before one of the Brothers got a blade across my throat, and then it’d be lights out for me. They’d drag my corpse to their lair and carve me up like a pig for the market. I only prayed that whichever asshole bought my organs would die from cancer or choke to death on all the spite and cynicism stored away in every fiber of my being.

I didn’t realize the weight and press from the bodies had let up until Ferraro yelled into my ear. “Get on your feet! We have to move!” She hauled me upright and scooted beneath one of my arms, pulling my body onto hers. I glanced around, bleary-eyed and dazed: scores of reptilian bodies covered the mill floor, while Winona’s giant frame loomed before me. The Sasquatch glanced back at us, then let out a bellowing war cry that shook the floor. She charged forward, batting away the encroaching Brothers with her club-like fists, playing linebacker for us, clearing a hole large enough for us to rush through.

Even with my head reeling and my legs aching, I knew what needed to be done. I pushed past the pain and the confusion filling my head like a foggy haze, drawing on the Vis still in my body to deaden my senses, pulling in the strength of ancient rock and steadfast, unmoving stone. Filling myself with their fortitude so I could push onward.

This was a last-ditch effort—although this kind of working sounds supremely cool, it’s little more than a shot of morphine for a wounded soldier. It didn’t fix a damned thing, but instead allowed me to ignore the damage, enabling me to work through the hurt, though likely doing more damage in the process.

Since the other option was the organ market, however, it seemed like an appropriate time and place for this kind of drastic action.

“You hurt?” Ferraro asked as we ran.

“A hospital visit in the near-future isn’t outside the realm of possibility,” I replied. We shuffled along in an awkward side embrace. “You?”

“I’ll live,” she said, but didn’t mention anything more. I shot her a look: her complexion was too pale, sweat rolled down her face in sheets, her lips trembled from the effort of holding me up, and she was favoring her left leg. Obviously she was hurt, and bad, but I couldn’t do jack shit for her right now, not until we got some cover.

We trudged along, the mill giving way to somewhere else entirely. The floor shifted from old timbers to ancient brick and stone. The wooden wall slats narrowed and seamlessly transformed into a circular brick sewer tunnel with industrial-grade miner’s lamps hanging along the left wall at fifteen-foot intervals. I spared a quick look back. The mill yawned out behind us, but forward lay only sewer. We had to be in the sewer system beneath the Hub, the sprawling, labyrinthine cesspit the Little Brothers called home.

“We cannot stop,” Winona said, struggling to breathe herself. “They are regrouping even now.” Someone had worked her over damned good.

Gashes and slices decorated her arms, torso, and legs—jagged bloody marks made by a host of different instruments. Winona was strong and fast, but she fought with her fists, which meant she fought up close and personal. It wasn’t hard to imagine how easy it would’ve been for the Brothers to sink their shears and knives and pickaxes into her. She was moving better than Ferraro or I, but one of her arms hung limply at her side, blood running down in a slow stream.

I nodded and resumed my limping walk, repositioning my body so Ferraro could lean on me instead. “Thanks,” she grunted before falling silent as we carefully threaded our way down a steep slope. After fifteen feet the floor leveled out, which made for easier going. Unfortunately, the floor happened to be covered in ankle deep, sludgy water, which sloshed as we moved.

And did I mention the smell? If you’re a fan of rotten garbage sprayed with the scent of human waste and left to fester, decompose, and rot in the sun for a month, then boy do I know where you ought to take your next vacation.

Winona ghosted along, her back hunched since the ceiling was a solid foot shorter than she was. Ferraro and I stoically pushed forward, struggling to keep the pace, and that was with Winona moving at Bigfoot gimp speed. It wasn’t long before an immense intersection reared up before us: a gray archway of old weathered stone with crude etchings carved into its surface. An ancient bas-relief.

One panel depicted a monstrous serpent-headed hydra devouring scores of terrified humans. In another, the creature lay dead, its many heads hacked away by some colossal creature sporting curling ram’s horns. In the last image, a horde of snakes slithered away from the decapitated remains. The birth of the Little Brothers, no doubt.

We scuttled through the archway and into a huge circular hub with spoke-like passageways shooting off in different directions, thirteen in all. The water around our ankles trickled into a pool positioned in the middle of the room, joined by similar streams from all the other branches. But there was also a catwalk, blessedly dry, surrounding the pool on all sides. The miner’s lamps, which had lined the way thus far, were gone, yet I had no problem seeing. Patchy, bioluminescent fungi colonies clung to the stone walls and ceiling, casting pale-green foxfire.

I pulled Ferraro up onto the concrete walkway and lowered her to the ground. She was now shivering and deathly pale; severe blood loss.

“I gotta stop the bleeding before we can go any further,” I called out to Winona, “or she’s not making it outta this tunnel. We all need a little work,” I added, appraising the Bigfoot’s wounds with a fresh eye.

“I understand.” Winona bobbed her shaggy head and moved to the rear, positioning herself at the tunnel entrance we’d just come through. “Do not worry about me—my wounds are not as severe as they appear. I will stand guard and ensure you are not disturbed.” She halted for a moment, canting her head to one side, turning an ear toward the tunnel. “It would be best if you make haste.”

“Got it,” I said.

“IFAK,” Ferraro whispered at me, motioning to her vest.

IFAK stood for an Individual First Aid Kit, an item commonly used by military personnel in active combat zones. The medical pouch was secured to her flak jacket and easy to miss if you didn’t know what you were looking at. I undid the front snap and rummaged through the contents—what I needed was toward the back: a squeeze bottle full of iodine, a couple of pressure dressings, and a package of QuikClot combat gauze. It took me all of two seconds to find Ferraro’s wound—a nasty gash wrapped across the front of her right thigh, hooking all the way around to the outside of her leg.

The slash was deep and bloody. A real doozy. But she was actually as lucky as a leprechaun with a four-leaf clover. The wound, running up the inside of her thigh, had missed her femoral artery by about an inch—if the shifty little bastards had nicked that, she would’ve bled out like a stuck pig. I ripped back the fabric of her pants, exposing the bloody tear in all its grisly glory, then unscrewed the iodine and drenched the injury and the surrounding area, staining her skin a dirty orange. I tossed the bottle, grabbed up the QuikClot gauze, and tore open the packaging.

“This is gonna hurt worse than a bad breakup,” I said. “You ready?”

“No need to sweet-talk me,” she grunted. “Just get it over with.”

I smiled, though I felt like puking right into the sewer. “Alright, here we go.” My hand trembled as I fed the gauze into the wound, not merely covering it up like you sometimes see in the movies. I shoved that shit in deep, packing the wound, forcing more and more gauze into the slash, starting near her inner thigh and working my way out as she moaned and cussed, her leg muscles tensing under the terrible pressure of my probing fingers.

I don’t know the magic—and by magic, I mean badass science—behind combat gauze, but I do know it has to go all the way into the wound, right to the source of the hemorrhage, where it somehow triggers the clotting process. It took me thirty seconds to pack the wound good and tight, and another two minutes of steady pressure on her leg before she was ready to move. I wrapped one of the two sterile pressure dressings around the damage and cinched it down so it’d hold all the gauze in place.

I took another few seconds to poke and prod at my own injuries, which turned out to be a bunch of superficial cuts and lacerations that looked bad, but which wouldn’t kill me—nothing like what Ferraro had, thank God. I slapped some sterile gauze on the worst of the injuries and secured it in place using duct tape, because (a) what medical kit is complete without duct tape? And (b) what can’t duct tape fix? Once I finished with my immediate first aid, I pulled out my pistol, popped fresh rounds into place, and slid it back in my holster before doing the same for the Baby Glock.

As far as the Vis was concerned, I was tapped out. Even holding onto the feeble construct currently numbing my body from pain was a strain. So it’d be bullets and blades from here on out.

“That’s as good as it’s gonna get,” I said, taking one last look over my handiwork, making damn sure the bandages weren’t going anywhere. I’m not a combat medic by any stretch of the imagination—my hat’s off to Corpsmen everywhere—but to my eye it was passable. Ferraro pushed herself into a sitting position before slowly making her way upright, experimentally testing her bandaged leg.

“Not great,” she said, “but it should do.” She leaned over and grabbed my lapel, pulling me into a kiss. “I guess you’re pretty handy to have around, after all.” She hesitated for a beat, then sighed. “And I was disappointed when you didn’t call—thought I’d better just say it since we might not have another opportunity. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

Even though I felt like a bag of day-old dog shit, I couldn’t help but grin like a goofy bastard. I knew she’d missed me.

“We must move now,” Winona said. “Our assault has left the Little Brothers shaken, but they are moving now. And moving quickly.”

“Great,” I said, looking at the myriad of tunnels, trying to determine which way to go. Assuming we were in the Hub’s sewer system, we could wander for days and never find our way out. “Anyone have any idea what to do here? ’Cause I’ve got a whole helluva lot of nothing. No friggin’ idea where to go.”

Winona stared back at me, her faced screwed up in a curious expression that landed somewhere between disbelief and ridicule. “It is that way,” she said, pointing to one of the random tunnels on the left as though it should be as obvious as the nose on my face. “Can’t you smell their stink?” Her lips pulled back from her blunt teeth in a sign of revulsion.

“Gee,” I said, surveying the room with its river of flowing shit and piss. “I couldn’t pick up the scent over the smell of rotten sewer ass. So please, by all means, lead the way, Sniffy McSnifferson.”

She shrugged—the gesture oddly lopsided since one of her arms was just hanging there like a lazy sloth—then ambled forward, sticking to the catwalk as she guided us deeper into the sewers.

“The brood den is not far now, I think,” she said. “A few minutes time, moving at your human speed. We will beat the Little Brothers there.” She stopped, clearly listening for sounds of pursuit, though I heard all of jack shit. “Yes, we will beat them, but it will be a narrow victory. Come.” She pivoted and plodded onward.

The tunnel curved left in a shallow arch for a hundred meters before banking hard right in a switchback for fifty more. Winona stopped at a four-way intersection up ahead—this one plain and unadorned—sniffing at the air like a hound on a blood trail. We took the right hand path, shuffling along for a few minutes before coming upon a third intersection, this one shaped like a “T,” with forks branching off to the left and right. Once more Winona stopped briefly, pulling in a deep whiff of sewer stink before leading us down the right hand path, guiding us to our final destination … well, hopefully it would only be the final destination for the bad guys.

Winona halted abruptly about two hundred feet up the pathway. She hunched over and pressed her ear against the wall on the left.

“Here,” she said, giving us a nod.

“Hmm, it’s sort of anticlimactic,” I said, surveying the blank wall, exactly the same as all the others we’d passed by. “I guess I was kinda expecting the evil-villain lair to be more … I dunno, I guess villainish. Also, I expected there to be people.”

Winona frowned at me, then briefly shared a look with Ferraro that said, Can you believe what a child this guy is? To which Ferraro shook her head, as if to say, Yes, he is a moron—or whatever the sassy, Italian equivalent of moron was, I suppose—but you have to work with what you’ve got.

“The den is on the other side of this wall,” Winona said slowly, as though explaining a calculus equation to a kindergartner. “The prisoners will be here. Likely the exit will be here, too. Now stand back while I let us in.”

She planted her feet, took a few deep breaths, and began to slam her good fist into the wall. Thunk, thunk, thunk—the sound was an angry melody in the silent space, a jackhammer at a construction site. At first, powder and dust broke loose, a cloud of particles swirling about, whooshing to and fro as her fist displaced the air in its passing. Then bricks cracked and fractured, the mortar chipping away and raining to the walkway by her gargantuan feet.

Thunk, thunk, thunk—now the call of an approaching war drum.

The wall began to fall away in huge chunks, and the rough orange-red glow of firelight trickled through the hole from the adjoining room. I couldn’t see the room in its entirety because Winona’s torso still covered much of the growing hole, but I could make out a row of crude operating tables. Rusty metal things, covered with splotches of chromed silver and crusty dried blood. I counted four bodies—the three humans from the motorhome and, oddly enough, one of the Little Brothers—strapped in place with brown leather bindings. Next to each body sat a tray occupied by razors and hacksaws, pliers and needles, and a host of other terrifying instruments I didn’t recognize—the tools all gleaming despite the filth around them.

I heard yelling, urgent and commanding. “Grab the research, damn you all!” There was a pause as someone, or multiple someones, scrambled to comply. “I said the research first—that laptop there, you damned fool. You, get the vials. And someone fetch the Queen!” the voice roared, his frustration, fear, and panic evident—oozing from his words like pus from a festering wound.

With a final roar, Winona lunged forward, one foot outstretched in a ferocious kick which resembled an old school medieval battering ram. Her fist strikes had done their work well—loosening the brick and cement barring our path—and the massive kick finished the job for good. A section of wall collapsed inward with a rush, concrete and brick tumbling in a mini rockslide.

I pulled free my revolver, holding it in my right hand, while sliding the K-Bar from its sheath and reversing my grip so the blade ran along the outside of my forearm. Time to go dish out some serious ass-kickery.

SIXTEEN:

Drama Queen

I charged in behind Winona. The jagged edges of the shattered wall grabbed at my jacket, but I ignored the snags.

The room glowed with sooty firelight emanating from half a dozen oil drums which littered the air with their greasy stink. Cages sat hunched like ghastly skeletons against the wall to my right—hulking things built of heavy-duty steel and rebar, meant to contain monstrosities far larger than mere human folk.

Toward the back was an honest to goodness laboratory, straight-up Doctor Frankenstein style. An enormous generator fed power to a host of harsh sodium lights, computers terminals, and monitoring equipment. And what was all that equipment monitoring, you ask? Why, a set of creepy glass tubes with bodies floating inside. This place was the deformed love child of a genetics lab and a torture chamber.

We’d busted our way into the operations room, and the only way out looked to be forward, though there was a minor problem on that front: the way forward was blocked by a wall of scaly flesh. Two dozen of the Little Brothers stood guard, forked tongues flicking in and out as their tails whipped lazily through the air. They were waiting for us, that much was obvious. Why they were waiting and not trying to tear our faces off was another question entirely. A very troubling one.

Behind the wall of asshole snake-men—clearly visible, since the Brothers were four foot nothing—was a big ol’ hefty son of a bitch in a bloodstained lab coat. Presumably Doctor Hogg, though his back was to me. Also present was an old buddy of mine. And by old buddy, I actually mean an evil dicknoodle bro-hole who I should’ve buried right and proper months back: no good, shit-talking Fast Hands Steve. A world-class asshole, if ever there was one.

Fast Hands was a gruff, stocky, man-like thing. A halfie I’d had the displeasure of running afoul of in the Hinterlands and the pleasure of later killing in future Seattle—well, one version of him, at any rate—though not before he’d pumped bullets into my shoulder, knee, hand, and guts. Son of a bitch had damn near killed me, so there was certainly no love lost between us.

Matte black eyes peered out from his blunt face, and his snake’s tongue flickered into view. His muscled arms were covered in copper scales. When I’d first run into this colossal pile of turd-baggery, I’d assumed one of his parents was Naga—serpent-like deities who hailed from India and parts of southeast Asia—but I could plainly see I’d been dead wrong. Though Fast Hands was taller, broader, and more human-looking than the others, clearly he’d fallen from the Little-Brother-gene-tree. Side by side, the family resemblance was uncanny.

Steve ambled toward us, casually spinning his trademark six-shooter back and forth between his hands, one normal and scaled, the other a robotic appendage, equal parts gunmetal-gray and flashy chrome. Ferraro was responsible for the fancy prosthetic—she’d blown his hand off in a bar fight after he got a little too frisky. The doctor blatantly ignored us, rushing between filing cabinets, scooping contents into a black bag.

“Agent Ferraro, it’sss ssso good to see you,” Fast Hands said, his raspy voice drawing the sss’ into a reptilian hiss. His eyes locked onto her, hardly even noting me or Winona. “I’ve been thinking about you an awful lot since the last time we parted ways.” He stopped twirling his pistol and held his metal hand aloft, as though to remind her of the way that parting had ended. “The good doctor, there”—he jerked his head back toward Hogg, who still bustled about the lab—“promised me I’d have a chance to square up with you eventually. After Yancy and the apes showed up at the motorhome, I knew it was only a matter of time.”

“You know what, Fast Hands?” Ferraro said, her voice strained from pain, but coated with the rough, hard-worn edge of a salty Master-Guns with thirty years in the Corps. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you, too—thought this time I’d make good on my promise and turn you into Limp Dick Steve.”

She didn’t hesitate. Before the words were even out of her mouth, she had her Glock spitting rounds downrange at Fast Hands. Another thing I admire about Ferraro: she’s never one for bullshitting with the bad guys. Screw banter must be the number one rule in her playbook.

Fast Hands’s metallic arm let out a brief flare of blue light—bullets ricocheted with a whizz and whine. He smiled at us, his fangs gleaming in the firelight from the oil drums. “I really oughta thank you, Nicole.” He said her first name in an intimate and familiar way, a stalker rehearsing a beloved phrase. “This new arm the Doc set me up with is a far cry better than the old one. Damn fine technomancy. Cuttin’-edge, y’kin it?”

If Doctor Hogg had created that fancy arm for Fast Hands, it meant he was more than just a Rube geneticist mixed up in some bad business—it meant he had at least a limited, specialized ability to manipulate the Vis. He wasn’t a full-fledged mage, I was sure I would’ve recognized him if he was, but this revelation was still a game changer. This asswipe could infuse and combine the scientific with the supernatural, a damned dangerous combination even in good hands. And even though I didn’t know Hogg from Adam, I could already tell this guy wasn’t gonna qualify for the humanitarian of the year award.

I stepped forward, leveling my monster-killing pistol. “Maybe your toy will stop a nine mil round, bub, but how do you think it’s gonna fare against my piece?”

“You fire,” Fast Hands said, “and them thar lizard-men”—he waved his metal gauntlet at the assembled line of half-pint reptilian freaks—“might take offense.”

“You think we’re scared of these punks?” I asked. “We’ve already waded through an army of your shithead kin, so what’s a few more to us? But I’m a charitable fellow—”

“Oh, I remember your charity,” Fast Hands interrupted. “You’re a right saint. Saint of lo-eared assholes, I’d say.” He sneered.

“Let’s stop bullshitting,” I replied. “Here’s what I’m offering. Lay down your peashooter, get on your belly where you belong, and maybe you get outta here alive.”

“Don’t dicker with me, partner. You’re bluffin’ right through your teeth, and we both know it.” He grinned, nice and wide, then rolled his head to one side, his tongue kissing the air.

I shrugged. “Just remember what happened last time you called my bluff—you came out one hand short. Maybe, if you like that shiny new toy so much, you can keep screwing around and I’ll see to it your other hand gets the same treatment. Then folks can call you No Hands Steve, how’s that sound?”

“I’m finished here,” Hogg yelled, his voice low and sludgy, oddly swine-like, which perfectly suited his roly-poly appearance. He pulled the duffle strap across his broad torso and waddled toward the far end of the room, heading toward what looked like an emergency exit.

“Pleasure to see y’all again,” Fast Hands said, walking backward, keeping his pistol out and his eyes fixed on us. “Nicole”—he nodded toward Ferraro—“I wager we’ll see each other again, real, real soon. But since you’re here, there’s really someone I’d love for you to meet—I’ve told her all about you and she’s even promised to keep you alive for me.” He smiled in the same way a hungry wolf grins at a wounded sheep and offered her a lewd wink. “Mama, they’re all yours.”

Fast Hands spun and bolted for the emergency door, pausing just long enough to punch a set of numbers into a keypad near the frame before disappearing through in a flash of opalescent light. Which meant the emergency exit was actually a temporary portal, a Way, to some other place. An eyeblink later, a pair of shaped charges, positioned on either side of the doorway, erupted in a belch of flame, caving in the exit, ensuring there was no possible chance of pursuit. Man do I hate it when bad guys think ahead.

To be completely honest, though, I hardly noticed Fast Hands’s exit, because my attention was fixed on the sudden appearance of Fast Hands’s ass-ugly mother. The Queen of this particular brood. Although this was my first scuffle with the Little Brothers, I knew all the critters we’d tangled with so far had been male—there was a reason they were called the Little Brothers, after all. And that was because there was only ever one female per brood and the rest were her bugger-nosed offspring. Kinda like ants or bees, except, you know, psychotic lizard-creatures wielding rusty, blade-edged garden-tools-of-death.

It appeared that the female of this species—like many other animals in the great wide world—was a far more terrifying and dangerous adversary than her male counterparts. I’d never seen one before and I sorta wished I could’ve kept it that way.

She barreled into the room from a connecting corridor, the floor rumbling under the weight of her footfalls, the walls resonating with her bellowing roar. Six feet of muscle, claws, fangs, and glimmering scales—hers were a shade of luminescent cobalt and shimmering copper, just like Fast Hands’s. To help you get your mind around her appearance, first envision a centaur—the mythical half horse, half men of ancient Greece—now cover that imaginary centaur with scales, give it razor-sharp talons, black spikes, alligator teeth, and its own army of snake-children. Okay, now you’re in the ballpark.

She surged forward like an oncoming freight train, running on four squat legs, though she also possessed a formidable set of muscled arms that protruded from her sinuous torso.

Dammit.

Kids, this is exactly why you shouldn’t buy those tiny, cutesy pet gators. Sure, they start out adorable and snuggly, but sooner or later they get bigger. You end up flushing them down the crapper, and they, in turn, start having babies, who will one day invade the human world, murder you horribly, and sell your leftover pieces to the highest bidder. Consider yourself warned.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ferraro said.

We didn’t have long to dwell on the asstasstic nature of our situation though, because the Little Brothers darted forward right along with their sewer-gator Mama, all converging on us as a single unit. Ferraro and I fired into the mass, her covering the left flank while I took the right, each of us working like a couple of gun nuts down at the range for a day of target practice. Winona—being a giant, don’t-take-no-shit Sasquatch—swam into the fray like an Olympic athlete taking to the pool, lashing out with her good arm, sending Little Brothers cartwheeling through the air as she headed for a crash course with the Queen.

The two gigantic ladies came together like a clap of thunder, their bodies slamming into one another with an impact I could feel in my bones, their limbs tangling together in a mashup of matted hair and slick scales. The Queen pulled Winona’s bad arm into a wicked arm bar, cranking her up onto her toes with a heave as her other scaled fist smashed into Winona’s exposed stomach, working her ribs and throwing blows into open wounds. Winona howled in rage as she smashed her big ol’ gorilla dome into the Queen’s ugly face, the head-butt of the century.

The Queen lost her shoddy arm bar, clawed hands fumbling to regain the hold. Winona didn’t waste her chance—she dropped low and rocketed upward, slamming a sledgehammer-sized fist into the Queen’s cheek, sending the scaly broad staggering sideways, her reptilian feet skidding on the stone floor. The Lizard Queen regained her bearing, hardly losing a beat, and shot back in, raking vicious claws across Winona’s belly, digging deep trenches into her skin.

But the Bigfoot was having none of that shit. Zero. Winona’s good hand blurred, wrapping around the Queen’s beefy throat like a constricting python. With a soft pop, the Queen’s eyes bulged outward, her arms flailing feebly. Winona lifted the snake-faced freak partially off the floor, and the Queen’s immense body weight worked against her. A makeshift gallows for the murderous creature.

The Queen let out a strangled cry of desperation. The Little Brothers responded without thought, instantly shifting away from Ferraro and me, their steady advance ceasing completely as they turned and leapt onto Winona. They fell upon the Chiye-tanka like a pack of wild dogs, diving onto her back and throwing themselves around her legs, claws digging ruthlessly into her hair and skin, teeth biting down into muscle, metal instruments of cruelty—a meat cleaver here, a butterfly knife there—carving into her flesh.

The malicious bastards were going to tear her apart, no doubt about it, and once they were finished with her they’d come for us. And let me tell you, in the piss-poor condition Ferraro and I were in, we’d be hard pressed to stop ’em. But if we could put the Queen down for keeps, we might have a fighting chance.

“Ferraro, I need a grenade!” I shouted, my brain working over the details, quickly piecing together the least batshit-crazy plan available.

She popped a few more rounds, paused, and drew out a matte black cylinder with the words “Grenade, Hand” and below that, “Offensive MK3A2 TNT” stenciled on in yellow lettering. She tossed me the explosive, which I caught and shoved into my coat pocket. Without missing a beat, Ferraro resumed shooting, round after round tearing into the Little Brothers.

“Cover me,” I said.

“About time you came up with something!” she shouted over the noise of her rifle fire.

I holstered my pistol and made a mad dash for the dog pile of bodies in the center of the floor. I skirted around the edge of the bedlam, maneuvering toward the Queen’s unprotected rear, carefully avoiding her spike-covered gator tail, which lashed back and forth as she struggled against Winona’s chokehold. The Little Brothers were completely oblivious to my approach, which was all good since I was gonna be at a real disadvantage for the next few minutes. I held for a long pause, then—before I could think it through and realize what a terrible idea it was—I dove onto the Queen’s exposed and unprotected back.

She bucked and struggled as my weight landed on her, the wild movements threatening to throw me to the ground, where I’d surely be trampled to death, which actually seemed like a fitting end, considering my life.

I could see the obituary already: Yancy Lazarus, dead at age sixty-six, trampled to death by a Lamia, Brood Queen of the Little Brothers. He will be missed. But only a little. Yeah, there were definitely worse ways to go out, but truth be told, I wasn’t all too keen to make this my final hour. I had a shitload of ribs to eat, beer to drink, blues to play, and cards to hustle—even at sixty-six, I was far from ready for a pine box. I wrapped my legs around her torso, interlocking my ankles beneath her stomach, anchoring myself in place.

I dug at her scaly hide with my left hand, fighting for purchase, struggling to maintain my precarious seat even as she fought to throw me. I fumbled my K-Bar from its sheath, and, once free, stabbed down, throwing my shoulder and body weight into the blow, trying to drive the knife into something squishy and vital. My blade didn’t even nick her, it was like trying to cut through sheet metal with child-safe scissors.

The rigid plate scales along her back were like friggin’ armor, which blew more than an industrial warehouse fan, since my whole plan hinged upon cutting this she-dragon open. I let out a groan of frustration. There was only one other option, but boy was it gonna suck. I took a deep breath and then—because I can’t help but do irrationally stupid things—I swung over her scaly side and onto her pale-white belly, using my legs, still wrapped around her center, and free hand to cling tight to her torso.

If I couldn’t get through the plates on her back, I’d just have to try the underbelly.

Crocs had tough scales along their back too, but usually had soft, vulnerable undersides. I think. Maybe the Queen shared that particular anatomical similarity. Any chance was certainly better than no chance.

With a heave, I jammed my K-Bar deep into her guts, the blade sliding in clean and easy. A warm, rank smelling gush of liquid spilled over my hand. So, so, so gross. I pushed away my natural inclination to vomit, curl into the fetal position, and weep for the next week, and instead tugged at the K-Bar, cutting a long, deep furrow through her abdomen.

Once the grisly work was done, I dropped the K-Bar and fished the hand grenade out of my coat pocket—no easy thing when you’re clinging upside down to the slick belly of a reptilian she-demon. My arms and legs quivered from the strain of holding on, and I knew I didn’t have long before my body called it quits. I compressed the grenade spoon and realized, too late, I didn’t have a free hand to pull the friggin’ pin. I could try to do it with my teeth, but only if I wanted to have dental surgery afterwards—pro tip: never try to pull a grenade pin with your teeth.

But with that pin safely in place, the grenade wasn’t much more than an intimidating paperweight. Jeez. Sometimes I swear I catch fewer breaks than the citizens of Can’t-catch-a-break-istan.

I reached for the Vis still lingering in my body, just a feeble flow no greater than a leak from a faucet—a trickle only strong enough to maintain the weave blocking my senses from horrible, crippling levels of pain and misery. That construct was the only thing allowing my body to keep on going despite the fact that I should’ve felt like I’d been used for batting practice by the Yankees.

I needed to pull the pin, though—everything was riding on it—and with a thin flow of air I could manage it. But I didn’t have the juice for both the pain-numbing construct and the flow of air, regardless of how minute it was. It was one or the other. I glanced at Ferraro. She was standing nearby, taking potshots at the Little Brothers fool enough to be in her line of fire. I thought of Winona, still wrestling with the Queen while a mountain of reptilian bodies pressed in on her, crushing her with their combined weight.

With the Queen dead, both Winona and Ferraro might have a chance at saving themselves and any of the surviving victims from the motorhome. Shit, there was even a chance they could save me, which I was definitely in favor of. Balanced against that, though, was crippling, soul-searing, otherworldly pain.

So many good decisions, it was hard to choose.

I sighed. Whatever. I let the numbing construct dissipate, and the full force of my injuries paid me a visit all at once, like an extended family reunion at Thanksgiving:

There was Uncle John—the angry slash running up the back of my right leg—blowing up the toilet, refusing to use the air freshener, and hollering at the top of his lungs about the shitty economy. Meanwhile, Auntie Jane—my mangled ribs—fumbled a plate of mashed potatoes all over the brand-new carpet and carelessly walked away without bothering to clean it up. Little Susie—the nauseating, thudding pain building in my head—drew on the walls with a permanent marker while her mom was off sneaking a cigarette in the garage. I pushed it all away, momentarily kicking all those unwelcome guests to the curb, focusing on my task, even as black invaded the edges of my vision.

Before my arms could give out completely, I conjured the flow of air, snagging the pin from the grenade and thrusting the canister up into the Queen’s gut. I thrust it in elbow deep, lodging it behind something which was hopefully vital. I let go of the spoon, triggering the grenade and giving me a four or five second window to get the hell outta Dodge before things got messy.

“Fire in the hole!” I yelled, alerting Ferraro that the grenade was live and in play. I uncrossed my ankles and released my grip, dropping to the floor with a thud, rolling desperately to avoid the stampeding feet of the frantic Queen, still battling against Winona’s stranglehold.

One monster foot came crashing toward me—

With gritted teeth I rolled, narrowly avoiding the blow only to put myself within smashing range of her other foot.

A pair of hands latched onto my coat and pulled at me with a furious yank, moving my body only a handful of inches, but enough to save me from a crushed lung. The hands dug under my armpits and tugged, dragging me clear just as the explosion went off.

SEVENTEEN:

Science Fair

The BOOM shook the walls and sent a shudder running across the floor; the concussive force shoved me back another few feet. I collided with Ferraro and both of us went sprawling to the ground as a wave of hot, fetid goo washed over us like baptismal waters, ushering us into a new life: a life devoid of gator-women, but one filled with disgusting organ gravy. Winona lay on the floor ten feet away from us, motionless, though breathing. She was in bad shape—lots of blood stained her hair and each breath was a shallow, feeble thing.

The few remaining Shit-Geckos, eight all told, were also on the ground, rolling around in hysterics, tails whipping madly, arms clutched about their heads as they shrieked and chattered. Could be I was wrong, but I vaguely remembered hearing somewhere that the Little Brothers shared a hive intellect, each mind partially controlled by the Queen. Guess there might’ve been some truth to that, considering how poorly they were taking their mother’s untimely death. I guess lucky breaks do fall my way once in a blue moon.

After a few moments of manic motion, the Brothers’ flapping and flailing ceased, the remaining survivors passing away from brutal life into a well-deserved death. Some part of me demanded that I feel bad for ’em, at least a little—death is never pretty, even when it’s occasionally necessary. Watching these things kick the bucket certainly didn’t give me pleasure, but neither could I conjure up a shred of regret. That in itself was troubling; when killing ceases to be painful, that’s when you know it’s time to give up the gun. And, for better or worse, remorse was a distant emotion—an ungrateful kid who’d grown up, skipped town, and only sent a postcard a couple of times a year.

Hell, I even found myself secretly hoping that Fast Hands was also dying a horrible, slow death wherever he was holed up. Yeah, fat chance of that—I wasn’t that lucky. That asshole was like a cockroach: smash it with a shoe, set it on fire, nuke it with pesticide, and watch in horror as it keeps on going.

Ferraro pushed herself up and struggled to her feet. She limped over to my side and knelt down, wincing in pain. “Yancy, are you alright?” she asked slowly, her voice loud and clear, the way emergency responders are supposed to speak to trauma victims. “Can you move?” she asked next, her eyes skipping over the chaos and carnage surrounding us.

I couldn’t answer. The pain and weariness was closing in on me, crowding everything else out. I mumbled something incoherent and closed my eyes, just for a moment. A second later—or so it seemed to my bruised and battered brain—a warm liquid tasting of rotten fish and urine dribbled into my mouth. I gagged and tried to sit up, but an immense weight pinned my shoulders against the blood-slick floor.

I blinked my eyes open and groped for my pistol, but relaxed when I saw Winona’s big hairy face swim into focus, hovering above me while Ferraro pressed something into my mouth.

“Don’t struggle,” the Bigfoot said, sounding like a concerned mother bear tending to the boo-boo of one of her cubs. “The medicine is already at work in you. Be still, it will go easier that way.”

The flow of liquid—like drinking the contents of a porta-potty—ebbed after another few seconds. Ferraro pushed something about the size of a grape into my mouth. It was slimy and tough as old leather.

“Chew it and swallow,” Winona urged, again using her soothing mama-bear voice. I wanted to vomit, scrub my tongue with a Brillo pad, vomit again, then brush my teeth with industrial-grade acid. Instead, I manned up and just ate whatever the hell it was. I chewed, working whatever it was around in my mouth until it was pulpy, then gulped, forcing the gunk down my throat. The pressure on my shoulders lifted, Winona’s hands moving away. I gradually eased myself upright, which came as something of a surprise. Considering how I’d felt only a handful of minutes ago, my body seemed to be working surprisingly well. Suspiciously so.

I gave Winona and Ferraro a once-over, my eyes narrowed in mistrust: both women also seemed to be doing surprisingly well. Sure, there was loads of blood and I spotted a small army of cuts splashed throughout Winona’s disheveled hair, but both her arms were functional again, which sent up all kinds of red flags in my brain. Ferraro’s color was better too, less pale and clammy, though she was still spattered with blood, grime, and goo.

I prodded at the worst of the cuts on my leg and was startled to discover it scarcely hurt at all. Someone had removed the gauze and duct tape I’d used to patch the gash up earlier and had smeared some kind of viscous yellow paste into the wound. The cut looked a week old instead of a few minutes old. It would leave an ugly scar, but I’d be back to walking around in no time.

“The hell is going on here?” I asked, confusion capering through my body as it cackled in mad glee. I should’ve felt dead, dammit. “Why do I feel so good?” I demanded, dragging a finger through the yellow shit on my wound. “I don’t trust things I don’t understand.”

Ferraro gave me a flat, level stare—she looked a little green around the gills. “I’m not sure you want to know,” she said. “Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.”

“Bullshit,” I said, which, coincidentally, is pretty much what the inside of my mouth tasted like. “What happened?”

“Ask her.” Ferraro hitched a thumb toward Winona.

“Well?” I said, turning on her while I leaned back onto my hands, the rough stone cool on my palms.

Winona sheepishly pointed to one of the Little Brothers. His arms had been hacked off at the shoulder joint. A bone saw and a surgeon’s scalpel, both covered in green-blue gore, sat close by the corpse. The Sasquatch held up an oval sac—gray, lumpy, and a little larger than a grape. I ran my tongue over my teeth, wishing for a swimming pool of Listerine to go backstroking through.

“I have studied many of the species inhabiting Inworld and Out,” Winona said with a self-conscious shrug of her shoulders. “Like many reptile species, the Little Brothers have regenerative capabilities. They heal very rapidly and, in some rare cases, may even be able to regrow lost limbs. They are also resilient to most diseases and infections—an important survival feature considering where they live.” She glanced around at the moldy brick walls, the rust covered blades, and the stagnant water from the sewer. “The glands, when rubbed into wounds and ingested, have a similar effect on others.”

“Told you, you didn’t want to know,” Ferraro said, her tone perfectly mirroring the utter revulsion working its way through my insides.

I stared at the mangled reptile body in stunned, disgusted silence for a long beat. “Winona,” I said eventually, “that is the most repulsive thing I’ve ever heard. Repulsive-squared, multiplied by an exponential factor of disgusting-cubed. And I survived Vietnam, so that’s saying something.”

I slumped forward, bracing my hands against my knees, making a deliberate effort to slow my breathing as I tried not to spew a fountain of vomit. As gross as it was, I guess there was a certain poetic justice to it: the organ thieves having their organs stolen. “Sorry,” I said to the Bigfoot once I finally suppressed the wave of nausea. “You saved my life, all of our lives. Gross but pragmatic. Thank you. If you weren’t a hairy Bigfoot, I’d totally kiss you.”

The Sasquatch eyed me askew, her lips pressing tight in disapproval, her face scrunching up in a look that said, Not in a million years. “Please do not be offended, mage, but …” She faltered, grimacing as though a kiss from me would be somehow nastier than eating reptilian gland sacs. “You are …” she fell silent, appraising me with her big emerald eyes, “not my type.”

Ferraro turned away, grinning like mad, stifling a genuine laugh—a rarity from her.

Harsh burn. Shot down by Bigfoot.

I staggered to my feet, trying to retain as much dignity as I could muster. It was tough going, let me tell you. I was swaying like a drunk on a bender, my clothes were trashed and covered in gore, and I’d just been rejected by an eight-foot-tall woman covered head to toe in hair—I could fit my dignity into a thimble with room to spare for my pride.

“We don’t have all day here, ladies,” I said, which earned another small laugh from Ferraro. I cleared my throat, ignoring her. “Winona, you take these glands or whatever, check for human survivors, and patch up any you run across. Ferraro, let’s take a look around—see if we can find an exit or figure out what in the hell they were up to down here.”

Winona nodded and moved off toward the surgical tables while Ferraro and I picked our way through the mutilated corpses and into the lab proper.

“Split up?” she suggested.

I bobbed my head and moved further into the room even as she headed over to a paper-strewn work desk next to a set of file cabinets.

I beelined for the giant, liquid-filled, sci-fi test tubes—odd lab specimens floated within. There were four suspended test subjects, each slightly different from the last, though all shared certain common characteristics: all were severely deformed—basically just a lump of twisted white skin and muscle. All had eyeless faces of creamy white with gaping fish-like mouths filled with jagged saw-blade teeth. All of them looked like they had, at some point, been human or at least a distant relative of Homo sapiens—halfies maybe.

I’d seen these things before, or something damn close to them at any rate. The violent, cannibal zombies from future Seattle—meatbags, I’d called them.

That’s when it all clicked into place: these creatures also shared a passing resemblance to both the Little Brothers and to the Wendigo. Doctor Hogg must’ve been using the Wendigo blood to create an infectious virus. And if what we’d seen in the future held true, that virus would produce a mutant army capable of turning the world of man right on its head.

“Hey, Ferraro, get your ass over here—you gotta see this shit.”

A few heartbeats later she slid up next to me, gaze drifting over the floating test subjects. She stopped a few feet away, eyes gliding over each tube, filing away all the details for later.

“The zombies,” she said, finishing her detailed survey. “Doctor Hogg is the one responsible for making the zombies.”

“Looks that way,” I said.

She frowned and nodded her head. “It all makes sense,” she said a second later. “Come take a look at what I found over there. You’re not going to believe it.” She paused. “Or maybe you will.” She turned away, heading back across the room, bound for the desk.

I took one last solid look at the floating bodies, suppressing a small shudder, before following Ferraro. It was one thing to see some nightmarish shadow future, but seeing that awful reality take form in real time was unnerving. A bit like walking over my own grave.

Ferraro was leaning over a large map spread out on the doctor’s work desk—it was a map of Seattle, with a variety of locations circled, some in red ink, others in green, with barely legible notes scrawled in chicken scratch next to each spot. Locations and times.

There were grocery stores and high schools marked out, movie theaters and shopping malls selected. All places that would accommodate large numbers of people, while still being “soft targets”—locations which weren’t well guarded and, thus, highly susceptible to attack.

Next to the map was a hand drawn blueprint for some strange machine, which, to my technical and professionally trained eye, looked like a cross between a generator and a washing machine.

So I’m not a tech guy—no one’s good at everything, okay?

“What am I looking at?” I asked, trying to put all the pieces together in my head. I leaned in next to her, my shoulder pressing against hers as we looked down.

“Remember how I told you I’d been working a case up in Seattle?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“Well, this is it.” She jabbed a finger at the map, then pointed to the machine blueprints. She shook her head, glancing back and forth between the images. “I can’t believe this. I mean what are the odds?” She ran a dirty hand over the map, smoothing out one curling corner while also spreading around a smear of drying blood.

“I’m the Hand of Fate,” I said, and shrugged, “an agent of destiny, and my immediate supervisor is Lady Luck—I think it’s safe to say there aren’t many coincidences.”

“We were called in to assist local authorities in relation to a possible terror attack,” Ferraro replied. “Several locations, these locations”—she pointed at a handful of locations marked in green ink—“all experienced minor explosions at approximately 9:50 AM, three days ago. EOD checked the sites and found the remnants of pipe bombs and the machines in these blueprints. As far as we could tell, the machines were designed as some sort of dispersal system, but there wasn’t a biological component present. No anthrax, no smallpox, no VX gas. Whoever set these things up released water vapor.”

“So it was a test run?” I asked.

“We weren’t sure, but that was our working theory. There weren’t any links to known terror groups, though, and none of our guys had run across the tech before, so it all amounted to a bunch of dead ends. But it all makes sense …” She chewed on one lip, a nervous tell. “It was a dry run. He was making sure the dispersal systems worked. Why did he plant pipe bombs?” she asked, half to herself, half to me.

I glanced down at the map with its scribbled notes. There were two sets of times for each location. “He’s not just targeting the victims at each site,” I said, “he’s targeting the first responders, too. The first release goes off with the bomb, dosing anyone in the vicinity, and the second release is timed to go off when the first responders show. Make sure they get sick early on so that emergency services won’t be able to effectively respond once the shit really starts hitting the fan.”

She furrowed her brow, staring at the map as though she might yet be able to drag a confession out of it. “That’s a common terrorist tactic,” she said. “The insurgents used to do the same thing to us in Iraq. They’d plant one IED, hit the primary target, then set up a daisy chain to take out EOD techs and medics. The tactic works so well because it exploits basic, human compassion …” Her eyes took on that glazed, faraway look you sometimes see when someone is reliving one of their shittiest memories.

“Even if,” she said after a time, “you know there’s a chance it might be a trap, it’s almost impossible to watch another human being lay there dying when you might be able to help. Especially if it’s someone close to you. The need to save is programed into us.” She shook her head, her ponytail waggling. “And the worst part is, Seattle isn’t the only city they’re planning to hit.”

She pulled up the edge of the Seattle map, revealing more city maps beneath: Dallas, L.A., Washington, DC—and that was just stateside. There were also plans for London, Florence, Berlin, Moscow, Bangkok, Beijing, and Hong Kong.

“So this is how it happens,” she whispered, “this is how the world ends—not some natural disaster, but a purposeful, manmade virus.” She gathered up the maps and the blueprints just as Winona padded over with a man carefully cradled in her arms like a wounded puppy.

“There is one survivor,” she said, her eyes sad, her voice low and somber. “He is heavily sedated, but I’ve treated his injuries and he should survive.” I glanced at the unconscious man: he was in his late forties or early fifties, his black hair long, shaggy, matted, and peppered with gray. He had a massive beard and wore the same dirty clothes I’d seen him in the night before at the motorhome. I thought about the two who hadn’t made it, a man and a woman—two people who’d been abducted, experimented on like animals, and murdered. All because they were homeless: expendable lab rats for an unethical doctor and a madman looking to grab a fistful of primal power.

A surge of hatred, hot and heavy, reared up in my chest. Someone was gonna pay for this, dammit.

“We will bring justice,” Winona said, seeming to read my thoughts, though I knew my mind was closed off to her. “I have found the exit,” she said. “We should go.”

“Yeah,” I said, shoving away the fiery emotions churning inside me, storing them up for later, for the right time. Winona led us out of the lab through a connecting corridor and into an adjoining room with a wide doorway—a doorway which looked out into the clearing outside the mill.

“You ladies head out,” I said, “I’ve just got one last thing to take care of. Won’t take but a couple of seconds.”

Winona regarded me for a moment, then shrugged and loped through the doorway, the lone survivor in her hands. Ferraro turned to me and placed a hand on my arm. “Anything I can do?”

I shook my head. “You’re already doing everything you can,” I replied, my grief and anger impotent, ineffectual, but demanding some kind of release. “You’re here, you’re helping—that means more than you know. I’m just gonna clean this place up a bit. Make sure the doctor can’t come back here after we leave and start right up where he left off.”

She turned away with a small grunt of approval and moved through the doorway, a single step taking her from the underground warren of the Hub sewers to a forest in rural Montana. I was drained, little more than an empty, crushed beer can, but my power was starting to return, thanks to the nearly miraculous power of the Little Brother cocktail I’d been force-fed.

I opened myself to the Vis, pulled in a torrent of energy, and let loose a sweeping wall of fire which washed over the room, crackling as it consumed papers, furniture, and dead bodies. A rough cleansing for an evil place. The poor souls who’d perished here deserved a true burial, but this was the best I could do to honor ’em.

First, I’d reduce this place to smoldering slag, then I’d burn the totems on the other side, ensuring no one else would be dragged down here again—not for a while, anyway.

I watched the seedy den catch blaze, the consuming fire a perfect mirror for the anger burning inside me. I offered the wall of heat my back and stepped into the real world.

EIGHTEEN:

Lucky Tip

Winona was beat to shit, even after taking the disgusting, but nutritious, secretion from the Little Brother corpse. Nevertheless, she was a friggin’ rockstar and managed to carry the unconscious man over one shoulder, me in the other arm, and Ferraro on her back in what amounted to an epic piggyback ride. The Sasquatch was, however, moving slowly, which still happened to be faster than I could sprint on a paved running track. The trip to the mill had taken twenty minutes, but it took double that on the way out.

By the time we made it back to our car, the sun had faded completely, ushering in the purple-black of early evening. It was later than it should’ve been—we’d gone into the mill around 1:00 PM, and the whole trip through the mill’s interior and the labyrinth beneath the Hub couldn’t have taken more than a couple hours, tops. But dimension hopping could do wonky things to time, or at least the way you experienced it. Whenever you travelled through the Ether, you risked exposure to wandering time pockets, which can either slow time down or speed it up.

Ferraro slid off Winona’s broad back as the Bigfoot gently set me down, a small groan escaping her lips.

“You gonna be alright, big gal?” I asked.

“The damage was great.” She arched her back with a grunt, a series of soft cracks following. “But I will heal. I have salves and creams in the cave that will speed things along.” She halted, turning her head, looking off into the distance, which probably meant she was chitchatting with her dad. “Father is awake,” she said, confirming my suspicion. “I will need to tend to him shortly.”

“What should we do in the meantime?” Ferraro asked.

I rubbed at one arm, kneading at a tender spot where one of the Brothers had clubbed me, then suppressed a yawn with my fist. I needed to have my own powwow with the chief. We had an injured man who needed further medical treatment, however, and it would benefit no one to have the poor schmuck wake up in a cave surrounded by more of the Chiye-tanka. This poor guy was probably gonna have Bigfoot-related PTSD for the rest of his natural life.

Ferraro and I needed to drive him up to Missoula and get him to a hospital, no two ways about it. After we made sure he got some medical attention, we could hit up the chief, then track down James and see if we could shake anything loose on that front. A breeze whispered through the night, giving me a whiff of the odor coming off me like gasoline fumes. I threw up in my mouth a little, but somehow managed to choke the bile back down.

Right, new plan: First, get the victim to the hospital. Second, take a shower and clean my skin with bleach, burn my clothes in a fire pit, and grab some chow. Third, do all that other shit.

A sense of overwhelming dread sunk in around me as I contemplated how bad things were liable to get, and how much I still didn’t know. What we really needed was a lucky break—we needed a new lead to fall in our laps. We needed to get in front of this mess somehow, and that meant figuring out what the bigger picture was.

“Alright, Fortuna!” I hollered into the evening air, because I was tired and frustrated and it really didn’t seem like a little luck was too much to ask for considering who my boss was. “I could use a little bit of help here. This is obviously Hand of Fate business, so how ’bout a friggin’ break, huh?”

A moment later I heard the hum of a car engine, shortly followed by a pair of headlights slicing through the dark.

No way could that be her. No way in hell.

A nondescript sedan, not terribly dissimilar from the one Ferraro and I had been tooling around in, pulled up. The engine idled softly as the window rolled down to reveal the grinning face of a plain-Jane woman, thin and petite, with shoulder-length brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had on a pair of rectangular glasses and wore casual business clothing: a cream-colored blouse, open in the front with a high collar, paired to a smart dark pantsuit.

Fortuna, Lady Luck, professional and annoying as always.

“I saw you folks standing on the side of the road and I thought you might be having car trouble.” She paused, her smile widening just a tad. “Is that—Yancy Lazarus and Agent Ferraro? And who’s that there … Winona Treesinger, daughter of Chief Chankoowashtay? Why, how fortunate of me to be passing by this way.” She snorted at her own joke. Lady had the lamest sense of humor in the world—the absolute queen of puns and lousy word play.

“Yeah, about as fortunate as a shotgun blast to the face,” I said, scowling. “I could’ve used some help before now, you know. For instance, it would’ve been nice to know that mill connected directly to the sewer ways under the Hub.”

She looked me up and down, noting the rips in my jeans, the inhuman goo covering my body, and the blood on my … well, on my everything. “I suppose,” she finally said, “you do look a teensy bit rumpled, though otherwise you seem to be in fine shape.”

“A teensy bit rumpled? Those freak-shows back there almost punched Ferraro’s ticket, you know that? Never mind how bad it’s gonna sting to disinfect all these cuts. And the taste in my mouth? That shit isn’t ever coming out.”

“Yes, Agent Ferraro almost died,” Fortuna said patiently, a teacher explaining something elementary to a dense kindergartner. “Almost is the operative word, I believe.” Her tone was precise and clipped. “So perhaps you could stop being a waa-baby for just a moment, yes? As you know, there are rather specific rules about when and to what degree I may interfere in mortal events—even for the Hand of Fate.

“For example, had I fully intervened when you first lost your powers and were incarcerated by the good Agent”—she beamed at Ferraro, standing a few feet behind me—“you never would have made an alliance with her and, thus, you would be very, very dead now. Likewise, had I told you about the mill, you never would’ve ventured in. Far too dangerous. And, as a result, Doctor Hogg would’ve been forty-two percent more likely to complete his nefarious undertaking. It’s a fine balance, really.”

“You’re the worst boss I’ve ever had,” I muttered. “I’ve never been so unlucky in my whole friggin’ life. Now tell me why you’re here.” Not a question. She only ever showed up to point me in a new direction, generally a direction with the potential for bodily dismemberment and horrible death. She’d been marginally helpful a handful of times, I guess, but nothing to celebrate.

“First tell me what you’ve uncovered,” she said.

“Like you don’t know,” I replied, crossing my arms and shooting daggers at her.

She rolled her eyes and gave me a disapproving frown. “Despite what you may think, Mr. Lazarus, Lady Fate and I don’t know everything. In fact, there’s a divine power at play, interfering with our ability to see accurately into the future. So, there are a few pieces of the puzzle that are missing—in fact, these puzzle pieces aren’t even on the table. Now, will someone please tell me what happened in the mill?”

Ferraro stepped forward, placing her hands on her hips. “Let me do it,” she said, offering me an even look. “I’m better with the details, anyway.”

“No skin off my teeth,” I said, turning my back and leaning up against Lady Luck’s car while I absently picked at some dried blood on my coat.

“Excuse me,” Fortuna said, popping her head out of the window and glaring at me. “This is a rental and I don’t want you getting your mess all over it before I have to return it.”

“The worst!” I threw up my hands and stalked over to Ferraro’s sedan, leaning up against that one instead.

Ferraro went over the details, a thorough SITREP, or situation report, describing our conversation with the sheriff, our trek through the mill, and our grisly and unnerving discovery in Doctor Hogg’s laboratory.

“Excellent work,” Fortuna said once Ferraro concluded her report. “I knew you and Mr. Lazarus were the right choice.”

“So will you finally tell us what you’re doing here?” I asked.

“Yes, gladly.” She grabbed up her briefcase from the passenger seat and popped the car door. She slid out, carefully laid the briefcase on the car hood—it was a rental, after all—and immediately began rifling through its contents. “Mr. Lazarus, a little light here?” she asked, not so much as sparing me a backward glance.

I grumbled, but acquiesced, moseying over and conjuring a floating orb of pale blue light above my palm.

“Much better, thank you.” Second after second crept past, until she eventually pulled out a file folder, which she primly placed next to the briefcase. “Ah, here we are.” She drew out a photo of a man: an older Asian gent with dark skin and an unabashedly bald head, dressed in a pair of dark slacks and a button up.

“Lady Fate and I knew the good doctor was responsible for unleashing the plague that will, in time, ravage humanity. We did not know, however, how the virus was created. Nor did we know where he was planning to release the agent—the variety of locations you discovered is larger than we’d been anticipating, but it does shed some light on a suspicion I’ve long held. All of those sites hold one thing in common: they are possible locations for this man, Luang Phor Ong.” She stared down at the photo, studying the image as if it were the first time she’d ever seen it. “Though it is disturbingly possible he is not really a man at all,” she finished.

“Okay,” I said, scanning the picture. The man looked utterly normal, completely unremarkable, though, admittedly, people would likely say the same about me. “Why is he so important?”

“Right,” Fortuna replied. “First let me backtrack a bit. As you should know, Lady Fate and I haven’t been sitting idly by, we’ve been digging on our end, too. The clue you received from the Lich, ‘The White Seal is in play,’ refers to one of seven biblical seals—the First Seal, to be exact—which, when collected and opened by the White King, will usher in the end of the world.”

“The Seven Seals of Revelation,” Ferraro said, reverently crossing herself as she crowded in beside me to look at the contents splayed out on the hood. According to Ferraro, she was a recovering Catholic, so she got a tad sentimental whenever it came to the Big Guy upstairs and all of His business dealings.

“Yes, precisely,” Fortuna said, smiling at Ferraro in appreciation. “I’m so glad he has you around.”

“Wait. So this is some kinda Armageddon deal?” I asked. Nothing new there. Seemed like every Tom, Dick, and Harry wanted to jump-start the end of the world for one reason or another. Couldn’t people just be content to let our little mud-ball keep on spinning?

“No, no. Not at all.” Fortuna shook her head, then slowly massaged her temples. “Only the White King can break open the Seals—such an event, True Armageddon, cannot happen before its appointed time, as is preordained by divine decree and recorded in the Tapestry of Fate. Enforcing the divine plan is what Lady Fate and I do, after all.

“True,” she continued, “many choices are left to chance, left to the whims of mortal freewill, but the White King also has a will of His own. Though He does not often act directly, when He does elect to act, it is the absolute final word on the matter. And, since the White King exists outside of space and time, His direct actions are recorded beforehand in the Tapestry of Fate—the divine decrees upon which reality is built.”

“Well, excuse me for not having the advantage of being a demigod.”

She paused, quirking an eyebrow at me. “I am no mere ‘demigod’—I am the real thing, one of the great Principalities and Dominions of old.”

“So if it’s not about Armageddon, what in the hell is it about?”

She absently rubbed a finger along the edge of her glasses. “How can I put this so your primitive ape-brain can understand?” She inclined her head toward Winona. “No disrespect meant to the Chiye-tanka, of course.”

“None taken,” Winona said.

“The Seals themselves are powerful artifacts,” Fortuna continued. “Each Seal contains the essence of a powerful fallen angel, bound in the Pit until the day comes for them to be released upon the Earth. The Seals also hold demonic power … well, a portion of it, and bless the Seal Bearer with unnatural abilities. Deception, War, Famine, Death and Pestilence. These are the first four Seals—represented by the four horsemen, the White, Red, Black, and Green riders—followed by mastery over time, number five, and power over nature itself, number six. The seventh is …” she paused, “tricky to explain.

“At any rate, the White Seal corresponds to the first horseman, the Beast Demon of the Abyss. Whoever has the Seal is utilizing its stolen power, the power of charismata and deception, both to draw followers to himself and to mask his identity and movement from Lady Fate. The tapestry, you see, is of divine origin, so only divine power may influence and distort it.”

Holy shit was this heavy. I pushed away from the car, listening intently as I paced back and forth, feeling a sudden need to move, to act, to do something.

“The Seals were originally handed out to seven guardians,” Fortuna said, “beings entrusted to preserve and resist the power of their respective Seals until the appointed time set by the White King. But if someone, say a highly placed member in the Guild, could assemble all seven Seals, they would command a power unequalled by any on the earth. They could become a living god in truth. Seattle was the last known location of the fourth Seal Bearer”—she tapped the photo—“this man here.

“My Lady believes that whoever is behind this mad scheme intends to use the Wendigo strain, coupled with the Fourth Seal—Death and Pestilence—to create a global pandemic. To fashion an army of the near dead, completely loyal to the wielder of the Fourth Seal. We can only hope your interference tonight will at least delay the development of the Wendigo virus until you can track down the Fourth Seal and acquire it before our enemies do. But that is a matter to worry about later. As of now, we don’t even know where the Seal Bearer resides.”

“So how do we find him?” I asked.

Fortuna pressed her lips together. “You’re not going to like the answer, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, there is only one person privy to his current whereabouts.”

“And that would be?” Ferraro asked, beating me to the punch.

“Arch-Mage Borgstorm,” Fortuna replied. “The current head of the Guild of the Staff. Borgstorm and Ong go back a very long ways, and I have reason to believe they’ve stayed in touch.”

Screw me sideways with a baseball bat. If Borgstorm was the only one with the info, we were shit outta luck. The arch-mage and I had an uneasy relationship—the kind of relationship a prison warden has with a noncompliant inmate—so it’d be damn hard to get any help out of her. And by damn hard I meant it was about as likely as the moon being made out of blue cheese.

“Well, shit.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Fortuna said. “But, we can worry about Ong later. For now, we should focus our efforts on preventing the doctor from perfecting the virus in the first place, rendering the whole affair a moot point.”

“And,” Ferraro added, “if the person pulling the strings needs all seven Seals, then maybe we can track down some of the other ones. Do you know the locations of any of the other Seal Bearers?”

“Brilliant idea,” Fortuna said. “Exactly the right course of action. As to tracking down the other Seals—I’m not at liberty to tell you everything …” She drummed her fingers on the hood. “Bloody rules, you know. But …” She glanced around like a fugitive about to commit grand theft auto. “It might serve you to take a look closer to home.” She discreetly pointed toward Winona, before reaching up and adjusting her glasses, a miserable attempt to hide the gesture.

“Holy shit.” I wheeled around, facing Winona, who stood in a pool of inky dark, nervousness etched into every line of her body. “The chief is one of the Seal Bearers?” I asked. It was a question, but I was pretty damned sure I knew the answer.

I thought back to the giant red creature Kong had morphed into during his knock-down-drag-out with the Wendigo. I’m not exactly a theologian, nor a regular churchgoer, but even I knew which of the four horsemen was big and red and scary as hell: the horseman of War. It even made sense in a weird sort of reverse logic—who better to give the Seal of War to than the leader of nonviolent, tree hippies?

I caught Fortuna smile out of the corner of my eye, the grin looking somewhat crazed in my Vis-conjured light. She cupped one hand and brought it to her mouth. “Maybe he’s not quite as daft as I thought,” she whispered to Ferraro.

“Answer me, Winona.” I scowled, ignoring Fortuna’s backhanded compliment. “You and Kong have been hooking and jiving anytime I ask a question, but I’ve got a right to know and you promised me we’d talk.”

The Sasquatch scooted back a step further, as if she might just be able to sink through the ground and disappear if she refused to speak.

“Winona, I need answers. I understand this is a big deal, but if you hold out on me I can’t make things right.”

A tense moment of absolute stillness followed, like maybe she was deciding whether she should answer or just turn tail and bolt. But at last she nodded, her body sagging in defeat.

“Only my father knows the true extent of the Seal’s power, so you must discuss the matter with him.” She sighed, the sound like a felled tree crashing in the woods. “But yes, he does possess the Seal of War.”

I snapped my fingers and turned back toward Fortuna. “Holy shit that explains a lot. So whoever’s behind this isn’t just out to make an army of plague monsters, they’re after Kong personally. So, if we can protect the chief and stop the Wendigo, we might be able to end this crapalanche before it ever gets any real momentum. I think we can protect the chief, but how in the hell are we gonna lock down the Wendigo? Thanks to that stupid tiara, he’s got command of an entire army of Sasquatches.”

“What kind of benefactor would I be if I didn’t have some help to offer?” Fortuna asked, sounding as smug as some Prius-driving, vegan hipster extolling the virtues of tofu.

“The kind of benefactor who lets her underlings nearly perish in the filthy sewers beneath the Hub,” I said, deadpan.

She ignored the jibe. Out came another picture, this one a snapshot of the hotty-totty princess-bling the Wendigo had been sporting. “To beat the Kinslayer, you need only undo the hold he has on the Chiye-tanka. Take out the tiara and you take out his base of support. It’s also imperative that you get the tiara away from him because with it under his control, he will not only be able to compel and control the People, he’ll also be able to exert his will on all the lesser Wendigo made from his blood.”

Ferraro tensed beside me. “He’ll be able to control the zombie army,” she said.

“Again, not really my place to say. The rules and all,” Fortuna said, the whole while nodding energetically and silently mouthing the word “yes.” So maybe Lady Luck wasn’t so bad—I’ve always had a fondness for people who break stupid rules.

“Okay, but there’s another problem,” I said. “I can’t touch the tiara with my power—it’s got some kind of Vis-resistant field protecting it and the wearer.”

“The tiara is a powerful artifact,” Fortuna said with a shrug. She pulled out another glossy picture. A photo of a painting, which featured a delicately wrought golden laurel wreath complete with a fat ruby at the center. “It has quite a long history, this tiara, dating all the way back before the Greeks.” She tapped on the photo of the laurel crown. “Here it is in its original form, circa eleventh century BC as forged by Hephaestus. Though its appearance has altered over time, one thing remains true: it is a dangerous weapon. One which should be locked tightly away in the Guild’s vault.

“Sadly, it has found its way into the world once more, so you’ll just have to deal with it. As you say, Mr. Lazarus: ‘Improvise, adapt, and overcome.’ True, the tiara does provide its wearer an unmatched level of protection from your power, but, as with most things, it has a weakness. Unfortunately, that weakness is known only to the original owners.”

She held for dramatic effect—lady was so theatrical it hurt my brain—and dropped one more photo onto the hood.

Except this time the melodrama was appropriate. I stumbled, my legs like wet noodles beneath me, before tumbling onto my ass.

Ferraro was at my side in a second, wiggling her hands beneath my armpits and helping me to my feet. “You okay?” she asked, eyeing me for some unseen injury.

“No.” I took several deep breaths, trying to get my thoughts in order and my body back under something that sorta resembled control. “Not even a little.”

Ferraro wedged her shoulder further underneath me, now holding the majority of my body weight. I waited a few minutes, then gradually made my way back over to the hood and the picture: it was an old, grainy, black and white photo, taken years and years ago. Three beautiful women stood in the shot, each dressed like a 1920s flapper. An otherworldly big band fanned out behind the trio.

“Who are they?” Ferraro asked.

Fortuna said nothing, only stared at me with a knowing half smirk.

“The Sirens,” I said, feeling my knees shake again. “We’ve got some history.”

I rarely told anyone about my final days in Vietnam, or the terrible events which resulted in the massacre of my squad and the awakening of my gift. But the Sirens were at the heart of that tale, and I suspected Fortuna, at least, knew the truth of things.

“The tiara used to belong to the sisters,” Fortuna said, cutting the mounting silence. “Mind you, this was back when I still held favor in Greece. Back in those long-ago days, a young, headstrong man—very, very cunning, this fellow—named Jason bested them and made off with the crown. Quite the scandal as you might imagine. Sadly, the extent of the tiara’s secrets belong to the Sirens and the Sirens alone. So if you hope to defeat the Wendigo, you’ll need their assistance, I should think.”

“Don’t screw around with me,” I growled at her. “I’ve been hunting the Sirens for forty years. Forty years. It can’t be done. They’re ghosts. They move constantly. I’ve only ever heard murmured rumors about the shows they put on for the Fae Courts. If our success relies upon finding the Sirens, we should just pack our bags, head for the beach, and watch the end of the world from a hammock.”

Fortuna drummed her fingers on the hood of the car once more and frowned at me, her irritation plain for anyone with a pair of eyes. “I am Lady Luck,” she said after a moment, “and more than equal to the queens and kings of the Fae Courts. As it happens, I know the Sirens are scheduled to perform for Arawn the Horned, Protector of the Unfettered Fae”—she glanced at a slim gold watch on her wrist—“in approximately thirteen hours’ time. That’ll be 7:00 AM your time, though local time in Anwnn it will be 8:00 PM.”

“So what?” Ferraro asked. “We just crash this party and ascertain the information we need? Sounds simple enough to me.”

I rolled my eyes. “No way it’s that easy—there’s a catch. There’s always a catch. Do you even remember the Hinterlands?” I asked Ferraro while eyeballing Lady Luck. “I mean, Arawn the Horned isn’t exactly friendly to … like anyone. Especially not humans. Guy’s a total nut job—his name is Arawn the Horned. Not Bob the accountant or Dave the schoolteacher. Arawn the Horned. He’d obliterate us off the face of the map because it’d be fun. Not to mention we aren’t simply gonna waltz in and play twenty questions with the Sirens then ditty-bop outta there. The Sirens are thousands of years old and thrive on death, mayhem, and bloodshed. So”—I looked at Fortuna—“what’s the deal?”

“I think you’ve done a nice job summing up ‘the deal,’ actually,” she said. “Yes, Arawn is insane and the entire High Court of the Unfettered is likely to be present. Any one of whom could destroy you all. And, as you mentioned, the Sirens are a formidable danger to overcome in their own right. A very risky affair …” She folded one arm across her chest, tucking her hand up under her armpit. Then, with her free hand, she tapped a finger against her chin in thoughtful reflection. “You’re definitely going to need backup. A few old friends should do the trick, I think.”

Her eyes grew unfocused and started flickering back and forth, like she was reading something at a thousand miles an hour. “Greg Chandler and James Sullivan are both musts. Ferraro obviously. You’ll certainly need Chief Chankoowashtay and Winona. Yes, that should do it. With the six of you together, your odds of survival increase by twenty-one percent, bringing your overall odds of success up to thirty-six percent. Quite good really, as far as odds go.”

“Thirty-six percent,” Ferraro said. “Those are the chances of success?”

“Yes—well, assuming, of course, your recruiting efforts go smoothly,” Fortuna replied. “Now, I can’t offer you any guarantees that Arawn will not decapitate the whole lot of you and serve your corpses up as appetizers, but if you make it known you are working as the Hand of Fate”—she shrugged—“well, he might not slaughter you all, I suppose. One of the perks of the job.”

“What a perk,” I mumbled under my breath. “Like sending me into a combat zone with a cork gun and a butter knife.”

“Aside from that, there is just one other little catch.” She grimaced. “I happen to know where the Sirens are, but, sadly, I’m not permitted to tell you. If I divulged that bit of information, it would result in your certain death. But …” She paused and gave me a small, devious grin. “I may have let the exact location slip to a mutual acquaintance of ours, a certain Hub Dweller and collector, whose name seems to have escaped me at the moment. I’m certain he will know the Way.”

Since I wasn’t a complete moron, I knew she could only be referring to Harold the Mange—a disgusting, morbidly obese dwarf living in his own pocket dimension connected to the Hub. The guy was a revolting creep-bag, but a useful creep-bag who could manipulate the Ether—the substance between worlds—to create custom Ways, folds in space-time, which could be travelled through. Lady Luck had pointed me in his direction the very first time we’d met, back when I’d been working a case involving an unbalanced rogue mage with plans to kick-start a Hindu version of the apocalypse.

“Wait, so that’s it?” I asked. “That’s all the help you’ve got for us?”

“Yes. That’s it. I think I’ve been supremely helpful,” she replied. “You wanted a lucky break and I’ve provided one. Now, Winona dearest.” Fortuna turned, placed a hand on her hip, and surveyed the Bigfoot over the top edge of her glasses. “Please load that poor chap in your arms into the backseat.” She folded her arms and gave a slight shake of her head. “And, for heaven’s sake, try to avoid getting any of that blood on the upholstery. Human beings are so messy.” The last, she mumbled mostly to herself.

She faced us once more. “Okay, you are all likely to be busy, busy, busy if you hope to make it to Arawn’s party on time, so I’ll get this fellow to the hospital for you. The least I could do, really. Oh!” Her eyes took on that far-looking trance again. “Formalwear. Arawn will be twelve percent more likely to spare your lives if your team is dressed in formalwear.”

Fortuna snapped up her briefcase as Winona gently placed the rescued prisoner into the back of the sedan. Lady Luck slipped back into the driver side seat and started the engine.

“All right you kids, best of luck and all of that.” She sniggered, rolled up her window, and pulled back onto the thoroughfare.

Luck. Boy were we gonna need a battleship worth to pull this clusterfuck off.

NINETEEN:

Old Wounds

I lounged in the passenger seat of Ferraro’s sedan, watching the night-darkened forest flicker past on either side as we drove. The trees were silent, unmoving things, yet in the headlights they seemed almost alive; the high beams, passing over their limbs and twisted bodies, lent them the appearance of movement. They were crying out to me, their boughs reaching toward the roadway, pleading for me to save them from the evil presence which had possessed their guardians, the Chiye-tanka.

I put the trees and the Chiye-tanka out of mind—there was nothing I could do for them right now. We’d deal with the Wendigo when the time was right, when we had a good hand to play. Winona was on her way back to the cave to chat with her father, and Ferraro and I had other things that needed to be done. Namely, we needed to prepare for our encounter with Arawn and the Sirens. I’d already tried to get in touch with Greg, but the call had gone straight to voicemail. Annoying, sure, but not troubling. Greg was the most reliable person I knew, but he was never great about keeping his cell phone charged.

For once, no music played in the car. Quiet filled the cab instead, which suited me just fine. The space to think was welcome.

I stared down at the clear crystal orb in my hand, the scrying stone I’d used to eavesdrop on the sheriff. Once upon a time, scrying stones were all the rage among magi. I mean in the days before cell phones, being able to talk at a distance was a huge advantage, so you can just imagine the edge magi held over the Rubes of the world. Nowadays, most of the magi have gotten on board with tech—but sometimes the old ways were still the best, especially if you needed to talk in a place where cell reception was nonexistent. Like, say, the far-flung reaches of Outworld or the mountainous backwoods of Montana.

Really, the orb was nothing special, just a shiny piece of glass, but it’d been imbedded with a complex weave of earth, fire, spirit, and magnetic force. The construct created a certain resonance frequency—think of it as the Vis equivalent of a phone number. James had one which was almost identical, and since I knew the frequency of his stone, I could call him up anywhere—assuming he had the stone on him. But I knew he did. Considering all the crazy goings-on these past few months, there was no way he wouldn’t have it.

I needed to call him.

I needed him for this mission, but I also needed him to answer some tough, uncomfortable questions. The kind of questions that could end a friendship. And when I say “end a friendship,” I’m talking about the nuclear-bomb-blast-which-leaves-no-survivors kind of ending. Those questions could wait, though. Even if James was the villain—which I still didn’t fully accept—he didn’t know that I knew, which meant I could still string him along for a while longer. Use him to stop this business with the Wendigo before I had to kick his ass up one side of the street and down the other. Assuming, of course, I could manage such a feat, which was no sure thing. James was a better battle-mage than me by a fair margin.

“Are you sure bringing James in is the right move?” Ferraro asked, giving the scrying stone a sidelong glance before returning her attention to the road.

“Am I sure about James?” I paused, thinking long and hard, my thoughts tumbling and churning in my skull like white-water rapids. “No. I’m not sure about anything. Everything seems backwards in my friggin’ head, but it’s not like good choices are raining down on us by the bucketful.” I traced one finger over the smooth surface of the orb. “And I do trust Fortune. She drives me batshit-crazy, but so far she’s steered us right. Her and Lady Fate, both. So if she says we need James to survive this mission, then my guess is we need James.”

“So what are you waiting for?” she asked, not harsh, but pushy, insistent. “There’s a lot of moving parts and not a lot of time to make things happen. It’s like pulling off a Band-Aid, Yancy, better to get it over with quickly. Otherwise you’ll just prolong the pain.”

“You’re right,” I said. “This is stupid. You’re right. I just need to call him, already.” Instead I stared at the orb, unmoving, and did all of jack shit. Of all the terrible things I had to do today, this was the one I was looking forward to the least.

“What’s the real issue?” she asked, her voice low and soothing. “You believe James is innocent, right? So why the hesitation?”

I gazed out the window, not answering for a good long while, letting the quiet of the night reign supreme as I turned her question over in my head, examining it from every angle. What the hell was the issue? I did trust James, didn’t I? So why the hell was I worried about picking up the phone—well, scrying stone, anyway—and calling? I sighed.

“Look, I do trust him.” I shrugged, trying to find the right words. “But what if James really is the asshole behind this mess? Shit, but I don’t think my delicate psyche can handle that.”

She snorted a short laugh. “Delicate psyche. That’s exactly the way I’d describe you. Delicate.”

I frowned, scrunching up my nose in frustration, and fell silent.

“Don’t pout,” she said.

I set the orb down between my legs, crossed my arms, and turned away, offering her my shoulder. I wasn’t pouting.

Sulking, maybe.

Possibly sullen—sounded manlier that way—but definitely not pouting. Pouting was for moody teens throwing a temper tantrum.

“I didn’t mean to insult you,” she said. “Just level with me, tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”

I swiveled back around, muttering obscenities under my breath. “It’s not like this is easy for me, you know? I have a hard time opening up to people. Believe it or not, but I wasn’t always the cynical, jaded asshole I am today. This is the result of a lifetime of shitty people doing shitty things to me. Of me trusting people only to have them turn around and stab me in the friggin’ back over and over again. My delicate pysche is the direct result of fifty years of dickheads taking advantage of me, using me, pissing on me at every possible opportunity. That shit takes its toll, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m having trouble envisioning you as a happy-go-lucky ray of sunshine.”

“Well, let’s not go overboard.” I drummed my fingers on the scrying stone. “I mean, I’ve always been a sarcastic jerk—that’s built right into my DNA. Not nearly so jaded, though. Once upon a time, way, way back, I used to trust people. Used to have something that almost, kinda, sorta resembled a normalish life. You shoulda seen me back before the Morrigan snatched Ailia.” I clenched my fists, the thought instantaneously bringing my blood to a low simmer. “Back before the Guild turned its back on me and her. You probably won’t believe this, but back in those days I used to like the Guild—hell, I would’ve given my life for the Guild, which should tell you pretty much all you need to know.”

We were quiet, the buzz of the rubber over the asphalt the only sound in the otherwise silent night. I watched more trees zip past for a time, before catching a glimpse of myself in the side mirror. Blood and gore stained my skin. Puffy bags underlined my eyes. My rough beard was getting too long and itchy—definitely time for a shave. I looked like a warmed over bag of shit. I looked old, not as old as my sixty-six years warranted, but older than I had just a few short days ago—as though all this madness had sucked the life right out of me, like some kind of vampire.

“I’ve heard you talk about Ailia before and about the Morrigan,” Ferraro finally said, pulling me away from my thoughts. “What happened?”

I turned my head away and waved a hand through the air, dismissing the question. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m not a psychiatrist,” she said, glancing at me from the corner of her eye. “But I think you should talk about it. To me, this sounds like a watershed event—a trigger which caused a serious personality shift. Talking about it might help you to work through your feelings about James, because I’ll bet they’re connected.”

Stupid, no-good, FBI-trained, nosey Nicole. Couldn’t leave well enough alone. “You want to know what happened? The swamp-donkeys in the Guild betrayed me”—I sat forward and slammed a hand onto the dashboard—“that’s what happened. Hung me out to dry, hung us all out to dry.” I paused, the sudden violence leaving a ripple of unease between us. “Ailia was a Judge,” I said, my voice softer, “a senior lieutenant. One of our Guild operatives went missing, guy had been working deep ops in the high courts of the Tuatha Dé Danann—old Irish gods. Major movers and shakers, those cats.” I leaned back, glanced down at my fingers, and picked at a hangnail.

“The disappearance was a big deal,” I continued after a moment, “because this operative held classified Guild secrets, lots of ’em. Agent names, Guild pass codes, Council safe house locations. All kinds of sensitive info. A recovery order dropped, Ailia was tasked with the investigation, and James and I were attached as her security detail. The three of us went in, things went south fast, James and I made it out. Ailia didn’t. And that spiteful bitch, Morrigan, took her just because she could. Just to piss me off over some imagined slight I’d dealt her.”

“And the Guild didn’t do anything about it?” Ferraro asked.

I shook my head. “No. The Guild refused to do a fucking thing. Chalked it up as a bad op and washed their collective hands of it. And I guess, in a way, that’s the real point. I’ve opened myself up to a lot of people and I’ve been burned, bad and often. By the Marine Corps. By the Guild. By close friends. But not James.

“James recruited me. Trained me. Helped me when no one else would. I would’ve fought the Morrigan to the death, would’ve burned the world down to save Ailia. He pulled my ass outta the fire and saved me from my own stupidity. And when the Guild turned its back on me? James stood by my side. I want to call him, but I don’t really want to know the truth. Once I know the truth I’ll have to do something about it, and I just want things to be okay.”

“Yancy, listen—”

“Look,” I cut her off. “I don’t want to hear any trite, bullshit answers, alright. I’ve heard it all before.”

She laughed at me, a rueful sound which spoke volumes. It’s high time you pull your head out of your ass, partner, it said. “I wasn’t going to give you any trite answers, Yancy. You act like you’re the only person who’s ever experienced heartache. You pretend no one else in the world could possibly understand what it’s like to lose someone they love, or to have their boss make a bad call, or to have someone they care for betray them. Here’s a hard truth you should hear: you’re not some special snowflake.

“You know what your real problem is, Yancy? You’ve got the emotional depth of a wading pool. It doesn’t even make sense to me. I’ve personally seen you go up against opponents who are bigger, stronger, and smarter than you and you didn’t quit. I don’t think quitting ever crossed your mind. I saw Fast Hands sink four bullets into you, and that still didn’t keep you down. You pushed through the pain, got back on your feet, gritted your teeth, and kept going. You saved me. You saved Sir Gal. When you’re fighting a physical enemy, it’s like you have a broken switch in your head which won’t let you stop. That doesn’t know how to give up.

“But when responsibility rears its head?” she said. “You run scared. I’ve seen elementary-school children handle emotional and interpersonal conflict better than you. If someone wrongs you, do you work it out like a regular, reasonable adult? No, not Yancy Lazarus. You flip it the bird and walk away. But you know what? That doesn’t make you tough. Real adults deal with their problems, Yancy, they don’t run from them. So here’s my advice: stop acting like a child and handle your business.”

I clenched my jaw in reflex and balled up my fists, anger forging a tight, hot knot in my belly. Who the hell was she to judge me? She didn’t know me, didn’t know what I’d been through, what I’d experienced. I saw my friends murdered by the Viet Cong—shot to pieces, blown into little chunks of flesh and blood and bone. I’d stood witness to friends sacrificing themselves for me, burning for me, so I could live.

I’d watched monsters murder children—ripping apart small limbs and bathing in their young blood—and dark gods tear apart families for sport and pleasure. I’d also been part of terrible atrocities, playing the fix-it man for an organization that was only marginally better than the evils it was supposed to police and prevent. I’d been betrayed a thousand times, by a thousand different people. So what did Ferraro know? Giving me an ass chewing like some green recruit, fresh to the Fleet. What gave her the right?

Because it’s the truth, a voice whispered in the back of my mind, it’s the truth and you know it. The thought lingered like an unwelcome guest, playing over and over again on a loop. Was it the truth?

I sighed in resignation and held up the orb, opening myself to the Vis and conjuring a fine flow of spirit. I manipulated the weave until it thrummed with a familiar buzz, then pushed the energy into the scrying stone. The crystal lit up with an opalescent light as it vibrated in my palm like a cell phone on discreet. The construct was reaching out across time and space, searching for the frequency I’d uploaded. There were a few moments of empty silence, followed by a soft click.

“Is that you, Yancy?” James Sullivan said, his voice smooth and cultured, a character right out of the Great Gatsby.

“Yeah it’s me. Is it safe to talk?” I asked.

“Good grief, man. You should know better than that—I wouldn’t have picked up if I weren’t in a position to talk.” There was a pause on the other end. “It’s good to hear from you, old boy, I was starting to worry.”

“Good to hear from you too, douchewaffle.”

He chuckled on the other end, his laugh a deep baritone. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”

“I need a favor, James. Kind of a big one.”

A tight pause. “All right, I’m all ears.”

“I can’t tell you everything, I’m playing this one close to the chest, but here’s what I can tell you. I’ve found the Sirens.”

There was a sharp intake of breath. He dropped to a whisper. “Is this related to the business with the traitor?”

“I’m not sure,” I lied. “But it’s a solid lead and even if nothing comes of it, I can’t pass by an opportunity like this—might not ever get another shot at the Sirens. Not like this. But the window’s narrow and there’s a damn good chance we won’t come back. The ladies are playing a gig at the Black Lodge.”

Silence hung in the air like thick perfume. “Well,” he said after a time, “no one can ever accuse you of cowardice, I’ll give you that much.”

His remark hit uncomfortably close to home and stung more than a little bit, since that was almost exactly what Ferraro had accused me of a few scant minutes ago.

“If it’s at the Lodge,” he said, more for his benefit than mine, “we’ll have to assume most of the high nobles of the Unfettered Court will be present. What’s the timetable look like and what do you need from me?”

“The party starts seven sharp tomorrow morning,” I said. “That’d be 8:00 PM Anwnn time, which gives us just shy of twelve hours.”

“Well that’s a fool’s errand. It could take us a week to get to Annwn proper by regular means—have you even considered that?”

“Think I don’t know how far Annwn is, asswad? I’m not a friggin’ moron, and I wouldn’t call if I didn’t already have a way in. I’ve got a ride on lock.” Well, assuming I’d understood Fortuna’s cryptic clue correctly and Harold could actually get us there … but James didn’t need to know about the nitty-gritties. It’d all work out. “Look, leave the logistics to me. I’ll get us where we need to be. But I need extra muscle on this one. Just bring your A-game. I’m also gonna need you to swing by California and pick up Greg Chandler. I tried to get him on the horn, but he’s not answering his phone—”

“Are you quite sure he’ll be willing to accompany us?” James asked. “In all likelihood, this is a suicide mission.”

“Of course he’ll be on board,” I replied, filling my words with a confidence I didn’t actually feel. It was an old leadership trick: act calm, keep your bearing, and pretend you know what the hell you’re doing even if you don’t have a clue. Generally, if you act confident, those following your lead will be more confident in turn. “Just tell him I need the help, then tell him who the target is—I promise you he’ll be on board. You got a pen and some paper on you? I need you to take down an address.”

“Hold on a minute.” I heard the muffled sounds of him pulling open a drawer and digging through the contents. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“765 Brockham Street—it’s a dumpy townhouse over in the Hub. Remington corridor. Place looks abandoned, but it’s not. It’s the Mange’s pad, but I’ve got access codes to get past the wards”—mostly because I’d been the one to install the wards, per the terms of our last arrangement. “Snatch up Greg and meet us over there in”—I looked at the clock set into the dashboard and did some quick math in my head—“ten hours. And dress fancy. You and Greg both. Dressed to the friggin’ nines, you got it?”

“I’m offended,” he said.

“About which part? Playing the errand boy or asking you to dress up?”

“I’m offended you assumed I wouldn’t be dressed to the nines in the first place. Unlike you, I don’t shop for my clothes out of the dumpster behind Goodwill. Everything I wear is impeccable, and I always dress appropriately for any given occasion.”

“Asshole,” I muttered. Ferraro nodded in agreement.

“I’ll get everything buttoned up on my end.” He stopped for a beat. “Are you sure everything’s all right? You’ve always been a passable liar, but I’ve been around you long enough to know when things aren’t as they should be.”

“It’s nothing,” I lied again. “Just been a long couple of days.”

I could almost see him frowning at me through the orb, his 1920s ’do rakishly combed to the side as he regarded me with an arched eyebrow and a half-grin. “You’re playing it close to the chest, I understand. Just play it safe, too. I’ll see you Hub side.” The connection died and the orb’s luminescence faded until it was once more a plain piece of glass.

“Nice work,” Ferraro said, the ghost of a smile appearing on her lips as we cruised through the night, en route for Missoula.

TWENTY:

Details

Ferraro and I sat in a McDonalds parking lot in Missoula, munching on greasy, delicious fast food. It wasn’t slow-cooked ribs, but after hours and hours without so much as a friggin’ nibble, it felt like a banquet, a feast fit for a king. The car idled beneath us, pumping out warm air as we ate. The town, and the artificial glow from the street lamps, was a welcome sight after spending what seemed like a lifetime in the dark, bleak wilderness. Cars dotted the roadways—red taillights like glowing, monstrous eyes in the night—as people, bundled up against the chill of the night in light jackets, shuffled along sidewalks. Some made their way into shops, while others waited at enclosed bus stops.

I swallowed a huge chunk of burger and smiled as I watched men and women amble along, oblivious and unconcerned about the hidden terrors lurking all around them. It was damn good to be back among humanity, made me feel safe. Sure, that safety was only an illusion, but it was a comfort nonetheless. Individually we humans aren’t so dangerous, but as a collective, there’s no greater force in the world.

Preternatural creatures may look on humanity with scorn, viewing us as sheep or cattle—prey animals for the hunt—but, in reality, mankind is far more formidable than the most fearsome creatures of Outworld, and they all knew it. The monsters were relegated to the shadows for a good reason. Sitting in the light, watching humanity trickle by, reminded me of that fact.

“Where to now?” Ferraro asked, crumpling up her burger wrapper and shoving it into a white, paper to-go bag.

I glanced down at the digital dashboard clock, then shoved a heap of fries into my mouth and chomped down. The savory ketchup and the bitter salt twirled together and boogied across my taste buds. God that was good. It was already 6:10, which didn’t leave us much time. “We gotta find a formalwear rental shop,” I mumbled around my mouthful of food. “That’s our number one concern.”

“Formalwear,” Ferraro said. It wasn’t a question, more of a dry, mocking statement of disbelief. “We have a mad scientist, a maniac planning to make himself into a god, a cannibal Bigfoot, and a party to crash, but formalwear is our biggest problem.”

I gulped down my fries and took a swig of soda, sharp against my throat. “Do you know who Arawn the Horned is?”

She shook her head, a weary cast to her features. “Maybe I would know who he is,” she said, “if I hadn’t been dragged into the supernatural world by an irresponsible man-child. A man-child who ditched me at the first possible opportunity without putting me in touch with the people who could’ve equipped me to handle all the supernatural threats out there. Wonder how that could’ve happened.”

Her tone was frosty enough to chill a pitcher of beer.

“Yeah …” I cleared my throat and scooted toward the door, ready to make a break for it. She had a nasty glint in her eye, a look that said she might slug me in the nose if I didn’t tread carefully. “Well,” I said, trying to sound a tad less caustic than usual, “let me update your education a bit. You’ve already had the unfortunate displeasure of meeting Old Man Winter, the deposed ruler of the Winter Court. There are three other formal Fae Courts—Spring, Summer, and Autumn—each ruled by a monarch responsible for governing the creatures of their court and maintaining the delicate balance of nature. It’s not rocket science, am I right?”

She nodded. “So where does Arawn fit into the picture? Which court does he rule?”

“Arawn the Horned presides over the fifth court.”

“You just said there are only four courts,” she replied.

“I said there are four formal courts. The fifth is an unofficial court—the black sheep of the family. The fifth court is home to the Unfettered Fae: the outcasts from every other region in Outworld. Creatures who refused to bend knee to any ruler, or were banished from the civilized world for being too vile and destructive. And bear in mind ‘the civilized world’ consists of monsters who regularly torture, maim, and eat people—like the Metus we fought in Wyoming. The fifth court is like the Island of Misfit Toys meets Lord of the Flies.”

“Sounds like you’d fit right in,” Ferraro said, before taking a long, slurping sip from her Coke.

“Laugh all you want, but this is heavy shit. Arawn holds the allegiance of the most badass, dastardly fairies in the whole of the Endless Wood—he’s like the friggin’ Lex Luther of fairies. And Annwn, the land of the Unfettered, borders the only entrance to the bottomless Pits of Hell. Just to give you a frame of reference for Arawn’s badassery, this guy was commissioned by God, with capital G, to stand guard over the gates of Hell and drag wayward demons—demons, Ferraro—back down to the Pit. Once a year Arawn throws open the gates of Hell and lets damned souls try to make a break for it, just so he can hunt them down for fun.”

“Old Man Winter didn’t seem so tough,” she replied, “and he was King of Winter, right?”

I shook my head. “You tangled with Winter after I’d already beat the crap out of him and stolen the mantle of his power—and I only managed that by playing dirty as hell. Arawn’s in a different league than the Winter we faced. At the height of his power, Winter might’ve stood a chance against Arawn. But the truth is, no one in the Fae Courts wants to dick around with this guy. The last person to piss him off was a schmuck named Nwython. Arawn murdered him, chopped him into itty-bitty pieces, then fed his beating heart to his son, Cyledr.”

Ferraro stared, her mouth slightly agape, her skin pale and waxy. “Seriously?”

“No, I’m making this shit up. Of course I’m serious. The guy’s crazier than a warehouse full of college kids tripping on bath salts. Anything could set the nutbag off. Now, let me ask you another question. Do you have formalwear?” I eyed her blood-splattered suit. “’Cause I sure as shit don’t. But if throwing on some fancy clothes increases our chances of not being tortured by Arawn for the next thousand years and tossed into the Lake of Fire, then I’m just gonna mosey on over and rent a friggin’ tux.”

Without a word, Ferraro dropped the car into drive and pulled out onto the street. “Just tell me where to go,” she said. I brought up Google maps on my phone and searched for the nearest tuxedo rental store.

It took us a couple of hours, a double fistful of Benjamins, and several well placed glamour constructs to scrounge up a tux for me and a smoking-hot dress for Ferraro. Explaining away all the blood and gore decorating our clothes to the clerks at the rental shops was not an easy-breezy beach walk. If it hadn’t been for Ferraro’s FBI badge, someone would’ve definitely called the cops.

By the time we met up with Winona outside of Lolo it was well past eleven, leaving us only a handful of hours before we needed to be Hub side. I hadn’t been this worn-out since my Marine Corps days, back when I was in a combat zone, doing twenty-mile humps through thick, unruly jungle, then standing double or triple fire-watch shifts. Man, getting old sucks.

Winona looked surprisingly spry and refreshed for a lady who’d fought her way through a horde of insane snake-men, not but a couple hours ago. The blood was gone, and her thick coat was clean and gleaming in the moonlight, effectively hiding any trace of the wounds she’d suffered.

“Don’t you look a damn bit better,” I noted.

She smiled, the grin big and goofy, almost bashful. “The cave has natural hot springs, which encourages healing. I’m also a skilled herbalist.”

“Gee, you don’t say,” I replied, recalling the Little Brother snack-platter she’d served up. “Well, maybe you can work some of your hoodoo on us once we get back to the hideout, but let’s save the chitchat for then. We’ve got a metric-shit-ton to do yet, and the clock is ticking.”

“Of course,” she said, offering a nod. “Before we go, I—I must apologize to you.” Her broad shoulders slumped and her head bowed. She looked as guilty as a dog caught picking through an overturned trashcan. “I am sorry for the deception my father and I have perpetrated. We should have told you the whole truth, perhaps it would have prevented some of this hardship. We did not, and this is a thing that cannot be changed. Yet, despite our conduct, you have proven to be trustworthy and capable. You are the Hand of Fate, even, which speaks to your character. The Wyrd would not choose one of an unworthy nature.”

Obviously Winona had never met the Lady Fate. I was essentially a homeless, gambling degenerate with a drinking problem. Other than Fast Hands Steve, there was probably no one on the planet more unworthy. I brushed it off.

“Hey, don’t sweat it, Gigantor. There’s no reason to get all self-loathing on us. You should’ve told me earlier, but you didn’t, and for reasons that seemed right to you at the time. I can respect that.” How could I be pissed? I’d done exactly the same thing, by failing to tell Ferraro about James. Ferraro grunted and shot me a look that told me she knew exactly what I was kicking around in my head. “It’s all water under the bridge,” I said, both for Ferraro’s and Winona’s sake. “So let’s just put it behind us and figure out how to survive the next twenty-four hours.”

Winona straightened and offered me another warm smile, before silently blurring toward Ferraro and I, scooping us up like a couple of grocery bags, and darting into the forest.

TWENTY-ONE:

Seal Bearer

The trip to the cave took twenty minutes, each and every second pressing down on me as though it had physical weight. When we finally arrived, we found Kong standing statue-still next to the entryway, the planes of his face stony and unreadable in the ghostly moonlight. Winona gently set us down once we drew close enough to walk, and backed up a step, offering a deep bow to her father. Wasn’t sure what was going on here, but it appeared Winona was in the doghouse, so to speak. Maybe he wasn’t thrilled about his little girl spilling the beans on the whole sacred-Seal-of-God thing.

“Welcome back, mage,” the silver-haired Bigfoot said tersely. “Human.” He rendered Ferraro a slight nod.

“It’s Agent Ferraro,” she supplied. “Though I guess human works, too.”

“Very well then, Agent Ferraro. I am Chief Chankoowashtay, the leader of the People of the Forest, and you have our thanks. My daughter told me you fought bravely against the Little Brothers and their ilk. Be welcome to our home and hearth, protected by the laws of hospitality. You need not fear me or my daughter, we are people of peace.” He turned and glanced back over his shoulder. “Come. We have much to discuss and our time is short.” He blurred, disappearing through the nearly invisible fissure in the rock face that lead back into the cave proper.

Winona escorted us to the entrance, moving slowly enough for us to follow, and into the winding stone passageway, which led into the cavern home. After walking for a handful of minutes, we emerged into the oval room with the bearskin rugs I’d woken up in, approximately a million years ago. We didn’t stop there, however, but instead made our way to the tunnel at the other side of the room. The passageway angled sharply downward for a hundred feet before ending at a spiral staircase, which bore its way ever deeper into the earth like a giant corkscrew.

Kong squatted at the end of the hall, waiting for us. “This way,” he said, before disappearing down the stairway. There was nothing left to do except follow, which sucked a colossal bag of Bigfoot-ass, let me tell you. The stairway was too narrow for Winona to carry us, and the steps hadn’t been fashioned with humans in mind: each carved stone stair was a yard by a yard, so the descent turned into a winding set of lunges, which closely resembled my own personal version of Hell. Not only do I avoid exercise whenever I can, but my legs still stung and ached from all my injuries, courtesy of the Little Brothers.

After fifteen minutes and a drop of a couple hundred feet straight down, we emerged in another cavern, this one broad with a high ceiling. Giant stalactites and stalagmites grew from the floor and ceiling, beautiful spears of rock lit from within by ambient golden fire. On the far side of the cavern, the black waters of an underground lake yawned off into darkness, vanishing from sight.

A closer look at the rocky columns revealed glyphs and sigils inlaid into the stone, some meticulously chiseled into the surface, others inlaid into the stone with gold, silver, or precious jewels. I let out a low whistle—had to be a large fortune imbedded into the walls, floors, and pillars. The sigils were responsible for the strange light, but there were a whole helluva lot of glyphs and runes I didn’t recognize at all.

They must’ve served some other, unknown function. I was sure of one thing, however: the Chiye-tanka weren’t responsible for those wards. They were old, powerful things that reeked of Vis. Mage work, or something even more powerful, and constructed a millennia or more ago.

The chief waited off to our left, next to a slowly simmering hot spring recessed into the stone floor. “You are the first humans to put foot in this place. Only my family line have come here since the Burning Ones first set the wards. Since they entrusted my grandfather to stand guard over the Seal. Welcome. Come, bathe in the waters. Be refreshed while we speak.”

I was damn near flabbergasted—from Kong, that many articulate sentences in a row was practically a rant. Watching the whole spiel was like watching a dog attempting to tap-dance: awkward and unnatural.

“Holy shit. You’re amazingly articulate when you want to be,” I commented offhandedly.

His green eyes narrowed to slits. “I don’t waste my words, like a foolish man.” His pointed glare told me he thought I was just such a foolish man. “Some things require much speech, while others require little. It is wisdom to know the difference.”

“Burning Ones?” Ferraro asked, her eyes roaming over the sigils and lingering on the dark waters.

“Yes. The Malakim,” said Kong. “Seraphs. Those who walk among the stars and tread among the fiery stones.”

“Angels,” I clarified, “he’s talking about no-shit angels. And not your run of the mill angel either—the Seraphs are among the first sphere of angelic counselors. They dwell in the presence of God.”

Kong merely grunted. “Enough of the Malakin. They are of no concern and we have much to discuss. Bathe, you will feel better and so will my nose.” The comment lacked inflection, but if I didn’t know better I’d say Kong had cracked a joke.

My muscles ached and the smell radiating off me was bad enough to warrant a month-long shower or possibly a CDC biohazard quarantine. Taking a dip in a giant underground jacuzzi was something I could definitely get on board with. I stripped down to my skivvies and carefully picked my way over to the pool, easing into the scalding water.

It rose around my ankles and legs, the burbling water stinging my flesh and burning my wounds. But the sensation was pleasant, so I eased in further. A series of natural shelves lined the pool edges—like benches, all at varying heights—I picked one that let the water come all the way to my neck, the water sluicing over my chest and lapping up against my chin.

The spring was clear as good moonshine, but felt slick, oily even, and smelled lightly of violets. I settled back, letting the heat work its way into my skin and muscles like massaging fingers. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply through my nose, enjoying the scented water. “You’ve got to get in here, Ferraro,” I said. “This is friggin’ amazing. Absolute Heaven.”

I took another couple of deep breaths, the tension melting away, the pain from my wounds numbing and vanishing. I opened my eyes in time to see Ferraro pulling her pants free, leaving her clad only in a black sports bra and a pair of black boy shorts. Her body was slick with sweat, the glowing light playing over the hard lines of her muscle. Considering all the shitty, nightmare-inducing things I’d seen on this case so far, it was nice to finally have something worth remembering.

She padded over to the pool without trying to cover up in the least—completely comfortable in her own skin—and leisurely dipped into the pool with me. She let out a small groan as the water licked up over her thighs, swirling into the nasty gash on her leg, before gliding through the water and joining me on the stone bench.

“Nice digs you got here,” I said to Kong, who stoically waited for us to settle in. “I’m assuming this is where you keep the Seal?”

He was quiet, some internal war playing out across his normally sullen face. Finally he shook his head. “No. You misunderstand the nature of the Seal. Many believe the Seal to be an object. A scroll or key. But this is to misunderstand the true nature of the Seals. Each is a portion of a demonic essence.” He hesitated, unsure. “Such a thing cannot be kept in an object of stone or metal or wood. It must be held in a host body.”

He took a deep breath, his barrel chest swelling then depressing as he uttered a grunt. He lifted his right index finger, the digit as big as a banana, and traced it along the centerline of his chest, muttering a string a nonsense syllables.

The skin and hair parted. A slash opened in the muscle and a crack resounded in the air as his bones stretched apart, giving us a glimpse into his open chest cavity. His massive heart, a dark red ball of meat, thudded and pumped. Imbedded in its center was a shard of brilliant red crystal, threaded through with streaks of smoky-black. A malformed ruby, the size of a pigeon’s egg.

Ferraro’s hand latched onto my leg, squeezing down. Boy, this certainly wasn’t going to help her with the nightmares.

“That can’t be sanitary,” I said to no one in particular, feeling more than a little squeamish myself.

“You must see this,” Kong said, “so that you understand. The Bearers become the Seal. Not guarding an object, but becoming both guardian and object in one.” His hand dropped away and his chest snapped closed with a pop, the tissue reknitting itself in a flash. “This cavern”—he waved a hairy mitt around—“helps to contain the essence. The glyphs and runes suppress the nature of the soul fragment. The waters in which you bathe are holy. Diluted waters which once flowed in the Eden, the garden of God.”

I glanced through the crystalline liquid, inspecting my leg—my wound had nearly vanished and I already felt like I’d had a good night’s sleep. “Is this the friggin’ fountain of youth?”

It was Winona who answered. “Yes. One of thirteen scattered across Inworld. It does not offer eternal life as the legends tell. Yet it does fortify the body and soul.” She pounded her chest with a beefy fist. “By bathing in these waters, my Father can better control the demonic nature.”

I grunted and nodded my understanding. “What’s your role in all this?” I asked her.

She averted her gaze. “I am in training. Should the time ever come, I will take on the mantle of Seal Bearer.” With her face downcast, she looked crestfallen as she spoke the words—a woman doomed to an unavoidable fate she didn’t want. “Until that day, I comfort my father. Help him to control the creature within. The Seal is not a gift—it is a terrible burden. A dangerous one. If my father should lose control of the demonic essence … it could cause terrible havoc.”

Visions of the freaky-deaky creature who’d mopped the floor with the Wendigo danced around in my head. “I’m assuming that’s what happened in the scuffle at the clearing?”

Kong turned away, surveying the dark water of the underground lagoon, and nodded. He spoke, and though he kept his back to us, the acoustics of the cave carried his words. “It is complicated.” He faltered and ran a gargantuan hand over his broad neck. “A word of explanation is needed to understand this transformation. The Seal may pass from me in one of three ways: I may give it to a new guardian—one I deem worthy to bear the crushing weight and responsibility. Or, should I die, the Seal shall pass to my nearest blood kin.”

He stole a sidelong look at Winona, his lips peeling back in a thin cut that almost resembled a smile, before turning back toward the dark waters. “The third way is through treachery. The Seal can be stolen from me. If someone can take the beating heart from the guardian’s chest and consume the organ and the soul shard contained within … The power will be theirs.

“But this is no easy thing.” He shook his head, his locks swinging back and forth. “The Seal defends itself. When the host is endangered, it is possible for the demonic essence to gain control. Usurp the body to ensure the survival of its guardian. That is what you saw. It is a dangerous thing, though. After many, many years with the beast, I have some control. But the creature cares only for survival. It cares not for the life of any except its host.”

“Okay, so let me just try to fill in a few gaps,” I said. “I’m guessing someone approached you a while back, probably tried to convince you to hand over the Seal?”

Kong’s body tensed, but he didn’t say anything for a long while. “It began with Achak Kinslayer—though he had not yet slain blood of his blood. He is not of my flesh, but, once, he was as a son to me. For a time, I believed he would marry my daughter and succeed me as Chief and Seal Bearer. When he discovered the power of the Seal, his true heart was revealed.” He slammed his fist down, the ground rattling from the blow. “He did not hold to the ways of peace,” he spat. “He desired to use the Seal to throw back mankind and rule over the land as we once did in days long ago.” Silence fell, the waters burbling around me.

“And what happened after that?” Ferraro asked.

“I confronted him,” Winona finally offered, sad but resolute. “When he made known his treachery, I broke my betrothal and Father expelled him from the People. Cast him away without kith or clan. To wander the wilderness alone.” She turned away, body shaking as she sobbed softly.

“Achak returned with a woman of fair complexion and golden hair,” Kong said, speaking over the sound of Winona crying. “I did not recognize this woman, but I do not think she was human. Half a year ago, he came. He threatened us, threatened the People. Boasted that he would enslave the Chiye-tanka and bring a time of terrible suffering on us unless I relinquished the Seal.”

Winona shuffled to his side, draping an arm around his broad shoulders.

“I was a fool,” Kong said. “I dismissed his talk …” He trailed off, lapsing into silence. “After many months, Achak returned once more, this time in the dark of night. He murdered his mother, father, and sister—consuming their flesh and gaining great power. He attempted to take the Seal by force, but we fled, hiding in this place—known only to us.”

That definitely answered a few questions, while raising many more—most importantly, who was the mysterious blonde and how did she fit into this whole thing? One of the Fae maybe, working on behalf of the Guild traitor, or even the real brain behind this operation?

“But it’s not too late,” Ferraro said, her voice hard-edged. “Whoever is behind this needs both the Seal and Achak’s blood to accomplish their goals. Well, they don’t have the Seal and if we can stop the Wendigo before Doctor Hogg perfects the virus, the bad guys lose. We’re not in optimal shape, I’ll admit, but we aren’t beaten either. We have a real chance of winning this, and we do have a plan. Trust us.” She looked at me. “Trust Yancy.”

Kong turned his head, his gaze landing on Ferraro, his green eyes contemplative. “My daughter and I are not violent creatures by nature, but in this …” His lips compressed into a feral snarl and he nodded his head, as though reaching a decision. “In this we will fight. We will follow the lead of the Hand of Fate and do as you ask.”

“Alright,” I said, rubbing my hands together under the water. “The deck’s stacked against us, ladies and gents, and there’s a damn good chance we’re all living on borrowed time, but long shots are sorta my specialty. Here’s the game plan.”

TWENTY-TWO:

Avengers Assemble

Ferraro, Kong, Winona, and I stood outside a dumpy townhouse: a two-story hovel with worn boards covering the windows and a splotchy, matte-white paint job in urgent need of some TLC. Who was I kidding? The only way you could fix this place up was to burn it to ashes, burn the ashes again for good measure, salt the land as an added level of precaution, and rebuild from scratch. The place was nestled amongst a slew of other hovels positioned squarely in the Remington corridor—a disgusting slum, home to interdimensional refugees and a frequent haunt of the Little Brothers. It was the kinda place even most residents of the Hub avoided.

The street, stretching off in either direction, looked like it belonged in an active warzone. The roadway was narrow and devoid of sidewalks; trash, refuse, and even discarded body parts were strewn carelessly wherever there was space. The air stank of death and rot, raw sewage and the sharp fragrance of burning rubber—courtesy of a pile of slowly smoldering tires. The shops and homes were poorly constructed things of concrete or cinderblocks, most sporting tin roofs and reinforced black rebar over the windows.

A fat rat—a bold furry sucker, who looked like he should be hunting cats instead of the other way around—regarded our party with glossy black eyes, its nose sampling the air. Though the nasty critter couldn’t talk, I could almost hear its chirping thoughts: These people do not belong here. And I had to admit, we certainly did look a bit out of place.

Sadly, I’d ditched my typical blue jeans and leather jacket combo in favor of the fancy-pants tuxedo I’d rented for the occasion: a black coat and trousers with a silver waistcoat and bow tie. I felt like a complete chump—some awkward high school schlub getting ready for his homecoming. I also felt terribly exposed without my bulletproof jacket in place; a paranoid itch settled in between my shoulder blades. At least I had my hand cannon, stowed in its holster beneath the suit jacket, my K-Bar, and my fingerless, fairy-smiting biker gloves. Small comforts in the grand scheme of things, but I’d take any advantage I could get, however slight.

Ferraro, dressed in an elegant silver dress that dropped just past her knees and had a split running up one side, looked like she belonged on the red carpet. The dress was a helluva lot more flattering than the no-nonsense pantsuits she normally wore. Clinging to her curves and offering a guy just enough skin to intrigue without entering into the floozy-zone—not that I mind the floozy-zone. Hell, some of my fondest memories come from women who stood boldly and unashamed in the floozy-zone, flaunting who they were without fear of judgment. To me, there’s nothing sexier than a woman comfortable and confident in her own skin, regardless of how she looks.

For all its beauty, though, Ferraro had purposely picked an outfit that wouldn’t hamper her in a brawl. High-quality black flats—kicking ass in high heels just doesn’t happen, not in the real world—and a concealed thigh holster, sporting my Baby Glock. She also carried a shotgun, fixed on a three-point combat sling, loaded with specialty shells designed to deal out pain to the Fae: equal parts rock salt, silver pellets, and cold iron. Around her right shoulder hung a silver handbag housing a trio of grenades, a med-kit, and an extendable iron baton instead of the standard affair—blush, lipstick, and mascara.

What can I say, the lady knows how to accessorize.

Now, was her outfit subtle? Hell no. Covert? Not a chance. But with Arawn the Horned and the Unfettered Fae, subtlety didn’t win points. Showing up unarmed would likely be an insult to that lot.

Even the Chiye-tanka had put on their best. Both wore buckskin ponchos adorned with polished turquoise and Native American breastplates made of leather, buffalo horn, and fine beadwork. Winona had stepped her game up a notch further still, clipping a girly pink bow into her hair, pulling shaggy bangs away from her eyes. Ridiculous, but also sort of endearing.

The ring of footsteps on pavement floated through the perpetual twilight of the Hub. My right hand darted for my pistol as I reached for the Vis waiting just outside of my grasp. Two figures drew into view, the firelight from the burning tires illuminating their features. On the left, Greg Chandler—black, stocky, and fit—decked out in his Marine Corps dress blues with a fat stack of service medals glinting in the firelight and some heavy-duty armaments: A Colt 1911 sidearm, a Vis-imbued K-Bar, which I’d made for him years back, and his go-to weapon, the M-4.

On the right, James Sullivan—tall and broad across the chest and shoulders—sporting a tuxedo not terribly dissimilar from mine, though of a much finer cut. The difference between a knock-off Rolex and the real thing. James wore the getup like he was born for it, built and designed to grace the cover of fashion magazines or movie screens.

Despite being in the Remington corridor, about to embark on a near-certain death mission, James walked with a little jaunt in his step, twirling a black cane with a silver ball head. He almost looked happy—at least until he spotted the pair of Bigfeet standing in a pool of shadow. When his eyes brushed past them his smile slipped and his feet faltered, but only for a moment, and then he was right back to normal. But I’d known James a long friggin’ time, and that kind of slip was telling: he recognized the Chiye-tanka, and that was more than a little damning.

“Good evening,” James said, flashing a warm smile and offering us all a wave.

“Yancy,” Greg said, tipping his head. “And you must be Agent Ferraro. Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” He coolly assessed Kong and Winona, then dismissed them with a slight shake of his head, resuming a slow scan of the area. “This knucklehead”—he jerked a thumb toward James—“says we’re goin’ after the daggon Sirens. That true?”

I smiled, a grim, unpleasant parody of the real thing, and nodded. “Payback time.”

“Yancy”—James stepped between me and Greg—“might we have a quick word before proceeding with the evening’s festivities?” He smiled again, but I could tell he was nervous. He’d been caught with his hand squarely in the cookie jar, only to find out the jar was not filled with delicious Oreos, but venomous, man-killing scorpions. The question was, what would he do now, especially if he was the asshat running this carnival?

He motioned me away from the others and I reluctantly followed—a second later, a silver dome swelled up from the ground, closing over us, cutting off the din from the street. The dome would ensure our conversation stayed private, which begged the question: what didn’t he want the others to hear?

“So maybe you’ve got something you want to share with me,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, making the gesture look natural. In reality, I’d just wrapped my hand around the pistol grip of my revolver.

“I know how this must look,” James blurted, losing any semblance of his usual poise.

“Yeah,” I said, anger filling my words with heat. “It looks like you’re dirty as shit, and it looks a whole helluva lot like you’ve been playing me. Setting me up to take a bad fall. If I was a wiser man, I woulda sat right over there”—I nodded toward a recessed alleyway, the dark unbroken by the firelight—“and put one in the back of your skull. Quick and clean—not even a fight. I’m going out on a limb, James, but you’d better have a damn good explanation or one of us isn’t walking away from this street.”

He ran a hand over the side of his wavy brown locks, smoothing hair that didn’t need it. “First, I would carefully consider what you say next. We’re friends, Yancy, but I think we both know that of the two of us, I would be the one to walk away.”

“Sure, in a straight up fight,” I admitted with a small shrug. “But I don’t do straight up fights, not if I can help it, and you should know it. Straight up fights are for suckers and heroes—I’m neither. Ferraro and Greg are both crack shots, and I’m sure Kong and his daughter would be more than happy to pound you into a human-pizza, and you’d have a tough time stopping them—Kong’s a Seal Bearer.” I dropped the clue hoping I could get a rise out of him, another tell.

I saw no flash of recognition in his face, however, only a brief look of confusion. If he was the Big Bad running this show, he’d know about the Seals. So maybe he wasn’t the shot caller, but that didn’t make him innocent, either.
“Fine,” he said, “I’ll concede that maybe the fight wouldn’t be a one-sided slaughter. But there’s no reason to fight at all. I understand how this might look in a certain light, but I’m not the villain, Yancy.” He placed one hand on my shoulder, his eyes boring into mine, challenging me to search him out. “I swear it,” he said. “During the course of my sleuthing, I discovered someone in the Guild was funneling unauthorized funds and resources into something called the Wendigo Project.

“The whole thing reeked of subterfuge. The whole affair had been meticulously hidden away beneath layers and layers of security protocols—protocols only a handful of people could access. I happened upon a few details, but I couldn’t find who had authorized the project. Naturally, I started digging deeper. Conducted a few interviews, which eventually led me to a man named Arlen Hogg, who seemed to be the recipient of the funds. Couldn’t get much out of him, though, a slimy bugger, that one. And, since there wasn’t anything concrete I could bring to the Guild, I cut him loose.”

“That so?” I asked. “And the Missoula sheriff? You told him to stay out of the operation. Why?”

“Why?” he scoffed, placing one hand on his hip. “First off, because I didn’t want the idiot to get hurt—something like this is well outside the depths of some backwoods sheriff—Venántium or no. Bunch of half-trained nitwits, if you ask me. And secondly, I didn’t want the oaf to blow the damn operation, not to mention that I had suspicions he might not be entirely trustworthy.” He tapped his cane on the street, the noise unnaturally loud in the shielded space.

“Well, you were right on the money about that,” I said after a time. “Guy’s dirty as a Bangkok sewer. It was the mustache that tipped you off, am I right?” I asked, envisioning the sheriff’s dastardly facial hair.

He grinned at me—the look an older brother might spare for a younger, foolhardy sibling. “Could be, could be.” He paused for a time. “You know, I didn’t bring you in for the same reason. Not because I don’t trust you, of course, but because I feared you would blow the whole damned thing sky-high. Which, incidentally, is exactly what you’ve done.” He rolled his eyes and issued an exasperated sigh.

“Sometimes, Yancy, to get to the bottom of a mess like this, subtlety is required. And you … well, you’re about as subtle and vulgar as a monster truck show. The more people poking around, the more likely the lead is to dry up. Had you not blundered along, it’s distinctly possible my leads would’ve pointed me right at the benefactor behind the operation.”

“Hmph,” I grunted, running through his story in my head, looking for flagrant signs of deception. As explanations went, it was solid enough. Everything fit together nice and neat, yet still failed to banish the nagging doubt lurking in the back of my mind. James’s mind was sharp as a razor and he knew me well—well enough to understand how to throw me off a trail.

“Listen, James, if you’re mixed up in this shit …” I looked away, running a hand over my mouth, not sure what to say or where to take this shitty conversation. “Well, it’s not too late to back out.”

“I’m not guilty,” he said, arching an eyebrow, “but even if I were, you know as well as I the Guild would issue a kill order. No lenience or mercy, despite my years of service. No, I’d be lucky to get a trial first.”

I frowned, then shrugged off his objection. “I know how to fly under the radar, and I could help you get away from the Guild if it came to that. Wouldn’t be a comfortable life, but you’d be alive. You come clean with me right now and I’ll go to bat for you. We have enough history for that.”

“I keep telling you, old boy, I’m. Not. Guilty. But thank you all the same.” He hesitated, his features more somber than usual. “You’re a good friend, Yancy. I mean that.”

“Whatever. Look, your story adds up, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But James, you’d better know I’m gonna be keeping an eye on you.” I grabbed his lapel and pulled him in a step or two. “If you stab me in the back, I swear I’ll find a way to make you pay for it, history or no, you understand that? Make one wrong move, and I’ll be on you faster than a hobo on a ham sandwich.”

He rolled his eyes again. “Good grief, you say I’m the thespian, but your flair for the theatrical outshines me every time.” He gave me that roguish James Sullivan grin. “I know you have trust issues, but believe me, I only have your best interests in mind. Now, how’s about you be a good fellow and stop rumpling my jacket. It’s Gucci, you know.” He appraised my clothes with a frown, as though he knew my monkey-suit hailed from the Missoula Tux-Barn. “You have heard of Gucci?”

“Pompous asshole,” I muttered, letting go of his suit coat and stepping aside.

“Excellent. Please, lead the way. We have a party to attend, after all, and I do so hate missing a good party. Hopefully Arawn will have some fine spirits—I could use a stiff drink.”

The dome wavered for a moment and vanished.

“Everything okay?” Ferraro asked as we approached, her gaze roving back and forth between James and me.

“Yeah, everything’s sunshine and rainbows,” I replied. “Alright, everyone, let’s mount up and get this show on the road. Since Greg and James are just joining us, I want to give a quick brief to get everyone up to speed.” Quickly, I recounted my run-in with the Wendigo, the grisly discovery at the mill, and the info Fortuna had given us, making sure to touch on the formidable creatures we’d be confronting once we arrived at the Endless Wood, home of the Fae Courts.

“But in order to get to Anwnn,” I said, once the brief was done, “we’re gonna have to get past Harold the Mange. He and I aren’t friends, but generally we’re on good terms, a working relationship. With that said, you shouldn’t trust this guy further than you can throw him, which isn’t far, believe you me. Harold’s a huckster through and through. He’d sell his grandmother out for a McDonald’s kid’s meal. He’s revolting and not even close to human, so try not to freak out when you see him.

“I want a single column,” I continued. “I’ll take point. Greg, you grab the rear, and no one touch anything. And I mean anything. This place is locked down and warded up tighter than a super-max—one foot wrong and it might be the last time you ever see that foot.”

TWENTY-THREE:

What the Fu ...

I led us to the reinforced front door, conjuring a meaningless knot of elemental force as I walked—the weaves had no practical purpose, but rather functioned as backdoor key, which let me through the potent wards built into the entryway. The wards were a varied lot: some designed to fool the mind or trick the eye, urging passersbys onward, while others would unleash a surge of raw Vis powerful enough to reduce even the most stalwart adventurers into a splatter you could wash down the drain with a hose. But since I’d personally installed those suckers, getting past ’em was a breeze.

I turned the knob and shoved open the door without a hitch, guiding our intrepid party inside. Straight ahead we trudged, down a disheveled hallway, the walls sporting tattered and peeling wallpaper, the hardwood floors pitted, chipped, and bloodstained. Anyone with a working pair of eyes would’ve assumed the place was abandoned—an empty junker not worth the time or effort to rob. All a lie. The house was a clever illusion designed to keep the uninvited from looking too closely and to blast the piss out of those few who got too curious.

Harold was a bit paranoid when it came to his personal protection. Since Harold was a revolting asshole who had pissed off virtually everyone, everywhere at some point in his miserable life, his paranoia wasn’t totally unwarranted.

We passed a set of drunkenly leaning doors which connected to barren, beat-to-shit rooms, all filled with additional wards—offensive constructs packing more punch than a claymore mine.

The door we wanted sat at the end of the hall: the last one on the left. It looked no different from its fellows, yet there was a steady, though subtle, thrum of power emanating from the space. A telltale sign of the Way that lay beyond, connecting the run-down shanty house to Harold’s pocket dimension. I broke the last set of wards down shotgun-style—nasty buggers were built into the steel reinforced door—and pushed my way inward. A short rock hallway trailed down into a low-ceilinged cave, lit by a mixture of torchlights and electric miners’ lamps.

One foot over that threshold and we would no longer be in the Hub. In point of fact, we’d no longer be in any proper dimension. Harold’s pad was a handcrafted, drifting bubble, which floated through the ever-shifting empty space between the worlds. From an objective standpoint, it was pretty friggin’ impressive—I mean I sure couldn’t build something like that. Hell, most minor deities couldn’t whip up their own pocket dimension, not like Harold. That was Harold’s gift, though, his singular talent. Well, that and collecting: information, weapons, antiques, pretty much anything that tickled his fancy or promised to turn a buck.

To hear Harold tell it, he was the last of an ancient species of dwarves called the Cragwier, who had, once upon a time, and long, long ago—so legend holds—built a pocket dimension, which gave birth to the Hub itself. I sure as hell didn’t believe Harold about most things—that’s called wisdom around these parts—but I was less skeptical about his ancestry because it was the only way I could explain away his peculiar ability.

The fat sack of shit was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t mean much. Probably, he was working in the massive warehouse which housed his ginormous collection of stuff—guy brought hoarding to a whole new level. But there was no way I was venturing back there uninvited. The path to the warehouse proper was a tunnel of slick stone, a mile long and filled to the gills with enough booby traps to roast me and the gang ten times over. We’d just have to wait, which I was sure wouldn’t take long—I’d bet dollars to doughnuts there was an alarm blaring in the back, alerting Harold of our arrival.

“Guess we’ll just have to kick back for a few,” I said, turning to face the others, who’d all piled into the foyer. I heard the scrape of stone coming from deeper in the chamber and swiveled back, expecting to see Harold scuttling along on his gigantic metal legs. Instead, three beastly slabs of jade prowled forward on thick, powerful limbs, their stony muscles shifting as they advanced. Broad-headed creatures, with angry teeth fashioned from black obsidian. They had curling manes of carved stone, which framed their wide faces and trailed down their backs.

Shi, sometimes called Fu Dogs—Chinese Guardian Lions, animated by powerful conjurations. They were unthinking sentinels, murder-machines devoid of human intelligence, which followed orders exactly. Generally, the Shi weren’t much good as offensive field weapons since their thought process was too rudimentary. They were, however, damned good at staying in one place and mauling the crap out of anything that ventured too near. The creatures couldn’t be bribed, couldn’t be reasoned with, and couldn’t be killed—not without dropping a friggin’ nuke on ’em.

I heard the nervous shuffle of feet from the team assembled behind me.

“Be a good sport and deactivate the guardians,” James said, his voice smooth and steady.

“I didn’t install them,” I replied.

The creatures strode forward, slow at first but building momentum as they broke into a lumbering run, rushing at us like an oncoming rockslide.

James was at my side in an instant, raising his cane like a lion tamer holding a snarling pride at bay with nothing more than a chair. “Everyone stay behind us,” he hollered over his shoulder. “Do nothing, we will handle this.” He locked eyes with me. “Eighteen-Delta,” he said, staring down the onrushing Shi, opening himself to the Vis. A halo of white—invisible to all save me, or any other mage—engulfed him, clothing him in brilliant light.

He was asking for a lot. He was asking for my complete trust, asking me to put my life squarely in his hands. Giving him the benefit of the doubt was one thing, entrusting him with my fate was another entirely. Any mage, by themself, can pack one helluva punch, but the most powerful, hard-hitting constructs take more than one mage. They take a team working in concert: sharing flows of energy, weaving different braids together to construct a single mega-working far more powerful than the sum of its parts. Binding.

But binding was an intimate act, one which required absolute trust because, when bound, only one person could direct the flows of Vis, leaving the other effectively defenseless. Since I could draw and hold far more raw energy than James, my job was to gather in all the power needed for the working while he siphoned energy through me, providing the force and willpower to shape the massive flows of Vis into something useful. If he was the bad guy, however, it also meant he could hang me out to dry right and proper.

Before walking away from the Guild, James and I had run countless ops together, and during those years we’d built up a significant number of joint workings. Eighteen-Delta was a defensive power play—a code telling me which elemental forces to draw and in what quantities.

The Shi were ten feet out, and closing every second. Shit. If we didn’t do something, we’d die anyway. I exhaled my panic and uncertainty, pushing away the terror clawing at my guts, and breathed in the precious life. Power: raw, pure, and unadulterated. I went to work without a thought, a solider buckling down for a long and arduous firefight.

First, I summoned massive flows of earthen power from the bedrock beneath us, followed by radiant heat, sapped right from the air. Instead of giving those weaves shape or form, however, I merely held them—a vessel, a battery carrying a charge, waiting to be used. Then I summoned a column of energy, this one a twisting pillar of raw will and force, the weaves nearly identical to those used for heavy-duty glamours.

I pushed the column of will out like a battering ram, sending it not toward the Shi charging us, but toward James, who stood stock-still with his cane outraised. My column of will smashed into him, his aura blazing from a soft white to a brilliant gold. The construct was a reverse compulsion, used to bind myself to James, linking us so he could draw Vis through me, shaping the unformed energy I held in reserve.

I pulled my pistol—a last line of defense in case things went south—as energy roared through me like a firestorm, funneling into James.

James thrust one hand up, his fingers straining toward the ceiling while he gently brought his cane to the cavern floor, pressing the silvered tip into the stone. A brilliant latticework of emerald energy surged into the earth, spreading, crawling, multiplying as it swept beneath the Shi, a blanket of shimmering light covering the ground below them. The crack of shattering rock filled the air with its noise as the walls shook and the floor bucked. Splinters of stone, wrist thick, jabbed out around the Shi—sprouting from the ground, walls, and ceiling—entrapping the Shi guardians in an organic cage of earthen bone.

The beasts bellowed in fury, hurling squat bodies at the bars of their sudden holding cells. The stone shook and distorted under their weight, but held. Just barely. Again and again the beasts attacked, chunks of rock breaking loose with every impact—a few more attempts and the Shi would tear free, and I’d only have my pistol. Thankfully, the cage was only the first prong of Eighteen-Delta.

James pulled more power through me, drawing in the ambient heat, feeding and directing the magma-power into the bars of the impromptu prison. Purple fire erupted from the stone bars, the flame hot enough to slough flesh from bone or melt through steel. The beasts threw themselves at the bars once more, snarls of rage slicing the air. A flare of fuchsia light exploded on impact, flames swelling outward and hurling the guardians back, their rocky hides smoking.

“What is all this?” someone shouted from the far end of the cavern. “Ye gods and demons, what in the blazing hell is going on here?!”

Harold’s bulky frame scuttled into view, his pudgy face a genuinely welcome sight. He was pasty and inordinately fat, with rolls and rolls of maggot-white skin crowding around his neck, arms, and midsection. Mostly bald, though a few wispy strands of graying hair stood out around his ears, while mud-colored liver spots adorned his scalp. He had no legs—or if he did, they’d been buried by his bulk and died long ago. Instead, he perched atop a set of spindly, dusty metal legs: eight electrical limbs fanned out beneath him like some strange spider. Technomancy at its finest, ladies and gentlemen.

“Thrasher! Murderball! Fluffy! Heel, damn you all. Heel!” he shouted, his sludgy voice stilling the beasts in a second. “Now turn off that damnable construct before you damage my pets any further,” he demanded, keeping his distance as he dry-washed his hands in frantic motion.

James shot me a look: Is it okay, or should I roast the beasts where they stand?

“It’s cool,” I said to James, though loud enough for Harold and the others to hear, “we’re all friends here. Just a little misunderstanding.”

James nodded and, with a last surge of power, sent a pulse of vibration up through the jade latticework. The flames surrounding the bars guttered and vanished. A moment later, the stone cage cracked and burst into a swirl of dust, which fell as powdered stone to the ground.

“What a mess,” Harold said, moving toward the Shi. “Do you have any idea how long it’ll take to clean up all this bloody dust?” he asked, his beady eyes roaming over the floor. “And if I find out there’s any damage to my pets”—he jabbed a portly finger at me—“I’m going to expect reparations.”

“Good to see you too, Harold,” I said, closing myself to the Vis as I cautiously made my way forward.

“Yancy,” he said, acknowledging me with a barely notable bob of his head—his fat neck wouldn’t allow for any greater movement. “I’d say it was good to see you, but usually when you show up unannounced it means trouble for me.”

“Well,” I said, “how was I supposed to know you’d have Shi guarding your digs?”

“If you made an appointment like everyone in the civilized world, it would be a nonissue. And really you have no one to blame except yourself. I had the Shi installed two weeks ago, after the wards you installed failed completely. Utter rubbish. I expected better from a Guild mage—especially one from the Fist. Had I paid for your shoddy work, I’d demand my money back!”

“The hell you talking about?” I asked, stowing my pistol and crossing my arms across my chest. “Those wards are top shelf.”

“Top shelf,” he spat, “must mean something entirely different to you than it does to me. Why, some woman broke into my home, Yancy, breezed past every ward without a hitch. Thankfully she turned out to be a paying client—if a bit mad—but, had she desired, she could’ve done me substantial harm, thanks to your faulty work.”

I raised a hand to my face and rubbed at my temples. It had to be Fortuna—my wards were top shelf, but she was a major leaguer. If she wanted in, she could get in. Friggin’ lady always made everything more complicated. “This woman, describe her for me,” I said.

That gave him pause. He prodded at his quadruple chin for a second. “A business woman with brunette hair and boxy glasses,” he said after a moment. “She wouldn’t give me a name, wouldn’t give me any details. What she did give me, however, was a hefty purse of gold coin. Enough gold to keep me well fed for ten years, and it takes quite a lot to keep me well fed”—he rubbed a hand over his prodigious gut—“and instructions to build a Way. From my home, of all bloody places, to a location over in Anwnn. Job like that was almost too good to be true … but gold can be very persuasive.”

I sighed. Yep, definitely Fortuna. “I’m sorry about the wards, Harold. That woman’s the reason we’re here. She’s … well, my boss I guess. Lady Luck, servant of Lady Fate, the Three-Faced Hag. I’m sorta doing a gig as the Hand of Fate.”

He scowled, the look nasty enough to curdle milk. “I should’ve suspected you were involved,” he muttered in his sludgy voice.

“So,” James said, “let me get this straight, big fellow—”

“Don’t you dare patronize me, James Sullivan—I know who you are, and I won’t have some boorish dandy talk down to me. Not in my own home. Not unless you’re a paying customer, and so far as I’m concerned you’re a dirty freeloader.”

Kong stepped forward, making his way to the front of the party, crossing his arms and staring down at Harold, his face the living embodiment of stern disapproval. Harold’s eyes widened in recognition.

“I am Chief Chankoowashtay, the leader of the People of the Forest, and the last great Chief of the Chiye-tanka. Our business is urgent and we have no time for games. You will help us. And you will do so quickly. In return, you will have the gratitude of the People—no small thing, Harold, son of Hakim, son of Hebron the Scourge of the Ether.” Kong’s eyes flashed with the promise of some secret knowledge.

“Yes, yes of course,” Harold stammered, all the self-righteous wind vanishing from his sails. He hesitated for a moment longer, eyeing the Bigfoot askew, then nodded. “Yes of course,” he said again. “Whatever you need.” Apparently Kong had some dirt on Harold, some secret the Mange didn’t want getting out—Kong sure seemed to know a surprising amount for a reclusive forest ape. I’d have to ask him about it later.

“Thank you, Chief,” James said. “Now, as I was saying, Harold—am I correct in understanding there is already a Way constructed and waiting for us?”

The Mange nodded again, sweat rolling down his face, eyes dancing to and fro between James and Kong. “Yes, yes. I thought it was a fool’s task—who could possibly desire to venture so close to the Black Lodge?” He paused. “Again, I really should’ve deduced the answer. I was paid well, however, and I always make good on my contracts. So yes, the Way is ready and waiting.”

He dug stout fingers into rolls of flab, questing about for a minute before fishing out an old Roman coin, embossed on both sides with a winged figure. He flicked the coin toward me from across the room. I caught it and turned it over in my hand, inspecting it for a brief moment before slipping it into my pocket. I’d used its like the last time Harold had constructed a Way for me.

“The portal will be good for ten hours from the time it’s activated,” Harold said matter-of-factly. “To reopen the Way from Anwnn, simply channel a bit of will and spirit into the coin. Oh, and one other thing”—he wheeled about on his spindly spider limbs and headed for a metal file cabinet against the far wall. He pulled open a drawer, scanned through its contents and pulled out a small gold silk bag.

He scuttled over and handed me the sack, as though eager to be rid of it. “She left this with me, your Lady Luck—no instructions. Just a bag of gold and this silk pouch.”

I pulled the drawstring open and hauled out a pair of yellow tallow candles. I held them up, turning them this way and that. They were completely plain and unadorned—no sigils, seals, or glyphs—except for a small stamp at the base of each candle that read Odyssey Candle Company. Why would Lady Luck go through the trouble of leaving them for us?

As far as I could tell, they were just candles. Not the Dread-Sword-of-Siren-Slaying I’d been hoping for, but then that was sort of Fortuna’s MO. During my first official mission as Hand of Fate, she’d done me a solid by arming me with a friggin’ paperclip. Now, that paperclip had enabled me to escape captivity, survive an attack by an insane, shapeshifting fear monster, and save the day, but still—pretty subtle as help went.

A folded slip of paper sat at the bottom of the bag, a note scrawled in Fortuna’s neat script. These should help you in your battle with you know who, pending, of course, you figure out their use. Best of Luck. She never got tired of that stupid joke.

Friggin’ Fortuna. I swear, getting help from her was like being stranded on a desert island and asking for directions from a poo-flinging monkey: you never got what you needed, and what you did get always ended up smelling like an outhouse. I slipped the candles—seriously, candles—into my jacket pocket and stared at Harold, anxiously lurking off to my right.

Dammit. This was going to suck so, so bad. I could just feel it in my gut. “Fine.” I wiped sweaty palms against my trousers. “Well, we can’t put this off any longer. We’ve got a party to get to, Harold, so lead the way.”

TWENTY-FOUR:

Party Time

We stepped out of the Way and onto the boardwalk of a cheesy Renaissance Festival: a worn cobblestone street—broad, though not by modern standards—with narrow, wood-framed houses and shops poking up into the night. Silvered starlight played over wood-shingled roofs. The buildings all looked dusty and worn, the kind of places you might envision in Victorian-era London or in some sleepy German village untouched by the unceasing onslaught of the modern world.

There were no cars or digital clocks displaying the time, no electric lighting or the jabbering buzz of televisions. The closest thing to modern tech was the green-painted gas lamps, with thick, cloudy glass, shedding small pools of piss-yellow light which did little to beat back the gloom.

This was my first visit to Tylwyth-Tir, the capital of Anwnn, land of the Unfettered. So far, I was anything but impressed. I’ve done some time in Thurak-Tir—home to the High Fae of the Winterlands—Earrach-Tir, the capital of Freyr the Green Man and the Spring Court, and Glimmer-Tir, home of the Summer Court. With this visit to Anwnn, I’d officially visited four of the five fae capitals. Except I wasn’t gonna be bragging about this place to anyone. The other courts were all uniformly strange and terrifying in turns, but they were also worth talking about—spectacular, haunting, unearthly, inhuman.

Thurak-Tir was a land of frozen beauty, each building a detailed ice sculpture—crashing waves, fanciful beasts, slick spires of twirling ice—no two alike, while the sky overhead was a slash of black stained by a green and gold semi-permanent Aurora Borealis. Cold as balls, that place, with a rating of “John Wayne Gacy” on the creep-scale, but it was still worth checking off the ol’ bucket list.

Earrach-Tir, by contrast, was a jungle paradise. The buildings all constructed of colossal, blooming flowers in a riot of hues, intermixed with exotic trees no eye had ever seen on Earth; its streets covered in spongy moss lined with streetlamps that bore monstrous luminescent fruit. The whole friggin’ city was a living organism, existing alongside its inhabitants in a symbiotic relationship. And Glimmer-Tir was home to the Golden City and the Shimmering Palace. A desert oasis of golden sky-scrapers, brushing up against the quicksilver heavens overhead, and framed on the west by the Bitter Mountains—jagged, unscalable peaks, which tore across the horizon.

This place, on the other hand … well, this place was just dreary and old. No artistry to be found, nothing to hold the eye, almost as if the inhabitants couldn’t be bothered with doing more than the absolute minimum. The street was quiet, the windows all closed and shuttered to the night. Though, on more than one occasion, I could’ve sworn I spied someone—or more likely, something—peeking at us from behind those shutters.

“Yancy,” Greg said, his M-4 at the low-ready while his head swiveled about, scanning for motion. “This is why I don’t answer your calls—you always drag me into the worst daggon messes.”

“Yeah well, you dragged me to Vietnam,” I whispered, “so I figure you’re always gonna owe me one.”

He grunted and tightened his hand on the pistol grip of his rifle. “I don’t like this, it feels wrong. I can taste it on my tongue, like napalm.”

“That, my friend, is because we’re not alone,” James said, his tone low and conspiratorial. Still, James seemed untroubled—he stood straight and tall, his hands resting together in the small of his back, as though he were at ease. “All the things we ought to worry about won’t be out here, they’ll be in there.”

He pulled one hand from behind his back and gestured toward a gigantic domed structure at the end of the cobbled road. The building was equal parts old wood and chiseled stone, a mix between a Welsh castle and a Norse mead hall, with cracked shields and tattered battle standards arrayed above the double doors marking the entrance. “The Black Lodge,” James said.

Kong and Winona blurred around us, posting up in front of us, crouching on all fours with hackles raised. The cobblestone street began to bleed gray mist, a low-clinging ground fog, which quickly swelled and expanded. “The Fog,” Kong said, glancing back for a moment, “something is concealed within. Be alert.”

I opened myself to the Vis, pulling in power, preparing the weaves for a lance of flame or a friction shield. The phantom clop of hooves rolled through the fog, the clatter of metal on stone echoing off the wood-fronted buildings as the mist surged upward, twirling and swirling, coalescing into a horse and its rider.

The mount was a decrepit, decaying thing of dead flesh and gleaming white bone, its eye sockets empty and leaking dual streams of fog like small rivers of gray tears. The rider wore tattered finery, which would’ve fit right in on the battlefields of the Revolutionary War. A trailing cloak of silver moonlight fluttered behind him, blowing in an unfelt breeze.

Also—just a side note, really—he didn’t have a friggin’ head … well, I guess technically he did have a head, it just wasn’t sitting on the jagged neck stump between his shoulders. Instead, the ghostly rider held it aloft in his left hand. In his right hand he clutched a whip, fashioned from a genuine human spinal column or maybe several human spinal columns, judging by its length.

This was definitely one of those moments where I had to stop and take stock. How had my life gone so terribly, terribly wrong? All I wanted was to roam the open road, to play my blues, eat some ribs, smoke a few cigarettes, and drink too much scotch once in a while. It wasn’t like I was aiming for the moon—I was shooting for the friggin’ dumpster, yet somehow I’d still missed the mark.

Ferraro leaned in toward me. “What is that thing, and should I shoot it?”

“Obviously that’s the headless horseman,” I replied in a whisper, “so maybe. Probably. Let’s just play it by ear, I guess.”

“No,” James said, loudly enough for all of us to hear. “It’s a Dullahan,” he said, like that should mean something to all of us. “It’s Arawn’s emissary, so don’t shoot unless you intend to declare war against all of Anwnn.”

“Check, headless emissary. Don’t obliterate,” I said. “Alright, Kong, let me through, I’ll handle this—”

James placed a restraining hand on my shoulder, gently holding me back. “No offense, old boy, but you’ve never been much of a diplomat.” He slipped between the two Chiye-tanka, without waiting for me to reply, and positioned himself between us and the spectral messenger.

The headless horseman regarded James, its disembodied head sneering. “I am Lord Griggs, and you”—he surveyed our party—“are not on the guest list. This evening’s party is a private affair.” His voice was dry and gritty, like he’d swallowed too much grave dirt. “Turn around and leave. Now. Go by whatever manner you arrived, before I decide to add a few new links to my whip.” He casually snapped the weapon, which split the air with a crack.

“Try it, bub,” I shouted, pushing my way forward as I conjured a globe of fire. “I’ll make sure your head isn’t the only missing body part, amigo. We’ll see how well you can flick that ass-ugly whip when I roast your arms off.”

James shot me a long-suffering look, his lips turned down at the corners, then turned back to the emissary. “My sincerest apologies, Lord Griggs.” He gracefully offered the freak a small bow. “Sadly, my friend here”—he draped an arm over my shoulders—“was dropped on his head often as a small child. I’m quite afraid he has never fully recovered. My fellows and I are indeed aware tonight’s event is private, but we are collectively working as the representatives of the Lady Fate. We have urgent need to speak with the Lord of the Lodge and his guests.”

The rider regarded us with a cool look of disapproval, indecision cavorting across his decaying features: Disembowel them? Or make them someone else’s problem? Decisions, decisions.

“Very well,” he finally replied, caving to the bureaucratic instinct to pass the buck along. “But I doubt very much you’ll like the welcome you receive.” He smiled, his mouth full of rotten, blackened stumps, before wheeling his horse about and clopping his way back toward the lodge.

“That went well,” Ferraro said, lowering her weapon. “How about we let James do the bulk of the negotiating from here on in.” I grunted noncommittally. Guess everyone’s a critic.

We followed the headless horseman up a steady incline and to the looming double doors of the lodge—solid, heavy things capable of standing for a thousand years against an invading army. They parted silently as the rider drew near, swinging open without so much as a whisper, revealing a dimly lit antechamber with a chandelier made entirely of skulls—pretty tacky as these things go, though it would’ve been a goth kid’s wet dream. The Dullahan led us through to a connecting chamber with a giant staircase dead ahead and stone hallways circling off left and right.

“I bet the Lord of the Lodge hates it when his horse drops fog turds on the carpet,” I muttered under my breath to no one in particular. The rider didn’t turn—instead, he twisted his hand, bringing the disembodied head around to face me, a scowl of utter loathing curling his lips and furrowing his brow.

“Yancy,” Greg said, “I know how much you love bumpin’ your gums, but how’s about you try to stow it, devil.”

The rider swung a leg over the saddle and dismounted; his horse melted away, vanishing in a splash of fog. The headless freak marched up the stairs, guiding us into the mead hall proper, though this too defied my expectation. I’d envisioned wooden bar tables with long benches, sawdust covering the floor, and scantily clad wenches dotting ol’ timey stripper poles—kind of a run-down version of Valhalla.

But this was not that, not even close.

Apparently, the inhabitants of Tylwyth-Tir had skimped on beautifying the town in favor of throwing all of their talent into fixing up the drinking hall—kind of an “all your eggs into one basket” approach to city planning.

The room was as big as a football field. The floor was beautifully polished wood inlaid with mosaics of gold and black opal. Thirteen ginormous fireplaces filled the room with heat and brilliant light. Elaborate tapestries, depicting ancient battles and forgotten mythology, covered the stone walls while fluted columns of gold, encrusted in tanzanite and jade, stood guard throughout the room, supporting a ceiling part Sistine Chapel, part Mines of Moria. Directly across from us was a recessed alcove, housing all the high lords and ladies of the court.

Believe it or not, but it wasn’t the lords and ladies of the court that held my eye. Off to my left, at the far end of the room, sprawled an elaborate platform that held my attention in a chokehold. Standing center stage—framed by a beautiful, inhuman band attired in classic finery—were the three ladies I’d come searching for. Three ladies I’d been hunting for over forty years: the Sirens.

And in between us lurked a horde of otherworldly nightmares, all staring at us with amusement on their faces and hunger in their eyes. The Dullahan ushered us past the assembled partygoers toward the alcove.

I knew without a second glance who the Big Bad was here. Lord Arawn the Horned was fifteen feet tall with tussled ebony hair and a wicked set of deer antlers protruding from his head. Guy had the rugged good looks of a Greek statue and the fashion sense of a 1920s playboy: crushed velvet smoking jacket and black silk pants. He lounged in a high-backed leather chair with a fat cigar dangling from his lips—in his mouth, the cigar seemed little more than a cigarette—his amber eyes tracking our progress across the dance floor.

On the floor to either side of him lurked a pair of “dogs”—though, bear in mind these critters were related to dogs in the same way the pet iguana is related to the T-Rex. Both undoubtedly came from the same family lineage, but they were very, very, very distant relatives. These things had a lion’s build with blocky heads, crushing hyena jaws, and manes which burned with sulfurous blue flame. Their bodies were covered with bulky muscle, all wrapped in scaly plate mail. The creatures stared at us through molten yellow eyes, heavy-lidded and sleepy. The Cwn Annwn. Hellhounds. Charming little fellas, really.

The folks surrounding the Playboy Lord—I counted ten, presumably the highest-ranking members of his court—weren’t nearly so dashing as Arawn.

The bulbous, blue-skinned freak—sporting one monstrous eye, misshapen arms, and a single leg, thick as a tree trunk—had to be Balor, the demon king of the Fomori. Leaning against one of the Cwn Annwn was a whip-thin woman covered in a thousand filthy rags, with dark hair knotted into a multitude of dreads and an ancient whistle of wrought gold hanging around her neck. She could only be Matilda of the Night—enforcer of the Unfettered Fae and Keeper of the Hounds.

The others I didn’t recognize, but I was sure they could all squish me into a human-flapjack with the same amount of effort it would take to kill an irksome sand flea. With that said, it was important not to cower or show weakness and fear. These were predatory creatures through and through, and the only thing they respected was strength.

Our headless guide stopped short, stepping to one side and gesturing us into the alcove proper with a sweep of his free hand. The plush sitting area fell deathbed silent as we entered, every baddie in the house watching the show with rapt attention.

“What have we here?” Arawn drawled, his voice a booming drum, deep and rich. “Intrepid mortals, come to offer us sport, mayhap?” His eyes darted over each of us, dismissing Greg, James, and me without a pause, lingering for a moment longer on Ferraro, and finally taking a thorough survey of the Chiye-tanka.

James strode to the front and bowed deeply, the motion refined and regal as if he bowed to Fae royalty every day. “To the king of Spirits, and to his court—to Arawn the Horned, Gwyn ap Nudd, you who are yonder in the forest, for love of your kin, permit us to enter your dwelling.” The words held the formulaic ring of one old world ritual or another, and produced an uneasy silence. Couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.

“Charming and droll,” Arawn finally said, pulling the cigar from his teeth and holding it between his fingers. “It’s not often we entertain mortals who remember the old ways. Very quaint, perhaps there will be some sport in this yet.” He glanced at each of us again, a look of hazy boredom painted across his features. “Well, let’s be on with the spectacle then. You”—he waved his cigar at James in a get-along-with-it motion—“who would you be, and why, pray tell, have you interrupted us this fine evening?”

James didn’t pause or break a sweat, he was an actor playing his part flawlessly. “I’m James Sullivan”—he offered up a dashing, movie-star grin—“mage of the Guild, Lieutenant Commander of the Fist of the Staff, and chief diplomat on behalf of the Hand of Fate. We have come on a matter of great urgency and need to speak with some of your delightful party guests—the Siren sisters.”

“James Sullivan,” Arawn said, as if tasting the name on his tongue. “A polite mage, sharply dressed, of which I always approve, and accompanied by such interesting travelling companions no less. Chief Chankoowashtay.” He inclined his head a fraction of an inch toward the Bigfoot.

“It’s been an age since the People left the forests. I fondly recall the old days when your kind tended all the great woods—Uffmoor, Rothiemurchus, the Shervage Wood. You know, I hunted the Gurt Wurm of Shervage with one of the great cheiftains of yesteryear—slew the beast after a glorious, three day battle … then some human woodcutter blundered along, stumbled over the corpse, and took the credit.”

“Chief Dhoire,” Kong said with a rare smile. “My uncle. I have heard the tale many times.”

“Needless to say, you and your daughter are welcome to the Lodge. And Winona, let me say how beautiful you look. Perhaps, after this business is sorted out, you would dance with me.” It wasn’t a question.

I glanced at Winona. Though she couldn’t blush, what with being covered head to toe in hair, underneath all those curls I bet she was beet red. She refused to look up at Arawn and instead twisted a long lock of hair around her finger. “Thank you,” she whispered, never meeting his eye.

“Sadly,” Arawn continued, “I cannot promise the same hospitality to your, your”—he twirled his free hand absently—“companions.” He said that last word with a contemptuous sneer, plainly showing his thoughts on trucking around with mere mortals.

“Arawn,” the chief inclined his head, deep enough to show respect, but not so deep as to show submission. “This is a matter of grave concern—an unbalancing of the natural order of things. I stand in support of the Hand of Fate in this matter.”

“Duly noted,” the horned god said, sitting up and stretching his back before crossing his legs. “But truth be told, I have little care for your ‘grave concerns.’ Mortals are always running about, worried over this crisis or that. Five thousand years I have lived—five thousand years filled with one grave concern after another, yet here I sit. And, as it happens, I actually quite like things which unbalance the natural order. So much less boring than the dreadful status quo.” He frowned. “Already, I’m inclined to turn your companions over to Matilda of the Night and the pack.”

One of the monstrous dogs lifted its bulky head from the floor, turned its demon’s gaze on us, pulled back great lips, and revealed char-black teeth before setting its muzzle back onto the floor with a snort.

“Yes, my lord,” the woman with the dreads purred. She crawled over to him on all fours and ran a dirt-smeared hand across his silk-covered thigh. “It’s been too long since the last hunt. Let us have them, my lord. I promise it’ll be amusing.”

Arawn shooed her away. “Perhaps, dear, perhaps. Before I render a verdict, let us first hear from this Hand of Fate.” He paused, waiting for me to step forward, but my legs didn’t want to behave properly. This guy wasn’t a few cans short of a sixer, he’d downed the whole pack and thrown the cans into the fires of Hell to melt for all eternity. “Well, which of you is it?” he asked, his voice taking on a hard, cruel edge.

Holy shit, but this guy scared the great, good bejesus out of me. He was crazy in the worst kind of way: absolutely insane and completely unstoppable. If he decided we were corpses, that’d be all she wrote. My legs moved into a shaky sort of life as I threaded my way forward, carefully nudging James aside. “I’m the Hand of Fate, sunshine,” I said, masking my fear. Arawn was a predator all the way to his soul, I reminded myself, and I couldn’t afford to display an ounce of weakness. “I’ve got business with the Sirens.”

Arawn sat forward, steepling his fingers as a grin slipped across his mouth. “And who are you?”

“I already told you, the Hand of Fate. This is official business, bud, so unless you want to have ol’ Atropos snip your playboy ass outta the Tapestry of Fate, I suggest you let us do what needs doing and then we’ll get the hell out of your well-coiffed hair.”

I’d say the look he gave me fell somewhere between slow-death-by-a-thousand-cuts and instantaneous-decapitation.

“Unless you are the Three-Faced Hag dressed in drag,” he growled, “I care not for your title. There have been hundreds of Hands before you. If I were to smite you where you stand, the Wyre could do naught to me but shrug. Not so long as I am here and she is there.”

He leaned back in his throne, smug and confident in his ability to destroy me utterly. “Now I will have your name or I will have your tongue.” There was a glint in his eye that said playtime was at its end and limb removal time was getting ready to start up in full swing.

“Yancy Lazarus,” I said, preparing to blast him with everything I could muster. And as quick as that angry spark in his eyes had come, it faded and disappeared, leaving behind the jocular frat boy once more.

“I’ve heard that name before.” He placed a finger against his chin, tapping idly. “But where?”

A woman with skin as dark as polished ebony sauntered over, leaned in, and whispered something into his ear. He laughed, a weary chuckle.

“You’re right, of course.” He stopped tapping his chin and pointed at me, waggling the digit as though he were brandishing a weapon. “My darling Carman has informed me that you are the mage who slighted the Morrigan—mocked her in front of the whole of the Tuatha De Danann, no?” He arched a well-manicured eyebrow and gave me a shit-eating grin.

I nodded, not sure whether my admission of guilt would get me leniency or a death sentence.

“Good show, that. We don’t have much love for her around these parts. The Morrigan was instrumental in having my dear Carman”—he brushed a hand across the ebony-skinned woman—“and her boys exiled from the ranks of the Tuatha De Danann. And I, for one, have always found her to be a frightfully self-important bitch. High time someone offered her a taste of her own medicine. And a mortal, no less.” He stopped, the moment thick and tense, pregnant with possibilities. Whatever was going on in his twisted head would ultimately decide our collective fate. “Still,” he finally said, “I’m inclined to feed you to the dogs.”

“Hold on a sec there.” I raised my hands, attempting to placate his quicksilver temper. “Kong, err, Chief Chankoowashtay mentioned someone was trying to unbalance the natural order of things and that includes your court. Someone is supporting upstart usurpers in every supernatural nation, from the Guild of the Staff to the High Court of Winter.” I halted for a moment, surveying the nobles, looking for the jittery nervousness of a guilty conscience. But the nobles, one and all, were cool characters, not so much as a twitch among the whole lot. “Look, I’ve even seen video footage of your lodge—I know you’ve got a traitor in your midst, and if you don’t help us, you could find yourself ousted.”

That gave Arawn pause. But then he shrugged meaty shoulders. “I’ll take your warning under consideration,” he said, “but I’ve also dealt with more than my share of revolts. We’re a cutthroat lot, you know. Honestly, if one of my lieutenants wasn’t scheming behind my back, I’d be a trifle disappointed. We of the Unfettered are creatures of the wild—I rule because I am the most fit to do so. Should I become weak, pathetic, and foolish enough to fall, I will deserve my fate. Survival of the fittest. Now on to the hunt!” he hollered with a pump of his fist.

“No,” Kong bellowed. “I will not allow this. If you intend to hurt these humans, you will face my wrath and the wrath of the People.” He crossed his arms and bared his teeth in a snarl.

“Surprisingly,” Arawn said, “that doesn’t bother me in the least. I’ve never hunted Chiye-tanka.”

“You will find we are no easy game,” Kong growled, his hair standing on edge as he flexed enormous muscles.

“Even better,” Arawn replied. “Easy game is no fun at all. Matilda,” he said, turning to Dreadlocks, “prepare the pack—I think we’ll have a bit of sport and then commence with the dancing. Tonight, I intend to flay these creatures and fashion them into a rug for the entry hall.”

The nobles surrounding him broke into polite clapping as Matilda licked her lip and gently lifted the gold-wrought whistle to her cracked lips. “Excellent choice, my lord,” she said. “You shan’t regret it.”

The sound of rifle safety switches disengaging followed. Then the rasp of James’s silver blade pulling free from its cane-sheath. I conjured a globe of fire in one hand and an orb of pale blue ice in the other.

“You just try it, douchestick. Maybe I can’t do anything to you, but I swear I’ll burn down every single one of your wall tapestries. Plus, I’m gonna turn that guy”—I waved toward the headless horseman—“into the most hideous ice sculpture you’ve ever seen. And then I’ll turn that guy”—I gestured at a weird blob of living green slime with a small army of tentacles waving through the air—“into a carpet stain you’ll never be able to get rid of.”

“So many delightful promises,” Arawn said, rising to his feet. His smoking jacket and pajama pants melted away in a swirl of smoke, replaced with black and red armor adorned with spikes, chains, hooks, and blades of every shape and size—a mobile torture chamber.

Sometimes my life blows so hard.

TWENTY-FIVE:

Battle of the Bands

Chaos was a knock-knock-knocking at the door and I was a hairsbreadth away from answering with all the earth-rending destruction I could muster before those hellhounds got moving. Power surged in me, swelling, growing, pumping into the weaves of fire and ice in my hands, demanding I make these asswipes pay with my dying breath.

“Now, now, boys,” said a silky-smooth voice as sweet as all the honey in the world. A hand, small and delicate, the skin as pale as ivory, came to rest on my outstretched arm. A gentle pulse of energy rippled through my flesh and into the muscle and bones beneath, urging me to calm down, take a deep breath, and let the Vis go.

I stared at the hand, captivated, mystified, hit with manic infatuation. Obsession, even. The force at work within me was an uber-powerful glamour construct, but even knowing what I was dealing with didn’t help. Not a lick. I was addicted to the pleasure. My eyes moved of their own accord, tracing the gentle curves of the limb, following the hand back to its source:

The woman was an absolute vision. Lush red hair—a striking, unnatural shade—cascaded over her shoulders and beautifully complemented the red sequined, 1920s flapper dress she wore. The outfit clung to her in all the right places, cut away to reveal too much in some ways, while not revealing enough in others. Her skin was pale and smooth as alabaster. Her breasts too damn big, her waist too small, and she had a pair of legs that stretched from here to eternity. One of the Sirens—the one who’d blown me a kiss from that rickety stage back in Vietnam so many years ago.

She looked exactly as I remembered, completely unchanged by the passage of the years.

Her fingers eased away from my skin and, as they went, so too did the glamour, wearing thin, though not fading completely. I shook my head, trying to clear away the working the same way you might try to shake off a bad hangover. It didn’t help a whole helluva lot, but enough for me to regain a bit of my bearing and composure.

I noticed a second sister on the other side of our small group, a blonde with one restraining hand on Kong and the other on James. A third Siren—this one with hair so black it was nearly purple—had slipped between our group and the assembled nobles.

“Now, isn’t that much better,” the redhead said, gliding forward and taking Arawn by his oversized mitt. “My lord.” She bobbed her head and gave him a wicked, telling smile. “I really think it’s fitting for my sisters and I to weigh in on the discussion before any final and irrevocable decisions are made. After all, this matter does concern us.”

Arawn smiled at her in turn, the same hazy infatuation I’d felt a moment ago seeping across his features. “My radiant Peisinoe,” he said, “how could I ever deny you such a small request?”

“Thank you, my lord.” She turned and offered the assembled nobles another dazzling smile, her teeth like white, glittering pearls. “And thank you, my lords and ladies, for your patience.” She twirled back toward us. “And to you, our uninvited guests, be welcome as well. My sisters and I know each of you”—her smoky gaze passed over each of us—“Chief Chankoowashtay, Winona Treesinger, Nicole Ferraro, James Sullivan, and of course our two guests of honor, Greg Chandler and Yancy Lazarus.”

She faltered for a moment, canting her head to one side, lips pressed together. “Sadly, I fear you know little of us. Myth and legend, perhaps, but nothing close to the truth. A round of introductions seems appropriate, I should think. I am Peisinoe, eldest of my kin. This is the middle sister, Aglaope—”

The raven-haired women dipped a small courtesy. “Greg, Yancy. It’s so good to see you both again,” she said, her voice the sultry sound of seduction incarnate, “and oh how far you’ve come since then. Please”—she placed one delicate hand upon her chest—“call me Ivana. Aglaope is so terribly first century. And allow me to introduce the youngest of our number, Thelxiepeia.”

“Charmed,” the blonde said, giving our group a wiggle of her fingers, “though I go by Nell these days—no one in this bloody age can ever seem to get my given name right.”

“Quite,” Peisinoe said, frowning in sympathy at her sister’s complaint. “Together, we three are the Sirens: the original divas, destroyers of the mind, breakers of the soul, feared and revered far and wide by beings, both mortal and immortal alike.”

“Can the titles. I’m not interested in shooting the shit with you,” I said, more harshly than I’d intended. Seeing them again slashed open old wounds that I thought had healed long ago. “I’m here for information. Information only you have.”

“Come now,” Peisinoe said like a disapproving mother scolding a willful child. “Is this about those mortals who perished?” She sighed.

“You’re damn straight,” I said, glaring for everything I was worth. “You and your music directly or indirectly took the lives of a lot of good men. My friends. Dead by your hand. And I don’t intend on letting that go. Ever,” I spat.

Peisinoe frowned and placed one hand on her outthrust hip. “You mortal types are always so serious. So touchy about death. All that was simply business, nothing personal. Believe it or not, we’ve always had some unnatural affection for you.” She smirked. “Not in a sexual way—if that’s what you’re thinking, though, that might be an option, too.” She traced a hand over the curve of her hip and offered me a long, slow wink.

“Hey,” Ferraro said, raising her shotgun so it was centered on the Siren’s ample bosom. “How about you back up a step. He’s not a piece of meat—and even if he was, he’s not your piece of meat.”

“Oh how delightful.” She stared at Ferraro, her eyes roving over her body. “Jealousy. Delicious. You could join us then—all of us.” She spread out both arms, motioning toward her sisters, arching one sinuous eyebrow. “But no, another time, perhaps. I fear tonight shall be more business, yet,” she finally said, turning to face the assembled members of the court.

“You see, my esteemed lords and ladies, my sisters and I have something of a history with the mage and one of the other mortals present here today.” She glanced back at the blonde, positioned between Kong and James. “Bring him forward if you would.” The blonde nodded and maneuvered her way over to Greg, placing an arm around his waist before pulling him out, front and center.

“Greg Chandler and Yancy Lazarus. You two were fated to die all those years ago, but here you stand. The two that got away,” Peisinoe said with a sigh, a soft musical whisper. “My sisters and I have something akin to motherly affection for you both. After all, Yancy, it was we three who brought to life that marvelous power within you. In a way, we are responsible for your long, illustrious career …” She trailed off, the smile slipping from her angelic face. “A fact which has been duly noted in some rather prominent circles. But such is life. And, to be completely honest, Yancy, your adventures are endlessly amusing to watch. More than worth whatever trouble you’ve caused us.

“And dearest Gregory”—she beamed at him like a hundred watt bulb—“all the lives you’ve saved and all the creatures you’ve slain in service to the Lucis Venántium. Both blood and salvation is, at least in part, on our hands.”

“Lady,” Greg said, “the only thing you’ve got on your hands is the blood of my brothers. And you mark my words—sooner or later, I’ll see they get some daggon justice.”

“So brave, so bold,” Peisinoe cooed. “Even in the face of death. Just like in ’69.” She said it as though recalling a particularly fond memory. “We’d been offered an invitation to perform for the freshly risen Lord Xuong Cuong, one of the last great Tree Kings of old.” She spoke to the nobles as though reciting a favorite anecdote, instead of one of the worst weeks of my life.

“An honor, as you can imagine,” she said. “Sadly, however, the festivities were cut brutally short by this mage”—she slinked over to my side and ran a finger along my shoulder—“and his associate, who, against all conceivable odds, murdered the weakened Xuong Cuong and his partygoers. Save, of course, for we sisters and our band. Really, my lords and ladies, you should feel privileged in truth. These two men before you not only slew a great Tree Lord, but are also the first mortals to escape our grasp since Odysseus.”

Peisinoe smiled at me again, a look that chilled my blood; this time there was nothing friendly or flirtatious in the gesture. It was a vicious, calculating look—the look of someone with an old grievance to right.

“Matilda,” Arawn commanded, his voice a barking whip crack. “Still the beasts.” He was smiling now, a broad grin reaching all the way to his eyes. “Very well, you have captured my attention, dearest Peisinoe. Now tell me what you would have done with these interlopers.”

“I have a suggestion,” I said. “How about you just tell us what we want to know, we all have a good laugh about this party-crashing mix-up, then me and my friends mosey along and let you all get back to your regularly scheduled viewing? You don’t kill us, I don’t set your shit on fire, the Sirens get to keep on breathing for another day. Win-win-win all around, am I right?”

“Such a charmer,” Peisinoe said, pulling away from my side. “But I’m afraid that just won’t do, not at all.” She pouted. “Why, our esteemed hosts couldn’t very well allow you to walk into this hall, uninvited no less, without reprisals. What should the neighbors think?” She tapped one elegant finger against her full bottom lip. “No, I’m afraid that won’t do at all …” She paused again and shared a long look with her sisters, who ghosted over to her side and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially together.

After a moment there was a round of giggling, which spread out in a wave until the whole court was having a damn good laugh. Pro tip for you: whenever all the bad guys start laughing at your expense, it means someone is squatting over an industrial grade fan with their pants down.

“My Lords of the Unfettered,” Peisinoe said, “given that the humans Yancy Lazarus and Greg Chandler have slighted us in the past, we believe it only fair that we should be allowed to dispose of them—and, by extension, their companions—as we see fit. Since my sisters and I absolutely adore a good game, however, we would propose a competition. A competition the likes of which has not been seen in over two thousand years. Not since the days of Orpheus.”

She looked at me, her beautiful violet eyes locked squarely on mine. “You’ve heard of Orpheus, the great bard of old, no? We played such a game with him once, long, long ago.” An almost wistful look of nostalgia flashed across her face. “You remind me of him, in your way. Both such rebels. Both so willing to defy the odds. You should pray for your sake, you fare so well as he.”

I knew the story alright: Orpheus was a Greek poet and musician. As legend told, he journeyed with the Argonauts and beat the lovely-crap out of the Sirens—thus saving his pals—by drowning out their clarion call with a jam so gnarly not even the Sirens could compete.

Jason and the Argonauts.

I reached toward my jacket pocket, feeling the two candles through the fabric. The stamp at the bottom had read Odyssey Candle Company. Aside from escaping the Sirens and capturing the Golden Fleece, Jason and the Argonauts also made a brief appearance in Homer’s The Odyssey, an epic poem which told the tale of cunning Odysseus, a Rube hero who also managed to best the Sirens. Though Odysseus—being a tricksy little hobbitses—did the deed by using some magical wax to plug up his ears, blocking the effect of the Sirens’ alluring song.

That had to be it, nothing else fit. Fortuna had given us an emergency ace in the hole, a way to temporarily block the effect of the Siren song.

“Yancy,” Ivana, the raven-haired Siren, said, “I’ve heard you are quite the accomplished musician—is it true?” Something excited and ravenous seemed to lurk behind her gaze.

I hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been known to tickle the ivories a time or two.”

“Excellent,” Nell, the blonde, said, clapping her hands as her sisters broke into another round of giggles. “Well, we think it only fitting that we have, how is it you mortals say it—a battle of the bands.”

That sure as shit gave me pause. I didn’t know what to say. “Sorry, come again?” I finally replied. “I could’ve sworn you said we were going to have a battle of the bands?”

Nell nodded and clapped again, bouncing up and down, her … well, let’s go with assets, moving in some interesting ways. “Yes, precisely. Should you best us, we will tell you what you want to know, and you and your friends will be granted safe passage from this kingdom. And if you fail, the Lord of the Hunt shall have his sport. Does this please the Court?” she asked, turning her lovely gaze to the assembled nobles.

“This is new,” Arawn said, grinning like the utter loon he was as he rubbed a hand across his chin. “I like new. New is interesting. After five thousand years, there is little which interests me.” He paused, nodding his head from side to side as if considering closing arguments from opposing lawyers. “Very well,” he finally announced, breaking the uneasy silence. “On behalf of the Court, we shall abide by the guidelines set forth by dear Thelxiepeia: win and live, lose and die. Painfully. What are the rules of this competition to be?”

“Very gracious of you, my lord,” Peisinoe said. “I can assure you, you will not be disappointed. As to the rules. These instruments behind us”—she waved a slender arm toward the assembled band at the far end of the hall—“are exquisite creations. Each crafted by the finest artisans and imbued with a portion of our, not-inconsiderable, power. They can control the mind and move the soul. Provided, of course, the player is accomplished enough to employ them properly. You, Yancy, will choose an instrument and will take up a position at the other end of the hall.” She motioned toward the far side of the ballroom.

“Our respective forces will line up, ours in front of us”—she glowed at the guests dotting the dance floor—“and yours in front of you.” She scowled at my guests, giving Ferraro an extra-long dose of hate. “Though, naturally, the great lords will sit out, so as to give your side a sporting chance.”

I rolled my eyes. This was maybe the most asinine thing I’d ever heard of. Stupid supernatural beings, always doing things the most ass-backward way possible.

“I’m sorry, is there a problem?” Ivana hissed. “Are we boring you, mayhap?” A halo of darkness gathered around the sisters, a nimbus of black oozing out and bleeding into the air around them.

Okay, so this was asinine, but it was a helluva lot better than taking on the Sirens and the whole friggn’ court in a straight up brawl, which was a battle we absolutely couldn’t win. Not in a million friggin’ years. “Nope, no problem at all,” I replied, reining in my inner asshole. “Believe me, you’ve got my complete attention. Please, tell me more about this game.”

The darkness gathering around the trio of singers vanished, dissipating like a bad dream on waking. “Excellent,” Peisinoe continued. “Now, as I was saying, our sides will line up and do battle, and we will provide the score for the dance.”

“Wait,” I said, “so what, we’re going to just sit on the sidelines, doing a little dueling banjos while my guys and your guys slug it out?”

“Don’t be silly, little boy.” Peisinoe’s grin was as wicked as sin. “Of course we shall take part. Why, we shall be the generals. And the music shall serve as our commands, our orders, our air support and artillery.”

I thought back to Vietnam, to my final, fearful days in the dense bush.

That damn music had bled right out of the jungle itself. Colorful strands of light and power, drifting through the night like low hanging fog. It’d been eerie at first, but also kind of exciting: both beautiful and mystifying in turns. At least until it started to change us. Clawing at noses and eyes, boring inward through ears and mouths, eager and hungry to get inside, to burrow deep.

Moody and Lewiston had been first to turn. Anger consumed them as the music twisted their minds until they couldn’t tell who was friend and who was foe. They’d shot Jackson and Cortez, murdered ’em in cold blood. Ox, the dumb, good-hearted oaf, had gone next. But he turned the weapon on himself instead, unable to kill his friends, yet unable to live with himself and the things he’d done in the musty, humid jungle.

It’d even changed me: I remembered the music surging through me, pumping in my blood and beating in time with my heart as a team of crazed Dac Cong—Vietnamese Special Forces—pinned down our squad. I remembered nodding my head in time to the music, unleashing a gout of flame that ate ’em alive and left nothing behind but bone and ash.

She said we would be the generals. We would play and our teams would dance to whatever groove we laid down. Anger, fear, madness, despair. I began to understand.

“Alright, hotcakes.” I nodded. “Let’s do this.”

The nobles sniggered as the sisters swayed, looking hungry for the bloodlust to come.

“I love bold men,” Ivana said, then licked her lips, a lion eyeing a fat, slow water buffalo. I was struck with the sense that what she really loved to do with bold men was slaughter them painfully and pick the meat from their bones.

“Now, sweet-pea,” Nell said, turning toward the band arrayed at the far end of the hall, “choose your weapon.”

TWENTY-SIX:

Dueling Banjos

I sat behind a beautiful grand piano, though beautiful doesn’t really do the musical work of art that was before me justice. Majestic, maybe? No, even that wouldn’t work. Calling the instrument beautiful or majestic was akin to saying that da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was a nifty doodle. This piano transcended all that shit. Honestly, there needed to be a new word, designated solely for this instrument: beaut-ajestic, maybe. A Fazioli—arguably the best piano of the modern age. Cutting-edge technology married to the old-world charm of a sleepy Tuscany hamlet—complete with cobblestone streets, quaint bakeries, and a kindhearted, elderly chap named Francesco.

This puppy was made from the finest spruce anywhere. Ever. End of story. The wood for this musical machine of asskickery hailed from Val Di Fiemme—the rarest grove of spruce trees in the world—and was the very same wood used to craft Stradivarius violins. The bridge was without equal, sporting three different types of timber—maple, hornbeam, and boxwood—ensuring flawless sound transmission and a tone that could melt even the icy heart of Old Man Winter himself.

Well, maybe not him. That withered old assbag would probably bang on the wall, shouting for me to turn down that infernal racket!

Oh, also, did I happen to mention it was entirely covered in gold? Seriously. You’ve heard of the Devil’s golden fiddle, right? This piano was its bigger, badder, 24-carat gold-leaf brother. I’d never seen anything like it, not in my entire and utterly strange life.

What’s more, the piano felt alive, at least in a rudimentary sense of the word—it responded at the level of thought, somehow sensing what I wanted to play and, in turn, lending me the skill necessary to pull it off like a friggin’ pro. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty decent behind the black and whites, but on this thing, I was much, much more. Too bad I didn’t have one of those old-timey powdered wigs and a dashing doublet with tails—that would’ve really pulled everything together.

I surveyed the ballroom, which held the tense and anxious sense of a soon-to-be battlefield. I sat on a raised platform at one end of the ballroom, overlooking my team, who looked small, feeble, and far outclassed by the legion of creatures loitering on the opposite side of the room. Thankfully, the high nobles were all sitting the tussle out, otherwise there would’ve been very little sport to the whole thing. Even with their absence from the battlefield, however, the odds were still crazy-stacked against us.

This matchup felt about as lopsided as they came. Like pitting a handful of adorable kittens, romping through a pile of yarn, against a pack of rabid, genetically engineered Rottweilers wielding chainsaws.

The Dullahan and his doom mount were lined up on the other side, the horse pawing anxiously at the floor as the rider prepared to make good on his promise and add my spinal column to his whip. There were a handful of pale-skinned, bat-winged Tiktiks lurking on the left side of the hall, nervous and jittery. Tiktiks preferred to ambush their prey, so this kinda open brawl would understandably make them uneasy.

I spotted a cadre of Bubak—living scarecrows, who fashioned the skins of their victims into new body parts. They were all sporting handsome, colonial-era jackets and britches and were absolutely brimming with excitement, their disjointed limbs dancing and shaking in erratic spasms.

There were wart-covered, green-skinned trolls; glimmering blue-skinned Kobocks from the Deep Downs below the Hub; and maggot-white Blemmyes, who hailed from Africa. No heads to be seen on those fellas, though: each had a giant face with jagged teeth protruding from a distended stomach. And those were just the critters I recognized.

Assholes even had an evil unicorn. Whenever I tell people I have night terrors about unicorns they always laugh, but that’s only because they’ve never seen one of these suckers. It was built more like a rhino than a horse: big and beefy, with a pebbled blueish-black hide and a single twisted spike of ebony, sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel, positioned between eyes like globs of molten gold.

But we’d teach ’em all a thing or two.

I mean sure, we were badly outnumbered. And yes, they had way more skill, muscle, and talent on their side. But we weren’t showing up to this gunfight empty-handed. Kong and Winona had some serious friggin’ muscle, and James would dish out some Grade-A-asskickery. Ferraro and Greg were both mortals, but they looked fierce as hell in their formalwear, sporting more personal armaments than a small police force—a cross between James Bond and Conan the Barbarian.

But, most important of all, we could do this because we had no intention of playing by the rules. “Forewarned is forearmed,” Lady Luck has said to me more than once, and I’d actually taken those words to heart. I’d thought long and hard about how to use the magic candles to our advantage, how to subvert expectations so we could come out on top. So, during our brief interlude before the show, we’d come up with a plan. Kind of. But only time would tell if our plan carried water, or if it would leave us all as dog treaties for the Hellhounds. In my experience, however, any plan, even a bad one, is a helluva lot better than indecision.

The Sirens moved to center stage, breathtaking and captivating, drawing every eye in the room as they moved. The band took up their positions behind the three, crazed grins already splitting their otherworld faces.

“Excellent,” Peisinoe said, her words ringing across the hall. “All the participants are ready for the dance, it would seem. Now, the battle shall be won under the following conditions.” She held up one delicate finger. “One, after all the combatants on any given team die to a man. Or two”—she added another finger to the count—“if one side should ask for quarter. Please bear in mind, however, we will certainly offer none.”

“I’m not worried about it, Hotcakes” I said. Great streaks of sweat rolled down my neck and back, giving away my lie. “You’d better hope we’re feeling more gracious once we get done whipping the dance floor with your minions. Maybe we’ll decide to offer y’all a free pass.”

Peisinoe smiled, blew me a sensual kiss filled with illicit promise, then snapped her fingers as she began to sway and groove in time to the slow, steady beat of a stately waltz. “Vienna Blood,” I think.

Strands of music, like wispy ropes of Christmas garland in a myriad of hues—electric blue, regal gold, the brilliant purple of violets in full bloom—drifted from the stage, entwining around the partygoers. The guests-turned-soldiers began to dance, each moving and bobbing, creatures gliding across the floor in elaborate and elegant patterns. Dipping, nodding, twirling, joining together then breaking apart once more. A kaleidoscope of horror and beauty, spinning across the floor.

I could tell this was a warm-up number, a little foreplay so to speak, before the real show got hot and heavy. For whatever reason, the Sirens seemed to be giving us a fighting chance.

I followed suit, easing my fingers down, working at the keys.

“Eye of the Tiger” filled our end of the hall with its fire, with its underdog optimism, crying out its challenge and defiance as the piano emitted spikey waves of twisting orange and maroon light. Even cooler, I heard the ghostly whisper of a pair of guitars, a deep, thumping bass, and a raucous set of drums swirling through the air around me. The instruments were ethereal things, not alive and vibrant like the Sirens’ big band, but there nonetheless. Spectral players accompanying my jam, summoned from my mind and soul by the badass piano before me.

Still, for all the awesomeness I was laying down, my strands of mind-altering music were nowhere near as focused or powerful as the Sirens.

Our opponents glided across the floor in perfect harmony: a single entity utterly controlled by the music emanating from the Sirens. My team, on the other hand, stood around looking like a bunch of mooks waiting to get their collective asses kicked. Ferraro and Greg were both doing some warm-up stretches, while the Bigfeet shared worried glances—glances that said, in no uncertain terms, We’re totally boned beyond belief.

A real confidence booster for me.

James looked completely preoccupied and distant, as though there were a million other places he’d rather be. Not that I could blame him—there were definitely a million other places I’d rather be: a bar, the DMV, a cell in a supermax prison. Anywhere, really.

I was doing something wrong, but I wasn’t sure what. The Sirens’ music was like 120 proof moonshine: you could get downright shitty off the stuff just by taking a whiff of the fumes. My music was more like lite beer—it’d get the job done, but only after you’d slogged your way through a thirty pack.

I drew more deeply from the Vis and sent out my wispy, invisible probe of spirit, examining the piano for the secret I was obviously missing. It didn’t take more than a handful of seconds to figure out that the instrument was basically an uber-powerful glamour machine, pumping out music laced with our suggestions, emotions, and intentions. And at this range, those suggestions—cleverly imbedded into the tunes—were elevated to the point of compulsion. But it was also quickly apparent that the music itself was less important than the intention of the player laying down the jam.

The music was a vehicle of sorts: a delivery system implanting commands into the subconscious mind of the hearers. It was the emotional state of the player, however, that determined how effective the commands would be. It wasn’t enough to simply play a badass, get-pumped tune, I needed to feel that way in my heart and soul. But I was an emotional train wreck. I didn’t feel motivated. I felt sweaty palmed and scared, like a man who’d jumped into shark-infested waters covered in fish guts without even the advantage of knowing how to swim. I felt defeated, betrayed, and tired. The piano was drawing those things out instead, feeding them into my crew.

And that just wouldn’t do. Right now I needed my team to be sharp as razors. I needed them on their toes, ready to obey at a moment’s notice, ready to follow my commands without a second thought. Which meant I needed to harness that emotion within myself.

I drew in strands of delicate, twisted spirit and will—pumping the construct into the piano in the same way I’d feed a glamour construct into the mind of a person—strengthening and reinforcing my tenuous connection to the instrument. Then I closed my eyes, letting my fingers move by instinct—guided both by years of practice and the power of the piano itself, drawing my talent out, spurring me onwards.

Slowly, I shut out the world around me, focusing on the power roaring through me, raging in me. I envisioned an inferno burning like a forest fire in my mind, a consuming blaze of Vis more than happy to eat whatever I had to offer it.

I fed it everything: I pushed my worry and anxiety into the golden flames, tossed in thoughts of revenge and fear. Hell, I even let the impending battle, looming before us, burn from my mind. Those things were important, true, but they were also distractions, each tugging me in a different direction. Each a subtle emotion, which the piano would siphon off and send out. After a few seconds, only blackness remained, an empty space devoid of all except the fire’s crackling intensity.

Focus, resolve, determination, coupled with tight-bellied fear and precise obedience. These were the things we needed to survive. I cast my mind backward, away from this place and into a different time, conjuring up an old memory—a powerful memory I could draw on and channel into the piano …

Tongues of flame erupted, splashes of red and yellow washing over the walls of my mind. In a snap, the dark space transformed from a place of tranquility and serenity into a room brimming with chaos and screaming.

“Lights, lights, lights!” someone bellowed inside my head, the voice deep and rough. The fire morphed and shifted into the blare of overhead sodium lights, flickering on and off in a manic strobe. My eyes flew open, my chest beating wildly against my ribs. I threw aside the green wool blanket covering my torso, sitting up in a rush and swinging my legs out over the edge of the thin mattress. Where was I? The hell was happening here?

I was no longer in some otherworldly drinking hall. No, this was 1966 and I was at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego—the forge and crucible designed to take young, disobedient civilians and hammer them into hard, cool-headed, steely-eyed warfighters.

This is all a memory, a soft voice whimpered in the back of my head. The squeak and clatter of metal-framed bunks drove the voice away. I needed to get my ass on line before the drill instructor discovered me in the rack, there was room for no other thought. Only white-knuckled need remained. I slid from the bunk, toes touching down on freezing linoleum—

Too late. The drill instructor towered at the end of the narrow aisleway between bunks. Staff Sergeant Pettit. His face twisted in a contorted grimace of fury, red creeping up his neck and cheeks as he stared at me from beneath the brim of his brown smokey-bear.

“I guess I’ll wait on you, right?!” he screamed, grabbing hold of my blanket and ripping it away, hurling it into the squad bay before taking the edge of my bunk and shaking it with the force of a hurricane. “Get on line right daggon now, recruit! GET! ON! LINE!” Then he shrieked, an inarticulate cry of frenzied wrath that rang in my head like a fire engine’s siren. That cry conveyed one thing: Panic, panic, panic.

I slipped forward, trying to edge past him.

The blow landed in the center of my chest, not hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs, but hard enough to send me reeling backwards. I grabbed at my mattress, steadying myself.

“And I guess the drill instructor’s gonna move for you, right?! Right, you nasty piece of garbage?! How ’bout a daggon friggin’ aye-aye, sir!” He screeched again, moving back just far enough for me to make it to the edge of my bunk.

“Aye-aye, sir!” I hollered back, moving without a thought, frantic to get on line before any of the other drill instructors noticed something was amiss and flocked toward us. In boot camp, any infraction, no matter how slight, carried weight. Like the gravity of an imploding star that could suck in every D.I. in a five-mile radius.

I snapped into the position of attention the second I cleared my bunk, back straight as a plank, feet at a forty-five degree angle, hands balled into fists, thumbs aligned with where the inseam of my trousers would be if I had pants on.

The D.I.’s mug crowded into my vision, his nose inches away from mine. “Open your daggon mouth, recruit! Aye-aye, sir!” Spittle flew from his mouth as he shrieked, brushing up against my cheeks and lips.

I didn’t care. “Aye-aye, sir!” I yelled. Anything to soothe his hellish, hair-trigger temper. Anything to see him move on to some other poor schmuck dumb enough to join the Corps.

“I swear, Lazarus, if you don’t open up your daggon friggin’ mouth right this second, I’m gonna run you into the dirt. And when I’m done, I’m gonna dropkick your ass off the roof, watch your body splat on the sidewalk, then run your daggon corpse into the dirt! NOW! OPEN! YOUR! MOUTH! Aye-aye, SIR!” he commanded, the bellow reverberating in my teeth.

“Aye-aye, sir!” I screamed one more time, drawing on everything I had, pushing from my diaphragm.

He gave me one more cold, calculating look, then disappeared in an eyeblink, darting across the squad bay, his wrath triggered by someone scratching their nose when they were supposed to be at attention.

Not me, I wouldn’t twitch a finger until I heard the next command. I stood statue still, ready, focused, a coiled spring waiting to be released.

This is all a memory, the voice in my mind asserted once more, this time louder, more insistently. The walls wobbled and faded, melting together and drawing back into a raging fire blazing at the center of my mind.

I opened my eyes, the dance hall before me once more. But just beneath that I could almost see the recruit depot of memory, hanging before me like a hazy shadow. Good. I drew on that remembered fear, that urgency to obey, to act instantaneously. That was what boot camp was all about: Learning to stay sharp and focused even under the most stressful circumstances. To heed the call of your commander without so much as a moment’s hesitation. To comply exactly, urgently, and in precise detail.

Though the tune didn’t change, the drifting lights floating from the instrument did—no longer disjointed, spiky waves of energy, but instead a smooth cloud of silky mist, curling like fine cigar smoke in a bar. And the music wasn’t the only thing that’d changed, the whole team now moved with purpose and intensity. Greg checked and rechecked his weapons. His jaw clenched, the panels of his brown face rigid.

James swung his delicate cane sword through a series of broad, looping arches—some kata I was unfamiliar with. Ferraro stretched limbs in a variety of interesting yoga poses which grabbed at my eye. Even the hair on Winona and Kong bristled, stood stiff and at attention as they flexed massive arms and hands.

The drifting siren song shifted, flawlessly melting into a madcap version of “When You’re a Jet,” straight from West Side Story. The baddies at the opposite end of the hall responded in a flash, breaking apart from their respective partners and advancing across the room in a tight formation, snapping their fingers—or clopping hooves in the case of the massive unicorn—as they danced forward. The display would’ve been ridiculous if it weren’t for the scowls, howls, fangs, and fur. A virtual ocean of living-terrors crashing toward us like a wave of death.

TWENTY-SEVEN:

Battle at High Noon

The siren song shifted as the oncoming forces slammed into our front line, West Side Story giving way to a big band version of “Paint it Black” by the Stones—the very tune the Sirens had laid down during our first fight in Vietnam, so many years ago.

Kong and Winona rushed to the front, strands of my music working through them as they responded to my will and moved to my unspoken commands—recruits heeding the call of their drill instructor on the parade deck. Greg and Ferraro followed in on the heels of the Chiye-tanka, ducking low behind the mountains of muscle, using them as mobile defensive barriers.

Winona and Kong were basically flesh and blood tanks, meant to absorb the brutal forward wave of attackers so Greg and Ferraro could play to their strong suit. Namely, laying down hard-hitting, suppressive fire and placing pop-shots at those beasties too stupid to keep covered. Baddies collided into the Sasquatches—a nasty pair of green, wart-covered trolls. Seven-and-a-half-feet of lanky muscle, bad teeth, and worse body odor.

Great claw-tipped hands lashed out at Winona and Kong, but the pair of apes moved like greased lightning, easily dodging the blows while throwing out bone-shattering strikes of their own: fists and feet hammering into ribs and faces with inhuman strength and speed. The trolls flew back, unprepared for the brutality of the assault.

Greg edged past Kong, M-4 tucked into his shoulder, and squeezed off a burst of rounds which chewed into the staggering duo of green-flesh. Meanwhile, Ferraro popped around Winona, raised her shotgun into the air, and blasted a bat-winged Tiktik attempting to get the drop from overhead. Ferraro’s specialty loads shredded its membranous wings, and the creature spiraled out of control, screeching like a giant owl the whole way down, before crash landing in a heap of broken limbs.

Though my rendition of “Eye of the Tiger” was inspiring, we needed something faster, something you could really groove too. My mind skipped to another legendary, supernatural music battle, one for the fate of a man’s soul with a beat so contagious a corpse would shuffle along in time. My fingers fell into place as I shifted into “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” a hard driving mix of up-tempo rock and rough-and-tumble country classic. The perfect backdrop for a gunfight at high noon, which is more or less what this was. Except for the fairies. And ballroom. And tuxedos. Whatever—in spirit, this was similar.

I threw myself into the song, the piano responding like an old friend, driving me onward as the rhythm spilled out in a cloud of golden light like the first rays of a new day.

My sights shifted to James, who’d positioned himself off to one side and slightly back, his sword at the ready, while staying on high alert for any nasties who outmaneuvered the pair of Sasquatches. He was the least affected by the tunes, his reinforced mental barriers partially insulating him from the melodies floating around.

He cast a speculative glance at me, surveyed the room with the steady eye of a battle-tested commander, then flicked out his left hand as if he was brushing away a bit of dust. The stone floor quivered and vibrated as chunks of wood flooring and the old stone beneath swelled upward and out, a pair of steeply sloping berms forming on either side of our fighters. A makeshift barrier to guard our flanks while also creating an artificial bottleneck. Now the attacking ground element would have to launch their assault at a single opening—perfect for waging a lopsided war.

At the same time, a chunk of floor surged beneath James, lifting him high into the air: an observation tower, ten feet high, offering him an unrestricted view of the room. A rain of incoming projectiles tore into the sky: wild black bolts of energy from the unicorn. Elongated spikes of bone from something with too many limbs. Melt-your-face-off acid from the green blob I’d threatened earlier. James handled each attack with ease. A brilliant blue shield—similar to the one I frequently used—sprang to life, contemptuously blocking anything that drew too close.

The shield dimmed as he held out his sword, tip pointed down toward the battlefield like a machine gun ready to level an army of incoming warfighters. A buzz of energy filled the air, and I felt the pent-up static of Vis brush against my senses. There was a blast of dizzying light as he let loose several watermelon-sized orbs of electric-blue force—the weaves were complex things of air and water, built around a core of earthen power infused with motes of iron.

The balls lazily swerved and lurched like a drunk after a long night out on the town, thin tendrils of flickering light reaching for the creatures on the dance floor. Not the most impressive-looking constructs on the block—I mean it seemed like a geriatric grandmother with bad arthritis could dodge those suckers—but I’d seen him do this trick before, and the result was never pretty. Concentrated ball lightning.

The orbs descended into the crowd, bringing absolute chaos in their wake: wherever the shimmering spheres went, creatures fried and died, terrible bursts of electrical energy blackening flesh and charring bodies with the sickening sizzle-snap of roasting meat. What can I say, James is a colossal badass. There was a damn good reason he was the Lieutenant Commander of the Fist and not me. He was better. Stronger. Faster. But let’s not forget he was also a pompous douchewaffle.

I didn’t have time to watch for long—the creatures were surging now, hell-bent on breaking past Kong and Winona so they could get claws and teeth into James, putting an end to the devastation he was laying down wholesale.

The Bigfeet held firm—arms and fists lashing out, feet driving into bodies with the force of car crashes as they danced and jived to my tune.

Greg and Ferraro were doing their fair share of damage, too: bouts of heavy gunfire, interspersed with deafening BOOMS as they lobbed out grenades and flashbangs. They worked well together, one laying down fire as the other reloaded, ensuring there were always rounds headed downrange.

I’ll tell you this much, those shitheads may have had the advantage in numbers—and had it in spades, no less—but we were givin’ ’em a helluva run for their money.

The siren song shifted once more, the Stones melody diminishing. The strands of music drifting through the air burned with spectral light as the tune transformed into something new—a gritty number called “Put the Gun Down” by ZZ Ward. The track was a mean blend of blues and hip-hop, equal parts sultry diva and hard-nosed thug, wavering between up-beat and down-and-out—tiptoeing the line like a wide receiver fighting to stay inbounds. The piano man’s fingers flitted over the ivories, doing their own wild dance, as the bass drum pounded out a rock-steady pulse like some colossal heartbeat pushing musical-lifeblood to the fighters on the floor.

The strands of music rolled out, stronger than before, a wave of purple washing over the monsters filling the hall, but refusing to stop there. Splashes of hypnotizing light bled onto our side of the battleground, swirling around the Kong and Winona, constricting about Greg and Ferraro, probing at eyes and ears, burrowing into mouths, barbed hooks of emotion digging into flesh and muscle. The Sirens weren’t pulling any punches now, and they weren’t merely commanding their own invading force. Instead, they were bringing in the air support. Dropping firebombs on our team. Breaking down our side’s will to fight, to live, to survive.

And it was working. The Sirens’s down-and-out song shoved my flows of music away, beat them back even as they fed despair and death into my friends, turning their minds against each other. Even surrounded in my shield of memories, I could feel the music working at me, beating to get inside my head. A soft voice, lingering beneath the music itself, whispered in my ear …

Why keep fighting? The end will be quick, far more merciful than living. You’re homeless. You’ve abandoned everyone you ever loved. The Guild hates you. Your family hates you. Even your best friend has betrayed you. Give-up, give-up, give-up, give-up. I could only imagine what Ferraro, James, Greg, and the Sasquatches were hearing … I strained my ear—I could almost pick up the words, or at least the sense of them …

Kong: Your people are dying, all but extinct. You’ve failed them. Failed your charge as a Seal Bearer. Failed your daughter and yourself … Give up.

Winona: The man you loved is a murderer and a monster. You’re doomed to inherent madness and anger. Better to die now, quickly … Give up.

Ferraro: You’re weak. Helpless. Worthless. Out of your league. You should’ve left this fight to your betters … Give up.

Greg: You’re an old man—Yancy might have another two hundred years, but your days are numbered. How long before your old bones get someone killed? … Give up.

James: You’re a monster, working for monsters. And, for all of your cocksure attitude and fancy clothes, you are a lonely man who will ultimately die alone … Give up.

On and on the words came, a swirl of pain and discouragement, a knife in the back, an icepick jabbing into the most tender places in our souls.

Kong and Winona still resisted, hooking and jabbing with the best of ’em. James unleashed otherworldly destruction while Ferraro and Greg sent lead downrange, but it was a losing battle. I could see that realization dawning in each of them, manifesting in the way they moved and fought, as the music whispered its insidious lies into their minds.

Each fist flew a little more slowly.

Each shot came less often, and the reloads were more sporadic and infrequent.

They were all slowing down, losing hope. Crushed by the impossible onslaught of music and the press of incoming bodies.

And the army of nightmares, by contrast, was gaining ground, surging forward in spurts, closing the gap an inch at a time. A group of kobos had even maneuvered around to one side, their band preparing to scamper up the right berm: a flanking tactic, which would enable them to drop down onto the exposed backs of our team. If those shitheaded kobos pulled off the attack, it would be game over for our side. It’d be a slaughter. First Greg and Ferraro would fall—buried under a mountain of flesh and talons and teeth—and then the creatures would spill over onto Kong and Winona, swarming them like an army of murderous ants.

Sure, the Chiye-tanka seemed like elephants compared to the tiny kobos. But there’s an old African proverb, “All the ants weigh more than all the elephants.” With enough numbers, even Kong and Winona would fall. It was becoming increasingly obvious we weren’t gonna win this fight the ol’ fashioned way—playing by the rules—so it was time to cheat and go with the backup plan. Time to lay it all down on the table, for better or worse. Sometimes, the only way to win is by going all in.

I let out a roar, drawing in more Vis, holding nothing back, power seething like a thunderstorm as I became a conduit—letting raw energy flow through my fingers and into the golden piano. The glorious instrument, the massive glamour machine, amplified that power, summoning a host of ghostly instruments to accompany me. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” fell silent, reborn as Eric Clapton’s “Everyday I Have the Blues.” I aimed the infectiously upbeat tune not at my friends, but at the insidious siren song beating at their minds. My music shot out like a fog bank of colored light, strobing between fiery orange and coppery red.

My swell of music slammed into the Sirens’s elegant threads of song with a violent explosion of light and the crack of thunder. The Sirens’s dreary tune retreated at the onslaught, leaving my fighters in momentary and tenuous peace. The two separate streams of music twisted and churned in a vortex of light and power—high- and low-pressure systems wrestling for dominance, kicking up a tornado of force in their wake.

“Now! Do it now!” I screamed into the air, amplifying the words with a thin stream of fire and air so they’d carry even over the din of battle.

James glanced my way, our eyes meeting for a split second. This was a dangerous game we were playing at, and it required James to put his life completely into my hands. A bit of a role reversal after our tussle at Harold’s pad.

The complicated working he was about to do would require every shred of his concentration and skill, which left no room for personal defense. That’d be up to me. He compressed his lips into a tight line and turned back to the fight. A heartbeat later a flare of light erupted like a lightning strike, exploding out in a wave, blanketing our fighters in a blinding nimbus of light, temporarily concealing them from the enemy.

When the light receded and cleared, everything looked more or less as it had before, except now Kong had taken point—his massive body crowded the entire makeshift bottleneck—battling off the advancing horde all by his lonesome. He fought with the renewed fury of desperation, knowing the contest was almost over, one way or the other. Winona had moved to the rear, taking up a defensive position near the berm, standing guard against the flanking kobos only a heartbeat away.

Meanwhile, James stood entranced, his concentration completely fixed on the fighters below, his arms swaying back and forth as his hands flicked through the air in a series of rapid, precise patterns—the conductor of an orchestra, a painter slashing furiously away at a canvas.

The horde sensed our growing desperation and responded in kind: The creatures at the front threw themselves at Kong with reckless abandon while the kobos hastily clawed their way to the top of the berm. A renewed wave of projectiles torpedoed through the air—a hail of gleaming bone—all aimed at James. I split my flows of power, drawing energy away from the piano, my music faltering as I conjured a hasty shield of reddish light, which wrapped around James in a haze. The bone spurs dissolved on contact, broken down into a harmless cloud of slow moving dust as they passed through the friction shield.

The kobos crested the berm and the first few threw themselves toward Winona, Greg, and Ferraro. I redirected even more energy, pushing out a wave of silver force which scooped up the incoming beasties and swatted them away, a backhanded slap from some giant hand. I hammered away at the piano, but the music no longer carried the umph it had a few moments ago. I needed more power and I just didn’t have enough. Stinging sweat trickled down into my eyes. My heart pounded against my ribs like a jackhammer. Still I played on, fighting for every possible second I could lend to James and the others.

The next wave of kobos crested the berm and threw themselves through the air. Once more I knocked ’em away, the effort a crushing weight, like trying to juggle a trio of tubby Shetland ponies.

A flash of movement from behind the kobos caught my eye: that asshole Dullahan—the headless wonder—was, no shit, riding the evil unicorn. The two of them lumbered through the amassed ranks of kobos, crushing any too slow to make way. It took all of five seconds for the pair to eat up the distance to the berm. The unicorn hurled its massive weight into the earthen wall protecting our right flank. Its horn blazed with a deathly black light, which rolled into the impromptu defensive barrier like a Mack truck, blasting it into a spray of so much rubble.

There was a howl of victory, the sound picked up by dozens of throats as the kobos sprinted around the unicorn’s bulky frame, pouring past the rocky debris like inrushing tidal waters. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop them, not this time. I needed all the power I had left to protect James and keep the music going. Eight of the oddly lopsided, blue-skinned creatures fell on Winona …

Or rather they fell through Winona as though she were no more than a walking dream, which was damn close to the truth. The kobos scampered to their feet, raised malformed faces, and let out another collective howl, this one of impotent rage. They turned, locking sights on Greg and Ferraro, launching themselves at the humans.

Except Greg and Ferraro were no more substantial than Winona had been.

All three were stunningly crafted simulacrum, perfect illusionary copies, created and controlled by James. Just to give you an idea of how difficult that was: I can create a single simulacrum, as in one. It needs to look like me. And all it’s good for is sitting perfectly motionless and doing approximately nothing.

Of the four fighters, only Kong was the real deal, the last line of physical defense holding back the tide of battle, buying Winona, Greg, and Ferraro a little extra time. As soon as James had launched his flashy light show, Winona had scooped up Greg and Ferraro, whipped up a top-shelf veil to hide them all, and zipped up over the berm. A little sleight of hand, followed by the bait and switch—a classic con that’s fooled folks a helluva lot brighter than kobocks.

The invisible trio would either try to end the fight for good or—if that seemed impossible—would flee the Black Lodge, trigger the portal coin Harold had given us, and get the hell out of Dodge before Arawn could unleash the hunt. Sure, Kong, James, and I would all die horrible, horrible, gruesome, horrible deaths, but better a few of us than all of us. Plus, someone still needed to put the smackdown on the Wendigo.

A small platoon of the gangly, scarecrow Bubak rushed over the still-standing left berm. Most glared toward Kong while the others turned steely gazes in my direction, fury painting their disfigured visages as they realized our deception. The creatures broke into a mad frenzy, half flinging themselves at Kong, letting out dusty cries of glee as their teeth and bony fingers found purchase in his flesh. The other half streaked toward the stage, dragging their gangly torsos up onto the platform. A moment later, kobo reinforcements flooded in, bolstering the ranks of the approaching Bubaks.

I pushed myself away from the piano, hustling to my feet and scooting back as far as I could manage. My shoulders pressed up against the wall. Nowhere left to run with my back literally against the wall. Since I was no longer feeding energy into the piano, however, I had a small reserve to drawn on. I thrust out my right hand, and an invisible javelin of force collided with the piano, hurling the glorious machine into the oncoming throng like a gold-plated meteor, crushing bodies and breaking limbs in a jangle of noise.

A genuine tragedy, to see that baby go. Better it than me, though.

Something grabbed at me from the right—

I spun, ready to unleash a spear of flame, only to find James at my side.

He’d dismissed the illusion, now that it’d served its purpose, and stood with the weaves for ball lightning ready and waiting. “It was a good plan, old boy,” he said through a movie star grin. “It’s been a pleasure—now let’s make them pay for every inch. I, for one, don’t intend to be alive for the hunt.” He turned, his hands pumping in rapid succession, tossing out baseball-sized globs of blue ball lightning which devastated the approaching ranks of monsters; bodies were flipping and flying, smoking and blackening at the slightest touch.

I joined my force to the fray, tossing out a barrage of frozen ice-spikes, followed by a wall of green flame which burst from the floor in jagged fissures, separating us from the murderous crowd of killers, even if only for another few moments. I tapped into the Vis-saturated ground of Annwn itself, using the latent energy to power the wall.

But even with the extra help, the Vis was starting to grow slick and wily as I tried to manipulate it, a sure sign I was approaching my own personal limits. To be frank, I was surprised it’d taken this long. That damned music had taken boatloads of energy, and holding up the flame wall was sapping everything I had left. We had another few seconds before the defensive barrier faltered, and then the creatures would trample us. I pulled my pistol from its holster and slid the K-Bar from its sheath, flipping it over so the blade ran up the outside of my left forearm.

Having the weapons in hand was a small measure of comfort, but only a small one. Unfortunately, both the whip-wielding Dullahan and the My-Little-Pony-reject he was riding were now leading the pack, patiently waiting just on the other side of the blaze. The pistol might put the headless rider down, at least temporarily, but a fat lot of good it would do against that unicorn—the ugly son of a bitch had already brushed off a direct hit from James’s ball lightning.

The wall of flame cutting across the floor fizzled and shrunk, dropping down from a roaring inferno of green death to a slash of flame about as intimidating as a Bunsen burner. I leveled the pistol, taking aim at the Dullahan’s face, my finger curling around the trigger. Even if I died a horrible death, I could rest easy knowing that trash-talking asshole would have the headache of a lifetime.

James’s hand dropped onto my arm, jerking the gun muzzle down before I could shoot.

“They’ve stopped advancing,” he whispered, as though anything louder might startle the creatures back into their killing frenzy.

It took me a handful of seconds to realize that not only had the horde halted—a scant five feet away, no less—but the music had also ceased, leaving only the moans and cries of the dying. I glanced at James. He pointed toward the far end of the hall, a shit-eating grin tattooed across his mug.

Winona stood behind Peisinoe, one massive hand wrapped around her slim throat, while Ferraro and Greg each stood behind one of the other sisters, pistols tucked up under the jaw, pressed tight into creamy flesh. Winona, Ferraro, and Greg all had globs of golden wax jammed into their ears, a safeguard, which had apparently allowed them to close in on the Sirens without falling prey to their seductive song. Sometimes, when you can’t win the game, you just need to change the rules.

“Yield or die,” Ferraro said, loudly enough for the entire court to hear, her face all hard angles that said she was hoping they would choose the “die” option.

TWENTY-EIGHT:

Of Monsters and Men

We sat around a wide banquet table in a private room connected to the dance hall, which had recently been an active warzone. Ferrero and Greg sat to my left, James lounged to my right, and the Chiye-tanka squatted on their haunches against the wall behind us. There were no chairs in this particular meeting room big enough to accommodate their bulk. Not that they seemed to mind.

Everyone, except James and me, appeared the worse for wear—evening finery slashed open in some places, stained in others with a varied lot of multi-colored fluids. The dark red splotches were certainly blood, though there were also splashes of blue, purple, green, and yellow. It kinda looked like a tie-dye shirt had barfed on everyone, though Kong was the worst casualty by far. He now actually resembled the tie-dye tree-hugger I’d always imagined him to be.

The three Sirens sat across from us, relaxed and completely at ease, stunning as ever and, apparently, unconcerned that the people they’d tried to murder horribly were sitting so near.

“We haven’t had such a delightful evening in a millennia,” Peisinoe said, a faint smirk gracing her lips as she spoke. “When I saw you all strut through the door, I knew tonight would be far more interesting than anything we had slated on the agenda. Delight—”

“Look, lady”—I smacked my hand down against the hardwood table, cutting her words short—“this doesn’t change anything, not for me. Regardless of how you and your bat-shit crazy sisters feel, we’re not friends or pals.”

“Ain’t that the daggon truth,” Greg added, his voice low and brimming with old hurt, with memories that cut as deep as surgeon’s steel. He leaned forward in his chair, carefully placing his gore covered K-Bar on the tabletop. “You killed our friends. Murdered ’em in a jungle eight thousand miles away from their families. We’ll abide by the peace of this place, ’cause we’d be fools not to. But you make no mistake, I’d cut off each of your heads if I could get away with it.”

“Let me tell you about some real friends,” I said. “Once upon a time I had a friend named Moody—dumb, nineteen-year-old kid from Ohio—probably you’ve never heard his name, but you should. Greg and I had to hold him down while he bucked and kicked, trying to tear open our throats and gouge out our eyes. We pinned him to the ground near a moss covered log in the Vietnamese bush and watched Corporal Stanton put a round in his head. And that … well that’s on you. You and your fucking music.” I drummed my fingers against the table, the thump-thump-thump filling the air.

“Killed Stanton, too,” Greg said, leaning further forward, bringing his elbows to rest on the table as he stared daggers and death at the sisters. “Moody, Stanton, Jackson, Cortez, Lewiston, Ox, Wrangle, Phillips. Everyone of ’em dead.” He turned and spat onto the floor, his disdain evident.

“And Rat,” I said after a few seconds. “Can’t forget about Rat. Shit, even when I try to forget about Rat, I can’t. Him, you three might even remember. Little guy, maybe 5'4" and a buck thirty-five. He was in the throne room. Set himself on fire with a white phosphorus grenade to save me and Greg from you and that monster you were working for.” I halted for a beat, giving them time to remember.

“You know,” I said after a time, “I told Rat’s mother about what really happened in that jungle—not the colossal pile of horseshit the higher-ups wrote down. This was months after they finally released me from Walter Reed. I told her about all of you, about what a hero her son was. I gave her his last words—‘I’m sorry, tell my mom I’m so sorry and that I love her.’”

Tears built in the corner of my eyes, anger turning my muscles tight. Underneath the table, Ferraro slipped a hand into mine, warmth and support radiating off her. “I held the poor lady while she wept for her only son—her only child—stolen away by a bunch of fucking monsters. Those are friends. Friends Greg and I will never get back. So don’t pretend there’s anything between us. How’s about you just tell us what we want to know, before I decide seeing you bitches die is more important than walking away from here alive.”

“Very well,” Peisinoe said, her words chilly and precise. “We will tell you what you want to know, as per the rules of the agreement—”

“You’re such a self-righteous hypocrite,” Nell said, turning away from us, her blonde hair swinging over her face and hiding her eyes. “You call us monsters and murderers? But what does that make you? How many sons have you murdered, Yancy Lazarus? Just because a creature isn’t human, doesn’t mean it isn’t someone’s son or daughter, mother or father. You would wave your blood soaked hands at us? When you know so very little?”

Peisinoe scooted closer to the youngest Siren, carefully draping an arm over her heaving shoulders, shushing her quietly.

“Once we were royalty, you know,” Ivana said, her voice distant and thoughtful. “We are the last of our kind now, but once, in a time before the memory of man, the Sirens were a great nation and a proud people. We weren’t always entertainers.” She smoothed back her raven hair and in that moment she did look regal. “We were peacemakers. The great diplomats between the world of men and monsters, our music a balm to soothe the restless soul and bring healing to the nations.” She plucked at her dress as if imagining it to be a gown fit for her lofty station.

“But, as with so many things,” she continued, “our time was cut short. We fell out of favor. Barbarian humans, seeking to enslave one another. Burning for power. So eager to profit at the death of their own kind. They cast us out. We gave them peace and they spurned it. Spurned us. Manipulators. Witches. Whores. Heathens.

“Our kin were hunted down and slain, one by one. Killed by your kind.” She jabbed a finger at me, her lovely face twisted into a grimace of agony. “The magi—human thugs. And now?” She faltered, letting the question hang, unanswered. “Now, we are but three. The disgraced Queen”—she placed a gentle hand on Peisinoe’s shoulder—“and the fallen Princesses. Reduced to court jesters for the amusement of others.” She fell quiet, glancing away as twin streams of tears poured from her eyes, running down her flawless skin and dripping onto her sequined dress.

“So don’t you dare speak to us of monsters,” she said, the words slightly muffled by her hand as she wiped the tears free. “We are survivors. What we have done since your kind robbed us of everything¸ is merely survive. Back in Vietnam, we were soldiers fighting in a war, no different from you. You’re no better than us, so don’t you dare lay your accusations at our feet.”

I looked away, glancing at Greg, who was carefully surveying the golden buttons running up the front of his jacket.

I felt about as small as a mouse turd just then. Shit, I was the guy who made monsters cry.

“Dear Ivana, that is quite enough, I think,” Peisinoe said, offering her a small, sad smile. She turned back toward me. “We have agreed to tell you what you seek and we will abide by the terms of the bargain. So come, tell us what you would know.”

I cleared my throat, trying to figure out how to start, feeling like maybe I should apologize. But I couldn’t. The words caught in my mouth and refused to come.

Granted, there might have been more to their story than I knew, and maybe even fiends could be worthy of sympathy and grace. But I wasn’t the kinda guy to give it to ’em. They were right, I’d made a lot of mistakes in my day and I’d killed more than my fair share of folks in a bid to survive, so perhaps I didn’t have any right to cast stones their way.

But I’d also owned the consequences of my actions. I carried the guilt—carried all those deaths—around with me, forever weighing on my mind and conscience like a chain wrapped around my throat. The faces of the dead and damned often flashed through my dreams and lingered in the dark spaces of my mind. I was accountable for those lives, and someday the butcher’s bill would come due. That’s the way life works—you reap what you sow. I’d sown a helluva lot of death and chaos out into the universe. Eventually it would come home to roost, and I had a certain measure of peace in that.

These women … well, they needed to be held accountable for the lives they’d taken, too. Their pain and suffering went a long way toward explaining all the brokenness carved into their flesh and blood and lives, but it didn’t get ’em off the hook. It didn’t wash away their sins or justify their carnage.

In the end, I couldn’t apologize. So instead I brushed past their tale with a callous heart, laying out the dire situation before us: the Wendigo, the brainwashed Chiye-tanka, the engineered Wendigo virus, and, of course, the tiara. Kong, Winona, Ferraro, and I all spoke in turns, offering up different pieces of the tale, making sure no relevant details were left out—though, thank good God above, no one spoke about the Seals.

For the first time, the sisters looked truly troubled, deeply worried, but also strangely hopeful.

“This tiara does indeed belong to us, though it has been an age since last we saw it,” Peisinoe said at last. “My crown, stolen by Jason and his Argonauts—unwitting pawns of the magi. A final blow to strip us of our heritage and the last vestige of our rule. The tiara is far more powerful then anyone understands or knows. We have held close the secret of its power for fear it would bring pandemonium into the world on an unprecedented level. This Wendigo seems to know a great deal—far more than he ought.”

She stared intently at the chief, still hunkered down against the back wall. “Lord Chankoowashtay, if you would see your people saved, it is imperative that you get the tiara away from the creature. The sooner the better. The tiara was designed and meant for my people, it was never built to compel the minds of the unwilling—not in this fashion. When used in such a manner the damage it can do … may be irreversible. Compulsion on this magnitude takes a toll on the mind. The more a freewill being is compelled to act against its essential nature, the more damage is done. The personality might be eradicated, the mind obliterated, the body driven to utter madness.”

“Ma’am,” Greg said, far more politely than I would’ve expected out of him. “I’ve got a question. “Now I know this tiara protects this Wendigo from Yancy’s hoodoo”—he was all no-nonsense business again—“but is there anything stoppin’ me from putting a fifty caliber round right into his daggon skull? Not to toot my own horn, but I’m a fair shot.”

Greg was better than a fair shot. He’d never qualified below expert—the highest level of marksmanship in the Corps—and he’d later gone Force Recon, the Marine Corps equivalent of Special Forces.

“I could set up a concealed firing position a half mile out,” Greg said, “you guys could lure this thing into the open, and I could put a round right through his eye socket. Turn that son of a bitch into a cloud of pink mist.” He turned to look at me. “You and James could even build me one of those specialty rounds, inscribed with sigils and glyphs if you think it’d help.”

He faced the Sirens once more. “So would the tiara protect him from that?”

Ferraro nodded her head in appreciation of the straightforward, take-no-prisoners plan, and I had to admit it had real merits. Supernatural baddies often neglect and underestimate the tremendous advances in modern military tech. The Wendigo probably wouldn’t give a second thought to such a ploy—he’d be expecting some kind of big confrontation involving a lot of chest beating and shit talking. I, on the other hand, was totally fine with capping his hairy ass. Not heroic, but very pragmatic. And like I’ve said before, I’ll pick pragmatism over heroism any day of the week.

“No, the crown would not shelter the beast from such an attack,” Peisinoe said levelly. “It is designed to protect the wearer from magi, not from mortal weaponry. Your kind, dearest Gregory, has come so far since the days when we first constructed the tiara. Who should have ever guessed how effective you would become at killing each other?” She hesitated for a moment, smoothing her flashy dress. “Sadly, your plan, Mr. Chandler, will not work—unless, of course, the fate of the Chiye-tanka is immaterial. To kill the Wendigo in such a way would mean their certain death.”

“No,” Kong growled, “that is unacceptable. I will not allow my people to be harmed.”

“Peace, father,” Winona said, running one hand over Kong’s arm. “Your blood is still hot from the battle. Peace. The Hand of Fate will work things out. Please, Madam Siren, continue.”

Peisinoe nodded graciously toward Winona, a small thank you. “As I was saying, your plan will certainly kill the Wendigo—assuming such an attack can, in fact, kill it—but it will not destroy the pieces of himself he has already inserted into the minds of his victims. The tiara allows the wearer to deposit a sliver of their own subconscious into every mind it touches, a shadow linking back to the original. That is why the tiara works so well. It replicates and implants the mind of the wearer, enabling each separate host to operate with a degree of autonomy while remaining connected to the larger hive-mind.

“If you simply kill the beast without first wrestling control of the tiara away from him—thus erasing the shadow access points—those pieces of his mind will live on. And, over time, they will grow, eroding the minds of the infected like a cancer. It may take years and years, but eventually these shadow fragments will leave behind an empty husk. A barely recognizable shell, and that is best-case scenario, I’m afraid ...” She trailed off, letting the revelation hang in the air like a dark cloud.

“Well shit,” I said. “Why?”

“Why, what?” Ivana asked.

“Why the hell does everything always have to be a bajillion times more complicated than it should be? Nothing ever gets better, it always gets worse. I finally get answers, only to find out that the shitty situation is actually a thousand times shittier than I’d originally anticipated.” I threw up my hands in sheer frustration. “Fine. Whatever. So we can’t just ice this dick and be done with it. So tell me what horrible thing I’m going to have to do to break his control over the tiara.”

“I’m so glad you asked,” Peisinoe replied, a rich, full, genuine smile blooming on her face. “There are two ways this can happen. First, the creature can willingly relinquish control of the tiara, giving it to you of his own free volition. Since you’re here, I’m assuming that is an unlikely avenue. The second option is the fun option. The tiara must be coded to the user, and it can only be bonded to a single user at any given point. So, you will need to code it to yourself. It’s an easy process, really: smear a dab of blood on the ruby at the tiara’s center whilst casting a simple weave of spirit into the stone. A link for both mind and body, you see.”

I shook my head. “And how the hell am I supposed to get close enough to do that without having the Wendigo rip my friggin’ arms from my torso and beat me to death with ’em?”

“That’s the fun part,” Nell said.

“Assuming you can manage the task,” Peisinoe continued, “the tiara will only recognize one master. Since this Wendigo is already bound to the tiara, when you then establish a competing claim …” She fell silent. “Well, a battle of wills shall ensue. You can invade his mind, and—if your will is strong enough, stronger than his—you can crush him. The winner will emerge victorious, master of the tiara, and the loser will summarily have their mind erased.” She leaned forward, giving me an uninvited, though not unappreciated, glance down her dress. “Catatonia is the best which can be hoped for.”

“Gee, catatonia, you don’t say,” I replied. “Any other good news I should know going in?”

“No, that is all. Now, I believe we have fulfilled the terms of our agreement. I will alert Lord Arawn and he shall see you out. As for us, the party goes on. Always and forever.” The last was a small, sad whisper.

The sisters stood as one and filed off toward the door, stately and elegant, every inch of the royalty they claimed to be. Ivana and Nell both exited without a backward glance, but Peisinoe hesitated at the door, looking back at both Greg and me.

“I know you have little love for us, but remember that this night we have spared your lives. Had we been so inclined, we could have abandoned you to the grisly, inevitable fate of the hunt. So think on that while we are apart.” She hesitated for just a moment. “And, should you succeed and recover the tiara,” she said softly, “know that I would pay a great price to have it returned to me. I’d pay more than you can imagine.” She turned and glided from the room, vanishing from sight.

A few minutes later Lord Arawn, a pack of hellhounds, and the sorely disappointed looking Dullahan arrived to escort us from the premises. The walk back to the portal seemed to take a lifetime, mostly because one of those monstrous dogs kept rubbing up against me, digging his head into my ribs, and licking his colossal chops. A supremely disconcerting experience, all things considered.

When we finally got back to the portal, Arawn regarded each of us with a grave stare. “Tonight,” he said in a bored drawl, “you invaded my home and my land. Tonight you waged a war against my people and won. Tonight you offered me a warning about treachery in my court. But, of even greater importance, tonight you entertained me. You gave me spectacle”—he threw a gauntleted fist into the air—“something both new and exciting. An exceedingly rare gift. And for that you have earned my gratitude. To reward you, I will give you your lives in accordance with our bargain and I also name each of you a friend of the Black Lodge.”

“So does that mean we’ll get invites to all the parties?” I asked.

Arawn laughed, a deep, rich bark. “No. It means I will consider not eating you if you should stumble through my land again uninvited. Now go, before my mood changes. I hunger for the hunt.” He turned toward the Dullahan. “Assemble the lords and ladies—tell them we shall throw wide the gates of the Pit this night and have sport.” He reached down and ran a giant hand over a hellhound’s broad head. “You will feast yet.”

I’m not at all ashamed to admit I was the very first one to scramble back through the portal and get the hell away from that loony moon-bat.

TWENTY-NINE:

Intelligence

I sprawled in Kong’s whirlpool of total badassery—err, the Fountain of Youth—soaking up some well-deserved R and R while I mulled over the terrible situation looming before us. James, Greg, and Ferraro all lounged in the warmth of the fountain, too. Healing waters seeping into cuts and gouges, massaging away bruises and aches, washing clean the sour stink of battle and death. Kong, on the other hand, paced impatiently by the shore of the dark lagoon, crossing the length of the cavern in a few long strides, his thoughts obviously elsewhere—like maybe with Winona. She’d ducked away the second we made it back to the cave, darting off without a word.

Since Kong and Winona could speak telepathically, he, at least, had to know what was going on. And Kong looked none too pleased about whatever “it” was. Whatever. He’d get around to opening his trap once he was ready.

I watched the water bubble and ripple, my mind lazily drifting back to our return trip from Anwnn. Passing into Harold’s interdimensional homestead, trudging through the Hub, and hoofing it back to Sasquatch Central had taken a solid couple of hours … well, not counting a few brief layovers. First we stopped off at a Hub-side greasy spoon called Ricky’s Burger Joint. The place boasted it had the best burgers in Inworld or Out, which was a porta-John full of bullshit, but at least the serving staff didn’t ask any awkward or uncomfortable questions about our gore-soaked attire or our large, furry travelling companions.

I’ll be the first to admit I have no great love for the Hub, but I’ll give it this much: the Hub Dwellers, by and large, know not to ask too many probing questions. Heck, for the servers at Ricky’s, our odd, formalwear-clad party was probably only the third or fourth weirdest thing they’d seen that day.

After filling up the ol’ food-tank, we stopped off at the Brokers of Iskdarla Shopping Emporium—try saying that five times, fast—the largest retail mall anywhere in existence. The emporium was like the bastard child of the world’s biggest garage sale and a sprawling third-world outdoor market. Since Greg and James didn’t have extra clothes with ’em—and we couldn’t afford for them to head home and grab new duds—the emporium was the best option.

Plus Greg wanted to pick up that sniper rifle, just in case, so we popped by Invisible-Danh’s. The place was a supremely shady, black-market weapons shop, run by an equally shady Dökkálfar named, of course, Invisible Danh—so called for his uncanny ability to smuggle weapons under the radar. Danh and I went back a good ways, and though he was a shifty bastard, he was also reliable and friendly.

Reminded me of myself, actually. He’d also been the one to customize my handgun as a friendly thank you for an off-the-books job I’d done for him back in my Guild days. And his daughter, Megan the Teal, was the best damned leatherworker I’d ever seen. She was my go-to gal whenever I needed a new Kevlar-lined jacket or a replacement shoulder rig for my hand cannon. The pair of ’em did outstanding work.

After all that jazz, we headed back to Kong and Winona’s secret hidey-hole and, believe it or not, we actually made it without any major incidents. We weren’t waylaid by bandits, assaulted by a pack of flesh-eating zombies, or mugged in a dark alley by some halfie stoned out of its gourd on whatever the latest drug of choice was. I rarely catch breaks like that, so I figured Lady Fate was throwing me a little love, giving me a brief respite—the eye in the storm, if you will—before everything went to nine-kinds-of-blow-your-face-up-hell.

And let’s not forget, I did have to drag my tired ass down the asstastic spiral staircase that led to the secret chamber below the cave proper. So even my small victory felt cheap.

Further tainting my win: I still had no clue how we were going to beat the Wendigo, rescue the People of the Forest, or put the kibosh on the nefarious undertakings of Doctor Hogg, Fast Hands Steve, and the mysterious asshat running the show. After leaping through all those flaming hoops with Arawn and the Sirens—barely escaping with our friggin’ lives—we weren’t really any better off than we’d been before.

Sure, now we knew the Wendigo could be stopped, but I didn’t have a way to pull it off. After the royal ass-kicking Kong had dished out to the Wendigo at the motorhome, that S.O.B. was gonna be ready for us. Assholes like him were opportunists who would only strike when they had a clear advantage. I knew it, because I’m an asshole opportunist, too, and we can spot our own.

“Well, we’re not going to get anything done sitting around here, licking our wounds, and pretending like the problem’s going to go away on its own,” Ferraro said, interrupting the peaceful quiet while folding her arms across her bra-covered breasts. The motion earned her an appraising leer from James.

“And what would you suggest we do, exactly?” James asked. “It’s all well and good to say we ought to do something, but which of you has an actual suggestion?”

“That’s why we need to talk through it,” Ferraro replied, giving him a narrow-eyed glare. “And stop staring at my breasts. Aren’t you over a hundred? How about you grow up a little?”

“Says the woman who’s young enough to still require a babysitter—” James muttered.

“We start with what we know,” Greg interjected, before the spat could escalate further. “In my experience, an operation’s about as good as the intelligence behind it. Based on what we know right now, I’d say we’re in a helluva lot of trouble. First, we know that this Wendigo fella has the tiara and he has backup—these enthralled Chiye-tanka. But what about other reinforcements? More cops or Little Brothers? Hell, do we even know for daggon sure where the Wendigo and his goons are? I mean, you sabotaged their motorhome and burned down the mill, which was probably their base of operation.”

Kong ceased his restless marching and turned on us. He frowned and snorted, his great nostrils flaring. “There have been many changes,” he said, then began pacing once more.

“Changes, you say. How helpful,” I replied. “Maybe you’d care to elaborate just a bit since none of us are friggin’ mind readers.”

He halted again, his stony face unreadable. Then his left eye twitched—never a good sign—and before I could blink, he smashed a huge fist into the floor. Chips of stone broke free and skidded across the ground. “With the destruction of the mill, the Kinslayer has retreated to the Sacred Grove. He has taken my people and this Doctor Hogg with him,” he growled. Anger seethed beneath his flesh, his skin shifting and distorting in random areas—under his jaw, across his chest, down one leg—as though the demonic creature within were clawing its way out.

“He has desecrated our ancestral pacts,” Kong continued. “The great trees, they called to me the moment we returned to Inworld.” He glared at us, like this was all our fault somehow. “I have sent my daughter to investigate this. But it is grave news.”

“Well, has she discovered anything useful yet?”

Kong said nothing. After a long moment of hesitation, he shook his blocky head.

“You said he has your people with him. How many are we talking about?” Greg asked, cool and levelheaded, always keeping his eye on the nitty-gritty.

“We are few in number, but still we stand a thousand strong.”

“Excuse me,” James said, “I must’ve misheard. Did you say there are a thousand of your kind currently enthralled to the will of this Wendigo fellow?”

The chief nodded. “Indeed.”

“Then this conversation is pointless,” James said, settling back against the rock wall. “Even with the chief and Winona, we’d be hard-pressed to subdue more than a handful of the Sasquatches. But a thousand?” He rubbed one water-slick hand across his square chin, probably adding the numbers up in his head. “If we had the entire Fist of the Staff and every Judge in the Guild—all two hundred and thirteen of them—perhaps we could take out a thousand plus Chiye-tanka. But with our numbers?” He eyed our small party, then shook his head. “No. It isn’t possible, I’m afraid. Not in a war of attrition.”

“So, obviously,” Ferraro said, “hitting them head-on isn’t the best course of action. But that doesn’t have to be the only course of action.” She turned to Kong. “Is there anything else you can tell us? Maybe there’s some kind of back way into this grove we could access?”

The chief was quiet for a time. Sharing the secrets of his people couldn’t have been easy for him, and I could see his natural inclination to stay tight-lipped battling for supremacy over his urgent need for help.

“No,” he said at last. “No back way in. The Sacred Grove is a sanctuary and a fortress. It has one entrance. A cave, like this one. The grove is an axis mundi. Like the mill. But natural. Pure. You enter the cave, you exit in the Sacred Grove. That is the only way.

“My daughter says”—he tapped at his temple—“the entrance is guarded by your Fast Hands Steve and the human sheriff, Jack Kelly. They have many warriors.” He paused, his eyes momentarily distant, the look he got when communicating directly with his daughter. “Twenty-five man-creatures—many not human, though my daughter says they wear flesh masks.”

Greg frowned for a moment, then nodded. “Twenty-five. We can handle twenty-five.”

“No, we can’t,” James said matter-of-factly. “Because the moment we engage the force positioned at the entryway, the enthralled Chiye-tanka will flood out of the Sacred Grove like a plague of locust.”

“I got an idea,” Greg said, fixing a crusty stare on James. “How ’bout you actually contribute to the conversation, instead of just shootin’ your daggon mouth off?”

“Correction, Mr. Chandler,” James replied as he laced his hands behind his head, flexing his biceps while letting the water rush up over his chest. “I’m contributing a little thing called reality to the conversation.”

Ferraro shot up, standing in the pool, water trickling down her bare stomach as she thrust an accusing finger at James. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to persuade us not to interfere. Maybe you’ve got Yancy convinced you’re still one of the good guys, but you don’t have everyone here fooled.”

“Sit down,” James commanded, his jocular, frat-boy veneer replaced by a hardened veteran of a thousand battles. “I’m no traitor, but I’ll be more than happy to tell you what I am. I am a battlefield commander with more experience fighting the supernatural than anyone in this room. I’ve been Lieutenant Commander of the Fist of the Staff since the Second World War—I fought off Ahnenerbe SS officers while Mr. Chandler, there, was still waddling around in training pants.

“And Agent Ferraro,” he continued without a pause, “despite the fact that you’ve proven yourself quite capable thus far, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re practically a child toying about with forces far beyond your understanding. So if I say a plan is lousy, I’d suggest taking the words to heart.”

“You know,” Ferraro replied, her voice dripping venom, “Old Man Winter underestimated me, too. Then I blew his leg off with a shotgun.”

“I swear I’ll turn this hot tub right around if you don’t stop bickering,” I said, conjuring a small weave of water and sending a spray at Greg, Ferraro, and James, all at once. “Fighting each other isn’t gonna help anyone—and James, stop being an asshole.”

“I’m not being an ass,” he said, his normally unflappable movie-star grin replaced by a scowl.

“Yeah. You. Are. So stop it.” Damn, tensions must’ve really been running high for me to be the voice of reason. Like entrusting the car keys to a twelve-year-old with a drinking problem.

“Sorry,” Greg finally muttered before lapsing into silence.

“Me too,” Ferraro said, glancing at James. “That outburst was unprofessional of me. Must just be the stress. You’re right. You have a lot of experience and that’s not something which should be discounted.”

James grunted and nodded, mollified.

“Chief, is there any chance an attack on the guard team would draw the Wendigo out?” Greg asked after a few long seconds.

Kong thought about it for long while, before finally shaking his head. “Unlikely. The Kinslayer will not confront me again. Not until he is sure of victory.”

“Still,” Ferraro said, “maybe we could stage a distraction to draw the guards away from the entrance, keep them from alerting the Sasquatches inside. That might afford someone an opportunity to sneak past. Probably Yancy and”—she hesitated for a moment—“James,” she finished begrudgingly. “We buy them an opening, they infiltrate under the cover of an illusion.”

“The grove is a fortress,” Kong said again, his brow furrowed in worry. “Infiltration is impossible. An illusion will not work. My people have far superior senses. They will be alert. Even covered in illusion, the mages will never come close to the Kinslayer. He will take no more chances.”

“Even if you or your daughter were to carry them in?” Ferraro asked.

“No,” Kong said. The word was barely more than a whisper, but seemed as sharp and final as the last nail in a coffin lid. “With so many of the People on guard it is not possible. No trickery will work.”

A plan began to form in my brain—a terrible, reckless, moronic idea. One that Kong would almost certainly reject out of hand without a moment’s hesitation. I also had a feeling deep, deep down that it was gonna suck more than a literal sucking chest wound—was probably gonna hurt more, too. But it was also the only way.

“Ferraro,” I said in resignation, “if you could figure out a way to buy me enough time to get into the Sacred Grove, I think I know how I could get close enough to the Kinslayer. Though I’m gonna have to do it alone.” I locked eyes with the chief. “We need to have a word in private, I think.”

“What are you cookin’ up?” Greg said, searching my face as he rubbed at the stubble on his cheek. “I’ve known you long enough to tell there’s something going on in that empty space between your ears. And if you want us all gone”—he waved a hand at Ferraro and James—“then it’s gotta be more reckless than a Marine on boot-leave.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I looked away, refusing to meet his eyes. “You just gotta trust that I know what I’m doing. So how’s about you just nod your ugly mug and scoot along.”

No one said anything for a long beat. Ferraro, Greg, and James shared speculative looks, like they were trying to jointly decide whether to comply or pin me down and whip me with wet towels until I spilled the beans.

“Alright, good to go, devil,” Greg finally said, breaking the silence, nodding his head just a notch. “But if you do something foolish and get yourself hurt, I don’t wanna hear no bitchin’ and moanin’ about after the fact, you got that, Princess?”

Ferraro rolled her eyes and slid next to me, her hip brushing against mine. She reached up and grabbed me by the chin, eyes locked onto mine. “I’m trusting you to do the right thing.”

“I know,” I said.

“Come back in one piece.” She pulled me into a brief kiss, her lips pressing into mine, lingering for a moment as my heart pounded, before drawing away. “One piece, you understand?”

James took the longest to agree. He sat unmoving, worry gnawing at him, dancing across his face as he solemnly regarded his immaculately manicured fingernails. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” he said at last. “I know you’re the Hand of Fate, but I also know you, old sport. Do you know why I tagged along so often on your missions?”

“Because you were insanely jealousy of my keen wit and good looks?”

He snorted. “Hardly. You perpetually look like someone just fished you out of a gutter. And a wall-mounted trout has more wits. And that, my friend, is precisely why I followed you. Your plans never show any subtlety, subterfuge, or even a hint of grace and elegance.” He leaned his head back, staring up at the hanging stalactites. “But”—a lopsided grin broke across his face at last—“as they say, ‘God smiles upon children, idiots, and drunks.’ Since you’re basically an amalgamation of all three, I’ll just have to trust there is, in fact, some higher providence at play here.”

I swear, sometimes I get less respect than a conspiracy theorist wearing a bathrobe and a tinfoil hat.

THIRTY:

Heart-to-Heart

It took Ferraro, Greg, and James only a few minutes to dry off, gear up, and beat feet, heading to the upper regions of the cave, leaving Kong and I all by our lonesome in the underground sanctuary.

“No,” Kong said without preamble. Jerk didn’t even give me a chance to speak my piece.

“I haven’t even told you what my plan is yet,” I protested.

“I am no whelp. I am the true Chief of my People and Guardian of the Second Seal, handed down to me from my father, and his father before him. I have lived for a thousand years, and have watched the designs of man. Your companions may be blind, but I see. You want the Seal,” he said, taking all the steam right out of my sail, since that was exactly what I was going to suggest.

“Well …” I said, adjusting my position on the rock bench, stalling for time. “Yeah, more or less.”

“You do not understand what you ask,” the chief said, shaking his head, his voice a bellowing sigh whispering across the surface of the water. “The Seal’s power is not a blessing. It cannot be harnessed or controlled. Those who would seek the power will be controlled by it instead. And the longer you hold it the more powerful its hold on you becomes.” He fell silent, his thoughts turned inward. “Even with the Seal,” he continued eventually, “you may not be a match for the Kinslayer. The power within him grows each day. So does his grip on my people. If you attempt to fight him, he will kill you. Kill you and take the Seal.”

“Exactly,” I said. “That’s my point.”

“Your plan for the Kinslayer to kill you?” he asked slowly.

“Yes, err, no. It’s like this, the Kinslayer wants the Seal, right? I mean that’s the real prize. That’s why he was hired on, you dig it? But you already wiped the floor with his sorry ass once, so he’s not gonna want a rematch with you—not until he’s entirely certain he can win.”

“I still do not understand this plan,” Kong said flatly.

“Just bear with me a second, okay? Now he knows he doesn’t stand a chance against you—not yet, anyway. But if I show up with the Seal and challenge him on his home turf, he’ll welcome me with open arms. Even with the Seal, he’s gonna assume I’m easy game, and he’s gonna be more than happy to tear the heart out of my chest and eat it in front of my eyes.”

“Yes,” Kong said. “This I understand. He will know he can easily defeat you, and this will give him the thing he desires. The more I listen to this plan, the less I like it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Look, it would be a terrible plan if I had to kill him, because we both know I can’t. And he’ll know it, too. But I don’t need to kill him. I can hold my own in a battle of wills, a battle of minds, and for that I just need to get close to him—like eat-the-heart-out-of-my-chest close. But the only way I get close enough to do what needs doing is to make him think he’s holding all the cards. He needs to invite me up. If the Kinslayer thinks he’s got a sure thing, he’ll get greedy and take the bait.”

The chief lumbered over to the dark lagoon, starring deeply into the water as if it held answers he urgently sought. “If you fail,” he said, his voice quiet and full of doubt, “then I will have failed in my duty. He will kill you. He will take the Seal and give it to his master. He will use my people for his will.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I snapped, suddenly feeling the immense weight riding on this play. “I’m the one who’s gonna have his heart eaten if this thing goes south. Look, I wish there were some other way, but unless you’re willing to see your people eradicated from the face of this world, there’s no other way. Lady Fate chose me as her Hand, so I’ve gotta assume that if we’ve made it this far, there’s a least a small chance this plan can work. And if it doesn’t … well, have Greg put a fifty-caliber bullet through Kinslayer’s eye. Seal or no Seal, I bet he won’t get up from that. Maybe it means the death of your people, but better that than the death of all people.”

Kong turned toward me, his great emerald eyes pinpricks of light in his dark face. “You would risk yourself so my people might live?”

It was my turn to fall silent and regard the swirling waters washing over my body. “Don’t turn this into some sentimental cry fest, alright, big guy? Here’s the thing, I’ve been in your shoes, I’ve been exactly where you’re at. I know what it’s like to lose the people closest to you—people you’re supposed to protect. I also know what it’s like to have the people who could help turn their backs and flip you the bird instead.

“Hope dying,” I said, “that’s the sharp pain sitting in your gut right now. And there’s no worse feeling in the world.” I shrugged, trying not to make a big deal of it. “Despite what you did to my car, you and your daughter seem like decent folks. You’ve endured a lot for the good of others. I’d hate to see you lose everything if there’s a chance to make things right.”

He nodded. “When my daughter revealed to me you were the Hand of Fate,” he said slowly, “I didn’t believe her. I took you to be a feebleminded buffoon—”

“Jeez. Thanks for the honesty,” I grumbled softly.

“But I see now,” he continued without pause, “the Wyre choose right. But know this, once I relinquish the Seal, I will not hold its weight again. This is not a thing to be done with a half heart. You will be the Seal Bearer in truth. Do you still want it?”

Although that was what I’d just lobbied for, I was suddenly reluctant. Talk is one thing, but action is something else entirely. Was I really gonna let this giant ape-man load me down with one of the seven Seals of Revelation? Was I really gonna turn my soul into Club Med for a demonic essence, one of the most powerful creatures in creation?

I wanted booze and cigarettes. I wanted good food and better music. I wanted a couple of one-night flings now and again and the freedom of the open road. This choice was the opposite of that—choosing the Seal was the antithesis of everything I wanted out of life. Of everything I’d already given up and walked away from. If I chose this road, I’d be shackling myself with a life-altering burden and one I couldn’t just run away from if things got too heavy, because this would be a burden I’d carry in my soul. And all for some furry ape who ripped the door off my Camino.

I sighed and crawled from the Jacuzzi, letting water run off me and puddle at my feet. Screw it. Besides, this wasn’t just about Kong and his daughter. This was about the homeless folks from the motorhome—dragged away in chains, their freedom taken and their lives stolen. This was about all the people who would die if I walked away.

And not just people in the nebulous, big-picture sense of the word. No, I wasn’t worried about saving humanity. I was concerned about saving people like crusty-ass Greg or douchewaffle James—friends who were worth dying for. People like my two sons, both grown with children of their own. I’d left under the pretense of protecting them, sheltering them from all the craziness of my life. I’d stopped lying to myself about that a long time ago—I’d abandoned ’em because I couldn’t hack it as a father. But I could do this for ’em. For my grandkids, who I barely knew. And this was about Ferraro. Knowing that, for some unfathomable reason, she respected me and believed in me even though I didn’t deserve it. I wanted, in some small way, to live into that respect.

“Okay,” I said.

“Dark times,” Kong muttered. “But I believe you are worthy to bear this.” He pointed toward a stone bench near the hot spring. “Go and lay.”

I complied, walking over and sprawling onto my back, gently resting my head against rough stone, even as a sense of dread grew in the pit of my stomach. Kong ghosted over to a recessed dip near the far wall and returned a second later with a branch—maybe an inch in diameter and half a foot in length—in one hand, and a crude stone edged knife in the other. The dread morphed from a small seed of worry into a massive tree of outright terror.

I cleared my throat, eyeing the troubling stone blade. “I’m sorry,” I said, “maybe you could just walk me through how exactly this whole transfer thing works. I kinda thought you would just lay your hands on me, offer some kinda blessing. You know, something not involving knives or surgery.”

He merely extended the stick to me. “Stop talking. Bite down on this. The pain is great.”

“I’m rethinking this plan,” I said, hysteria taking hold and flowing through me like liquid fire, tightening my muscles. This was like a scene out of one of those Saw movies. “Maybe there is another way. How ’bout we just sleep on it for the night, tackle the problem in the morning.”

I tried to sit up, only to find one huge hand pressing me down. “I will be quick,” he said gravely.

“Shit, knock me out at least,” I said. “You and your daughter are good at that. If you’re gonna cut me open, the least you could do is make sure I’m not conscious for it.” I was hyperventilating. My heart labored like a car engine working in overdrive, my breath came in short, rapid pulls, and sweat slicked my already wet body.

“I cannot,” he said, taking the branch and sliding it between my teeth. “We must speak old words. The words of binding.”

Before I could protest further, he brought the knife to rest against my sternum and pressed down. The blade bit in, and a line of fire seared its way across my skin as blood welled and flesh parted beneath the razor’s edge. I bit down, hard. Sinking my teeth into the wood, tasting a hint of pine as my body went rigid, legs hyperextended, arms straining and flexing in agony. In reality the cutting lasted no more than a few seconds, but it seemed to drag on for a lifetime or two.

With the gruesome task done, Kong set aside the knife and placed one hand over the wound, pressing down into the incision while bringing his other hand up to his chest. He began to utter words that made no sense to my mind, slow and muttered at first, but growing louder with each passing second. After a minute or so the muttering transformed into an elegant, beautiful song. Even in his low, gravely voice, the rhythmic chant became a poem, the cave itself seeming to reverberate and dance to the melody. It had to be the language of the angels, the Enochian tongue.

All thought was ripped rudely away from my mind as my sternum cracked and my ribcage groaned, my chest cavity opening wide to the world like a giant mouth uttering a wordless scream. My eyes rolled up in my head as my legs beat and flopped against the stone. I wanted to die, to pass out at the very least, but whatever spell Kong had spoken over me kept me awake and alert. Yay for my life.

I glanced up at the solemn-faced chief; his chest was also cracked wide open, revealing the massive piece of meat beating within. Carefully, he reached in with his free hand, questing about for a moment before his huge fingers latched on to the red and black shard of crystal attached to the organ like a leech.

The shard resisted his grip at first, as though whatever entity resided within actively fought his attempts at extraction. After a few brief heartbeats—quite literally, in this case—it came away with a sickening pop. The stone pulsed with a faint light, a hazy aura of anger and death all wrapped up into one fun-sized party treat.

“Yancy Lazarus, mage of the Guild and Hand of Fate,” Kong intoned. “Do you swear to stand guard over the Second Seal and defend it with your life as you wait for the great and glorious Day of the Lord Most High?”

“Yesssh,” I mumbled around the branch.

“And do you swear to resist the power of Azazel the Purros, Grigori of Old, Scourge of Mankind, Maker of War, and Lord of Dark Magicks, bound within?”

“Scourge of Mankind?” God, my life sucks so much sometimes. “Yesssh,” I grunted again.

He lowered the shard toward my splayed chest—a sharp pain like a jumbo-wasp stabbing into my center followed, a jolt of white-hot electricity racing outward through my body and along my limbs.

“Then I, Chief Chankoowashtay, Leader of the People and former Seal Bearer, stand as witness and charge you to bear and guard this Seal until another worthy soul is found or death robs you of your final breath. So mote it be.”

A crack of ozone ripped through the air. The pain in my chest faded as wonderful unconsciousness stole over me. The last thing I remembered was Kong picking me up, my arms and legs like limps noodles, and carefully, gently, lowering my body into warm waters.

THIRTY-ONE:

Foolhardy Plans

It’d been ten hours since I’d gone under the knife for open-heart surgery, but, surprisingly, I was feeling damn good. Whether that was from my time spent in the hot spring, the eight-hour snooze fest, or having the essence of a demonic being implanted into my chest cavity, I couldn’t say. Still, I’ll take my victories where I can get ’em.

I crouched near a large fir tree, its needles brushing up against my leather jacket as I surveyed the cave opening ahead and the guards milling around out front. I was alone, concealed by a serviceable illusion—nothing fancy like James could manage, but good enough to hide me from the hired muscle. Heck, even without the illusion, there was a good chance I wouldn’t have been seen. The cave entrance was westerly facing, and the sun was dipping down below the horizon for the evening—the last rays of light temporarily blinding onlookers while also casting long shadows over the land, easily camouflaging me.

The cave entrance before me, an actual axis mundi, a weak spot between worlds—this one connecting backcountry Montana with a sacred grove of ancient trees somewhere deep in Outworld—wasn’t overly impressive. I’d been expecting something giant and medieval: like a clunky castle gate with a moat filled with fire instead of water. Something flashy and epic. But it was just a cave. A narrow, craggy opening in an insignificant face of rock.

The folks guarding the cave entrance, though, were definitely worth a second glance. Fast Hands sat in a plastic folding lawn chair—a trailer park staple—cigarette between his reptilian lips and a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon in one hand. He wasn’t even bothering with a flesh mask, not anymore, which earned him a bubble of space from the handful of nervous Rube cops standing around at evenly spaced intervals.

The only human apparently unbothered by Fast Hands’s bizarre appearance was Sheriff Kelly, who occupied his own lawn chair, likewise nursing a bottle of Pabst while he casually twirled his mustache. Evil bastard. The rest of the folks guarding the premises were hard cases, one and all. A spattering of muscle-headed goons and wiry scrappers. Most of them were sporting ink of one flavor or another, prison tats or halfie gang brands.

One guy sported a two-tailed scorpion burned into the meat of his left forearm—East-end Legion. Supernatural thugs, drug dealers, and pimps. Another had a painstakingly detailed Reaper, leaning on a bastard sword, inked onto the side of his bald head—6th Street Grims. Those turdbags worked a bunch of Hub-side protection rackets, squeezing the poorest of the poor, and exploiting the needy.

The cops seemed to be a solemn lot, by and large, clearly uncomfortable with their temporary partners in crime, but doing their best to retain some degree of professionalism. Good for them. Always take pride in your work, my granddad used to say.

The hired thugs mostly loitered in small pockets of three or four, standing behind hastily constructed sandbag barriers as they smoked, joked, and drank. A folding card table with a lantern had been erected directly at the cave’s opening, barring the way completely. Four guys sat around the table throwing down on a game of Spades, while a few more looked on. Money passed from hand to hand as bids were placed and cards were played.

In movies and books, the bad guys are usually self-disciplined professionals, standing their posts like stony-faced, royal British guards—you know, the ones with the funny black hats. Well I’m here to tell you that real life rarely looks like that. Guarding shit is boring. Hell, standing guard is more boring than watching the golf channel for fifteen hours straight. Sober.

Despite the apparent lack in security, however, I knew better than to get overconfident. These guys were probably all career criminals, each was armed to the gills—a few shotties here, a handful of AKs there, some AR15s, and a handgun for everybody just for good measure—and I knew these shitheads could be ready to dance at the drop of a hat.

The crack-snap of branches breaking in the woods brought every head up in an instant, cards forgotten, and beers left to warm.

“Somebody out there,” Fast Hands called out, his raspy voice echoing in the cool air as he drew his pistol from its holster and spun it lazily in a series of delicate arches. “That you, Lazarus?” he asked. “Ferraro?” he called, his voice a low caress when he said her name.

No answer. After a few minutes of nothing, the guards settled back in, mutters of “false alarm” circulating through the air.

Another crack split the air. Instead of the snap of a branch, however, it was the sharp report of a high-powered rifle. More specifically, the crack of a Barrett M107, a semi-automatic, long-range sniper rifle—the weapon of choice for elite sharpshooters all over the world. Greg was holed up in a concealed fire position about five hundred meters away—a quarter of the distance the M107 could be fired accurately from—a lethal guardian angel standing watch over the craziness to come.

One of the halfies idling near the card table toppled over in a violent jerk of motion, most of his head vanishing in an explosion of skull fragments and a spray of gray meat. I blanched and looked away, my stomach churning at the unsettling sight. In the damaged and broken world we live in, this kind of violence is sometimes a necessary evil, but it never makes looking any easier. The guards weren’t smoking and joking anymore—they grabbed weapons and dove for cover, throwing themselves behind sandbag shelters, rifles and shotties poking out like a hedge of porcupine quills.

Ferraro strutted into view a moment later, walking at a brisk, professional pace, flanked on the right by Kong and the left by Winona. She looked unconcerned by the fact that twenty-four men remained, all glaring and pointing weapons in her direction. She wore Marine Corps woodland cammies with a beige flak jacket over the top. But even with heavy-duty SAPI plate inserts, she’d never survive a simultaneous attack if all those guards decided to open fire at once.

That was where James came in. Though I couldn’t see him, I knew he was positioned just behind the tree line, hidden by a veil while he held the weaves for a defensive shield at the ready, waiting to toss that bad boy up at a moment’s notice. His job was general backup: watch, observe, and make sure everyone got out safe—or in safe, in my case. The proverbial ace in the hole.

“Fast Hands, Sheriff Kelly,” Ferraro said, offering both men—who were now standing at the alert—a terse nod. “I’m glad I have your attention. Now please kindly tell your men to lower their weapons so we can have a civil conversation.”

“Civil conversation,” Sheriff Kelly said, his face red, his eyes bulging as he stole a peek at the gore covered corpse laying not far off. “You just killed one of these men.”

“Not me,” she replied evenly, resting one hand on the buttstock of her shotgun, as though to say, See, I have a shotgun, so obviously I couldn’t have made that shot. “Yancy Lazarus. He’s lying in wait about five hundred yards out, covering us all with a very powerful sniper rifle.”

That last part was a lie, of course, but since neither Fast Hands nor the sheriff knew about Greg, the simple deception would make them think I was present and accounted for. Another score for misdirection and sleight of hand, the true key for magic.

“Now,” Ferraro continued, “if any of your men get itchy trigger fingers, he’ll make sure that the two of you end up just like that man.” She cocked her head to one side and motioned with the tip of her shotgun toward the dead thug. “We thought an appropriate demonstration of force would be more effective in getting your attention.” She canted her wrist and glanced down at a matte-green watch affixed to the underside of her wrist. “You two should have a radio check in”—she paused, her eyes tracking the watch face—“thirty seconds. Every half an hour, on the dot. We’ve been watching.”

The sheriff’s hand crept toward the service revolver hanging on his hip.

“Ah, ah, Sheriff,” Ferraro said. “That could be the kind of thing you’ll regret, though you won’t regret it for long. A fifty caliber round, fired from a military grade M107, has a muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet per second, which means you’ll be dead before you even hear the gunshot. Just something to consider.” She offered him a flat, mean stare, one that said, Just try it sucker, see how fast your body hits the deck. “Now when I tell you—and not a second before—you’re going to pick up your radio, report all clear, then toss your comm gear over to me.” She looked down at the watch again. “Fast Hands, go ahead.”

The snake-man seemed to debate it for a moment, his muscles tensing. Another crack ripped through the air a heartbeat later. A geyser of dirt and rock spewed up into the air, the bullet placed a few inches away from Fast Hands’s left foot. His gaze flashed to the ground, taking in the mini crater, and he hastily retrieved the radio.

“This is Sierra Foxtrot, over,” he hissed into the radio as he thumbed the transmit button. The radio let out a chirp as he let up on the button.

“Go for Hotel Actual, over,” said a sludgy voice, which I recognized straightaway as Doctor Hogg.

“Post one’sss all clear, I say again, post one’sss all clear. Out.”

I cautiously stole from tree to tree, moving as stealthily as I could manage, slowly circling in from the right, making my way around the outer edge of trees, drawing ever closer to the entrance. Had our team actually been invading, Ferraro would’ve waited until after the radio check to make a move—but this spectacle was meant to buy me time, and boy was it working. The guards were enthralled by the drama playing out before them. No one even glanced my way.

“Alright, Sheriff, your turn,” Ferraro said. The man slowly raised the radio and repeated the process, getting an all clear from the evil shithead at the other end of the line.

“Now, gentlemen,” Ferraro instructed, “please toss your radio this way—and again, let’s try to keep this civil.”

Fast Hands’s black eyes narrowed into slits, a look of hate and disgust stealing across his reptilian face. He casually threw the radio, which landed a few feet from Ferraro, sending a puff of dirt kicking up into the air. “What game are you playing at?” he asked.

“No game,” she replied.

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” he hissed. “There ain’t no winning this fight. And I reckon you’re smart enough to know it. Even if you get past us, there ain’t no way you can stand up against the army waiting on the other side of that entrance.”

She shrugged. “That’s our concern, not yours.” She hefted her shotgun and pointed at the sheriff. “Your radio, please.”

The sheriff sniffed, his lips curling down as he regarded the agent and her hairy guards. But, at last, he too pitched his radio, the box landing with a dull thunk. Ferraro swiveled the shotgun and promptly blasted two shots into the communication equipment, one round per. The hard black plastic fractured and the interior electrical guts spewed out.

“Now listen up!” she commanded, raising the shotgun into her shoulder pocket as she assessed the assembled goons, giving each a piece of her steely-eyed stare. “You are on the losing side. My team is going in there”—she motioned toward the cave—“and then we’re going to walk away with the Wendigo’s head on a pointy stick. No ifs, ands, or buts—you copy that?”

She smiled a wicked grin, devoid of anything even remotely resembling amusement. “This whole thing is coming apart at the seams,” she said, taking a moment to meet the sheriff’s gaze, before moving on to each of the police officers standing post. “You should know, we are prepared to kill everyone stupid enough to stand in our way, but we’d rather not. So this is your one and only chance. Put down your guns and walk away. Now.”

A few of the officers shifted on uncomfortable feet. One—Stutzman, the chunky officer who been the first to turn tail and scram at the mill—bent over and laid his service weapon on the ground, before carefully righting himself, hands raised to the sky.

“I’m done,” he said, his deep voice trembling with fear, his eyes wide as he looked from Fast Hands to the Bigfeet flanking Ferraro. “I don’t want no part of this—I never did.”

“Stutzman, don’t you dare turn your back on us,” Sheriff Kelly said, his voice dropping low, scorn laced through each word. “You can’t walk away from this. She’s with the FBI, idiot. Even if she lets you go now, you think you’ll stay a free man?”

“With all due respect, Sheriff,” he said, “I’d rather be locked up than end up with my brains splattered on a rock wall. I’ve got a family to think about. Kids who’ll grow up without a father. No thank you, sir.” He bowed his head, his body heaving as he choked back tears. “This is wrong. Has been from the get-go. I was too much of a chickenshit to say no. Well, now I’m saying it. No. I’m not gonna die out here.” He crept into the open, crossing the clearing to the tree line and breaking into a sprint, his stocky body shaking as he ran.

“Anyone else?” Ferraro asked.

Four more officers shared fearful looks before slowly lowering weapons, tossing them to the ground, and following Stutzman’s lead. Finally using a little common sense and getting the hell out of harm’s way before it was no longer an option. That left twenty men standing, only one an officer, not counting Sheriff Kelly.

Fast Hands swiveled, risking his back to gunfire without any sign of fear or worry. “Any one of you sissy-whores even thinks about leaving, I swear to the devil below, I’ll put a round right into your yella’ back. You hear me?!” he bellowed, brandishing his pistol at anyone who dared to meet his eye. He turned back to Ferraro, stalking forward a few feet. “I’ve had enough of your smart mouth, bitch,” he said, edging closer, a few inches at a time. “You’re afraid of me, I can see it in your eyes. And you’re right to be scared, ssweetheart. ’Cause I’m gonna learn you a thing or two before this is all said and done, slut-bait.”

Another echoing rifle crack tore at the air, but Fast Hands was already on the move, tearing ass toward Ferraro, his powerful legs pumping while he thrust his metal hand up before him like a shield. Another crack. A flare of blue light erupted around the snake-man in a dome, the incoming round pinging into the construct and ricocheting off at an angle, lodging itself in the neck of a lanky, tat-covered goon not far off.

The thug collapsed, hands clutched around his throat, struggling feebly to hold in the gush of red seeping through his fingers.

“Clear the entryway!” Ferraro shouted at the Chiye-tanka just before Fast Hands collided into her, his copper-scaled arms snaking around her center, his momentum bearing her to the ground. The sudden assault propelled the remaining baddies into a frenzy of action. A fistful of thugs hefted weapons and fired at the Sasquatches zipping toward the entryway.

A few more carelessly sprayed bullets into the trees in hopes of hitting Greg—no chance in hell of that. Though a few rounds whizzed by me, coming a little too close for comfort. The echoing bark of Greg’s rifle broke the air in a steady rhythm. Goons fell and chunks of bodies summersaulted through the forest. An eruption of earth, accompanied by a brilliant flare of green light, followed: James, entering the fray.

“You’re finally gonna pay for what you done to me!” Fast Hands screamed as he groped for Ferraro’s throat. Fast Hands was deep inside her guard and had her pinned to the ground, but it was far from game over, especially for a woman as experienced in the field as Ferraro.

“We’ll see about that,” she grunted, wiggling beneath him, snagging his good arm in a tight grip. He leaned his weight into her as his hands sought her tan neck—exactly the wrong thing to do against someone who knew anything about ground fighting.

She used her hips to thrust up before hooking one leg out in a quick, economical movement, sweeping the limb across his chest. Fast Hands toppled over to the side, his good arm caught in a brutal arm bar as her legs locked across the front of his body.

Fast Hands howled in pain, his legs beating out a staccato rhythm against the ground, swirls of dirt dancing around him as he flexed the entrapped arm, battling to break the hold.

My eyes were drawn to the scene … I knew I needed to move, but I also needed to know Ferraro would be all right. At last, though, I tore my eyes from the scene, seizing an opening in the pandemonium and bolting from the tree line, inbound for the cave. Kong and Winona had beaten me there handily—one of the creatures stood on either side of the craggy entrance, smacking away courageous souls dumb enough to come close.

I glanced back at Ferraro—the need for reassurance overpowering my better judgment—just in time to see her flick open a sleek, black-steel knife. Fast Hands had almost broken through the arm bar, ignoring the pain and using his inhuman strength to muscle past Ferraro’s superior technique.

Finally, she let the lock go, spinning away as he jerked his arm loose. But she was sharp as a razor and wasn’t one to miss an opportunity. Instead of backing away, she exploited the small opening, darting in on the offensive, stabbing the knife downward into Fast Hands’s exposed groin. “I’m not afraid of you, you piece of shit!” she screamed, pulling the knife out and slashing down again, cutting a swath across the inside of his exposed thigh.

I wanted to throw her an awkward high five and dance a victory jig on Fast Hands’s soon-to-be corpse—there was never a guy who deserved a violent ending more than that dickhead—but there was no time for celebrating. Not yet. Not until we were congratulating ourselves over a plate of ribs and a couple of brews in some trashy dive bar. I rushed past Winona, lowered my mental defenses, and sent a brief message, I’m through, before breezing into the cave proper.

Power swept over me, like jumping into an ice-cold pond, as I crossed the threshold, stepping from one reality to another. Time stretched out, thinning and distorting for a single heartbeat without end, my body moving in quarter-speed as my mind continued to race and tumble over itself. My right foot S.L.O.W.L.Y. came to rest on the dusty stone floor. In the instant I connected, time caught up with me all at once, travelling up through my extended limb and spreading through me like a double-shot of good scotch.

I stumbled, staggered, tripped, and tumbled face-first onto the ground, my chin taking a solid knock. Road rash on my face—a perfect opening play. Well done, Yancy. I pushed it out of mind as I pushed myself upright. I wheeled about, staring slack-jawed through the opening and back into my world, Inworld. The battle continued unabated on the other side at normal speed, though it was like watching through hazy, silvered glass. Kong raised his head and bellowed “retreat” into the air—the signal to let everyone know I’d safely made it. On my side, however, the thunderous shout was a mere whisper.

I turned, eyes searching deeper into the tunnelway before me. Not much to see really, just rough stone walls. Aside from the scrape of my boots over the stone walkway, the tunnel was eerily quiet, the air stale and unnaturally heavy. I was alone. Off to face an army of mindless Sasquatches and a flesh-eating cannibal. It shouldn’t have come as a shock since this had been my plan—and really, there was no other way it could’ve worked. The Wendigo never would’ve let the whole group get close enough to pose a threat. But me by myself? That screamed low-hanging fruit, easy for the picking.

Still, plan or no, I found myself scared out of my mind. It was easier to be brave and bold when other people were looking at you, when other people were depending on you.

Sometimes, though, there are things a guy just has to do on his own. Dying is one of them, but I sure hoped that item wouldn’t be on the agenda today.

I shuffled forward. It was high time I boogied before the surviving guards out front had enough presence of mind to try and warn the Wendigo and Doctor Hogg. I stepped off, bound for trouble.

THIRTY-TWO:

Grudge Match

The twisting passageway let out into a clearing like none I’d ever seen before. A forest stretched out before me, filled with immense trees: giant pines, colossal oaks, mammoth sycamores, all similar to their earthly counterparts, but built on an entirely different scale. Far too broad and impossibly tall. These things were easily the size of small skyscrapers: living buildings of twisted wood, all interconnected by an elaborate series of sprawling, overhead wooden bridges, which didn’t seem to be built, so much as they were grown.

Buildings—clearly scaled up in order to house the Chiye-tanka—likewise sprawled among the branches, the walls seamless sheets of wood emerging directly from the trees themselves, like strange fruit.

Kong wasn’t kidding when he said this place was a fortress. I stole a look skyward, the breath momentarily catching in my throat as I stared, mouth agape, at the silver light of a thousand stars. So many stars. All scattered across the heavens like a thick swarm of summer fireflies. The heavens were damned-near overflowing with ’em—a bucket filled to maximum capacity, which might spill its shining lights to the ground at any moment.

The sky was obscured in places, though, the light blocked out by the flutter and flap of wings. Crows, hundreds of them, circling the air, staring down with beady, black eyes. Holy shit, this friggin’ place was creepy.

Directly in the center, a regal, giant sequoia—an epic redwood of unearthly proportions—drew my thoughts back earthward, demanding my attention. Fifty feet in diameter at the base, its massive trunk reared up into the sky like a watchtower forever standing sentinel over this otherworldly forest and its inhabitants.

A single dwelling—equal parts meeting hall and stronghold—perched atop the great sequoia with a balcony jutting off the front. The Wendigo’s ghostly form stood out like a beacon, Doctor Hogg beside him, both looking down like conquerors surveying their latest conquest. That was where I needed to be. Unfortunately, between me and the Kinslayer was an ocean of Chiye-tanka; hundreds of the enthralled creatures were positioned throughout the grove—silent guardians all at high alert, eyes ceaselessly scanning for any sign of intrusion as they patrolled.

A small voice whispered in the back of my head, It’s not too late to turn back … no one will think any less of you. How could they? This is asking too much, no one could expect this of you.

I shook my head, as if I could dislodge the traitorous, cowardly thoughts. Now normally, I’m not at all against cowardly thoughts—what many would call cowardly, I’d call wise, pragmatic, smart, and shrewd. And believe me, I’m on board with all of those things. But this needed to end here. I’d seen firsthand what the future looked like if no one stopped Doctor Hogg and the guy or gal he was working for. It was about as pretty as a swarm of cockroaches riding sewer rats like tiny horses. And if I didn’t do something, no one would.

I pulled my pistol from its holster and carefully slid the muzzle up under my chin, keeping my finger well clear of the trigger. The cold steel, pressing against my flesh, sent a wave of goosebumps racing over my body. I twisted together strands of fire and air into an invisible cone, which hung before me like a megaphone, which is essentially what it was.

“One. Two. Three,” I muttered. The flows of my rough illusion unraveled, dispersing around me, leaving me painfully visible.

My sudden appearance didn’t go unnoticed for long. A guttural yowl broke through the air as the first guard spotted me and sent up an alarm, which was quickly carried along by deep voice after deep voice.

“Achak Kinslayer,” I said, the construct drifting before me amplifying the words until they rang through the whole of the clearing, floating through the air on unseen gusts of Vis-conjured power. “I’ve got a proposition for you, if you’re brave enough to hear it.” The Chiye-tanka before me fell silent, a pregnant pause hanging between us.

A single Sasquatch, big and broad with deep black hair, like a younger version of Kong, trudged forward.

“Speak your offer or perish where you stand,” the Bigfoot said, delivering the words in flat monotone, a bad actor reading from an even worse script.

I carefully pulled open my jacket, revealing my shirtless chest beneath. I readjusted my position to make sure the Wendigo could see me from his vantage point atop the tower. With a deep breath I raised my left hand and placed my index finger at the top of my sternum. I clenched my teeth as I began to drag my finger downward, muttering nonsense words just as Kong had taught me. Pain flared bright and hot. Skin parted. Bones cracked. My legs wobbled momentarily before I managed to draw up earthen strength from the ground beneath me, fortifying my resolve and deadening my senses, if only for a moment.

After a few seconds, my open chest stared out at the Kinslayer like a single, giant eye, a ruby light pulsating from within, strobing in time with my heartbeat. “I’ve got a feeling you might be interested in something I’ve recently acquired. In case you’ve never seen it before, that sparkly little gem in my chest is the Second Seal.”

The Chiye-tanka army began to creep forward, slow but steady as they drew around me.

“Not another step!” I hollered, thumbing back the hammer on my hand cannon with a click.

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, this was a terrible idea. What the hell had I been thinking? I pushed those thoughts away, forced those anxieties back as I breathed deeply. It was far, far too late for second thoughts. I was committed now, and what would be, would be.

“You need me alive to get the Seal,” I said, aiming for calm and collected, though I probably looked about as terrified as a heifer en route for the slaughterhouse. “If any of your goons so much as touches me, I swear I’ll pull this trigger. I’ll die, sure, but your one chance at getting the Seal will disappear with me. In order to take this bad boy from me, you need to eat the beating heart out of my chest. Those are the rules, amigo.”

The Sasquatches fell still once more. “What would you have?” the Bigfoot nearest me asked.

“I’m glad you asked,” I replied. “Here’s how this is gonna go down. First, you’re going to command your monkeys to get the hell outta my way. Second, I’m gonna march my happy ass right to the top of that fancy tower of yours. Third, I’m gonna knock the teeth outta your face then set you on fire. In exchange, you’ll get a chance to stop me from setting you on fire and take the Seal. How’s that sound, dickbag?”

There was no response, which left me more than a little worried. Like most of my plans, this was an epic bluff, which relied heavily on them falling for the bait. The Wendigo and the good doctor turned toward one another, arguing. I couldn’t hear ’em, but their body language painted a clear picture:

Wendigo: “I’m a big, hairy idiot and I will crush the puny man-thing for his insults. Hahahaha. He will stand no chance against my superior monkey-style kung fu …”

Doctor Hogg: “Yes, you are a big, hairy idiot, no one is disputing that. But clearly this is a trap, idiot, so just kill him now or it will be our downfall …”

Since this most definitely was a trap, I was really hoping the Wendigo’s greed and pride would win the conversation.

My palms grew slick with sweat—I carefully readjusted my pistol as I waited, tension mounting with each passing second.

“So let me get this straight,” I said, interrupting the quiet. “I’m on your home turf, you’ve got thousands of lackeys surrounding you, a magic crown protecting you from my power, and you’re still too much of a chicken-shit bastard to take on one lowly mortal.” I paused. “The chief was right about you, you know that? You’re a colossal limp-dick. No wonder Winona turned you down, stud muffin. Great hope of the Sasquatches, my ass. I’ve seen a litter of puppies more daring than you.”

Silence resumed. But this was the shocked, anger-laden silence that follows on the heels of dealing someone a massive bitch-slap.

After a long beat, the Chiye-tanka parted like the Red Sea, opening a wide boulevard leading directly to the base of the redwood at the center.

“You will die slowly as I feast upon your flesh,” the Bigfoot puppet said. “We will see how daring your talk is when I rip the heart from your chest, mage. Come. Walk to your death.”

I took a deep gulp, carefully sealed up my gaping chest cavity, and started forward. Yay, my plan worked. Unfortunately, that didn’t make me feel a whole lot better. Why is it that even when my plans succeed, it still seems like I end up holding the crap end of the stick?

THIRTY-THREE:

Die Slowly

It took me ten minutes to make it to the redwood, easily one of the most awkward treks of my life, considering there were hulking, unmoving Bigfeet lining my path the entire way. Plus I still had my loaded pistol tucked up under my chin, which was damn near giving me hysterics.

My body cried out at every step, my mind screaming the second safety rule over and over again, like a broken record stuck on one track: “Never point your weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot. Never point your weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot.” Boy, would I have egg on my face if I stumbled on a rock and blasted open the top of my skull. What an embarrassing way to go, though I guess no one but the mindless Bigfoot would see. A small victory.

A monstrous door loomed at the base of the tree, offering me a foreboding invitation. I only hesitated for a second before accepting. I awkwardly pried the stiff door open with my left arm and sild in, the heavy wood slamming shut the second I passed the threshold. I took a deep breath of relief. It sure was nice not to have those creepy, braindead hairballs staring at me with their creepy stalker-eyes. I whipped up a quick probe of spirit and air, sweeping the room, scanning for any invisible tricksters lying in wait, hoping to clobber me once my guard was down.

Nothing. Alone again. I took another deep, calming breath and slipped my pistol back into its holster.

The ground floor was a hollowed out space with handwoven rugs in a multitude of hues and colorful pillows strewn about the area. A banquet table, big enough to seat forty humans or twenty Bigfeet, stretched across one side of the room. There were also a variety of bookcases sprouting out of the walls, housing hundreds of leather bound volumes written in a tongue I couldn’t even begin to guess at. A giant, unbroken core of heartwood ran straight up the center of the tree, large stairs growing out and up—a spiral staircase that led all the way to the top.

Great, more stairs.

I counted ten different levels on my hike to the top; each one housed huge chambers with vaulted ceilings. Some levels appeared to be guest quarters, boasting beds, rugs, and basic furnishings. Others looked to be libraries or artifact rooms—maybe the Bigfoot equivalent of the Smithsonian. The final curve delivered me to a landing different from all the others—it alone had an oversized set of double doors, concealing the room beyond.

I drew my pistol again—its weight a comfort in my hand now that the muzzle wasn’t pointing in my direction—and pulled in raw energy. I took a few more deep breaths, stilling my shaky hands. Damn, but I was huffing and puffing. That climb hadn’t exactly been easy. Maybe it was time to think about dieting, all of that rich food was taking its toll … ah, who was I kidding? I’d rather die. Let’s face it, for me, subsisting on salads and diet shakes isn’t really living anyway.

“The sooner begun, the sooner done,” I muttered once I finally felt ready and steady.

I leveled the pistol, thrust my left hand forward, palm up, and shaped the force roaring through me into a column of angry orange fire. I’d been aiming for something understated and efficient, instead I got a javelin of flame, thick as a telephone poll, which battered the doors down with the force of a charging bull, blasting the panels from their wooden mounts and hurling them into the interior in a spray of flaming chunks of shrapnel. I glanced down at my hand and gave myself a nod of approval—I needed to start bathing in the Fountain of Youth more often if I got those kind of results.

I didn’t dwell on it for too long, though. Didn’t want to waste the small element of surprise I had going in my favor. I barreled into the room, swiveling my gun muzzle left, clearing what could only be some sort of war room—maps and battle plans lay scattered about on oversized tables. I swept the muzzle right, quick, efficient, practiced, searching for any sign of threat. I caught a glimpse of Doctor Hogg cowering behind a thick, overturned table on the balcony.

No sight of the Wendigo, though, which was more than a little disconcerting—

Something blasted into my ribs like a direct hit from a howitzer, doubling me over and hurling me several feet into the room’s interior. I crashed into one of the thick, paper-strewn tables. My right eye caught the corner as I careened to the side and landed on the floor. I clumsily groped at my face, my fingers coming away slick and red from a nasty split above my eyebrow. Son of a bitch. A thin trickle of blood dripped down into my eye, obscuring my vision further, ’cause who needs their eyes to win a fight anyway?

Glad this had started so well.

I staggered to my feet, swiping the back of my right hand across the wound, trying to wipe away some of the blood. A second blow caught me square in the ribs, lifting me off the floor and sliding me across the tabletop—the heavy wooden bastard didn’t move an inch. I rolled off the far end and landed on the floor, banging the hell out of my knee on the way down, which was only a minor inconvenience compared to the fire in my abdomen and the terrible pain in my lungs. I gasped, frantically trying to suck in air which simply wasn’t there. We’re sorry, the party you’re trying to reach is not currently available. Please try to breathe again later.

Even worse, I still couldn’t see the friggin’ Wendigo. Obviously, he was hiding behind a bang-up illusion, masking his whereabouts, and using his devastating speed to beat the holy-living-hell out of me before I could even think about retaliating. I should’ve known he wasn’t gonna play things straight. I’d been right in my assessment of him: he was an opportunist and he wasn’t gonna waste time telling me his plans or rubbing in his certain victory. He was gonna knock me unconscious and eat my heart. End of story.

Once more I pushed myself upright, reeling about like a bar-goer three-sheets-to-the-wind, only to catch a crushing, cross body blow from an unseen kick. It connected solidly across my chest, throwing me back against the wall. I slammed into the wall with a thud and slid down onto my ass like a crumpled rag doll. I coughed and wheezed, blood spurting out from between my lips and dribbling down my chin and onto my chest.

There was a small part of me that was glad Ferraro wasn’t here. This was embarrassing. I knew going into this, the fight would be a little lopsided … but damn. After my last bout with the Wendigo, I’d thought I had him figured out, but it was quickly becoming apparent that he’d been using the kiddy-gloves during our first bout. The same certainly wasn’t true this go ’round.

The cut in my forehead was flowing more freely now, blood dripping down the bridge of my nose, smearing across my cheeks, and dribbling into both eyes. I raised my left hand and lashed out blindly, aiming another gout of flame at the troublesome table which had already roughed me up so thoroughly. The table exploded into a cloud of flame and wood—very satisfying—which rushed out like a gale of fiery debris. I couldn’t see the Wendigo, but even with the blood in my eyes, I easily spotted where the flaming table debris collided with empty space and fell to the floor.

I leveled the pistol and fired before the Wendigo could react, the rounds aimed at the invisible mass. There was a wet thud, followed by a rumbling growl as a splash of sludgy green dribbled to the ground, as if the air itself were bleeding. The air shimmered like a heat wave on a blistering summer day in New Orleans, and then the Kinslayer appeared in all his ruined glory: nine feet of wiry muscle, albino white fur and flesh, elongated wolf-like muzzle, and smooth skin stretched tight over empty eye sockets.

He snarled and lunged, rage distorting his already twisted face as claw-tipped fingers sliced through the air with a woosh. I called up a dome of shimmering blue, and his talons flashed in the blaze of light. I leveled the gun and pulled the trigger in another quick succession of shots. He darted back a step, giving himself enough distance to dodge and weave, which was fine by me. I’m pretty good in a fistfight, but not when my opponent outweighs me by a solid thousand pounds and has the disposition of a hybrid shark-bear.

In this case, distance was definitely my friend.

In a blink, I clumsily gained my feet and I slid the revolver home. With a huge effort of will, I conjured gusts of hurricane wind, pulling flaming chunks of door and table into a sphere around me. I was a human sun with hundreds of fist-sized asteroids orbiting about in ceaseless motion. The Wendigo regarded me warily, then backpedaled a few steps, uncertainty evident in the lines of his body, in the way he moved and repositioned himself.

Which is when it hit me—though the Wendigo had seized the moment and accepted my challenge, the fact was, he was scared of me. Or at least uncertain about me. That’s why he’d gone soft on me during our first tussle: he’d never fought a mage before and he was unsure what my kind could do. It made total sense. Sure, in a fight purely based on speed and strength he would win, but he couldn’t know what arcane secrets I had up my sleeve.

I mean, the Chiye-tanka were an isolated people and a tribe largely dedicated to peace, so how could he have any idea what magi were capable of? And even if the Kinslayer was working hand in hand with the traitorous assbag from the Guild, I was certain he’d never had cause to tangle with a mage of my caliber before, not to mention a mage with my eccentric nature. Even in the Guild, I was known for my reckless and occasionally unconventional plans—and I’d buried more than a few creatures who were far bigger and badder than me. It was even possible the traitor running this show might’ve stressed how important it was not to underestimate me—causing further hesitation.

He was testing the waters, so to speak. I was sure of it.

And I could play on that. Exploit it.

“Now, dastardly fiend,” I said, going for hammy stage-magician, and nailing it, “I’ll show you the true power of the magi.” I circled a bit to the right. “Prepare for your destruction, doom-fiend!” The Kinslayer tensed, his body growing tight in anticipation.

I thrust out my right hand, shooting out another lance of flame, which collided into the Wendigo, washing around him in a flare of vibrant, terrible light, the tiara protecting its misshapen host. I couldn’t hit him directly with a working like that, but hopefully the flare of illumination would temporarily blind him … Well, assuming he could be blinded, since he didn’t actually have eyes.

Hey, sometimes you just need to roll the dice and hope for the best.

I cut the flows of my flame lance, the light dying away to reveal a disoriented Wendigo staggering to and from. I threw both arms forward, my orbiting field of wood-chunk asteroids zipping out in response. A hail of jagged, burning missiles, all concentrated on the Wendigo’s knees. The biggest physical advantage this assbag had on me was his crazy-superior speed, so if I could rob him of that, it’d level the playing field.

The Kinslayer’s face registered shock, and his body tensed to move, but he wasn’t quick enough, not quite. I cut the flows propelling the chunks of burning wood, allowing them to pass through the tiara’s defensive barrier and crash home with devastating effect. Sharpened, fire-hardened pieces of wood bit into the skin and meat around his knees, shredding the flesh, breaking through relatively delicate bone, imbedding deep in the meat. Each sliver of wood was a tiny hatchet hacking down.

His left leg gave way under his weight, and he toppled over to his side—the limb now attached only by a thin flap of hairy hide.

The right leg was in better shape, though still devastated. The Kinslayer mewled on the floor, thrashing his arms and clawing at the polished wood below. The tiara also had some remarkable healing properties, which meant he’d probably be up and moving around in no time—so I needed to act. Now. I wobbled forward on unsteady feet, cautious but moving with a sense of purpose.

Already, the flesh around his lower limbs was knitting itself together, but I was almost on him—

A pair of sharp prongs, like tiny bee stings, sank into my thigh. Then: pain. Lots of pain. My muscles seized and contracted, my body went rigid as I screamed through clenched teeth. I collapsed liked a felled tree, dropping onto my side and rolling onto my back as my body convulsed uncontrollably. Just inside the balcony doorway stood Doctor Hogg. The evil shit held a modified Taser gun, with long thin strands of wire running to my leg.

Sweat clung to his skin and his arms shook badly as he held the weapon—clearly, this wasn’t a man used to violence, which was the very reason I hadn’t accounted for him.

I’d been so caught up with fighting the Wendigo, I’d never even taken the time to consider the doctor might offer some kind of resistance. Supernatural entities were always overlooking mere mortals—people like Greg and Ferraro—and I’d just fallen right into that trap.

“Now!” the doctor called out, his voice frazzled but commanding.

The volts coursing through me faded, but still my muscles danced and trembled, refusing to work properly. The screech of claws digging into wood drifted to my ears followed by the vibration of something big dragging itself toward me. I twisted my head in time to see the Wendigo crawl onto his bloody stumps. Even with tattered legs, he moved quicker than I would’ve believed possible, scampering toward me, bloody streaks trailing out behind him in twin streaks of green gore.

Another wave of electricity hit my body, sending me into a renewed set of spasms. The flare of pain died away as the Wendigo straddled me, settling over my hips, his disgusting face staring hate and death at me as his clawed fingers peeled back my jacket, revealing my unprotected chest.

Nails dug down on either side of my sternum, passing into my skin like a set of brand-new steak knives sliding through tender meat. At the same time, he pried outward with monstrous strength, forcing my ribs apart.

Another second and he’d tear me open wide. I gagged and sputtered, blood and phlegm filling my mouth.

He leaned in, his eyeless face a foot from mine. “Die painfully,” he whispered, his voice filled with impending triumph.

I laughed, a wheezy, wet chuckle. “Not today, shithead.” I spat out a fat loogie, filled with blood. It splattered against the blood-red gem at the center of the tiara. I pushed out an invisible flow of spirit, channeling the trickle of Vis directly into the tiara, completing the binding.

The world whirled around me, pulling at my mind, drawing me down and into myself, away from my body. All I could do was laugh. Not today, shithead.

THIRTY-FOUR:

Form Yancy-Tron

I stood on black asphalt. A narrow street, lined on either side by two-story buildings and lit by the yellow glow of evenly spaced street lamps and neon signs in a riot of hues: sapphire-blue, fallout-green, look-at-me-red. Most of the buildings had balconies jutting out over the wide sidewalks, which were filled with umbrella covered tables, all absent of guests. Bourbon Street, smack dab in the New Orleans French Quarter. Except it was quiet, still, and lifeless—a thing which could never truly be said of the real Bourbon Street.

Despite how empty the place seemed, I felt eyes on my back. Some other presence was definitely here. I pulled my revolver and opened myself to the Vis, ready to fight whatever monstrous thing lurked here. Panic welled up in me a moment later. The Vis wasn’t there—the force undergirding creation and existence was simply gone. Completely.

“Calm down,” a voice called. My voice to be precise. “And put that pistol away before you hurt someone.” I looked to a brick-fronted eatery off to the right. A figure stood in the doorway, bathed in weak light from a hanging lantern, a cigar in one hand and a stout glass full of scotch in the other. Cassius, the Undine—a creature of water and spirit, permanently bound to my mind, grafted into a piece of my soul. The very embodiment of my subconscious mind.

“What the hell’s going on here?” I asked, my confusion intensifying as I restlessly scanned the street. This wasn’t right at all—I’d been fighting the Wendigo. He’d straddled me, his claws digging into my chest, ripping me open like a stuffed doll mauled by an unfriendly dog.

Cassius sauntered over, lifting the cigar and taking a long draw as he walked. Once he was a few feet away, he bent over and set his glass of scotch down on the street with a soft clink. He moved cat-quick, his fist smashing into my jaw before I could get my guard up. The blow sent me staggering backward as a throb of pain radiated into my cheek.

“The hell is wrong with you, asshole?” I rubbed at the suddenly tender spot, my fingers inspecting for damage.

“That’s for accepting the Second Seal, you shithead,” he said, smoke billowing from his mouth and nose like an angry dragon. “You let something in here with me. Big, mean ol’ son of a bitch. It bolted the second you gave it sanctuary. Bastard ducked into the sewers”—he nodded toward a manhole cover set into the street—“but this thing is gonna mean big problems later on. It’s weak right now, probably I’ll be able to hunt it down and keep it in check for a while, but this friggin’ thing’s gonna come back to bite us in the ass, Yancy. Big time.”

He picked up his glass from the asphalt, straightened, leaned back his head, and took a long slug, draining the glass. When he lowered his hand, the tumbler had already refilled itself. “But we don’t have time for that shit right now. ’Cause right now, we have even bigger trouble. Big, big, Godzilla-sized amounts of trouble.” He sighed, long and deep. “You’ll see what I mean in a moment. But we don’t have time for Q and A. Turn around,” he commanded, pulling the cigar from his lips and motioning for me to about-face.

I turned, expecting to see more New Orleans. The street below faded almost immediately, transforming into dusty barren earth: a strip of land, maybe two hundred meters wide, chock-full of trenches, uneven berms of barren dirt, and endless spoils of razor-edged, constantan wire. On the other side of the warzone was a forest, a distorted replica of the Sacred Grove I’d just trekked through.

The basic features of the grove were the same—the towering trees, the sprawling overhead bridges, the houses grown from vast tree boughs—but twisted, sick. Even from here, I could tell the trees were swollen and tender, like overripe fruit near to bursting. The leaves and foliage were wilted and sagging, while thick strands of purple moss ran from all the structures and grew from every branch.

“That,” Cassius said, swaggering up to my side, “is a physical representation of Achak Kinslayer’s mind. Behind us is your own brain-scape, and that barren patch of dirt there”—he gestured toward the no-man’s-land—“is the battlefield. In a moment, Achak, and the thing living inside him, are gonna stomp on over here and try to obliterate us.”

“The thing living inside him?”

“Yeah,” he replied, “the thing living inside him. I already stole a sneak peek, but you’ll see for yourself in a minute.”

“Why can’t I use my power?” I asked, changing tack.

“Relax.” He extended the cigar to me and arched an eyebrow as if to say, Go on and take it already. After a moment I complied, grasping the edge and raising it to my lips, drawing in sweet, delicious nicotine. A ripple of calm drifted through my nervous system.

“Like I said, we don’t have much time before the battle starts, so smoke that stogie, shut your trap, and open your ears.”

I hesitated for a second, wrestling with the fear and anxiety building within me. Finally I nodded, taking another puff from the fat cigar; its orange tip flared a brilliant red.

“You can’t touch the Vis here,” he said evenly, “because this place doesn’t exist in the real world. It’s a highly sophisticated construct which exists inside the tiara itself. It is a temporary, illusionary construct taking place both inside your mind and inside Achak’s mind. But you don’t need the Vis here.” He held one hand aloft, and a ball of yellow flame the size of a car tire erupted into life in a flash of heat and light before vanishing just as quickly. “This place is controlled entirely by the mind and will. The landscape is malleable, elastic. You can influence it and change it just by willing it to be different. But here’s the catch, Achak can manipulate it, too.”

The ground trembled beneath me, shuddering like a 3.5 on the Richter scale. The sickly trees in Achak’s forest swayed and moved as something big pushed its way forward. I’d been expecting something that, more or less, resembled the creature I’d tangled with back on Earth, but the thing which shoved its way free of the forest wasn’t even close. Sixty feet tall, easy—that’s six with a zero—and at least twenty feet across at the shoulders with pasty flesh, weak and flabby, overflowing in loose folds from its arms and legs and gut. The creature resembled a vaguely human-shaped clump of white Play-Doh. The craft project of some particularly untalented child.

Blobzilla.

In its ginormous potbelly was a cage of sorts, and trapped within was a regal-looking Bigfoot with dark black hair, broad shoulders, and a noble bearing. His arms and legs were mired in the mucky, sludgy goo surrounding him, securing him snuggly in place.

“Now that,” said Cassius, “is Achak.”

“And the building-sized lump of clay?”

“Yeah. That’d be a greater Guttur Belua—the demonic entity responsible for the Wendigo transformation. They’re bound together, though, obviously, the relationship is pretty one-sided.”

The doughy creature tilted its massive head back and let out a roar that shook the ground and set my teeth on edge. Then it began to run, a great, shambling affair, each prodigious step carrying it thirty or forty feet, eating up the distance between us in a wink. I, in turn, did the only reasonable thing I could think of: I wheeled about, grabbed Cassius by the arm, and darted down the street.

“We’re not gonna beat it by running away,” Cassius hollered as we sprinted.

Another roar: the windows above me trembled in their frames, followed by the crash and crunch of a massive foot smashing into stone and brick. I didn’t even bother looking back, but instead hooked left, ducking down a narrow alley. As soon as we were out of sight, I pressed my back up against the wall, breathing hard.

“How am I supposed to beat that friggin’ thing?” I asked. Another crash resounded through the air. Bricks crumbling, the tinkle of glass shattering, the shriek of twisting metal, the snap of breaking wood. Another building falling.

“Well, you’re not gonna get it done with that kind of Negative-Nancy attitude,” Cassius said. He placed a hand on my shoulder and turned me around so we were face-to-face. “Time for a little hard truth. I’m not sure you can beat him. Not by yourself. But together, we might be able to manage it. You’re new to this world, but I’m not. This is my backyard, Yancy. If you put me in the driver’s seat, I can win this.”

That gave me pause.

Generally, allowing spiritual entities to hitch a ride—giving ’em access to your mind and soul—was a very big no-no. But, if you were foolish enough to let ’em in in the first place, the second rule was to never give up control, and that held even for benign and helpful entities like Cassius. To give up control to such creatures was a damn good way to end up like Achak: trapped in the belly of some demonic nightmare, a prisoner in your own mind. My mind darted back to my brief foray as Old Man Winter—I’d almost lost myself, so I could relate.

“You want to be in the driver’s seat,” I said. “But once this is over, what guarantee do I have that you’ll give up the reigns?”

“No guarantee, except my word. But I swear, it’ll only be for a minute. I’ve got a plan, but it’ll take too damn long if I have to hold your hand the whole way.” He halted, his blues eyes searching my face. “You saved me once,” he said. “When I had nowhere else to turn, I turned to you and you saved me. Let me return the favor.” Another monstrous roar and another tumbling building, this one closer than the last. “Besides, what other choice do you have?”

I was quiet for a time. Listening as the Guttur Belua rampaged through my brain, wondering what kind of long-term damage was being done as he smashed up my mental landscape. There was a buzzing growing inside my head, the deep throb of a terrible headache in the works. Yeah, that definitely couldn’t be good.

“Okay,” I conceded at last. “But you’d better give me the keys back when you’re done.” I took a deep breath, and exhaled, blowing out my fear and doubt. “Cassius Aquinas, I, Yancy Lazarus, grant you rule over my mind, body, and soul.”

As the words left my mouth, there was a whirl of movement around me. Azure light—shifting and melting from aqua-marine to a blue so deep it was nearly black—whisked me into the air in a vortex of force and power. Higher I spun, twirling like Dorothy caught in the tornado, my eyes searching the blue winds whipping at my face, tugging at my clothes, pulling at me from every which way, but failing to penetrate the murky depths surrounding me. I heard a tremendous growl, which had to be from the gelatinous Marshmallow-man, though the noise was muted by the roaring wind encircling me.

Still, it sounded like the growl was one of surprise, maybe even fear.

After a couple of long, disorienting moments, the spinning finally abated and my head stopped lurching long enough for me to get my bearings again. I was sitting inside of some sort of bizarre cockpit, which strangely resembled the interior of the Camino, though with a few alterations and upgrades. Same leather interior. Same dashboard and stereo system. Heck, I even had a rearview mirror, which appeared to be a computerized monitor, exposing my six.

Instead of the plain-Jane windshield, however, there was a giant television screen, sixty inches across, displaying the New Orleans cityscape, stretched out far below me. And instead of a speedometer, there was a gauge reading “shield level” next to a computerized read out of a—I shit you not—giant Voltron-esque robot.

The hulking demonic ball of Play-Doh stood fifty feet away, staring at me with empty eyes, which were now on my level.

“Get the hell out of here,” I said, my voice filled with awe. “Cassius, am I in Voltron right now?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” a voice said over a comm system wired into the wall panels to either side of me. “You’re inside a sixty-foot, 1980s-inspired robot. Not the same at all, really. And it was either this or an X-Wing fighter—I know how much you love all that retro sci-fi bullshit—but since Blobzilla doesn’t have a convenient thermal exhaust port to blast, I thought the robot was the more versatile option. And, FYI, you’re the Boss again. I just needed control to wire your mind directly into my neural network. Now, you’re the brain, I’m the body.”

I lifted my hands and flexed my fingers before curling them into tight fists. On the screen, a pair of gigantic blue steel arms raised into view, mimicking the motion perfectly.

“This is badass squared—nay, cubed. I never should’ve doubted you.”

“Damn straight,” he replied.

“Crazy question here, but can you cue music?”

“I’m an imaginary, sixty-foot-tall robot with an El Camino-style cockpit,” he said. “What the hell do you think?”

“Since we’re in a 1980s mood,” I said, a smile stretching from ear to ear, “let’s throw on some Queen.”

“Another One Bites the Dust?” he asked.

“Read my mind,” I said with a nod. The great robot body followed my lead, tilting its noggin as Freddie Mercury’s raspy vocals filled the interior of the cockpit. John Deacon’s epic bass riff thudded through the cockpit, and I found myself naturally tapping out the backbeat. The robot rocked beneath me, jiggling in time to the bounce of my foot.

So friggin’ cool. Usually my life is nothing but a giant pile of shit, nestled deep in a disgusting porta-John filled with more shit. But then something like this happens and I’m reminded that there are some badass side benefits to being a mage.

The sludgy demon had stopped his advance. It regarded me with a mix of worry and trepidation. Slowly, it shuffled back, its colossal steps taking it toward the no-man’s-land at the edge of my brain-scape. “It’s ass-smitin’ time, you fat sack of goat turds,” I called out. Some internal mic picked up the sound and projected it through a set of external speakers, the sound booming in the air.

I pumped my legs, sprinting forward, the robot swaying around me as I closed the distance in a flash. I threw my entire body into a huge haymaker. A Volkswagen-sized metal fist collided with the demon’s saggy face, caving in part of its misshapen and droopy head. The creature staggered and tripped, catching one foot on the edge of a demolished bar below and tipping over onto his side like Humpty-Dumpty. The seismic vibration from his ponderous fall broke every window in town and sent my robot legs to wobbling.

The creature rolled back and up, his bulk flowing around another building as he somehow gained his feet in a surprising demonstration of agility and dexterity. I leapt forward, throwing a left jab with the force of a Scud missile—

A rope of white fat, thicker than a telephone pole, shot out from its torso, deflecting and redirecting the blow as the creature delivered a brutal kick to my center. My robotic suit flew back ten or fifteen feet; a course of lights flashed in the cockpit while warning sirens blared, and my “shield level” gauge flared red.

“Not sure if you realize this or not,” Cassius grunted through the speaker system, “but I am the robot, so that shit hurts, Boss-man.”

“Check,” I called, already in hot pursuit of the blob, who was backpedaling for the safety of his forest home. “I’ll play better D.”

I lashed out again, throwing a wicked uppercut with enough force to level a building—

A gooey fist intercepted the strike, more strings of ropy fat flying out, enveloping my metallic fist and running up the length of my arm. The “right arm” sensor flashed on my gauge, blinking on and off as a siren cut through Queen’s epic performance. “Severe damage detected. Severe damage detected. Severe damage detected,” a computerized voice echoed.

“That son of a bitch is gonna rip my arm off!” Cassius screamed. “I didn’t put you back in the driver’s seat, so you could drive us over a cliff! Do something, dammit!”

A crunch and shriek of metal resounded from outside. More white flesh dug into the metal plating around my robotic limb, probing at the gears and wiring below. I dropped to a knee—a crater blooming in the asphalt beneath me—and scooped up an empty Toyota Tacoma in my left hand. I launched myself up, swinging the pickup into the side of Blobzilla’s head.

There was a wet thwack on collision, followed by a small pop of airbags erupting, and the beast stumbled away, its death grip on my right arm vanishing in an instant, smoke billowing up into the sky. I held my arm up, inspecting for damage: The paint along the forearm section was gone, melted away. Pitted holes also dotted the metal underneath, corrosion marks. Apparently, Stay-Puft was acidic. Good to know.

The creature edged back a step, more unsure than ever. The Guttur Belua was a nasty creature, no doubt, but clearly Cassius and I had taken it by surprise—a nice change of pace. I lunged, smashing the truck into the creature’s head again and again, globs of white exploding outward with every hit, raining down on the street below. After four or five blows, all that remained of the Toyota was a small hunk of worthless, crumpled metal connected to a single axle, which swung precariously. I let the wreckage fall.

Once more the creature shuffled back, seeking to escape the ass-stomping Cassius and I were laying down, eager to regain home field advantage.

I pursued, pushing inside its guard, throwing a lightning-fast flurry of jabs and hooks to its torso, aiming to pulverize Achak and turn him into Bigfoot paste. The creature flailed, sludgy arms hammering down at my exposed back and head. The robotic suit lurched with every blow, swaying back and forth, but I stayed focused. To end this fight, I just needed to end Achak. The Guttur Belua seemed to recognize my strategy and changed course—pulling back and hunching down, offering up his misshapen face and thick shoulders, while simultaneously protecting the captive at his center.

I danced away a step, then snatched up a slab of broken wall—compliments of Blobzilla’s earlier rampage—and whipped it down onto the creature’s dome. Brick and mortar exploded in a shower of dusty rubble and debris. I darted left, offering up a barrage of rib shots, before hooking right with a wicked hammer blow …

Something walloped into my frame, jolting my neck forward and back, hurling me into the air as a cacophony of beeps and squeals issued from the display panels around me. Acrid smoke trickled into the air, scratching at my eyes and throat, making it hard to breathe. The airborne ride did, however, afford me a momentary view of the overhead sky—blood red and cloudless—before I crash-landed in a slew of bars and eateries further on down Bourbon Street.

“What the hell just happened?” I called out as my metal suit finally skidded to a rough halt.

“We just got served a can of whoop-ass,” Cassius replied, his voice hazy and oddly hollow. “I’ll bring it up on instant replay.”

A ten by fifteen inch display window popped up in the right hand corner of my windshield. I watched, captivated, as Blobzilla surged up, its arms shooting out while its fingers elongated into hardened spears. Cassius slowed down the feed even further, allowing me to watch in mute horror as the bone-hard spears tore into my metal chest cavity. The picture faded, replaced by a view of the robotic chest plate: riddled with wide, puckered holes. Jagged edges of metal jutting up, wires poking out.

“I’ll mend,” Cassius said, voice weaker than before, “but we can’t afford to take another hit like that. And what I really mean is—I can’t afford to take another hit like that. It could kill me, Yancy. Wipe me out for keeps, you got that?”

“Yeah, I got it,” I said as I righted the gigantic metal suit. Cassius was risking everything for me here, and some part of me wanted to hold back for his sake, but I knew this was a winner take all bout. Unless we destroyed the Guttur Belua—and, more importantly, Achak—it’d be game over for both of us. Unfortunately, taking it easy just wasn’t an option.

The demon’s squishy back was now to me as it shambled away, an unstoppable juggernaut on a breakaway for its forest. It was a lead-footed beast, but once it got its considerable bulk into motion, I figured it’d be damn tough to stop him.

“Don’t let him get to his side of the brain-scape,” Cassius squawked over the comm. “He’ll be stronger there, tougher to beat. And I’ll have a helluva time maintaining this form on his side, especially with all this damage.”

“On it,” I called back. Blobzilla might’ve had momentum going for him, but I had speed. I sprinted, tearing down the center of Bourbon Street, gaining No Man’s Land in an instant. Still running, I bent low and scooped up a quarter-mile length of C-wire, the military upgrade to barbwire. I looped one coil around my bulky metal fist, a tail of jagged, gleaming metal snaking down like a wicked chain, dragging across the arid ground as my legs churned up a dust cloud. The creature was fifty feet out from the twisted forest when I lashed out. The length of razor-whip sailed through the air, biting into soft white flesh, snarls of wire digging deep grooves into mushy skin.

I skidded to a halt, planting my feet and grabbing the wire with both hands, jerking back, yanking the C-wire taut. The metal groaned and stretched, creaking as it fought to restrain the monstrous beast’s forward momentum. The weight dragged me a foot, ten feet, twenty—pulling like a record-worthy catfish struggling on the end of a fishing line. For a long beat I thought the C-wire would simply break, snap under the strain. But the C-wire didn’t exist, I reminded myself. It was only an illusion of the mind. It wouldn’t break as long as my will held.

So I willed the crude whip to remain, commanded it to dig deeper into the gluttony-demon, to hold fast.

I gave another ferocious jerk, my robotic arms screeching from the pressure. The beast teetered for a tense moment before finally collapsing. He crashed to the ground, the C-wire wrapping and tangling around his arms, neck, and torso. His massive arms and legs struggled to free themselves, which only further entangled his limbs.

Now was my chance. I dropped the length of whip, took three laborious steps, and launched myself high into the air, soaring two hundred feet or more like a rocket bound for the stratosphere, clearing the thrashing beast and landing right on the edge of his brain-scape. The creature hollered in hapless fury—more wire from the demilitarized zone latched into his gooey flesh with every passing second, mooring the creature to the deck.

I ignored him, focusing instead on the diseased redwood towering at the center of the forest. In my giant, metal form it took me only seconds to shoulder my way past the other trees and reach the behemoth, the seat of the Wendigo’s power. Even though I now stood sixty feet tall, the Great Tree loomed over me, but that didn’t matter. It was weak, sick, dying.

I brought my hands together in a mighty clap, envisioning my own Vis-wrought blade—azure-blue and delicate as lace—then thinking to Voltron’s epic Blazing Sword. A thunderclap of displaced air echoed around me; when I pulled my hands apart, a bastardized version of my sword, now forty feet long, hung in my outstretched right hand, gleaming with spectral power.

I smiled, effortlessly sliding into hasso hidari—left foot forward, weight settled over my back leg, sword positioned on my right—and flowed into a hard hitting diagonal slash, kiri gaeshi. The blade sliced through the tree’s trunk, the spongy wood offering no more resistance than a placid pool of water.

The thrashing behind me ceased, and a low moan, like the bellow of a windstorm, rolled out from the felled beast lying on the ground.

The tree wobbled for a moment, trying to decide how it ought to fall. Before it could make up its mind, and crash into the forest, I dismissed my sword and swooped in, throwing my arms around the trunk, lifting it up in an awkward bear hug—my huge arms not even close to encircling the thing. With the massive log pulled tight to my chest, a terrible burden even for Cassius’s robotic form, I waddled back to the downed monstrosity. Its vacant eyes stared up at nothing as its ginormous barrel chest pulled in shallow breaths. I towered over the creature, feeling the slightest stab of pity as I looked down at the regal Achak trapped in the beast’s center.

I raised the tree trunk high, positioning it directly over the stomach prison holding the Bigfoot captive. Achak opened his eyes, just a crack, regarding me solemnly. “Tell her I’m sorry,” he grunted, the words a soft, tired hum, barely loud enough for me to catch. There was no need to specify who he meant—it could only be Winona. Then the Bigfoot closed his eyes and nodded. Just do it, the gesture said.

Something tickled at the back of my mind:

“You’re such a self-righteous hypocrite … You call us monsters and murderers? Yet what does that make you? How many sons have you murdered, Yancy Lazarus? Just because a creature isn’t human, doesn’t mean it isn’t someone’s son or daughter, mother or father. You would wave your blood soaked hands at us?” One of the sirens had said that. Maybe she was right. Maybe even monsters weren’t evil all the way down to the core. Maybe they deserved a bit of grace now and then, too.

Sadly, the only grace I had to offer Achak was a quick end.

I thrust the tremendous log down, putting every bit of muscle I had into it. The base of the trunk slammed into the demon’s flabby abdomen, obliterating Achak, who vanished beneath the tree’s base. The great redwood thudded into the dry ground with a the force of a bomb blast—white, pasty flesh oozed out on all sides like a cream-filled doughnut that’d been smashed against a sidewalk.

Quivers ran up from the earth, rocking through my metal legs, my arms shooting out as the pilot’s cab exploded around me in a blast of ruby-red light. I’d done it, I’d won. The thought lingered with me as I faded away from this surreal place—this brain-scape—my consciousness dropping back toward my body in a rush of black.

THIRTY-FIVE:

Screw You

My eyes popped open. Something hot and heavy pressed into me—an enormous weight bearing down on me, threatening to suffocate me. I pushed weakly at the weight, but the hairy white thing barely gave an inch. It took only a few panicked heartbeats to realize I was back in my body, and once more had access to the Vis. Its power was already trickling into me, forming the thin stream of will and spirit I’d woven for the binding ritual. I drew more strength, calling up bands of force and wind, conjuring an unseen column of power to pluck the body from atop of me.

The Wendigo flopped over onto his side, landing with a thump before rolling onto his back, arms splayed out, muzzle slack as he pulled in slow, rhythmic breaths. He wasn’t dead, but neither was he a threat. Not anymore. Our battle hadn’t been one of the body, but one of the soul and mind—the thing that remained was merely a bag of meat, devoid of anything more.

I shot my hand down, pulling the Taser prongs, still digging into my leg, free before Doctor Hogg could deliver another round of electroshock therapy. Even that slight movement hurt like a bitch. The claw wounds in my chest screamed into my brain, crying for me to STOP MOVING, while my aching ribs and sternum damn near refused to allow me to move. Thankfully, there was enough adrenaline pumping into my system to override my body’s natural inclination to crap out at the worst possible moment.

I had no idea how long I’d been under in my battle with the Wendigo—half an hour maybe, but probably less. When things happened at the speed of thought, an event that might normally take hours could tick away in mere seconds. Precisely the reason your whole life can flash before your eyes in the moments before your death. But even with the Wendigo beaten, Doctor Hogg was still around here somewhere, and I wasn’t about to let him get a jump on me again.

I pushed myself upright with a tremendous groan, warily scanning the room even as I bent over and fished the tiara off the Wendigo’s head and propped it onto my own—wasn’t gonna leave without that little trinket. A flash of movement in my periphery caught my attention: I swiveled in time to find the roly-poly doctor slipping from the room via the front entryway, now missing its double doors.

I pulled my pistol, took a quick survey of my rounds—two left, more than enough for this shithead—and thumbed back the hammer with an audible click. “How’s about you just stop right there, bud. I’ve had a long, shitty couple of days, so I’d advise you not to piss me off, dicknoodle.”

He took another cautious step forward, before turning and cautiously raising his hands for the ceiling. His eyes were wide as baseballs.

“You don’t need to die,” I said, hardly bothering to sound enthusiastic about that option. “You’ve got answers I want, so that gives you a pass. But like I said, I’m having a shitty couple of days, so I’m not feeling overly generous. If you try anything. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. I’ll toss you over the balcony—cushion your fall enough so you will break your back, but won’t die—then turn you over to Chief Chankoowashtay and the rest of the Sasquatches. Bet they won’t treat you quite so gently.”

Something sharp and cold slid up against my throat. There was a shimmer in the air and suddenly James’s silver sword cane was sitting flush against my exposed neck. “I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, old sport,” James said, his voice devoid of cheer.

Holy shit. That asshole must’ve slipped in after Kong had given the all clear.

“You no-good, buddy-fucking, son of a bitch,” I growled, while calculating the odds of weaseling my way out of this mess. It took me all of two seconds to realize my chances against James in this situation were abysmal. Hell, even abysmal was a generous figure, considering how banged up I was. I had the tiara now, but even that wouldn’t do me much good since I didn’t know what its capabilities were.

“I have him secured, Mistress,” James said.

A ruffle of feathers filled the room as a black cloud swept in from the balcony: a murder of inky-dark crows fluttering in, swooping down around the doctor, encircling him in a whirlwind of sharp beaks, beady black eyes, and cruel talons. The birds molted as they flew, feathers dropping away, drifting downward before vanishing into curls of sooty smoke. It took only a few eyeblinks before the birds had vanished completely and the smoke had coalesced into a woman. Long blonde hair, resting on lovely pale shoulders poking out above an elegant dress, red as blood.

I couldn’t breathe, my body rebelling against me. Utter shock stole through me. Denial and sorrow battered at my mind with blunt fists…

Ailia. Or rather, the Morrigan, Irish goddess and general badass, who currently had possession of her body.

I’d been so blind. I replayed my first confrontation with the Wendigo. It’d been a troublesome crow who’d first given us away as I’d probed the tiara. And when we’d been preparing to break into the mill, there had been more crows—a small flock of the bastards tracking us. Then, Kong had mentioned a blonde-headed woman. How hadn’t I seen this coming? Idiot.

Just the crows should’ve been a dead giveaway. The Morrigan was the Irish War-Walker, the Chooser of the Slain, deciding who would live and who would die on the field of battle, drinking in the sorrow and chaos of the dying, indulging in the life force of the fallen. And crows were her creatures, psychopomps that would feast on the corpses of the slain before ferrying their souls to the afterlife, bringing them to judgment.

“Hello, Yancy,” she said, the words ringing out in Ailia’s smoky voice. A voice that conjured so many wonderful and painful memories, a voice which had always been quick to joke or laugh or sing. “It feels like an age since last we met.”

I swiveled the pistol toward her, not caring that James stood behind me with a sword to my throat. The gun trembled in my outstretched hand, bobbing as a small sob hitched in my bloodied chest.

She gracefully strolled forward, until she was feet away, then inches, drawing close enough to place her hand on the barrel and draw it in, pressing it snug against her forehead.

“Could you do it?” she purred. “You know it won’t kill me, won’t diminish my essence in the least. But it would end her.” She ran the back of a hand over her cheek. “She’s still in here, you know. Trapped deep inside. Starving a little more every day. Wasting away as I eat her memories and savor her life. Each morning I siphon off her power a spoonful at a time, like a good cup of tea. She’d probably thank you for doing it.”

The Morrigan was right, Ailia would want me to pull the trigger. Ailia was enslaved and locked away inside her own head. Trapped in a state far worse than Achak had been. I dropped the pistol away, tearing my eyes from her face, unable to look at her, unwilling to see her like this. Killing her was the right thing to do. The smart thing to do. But I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did it. It was selfish, but there was a small part of me harboring hope that someday, somehow, I’d be able to save her. If I murdered her now, I’d murder my hope, too. Murder my shot at redemption.

“Just as I thought,” she said, turning with a swish of fabric and heading for the Wendigo, still sprawled on the floor. “She still thinks of you, you know,” she offered, not bothering to look at me. “Those are the memories she clings to the most fervently. They’re also the ones I most enjoy stealing from her.” She bent down with the grace of a queen and scooped up the comatose Wendigo, tossing the thousand-plus pound beast over her shoulder without so much as a grunt.

“What are we to do with you? So much trouble you’ve been.” She stalked over to Doctor Hogg, a model strutting a catwalk. She glanced at me over one shoulder. “But then you’ve always been more of a nuisance than would seem humanly possible. James, please secure the doctor.”

The blade eased away from my throat and slid home into its cane sheath with a rasp of metal. I threw out an awkward elbow, hoping to catch him in the jaw. He danced away, swinging his cane, bring it down behind my knees. The blow swept one leg and sent me sprawling into the floor, my chest sending out a renewed wave of fiery hurt. James lazily sidestepped me and ambled over to Hogg, carefully placing a hand on the doctor’s thick shoulder.

I pushed myself into a sitting position, glaring at James and the Morrigan in equal measures. “I’m gonna kill you, James,” I said, meeting his eye. “I’ll burn down the world to get you for this. I’m coming, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He shrugged. “It’s nothing personal. Please believe that.” He did sound sincere. “I’ve done everything in my power to keep you from getting hurt. In my heart, you’ll always be a friend, Yancy. But this … well, this is bigger than you or me. This is bigger than friendship. Nothing will be the same, not after this. Sadly, such change carries a steep price tag. I suppose, though, this makes us even for Haiti, back in ’76. That’s something, at least.” He offered me a no-hard-feelings-grin.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” I said, staring him down. “You better just kill me now, ’cause I’m just gonna keep coming.”

The Morrigan smiled, a radiant flash of teeth that took my broken heart and pulverized the pieces into fine powder.

“We’re counting on it,” she replied. “I wasn’t sure about this plan, not at first, but now I see its elegance”—the last she said more to herself than to me—“it will be worth the risk in the long run. There’s no better horse to bet on than you, Yancy Lazarus.”

What the hell was she talking about? They were counting on my interference? The words made no sense to my addled brain, and only left me more confused. There was obviously something else I was missing, something big, though damn if I knew what.

The Morrigan laughed, the sound bubbling up from her diaphragm. There was a blast of inky smoke, which broke into a cloud of crow wings—the creatures tearing from the room, leaving me behind. Alone. Like I said, there are some things a man has to do alone. Dying is one of them. Sometimes living is, too. I don’t know which is harder.

THIRTY-SIX:

Loose Ends

It’d been four days since my battle with the Wendigo in the Sacred Grove. Kong and Winona were back among their people, tending to the damage the Kinslayer had done during his short but brutal reign. Things weren’t back to normal on that front—far from it—but I had a suspicion that things would work out alright for the peace-loving clan of Chiye-tanka. It’s like the other Sasquatches had simply woken from a bad dream. And without the Seal weighing him down, Kong seemed … well, I’d say happy, but it’d be more accurate to say not pissed.

And now that Winona wasn’t on demonic-Kong patrol twenty-four seven, she was flourishing. Taking charge: restoring the damage Doctor Hogg had done to the Sacred Grove while setting up shop, checking food stocks, tending to wounds, and even organizing self-defense classes. Generally, wherever Winona went, order went in her wake. I’d even seen several hulking piles of hair following her around, making stupid doe-eyes at her as they attempted to woo her. Apparently Winona was one foxy Bigfoot and a real hot catch. Good for her.

And best of all—Winona had dispatched a pair of tech-savvy hairballs to fix the Camino. I’d discovered my home on wheels all patched up and good as new with a little note from Winona, which simply read:

Thank you, Yancy Lazarus.

—The People of the Forest.

Greg, Ferraro, and I idled around a table in the Feed Trough, finishing a well-deserved celebration meal—of course I had ribs—and drinking a good scotch with a round of cigars to follow. Was everything hunky dory? Hell no. I was carting around a chunk of demon, James was a traitor, the Morrigan was officially involved, and Doctor Hogg was still at large and with the Wendigo, no less. Even if that hairy asshole was only braindead meat, Doctor Hogg could still use him to finish his army of plague-beasts. Hell, things were worse now than when we’d started, or at least more complicated.

There was a war to fight, sure, but we’d still won an important battle here. And just seeing Kong and Winona happy was cause for celebration in my book.

I leaned back in my leather chair and pulled a fat cigar from my pocket. When the waitress wasn’t looking, I conjured a brief gout of flame and lit that bad boy up, puffing deeply as I stared vacantly, lost in thought.

“So what are you going to do now?” Ferraro asked. She reclined and stifled a small burp as she pushed her empty plate away. “I’m assuming you’ll have to go to the Guild with this?”

I puffed, inhaled a wave of smoke, and let it roll around inside my mouth. A gray cloud trickled from my nose as I spoke. “Kinda looks like I don’t have any other choice. If James really is the bad guy, I don’t have another option. Especially since the Morrigan’s involved. I’m gonna need intelligence and backup. Not to mention, I’ll need to find out what the arch-mage knows about the Fourth Seal Bearer.”

“Hold on a minute”—Greg held up a hand, his brow furrowed—“what’d you mean, ‘if James is the bad guy’? I know you two go back a ways, Yancy, but here’s the hard truth: James is the bad guy. Ain’t no ifs about it, Princess. He held a daggon blade to your throat. He betrayed you and he’s been working you from the get-go. Get your mind right about this. Don’t be a fool.”

I shrugged and took another pull from the cigar. “Yeah. Probably.” I exhaled leisurely. “He held a blade to my throat, true, but he could’ve cut my throat and didn’t. That’s gotta count for something. Plus, he said this thing at the end—it’s been picking at my mind. He said, ‘this makes us even for Haiti, back in ’76.’”

“And?” Greg asked. “I fail to see how that changes all of jack shit.”

“I think it might’ve been a coded message. Haiti was one of my earliest missions with the Fist. He and I were working deep ops. This group of rogue necromancers created their own little empire in Cité Soleil. Dark voodoo, murder, extortion. Ugly shit. The guy runnin’ the show was this cat named Pa Beauvoir—everyone called him the Voodoo Daddy—but the Guild couldn’t get a bead on him. Guy was as charismatic as a televangelist. He had plans to set up a rogue nation to rival the Guild, and he promised power to any mage willing to defect. And, lots of magi with a darker bent flocked to his call.

“Well, James and I went down to put a stop to it. It’s a complicated story”—I waved my hand, it’s not important—“but I ended up selling James out to prove I was a legit defector. I needed to get close enough to Beauvoir and that was the only way to prove my loyalty. Of course, I buried that voodoo asshole in the end and saved James, but it’s always been a sore point between us.”

“So it sounds like he was taunting you,” Ferraro said.

“Yeah.” I shrugged again. “Maybe. But I got this sense that he was saying this was like that … could be, there’s more going on than strictly meets the eye. I mean the Morrigan practically told me not to stop investigating, which doesn’t make a damn lick of sense. What if he betrayed me to get closer to the Morrigan—close enough to figure out the real con game? What better way to prove your loyalty? It’s the kind of subtle play James favors. Though, he could also be trying to throw me. Either way, I’ll have to pursue him like he is the traitor, but for me, the jury’s still out. How ’bout you guys?”

“If you need me on this,” Ferraro replied, “I’m here. You know that, right?”

I nodded. “The Guild doesn’t like bringing in outsiders though,” I replied, “especially not if they suspect one of their own. This will end up being a Guild sanctioned job.” I groaned. What a friggin’ nightmare this was gonna turn into.

She pressed her lips together and nodded. “I figured it might happen like that. I’ve got to get back to work. The FBI needs to know about what we found in that mill. Now that we know where Doctor Hogg is targeting, we’ll be able to mount a proper defense. Obviously, I’ll have to spin things a certain way, but we’ll work it out. I’ll also get I.A. to take a hard look at the boys in blue up in Missoula. I’ll bet they all have a stack of unexplained cash sitting in their bank accounts. If they don’t do serious prison time, I’ll be shocked.”

“But before she does,” Greg interjected, “I’m gonna head out to Virginia and introduce her to the folks over at the Quantico branch of the Lucis Venántium. Get her situated and squared away. Now, enough with this business talk.” He leaned back and hefted a frosted beer mug. “Let’s get down to the celebrating. To us, for saving the daggon world. Again.”

“Hear, hear,” Ferraro replied, lifting her bottle and clinking it against his glass.

I followed suit. A moment later, the jukebox began belting out Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son.” Only time would tell how fortunate we were, but for tonight at least, I could pretend everything was going to be okay.

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About the Author

Hey all, my name is James Hunter and I’m a writer, among other things. So just a little about me: I’m a former Marine Corps Sergeant, combat veteran, and pirate hunter (seriously). I’m also a member of The Royal Order of the Shellback—‘cause that’s a real thing. And, a space-ship captain, can’t forget that.

Okay  … the last one is only in my imagination.

Currently, I work as a missionary and international aid worker with my wife and young daughter in Bangkok, Thailand. When I’m not working, writing, or spending time with family, I occasionally eat and sleep.

Dedication

For Gregory Paul Charlton—G.P.C.—a great father, a humble servant, and a man after God’s own heart. Love you Devil Dog.

Special Thanks

I’d like to thank my wife, Jeanette, and daughter, Lucy. A special thanks to my parents, Greg and Lori. A quick shout out to my brother Aron and his whole brood—Eve, Brook, Grace, and Collin. Brit, probably you’ll never read this, but I love you too. Here’s to the folks of Team Lazarus, my awesome Alpha and Beta readers who helped make this book both possible and good: Owen “Ari” Wilkie, Megan Meyers (aka Teal Canary), Bob “Gunslinger” Singer, Dan Goodale, Joan Carmouche-Hairston, Nell Justice (playing the part of “Blond Siren”), Jen “Ivana” Wadsworth (playing the part of “Raven-haired Siren), Rhonda Almodovar, Robert Olsen, Brett Farris, Jim Dutton, Scott Hoerner, and Renee Robertazzi. They read the messy, early drafts so that no one else had to; thanks guys and gals. And of course a big thanks to my editor, Tamara Blain who rocked this book (if you need editing, go to her, she’s seriously awesome: www.acloserlookediting.com/ ).

—James A. Hunter, November 2015

Copyright

Wendigo Rising is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by James A. Hunter and Shadow Alley Press, Inc.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher, subject line “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.

JamesAHunter@outlook.com