A Shot in the Dark (28 page)

I don’t know if there was supposed to be some kind of barrier across the drive or what, but there wasn’t. There was a light on in the little guard shack, but I didn’t see anyone sitting in it as I blew right past it. I did hope briefly that: one, no one tried to chase me up the mountain, and two, that I didn’t get anyone in trouble for not being at their post.

According to the posted signs, it was at least an hour drive to reach the tippity top of the mountain. The guys didn’t have an hour. I’d have to make my stand somewhere lower down, preferably somewhere I could find cover, use the terrain to my advantage.

The road wound upward in sharp turns that seemed more about inconvenience than actual necessity. There were no guardrails on the serpentine highway, and I took the corners at unsafe speeds, straying dangerously close to the edge of the pavement. Each turn made my head swim, my damaged ears contributing a mild case of vertigo to all the other crap I had to deal with. The Suburban cornered like a brick, and my arms ached with fighting it, despite the power steering. No wonder the drive up took so freakin’ long.

How long did I have? How much time had passed since Axel dropped his bombshell? Was I far enough up the mountain for it to count? Would Axel hold up his end of the bargain?

The tall trees that lined the road hid the top of the peak from view, and I kept my eyes open for anywhere I could pull off the road. Big trees were good; they gave me something to put my back against. Not to mention that they’d help hide the truck in case the absent guard actually saw me speed through.

When I spotted the roadside sign that jokingly indicated a Bigfoot crossing, I figured that was omen enough. Bigfoot, Yeti, same diff, right? I swerved the truck off the road, feeling the damp soil give under the heavy vehicle, and hoped vaguely that I’d be able to get the truck unstuck later. If I was alive to get it unstuck. I hopped out of the truck and didn’t even stop to strap my sword on, just carrying the scabbard in one hand.

The trees there were mostly of the evergreen variety, their low-hanging boughs interlacing in places to provide an almost solid canopy. In the uppermost reaches, they were dusted with snow, fallen sometime during the day I guessed. For yards around, the only thing underfoot was dead pine needles, treacherously slippery to the unwary. That wasn’t going to work.

The night was quiet as I jogged into the tall pines, lacking in the usual birds-and-bugs noises, but still within the range of “mundane and normal.” I was just starting to wonder where the wildlife had gone, when I remembered that my ears weren’t back to normal yet, hence the cone of silence effect. That was gonna suck quite a bit if the Yeti brought his little pets. I needed to be able to hear them coming. Last thing I needed was them dropping out of the trees onto my head.

Accordingly, I found a small area with relatively few low tree branches. The needles crackled under foot, faintly, and I strained my hearing to see just how impaired I was. The burble of trickling water reached me, proving that I wasn’t entirely deaf, and I went to investigate.

It was a small stream, small enough that it probably wasn’t even there all the time. A recent rain, or melting snow, or something, had given birth to the tiny trickle, no more than three feet wide and a couple of inches deep. The water ran swiftly, carrying needles and twigs with it, proof that the debris had existed here long before the creek.

On impulse, I fished Cam’s holy quarter out of my pocket, eyeing it thoughtfully as I rolled it across the backs of my knuckles. Cam’s magic smelled like Mira’s, though I was willing to bet he’d argue that point with me. No matter the method—prayer versus spell casting—the effects had proven the same. And if his blessed coin was just like the magicked one she’d given me, so long ago . . . It had worked before. I just needed to get the big fur ball into the water.

Kneeling, I quickly buried the coin in the middle of the tiny stream, pressing it into the soft mud to keep it from flitting off down the mountain. The water was cold enough that a thin skin of ice had started to form at the very edges. My fingers went numb, and I tucked them into my armpits to warm them, wishing more than ever that I’d brought a jacket on this little vacation. Add the freak cold snap to the high altitude, and it was going to be downright frigid on this peak tonight.

How much time had passed? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Thirty? My situation here wasn’t going to get any better, and my friends’ was only going to get worse.

I found a relatively empty place, where the trees were smaller, some of them growing directly out of outcroppings of the mountain’s distinctive pink granite. Keeping the small stream at my back, I planted my feet and drew my sword. The scabbard I tossed away, honestly figuring I’d never be able to go look for it anyway. With both feet grounded against the solid mountain, my breath fogging the air before me, I opened my mouth to call the Yeti’s name.

And choked.

It’s not like I forgot his name. Trust me, those things get in your brain and live there like parasites, all coiled up and oozing ick. You don’t get to just forget the demonic names you hear. You can’t unknow, y’know?

But the moment I tried to say it, my throat closed up, and bile rose, strong enough that I really thought I was going to gag to death on my own puke for a second. My vision got all spotty and dim, and the faint ringing in my ears became a loud clamor as my heart tried to escape out that way and go fleeing into the trees.

I found myself on hands and knees on the forest floor, hacking up my sad little gas station cheeseburger. My throat burned with it, clear up into my sinuses. Oh that was
not
pleasant at all.

“Why the fuck do people do this on purpose?” I muttered to nobody as I struggled to my feet again. The universe tipped and swayed a bit, then steadied, and I was pleased to find that I was indeed upright, and that I’d never dropped my katana.

Properly forewarned and stomach empty now, I tried again. The name was there, at the tip of my bitter-tasting tongue. It was rage and jealousy, evil and venom, all rolled up into one garbled mash of consonants and vowels and razor wire and strychnine.

I forced every single cursed syllable out around a tongue that refused to cooperate, and a throat that was doing its level best to strangle me for my effort. The moment it passed my lips, a pall of silence descended over the mountain. And I don’t mean “Jesse’s ears are all broke” kind of quiet. I mean quiet like the whole world stopped to hold its breath, the water stopped flowing, the plants stopped growing, the stars stopped moving. That kind of quiet.

Goose bumps sprouted over my arms, my shoulders, and my stomach cramped painfully. Something bad was coming, and I’d invited it in, asked it to come have tea. I was gonna love him, and pet him, and call him George, right up until he ate my spleen.

I kept my eyes focused on the ring of trees around me, barely breathing myself as I strained for that first sound, the one that would tell me where he was coming from.

It turns out, that first sound was a chuckle somewhere behind me. I whirled and found the Yeti lounging quite comfortably on the far side of the tiny creek. He shook his horned head in amusement. “I knew you would call. You are predictably foolish.”

“Yeah, and your mama dresses you funny.”
Don’t look at the water. Don’t look at the water.
All I needed was for him to charge me, to run through what I really, really hoped was now holy water. “Where are your little pets?” That was the loophole I’d left in the contract. If he was gonna screw me, this was the point.

“I left two of them with your companions. They were hungry.” The white-furred behemoth stretched then, rising to his full height. Pine needles rained down on him where his horns jostled the lower branches. Christ, he was huge. “But this one . . . she longed for your presence.”

Dammit, I fucking knew it. “What the hell does it take to kill you?”

Handless emerged from the darkness behind the Yeti. Her left arm was gone at the shoulder, the bone a rather diseased gray color where it poked through. Putrid black fluid ran from the wound down her washboard ribs, and her right arm still ended in the jagged bony stump. Somehow, it didn’t make her look any less dangerous. She snarled at me in her silent way.

This was not good. Even unarmed as she was, literally, I couldn’t fight the Yeti-plus-one. Any lapse of attention was going to get me eaten. “Afraid to take me on by yourself, Fuzzy?” Maybe I could get Handless into the stream too? Or maybe I could convince them both to sit down for a game of cutthroat pinochle instead. Seemed just as likely.
Bet she’d have a helluva hand, har har har.

“She will not interfere. Provided that you play my game.”

“What game?”

“Any game I wish.” The beast smiled, muzzle wrinkling to reveal those gleaming fangs that had ripped into me almost every night for the last four years.

I kept an eye on Handless, but she didn’t seem inclined to move, just crouching at the Yeti’s heel like a good little hound. “Then we’re just burning moonlight. C’mon, Fuzzy. Give it your best shot.” I had to hope that Cole and the others could hold their own against a few rabid zombies. There wasn’t anything I could do but deal with what was right here before me.

“As you wish.” He dropped to all fours, rocking back and forth on his clawed feet and enormous knuckles for a moment. I swear, as big as he was, the mountain actually rocked with him. Or, it could have been a bit of dizziness from the damaged ears. Whichever.

I settled into a ready stance, sword held low, and waited.
C’mon . . . go for a little swim . . .

The Yeti opened his muzzle and roared, the sound echoing off the peak, crashing through the night air. The sound slammed into me like a tidal wave, and my head reeled with vertigo. The night tilted at off angles, and the ground seemed to ripple beneath my feet.

After what seemed like forever, the echoes died away and my brain corrected itself so that all down things were down and all up things were properly up. I blinked my eyes open in time to see him spring at me. Neatly up and
over
the goddamn stream.

Well, shit.

19

T
he Yeti crossed the distance between us in two giant leaps. The third one took him completely over my head. I dropped to one knee to avoid the claws, and his fur brushed across my face as he passed. It smelled of something musky and rank. A drunk goat swimming in a septic tank, maybe, with the distinctive undertones of sulfur and ozone. Futilely, I lashed out with my sword, trying to connect with anything solid, but the demon wasn’t intent on attacking me. In a crash of brush, he bounded into the trees on the opposite side of the clearing and vanished.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” I hopped to my feet as quickly as I could, focusing on Handless who hadn’t moved at all. She cocked her head to the side, watching me from her one-armed crouch. I didn’t dare take my eyes off her, but . . .
Where did you go, Fuzzy?
I strained to hear any trace of the Yeti’s passing, but between my ears and the oppressive demon stillness that had fallen over the area, there was nothing.

The guttural chuckle echoed out of the darkness, but I couldn’t get a bead on the location. “Come find me.”

“I did not sign on to play hide-and-seek!” My own voice bounced back at me mockingly.
Hide-and-seek! Hide-and-seek!
It sounded odd to my abused eardrums, like the inside of a large glass jar.

It was eerily familiar, but I couldn’t place just why. Not with more important things on my mind, like whether or not I was going to see the dawn with my internal organs inside me, or beside me.

To my left, up the mountain, a tree groaned and crashed down. I could see the new gap in the pine canopy twenty or so yards ahead of me. The newly revealed stars were so bright tonight, so far from the city lights.

I had two choices. I could stand here, and assume that eventually, the Yeti would get tired of his games and circle back around to me. Or, I could chase after him, which was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to play with me. I knew that about him, because I’d seen him do it before. It was just something he did, like being white and hairy or having really bad Hell-breath. Like that old story about the frog and the scorpion, it was simply his nature.

Handless shifted her weight, inching forward a few steps when I continued to just stand there. “That how it’s gonna be? I either chase him, or you come for me?” She inched again and I leveled my sword at her. “Bad. Sit. Stay.” I could take her. I was pretty sure of that. But I also knew that the second I committed to that fight, the Yeti was going to come back and dissect me.

And let’s face it, pursuing him was my nature. Pretty sure he knew that about me, too. I gave Handless a small salute, and deliberately turned my back on her. Every step I took, I kept expecting to feel her slight weight land on my back, her blunt teeth tear into my neck. But she never moved. The last time I glanced back at her, she was still sitting on the far side of the stream, just watching me.

Running uphill is bad, m’kay? I wasn’t that stupid. I set out at a determined walk, taking my sweet time in skirting around brushy turns or fallen limbs. Running pell-mell through the dark woods was only gonna earn me a broken leg, or worse. The Yeti couldn’t have this little brawl alone, so he could by God wait until I got there.

I found the downed tree easy enough, the soil still damp around its old roots. It looked like it had been ripped out of the ground and tossed a few yards, even. Showing off? Trying to intimidate me? Or just happy to cause as much destruction as possible?

There was a tuft of white fur stuck to a branch, and even as I reached to pluck it off, it dissolved into a puff of black mist. I jerked my hand back and rubbed my fingers on my shirt, just in case I’d gotten any of the blight on me.

The Yeti hadn’t been gone that long, then. He’d waited here, to see if I was coming. I could picture him in my mind, lounging here, dragging his head along the murdered tree trunk. Sure enough, my fingers found gouges in the bark, left by the massive curved horns.