Keystone (Gatewalkers) (19 page)

“Custom made, to meet my needs,” he said with obvious pride, and showed her how the handle extended to become a spear if he pushed a small button on the pommel.

Now
that
was wicked awesome. “Can I see?” she said, holding out her hands.
 

Rhys hesitated. “I think perhaps not.” He shortened it and put it away.

Charlie tried not to pout. It wasn’t as if she could
break
it. “What’s it called?”

Rhys lifted an eyebrow. “A spear.”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant. Don’t fancy swords always have names?”

“Oh, human ones do,” Jack put in. “In fact, we have quite the reputation for naming everything. Elves only name what they have to. Or things truly out of the ordinary. That’s why it’s so unusual that High King Gwalchmai’s sword had a name. The funny thing is, no one knows anymore what the name was!”

Charlie pulled out her knife. “Does this mean I should name my knife?” She’d thought of a good one, actually.

“Do! Do!” Jack said.

Rhys snorted. “Only if you keep moving along.”

Charlie grinned. “Mr. Pointy.” She made a stabbing stake motion. “You should name your sword/spear, Rhys.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on. It would be funny.” Charlie grinned.

“You could call it Silver Spear,” Jack said.

“No way!” Charlie said. “No imagination. How about Narsil?”

“What sort of name is that? Silver Lightning.”

“Stop thinking literally, Jack.”

A bright flash of metal between the trees caught Charlie’s eye. It was brighter than the shine off the river, more metallic than liquid, and in the wrong direction. She paused, peering into the grove of scrawny pines. An unmistakably man-made shape nestled among them. “What’s that?”

Rhys followed her gaze. “It is a metal construct of some sort.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. “That’s no construct. That’s a car.”

“Really?” Jack lit up like a firecracker and dove for it, heedless of rocks and brush.
 

The other two followed at a more sedate pace.

It was a Model T, as far as Charlie could tell, or at least something equally old. Its black fabric roof was torn, and its black, boxy form was planted front first into a tree, its wagon-like wheels turned askew, but its metal shone like new.

“How did it get here?” Charlie mused aloud. She trailed a hand along the door, and sounded the horn mounted on the side of the windshield. The obnoxious noise shattered the quiet of the mountains.

“Did you think you were the only thing to come to this world through a Great Gate?” Rhys sounded mildly amused.

“Is it an Aston Martin? A Volvo? Nissan Versa?” Jack said, delighted. He fluttered around the car like a drunken butterfly, bending to look under it, then leaning over the doors to peer around the inside. “Can it go 100 miles per hour?”

Lallia climbed into the brass bell of the horn. Tom materialized on the horn’s bulb and jumped up and down, producing halfhearted squeaks.

“Sorry, Jack. None of the above,” Charlie said. She squeezed the horn’s bulb, shooting Lallia out of the bell. “It’s a very, very old one, by my world’s standards.” She pulled out her pocket comp and snapped a few pictures.

She circled around and pried open the folding hood. Charlie eyed its innards, thinking it was a pity she knew nothing of mechanics. If this thing could drive at all, they might not have to walk for a bit. But she didn’t know the first thing about how it worked. Maybe her encyclopedia had instructions.

Jack tried out the horn, eliciting a pained squawk. Delighted, he squeezed out a series of rapid-fire honks. Rhys reached over and crushed the bell, the dying horn giving one last painful cry.

“Here,” Charlie said, opening the car door. “Let’s see if it’ll start.” She pulled open the door and hopped up onto the driver’s seat. There were three pedals on the floor – gas, clutch, and brake? – a lever on each side of the wheel, two levers to the left of the driver – one with a hand grip like crocodile jaws - and a crank-like lever rising in the middle floor between driver and passenger. A few other dials and buttons decorated the dash, and a slot that could be a key ignition.

Her eyes wandered the interior, and spied something half wedged in the passenger seat. Charlie pulled it free. It was a man’s black leather glove; supple, new, and old fashioned. Charlie went cold. The car had the look of one
driven
into the tree, not one caught by a Gate while parked. “Where’s the driver?”

Jack’s head poked up out of the engine compartment. “The driver?”

“He was not so fortunate as you.” Rhys’ voice came from the other side of the trees. “I have found him. What remains.”

Charlie and Jack scrambled to join Rhys. Bones scattered among the bushes, picked clean and gleaming white. Scraps of black and white cloth hung caught in nearby branches, along with a top hat, black wood cane, and a pair of gnawed leather shoes. A silver shine proved to be a key. Charlie gingerly picked it out of the grass.

Rhys nudged the skull over until it stared upward, jawless. “We should move on.”

“What could
do
that?” Charlie asked. The scattered bones on the ground seemed too surreal to be human.

“Shadow spawn,” Jack said. “It is said they can strip flesh to the bone in moments.”

That would explain the quiet of these woods. Nothing left to make noise. Charlie’s skin crawled. “Are we in danger?”

“No, of course not,” Jack said. “They would burn in sunlight. No. We are safe until sunset.”

“By which time, we should be long gone,” Rhys said.

***

Her encyclopedia, sadly, did not include instructions on how to drive a Model T. Charlie tried to get the car to start, but her efforts to figure out the archaic controls on her own failed. Charlie abandoned the car with reluctance, but Rhys didn’t give her the time to dwell on it.

Rhys pushed Jack and Charlie onward at a pace that was nearly brutal. Charlie stretched her muscles past their protests, spurred by the thought of whatever left those picked-clean bones behind.

They set up their minimal camp when neither Jack nor Charlie could continue any further. Though Jack was weaving with exhaustion, he took the time to conjure up the canvas tent, and unlike the previous nights he also set up what he explained as a basic protection spell. Though shields were too advanced for him, Jack said the spell would avert anything that wasn’t particularly determined to notice them.

Jack dropped right to sleep practically the moment he finished.

Charlie couldn't bring herself to close her eyes. She curled up on her cot, but every time she tried to sleep, she saw the driver’s skull behind her eyelids.

A shadow darkened the doorway of the tent. Charlie bolted upright, but it was only Rhys.

“I thought perhaps it would be wise not to keep all of my supplies in one bag. Would you put this in Jack’s holding bag for me?” He held up a long, thin object wrapped carefully in padding.

Rhys asking a favor? Was the sky falling? “Sure,” Charlie said casually, and got up to take it from him. It felt like a glass tube under the padding.

Rhys didn’t let go of it right away. “It is very fragile and very important.”

That sparked instant curiosity. “What is it?”

“Unique.” Rhys released it and left the tent.

Seriously? Could he
be
more cryptic? Hadn’t he ever heard of Pandora’s box? But Charlie resisted the temptation to unwrap it. It wasn’t like she’d be able to identify it by sight and for all she knew it was poisonous.

She dutifully dragged Jack’s bag from under his cot and tucked the padded vial inside.

***

Charlie’s eyes flew open. Her heart raced. She sat up on her cot. Her eyes searched the darkness. Her skin was cold. Her stomach felt queasy.

The embers in the small fire pit flared. Rhys crouched at the edge of camp, sword in hand. Tense.

Charlie could hear nothing but her own breath. She didn’t see or hear what woke her, but couldn’t shake the feeling. Something stalked the night.

Charlie eased out of her sleeping roll. The crackle of her small movements sounded deafening. She slipped out of the tent and across the camp to Rhys’ side. He tilted his head slightly, acknowledging her presence.
 

The darkness reduced their world to the light of the dying embers. Not a hiss of wind broke the silence. Charlie’s skin crawled.

“Stoke the fire,” Rhys murmured. The fine hairs that escaped from Rhys’ braid stood on end, crackling with tiny sparks.

Charlie crept backwards, not willing to completely turn her back on the night. She nearly stepped into the fire pit. Charlie snatched up a half charred stick. She stabbed at the embers, exposing the dimly glowing orange to the air.

Movement caught her eye. Her head snapped around.

Nothing.

Nothing but the too-black shadow surrounding them. No stars. No moons. No reflection off of the distant snowy peaks.

One of the embers caught and popped, sending Charlie nearly out of her skin.

Charlie backed up further and reached into the tent, finding Jack’s foot. She shook it. “Jack,” she whispered. Her voice sliced through the silence.
 

Jack stirred. He lifted his head and shoved his hair from his eyes. “Whaa…?”

Charlie hissed him quiet. “Something’s wrong.”

She quietly collected her bow and quiver, then slipped her feet into her sneakers without bothering to tie them. Lallia and Tom poked up their heads.
 

“Stay,” Charlie whispered.

The pixies glanced at each other and ducked down into their bowl.

A faint chitter sounded from the darkness, almost like a snicker.

“Shadow spawn,” Rhys said.
 

“Put it out!” Jack dove for the fire pit, whipping out a piece of chalk and scribbling a mark on one of the stones. “Spawn are drawn to light!” He slapped his palm down over the mark, whispering a hurried word, and the glowing flames vanished, even the embers.
 

In the same moment all of Rhys’ tiny crackling sparks disappeared.
 

A faint glow emanated from the tent. It was tinged turquoise and pink, bright enough to outline the inside of the tent. And the shadow slinking into it.

It was small, barely bigger than a purse dog and built roughly like a greyhound, with narrow hips and a deep chest. Its powerful jaws were those of a wolfhound.

Charlie’s eyes shot from the creature to the bowl of pixies. Tom’s head poked up, eyes round and frightened.

Another chitter sounded from the dark night, teeth clicking.

Charlie whipped an arrow onto her bow, drew, and fired at the shadow spawn in the doorway. The barely-aimed arrow scraped along the creature’s side. It spun on her with an outraged whine. Charlie leapt at it, one foot coming down on its spine, the other on its head. Both crunched under her sneakers as her weight crushed them. A spasm of disgust rolled up Charlie’s spine, even as she reached out to snatch up the bowl, pixies and all. She clutched it to her chest, extinguishing the light.

Pain ripped up her leg as it was torn out from under her, teeth fastened into her shin, scissoring through her flesh to grip the bone with incredible pressure. She didn’t even feel the pain at first, only the terrible power in those jaws clamped into her leg and refusing to let go.

Her arm lashed out with her bow, slamming it into the shadow spawn’s solidness, but it refused to relinquish its grip. Charlie kicked and flailed in the pitch black and felt another set of teeth sink into her thigh. More snapped at her arm and caught at her face.

Flashes of white light lit the night like a strobe. His face intent with concentration, Rhys crackled with small, controlled lighting arcs as he fought off a horde of small black spawn. The light glinted from thousands of dark teeth.
 

Charlie fought like wild, rolling and slamming the spawns attached to her leg into the ground. The teeth didn’t release until she felt bones snap.
 

 
Jaws clamped onto her forearm and dragged her, breathlessly fast, out of the tent and into the woods.

Charlie screamed pure terror, clinging with the other arm to the bowl and the two pixies rattling inside. Her side slammed against a tree, knocking the air out of her.

Rhys shouted. Blinding white blue light flashed through the trees with an ear-cracking boom. Inhuman squeals pierced through even the ringing in her ears.

Something the weight of a cat dropped on her stomach, teeth sinking in a moment later. Charlie writhed, trying to scrape it off as the spawn dragged her along the ground, twigs and roots stabbing and tearing.

More teeth set into her already torn shin, chewing. Charlie screamed.

***

The moment Charlotte killed the first shadow spawn, the others swarmed the camp.
 

Rhys’ night sight
 
picked out the silvery shape of each shadow spawn as they converged on the camp. Rhys tried at first to scythe through them without using lightning, but the sheer number of shadow spawn defied reason. When he saw Charlotte fall, something twisted like a knife in his gut. He fought to reach her, using every means at his disposal, and if the flashes of lightning brought more spawn down on him, it was that many fewer to attack the others. This was simpler when he worked alone!

Rhys ripped shadow spawn jaws out of his shoulder and crushed the creature’s head, simultaneously slamming the butt of his spear down on another. Two more clung to his back, claws tearing and jaws biting. He ran a current of lightning across his back, flinging them away. Then Jack went down in a wash of blood.

He heard Charlotte shriek. He saw her dragged from the tent. Rhys felt something inside snap.

Rhys let out a wordless roar, drawing on the well of power within him while physically reaching up toward the sky. He ripped lightning out of the reluctant clouds, pulling it down into the camp. It forked out and slammed down on the shadow spawn, washing over him to rip into those clinging to him before dispersing into the ground.

Rhys did not wait to see if any survived. He snatched up Jack’s bloody corpse, tucking it under his arm, and darted into the trees.