by James Hunter
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 pro
blem—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.
