A Shot in the Dark jjd-2

by K. A. Stewart

  I saw how he stayed close to the tree trunk, dodging as much of the fading sunlight as he could. Now, I’m pretty sure the light doesn’t physically harm them, but man, demons don’t like it. The forest canopy provided just enough shade where he was standing to throw his face into darkness.

  “Step into the light.” Unlike most demons I’d dealt with, Axel had never made special efforts to avoid the sun. Something was wrong. Well, more wrong than usual.

  “I’ll stay here, thanks.”

  “What’s up, Axel?”

  “Let’s just say I’m not at my best today, hmm? Now shut up and let me give my message.” His eyes flashed red and stayed that way. I was pissing him off.

  “From who?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He moved one step closer, and as his face passed out of the tree’s shadow, I could see it clearly for the first time. His lower lip was split and swollen, and the right half of his face was a lovely shade of eggplant purple. Axel had obviously had a very bad day.

  “What the hell happened to you?” More importantly, how the hell had it happened? I’d never seen a demon with visible injuries. At least ones I didn’t cause myself. Damn, how much damage did it take to bruise blight?

  He managed a pained grin, running his tongue over his teeth. “A fairly accurate description, actually. You ever see those videos of family Thanksgiving dinners that turn into all-out brawls? Think of it like that.”

  “You had a family food fight?”

  He chuckled. I will never get used to hearing my laugh come out of a demon’s mouth, and the muscles in my back twitched as I tried not to shudder. “I guess you could call it food. If it’s any comfort to you, I came out on the winning side.”

  “I’d hate to see the other guy.”

  “Oh yes. You would.” The smile faded quickly. “You need to get off the mountain.”

  Normally, I would laugh in the face of any order Axel gave me, but there was something in his eyes, something in his borrowed voice. It sent another wave of chills down my back. “You’re the one that told me to come up here.”

  That earned me a frown. “You ever hear of reverse psychology?”

  “Yeah, and you suck at it.” I finally closed the distance between us, just so I could lower my voice. Who knew where the guys were? “Did you flatten Marty’s tires?”

  His mouth twisted as he contemplated the answer. “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

  “And turn Will’s alarm clock off?”

  “Hey, that was just him being a moron. I had nothing to do with that.”

  I could feel the beginnings of a headache, somewhere behind my eyes. “Any particular reason why?”

  “You’ll find out. But get somewhere public. Somewhere you can put your back against something solid.”

  “That sounds like a threat, Axel.”

  He shook his head. “Not from me. I’ll swear it if you like. Just. .. do as I ask, this one time.”

  Everything in me screamed no. You don’t do what a demon asks, period, the end. Even if (especially if) they phrase it to be for your own good. I eyed him warily, as if I could drag secrets from him with the power of my charismatic gaze. Or some shit. “What’s in it for you? You don’t give out information for free.”

  The demon’s eyes flared red again in the dappled shadows, and he spat a curse in a language I didn’t understand. Even so, the single word made my vision swim and the trees around me tilt at bizarre angles for the space of two breaths. Demonic speech is not meant for human ears. The cussing that followed in English was easier to follow.

  “Damn you for your stubbornness, Jesse Dawson. You are the most infuriating creature on this planet.”

  “You been talking to my wife?” When in doubt, resort to being a smart-ass.

  Axel was not amused. His gaze swept the forest around us, and he finally pointed at my feet. “There. Pick that up.”

  “That” proved to be a small branch, probably fallen off one of the trees overhead. Small, nondescript, definitely not something that could be used as a weapon. I bent to retrieve it, carefully keeping my eyes on him.

  He held his hand out to me as I straightened up. “Hand it to me.” Cautiously, I extended the stick out to him, and he snatched it out of my hand. “There, now you’ve given me something. We’re even.”

  At the risk of sounding mushy… where was the Axel I had come to know and hate? He would never have let a potential deal go without at least trying to bargain for something bigger, and his insistence on it had almost cost me my life last spring. “Axel, what’s going on? You’re not usually this… accommodating.”

  “Don’t worry, Jesse. I still want your soul. But for right now, I need to keep it attached to your body until I can come collect.”

  “So you’re saying I’m in danger. From what?” He stepped away from me, started to retreat into the trees. “Dammit, Axel, you can’t just drop this on me and bail!”

  “I can’t say more. My hands are tied. If I could-” Whatever he was going to say next was lost as he suddenly stumbled.

  I admit, it’s instinct. Someone falls, you catch them. I jumped forward, caught his arms and eased him down as he sagged toward the ground. A bout of wracking coughs shook his wiry frame, ending all conversation for a few long minutes. Eventually, he turned his head and spat something dark and sticky off to the side, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Are you okay?” I asked again. It felt strange, asking him that. Why should I care if the demon was hurt? Damn, could he even be hurt? They could be banished, yes, evicted from whatever physical form they’d taken. But actually injured? That opened up a whole new realm of “evil things Jesse can do to demons” if it was true. I made a mental note to roll this over in my brain later. There had to be something here I could use.

  He took a few deep breaths, testing, before he nodded. “Yeah. Just a bit more banged up than I realized.” He raised a brow, glancing at my hands still on his arms. “Are you gonna kiss me, or let go?”

  “Fuck off.” I released him immediately, but I had to stare at my hands, rubbing my fingertips together. There was nothing there. No tingle of magic, no scent of cloves, no electric spark. Under normal circumstances, I should never have been able to touch the demon, not with my wife’s spells of protection laid on me. But they protected me only from someone who meant me harm…

  “Get off the mountain, Jesse. That’s all I ask.” The voice, my stolen voice, was distant suddenly, and I looked up in time to see Axel fade from view before my eyes. There was a faint scent of sulfur and ozone, and he was gone. His last words were whispered from thin air. “They’re coming.”

  Well… fuck. That was as deep and meaningful as I could manage. Who was coming? When? Where? I cussed Axel up one side and down the other as I stood and debated my options. This was all pertinent information I could have used, dammit!

  A nut bounced off my paintball mask with a loud clack. Glancing up, I saw my irate rodent friend still watching me. “Yeah, I know. I know. And you better git too, before he does come back and eat you.”

  The animal gave me a firm chitter and vanished in a swoosh of fuzzy tail.

  I couldn’t just “get off the mountain.” My friends were out there in the woods, and they’d freak if I didn’t show up at the cabin in pretty short order. Not to mention that the Quinns were already up there, and if something bad was coming for me, I couldn’t just leave them.

  “Okay, first things first. One, stop talking to myself. Two, gather up the guys.” I’d figure out what to tell them when we were all in one spot. “Hey guys, I got a message that we need to go.” “From where?” “Um… little bird told me?”

  I mean, here I was with an enigmatic warning from a creature I couldn’t trust any farther than I could throw him. Except… the spells hadn’t tripped. I should have zapped the hell out of him when we touched, pun intended, but nothing happened. What did that mean?

  I quickly dismantled my marker and stowed it in my pack, sud
denly preferring to leave my hands free for my sword if need be. I found my way back to the trail through a few yards of intervening scrub brush, then set out at a determined jog. I had to find my friends, and fast.

  7

  The cabin was a wonderful sight, when I finally burst from the trees into the large clearing. Now, let me explain that when I say cabin, I don’t mean some little shack in the woods. It was a two-story bungalow with porches in both front and back, running water, a fully stocked bar, and a generator-driven fridge. The second floor was mostly a loft where we could spread our sleeping bags and crash, and downstairs we could sprawl out in front of the fireplace and play cards or shoot the breeze, or whatever.

  Oscar Quinn was stacking firewood on the front porch, laughing and chatting to my friends who had all beaten me there, to a man. “Oh, and there’s the last one. Hey, Jesse!” Oscar was in his midfifties, if I had to guess, but lean and wiry as only an outdoorsman can be. His skin was dark and weathered, and his hair was whiter than it had been, last I’d seen him, but the smile was the same. It made his eyes crinkle.

  As I trotted across the open area, I did a mental head count, relaxing a little when I realized everyone had arrived safely, if paint-splattered. If anyone noticed that I had my sword in my hand instead of my paintball gun, they didn’t comment.

  By the time I got inside, everyone was claiming a chunk of floor in the loft or jostling over the kitchen sink as they tried to wash the paint out of… everywhere. I tried to get Cole’s attention, to get him away from the others, but he was either intentionally ignoring me, or I wasn’t putting enough effort into it. “Cole. Cole! Hey, dumbass!” Nada.

  It would wait, I told myself. Axel had said to get off the mountain, so surely that meant I had time to do so. Right? Right?? Besides, the sun would be down in the next half hour. Traipsing down the trail in the dead of night was just asking for an accident.

  To convince myself, I walked to the window where I could see the glory of the Colorado wilderness spread out before me. Night was falling, the sky already deep purple to the east, and the color of day-old nacho cheese in the west. Things looked peaceful. They looked normal. It looked totally alien to me, I realized. When normal looks weird, your life is pretty messed up.

  “Martin, check the refrigerator, make sure it’s on.” Oscar frowned and wrinkled his nose as he came in the door. “Smells like the eggs have spoiled. Would be just our luck, yet another thing going wrong.”

  A quick check established that the fridge was working, but I quit paying attention to what was going on behind me sometime after that. I could smell it too, the distinct odor of rotten eggs, very faint on the mountain air. The scent of sulfur.

  I craned my neck to peer out the window, searching the tree line for… what? I didn’t know, but the goose bumps were suddenly marching up and down my back, keeping time with my heart as it sped up. Was it just me, or was there something out there, watching us?

  Someone moved at my elbow, and I glanced long enough to see that it was Cameron. He looked out the window with the same dark frown I knew I was wearing. There was something rotten in Denmark, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t the eggs.

  “Oscar? Where’s Zane?”

  Oscar looked up from his discussion of generator mechanics. “I sent him out to get more firewood. He should be back any minute; he’s been gone awhile.”

  Any minute wasn’t soon enough. I walked out the door, taking my sword with me. I felt the guys’ eyes on me, all of them wondering what was up. Cole said, “Jess?” but I ignored him. I didn’t have an answer yet anyway.

  Cameron joined me on the porch, and I swear he raised his head to sniff the air, which might have been odd if I hadn’t just done the same thing. The faint scent was gone… no, wait. I breathed deep again, and caught just the hint of it. Sulfur on the fitful breeze. The icy prickles across my arms were painful, and I drew my katana free of its scabbard, flexing my fingers on the hilt.

  It could be Axel. I already knew he was in the area. But it didn’t feel like Axel. Maybe it made me an idiot, but Axel didn’t strike this deep chord of terror that I felt coiling around in my guts. He had never triggered my “danger sense,” not like this.

  I strained my eyes at the tree line, as if I could make Zane Quinn materialize by sheer force of will. “Come on… get back here.. .”

  His voice preceded him, sounding garish and out of place in the suddenly silent wood. As he broke the tree line, I could see the boy’s head bobbing as he sang off-key to whatever music was playing on his player. His arms were loaded with chopped wood, high enough that he could barely see over the top.

  Far to our west, over the mountains that blocked our view, into an ocean we couldn’t even see from here, the sun set.

  “Behind him…” I saw the movement even as Cam breathed the words. Something was moving in the trees behind Zane. Something dark, coming on fast in odd leaps and bounds from branch to trunk to forest floor.

  “Zane! RUN!” I was off the porch and running before I realized it, and the teenager blinked at me in surprise instead of obeying. The hesitation cost him instantly.

  In those first horrifying seconds, I couldn’t tell you how many there were, or even what they were. They were shapes, lean, lithe, springing across the open area in inhuman leaps. I demanded more speed from my feet, but it wasn’t going to do any good. I was only human, and I knew those things weren’t. I’d never reach him in time.

  Two of them burst from the brush to my right and bowled into Zane. The firewood went flying. The copper tang of blood burst into the unnaturally still air, and the boy screamed in pain. Four more pounced down out of the overhanging branches, landing on their fellows, on Zane, without thought for safety. After that, I lost count, but there were more. So many more.

  Without breaking stride, I waded in with my sword, feeling the resistance as it met solid forms, sliced yielding flesh. I had to clear them fast, before hitting the kid became too great a risk. There was no beauty to it. I hacked and slashed where I could, my momentum carrying me through them and out the far side. I figured at least a few would pursue me, but not a single one did. Like sharks in a frenzy, they swarmed to that blood scent.

  “Here! On me!” I yelled. I stabbed, I sliced, and it was like kicking at the Rock of Gibraltar. I didn’t have what they wanted, so I didn’t exist.

  The one on top of Zane reared up and I thrust through its shoulder, my blade appearing a good three inches out the back. The creature’s face drew up in a rictus of pain, but it made no sound, even as I kicked it off my sword. Its face was smeared almost black with fresh blood, what remained of its rotten teeth coated and sticky with it. And worst of all, it looked almost human. Whatever it was, it seemed to suddenly understand fear and pain because another slash from my sword had it hopping backward, moving on all fours at times, and on two legs at others.

  Things got tricky after that. The kid was in there somewhere, thrashing and screaming, and the things on him were getting in their own way more than not. It was like sorting through the football huddle from Hell.

  Finally, I caught a glimpse of bright fabric and made a wild grab with my free hand. It was the collar of Zane’s jacket, and I bodily dragged him out from under the writhing pile. There was no time to get him on his feet, and I didn’t wait to see if he even could. Getting a good grip, I started dragging, taking swipes at the creatures that got too close. There were more than I’d thought, swarming out of the trees, massing at the dark pools of Zane’s blood that gathered in the grass. Those that couldn’t get near those delectable morsels were flanking me, intent on retrieving the meal I’d just stolen from them.

  Zane was still functional enough to kick with his legs, either in defense or scrabbling desperately to put distance between himself and his attackers. His heel connected with a shrunken, skeletal nose, the bone crunching wetly.

  A hand reached for me, dark with filth and God knows what else, and I severed it at the wrist. The thing recoiled in silence,
but its fellows closed the gap.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the things circling, trying to get between me and the cabin, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Instinct, that primal lizard voice in the back of your brain, told me to drop the kid, to bolt for the cabin. Damn good thing I was an evolved primate. I kept moving, hauling Zane back over the rough ground as quickly as I could, hoping to God I didn’t trip on something and go down. It would be the end for both of us.

  An explosion shattered the eerie silence, and it took me a second to recognize the sound of Cole’s gun. One of the things on my left was ripped away, sent asshole over appetite by my brother’s shot. Some part of me could hear him shouting my name, screaming for me to move move move! And not just Cole. All the guys were scattered across the front porch, caught somewhere between “What the fuck?!” and “Lemme at’em!” ’Cause face it, I’m the only one dumb enough to run headlong into something like that.

  Another shot sounded, but there were too many of the things scrambling after me to see if it did any good. Three of them charged from my right, more than I could take at once, and just as I braced to take one or two of them out before they got me down, I was nearly flattened by two hundred pounds of brindle mastiff as he hurtled past me. Duke’s bellow added to the chaos, and the big dog tore into two of my attackers with a raging fury I never imagined he possessed.

  I heard bones snap in those massive jaws, and not once did any of the creatures make a noise. The only voices I could hear were my buddies, Cole screaming at me and Marty shouting at Duke, and a panicked breathy shriek from the kid I was dragging across the clearing.

  Duke seemed to grasp the idea of a fighting retreat, and as soon as he’d beaten the creatures back, he was at my side, a rumbling growl in his barrel chest but backing up step by step just as I did.

  My heels hit something solid, and for a split second, I just knew I was done for. Then hands reached past me to grab Zane, to haul him up the porch steps and inside. Somehow, we’d made it. I slashed at two more of the things that were bold enough to come within my reach, and they danced back. Duke gave a lunge, and they scattered farther. I made a grab for his collar, keeping him from chasing after them. That’s what they wanted.