by John Levitt
Then Louie whirled around and I noticed small rustling sounds in the tall dune grass. Great. What now? A small furry shape skittered out from one clump of grass and ducked into another. Louie was after it like a bullet, and I had to yell at him to bring him back. It was a rat, and a big one at that, close to a foot long. More rustling. Little rat heads were peeking out of every available bit of cover. So that’s what Christoph had been doing. He might not have much power left, but apparently influence over small creatures was a speciality of his. If slugs and crabs, why not rats?
The rats charged forward, angling off at the last moment before reaching us, edging closer with each sortie. Louie was trembling with eagerness, ready to sink his teeth into one of them. I thought caution the better strategy and started backing up a low rise of sand. One of the rats finally summoned up the courage to launch itself at me, but Lou intercepted it in midleap and crunched down on the base of its skull, whipping it briskly from side to side and quickly snapping its neck. Three more rats took its place, and I kicked at them, wishing I had some sort of stick to beat them off with. The dirt and sand underfoot was another disadvantage; I couldn’t get much footing and when I tried to stomp down on them they would squirm out from under my boot as often as not.
The rats learned quickly, some feinting rushes from the front while others slipped in from the rear. Lou kept them at bay although he wasn’t much larger than they were, but they kept going for his forelegs. Sooner or later one would manage to cripple him and then it would only be a matter of time. They were smart, and cunning as, well, rats. One of them came up behind me while I was trying to crush another attacking from the front and sank its teeth into the back of my calf. Lou was on it like a flash, but the damage was done. Blood stained my pant leg, which whipped the rest of the rats into a frenzy. They kept coming, always in increasing numbers. We needed to get out of there. I yelled for Lou, and ignoring the pain in my calf, sprinted through some brush, hurdled over a cluster of rats, scrambled over a small rise, and then stopped dead. On the other side of the rise were additional hundreds of the sleek brown rodents. The moment they saw us, they started an excited squealing and swept toward us in a furry wave.
The rats fanned out until we were enclosed in a circle. From a line of low trees fifty yards away I could see more reinforcements arriving. I had no idea there could be so many rats on one small island. Another wave of anger overtook me as I realized that I might not get out of this one alive. Lou was panting, sides heaving, and I wasn’t a lot better. I had a pain in my left side and a burning sensation along my upper thigh. It got worse until I realized there really was something burning, something in my pocket. I reached in and pulled out that small token I had completely forgotten: the wolf totem that Campbell gave me. It was hot enough to sear my hand, but I kept hold of it. I had no idea what was causing it to pulse with energy, but it was no coincidence. Lou stiffened the moment he saw it, then lifted his muzzle toward the sky and howled like a banshee. Calling for assistance? I had no magical potency of my own to aid the call, but I clutched the talisman like a drowning man and prayed for help. If you consider “For God’s sake, get me out of here” to be a valid form of prayer.
I thought I heard a far-off answering howl, but the next second I was too busy fighting off rats to listen. Several more managed to slash my legs and I almost lost my balance and went down. That would not have been a good thing. I had just about given up hope when I heard the soft thud of paws striking packed sand. From over the next ridge three gray shapes ghosted down, sweeping along in eerie silence. They fell on the horde of rats like destroying angels. I had thought Lou had the rat-killing move down, but the wolves were clearly experts in rodent destruction. Each wolf bent its head down, grabbed a rat by the back of the neck, and simultaneously broke the rat’s neck and flung it aside, all in one motion. Without so much as a pause for breath, they moved on to the next. In ten minutes, five hundred rats were dead, and the remaining ones vanished into the undergrowth like a dissolving brown mist. Even Christoph’s magical imperative couldn’t keep them.
The wolves stood shoulder to shoulder, tongues lolling, muzzles stained with rat blood, and regarded me calmly. The largest of the three had a familiar torn ear and now a muzzle torn by rat bites. Before I could say or do anything, they whirled in unison and loped off over the ridge, disappearing from sight. Not much for leisurely visits or accepting heartfelt thanks. I wished they could have stayed around long enough to tear out Christoph’s throat, but I guess it was their way of informing me that Christoph was now my problem. Not that I was complaining, mind you. It’s not every day that a totem animal you’re not even sure you have shows up to save your rear end.
So I still had Christoph to contend with. My only real chance was to surprise him, to get close enough to take him out before he could use his talent on me. Easier said than done. The merest wisp of an plan started to form in my mind. I jogged across the sand, keeping parallel to the beach, heading up to where the reeds and the mud flats begin to encroach onto the shore.
By the time I reached the flats, I was thoroughly winded. I splashed through brackish water, now almost up to my knees. Lou bounded from high point to high point, staying on the hillocks dotting the landscape. When we reached a point where the water was over his head and the muddy tussocks were too far apart for him to navigate, I had to carry him. Christoph’s Ifrit was still soaring above us, uttering hoarse squawks from time to time to guide him. That wasn’t altogether a bad thing; I wanted Christoph to be able to follow me, and quickly, since time was running out. Soon, his full power would return. On the other hand, I had to distract the raven somehow or my little ruse wouldn’t work. Decisions, decisions.
I finally found the exact place I wanted. I was feeling a bit stronger, which might mean the dampening spell was wearing off. I tried a small illusion spell on Lou, trying to make him look more like the muddy clump of detritus he was standing on. He shimmered a bit, but still looked more like an extremely muddy dog than anything else. It didn’t matter, the other Ifrit would see right through my best illusions anyway. But it did indicate that power was returning.
I sloshed over to where Lou was standing on the muddy islet. I needed a few minutes of privacy from prying raven eyes to set up my scheme. I wanted the raven to come closer, but it wasn’t cooperating. It circled lazily overhead, well out of range. But just as Louie, Ifrit though he might be, was also very much a dog, so this Ifrit was a raven. And the thing about ravens is that they are obsessively curious. I cupped my hands around nothing, bent over, and showed my imaginary find to Lou.
“Show interest,” I told him. “Act excited.”
He took to the game with great enthusiasm, pawing at my hands, uttering a short yip of astonishment at what he found there, then barking triumphantly up at the sky where the raven soared. The Ifrit probably knew better, but it couldn’t help itself. It just had to see what we had come up with.
It swung down in lazy circles until it was no more than twenty feet overhead. Louie continued his part, now snarling a challenge for it to keep its distance. I gathered all the energy I could muster, focused in on the bright sunlight, used the shiny metal of my belt buckle and the concave shape of my cupped hands, and let loose with a directed blinding flash twice as bright as the sun. With my diminished abilities, this simple parlor trick was as difficult as any spell I had ever thrown, but it worked. The Ifrit squawked in shock, banked sharply, and beat its wings to gain altitude. For the next few minutes, it was effectively blinded.
As soon as it veered away, I tore off my clothes and bunched them, half-submerged, in the muddy water and surrounding reeds. My two boots were jammed in the sand at the end of outstretched pant legs. I piled debris over the clothes as if I was trying to conceal them. It didn’t make too convincing a hiding place, but that was exactly the point.
I picked an area ten feet away and poured every bit of talent I had left into the reeds. I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything; I just wanted to le
ave some magical residue. As weak as I was, the effect was barely noticeable, which was perfect. It leaked out exactly as if a practitioner was hiding there trying to shield himself and tiny tendrils of energy were escaping despite his best efforts. Then I plastered mud over my face and head, eased into the tangle of reeds, and slipped naked into the warm water, directly under where my clothes tangled soggily in the mud and rushes. The real me hidden under the fake me. A deep metaphor if ever there was one.
“Guard,” I said. “But when Christoph gets here, don’t attack. Get away. Dive under the water if you have to, but stay away from him. I mean it.”
If a dog can shrug, that’s what he did. I knew he understood; I just hoped he could contain himself. As was all too clear from his interactions with pancakes and squirrels, self-control is not his strongest attribute.
The water was only eighteen inches deep, but it was so filled with mud and sand that you couldn’t see more than an inch under the surface, especially with the reeds and grass scattered throughout. I was effectively invisible, a mask of mud covering my face, only my nose and slitted eyes above water. I lay motionless in the steaming muck, the smell of salt and slime and rotting vegetation overwhelming my senses. A small fish, or at least I hoped it was only a fish, swam into my right ear, examined it for a while, and departed. I could feel things stirring in the mud underneath me. I didn’t want to know what they were.
By this time, the raven had recovered and was circling overhead again, but it didn’t want to get too close. That was just as well, since a raven’s eyesight is a great deal sharper than the average practitioners. I lay there motionless for what seemed like forever. The one thing I hadn’t thought through was that my ears were going to be underwater along with the rest of me, muffling all sounds. I could see, but I wouldn’t be able to hear Christoph until he was right up on top of me.
In fact, I felt him before I heard him. He was approaching slowly, splashing through the shallow water, and I could feel the current created by his footsteps long before I became aware of any splashing sounds. He was moving cautiously, stopping every few feet to check on his surroundings. He might claim he had no concern about anything I could do, but he was still being careful. Finally he came into view, close enough so that I now could hear faint splashes as he deliberately plodded forward. He stopped ten feet from where I lay hidden, and I could hear Lou snarling ferociously. I cursed silently. He was still too far away.
“Mason, Mason,” he said, voice garbled and distorted by the water, which covered my ears. “This is truly pitiful. Is this really the best you can do? What, I’m supposed to be distracted by this poorly hidden collection of rags, fooled into thinking it’s you, then you heroically leap out from behind me?”
He had one thing right. Distraction. Hit ’em upside the head with a two-by-four.
He walked up closer, and Lou almost went berserk. If only he would remember to play it safe. Christoph raised his hand, and Lou launched himself, but this time instead of attacking, he dove into the mucky reeds, ducking and scrambling through the muddy water. Good for him. Christoph shrugged and turned slowly around, checking on all sides for danger. Halfway through the turn he stopped, tensed, and then relaxed. He was staring at the area where I had left the dusting of power residue.
“Again, pitiful,” he said. “You don’t even have enough skill to properly shield your meager talent. I bend over to attack your supposed hiding place, and you strike from behind, from your true place of concealment? Is that how you imagine it? The sneak attack. That does seem to be a hallmark of yours.”
Only when I can get away with it, I thought grimly.
“I would like to know how you pulled that stunt with the wolves, though,” he continued. “Got to admit, that surprised me.” He wasn’t the only one.
His back was now turned to where I lay hidden under the clothes. As he spoke, he backed farther away from where the residue lingered, ignoring the supposed phony hiding place he had sussed out so cleverly. Another two feet and he would step right on me. He still wasn’t even close to having his full power back, but he had enough left to pull off some mighty impressive shit. He raised both arms to the sun and spoke a phrase in what sounded like Latin. Not a fan of Latin, myself. On his right ring finger he wore a silver band set with a large crystal, something I had never consciously noticed. My lack of attention to detail was going to get me killed someday. But not today.
The ring flashed and the entire area in front of him where I supposedly was hiding erupted in flame, including the water. Neat trick, that. It went up with a loud whoosh, effectively masking the sound I made coming up out of the water behind him. I unlocked the rage I’d bottled up and lunged with a ferocity and speed that would have made any river crocodile proud.
I hit him in the middle of his back, wrapping my arms around him like I was tackling a football dummy, and driving him facedown into the shallow water and mud. It knocked the breath out of him, and when he involuntarily gasped for air, his face was already beneath the water. Immediately he started choking and gagging as the water rushed into his lungs, arching his back in a desperate attempt to reach the now precious air. I shifted my grip to his wrists and pinned him into the mud, jamming my knee between his legs to prevent him from gaining enough footing to throw me off. The water was shallow enough so that I could keep my head above water and still hold him under. He was bucking frantically, desperately, but although his strength as a practitioner was without peer, I was heavier and stronger. In my heart I gloated, remembering Sherwood’s plea for help. Talent was no use to him now. He couldn’t gesture as long as his arms were pinned and he couldn’t speak underwater, especially with lungs filled with water and mud. It was life-and-death as basic as it gets.
A tremendous blow to the head almost knocked me unconscious. His Ifrit had dropped like a stone out of the sky in a kamikaze attack. It dug its talons into my shoulder and started hammering its bill on the back of my head, strong, powerful strikes. The blows rocked me, and I could feel blood starting to flow. There was nothing I could do about it except to hunch my shoulders up and duck my head down. If I let go of Christoph for even a moment, I was dead.
Then I felt a scrabbling on my back as four small paws dug for purchase. Lou scrambled right up my back as if I were a tree and the raven a particularly egregious squirrel. The other Ifrit tried to escape and gain altitude for another attack, but it had only risen a few feet when Lou catapulted off my shoulder and through the air, catching one of the raven’s wings. I heard a crunch as he bit down and they both plunged into the water, snarling and squawking.
By this point, Christoph’s struggles had grown ever more violent, almost toppling me over. Suddenly, shockingly, the struggles ceased. I knew there was a chance he was playing possum as a desperate last resort. That’s what I would have done. But I couldn’t help it; I instinctively relaxed, just a fraction, out of reflex. Sure enough, he twisted around, almost breaking my grip, somehow raising his body almost halfway out of the muck. If he’d had a shred of composure left he would have barked out some word of power and this tale would have had a very different ending. But the same mindless survival urge which gave him such ferocious and deadly strength also clouded his thinking. I still had his arms under control so he did the only thing he could, operating in blind desperation. He lunged at my throat with bared teeth. I whipped my head away and he missed his spot, teeth sinking painfully but harmlessly into the side of my neck. I dragged him up until we were both on our feet and then threw myself backward, twisting at the last second so his body fell beneath me again. I was gasping with exhaustion, surging with adrenaline, sobbing for air. But I had some, and Christoph didn’t. What little he had managed to suck in while fighting whooshed back out in a rush of bubbles as the muddy water flooded his lungs.
His bucking motion grew weaker, then feeble, then ceased altogether. This time I was taking no chances. I held him under for the longest five minutes of my life and when I finally released my grip he just lay
there facedown in the slime and ooze. He wasn’t playing possum. He wasn’t playing anything at all. He was dead.
I straightened up and rolled over onto my knees. His body didn’t bob up to the surface; it just lay there submerged like the dead thing it was. His Ifrit had pulled itself onto one of the patches of mud and plants and was perched there shivering, regarding me with hostile eyes. One of its wings was broken, dragging uselessly in the mud. The sun was blazing, but I was shaking uncontrollably in spite of the warmth. Lou had found another little islet where he hunkered down, muddy and bedraggled as the raven.
I reached under the water and pulled Christoph’s head out of the muck. His close-cut hair was matted down on his skull and his mouth was full of mud and sea plants. As I pulled him up, mud dripped out of his open mouth and plopped into the water. His eyes stared sightlessly, nothing behind them. The raven uttered a low liquid whistle, unlike anything I had ever heard from a bird, full of grief and longing. I let Christoph’s body drop back in the water and lurched to my feet. I staggered three steps into the tangle of reeds bent over, and vomited. When I thought I was done, I straightened up, took two more steps, and then vomited again. And again.
Finally it was over and I stood there, knee-deep in water, legs trembling. I looked out over the salt marsh, where insects swarmed and red-winged blackbirds were singing their distinctive conk-a-ree. Lou was silent, as subdued as ever I had seen him. The Ifrit raven was still vocalizing, making small human-sounding noises like a sobbing child. Being the winner had turned out to be a lot less satisfying than I had imagined. But as they say, consider the alternative.
