Dead Ground (Harbinger P.I. Book 4)

by Adam J. Wright

  We had our phones with us but there was zero signal out here in the backcountry.

  “Everyone ready?” Jim asked after Leon and I had strapped the swords and daggers to our belts and hefted the backpacks over our shoulders. We nodded, and he said, “Let’s go,” taking off at a rapid pace through the trees.

  Leon and I followed, avoiding low-hanging branches and stepping over rocks and fallen trees while we tried to keep pace with Jim. I tried to remember how old Jim was and then realized I’d never known his age. Whatever his age, and despite his muscular bulk, he could outpace someone much younger, as he was doing now. We were almost jogging just to keep up with his long, rapid stride.

  “This isn’t a race, man,” Leon said after a few minutes.

  Jim looked over his shoulder, realized we were lagging behind, and slowed down. “Sorry, I usually walk these woods alone. I forgot how difficult this terrain is to move through if you’re not used to it.”

  He checked the map while he waited for us to catch up. “In four miles, we should come to the top of a ridge ahead. Beyond that is the area we marked on the map, the place where we should find the beast.”

  It took us almost two hours to reach the top of the ridge. By the time we got there, I’d seen enough fir trees to last me a lifetime. Leon sat on the ground and opened his pack, taking out a bottle of water. I did the same, wishing I’d put the water in a cooler when the warm liquid entered my mouth.

  Jim had scouted ahead to the edge of the ridge and was looking over it, hands on hips, hair blowing in the slight breeze, looking like he should be modeling clothes in a menswear catalog.

  He looked back at Leon and me and pointed down over the edge of the ridge. “Down there.”

  We stowed our water and joined him. There was a valley ahead of us, its floor rocky and littered with fallen trees. A stream ran among the rocks before disappearing beneath the trees. The walls of the valley were rock and I could see fissures and caves near ground level and higher up toward the top of the ridge on the other side. I assumed there were similar caves and faults in the rock wall we stood atop but they were impossible to see from where we were.

  This was perfect nightwing country.

  “How do we get down there?” Leon asked.

  I looked along the ridge. There was no easy way down. So, dropping my pack and taking out a coil of climbing rope, I said, “We climb down.”

  Leon stepped away from the edge, holding his hands up in protest. “Whoa, wait a minute. You didn’t say anything about rock climbing.”

  “We won’t be climbing,” I said, “we’ll be rappelling. Don’t worry, you’ll be perfectly safe as long as you do exactly what Jim and I tell you.” I found the carabiners in my pack and laid them out on the ground, as well as the metal figure-8 devices that would be used to create enough friction when feeding the rope through them to rappel at a steady pace.

  “I don’t know about this,” Leon said. “It’s a long way down.” He looked over the edge and swallowed.

  Jim was taking the nylon harnesses from his pack. “Leon, do you trust Alec?”

  Leon nodded without hesitation. “Yes.”

  “Then you should know that he’s done this many times before and he won’t let anything happen to you.”

  Leon looked at me, his eyes worried.

  “I know it’s scary,” I told him, “but I’ll look after you every step of the way, okay?”

  He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

  I took a harness from Jim and showed it to Leon. “You’ll be wearing this. It’s made of nylon and it’s strong. This figure-eight device fixes to the front of the harness like this.” I attached it using a carabiner. “The rope goes through this hole here and you can let yourself down as slowly as you want just by feeding the rope through your hands. We’re going to put the rope around the trunk of that big pine tree over there. It’s going to be okay.”

  Leon nodded. His hands were shaking. “I believe you.”

  “I’ll go first,” I said, “to show you how it’s done. Then you come down after me and then Jim will come down last, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  I attached a figure-8 to my own harness. Jim ran the rope around the big pine tree I’d indicated earlier and handed both strands to me. I pushed them through the hole in the figure-8 and leaned back, putting all my weight on the rope to test it. It was firm.

  I showed Leon how to control the rate of descent using his hands, then stepped backward over the edge of the ridge. I rappelled to the rocks below and gave Jim a thumbs-up. He pulled the rope back up and prepared Leon for his descent.

  There was a smell of decay in the air where I stood. It smelled as if some fish had died, their carcasses rotting on the rocks in the sun. I looked around for the source but couldn’t see any dead fish anywhere.

  The rope was thrown over the ridge again and Leon appeared at the top, leaning backward and looking over his shoulder at me.

  “Don’t look down,” I told him. “You’re doing great. Now just walk backward. Keep the soles of your boots on the rock wall and your legs straight.”

  He was doing fine. He descended a few feet and I could sense him gaining his confidence. He’d stopped shaking, at least.

  The fish smell hit me again and I looked over at the stream, my eyes following its course to where it ran into the woods. I thought I saw movement there, in the shadows beneath the trees, but it was only fleeting and was probably a trick of the light.

  I raised a hand to shield my eyes against the morning sun but it didn’t help any. I felt a prickle on the back of my neck but reminded myself that it could be a deer in there, or a raccoon.

  Turning my attention back to Leon, I said, “Not far now.” He was about fifty feet from the ground, descending slowly but seeming to have conquered his fear. Once his boots touched the ground, he’d probably feel great and want to do it again.

  I heard a sound coming from the woods. There was something big in there, splashing through the water and crashing through the branches. I turned in that direction just in time to see a huge bulk burst from the trees and take to the air.

  I drew my sword before I’d even registered the details of the creature’s appearance, but as it glided down the valley toward me, I could see a huge snout, large yellow eyes and wide ears like a bat’s.

  Its body was long and sinuous and was covered in dark brown fur that was black in places. The wingspan was at least thirty feet, the wings themselves black and membranous, stretched over long bones that protruded from the creature’s back.

  It had two densely-muscled forearms and clawed hands. Its scaly hind feet were equipped with deadly-looking talons.

  I could see how these creatures had been mistaken for dragons in past times, especially since they were only seen at night, in moonlight. I had no idea why this one was awake during the daylight and I didn’t have time to think about that now; the beast was gliding toward Leon, who was hanging fifty feet in the air like a snack on a rope.

  I sheathed the sword and prepared the pistol crossbow. “Jim,” I called, “we have trouble.”

  “I see it.”

  I looked up to where he stood atop the ridge, loading his crossbow.

  The nightwing—although I wasn’t sure I could call it that now since it was hunting in the day—curled back its lips, revealing a set of wickedly-sharp teeth designed to rip through flesh.

  “Leon, use the shotgun,” I urged.

  Leon nodded grimly and fumbled with the gun, trying to get it off his shoulder while in his precarious position.

  I fired at the creature, aiming for its eye. Maybe if I could cause it enough pain, it would retreat, or at least forget about Leon for a moment. My bolt lodged in the beast’s snout, seeming to cause about as much pain as a pinprick.

  It continued on its course, yellow eyes fixed on Leon.

  Jim fired his crossbow. I hoped the full-sized bolt might do more damage than my smaller one. It hit the nightwing’s head but, instead of penetr
ating the skin, it skimmed across it and fell to the rocks below with a clatter.

  Leon had the shotgun in his hands now and he was taking aim, steadying himself against the rock wall with his boots, keeping his legs straight and still.

  The creature was swooping along the wall now, its body parallel with the vertical rock face.

  Leon shot at it and I wished we’d brought a rifle instead of the shotgun. The shot scattered uselessly and the creature kept on coming.

  I threw the pistol crossbow to the ground and ran for the rope, grabbing it with both hands and positioning my boots against the rock. I began to climb. There was no way I could beat the creature to Leon but I wanted to be as close as I could get because my next move must not fail. There was no room for error.

  I got about ten feet from the ground before time ran out. The nightwing would reach Leon in seconds. He’d drawn his sword, the blade glowing bright blue in his hand, and was preparing to fight for his life.

  I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I summoned my rage, feeling it glowing inside me like a white heat. With one hand on the rope to support myself, I raised the other in the direction of the creature. Blue energy crackled around my palm, forming magical symbols in the air. I let the power go, thrusting my hand forward as I did so. The magical energy shot from my palm toward the creature, striking its chest.

  The nightwing slammed into the rock wall, a roar of pain escaping its throat. It began to fall to the ground, spreading its wings in an attempt to gain air again.

  I resumed my climb, checking the creature’s whereabouts as I attempted to reach Leon. It had regained its composure and was flapping its wings, wheeling its body so that it flew back the way it had come. I had a feeling it was only retreating so it could come swooping back this way for another attack.

  “Leon, come down to me,” I said.

  He dropped down another twenty or so feet and I climbed higher up the rope to meet him. The nightwing had gained altitude after its fall and was angling around to face us.

  I began to summon a magical shield that would protect both of us. As I felt the energy building up inside me, something different happened. In my mind’s eye, I saw a magic circle, burning brightly as if it were made of green fire. A complex pattern of pentagrams, hexagrams, and Enochian letters filled the circle, glowing like fiery jade.

  I concentrated on the pattern and felt the energy of my magical shield grow.

  The nightwing was gliding along the rock wall toward us now, increasing its speed with powerful flicks of its membranous wings. I extended the shield around us and concentrated on the magic circle in my mind to strengthen it. I was going to pay a hell of a price for this later but, right now, I had to protect Leon and myself from the creature swooping toward us.

  Jim loosed another crossbow bolt and managed to embed this one into the nightwing’s back. The creature bellowed but still came for us, fury burning in its yellow eyes.

  I pushed everything I had into the shield. The nightwing hit it head on. A sickening crunch filled the air as something broke in the creature, probably its neck. It plummeted to the ground like a dead weight, crashing onto the rocks below.

  “Come on,” I told Leon, climbing down the rope as quickly as I dared. I wasn’t attached to anything, relying on the strength in my arms and legs to keep me from falling. If that strength suddenly failed, as it always did after I fed my energy into shields and magical blasts, I’d drop to the rocks and at least break a few bones if not crack my skull open.

  Leon followed me down and when we got to the bottom, I went over to check the nightwing. It was dead. If hitting the magical shield at full force hadn’t killed it, then the fall had.

  I detached Leon from the rope and told him to wait for Jim to come down. I already felt weak and I needed to find a place to rest. These rocks wouldn’t cut it.

  “You okay, man?” Leon asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “I’ll be okay in a little while,” I said, heading for the stream. There was a grassy back on the other side beneath some trees that would be a better place to lie on the ground than here.

  The stream was only a couple of feet deep so I waded through the water to the other side. When I reached the grass, I sat down and waited for my strength to drain away as it had every other time I’d used magic.

  I closed my eyes and another magic circle appeared in my mind. This one was bright red, with a unicursal hexagram inside along with Egyptian hieroglyphs. I had no idea what it was supposed to do but I concentrated on it. It had appeared at this moment, so it must serve some function. I was starting to trust the magic within me, the power that had been magically grafted to my bones.

  As soon as I concentrated on the red magical symbol, the energy drain halted. My strength didn’t sap away until I was lying helpless on the ground. Instead, I felt exactly the same as I had before the drain had started.

  I opened my eyes, the burning red circle still visible in my mind, overlaying the valley around me, but fading. Once it had disappeared completely, I knew I was going to retain all my energy.

  “So there’s a failsafe,” I said to myself. “Why the hell didn’t I know about this before?” I stood up and leaned against a red pine, taking a deep breath and making sure beyond all doubt that I wasn’t going to collapse. I felt fine.

  Then something dropped out of the tree and landed at my feet. I looked down. It was a crow. A dead crow.

  There was another rustling and a gray jay fell from a nearby tree, followed by a couple of chickadees. Then a squirrel hit the ground a few feet away. Like the birds, it was dead.

  I heard noises from the stream and looked over there in time to see a swarm of midges suddenly drop into the water. The surface of the stream was broken by the bodies of a dozen dead fish rising to the surface and floating there, bellies up.

  Jim had rappelled all the way down and was sorting out the rope. Leon was walking over to me.

  “Leon, get back!” I shouted at him.

  He stopped, confused, standing on the opposite bank of the stream and frowning at me. “What is it, Alec?”

  “Don’t come near me. Not right now. Something’s happening.” I looked at the dead animals and fish around me, feeling bad because I must have caused it. It would have been better if I’d let my energy become depleted and then slowly recovered.

  What if I’d been standing near Leon and concentrating on the red magical symbol? Would my friend be lying dead on the ground instead of these animals?

  I felt that the danger had passed, that these animals had been drained of life while the red Egyptian symbols had been glowing in my mind and that as soon as the magic circle had faded, the death spell, or whatever, was done.

  But I couldn’t risk Leon’s life to find out if I was safe to be around.

  I noticed a chipmunk regarding me from a nearby rock. He was holding a seed in his paws but his attention was on me, his black eyes staring into mine.

  I crouched down and held out my hand as if I had a tasty treat for him. The chipmunk approached me warily, moving in short bursts, stopping between each one to check me out. When he got close enough to my hand to sniff it and discover I had no food after all, he scampered away behind the rock. He was pissed at me but he was still alive.

  Turning to Leon, I said, “I think it’s okay now.” I waded back across the stream to where he stood.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell you later when I figure it out myself. Right now, we need to get some photos of that nightwing and find its lair.”

  Jim was already snapping away with the Nikon when we got over to the body. “I can’t figure out why it’s out here in the day,” he said. “See those large eyes and ears? They’re adapted for night hunting.”

  “Let’s find its lair,” I said. “Maybe there’ll be something there that explains it.”

  “What about the body?” Leon asked. “Aren’t we going to bury it or something?”

  “The local wildlife wil
l take care of it,” I said. If this area were less remote, burying the body would be a good idea. But out here in the middle of nowhere, it wasn’t necessary. Animals and birds would eat the nightwing’s flesh and the bones would eventually be scattered.

  We followed the stream toward the trees, looking for the creature’s lair.

  “Over there,” Leon said, pointing at a cave in the rock wall we’d rappelled down. There were plenty of caves in the valley but what set this one apart was a jumble of bones and skulls outside its entrance.

  Jim drew his sword and Leon and I followed suit. Bathed in the blue glow from the blades, we picked our way over the rocks to the cave entrance.

  The fissure was shaped like an inverted V and went deeper into the rocks than the glow from our blades could penetrate. The dead fish smell was stronger here, emanating from a pile of discarded carcasses on the ground.

  Jim bent down and inspected some of the skulls. “You ever see anything like this?” he asked me, holding up a skull that had a dog-like shape but with a ridge of sharp bone running from between the eye sockets to the back of the cranium.

  “No.”.

  “How about this?” He held up a second skull that looked human except for two horns.

  “Demon, maybe,” I suggested.

  Jim nodded, sifting through the bones. “Apart from the fish, these all look demon.” He stood up and looked around the valley. “Where the hell did they come from?”

  “I think the answer is in your question,” I told him.

  He shot me a look. “Okay, smartass, let me rephrase that. How the hell did they get here?”

  “No idea,” I said, “but you might want to get some pictures for Felicity.”

  He used the Nikon to document the scene.

  “If that nightwing has been eating demons,” I said, “that could explain why it went crazy. Demon bodies are full of all kinds of poisons.”

  Jim thought about that and nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. The poison could have affected its mind and made it attack humans.”