by John Levitt
“Why is that?” Eli asked. Once again, academic curiosity had overcome the practical problem in front of us.
“Because of how it came into this world. It was pulled in by an overload of talent—I would guess from these very stones you used to trap me. The magic has run wild, coursing through its bloodstream, and that’s made it sick, almost like a rabid dog.” He looked over at me. “So it’s not really the beast’s fault—it’s yours.”
“Never mind that,” Victor said. “Mason, you’re the one this fellow first called—you must have some idea of his nature. Do you buy it?”
I thought about what Campbell had said, about it not really being a Wendigo the way Eli had assumed. More like an elemental, with unknown motives. And I realized I had indeed made a lot of assumptions about it. But letting it out of the circle did not seem safe.
“Could be,” I said slowly. “But there’s no way to know for sure.”
“Well, how about if you call up Sherwood for us,” Victor said. “If you can. Then we’ll talk about what’s to be done with you.”
“I have a better idea. How about you let me out of here, and then we’ll talk about getting this Sherwood person back.”
Classic impasse, a Mexican standoff. I don’t know how it would have been resolved, but then the unexpected happened, as it often does.
We’d all been focused on the Wendigo, not surprisingly. So when the fake Ifrit burst out from behind the closest bush, it caught us all by surprise, even Lou. It ran right by, ignoring me, and sprang at Victor. That made sense; he was the one holding the shotgun. Victor spun around, but he didn’t have time to line up the barrel for a shot. The creature launched itself at his throat, snarling with a thick, guttural roar. Victor did just manage to get the shotgun up to protect his throat, using both hands, but instead of blocking the creature’s charge, he threw himself backward. He used the length of the gun as a lever and flipped the creature over his head as he went down. It was like watching a goddamned ninja movie.
He sprang to his feet as if he were made of rubber, leveled the shotgun, and pulled the trigger. The sound was enormous in the quiet. Before I could even react he’d pumped off four more rounds. The creature dodged, incredibly fast, and despite Victor’s vaunted marksmanship and competence he only managed to graze it at best. The creature screamed as if it had been hit and dropped to the ground, where it flopped around like a dog’s chew toy. But it was on its feet almost instantly. Victor was out of rounds and would need to reload, but it didn’t know that. It decided it had had enough on this particular night. It bolted past me, whipping out a passing claw in an attempt to slice through Lou, but he ducked it easily. Then it was gone, bounding off into the night. The whole thing had lasted no more than ten seconds.
But there was one small unintended consequence. Between the flying pellets and the creature thrashing around, the circle of stones was in ruin. Not that it was a circle anymore; it was now merely a random collection of stones. The Wendigo casually stepped forward out of what was left of the circle, kicking a few of the remaining stones out of the way.
“Well,” he said. “This certainly changes things.”
EIGHT
WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT WAYS OF HANDLING such situations. If I’d been alone, I would have run without a moment’s hesitation. Hell, it had worked once. Victor automatically crouched into a fighting stance. I don’t think he even knew he had done so; it was just a reaction as unconscious and natural to him as breathing. Eli simply walked forward until he was two feet away. He gestured toward the darkness where the fake Ifrit had vanished.
“Was that your doing?”
The Wendigo smiled, but it wasn’t bright and cheery this time.
“Not at all. I would imagine your clever stone circle attracted it.”
“Quite possibly,” said Eli. “So, you’re free. What now? Are you going to help us or not?”
You had to admire him. Eli just assumed, matter-of factly, that there was no danger now that the Wendigo was free. He just carried on as if nothing about the situation had changed. I’ve seen him do that before. Mostly, it works, but that’s because it’s Eli. If I tried something like that, I would most likely end up as lunch. But the Wendigo seemed more than happy to play along. Maybe he’d been telling the truth after all.
“Again, what’s in it for me?” he said. “You don’t seem to have as much to offer now.”
Eli pointed at the stones scattered on the ground. After the test runs and the trap, they were barely glowing.
“You absorb magical power. Those stones have enough to keep you going for I don’t know how long—months, at least, I’d say.”
The Wendigo glanced down at them.
“Not anymore, they don’t. They’re almost used up.”
“Yes, but we have more of them. We’ll trade you—stones for Sherwood. You bring her back and we’ll give you enough of them to last quite a while.”
“Now, that is tempting.”
“He claims Richard Cory is back safe,” I put in. “If he is, if he’s telling the truth, great. But if not . . .”
“You’ll hunt me down like a dog?”
“We can at least make your life difficult,” said Victor.
“I’m sure you could. And if I just take care of you all right now? I could, you know.”
“Possibly,” said Eli. “But to what purpose? You wouldn’t get any stones that way. And maybe it wouldn’t turn out for you as well as you might think. Those stones are not our only tools.”
Eli seemed to grow in size and bulk, and his voice became quietly menacing. He was an impressive figure, and anyone or anything would think twice about taking him on. What the Wendigo didn’t know was that it was entirely a bluff. Eli of course has great intellect and presence, but no real intrinsic power. Victor would put up a fight, but even with my help I had a feeling we’d be badly outmanned. But it worked. I don’t know if the Wendigo was unsure of our powers, or if he simply had no bad intentions, or if he really wanted those stones, but it worked.
“Deal,” he said. “I’ll be at your house tomorrow morning. I’ll call back this Sherwood for you, and you’ll hand over the stones.”
“My house?” said Victor. “You don’t know where I live.”
“Don’t I? I’ll see you there.”
He walked off, brushing by me. Lou looked over at me, asking if I wanted him to follow, but I shook my head no.
I WAS AT VICTOR’S EARLY NEXT MORNING. IT hadn’t been a bad night’s work. We’d found the Wendigo and got him to agree to do what we wanted. The fake Ifrit had been a surprise, but at least no one had got hurt.
Victor was eating breakfast and grudgingly provided me with coffee. Lou didn’t even bother to beg; he knew it was useless. Victor looked tired as well, which was unusual for him. His earlier leg injury must have taken more out of him than I’d thought. He hadn’t even got around to reading the morning Chronicle, still secure in its orange plastic wrapper.
“Do you think he’ll show?” I asked for the third time. Victor had thrown open the tall front windows, and the early sunlight was streaming through. A pleasant breeze came off the ocean, uncharacteristically warm for so early in the day. For once there was no morning fog. I was sipping coffee, Eli was pacing back and forth, Maggie was sitting by the window, and Lou was lying on a rug, hogging a patch of sun and catching up on his interrupted sleep. He hated mornings almost as much as I did.
We’d got home late, since as soon as we’d left Fort Point I’d driven down to the Bay Bridge to try to find Rolf. He wasn’t around, and even Lou had some trouble tracking him down, so it was a while before we’d run him to ground. And yes, it turned out Richard Cory had indeed returned.
“Was he okay?” I’d asked. “Can I talk to him? He must have some information about this Wendigo.”
“Depends on what you mean by okay,” Rolf had answered. “Weirder than ever—he’s finding it hard to keep a human form these days. And I’m sure he could tell you a lot, but I don�
��t think he’ll talk to you—I’m not sure he could even if he wanted to. But otherwise, yeah, he’s fine.”
I didn’t bother to complain that he might at least have informed me. It wouldn’t have done any good. But if that much had turned out to be true, there was a good chance our Wendigo would be showing up. And if he did, there was a good chance he could do what he said he could. Otherwise, why bother to make an appearance?
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe for him to materialize in the middle of the study with a puff of smoke, or something equally dramatic, so when the knock on the front door came it was an anticlimax.
Victor answered the door, and there he stood. His forest garb had been replaced by a colored tee with a picture of Elvin Jones behind a drum set and a pair of jeans. He stood in the doorway and looked around appreciatively.
“Quite the warding system,” he said. “Very impressive. I’m not sure even I could get in here without your permission.”
That was something of a relief. The wards around Victor’s house were not strictly his own—Eli and a lot of other knowledgeable practitioners had helped design them, as well as contributing their own power into keeping them strong. The wards around my own house are clever and subtle, strong enough to do the job, but nothing special. Victor was protected by state-of-the-art constructions, utilitarian, sleek and gleaming, and composed mostly of lines of sheer and forbidding power. It was reassuring they could block even a magical creature of power.
Victor reached out and touched him on the shoulder. An almost invisible spark of energy passed between them, providing the Wendigo with the magical equivalent of a key card. Once he was inside, Victor led the way up to the study.
“Very nice,” said the Wendigo, looking around at the dark paneling, huge fireplace, and tall windows. “A bit too faux Victorian for my tastes, but nice, nonetheless.”
“Thank you,” said Victor without the slightest trace of sarcasm. “Let’s get down to business.”
“You have the stones?”
Eli opened the old messenger bag and showed the stones to him, then closed it firmly. Like at Mama Yara’s botanica, it reminded me of nothing so much as a dope deal, complete with suspicion on both sides. The Wendigo turned to me.
“I’ll need your help,” he said. “Or rather, it will be a lot easier if you’re involved.”
“Okay,” I said. I still didn’t trust him, though. “Are we actually going somewhere, physically, or is this just a psychic journey?” I remembered asking Eli the same question when I’d gone seeking the origin of the rune stones, more than a year ago.
“Ahh, well, that depends on how you look at it,” the Wendigo said. I should have known.
“Let me guess. It’s not an either/or question.”
“Exactly. I’m glad you understand.”
“Yeah, me, too. But on the practical side, what if something happens to us there?”
“Well, then the question becomes academic, but we won’t wake up safe in our beds; that I can assure you.” He held out his hand, impatiently. “Here, just relax; take my hand. Envision the place where you were when you saw her.” I wasn’t that eager to let him touch me, but I did it. His hand was warm, pulsing with magical energy. Nothing else happened. “It might be easier if you close your eyes and block out your present surroundings.”
I did what he asked, concentrated on my breathing, and one by one blocked out the distractions around me. It wasn’t that hard; it’s a basic of both yoga training and magical discipline. The last senses to go were touch and smell, the breath of salt air on my face coming through the open windows.
It grew stronger, and the tang of the ocean was replaced with the slightly musty odor of gorse and bracken, and the breeze had turned cold and damp. When I opened my eyes I was back on the moor.
But this time it was different. It was dark, as if the winter sun was just sinking under the horizon. Patches of thick, evil-looking fog closed in around us, obscuring the landscape one moment, swirling away the next to reveal a barren and desolate scene. Before, the moor had been dramatic and full of mystery. This time it gave off an aura of evil and danger.
The Wendigo was standing next to me, but Lou was nowhere in sight. I had a moment of not quite panic—he’d never failed to follow me anywhere before. But then he burst out of a nearby thicket and stood there, tongue out and panting as if he’d run a long way. The Wendigo looked surprised.
“I didn’t think that was possible,” he said. “He didn’t come with us, and there’s no way he could have followed us here—there isn’t any ‘here’ to follow us to, strictly speaking.”
“He is a talented creature,” I said. “So, what now?”
“Your part is done. Now that we’re here, all I need to do is call her home. It won’t be a problem.”
I could have told him that was the wrong thing to say. It’s a form of unconscious hubris, poking your finger in the eye of the gods. Sure enough, the minute he finished talking I heard a long-drawn-out, muffled howl in the distance, sounding like a hound from hell.
“What in God’s name is that?” I asked. For the first time since I’d seen him, the Wendigo looked ill at ease.
“Oh, shit,” he said. Not a reassuring response.
“I didn’t hear anything like that the last time.”
“Last time, you were pulled into Sherwood’s construct. This time, it’s partly yours as well. You mentioned that the moor looked like a movie set. Wuthering Heights, I think you said.”
“Yeah.”
“This isn’t exactly the same place, is it? Have you ever actually been on a moor?”
“No,” I said.
“But this is partly your own construct. So where did you get your idea of it from? What do you think of when you imagine a moor?” I didn’t have to think about that one.
“The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Another howl, closer, punctuated my remark.
“And that is?”
“Sherlock Holmes. A story about a gigantic, spectral hound who roams the moors, killing people.”
“I see.”
“But in the story it wasn’t really anything supernatural,” I explained. “It turned out to be a huge, vicious, but quite ordinary dog.”
“Maybe in the story. But not in your construct—trust me on that.”
Another howl, long-drawn-out and definitely closer. Now it sounded less like a hound and more like some creature from hell. Lou flinched involuntarily and started picking up first one paw, then the other, the way he does when he’s nervous.
“What are you worried about?” I said. “You can take a shotgun blast without it bothering you, and you can control things with just your voice. A ghostly hound shouldn’t pose much of a problem.”
“You’d think. But you mostly missed me with that shotgun. You only thought you hit me. A couple of pellets nicked me, but that was all. Misdirection and illusion are my true strengths.” So we had something in common after all.
“Your voice is no illusion,” I said.
“Sure, it is. It doesn’t control anyone. It just makes them think they have no choice.” That seemed like semantics to me, but this was no time for a philosophical discussion.
“So use it, then,” I said.
“Believe me, I would if I could. But things work differently in places like this. I can call Sherwood; that’s what I came here for. But other than that, I’m as vulnerable as you are. Maybe more so—it’s your place, and you at least should still have your talent here. So it’s up to you, I’m afraid.”
Another howl, worse than before, and considerably nearer. My throat got dry, and this time it wasn’t only Lou who flinched. For the first time since I’d met him, the Wendigo had lost his self-assured demeanor.
About twenty yards to the left of us the ground cover thinned out and dissolved into a small patch of swampy bog, no bigger than a double bed. I reached out to see if I could feel talent working, and it was. I didn’t have enough power to expand it to a useful size, at least no
t directly. But I could gather swamp essence from the small patch and flip it over, effectively doubling it in size. Then again, and again once more. With the power of geometrical progression, it wasn’t long before I had created an area some fifty yards square. Technically, I wasn’t using enough power to transform a large area, but it worked. That’s why it’s called magic, at least by those who don’t fully understand it. Which would include me, though I usually don’t use that term.
I called Lou over and worked on his paws, expanding and flattening them until they were like tiny snowshoes, which took more energy and skill than creating the entire swamp did. When I was done, he ran back and forth, trying them out and stumbling a few times. Twice, he even fell over his feet before he got the hang of managing them. He wouldn’t be nearly as agile as usual, but he wouldn’t have to be. He’d just need to make it to the swamp.
I used the rest of my energy to put a deflection spell around myself and the Wendigo, using the fog and the bleak and featureless landscape as my model. It wouldn’t fool the hound for long—for one thing, dogs rely on scent as much as they do sight, but it would make us hard to locate at first. I hoped it would work. If it didn’t, we were in trouble, since I’d now used up most of my power. I would have been a lot more confident if I could have somehow brought along the Remington 870.
Just as I finished, the hound materialized out of a patch of fog. It was close to two hundred pounds, looking like a cross between a mastiff and a wolf. Muscles rippled under a short coat of hair, and it bounded toward us, light on its feet. No clever dodging aside was going to work with this one. Its eyes glowed a deep phosphorescent green, and its muzzle was full of strong and sharp teeth, covered with foaming slobber.
If the Wendigo was correct, it was a creature created in part out of my own subconscious. Which didn’t say much for my imagination. It was a stock Hollywood monster, a stereotype. But that was just its physical appearance. It also projected an aura of inevitability—it was going to kill us all, rend us limb from limb, slashing muscle and crunching bone. When things created from the unconscious take on an independent existence, they’re always worse than your everyday monster.
