Unleashed

by John Levitt

  Despite my attempt at masking, it instantly zeroed in on our location and swerved toward us, uttering a bay of triumph. The closer it got, the larger it looked, and there was nowhere to hide. It didn’t notice Lou, discreetly standing behind me, and just before it reached us, Lou bolted out from behind me and ran right under the beast’s muzzle. It snapped at him out of reflex, like a dog after a fly, but Lou knew what he was doing. He dodged just as the muzzle lowered, and the teeth snapped shut on empty air.

  Lou squealed as if mortally hurt, and the thing couldn’t resist. Prey drive kicked in and it spun and went after Lou as if he were a wounded rabbit. Lou took off toward the swamp area, occasionally uttering that wounded cry. The hound was faster in a straight line than Lou was, especially a Lou with altered paws, but it couldn’t change direction like he could. Lou zigged and zagged, always just a little out of reach. At one point he stumbled and nearly went down, and my heart skipped a beat. But he was just playing the beast, making sure it wouldn’t abandon the chase, like a mother duck who pretends to have a crippled wing to draw a predator away from its brood.

  When Lou reached the boggy area he flew right over it. At twelve pounds with magically altered paws, he barely sank into it at all, skimming over the bog like a water strider on a summer pond. The hound was right on his tail, and its momentum carried it well into the morass before it realized the danger and started to sink. In seconds it was floundering helplessly, each desperate struggle trapping it more securely in the mire. Lou doubled back, making sure not to get too close to the mire, and ran up to where I waited.

  “Good job,” I said to him. It looked like he was going to be living on bacon instead of kibble from now on for quite a while. I returned his paws to normal, and he stood there shaking them out like an athlete after a hard training run.

  “Nice work,” said the Wendigo. “I wasn’t sure you had it in you.”

  “I’m full of surprises.” I watched the hound struggling, sinking inexorably deeper with every effort. I felt kind of sorry for it. It must have shown, because the Wendigo picked up on it immediately.

  “Not to worry. It doesn’t really exist, you know, any more than this place does.”

  “Are you trying to say it couldn’t have hurt us after all?” That didn’t jibe with what I knew about such things.

  “Oh, no. Just because it isn’t real doesn’t mean it couldn’t have torn us to shreds.”

  “Glad you cleared that up,” I said. “Now, any chance you can do what we came here for, before something worse shows up?”

  “Of course.” He spun in a circle, sniffing the damp air, like Lou on a scent. “This way.”

  We trudged over the moor, through the drifting fog. I immediately lost all sense of direction, but the Wendigo seemed sure of his direction. We walked for fifteen minutes or so, until a break in the fog revealed a rocky crag in the distance. It was familiar, and I thought I could see a misty figure blending into the rock.

  “Close enough,” said the Wendigo. He faced in that direction and called softly, “Sherwood.” At first I could barely hear him, but the sound grew until it filled the landscape as strongly as if he had shouted at the top of his lungs. He spoke again. “Sherwood. Come.”

  The Wendigo wasn’t speaking to me, but I still felt the pull. I wish I knew how he did it. The fog had closed in again and I could no longer see the crag, but he turned and began to walk away. He headed directly for a particularly dense area of fog, where the vapor turned to water the moment it touched your skin and you couldn’t see more than five feet in front of your face.

  “Home,” he breathed, again the word barely audible. The fog closed in thicker than ever until it was almost as disorienting as the featureless void I’d entered at the Columbarium. A bright, diffuse light source appeared, illuminating the fog from the side, further disorienting me. A faint shape loomed ominously right at the limit of my vision, then another. The rocky ground softened under my feet, and as the fog thinned, the shapes resolved themselves into the figures of Eli and Victor. The rocky floor became a carpet, the bright light became sunlight streaming through tall windows, and then we were back in Victor’s study.

  Sherwood lay crumpled on the floor. Eli bounded over toward her, but I beat him to it. I put my fingers on the side of her throat and felt warmth, but no pulse. Then I moved my fingers slightly and found it, reassuringly strong and steady. She was alive. I didn’t want to let go of her—I could hardly believe she was back, solid of flesh and breathing easily, but Eli shouldered me aside, looking worried.

  “What’s wrong? Why is she unconscious?” he asked the Wendigo, putting his large fingers where mine had been.

  “Don’t worry,” said the Wendigo. “She’ll be fine. Remember, she was suspended in that place for a very long time. The psychic shock of returning has just temporarily short-circuited her consciousness, that’s all.”

  I moved around Eli to the other side. I needed to touch her again, to feel her, to make sure this wasn’t just a cruel illusion. Eli scooped her up in his massive arms and laid her gently on the couch, and Victor joined us at her side. We all just stood there, staring silently down at her.

  “Ahem,” said the Wendigo, with a fake cough. “I hate to break up this touching reunion, but I believe you have something you want to give me.”

  “Not until she comes to,” Victor said.

  As if on cue, Sherwood opened her eyes, looked up with a puzzled expression, and then closed them again. Eli leaned over and looked at her closely.

  “I think he’s right,” he said. “She’ll be fine. Give him what he wants.” He glanced over at the Wendigo. “And if she isn’t . . .”

  Victor picked up the messenger bag, now half full of rune stones, and handed it over, a bit reluctantly. A quick look inside, and the Wendigo was satisfied.

  “Nice doing business with you,” he said and headed toward the door, then stopped.

  “By the way,” he said, “did you get a chance to look at this morning’s paper?”

  “No,” Eli answered. “Why?”

  “You might find it interesting.”

  Victor picked up the paper from the desk and slipped it out of its orange plastic bag. He unfolded it with a snap of his wrist, and I could read the headline from across the room: “Another Hiker Dead!” The Wendigo smiled and turned back toward the door.

  “Just a moment,” said Victor sharply. He read down a ways. “This says it happened right at dusk. In Marin County.”

  The Wendigo stopped and stared back at him.

  “I hope you’re not thinking of welshing on the deal,” the Wendigo said. “That would be a very bad idea, I guarantee you.”

  “No, not at all,” said Eli, and I knew he meant it. He’d warned us often enough about the dangers of reneging on promises made to uncanny creatures. “But you knew about that headline. It couldn’t have been the fake Ifrit; it was stalking us at the time. It couldn’t have been you; you were trapped in the circle. So what was it, then?”

  “That does seem to be the question.”

  “You want to tell us what’s been going on?”

  “Why should I?” he said. “I’m not real fond of any of you.” He pointed at me. “You tried to kill me, remember, the first time I saw you.” He pointed at Victor. “And then you trapped me in that cage. What would have happened to me if I hadn’t escaped?” He shook his head. “No, I’m not overly fond of any of you.”

  “You and the Ifrit creature aren’t the only things that came out of the energy pool, were you?” I said, finally getting it.

  “Brilliant,” he said. “Right on top of things, I see.”

  “But you won’t tell us what it was? Can you at least tell us what it looks like? I did save your ass out on that moor, after all.”

  “Yeah, and your own as well.” He laughed, suddenly, sounding very human indeed.

  “How about a hint? Just to show there are no hard feelings.”

  “But there are. Just stay close to home and I�
�m sure you’ll figure it out, anyway. Eventually. But of course by that time it will be too late.”

  Without another word, he walked through the door and down the stairs, and this time Victor didn’t try to stop him. A moment later, the sound of the front door slamming shut echoed up to us.

  Eli turned his attention back to Sherwood. He bent down close and took her hand.

  “Sherwood?” She opened her eyes briefly.

  “Grmff,” she said, and closed them again.

  “She’s coming out of it,” Eli said.

  Victor meanwhile was skimming through the rest of the article in the paper.

  “Damn,” he said. “Another girl. They pinpointed the attack to eight in the evening—just about the time we were catching the Wendigo, and fighting off the fake Ifrit. So it really wasn’t the fake Ifrit and it wasn’t our Wendigo, either. Damn.”

  Sherwood interrupted whatever else he was going to say by opening her eyes and sitting up suddenly and speaking.

  “What happened?” she said in a clear and lucid voice. “Where’s Christoph? How did we get back to Victor’s?”

  For a moment I thought she was asking about her return from the moors, but Eli nodded in comprehension and a second later I caught on as well.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked, still holding on to her hand. She shuddered.

  “We were up at McClaren Park. Chistoph had hold of me. He’d taken over my mind, somehow—I was fighting all the time, but he was too strong. Then he let go and made a gesture in my direction. I felt a blast of energy, everything went white, and then suddenly I’m here with all of you staring down at me solemnly. Am I hurt?”

  “Not exactly,” Eli said. “But there’s a lot to tell you. You had better get comfortable—this is going to be rather a long story. Victor, some tea perhaps?”

  “I could use a cup of coffee,” I said. Victor ignored me, and Sherwood said tea would be nice.

  It took all of an hour for Eli to explain what had happened during the last year while I’d thought she was dead. Sherwood took it all in, interrupting only a few times with questions. At the end of Eli’s tale, she only said, “What about my apartment?”

  “Gone. You can stay here, though.”

  “And my stuff?”

  “Also gone. There didn’t seem any point in keeping it.” She was silent for a moment.

  “Well, thank God my parents are dead. I never thought I’d say that, but it would have killed them.” Another moment of silence. “I should be thankful, I guess, but to me it’s like nothing happened. Except that I’ve lost a year of my life. What a total drag.”

  “Not really,” Eli said. “We’ve all aged a year, but you haven’t. Think of it as if you had traveled into the future.”

  “Exactly,” I added. “You’re looking at it the wrong way around. You haven’t lost a year—you’ve gained one. Like Eli said, it’s as if you were a time traveler. You’re only a few days older than you were that day up in McClaren Park, but Eli and Victor and me have aged since then. You’ve gained over a year on all of us—you’re in the future.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said.

  We spent what was left of the day filling her in on the state of the world these days. One of the things she was most interested in was Timothy and how long Victor and he had been together. By afternoon, she was exhausted and crashed in one of Victor’s spare rooms. She may not have remembered anything about her yearlong sojourn into the netherworld, but it had affected her nonetheless. She kept losing her train of thought and asking us to repeat things. It was worrisome, but Eli thought she’d be fine in a few days.

  By the time I got home, I was drained as well. But when I entered my flat, there was something waiting there for me. Not a ravenous ghoul or ghostly apparition, but something far worse. The goddamned message light on the phone was blinking again.

  NINE

  “MASON, THIS IS MORGAN,” THE MESSAGE RAN. “Sorry to bother you, but I had this weird dream . . .” Her voice trailed off and I heard a muffled curse as she put her hand over the phone. She took her hand off. “Okay, I didn’t realize how lame that was going to sound. But considering, I thought we could at least talk. Call me when you get a chance.”

  Most of the messages I get aren’t anything I want to hear, but this wasn’t so bad. Not bad at all. I flopped down on the bed and picked up the phone.

  “Morgan? Mason,” I said when she answered.

  “Oh, God. I’m so embarrassed. A bad dream, for Christ’s sake, and I call you about it.”

  “Hey, you’re a psychic, and a real one. Dreams are important.”

  “Well, this one was. Or I think it was. There are dreams and dreams, you know, and this was the other sort. Scared me half to death to be honest.”

  “So tell me.”

  “You were walking along a street, somewhere in the city, I think. Two people were with you—a large black man, middle-aged. And another man, smaller and very intense, or at least that’s what I got.” So far, so good. Me, Victor, and Eli. “But your dog? Louie? He wasn’t around.” That didn’t sound good. “And here’s the weird thing—the reason I almost didn’t call. There was a sense of danger, worse than the vision I had last time, way worse. But there was nothing else there. Or if there was, it was invisible.”

  “Was it a specific danger, or just something general?” I asked.

  “Both. Very specific, but nothing I could put my finger on. Have you ever had one of those dreams where everything is perfectly ordinary, but for some reason you’re terrified? Like in the dream, you know if you go into a house, something dreadful will happen?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Well, this was like that. I have no idea what is waiting there—it might not even be something physical—visions rely on metaphor, you know. But whatever it is, it’s bad, really bad. How ridiculous is that?”

  “Not ridiculous at all,” I said. “I know who you’re describing. Those two others are friends of mine, and if we were out together, it’s a good bet something nasty was waiting around the corner.”

  “But why couldn’t I see it?”

  “A good question,” I said. “Don’t worry. Between the three of us, there’s not much we can’t handle. But thanks. It’s always good to be on guard.”

  After she hung up, I considered what it might mean. Despite my assurances that we could handle anything, I was disturbed. If her vision showed some awful thing awaiting us, where was Lou? He wouldn’t let me go off alone like that. And why couldn’t Morgan see what was threatening us? Bad enough to be searching for a monster, but an invisible monster just wasn’t fair.

  But what was it? An invisible beast was possible, I supposed—anything was. But that seemed unlikely.

  I pulled out my guitar and ran through some tunes, standards that I know so well I don’t have to think about them. It’s a form of meditation for me—it requires a conscious attention to detail, but at the same time, part of my mind is able to wander and free associate. Sometimes it works; I’ve gotten some brilliant ideas that way. Well, some useful ones, anyway.

  But this time, nothing came. Lou sat in the corner, listening. That’s the way I like to imagine it—I doubt very much if he has any ear for music other than the occasional drawn-out howls from his canine brethren. But he usually sits there attentively, so who knows? Who knows anything about Ifrits, anyway? But after a while with no success, I gave it up and went to sleep.

  When I woke up next morning, though, an idea did come to me as I was pouring my morning coffee. Nothing brilliant, something rather obvious, but an idea is an idea. The only real clues, the logical place to start, was with the murdered victims. So if I could find out more about exactly how those hikers had been killed, it might reveal something about what had killed them, or at least point us in a direction.

  The cops weren’t releasing a lot of details to the papers, just using phrases like “mutilated” and “torn up.” And if those were the phrases they were
using to prevent panic, the reality must be far worse. Specific information wouldn’t be easy to come by—you can’t just call up the cops and ask what the real scoop is. Only, sometimes, you can.

  A few years ago there had been a rash of burglaries over in Cow Hollow. There were never any signs of a break-in; apparently the victims had simply neglected to lock their doors when they left their apartments. But after a while, that theory started to look unlikely. The residents there became so paranoid that many installed additional locks, and a few even changed their locks out completely. Still, the thefts continued.

  The cops were baffled. For a while they focused on a locksmith who ran a small key-and-lock store on Chestnut Street, but that didn’t pan out. Somehow Victor got wind of this and we did some investigation of our own. It turned out that the person responsible was a teenage kid with a flash of talent. Usually we find out about these kids early, before they get into any real trouble, and mentor them. Sherwood in particular was good at this. She spent a lot of time working with these kids, and almost without exception they loved her. And were scared of her. Sherwood has enough talent to be scary indeed to a novice, and none of them wanted to cross her.

  But once in a while, one slips through the cracks. Jenna, the teenage girl we’d taken off the streets over a year ago, was one of those, although that hadn’t worked out well for anyone, especially her.

  These untrained talents can’t control their abilities most of the time. They accidentally find something they can do, and it never occurs to them they might be capable of more. The parlor trick they’ve learned is all they know and all they do. But interestingly, sometimes they stumble onto something that even an experienced practitioner can’t manage.

  All metals are difficult to work with, and especially iron. Trying to affect an iron lock, for example, using magical talent is almost impossible, even for the strongest practitioner. But this kid could unlock any door, defeat any lock, with only minimal effort. He was a one-trick pony—like an idiot savant who can instantly tell you the day of the week for any date in history, but that’s all the math he can do. Even so, that’s a feat outside the realm of the possible for even the most brilliant of ordinary mathematicians.