by John Levitt
WHEN HE KNOCKED AT MY DOOR THAT EVENING, I was ready. I had a ham sandwich, matches, a heavy shirt, my old semiwaterproof leather jacket, my hiking boots, and of course, the Remington. If I ended up in some exotic city full of God knew who or what, I was going to feel rather foolish, but there are worse things than feeling foolish.
I also had my Buck knife, and Lou’s rawhide chew toy. Or rather, part of it. I’d sawed it in half, and part of it was now in the corner of the room, while I set the other half on the kitchen table. This was the most important thing I was taking—Lou might not have his full abilities, not enough to find his way home, but there’s nothing stronger than half of a once-undivided whole. They call to each other, magically speaking, and I had confidence Lou could use half his favorite toy to find his way to the other half. If not, we might spend the rest of our lives in a foreign dimension, amidst the alien corn.
I felt bad about not telling Eli about what I was doing, but he would have gone ballistic on me, at least as much as he ever does. He would have pointed out how stupid it was to go off half-cocked, and he would have been right. No doubt he would have tried to stop me. But Lou had vanished once before, and I had sat around feeling sorry for myself. If Campbell hadn’t been there to kick my ass in gear, I would have been too late to help him, and that wasn’t going to happen again.
When the Wendigo finally showed up, he looked at the half chew toy on the table and nodded approvingly.
“Very clever,” he said, getting it immediately. “It might even work.” He looked around and then shook his head as he spotted the shotgun. “Bad idea.”
“What is?”
“The shotgun.”
“I don’t see why. Talent may not work when I get to wherever Lou is. You already said his own abilities probably aren’t working right. It just might save my butt.”
“It might,” he said. “But it also might not. You’re not going into battle, after all. You’re not hunting anything. You’re on a rescue mission, and you want to get in there and out of there as quickly as you can. You don’t want to go in with guns blazing; you want to be invisible.”
“Sure,” I said. “But it never hurts to have a backup, just in case.”
“If you say so. But when a person has an option, most of the time they end up using it. No shotgun and you run. If you have it, you stand and fight, and that can be a fatal mistake. It’s your funeral, though.”
I hated taking advice from the Wendigo. For one thing, I didn’t trust him, and I never would. But when I thought about it, it made a certain sense. The problems I was going to run into weren’t going to be solved with a convenient blast from a shotgun.
I put my knife in one pocket and the chew toy in the other, crammed the ham sandwich in with it, and looked longingly at the Remington that was leaning against the wall.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m ready. What now?”
The Wendigo gave me a sardonic stare.
“Well, great, but I can’t just transport you out of here.”
“What, then?”
“Back to the energy pool. You’re going to have to go through it yourself. How else did you think you were going to get there?”
ROLF WAS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN WHEN WE GOT to the construction site under the bridge, so I had to clamber over the gate, barely avoiding cutting my hands on the barbed wire, even with my usual hardening spell for my hands. The Wendigo watched with amusement, then bounded over himself, skimming over the gate without so much as touching it, like a low-gravity moonwalker. I had got so used to him I’d forgotten he wasn’t human at all.
The faint glow of the energy pool, still going strong, was visible at the back of the site. We walked up to the edge, right where the shifting bands of color swirled and pulsed.
“What do I do now?” I asked.
“Go ahead,” the Wendigo said. “Just walk right into it.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Not at all. How else do you think you’re going to find him? I’ll provide the psychic push that will determine where you’ll go and make sure it’s the same place your Ifrit ended up.”
I took a step forward, then stopped. Talking about it was one thing, but plunging right in was not something I relished, any more than diving into a midwinter lake through a hole in the ice. I remembered Lou’s startled yelp as he was pulled into it, but it didn’t make me feel any more determined. The Wendigo came over and stood beside me.
“Changed your mind?” he said. I shook my head, and he smiled. “Well, let me give you a little push, then.”
He took a step back, placed his hand on the small of my back, and gave a powerful shove. The promised push turned out to be more than metaphorical. Instead of bravely stepping forward into the unknown, I was propelled, stumbling and flailing, into the center of the maelstrom.
SIXTEEN
IT FELT LIKE I WAS BEING TORN APART, AND FOR a long moment I feared I’d been tricked, murdered by the Wendigo for some obscure motive of his own. But then the world stabilized around me, and I found myself lying facedown in dirt.
It was cold. I had my leather jacket and a heavy shirt, but I felt the cold anyway, and the dirt beneath my hands was rock hard. I sat up and looked around. It was dark when I’d been pushed into the energy pool, but it was daylight now. No signs of civilization. Trees, stretching out for as far as I could see, scattered far enough apart to give a good idea of the landscape. Low-spreading conifers dominated, with only the occasional towering tree to break the pattern.
Lou was nowhere to be seen. I hadn’t expected I would just drop down in his lap, though. Things are never that easy. And there was still the possibility that the Wendigo had sent me on a wild-goose chase, for whatever reason.
My first priority was to find out whether talent operated here, wherever here was. I broke off a few twigs from a nearby tree branch, set them on the ground, and tried a basic ignition spell, the default operation I always use when I’m trying to assess the magical climate of a place. It worked, all too well. The twigs went up in flames, instantly alight as if they’d been wrapped in flash paper, and a few seconds later all that remained was ashes.
This was an unexpected and not unwelcome development. If this held up, I was suddenly a powerful talent, no longer dependent on cleverness and guile. With a wave of my hand, all opposition would wither before my awesome power. There was bound to be a catch, though. There always is.
But one thing was worrisome. If this place enhanced rather than blocked talent, why hadn’t Lou been able to find his way back? The more I thought about it, the more troubling it became. The chew toy I’d brought, which I thought so clever, now seemed irrelevant. Come to think of it, Lou should have been able to find his way back home based on his connection to me—we were more strongly bonded than any rawhide strip. Hopefully.
But as long as my power had been enhanced, I was going to take advantage of it. I’ve never been very good at locating people or things; that’s a specialized talent.
Still, if I had enhanced power, it was worth a try. I pulled out the rawhide toy, concentrated on it, and concentrated on Lou at the same time. Immediately I could feel something, partly like the heat of a campfire on your face when your eyes are closed, partly like a puff of wind blowing from the north, and partly like neither of those things. But it gave me a direction, and there was no doubt about it.
I started walking, always uphill, and as the elevation increased, spotty areas of snow sprang up around the bases of trees, like a late-spring thaw breaking through a winter landscape. Soon I found myself slipping and sliding on the now-unavoidable snow cover.
I was walking as quietly as I could, but there was nothing to be done about the snow crunching under my feet. But whatever sound I was making was soon drowned out by a commotion coming from just over a small ridge. I heard animal snarls, which is never good, and some loud thumping as if someone was beating on a drum. The pressure that indicated Lou’s presence was increased, which meant it was a good bet that wha
tever was happening up ahead had something to do with him.
I crested the ridge, almost running now, and emerged through the trees. Below, a small clearing opened out in the middle of tangled brush and trees. The impulse to rush down and see what was happening was strong, but I held back. It wouldn’t do either Lou or me any good to blindly charge ahead and blunder into something I wasn’t prepared for.
I slid behind the cover of a tree and peered around. At the far end of the clearing, I saw a large animal standing at the end of a huge log, two or three feet in diameter. For a moment I thought it was a bear, but when it turned sideways I saw a thin elongated muzzle with a familiar anteater profile. A shape-shifter.
The log it guarded must have been partially hollow, and from its actions it looked like something was trapped inside of it. I had a feeling I knew who it was. Wood splinters littered the ground nearby, and there were long score marks where the creature had tried unsuccessfully to rip open the log.
It prowled from one end of the log to the other, then pounced on one end, pounding and roaring. Then it ran around to the other end, waiting for the terrified prey to rush out the other end, like a cat trying to outwit a panicked mouse. Lou was no mouse, though, and though he was probably scared, he wasn’t one to panic. He hunched down farther back in the log, safe for the moment. He wasn’t going anywhere.
No wonder he hadn’t been able to find his way back. God knows how long he’d been trapped there. As I watched, I realized the beast was exactly that—a beast. It was a clever animal, nothing more. In its own dimension it was a natural predator like a bear or a lion. Only when it entered our world did it morph into the shape-shfter it was, stealing not only bodies but memory and personality and intelligence as well. And although it was resistant to talent back home, there was no reason it would be resistant here, especially with my newly minted strength. For once, I wasn’t worried.
I calmed my mind as best I could and concentrated on gathering the elements of a spell. Use its massive physical strength against it. Use the patches of snow dotting the ground, and the cold in the air. I gathered up the cold, added in some essence of grit from the sandy forest soil, used my nervousness to add a dollop of paralysis, and let my strength flow into the mixture.
“Louie! Lou!” I shouted, my voice echoing in the chill sunlight. “To me, now!”
If there’s one thing Lou doesn’t lack, it’s decisiveness. In a similar situation I might well have stood there for a moment gawking, until it was too late to move. Sometimes Lou acts without thinking and ends up getting himself in trouble. But all in all, the ability to act quickly is a good quality. Anytime you deal with violence and danger it’s better to be wrong than indecisive.
He bolted from the log and flew up the slope toward me. The creature had looked up at the sound of my voice, and by the time it looked back toward Lou, it was too late. So far, so good. Only, as usual, there was something I hadn’t counted on. Goddamn it! I’d forgotten what the Wendigo had said. They operated in pairs, and just like Ruby, there were two of them here.
The second one burst out of a thicket to the left, and in a few ground-eating bounds it was right on him. Lou dodged left, then right, but the thing was also quick, and it reached out one powerful arm and sunk its six-inch claw right above Lou’s right haunch. It lifted him up off the ground and brought him up toward its mouth.
Now what? If I cast out the spell I’d been preparing, it would catch Lou as well. But if I didn’t, he’d be dead in about a second, so there really wasn’t much thought involved. Maybe his natural Ifrit resistance to talent would provide him some protection, and it wasn’t precisely a killing spell anyway. I cast my spell hastily outward. With any luck, the creature’s joints would now seize up like a piston deprived of oil, and when it tried to move it would simply topple over like an ancient dinosaur with paralyzed feet.
The creature had turned slightly sideways, inadvertently protecting Lou with its body as it reached toward his skull, stretching out its long neck for the killing bite. When the spell hit, it froze in midstride. It stood there, unmoving, like a grotesque statue. Lou squirmed his way out of the thing’s grasp, giving a sharp yelp of pain as he did so. He dropped onto the ground and staggered, unsteady on his feet. It wasn’t just the wound that was affecting him. A light layer of hoarfrost rimed his fur, and he shook himself vigorously trying to shake it off, then collapsed on the ground. The motionless creature above him was rapidly glazing over with ice, as was the ground around him.
Spells are mostly about accessing power, and my spells usually employ some form of similarity for their effectiveness. Not everyone does it that way, but it works for me. Every culture from the ancient Sumerians to current voodoo priests acknowledges the power of similarity in magic. It’s one of the few things they have right, although you do have to possess some inborn talent to make it work. But it’s not supposed to be literal. The cold was a template for the spell, enabling me to metaphorically freeze the creature where it stood, but it wasn’t supposed to literally freeze it solid. Unfortunately, my newly enhanced talent wasn’t entirely under my control. I’d let loose with a broad wave of unbelievable cold, close to absolute zero I’d guess, and if Lou hadn’t been shielded by the creature’s body as well as being naturally resistant, he would have ended up as stiff as a frozen trout himself. Even so, he must have been suffering from frostbite at a minimum.
Before I could decide what to do next, a gust of wind breezed through the clearing. It caught the frozen creature, toppling it ever so slowly onto the hard ground, almost on top of Lou. With a tinkling shivery sound, it broke into a thousand pieces, as if it had been dipped in liquid nitrogen. Shards of frozen creature scattered everywhere.
I looked over to where the first creature had been standing at the other end of the log, but it was gone. It might not possess intelligence here, but it had enough animal cunning to understand that I was a danger. But like any true predator, whether a tiger or wolf or an other-worldly creature, it was still dangerous. I had no doubt it was lurking nearby, waiting for a careless moment on my part. We needed to get out of here as quickly as possible.
I ran over to check on Lou. He lifted his head and fixed me with a ferocious glare. You’d think he would have been jumping up and down slobbering with gratitude at being saved, but I hadn’t done such a great job of it. He’s not that way, anyway. It was a compliment, actually. He assumed that if he was in trouble, sooner or later I’d show up to help. After all, that’s what he would do. But he expected more from me than almost letting him get eaten and then freezing his tail off, almost literally. If my blast of cold had been just a little stronger, he’d now be a miniature dogsicle himself. He knew that, and he didn’t appreciate it.
“Sorry,” I said, bending down to examine him. “It got out of control.”
The layer of frost had dissipated from his coat, but he was still shivering. Considering what had just happened, I was afraid to try a warming spell. It might end up incinerating him by mistake. His right side was covered in blood, and when he tried to stand he had trouble staying on his feet. I needed Campbell; I’m not that skilled in the healing arts, and with my out-of-control power I was afraid to try anything in that direction, either.
I stripped off a couple of broad, coarse leaves from a nearby bush and used them to staunch the bleeding from his wound. The leaves were distinctive, bright red along the edges, thick and serrated. I hoped they weren’t this world’s version of poison oak. After I’d stopped the bleeding, I stuffed them into a pocket. I didn’t want to leave any of Lou’s blood in this place—it’s never a good idea, and blood could help something track us, even all the way back home.
I picked him up and put him under my coat, using body heat to warm him. The wound from the creature’s claw looked serious, and I had to get him out of here, back home where it could be taken care of. The problem was, I had been depending on him to find the way back, and the way he does that involves a lot of physical movement.
; When he’d warmed up some, I put him down and offered the ham sandwich from my pocket—he must be starving by now. He probably hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours—he could survive on the streets of any city with no problem at all, but the wilderness was not his thing. After a brief sniff he turned away, though. Not good. Not good at all. I would have put money on him eating even on his death bed.
Lou was sitting quietly now, watching me, listing slightly to one side as he tried to keep the weight off the injured side of his body. If we stayed here, he might not recover. I didn’t want to push him, but there was no hope for it otherwise.
“Can you get us back home?” I asked.
He gave a little doggy sigh, pushed himself slowly to his feet, and started off back the way I’d come, limping badly. There was a path of sorts, but after a few minutes he began to lag. There was no way he was going to be able to lead us back; he was too badly hurt.
I wasn’t skilled enough to try healing him, but the other option was an infusion of magical energy. That I could do; it’s a relatively straightforward process, and the enhanced power I had would make it easy. But that comes with its own price. It would be like pumping a bunch of painkill ers and meth into a sick and exhausted person. Useful in an emergency, and it will keep them going, but it takes a serious toll. When the body is pushed to its limits it eventually collapses, but when it’s magically pushed beyond those limits, the consequences can be serious and even deadly. If we didn’t get back soon enough, it could easily push Lou over the edge. But if we stayed here, he might not make it, either. And there were the creatures to consider. I doubted that the two we’d seen were the only ones around.
So either way we might end up screwed, and in that situation it’s always better to do something than nothing. I called him and he limped over, unsteady on his legs. I reached out and gathered living energy and life force from the trees around us. At least the natural base of the energy boost would make it less toxic. I directed the flow into him, as the needles on several surrounding trees turned brown. It took only a few moments before he perked up considerably, gave a bark both confident and halfhearted, and took off down the path again.
