Flight From Death

by Yasmine Galenorn

  “Hive?” Alex didn’t sound happy. “The word hive implies swarm. I don’t like that thought.”

  “Yes, it does, but it’s not quite so bad as you think. Forest wights hive together in the same area. They may not cluster tightly together, like bees, but they will stake out territory as a unit and strengthen one another that way. To disrupt the hive, you must strike at its heart first—the king bee, so to speak—or you won’t be able to dislodge any of them. We have to find the king of the forest wights and destroy him. Only then will the others be vulnerable, and then we will be able to dislodge the one in Patrick’s house.” He paused, then turned to Tonya. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  She paled. “Yeah, I do, though I wasn’t altogether sure of the nature of forest wights. I have some old information on them, but it’s not extensive and it doesn’t talk about how to get rid of them.”

  “I know about them. They breed out in the forests. They’re born out of the dark hearts of the ancient trees who hate humans, who have seen the mighty woodlands die at the hand of the axe. They can sense and manipulate spirits. Whenever someone dies in the forest, the wights have a good chance of capturing their spirits and making them work for them. They also feed on the energy from the spirit realm, so . . . yes, ghosts are food to them.” Degoba patted BB. “They tend to leave animals alone, you know.”

  Alex leaned forward. “How come we don’t hear more about them? I can tell you from being around for a couple hundred years, I’ve never heard of them.”

  Degoba laughed then, slapping his leg. “Alex, you’ve heard about them. You just don’t realize it. When logging trucks have accidents? You can bet there’s a good chance a forest wight arranged it. When hikers go missing in the woods, there’s a reason they get turned around and end up dying from exposure. There’s a reason why serial killers are drawn to hide in the forest to wait for their victims. As Tonya has probably told you, the wights can influence behavior, not just of spirits but of living people. They can be terribly cruel. Sometimes, it’s in retaliation for the loss of land—they consider themselves at war. Other times . . . well, it’s their nature.”

  We sat in silence, taking in the information. It made me think of the sirens who lured humans into the ocean. They were alien, distanced from humankind, and did not see what they did as anything other than hunting food. The wights were the same way.

  Tonya shuddered. “They may see themselves fighting a war, but I think they’re nasty enough to qualify as evil. Toying with others for your own amusement—”

  “True. But humans follow the same path. Good and evil aren’t relegated solely to humanity. If you’re talking about hunting and sustenance, well, humans eat meat, they eradicate pests that invade their homes. The wights don’t see themselves doing anything different. To them, we’re a dangerous pest, and spirits are a food source.” Degoba smiled softly at her. “It’s all a matter of perspective. There’s always more than one way to look at a situation. But yes, cruelty exists, and evil.”

  “But why would the wight want me out of my house?” Patrick looked confused.

  “There could be several reasons. For one, there are a lot of spirits there—a lot of food. If you free the spirits, you basically open the barn doors and there go the provisions. Or perhaps, the wights claimed that area long ago and you happen to be latest in a long line of attempts to reclaim it. Why does a man pick one fishing spot over another? He sees fish there.”

  “Great. Okay, then. So you won’t have an ethical problem helping us?” Patrick asked.

  Degoba stood, arching his back. He looked like he could run rings around men half his age. No wonder Tonya found him attractive—he had both personality and looks.

  “I eat beef, I eat pork. I’ve hunted elk and deer before. I go fishing. None of those animals ever did anything to me—but I still eat them. I’ve spent my life making a study of legend and folklore, not only from my people, but of what is actually out there. Creatures like the forest wights don’t care if you’re white or Native American or black . . . we’re all just human to them. They have no ethical problem with destroying any of us. And spirits are just tools for them. So, will I fight them? Of course I will, to save my house, my friend’s house, my town.”

  Chai, who had remained silent, spoke then. “The spiritwalker is right. There are things in the world that view humans as expendable. I come from realms where creatures would consider you a snack. Fast food. A Big Mac on the way to the game.”

  “Well, that’s comforting,” I snorted. “They wouldn’t think of me that way once I got done with them.”

  “Little Sister, don’t be so quick to consider yourself immune from creatures such as this. You may be a . . .” He paused, looking over at Degoba.

  Degoba grinned, sitting back. “I know she’s not human, and she’s not Fae, regardless of what she says. I have no idea what she is, but it’s easy for me to see that the girl is an ancient being compared to the likes of Tonya and me. But I won’t pry.”

  I had the sudden desire to tell him. He was not the kind to panic, or to go off the deep end. “Dragon. Water dragon.”

  The spiritwalker’s eyes widened, and he let out a whoop. “I knew your kind existed! Tell me—Nessie and others of her kind?”

  I laughed and ducked my head. “Yes, water dragons who crossed over here long ago and who’ve forgotten where they came from and forgotten how to shift.”

  “We must talk—but first, we take care of this problem.” His enthusiasm was catching.

  I grinned. “It’s a deal. But first things first. Where do we go from here?”

  “We figure out a plan of action.” Tonya stood and arched her back, wincing. “I’ve been sitting too long. But first, Degoba, for the love of Hecate, I need some fuel. Caffeine, please?”

  “How many shots?” He headed for the kitchen.

  “Quad, plus milk and sugar, please.” She let out a satisfied little mew.

  It was nine o’clock—still early for most of us but probably a little late for Tonya, given she worked during the day. Degoba had a state-of-the-art espresso machine. I’d seen it when Tonya and I were in the kitchen.

  He fixed her a latte, and then we all gathered around the table that was crafted out of a slab of cedar. The tree it came from must have been huge. The table was carved from one solid slab, five feet long and three feet wide, sanded to show the silky grain and then polished with polyurethane to seal and protect it.

  Degoba brought out a map of Fort Worden. “When Tonya first came to me about the Kinzie Battery, I told her to stay away from it. But, and Tonya doesn’t know this, I’ve been keeping an eye on it ever since. I’m amazed that there aren’t more accidents there, but then again, make the source of power too obvious and you can destroy the hive by calling attention to the core. The king of the hive lives there, deep within the battery. It’s like a man-made cavern for him.”

  “Why would he choose there?” Alex frowned at the map. “Why not out in the forest?”

  “Simple. To affect a town, you have to have a finger on the pulse of it. And honestly? Fort Worden is the pulse of Port Townsend—it’s the main tourist attraction. Thousands of people come through there each year, not only to visit the fort but to camp there. Open access to the beach is a prized commodity in this state. There’s a lot of privately owned waterfront property and so when you have an area that offers such easy beach access, it’s going to be heavily used.”

  Tonya nodded. “He’s right on that. So it’s a great place to tap into energy, to tap into people, and to find a way to use them.”

  Degoba motioned to Patrick. “All right, you live across the street from the fort. Tell me, when you started renovations, how long was it before you noticed spiritual activity in the house?”

  Patrick rapped his fingers on the table as he thought. “Let me see . . . at first everything seemed rather subtle. I guess it started a week or so after we first began tearing apart the house. A noise here or there, things s
eeming to move by themselves. Now and then a workman would complain of feeling watched. It wasn’t aggressive, not at first. In fact, more often than not, I remember a melancholy feel to the place. I kind of thought . . . this sounds silly but . . .” He paused, ducking his head.

  “Never discount what you have to say before you actually say it.” Degoba stared at him. “You might just toss out the baby with the bathwater that way. So, tell us, what sounds silly?”

  Patrick shrugged, a sheepish grin on his face. “I kind of felt like the house just wanted to continue sleeping and we were waking it up. I felt almost guilty for not letting it just decline in peace.”

  “That’s not silly.” Ralph had been studying the map, and now he snapped his fingers. “I have a thought . . . hold on for a moment.” He pulled out his laptop. “Degoba, do you have Internet access I can plug into?”

  Degoba nodded. “Here, let me give you the guest password. I change it out weekly.” He crossed to his desk and glanced at a Post-it. “X-T-5-9-3-P.”

  Ralph tapped away and then flashed him a smile. “I’m in. Okay, give me another minute . . .” His fingers flew over the keys and I marveled at how fast he was. It was as though he’d been born with a keyboard in his hand—the words seemed to bypass his brain and go directly to his fingers.

  “Okay, here we go. I thought so! Look at this.” His grin was a mile wide and he looked like he’d just discovered gold. He pushed his laptop over for all of us to see. There was a map of Port Townsend with a series of lines sketched over it. Only they weren’t in any regular pattern, though most of them seemed to radiate out from one point in Fort Worden—the lighthouse where I’d gone swimming.

  “What are we looking at?” I leaned in closer, trying to make sense out of what I was seeing.

  Ralph pointed to one of the lines. “Look . . . here’s the battery. And see how this same line travels right through Patrick’s house, across the bay, and then out into the forest eventually?”

  I nodded but was still clueless on what it meant.

  Tonya, however, cocked her head, studying the map for a moment. “Of course! That’s why the forest wights chose your house. Look—if they’re nested out in there in the forest, and they have a hold in the battery . . . see how this line runs through your property from the woods to the battery to the ocean? Ralph picked up on it! You’re right in the middle of a ley line.” She glanced at Ralph. “Am I right?”

  He nodded. “Exactly! You got it. One of the great things about the Werewyx search engine is that it offers a lot more refined searches into paranormal websites. This is Ley of the Land—a website devoted to mapping ley lines. And the ley line that runs through the battery and out into the forest is one of the strongest in this area. The next . . . oh hell, over by Crescent Lake it’s really thick but here—this is the one that seems to be the most predominant.”

  Degoba clapped him on the shoulder. “Brilliant, man. This is the missing piece. How far does it extend?”

  Ralph traced it along. “Well, it crosses Discovery Bay and travels right into the Olympic National Forest. It looks like . . . yes, the Valley of the Silent Men and Lena Lake are right in its path. The ley line eventually runs to the Pacific on the coast.”

  “You say the Valley of the Silent Men? No wonder.” Degoba jotted down few notes. He glanced over at Alex and me. We must have looked clueless because he cleared his throat. “People don’t talk a lot in the valley. There seems to be a natural dampening field that cuts off conversation. It’s not impossible, but people are quiet there, almost reverent. There’s a sense of some overwhelming . . . almost sacred energy that fills the area. It’s like being in nature’s church—you can sense the depth of the planet there.”

  Ralph frowned. “So could the wights have their home base there?”

  “Could easily be. The Olympic National Forest is about as primeval as you can get in this day and age. Oh, the Amazon and some of the jungles in Africa are more remote and wilder, but the Olympics, they have their secrets and they do not give them up easily. It’s a temperate rain forest, you know, and the old growth is older than most of us can really imagine. There are parts of the forest that have never seen human traffic come through. The forest spirits there are ancient and brooding.” Degoba studied the ley line. “Yes, this has to be the missing link as to how the forest wights sensed the spirits in your house.”

  A thought occurred to me. “When you said we have to wipe out the king of the forest wights, do you mean of this particular hive? We’re not marching on the most powerful one in existence?” The thought of marching on the supreme lord of forest wights ranked right up there with some of the nightmare horror movies I’d sat through with Bette, who loved the creature features.

  But Degoba put my fears to rest. “Right. I have no idea where the godfather of forest wights would even be found. I don’t even know if there is one. I have no clue if they have a god, or a goddess, or an ultimate source of authority. Somehow, I can’t imagine they are that organized. They’re a chaotic bunch, and hives usually work autonomously, I believe. Like hives of anything.”

  “Okay, so we have to fight the king of this hive. Then, I take it we have to go after the one in Patrick’s house?” Alex was now focused in on the map as well. He traced a line on the paper with his finger from the Kinzie Battery to Patrick’s home. “Will the one in Patrick’s house be weaker than the one in the battery?”

  “Potentially.” Degoba turned to Tonya. “From what I studied, they’re all about the same strength, but when the core of the hive—the center pin—is removed, it weakens the outer arms and makes them vulnerable to being hurt.”

  “And we can’t hurt the others without taking out the king, right?” Tonya was writing down notes, as well as Ralph.

  “Right. That’s how I think it works. I’ve studied these creatures for quite some time, and while I have no definitive proof to back me up, I am pretty sure that if you take out the king, then you can carve away at the others. But make no mistake: The wight at the battery won’t be invulnerable, but trust me, this isn’t going to be easy.”

  I wondered off in my mind as they talked. We had wights in the Dragon Reaches—not this kind in particular, but barrow wights and land wights. Most of the dragons considered them treacherous and killed them at every chance. But I had no clue if my people knew they were hive creatures. That could be useful the next time I talked with the Wing-Liege. Maybe he’d even take a few months off my sentence if I came up with some information that proved helpful enough.

  “Shimmer? What do you think?”

  I shook my head as Alex tapped me on the arm. “Did you hear me?”

  “Sorry, I was off in . . . never mind. What did you ask?” I tried to keep focused.

  “We asked if you had any water magic that might be useful? Forest wights are naturally immune to a lot of earth magic. Air—not much it can do to them. Water, we’re not so sure about. And fire is their nemesis.”

  “Trees are used to getting rained on. I wouldn’t count on the magic I have left at my disposal being able to help at all. I’m brawn in this situation.” Then I laughed. “But Chai—he’s a djinn! Fire’s his best buddy.”

  Chai rolled his eyes. “Nobody say anything. Do not ask me for a favor—I offer my help freely, without a request.”

  A spark flickered in Degoba’s eyes. “Djinn!”

  “At your service, may I offer you a wish?” It came rolling off Chai’s tongue as smooth as silk. He instantly groaned and slapped his head, but he’d offered and if Degoba took him up on it, there was nothing any of us could do. But we could warn him first.

  “Don’t say yes! Don’t accept his offer. The politics of this are tricky—” I stopped, though, when Degoba laughed, slapping his thigh.

  “I haven’t enjoyed an evening so much in quite a while. First a dragon, and then a djinn. No, my fair genie, I will not ask for one of your wishes. I know all too well what it would mean. I’d rather . . . you have offered to help and we ackno
wledge that. Is that good enough?”

  “You can say thank you without turning it into a favor, but yes, I understand your caution.” Chai shook his head ruefully. “I really have to watch my mouth, but it’s my nature. This is why more of my kind—the more pleasant-natured ones—stick to our own realm. The danger is too great for those we consider friends.”

  I nodded. “We spent a long time figuring out how to circumnavigate the chance of me ending up on the short end of the djinn wand.”

  “So back to matters,” Chai said. “I have fire, and I’m not afraid to use it. Just point me in the right direction and I’m all yours. Tell me what to do, though. Don’t ask me. I give you permission to order me around for a bit.”

  His laughter was infectious and broke the tension. And with that, we began to plan our attack on the king of the forest wights.

  CHAPTER 15

  The trip to the battery didn’t take long, but the entire way all I could think about was that we were going up against a creature who could beat us sideways if we weren’t careful. With that comforting thought, I preoccupied myself by staring pensively out the window until we got close to the park.

  Ralph didn’t seem too thrilled, either. He had managed to tear himself away from his iPad, but now he was rapping his fingers against his backpack in what could only be considered rhythmic by the most generous of music fans.

  Chai, on the other hand, seemed almost jovial, and he was talking Alex’s ear off as we drove the distance from Degoba’s house to Fort Worden State Park. Chai and Alex seemed to be getting on pretty good and right now they were discussing Egypt, which apparently both of them had visited at some time in the past. I wasn’t sure how I felt about them getting so chummy. Chai knew a lot of my secrets. Secrets I wasn’t sure I wanted Alex knowing. Chai could make me cry—he knew what my buttons were and while he’d never once deliberately use them against me, I couldn’t put it past Alex yet. I liked Alex, I had liked sex with Alex, but I didn’t fully trust him. Not yet.