I knew it was my job to get the guys out of here and home safe. That was a given. But right then and there I swore it to myself, swore on whatever I could think of and to whatever higher power was listening. I had to get them home. I couldn’t let Mel be a widow, when she wouldn’t even be able to understand why.
Duke and I, we decided to keep first watch. Sleep was for wussies.
Sleep was also for those who didn’t have a demonic poison coursing through their veins. Zane whimpered and tossed for a long time, and I couldn’t count the times Will was up to check on the kid and Oscar right with him. Finally, I shooed them both away, promising to sit with the boy for at least a while. Reluctantly, Will curled up in his sleeping bag, but if he got any rest at all it would be a miracle. Oscar hesitated, eyeing me warily, but weariness finally won out. Maybe I was the lesser of the evils, in his mind.
Duke and I found an open space near the ailing teenager and settled with my sword across my knees. With one hand, I idly rubbed the big dog’s ears.
“Jesse?” Zane’s voice drew me out of a near doze, and I looked down to find the boy’s eyes glassy, but lucid. “Could I have some water?”
“Sure, kid.” I fetched him a cup, waiting while he struggled into a sitting position before I handed it off. His eyes followed my newly tattooed hand as it passed through his field of vision. “You doing okay?”
He barely drank enough to wet his lips and lay back down. “My arm hurts. And I’m hot.”
A quick examination showed that his fever was high, but steady. It wasn’t bad enough yet to make him delirious. “You want me to wake Will up, see if he has something he can give you?”
“No. I’m okay.” There was a deep pause there, the kind that fills the silence with all sorts of unsaid things. I waited. “Jesse? Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Cameron explained to me about the deal. For my soul. Why did you do it?” He kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, unwilling to look at me. The soulless do that a lot, I’d noticed, out of shame maybe.
“This?” I rubbed at the black marks seared into my arm. It didn’t even hurt anymore. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“But I’m nobody, to you. Not family or anything.” His eyes flickered my way once, then went back to studying the wooden beams above us. “That thing is going to try to kill you, and you agreed to it and I don’t understand why.”
I shrugged a little, leaning my head against the brick hearth. “Kid . . . There’s only one thing I’ve ever been good at, and that’s tearing stuff into tiny bits. I guess I’m just trying to turn that skill into something useful. So I help people, when I can.”
“But why?” His brow creased. He was really trying to understand.
It was hard to find the words for it. I mean, I could have rattled on for hours about bushido and honor and all of the things that I use to govern my life. But really, it boiled down to four words. “Because someone has to.”
I don’t think that answered his question, but a few moments later as he pondered on it, his eyes drifted closed. I’m not sure he slept, really. I don’t think any of us did. But we were at least still for a while.
13
We took turns dozing, off and on. Duke sacked out somewhere around two a.m., his doggy snores rumbling through the cabin like a miniature eighteen-wheeler. It was soothing. It drowned out the voices.
I think it was the silence that woke me first. My internal clock couldn’t decide what time it was, but the windows were still dark, so that made it sometime not-morning. Propped up against the brick fireplace, I examined the last few moments, trying to decide why I wasn’t asleep anymore. The voices had stopped. No more wailing from outside, and the sun wasn’t even up yet.
I realized Duke wasn’t snoring anymore when the massive mutt padded over and shoved his head under my now-tattooed hand. “Good boy, Duke.” I tried to scratch his ears, but he dodged it, stepping back a few paces.
I let my hand drop and struggled out of my sleeping bag to stand, but the dog came back, pushing under my hand again. The moment I tried to touch him of my own volition, he stepped back again.
“Duke? You okay, buddy?” I reached for him again, and he let me rest my hand on his back briefly. I could feel the vibrations of silent growls through his muscled flanks. He tolerated it only for a moment before retreating again, taking another step away from me. His golden eyes fixed on me intently, almost like he was thinking about making a lunge for my throat. But that wasn’t the kind of dog Duke was. Believe it or not, I decided he was trying to tell me something.
“Whaddya got, big guy?” We danced for a few moments, me moving toward him, him retreating until we got to the bottom of the stairs. Then he gave a massive bark and bounded up into the dark loft above.
I grabbed my sword—I’m not stupid—and said, “Cole, bring a light.” I heard the thrash of a sleeping bag, and knew my little brother would be right behind me.
The loft was mostly empty. We’d moved all the sleeping stuff downstairs, leaving only our pile of half-packed bags.
In the light from below, I could see Duke pacing beneath the eaves at the far end, pausing on every pass to sniff at the shuttered ventilation window. It wasn’t big enough to even really be called a window. Round like a porthole, the metal shutters had been fastened tightly and latched from the inside. The mastiff stopped to paw at them, and I could see the ridge rise along his back at whatever he sensed on the outside.
My shadow grew longer on the floor in front of me, and for one heartbeat I was really freaked out until I realized it was only my brother with the requested light source. Cole came to stand beside me, but his eyes weren’t on the dog. Instead, he eyed the ceiling, dark above us despite our warm circle of light.
“What the hell is that?” He raised both hands, and I realized he had his gun, trained along the beam of the flashlight.
It took a moment to hear what he heard, the softest of sounds, easily missed before in the heavy breathing of sleeping men and the snoring dog.
“That’s . . . scratching against the shingles. Almost like digging . . .” Our eyes met, coming to the same conclusion. “They’re on the roof.”
The how wasn’t really important, but even as my eyes flew back to our suddenly breached defenses, I knew. In my mind’s eye, I could picture the south side of the cabin where the trees were the closest. Trees that had, in the last few hours, been bared of Cam’s consecration spell. Trees whose thinnest branches drooped over the tall cabin. I’d seen those creatures scamper up and down the spindliest trees like it was nothing. Climbing those trunks would have been child’s play, once the spell on the ground wore off, and while those branches were too spare for any human to risk crossing, for the Yeti’s little pets it would be like walking down a four-lane highway right onto the roof over our heads.
Before we could even formulate a plan, the metal-shuttered window exploded inward. Duke was the fastest to react, grabbing the filthy arm that reached through the portal and ripping it off with a wrench of his great head. Black gore spattered over the floor.
It didn’t stop the creature crawling its way through the window, however. In fact, I think it made it easier, the lack of an arm making for less body to stuff through the tiny aperture. Its shoulders contorted in an unnatural way, almost folding in half to wedge itself into the circular opening. Its remaining arm braced against the wall and it slithered through up to its rib cage, where the unyielding bone caught it up for a moment.
“Duke, heel!” He came to me, thank God, carrying his grisly trophy with him. “Head shot, little brother.” Without a word, Cole leveled his gun at the bald head. The thing hissed at him once before its skull exploded in a rain of rotten brain matter, splattering all of us. The rest of it hung in the window, twitching spasmodically.
The sound of the gunshot in close quarters brought everyone awake, with a chorus of “What the hell is going on?” from downstairs.
“Where the fuck are Cam’s wards?” I gr
owled to myself, but Axel had already proven that they were shaky at best. If the Yeti’s little friends were getting inside, I think we’d now passed into the realm of “completely useless.”
First order of business was to get those nasty bastards off our roof, before they succeeded in digging through to the loft. Even as skinny as I was, going out a window of that size was out of the question, so we left Marty and the dog up there with the hatchet to make sure no more made it inside from that entry point.
Will and Oscar armed themselves with a fireplace poker and a hammer, prepared to defend the first floor if it came to it, and Cameron plopped himself near Zane, eyes closed and mumbling to himself. There was no scent of cloves, so I assumed he was praying, for whatever good it was going to do us. Either that, or he was totally tapped out, and trying to do something stupid anyway. I just hoped the idiot didn’t kill himself. He was out of mojo even if he didn’t want everyone else to know it.
Lacking a ladder, our only choice was to clamber up the support posts on the porch, and then up onto the roof proper. I belted my sword on and hoisted myself up, holding my breath at every scrape and scuff I made. Cole waited on the ground, covering me with his gun, but we couldn’t see any of the demonic spider monkeys from that side and nothing came over the crest. I hoped maybe the gunshot had scared them off. The other option was that they were simply too stupid to protect their flank.
I stood guard on the roof of the porch until Cole joined me. He motioned me forward with a whispered, “After you, big brother.”
The moment I put my hand on the main roof, I knew they weren’t gone. I could feel the vibrations as something on the other side of the peak scuttled and rasped at the shingles. Crouching low, I started for the top.
The chimney bricks were warm when I pressed my back against them, and part of me just wanted to stay there, clinging to that slightest bit of heat. The nights had gotten cold, suddenly. But I had work to do. Cole stayed crouched below me, and I peeked my head around the edge to see what could be seen.
There were four of them on the other side of the roof’s peak, three scratching and prying at the shingles while the fourth would raise its head from time to time as if keeping watch. One of them was the one-handed female, and her lack of clawing fingers didn’t keep her from digging at the edges of the shingles with the jagged bone at the stump of her wrist.
Four here, and one dead in the window. Was this all he had left? The five I’d seen in the trees before? I showed four fingers to Cole, then pointed to the trees with a questioning look.
He tilted his head, listening for a moment, then shrugged. They’d fallen silent, so there was no telling if the Yeti had more waiting out there for us.
Through some very crude and highly improvised sign language, we decided that Cole would pop over the ridge and take the first shot, which would mean facing three in rather precarious close-quarter combat. In order to do that, Cole had to take my place against the chimney.
I should have remembered that some higher power somewhere hated me.
As I tried to maneuver back down the steeply sloped roof, my heel managed to find the one loose shingle in the entire structure. It slipped out from under my foot to skid down and off the edge, and sent me sliding after it with a clatter. One flailing hand found Cole’s boot, and I jerked to a halt with my legs dangling out over empty space.
Cole, quick thinker that he was, managed to brace himself to keep us both from going over, and reached his free hand down to offer me help back up.
As I looked up, reaching for the outstretched arm, I saw the first minion crest the ridge. Thanks to my less than graceful descent, they’d finally noticed us.
“Cole!” He didn’t need my warning. My brother’s shot took off the top of the thing’s head. The half-headed body took a swipe at empty air anyway, too stubborn to admit it was dead, before toppling down the slope, crashing into me on its way. The other three barreled over the top before Cole could take aim again.
With a heave, Cole hauled me up onto the roof until my feet could find purchase, and then he was forced to let go, clubbing at the vicious things with the butt of his gun. I couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t shooting, until I realized he didn’t know where I was. He wouldn’t risk hitting me.
I ducked one of Cole’s wilder swings and grabbed the first thing I could lay a hand on, a filthy, skeletal ankle. It was a start. I yanked my sword from its scabbard with no finesse at all, reversed it, and stabbed down. The blade bit through the putrid flesh, shattered the joint, and went on through into the shingles. The foot fell away, twitching.
Now, losing a foot wasn’t going to stop one of those things, but I by God had its attention. It came boiling out of the pile on Cole, oblivious to the appendage that was no longer attached. I backed my way across the roof, leading it away from the brawl and giving myself room to swing my katana.
“I’m clear, Cole!”
My footing wasn’t ideal, and with my luck I fully expected to wind up back on the ground with a few broken bones, but I was going to take this nasty bastard with me.
It was more than happy to oblige, and no more than three feet away, it sprang at me, clawed fingers outstretched. Maybe the missing foot threw it off. Maybe it simply didn’t understand how fucking good I was. But when my sword entered under its chin and scraped against the top if its skull, there was no mistaking the flicker of surprise in those black eyes before they dimmed and died.
The body jerked and spasmed until I kicked it off my sword, sending it pirouetting off the porch roof below. Two down, two to go.
Only, when I looked back to Cole, he was still struggling to hold off three. And up over the ridge, another gaunt head poked, rotted teeth bared in a snarl.
“Oh that’s just not fair!” Numbers unknown, they were coming across the branches, reinforcing their comrades.
Another body went sailing out into the darkness, and I heard a sick crunch as every bone it had shattered. Cole got his gun up under another chin and fired, blowing putrid brains all over the place again.
My little brother’s face was frozen in a gleeful snarl, and I realized he was actually enjoying himself. Okay, have at it. I had to stop the reinforcements.
With a war cry (the situation just seemed to call for it, okay?) I launched myself over the roof’s peak, and barreled into two more minions feetfirst. One went tumbling over the edge, ending in a sick crack and the explosive smell of burst innards. The other latched claws into my pant leg and fastened teeth into my boot, gnawing like there was no tomorrow.
With my free foot, I kicked it in the face until I felt bone crack, but it still refused to let go. Our combined weight was dragging me down the sloping roof, and though my sword thrusts were finding flesh, I couldn’t manage to get a killing strike in. Just when I thought my ticket was punched, Cole’s gun sounded, and half the thing’s skull vanished.
I kicked the half-decapitated skull off my boot and watched it go bouncing down the roof and off into the night, then looked up to nod my thanks to my brother. His eyes went wide, and his mouth opened, but he didn’t have time to call the warning.
There was that split second when I knew that bad shit was coming and I couldn’t stop it, and then the thing hit me from the far side of the roof. Somehow, it had gotten behind us, or past Cole, or maybe it had been there all along. But it was on me in two inhuman bounds, and the only reason I knew I was fucked was the brief sensation of flying as we were launched off the roof.
I landed in a pile of reeking muck (what was left of one of the creatures, I realized later), and it was probably all that saved me from broken bones. All the same, the air was crushed from my lungs, and I could only gasp like a fish staring up at my brother’s face so far above me. He was shouting at me, my name by the shape of his lips, but he was pointing past me, toward the trees.
Dazed, I managed to flip over to find myself staring into the minion’s eyes. It was on all fours, shaking its head like the fall had knocked it loopy too, but
it was definitely recovering faster than I. It realized that at the same time I did. I was barely able to get to my knees when the thing sprang.
I couldn’t bring my katana up fast enough, and the sword got pinned between us. Blunt, rotten teeth fastened on my shoulder, bruising like hell through my shirt, but not enough to break skin or tear muscle. Twiggy arms scrabbled to entangle me, fingers raking at my arms, my shoulders. I ducked my head to protect my eyes and shoved as best I could with my arms all bound up. My sword got tangled in the chaos, and I hoped like I hell I wasn’t about to cut my own fingers off with it.
And just as suddenly, the thing released me, an inhuman scream rising from the gaunt throat. In comparison, the Scrap demons’ screeching sounded like a five-part harmony. I could feel something in my ears vibrating on a frequency not meant for humans, and it was all I could do to clap both hands over my ears, curling up to protect my sensitive hearing against the unholy sound. Something warm and sticky trickled against my cold palms, and I realized my ears were bleeding.
The Yeti’s minion was no longer interested in me at all. It thrashed and flailed in the grass, clawing its own filthy skin off in long, jagged strips. Its body performed contortions with enough force to crack its own bones, like it was trying to turn itself inside out to escape whatever was plaguing it. It slammed itself repeatedly into the side of the cabin, fleeing blindly in panic and too disoriented to realize it was running the wrong way. The screaming seemed to go on forever, no small feat considering they weren’t supposed to even have voices.
The strident sound eventually died down to a pathetic moan as the thing’s throes subsided, and eventually, there was silence. The thing smoldered a bit, the dirty skin blackened and curling around the torn edges. The reek of putrid meat roasting assaulted my nose, and I swallowed the bile at the back of my throat with grim determination.
Only then did I realize that there were no more creatures poised to rip my throat out. I stood cautiously, sword at ready, but there was nothing there. They’d retreated.
A Shot in the Dark Page 16
