Demon Hunts

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

More accurately, I jumped out of the inner sanctum, not wanting to disrupt the power lines I'd drawn. I landed in an easy crouch a few feet beyond its edge, and Gary began to play the drum. Its reassuring thump was higher than usual in the cold air, but it was familiar. The circle walls shimmered with its music, embracing it and growing stronger. I caught glimpses of the magic's movement far above my head: the circles rose forever, ensuring the wendigo couldn't leap in or out.

It came for me in a straight line, unimpeded by trees, drawn by the drum's song and driven by Herne's command of the forest. It slipped in and out of moonlight, shadows rendering it black, but I could finally see it, a massive ruffed thing that ran lightly on the snow. It had regained its size, which boded poorly for Sara's agents. Regret slammed through me before I set it aside to better face the wendigo.

It was all tooth and fur and talon, with tiny crimson eyes. If it had anything left of humanity, it was buried under a raging animal. And that was a blessing: the beast disregarded the outer power circle's border, charging across without slowing. Magic sputtered, allowing it entrance, and I saw a vestige of rational thought break through. It skittered on the snow, making as tight a turn as it could, and rushed back the way it had come.

The circle held. Magic fluxed, colors intensifying where the wendigo hit, and it bounced back, knocked ass over teakettle by my wish to keep it there. I heard Sara very carefully not scream, the sound no more than a tiny sharp intake of breath. Apparently they could see it, too. That was…probably good. I told myself it was good, and waited for it to get back on its feet. It wasn't that I had any pride tangled up in a mano a mano fight with a wendigo. I just wanted to see how clearly it was thinking, or if it was at all.

It rolled over, breaking snow as it went, and fell back to nearly the edge of the circle, staying just far enough away that the circle's power couldn't electrify its fur. That suggested another hint of cognative capability, which gave me hope that there was a spirit worth rescuing somewhere in the beast.

A snarl broke from its throat, like it had heard my thought. It leaped sideways, not attacking, but exploring. Long loping steps took it halfway around the larger circle. I followed on the outer edge of the smaller, able to keep pace only because I had so much less distance to travel. Once the fight was met, I put all my money on it, speedwise, so even a few seconds to study its movements was a win for me.

Increasingly physical or not, it seemed barely constrained by the laws of gravity. Its legs lacked the power to drive it in the massive jumps it took, but that appeared to be supremely irrelevant. It answered to someone else's physics.

Like the Lower World's. I'd known I had to take the battle to it there, where I might have a hope of performing the soul retrieval, but I hadn't quite thought of the wendigo itself as a denizen of that world. The idea struck me just before the creature did, and with almost as much force. Almost. Made physical, the beast had to weigh three hundred pounds, and it slammed me against the inner circle with all that weight plus momentum. We both grunted, and I choked on its fetid breath, but rather than attack again it skittered back, swinging its heavy head as it studied me, then the three behind me.

"You bastard. You weren't even trying to…"

"It wanted us," Coyote confirmed quietly.

"No," Sara said. "It just wanted to see if it could get to us. It's dangerous, Joanne."

I twisted around from where the wendigo had dumped me in the snow and gave her my best no shit, Sherlock? look before getting to my feet. The wendigo had circled almost all the way back around to where it had begun, and now paced, breath steaming in the cold air as it watched me. I slid around the inner circle's circumference and stepped toward the beast, lifting my free hand in invitation. "C'mon, you smelly son of a bitch. Let's go."

I didn't actually expect it to come for me, but it did, showing off its unearthly prowess for leaping once more. I flung myself forward to meet it, blade lifted, and saw confusion flash through its beady little eyes. I was clearly prey, and prey wasn't supposed to return attack. We collided midair, my sword sliding through its chest like there was nothing there, and I bellowed, "Coyote!"

A door opened, and the sky went red as the world went yellow.

We fell to earth in the Lower World, crashing to the too-close earth with more force than I expected. Dust rose up around us and we rolled apart, me dragging my sword with me. Its presence reassured me, as did the faint brush of wings that too-briefly cooled me beneath a nauseatingly hot sun. I was wearing my favored oily tank top and torn jeans rather than my winter gear, which brought me up short: I'd intended to enter the Lower World physically, actually leaving the Middle World behind for the duration of this fight. Moving into another plane shouldn't, I thought, change my clothes.

I raised my eyes, confused, and was caught with a jolt of understanding. There was a woman before me, stringy hair falling in her face, gaunt cheekbones making her eyes too large. Her teeth were filed into narrow points, an affectation that gave me the heebie-jeebies. I could only think of filed teeth as being fingernails on chalkboards to the umpteenth degree, and the very idea sent horror rushing up and down my spine and tap-dancing on my skin. I wanted to throw up, which was not the ideal way to begin a spiritual smackdown.

She pulled her lips back from her nasty, nasty teeth and hissed at me, breath as hideous as it had been in her wendigo form. It actually distracted me from her teeth, which probably hadn't been her intention, but I was grateful.

I was less grateful for the talons she had lashed to her hands. Two on each, between the fingers. She only had one each tied between her toes, but it was quite enough; she looked like a demented dinosaur, arms raised and feet kicked high as she lurched back and forth in front of me.

A demented, starved dinosaur. There was ropy muscle on her skinny arms and legs, but I could count the ribs above her starvation-bloated belly. This pathetic, mad-eyed woman was what lay at the wendigo's core. Traveling into the Lower World physically had stripped us to more fundamental versions of ourselves, the winter trappings taken from me and the monster torn away from this woman. My heart twisted, suddenly sorry for her, and I stepped back rather than close in. "I can help you, if you'll let me."

She bobbed back and forth, apparently taking that into consideration. Then she lashed forward, much, much faster than someone in her condition should have been able to move, and struck out with her taloned hand. It was a flawless hit, executed so fast I could barely see it, and it should have gutted me.

It missed by a hair's breadth. My gut sucked in to my spine as I curved backward, air whooshing from my lungs. She surged past me, carried by her own momentum, and whirled back with a shriek of angry surprise.

I was right there with her with regards to surprise. I knew myself. I'd spent most of the past year studying fencing, and my reflexes were better than they'd been. They were not, however, that good. Nobody was that good, in much the same way that the wendigo-woman couldn't be as fast as she was. It was inhuman, lightning fast, snakelike reflexes; name the cliché, and I'd just fulfilled it.

She struck again, this time with both fists raised, bringing them down in an X meant to slice me apart. I was too busy gawking at myself to parry, but for the second time I folded in on myself, taking my body just out of reach.

This time I snapped my rapier out, not so much for the kill as to gain space and time. It whipped toward her so quickly it vibrated, almost unfurling as though it were liquid or leather, and it cracked when I reached full extension. Power surged through me into the blade, making it a weapon worth reckoning, and the wendigo skittered back, avoiding the shining silver.

Impulse drove me forward in a series of quick attacks. She countered, catching the sword on her talons every time, all of it so fast my mind lagged behind what our bodies were doing. By the time we broke apart again I was panting through a grin splitting my face.

Snakelike reflexes. The rattler had promised me a second gift to be discovered when I needed it. The tremendous healing ability belonged to the Middle World, a place of physical bodies. But a significant percentage of the things I encountered belonged to spirit worlds, where the laws were defined by what they believed they could do.

Defined by what I believed I could do, and by what my power animals were willing to grant me as gifts. I felt a hiss of snakeskin over my own, and grinned wildly. I would never have dreamed of moving so fast, but to a rattlesnake, it was second nature. First nature, even, and so it became for me. I loved it.

The wendigo, on the other hand, didn't like it one little bit at all.

We came together again with a great crashing roar that was equal parts her shrieks and my laughter. I was sure I'd get over it soon enough—as soon as she landed a blow, for example—but in the first moments, the speed was glorious. I ducked under her claws and dragged my blade across her belly, dismayed when its silver edge drew no blood. Probably I wasn't supposed to be eviscerating people, but she hadn't seemed inclined to listen. Sometimes a sharp knife to the gut could get somebody's attention. At least, it had always gotten mine.

She somersaulted over the rapier and rolled to her feet, striking backward toward my unprotected spine. I snapped forward again, just avoiding her talons, then jerked around and grabbed her arm, trying to get a better look at the claws.

They'd belonged to a bear, once upon a time, or some similar massive predator. A mountain lion, maybe, but I thought their curve was too shallow for that. Certainly a creature of at least that size, though: they were black and as long as her fingers. They were strong, too, stronger than any mortal remains should be. My sword should have sliced through them, not bounced off.

I wasn't used to being Ms. Intuitive, but comprehension slid through me, a clear and bright rain. "Did they belong to your spirit guide?"

Rage turned her eyes red, ending our brief moment of arrest. She stuffed her free hand into my gut, the punch hard enough that I went cold with breathlessness, but we were both surprised when she pulled back unbloodied fingers. I looked down to see bloodless gashes closing in my torso, and clenched my fist around her wrist all the harder. She squealed and tried to pull away, but in a fit of morbid curiosity I slammed my forearm onto her black talons.

Cold sliced through my arm, making muscle cramp with its intensity. I drew back and the cold faded as the wounds sealed flawlessly. Nothing but an inexorable sense of rightness accompanied the healing, no rush of power, no silver-blue aura hurrying to fix what was wrong. I knew I could bleed in the Lower World; I'd done it before.

I'd done it before Raven and Rattler had come to protect me. Healing wasn't Raven's purview, but Rattler had already proven what his presence could offer. "Your spirit animals give you the weapons," I said slowly. "Mine protect me from the wounds." I let her go, and turned a considering look on my sword.

I'd struck her with it any number of times, in both her wendigo form in the Middle World, and her more-human shape here in the Lower. It wasn't precisely a power animal, but it did, unquestionably, represent my power. It was part of a circle of magics which protected me and offered me weaponry to fight with. It was a thing of spirit, whether it was an animal or not.

And it was useless to me in this fight. Her bear-spirit would drive her past whatever wounds I inflicted with it, the rapier's slim blade too delicate to disturb such a great force. Maybe if I managed a heart-shot, but I wasn't actually here to kill this woman. I was going to save her, if I could. I released the rapier from my thoughts, and it faded away. "C'mon, sister. It's just you and me."

She screamed and kneed me in the belly, which was more effective, overall, than her talons had been. I doubled over, coughing, and she brought her fisted hands down on the back of my neck. I hit the yellow earth teeth-first and came up spitting dust. Mandy had not put up this kind of fight, when I went after her soul. Then again, Mandy hadn't turned into a slavering flesh-eating monster, either. I said, "Oh my God, is that Chuck Norris?" and pointed dramatically past the wendigo's shoulder. To my amazement, she actually turned to look, and I knotted my hands together, swinging for her temple.

She dropped and I pounced on her, pinning her arms. She smelled worse than humanly possible, and flung herself up and down with a lot of enthusiasm for such a skinny thing. Still, I had the upper hand and shook her entire torso, not caring that her head bounced off the ground like a bowling ball. "I am trying to help you!"

Her eyes cleared for an instant. Triumph shot through me, sharp enough that I didn't care about her stench. "You're in there! Come on, let me—"

The dusty yellow earth turned white beneath her, and the broiling Lower World sun fled behind sudden thick clouds. Wind howled up around us, cutting through my flimsy summertime clothes and icing my skin. My nose hairs froze, and my eyebrows went stiff inside a single breath, the air colder than I'd ever felt. The wendigo's human shape warped, twisting under my hands to become the monster once again, as loose-jointed and dangerous as it had been when I'd entered the cold universe searching for Mandy's soul.

This time, though, its face was stretched in agony, and its voice was that of the storm's. It had been the predator, then; now it was something else, not even prey. It needed protecting, rescuing from the cold threatening to tear us both apart. I hauled myself closer to its face to shout, "Let me take you out of here! Let me take you away from the—"

From the storm was how that was supposed to end, but the last few words were already shouted into silence. Even without the wind, the cold intensified to a killing temperature so extreme it seemed malicious. My exposed skin went numb, and the breath I drew through an open mouth hurt my lungs, like cold lead had been poured down my throat.

I let the wendigo go and shoved to my feet. The storm still raged around us at a distance as great as the circle I'd made in the Middle World, but it was quiet now, its screams pushed away.

Loneliness crashed over me, a feeling of isolation that expanded beyond my most melodramatic childhood moments. There was no way free from the circle of silent snow, and its featureless blur made my gaze unfocus. Disoriented, I reeled around, bewildered at how the silence and lack of wind could be worse than the battering storm itself. I wanted to escape, but my body was failing me, thick icy limbs refusing to respond, frozen thoughts running evermore sluggishly.

Someone stepped through the storm, joining me in the relentless white circle.

The wendigo gave a gleeful shriek and rose up out of the snow, racing for the distant sky.

I tried to follow, and failed.