Tempt the Stars

Chapter Eight

It wasn’t a vampire. Not unless I was seriously misremembering, and Tony’s stable had included someone the size of Sasquatch. But judging by Pritkin’s expression, which had shifted over to his what-the-hell face, it also wasn’t a demon.

It looked like maybe I’d been right at the start, I thought wildly. I should have brought Scully. Although I wasn’t sure even she’d have been able to categorize that.

It emerged from the mist between the trunks and paused, as if looking for something. Maybe its head, because it didn’t appear to have one. Unless you counted what looked like part of a croaker sack that somebody had stuffed and then crammed into the neck hole. Where it sat, wobbling around like a bobblehead under a floppy hat, staring at nothing because the eyes looked like they’d been Sharpie’d on.

It didn’t make any more sense from the neck down. It was roughly the size and shape of a person, if the person was a barrel-chested linebacker on stilts. A lot of it was mismatched metal, and a lot of it was glass, the latter mostly a bunch of round containers set into indentations in what I guess was its armor. Most of those were sloshing with some silvery-blue substance, blending in with the mist, but a row of little gold ones crossed the front on a diagonal, like the potion bandolier Pritkin sometimes wore. But if they were potions, I didn’t know how it was supposed to grab one.

Since it had what looked like gardening shears for hands.

For a moment, I just stared.

I knew I should probably be terrified, but I was having a hard time with it. Maybe because I was looking at something that any good horror movie producer would have fired his art department for. It looked like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz and Edward Scissorhands had had a baby. It looked like somebody had gone Dumpster-diving and built a robot out of the trash. It looked . . . well, it looked stupid.

“Homunculus,” Pritkin breathed, without my having to ask.

Not that it helped.

“What?” I demanded, suddenly more angry than anything else. Because no, just no. The universe kept throwing these curveballs at me, and I was mostly going with it, but not when it came down to decapitated robots. I had principles. I had standards. I had—

A face full of muck when Pritkin suddenly shoved me back down.

Something flashed and something sizzled. And it looked like the Tin Man managed just fine with those shears of his, after all. Because when I looked up, I was seeing the world through more than a veil of mud. A bunch of glowing, golden strands had woven themselves around us, hovering maybe an arm’s length away in a nice, neat circle. Like we were the catch of the day.

Which, okay, yeah.

“Pritkin . . ”

“When I tell you to run,” he said calmly, never taking his eyes off the creature, “go for the trees. Don’t stop and don’t look back.”

I didn’t bother arguing, since I didn’t see a way for either of us to go anywhere. “And how do we lose the net?”

“Like this!” he said, and gave me a shove.

And suddenly, the net looked like another balloon, one that had just been pricked with a pin. I had maybe a second to realize that it had been caught on the outside of Pritkin’s shields, and that by popping them, he’d bought us a couple of seconds to slide underneath the floaty wisps that were falling down on every side like a spiderweb. And then I was scrambling on my belly through the mud, and lurching to my feet and starting to run—

And realizing that he wasn’t behind me.

I spun to see him fighting with the net, part of which had caught the back of his shirt. That wouldn’t have been a big deal, but the other half had adhered to the ground, and it must have found a better hold than the slimy leaves. Because his best efforts were only stretching it, like bubble gum between a sidewalk and a shoe, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Go!” he told me, furious, when I turned to help, maybe because the Tin Man had started lumbering down the slope, with the clumsy-cute gate of a toddler just learning to walk. A manic toddler armed with deadly blades and potion bombs.

Or maybe there was another reason, I thought, as the air rippled by my left ear. Something hit the muck in front of me, and something else failed to hit me between the eyes. Because I’d already rediscovered the ground.

I might not know how to deal with magic robots, but I understood bullet etiquette just fine.

Pritkin cursed and dove down beside me. “Now what?”

“I told you,” I hissed, grabbing his lapel. “Tony’s boys. Now lose the damned shirt!”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” he snarled. And then “Don’t touch it!” as I recognized the problem. A filmy strand had wrapped its way across the front of his clothes, as well. Which wouldn’t have been an issue except for all the guns and belts and holsters he had holding said clothes to his body. And the fact that the strand appeared to have the tensile strength of solid steel.

“Take them off!” I told him, grabbing the front of his jeans. “Take everything off!”

“I’m trying!”

“Try harder!” I said as he jerked to the left, sliding us around in a half circle on the slimy ground, just before another potion bomb exploded where we’d been sitting. Fortunately, it hit a rock and flowed the other way, trapping maybe three yards’ worth of leaves and making it look like a giant spider had been nesting in the area. And it was only going to get worse.

Pritkin must have thought the same, because he grabbed my hands, which had somehow gotten his belt off and were working on the bandolier, and shook me hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Get out of here!”

“Make me!” I snarled, and ripped the bandolier off, roughly enough to make him curse.

Too bad; he’d recover from some bruises. Unlike other things, I thought, glancing up to see that the toddler two-step covered ground pretty damned fast. And worse, the creature was rearing back to throw again, and we were running out of places to go.

I did what I should have done before and snatched one of the guns from Pritkin’s belt. It looked like a .22, little and silver colored and unremarkable. It didn’t look like it had any business fighting anything, much less demons. But maybe it would slow that thing down.

Only not if it was slammed to the ground first.

“What are you doing?” I demanded as Pritkin glared at me. “Shoot the damned thing!”

“Yes, shooting something made out of battle potions is a good plan,” he snarled.

Only it looked like somebody else thought so. The words had barely left his mouth when something pinged off the Tin Man’s shiny chest plate. And then something else ripped off its hat. And then Pritkin cursed and grabbed me.

“Run!”

“Where?”

“Anywhere!”

And I tried. But before I could move, three things happened at once. A bunch of dark silhouettes shot out of the tree line, the creature lobbed its potion, and Pritkin gave a massive jerk on what turned out to be the end of the line of party favors.

And oh, shit.

If I’d thought the last trip to childhood bliss had been hell, it was nothing compared to this one. I kind of wondered about magical parents who thought that giving their kids an acid trip as a toy was a fun idea. But then, I guess you weren’t supposed to set off a case all at once.

It felt like my body was trying to turn inside out. It felt like all my internal organs had turned to mush. It felt like a fun-house mirror looks, with everything pulling into weird, distorted shapes and patterns. I’d have been sick if I still had a working stomach; I’d have screamed if I could have remembered how.

As it was, I just lay in the muck and watched the vamps stumble around, because it seemed to work on them, too.

The elegant, deadly horde had fallen out of stealth mode like they’d hit a wall. And were currently in wobbly-legged party mode, which was a lot less impressive. It would have been good times if the creature had been stumbling around, too.

Unfortunately, the toys didn’t seem to bother it at all. Pritkin noticed, and slurred something drunkenly, but I didn’t hear most of it over the screaming toys and the yelling vamps. But the next second he was free, and naked except for the ass-kicking boots. Which I hoped were about to live up to their name. Because the latest potion bomb hit down as he reached for the weapons he’d shucked off, forcing him to jerk back empty-handed.

He didn’t try again.

He snatched me up, got an arm around my waist, and we stumbled for the tree line.

And weirdly enough, the fact that neither of us could manage to walk in a straight line actually helped. Nets hit down in front of us, in back of us, and to either side, but not on us. Like maybe the creature couldn’t figure out where we were going, either.

But while we might be drunkenly reeling all over the place, we were reeling fast. Pritkin put on an extra burst of speed as we approached the trees, and I was right there with him. We were almost to the thicker part of the woods now, where any net would tangle in the branches before it could land on us. Things were looking up—

Or they would have been. Except that this Tin Man must already have been to see the wizard. Because brainless he wasn’t. Either that or his aim was suddenly terrible, spraying potion bombs in a rapid-fire line—at the trees right in front of us.

The result was a long, sticky, billowing web of holy shit, opening up practically in our faces.

For a second, I was sure I wouldn’t be able to stop, since my legs were only taking orders about half the time. But either Pritkin was less affected by the spell, or ass-kicking boots have better traction than Keds. Because he managed to twist and wrench and flop us to the side, hitting the dirt inches away from the long line of netting.

A gust of wind made it billow out over our heads, and I yelped and hugged the ground, just as the Tin Man readied another shot.

One it never had a chance to take.

Tony’s boys might be a lot of things, even lousy shots with the forest fun-housing around them and a moving target and not being able to focus their eyes. But they weren’t quitters. Having a homicidal asshole for a boss tends to do that for you. They’d regrouped while we ran, and lousy shots or no, when you’re spraying as many bullets around as they suddenly were, you’re bound to hit something sooner or later.

“Bugger,” Pritkin said, sounding almost casual. Because yeah. There was nothing we could do.

I didn’t see the bullet that connected; everything was happening way too fast for that. But I sure saw the result. Everybody in three counties probably did, as the Tin Man detonated in a burst of searing white light and a mass of sizzling, smoking potion balls. I felt the wash of heat even halfway across the clearing, as a dozen separate eruptions burned through the forest all around us and lit up the air overhead, like unearthly comets.

One of them strobed Pritkin’s face in blue-white flame as it tore overhead, close enough that I was surprised it didn’t set his hair on fire. But not everything was so lucky. A second later, it slammed through the net and then into the tree line behind us. And I hit the dirt again, muck be damned, because I’d seen a few explosions in my time.

But I didn’t see one now.

Instead, something shot back at us from the tree line, passing over our heads like a river of wood. Which I didn’t understand until I noticed the flowing bark and bulging limbs and leaves the size of car tires spilling out of the forest behind us. And more swelling roots that were suddenly rushing everywhere, over and under the soil, trying desperately to support formerly petite-sized trees that were surging upward like two-hundred-year old redwoods.

And you know, you’d think something like that would hold your attention. And it might have—if the rest of the comets hadn’t taken that moment to discover gravity. They arced high above the treetops, brilliant, blue-white, and burning against the pinpricks of the stars for a long instant. And then they came hurtling back to the ground, silhouetting a bunch of seriously freaked-out vamps before disappearing with loud whooshing sounds into the wet and fertile soil.

Which promptly went nuclear.

Everywhere a comet hit down, it lit up the ground like an X-ray for a couple of seconds, showing glimpses of gigantic things squirming around under there. I stared, because it looked like Cthulu had gotten lost and ended up napping beneath rural Pennsylvania. And he didn’t seem happy about being disturbed.

He was no more unhappy than I was.

“Cassie! Come on!”

Pritkin practically dislocated my shoulder, not so much dragging as ripping me off the ground. But I didn’t complain. Because trees were erupting from the dirt on all sides of us now, like a maze of wooden spears flying upward into the otherworldly sky. They would have been hard enough to avoid on their own, but as they shot up, a dark rain of mud and burning leaves and clods of earth was pelting back down, on us and on the mass of now desperate-to-flee vampires.

They had lost their undead cool and were running in all directions, including into each other. If the scene had had a sound track, it would have been full of kazoos. Instead, it was full of creaking wood, cursing vamps, burning leaves, and—

And the sound of a colossal tree ripping through the ground, right beneath our feet, throwing us in different directions.

“Pritkin!” I screamed, even before I hit the ground on my back, a ground that was bucking and tearing like an earthquake had hit it, and throwing me around like a drop of oil on a hot griddle.

My ears rang over the mad thud of my pulse. The ground heaved again and again and debris pattered down onto my head and shoulders. Dust caught in my eyelashes, making it hard to see, and dirt clogged the back of my throat, making it almost impossible to breathe. And then an arm grabbed my waist, wrenching me back and up.

And suddenly, I was flying through the trees at an insane speed, but not on foot.

For a couple of extremely disorienting seconds, I didn’t know what was happening—until I looked down. And then I still didn’t. I saw a river of wood flowing underneath my butt, Pritkin’s legs gripping it on either side of mine, and their owner holding on for dear life—to a steadily expanding root that was shooting out tiny feelers to tickle my face.

“What—” I yelped, in disbelief, because I was not riding a giant root like a goddamned motorcycle.

Only I was.

Somehow I totally was. Pritkin had snagged one of the crazy feelers this place was putting out, using it as a fast track out of here. A little too fast, I thought frantically, as trees raced by on either side, the smaller ones being shoved up and thrown aside as our wild ride threaded madly in between, seeking God knew what. And threatening to decapitate the two of us in the process.

“Duck!” Pritkin yelled; I don’t know why. Since he simultaneously shoved my head down to the wood between my legs, to avoid the wood slashing by over my head as we tore through a particularly dense area.

Straight at the huge old oak looming up ahead.

I stared at it, openmouthed and horror-struck, because I knew this tree. Everyone at Tony’s did. They called it the General. A leviathan of the forest, it had already been old when Washington and his mangy crew crossed the Delaware not far from here. It was ragged and timeworn now, with hoary old arms as thick as other trees’ trunks and wearing a coating of gray-green moss. But it was solid as a damned mountain and almost as big. If a tree could look crotchety, it managed it. It clearly was not going anywhere.

Which meant we had to.

I felt Pritkin’s arm tighten around me a fraction more, and then he tore us off the side and we were flying again. And this time without a safety net, if a massive, insane tree root can be called that. Only it was looking pretty good a second later, when we hit the ground without the benefit of Pritkin’s shields.

I guess he’d been through a little too much to manage them just now. But that was okay. That was fine. Since a couple of seconds later, the irresistible force met the unyielding object and a wooden firework exploded through the forest.

It would have exploded through us, too, but by then, Pritkin had managed to get up a shield. Sort of. It was thin and wobbly and looked about as substantial as a soap bubble, and was likely to be as long-lived. But it was really, really appreciated, especially when a leg-sized sliver of oak came hurtling through the air, straight at us.

And the shield didn’t break.

It did bend, though. Inward, to be precise, allowing me to watch as a column that wouldn’t take my eye out because it would just cave in my whole head came closer, closer, closer, its ungodly inertia fighting Pritkin’s faltering protection. Until I could barely see it anymore, because it was all of half an inch away from the end of my nose.

And then it fell over with a giant crash, smashing into the undergrowth hard enough to shake the ground beneath us. And to cover the sound of Pritkin’s shield giving up the ghost a second later. I doubted I’d have heard the tiny pop anyway, next to all of the other crashes and explosions and trunks cracking in half that was still going on. And my heart, which sounded louder than all of them put together.

For a long moment, I just lay there.

I wanted to check on Pritkin, who was being uncharacteristically quiet. I wanted to get up and run screaming in a direction, any direction, that meant getting the hell out of here. I wanted to check out my body for damage, which was kind of feeling like it might add up to a lot right now.

I wanted to do a lot of things, but I didn’t.

Because we were no longer alone.

Two more of the junky Tin Man clones crashed through the trees as I lay there, trembling and helpless. One’s glass bits were filled with evil, bubbling red, the other with an equally sinister green, and both were loaded down with more globules of the golden net spell. But before I had a chance to get worked up about it, not that I really felt able anymore, something else came through the trees.

Or, more accurately, someone.

Slashing through the undergrowth with a stick and a scowl was a long, horsey face under another floppy hat. The owner of the face stopped a yard off, taking in the burning forest, the flailing roots, the naked war mage and the screaming vamps. And me, sprawled over the partner I really hoped I hadn’t just killed. For a long time, he didn’t say anything. And then he sighed.

“Just like your mother,” he told me. “You really know how to make an entrance.”