Underground

CHAPTER 18

We caught sight of Lass running at the end of the bridge before he bolted down the stairs to the greenbelt that ran along the canal edge to McCurdy Park.

Sisiutl leapt from the water and looped across the ground like a giant sidewinder. I turned sharply onto the grass and rammed the front of the truck into Sisiutl’s side. The monster whipped around to glare at me with all its eyes, setting one head to snap at the Rover’s headlights, ripping into the metal around them. The monstrous serpent bit and struck at the truck repeatedly, gouging chunks from the steel body, shrieking in a chorus of languages as Lass dashed farther away.

Roaring when it noticed its prey escaping, Sisiutl lashed one last, hard time at the truck—denting the hood and rocking it on its tires—and bolted back into the water. I turned the truck and gunned its engine, jolting across the grass and into the parking lot beside MOHAI—the Museum of History and Industry—that lay next to the park and the pontoon bridges through the marsh that linked Marsh and Foster Islands to the arboretum beyond.

I left the scarred Rover parked awkwardly at the edge of the fog-filled lot, as close to the footbridge as I could. We all spilled out and started for the bridge, hoping to catch Lass before he entered the marsh, but we were not as fast as the terror-driven speed of his flight and he slipped through ahead of us, making no more sound but the panting of his breath and the slap of his broken-down shoes on the wet boards. He disappeared into the grasping mist, pink tinged as swift winter sunset pierced the clouds.

We pounded behind him onto the bobbing planks of the bridge to Marsh Island. We plunged into the tunnel of fog, stumbling on the uneven, wet ground of the marsh trail in the eye-dazzle of the sunset-colored murk.

Cold, wet mud sucked at my boots where the cinder trail had been washed partially away by the winter storms. The noise of Lass floundering through the marsh, startling animals from the reeds ahead, led us forward. Cattails and knife-edged grasses rattled like bones and slashed at us as we passed. The mist muttered with the voices of water and lost souls. Behind me I heard a splash and a cry.

I spun back, finding Quinton and Fish just a handbreadth away, half obscured in the fog. We’d stumbled right to the very edge of the island’s ragged, flooded shore without knowing it. Ben was partially in the lily-choked water, clawing at the muddy trail.

“Help,” he gasped, his teeth already chattering from the cold.

Quinton threw himself down and caught Ben’s hands. Fish and I started to anchor him and pull Ben up when the water of the lake heaved and broke over us.

A cloud of hidden birds startled into doomed flight as Sisiutl launched from the water with a Fury’s scream. Its rush ripped the fog aside, showing a clearing where the trail opened into a lakeside viewpoint. Lass was a dark shadow on the far side and Sisiutl crossed the clearing in a handful of sidewinder bounds, its heads snapping at the man who had so recently controlled him. Lass snatched up a branch thrown onto the swampy shore by the storms and batted at Sisiutl.

We yanked Ben out of the mud and I darted toward the monster as soon as my hands were free. I grabbed my pistol, taking care to keep the lethal muzzle pointed away from Lass as I aimed at the zeqwa. I yelled at it and fired at the first snake head I got in my sights.

Sisiutl shrieked and whipped one head to bite at me. I ducked, sidestepping into muddy water to the knees.

Ben dashed past me, waving and shouting, “No, no!” before relapsing into a blur of languages that sang in the double mist of Grey and normal in raucous raven cries. Ghosts circled and gibbered around the clearing in some macabre dance of death as the fog drew in close again. The remaining three of us surged closer to Ben, but were still a length behind in the darkening haze.

One gigantic serpent head cut through the mist, jaws agape, and snapped down into the distance, bringing a short scream from Lass. Another reared closer, hissing in anger. Ben’s dark hair showed against the pale fog and the head darted for it, the maw opening to strike.

“Ben, down!” I yelled, hearing the echo of my cry from Quinton and Fish.

The booming voice of Sisiutl shook the marshy ground and the gust of its breath opened a window in the fog as Ben tried to duck away. The teeth snapped onto Ben’s side. I fired into Sisiutl’s grinning middle face as Quinton darted forward and shoved the arcing stun stick against the nearest bit of the monsters body.

Sisiutl screamed and hissed, jerking sideways and dropping Ben into the muck with a wrenching flick of one head. I corrected my aim and kept shooting.

Fish yelled at the zeqwa, darting back and forth in frustration and fear.

The other head rose into the thinner fog, Lass’s form writhing in its mouth.

“Put him down! Fish, tell him to put the man down!” I shouted. “He has to answer to your gods, remember?”

Fish bellowed the words in Lushootseed. The far serpent head shook its prize like a dog with a rat, and the horrible face in the middle, its catfish barbels dripping water and blood, roared a defiant reply.

Fish cried back, pounding the ground with his hands, nearly spitting with rage and fear. The spirits of the island rose into the air at his pounding and keened silvery shards of recrimination.

I let off my last shot and Quinton jabbed the shock stick one more time into the lurking serpent face that hung over us.

Sisiutl screeched and flung Lass down nearby. Then it dove back into the brackish water. A wake of bubbles moved fast and straight toward the canal and we were alone with the ghosts.

Fish swore and threw himself on Ben—lying still and quiet—feeling for a pulse and pressing on the bright red wound that covered his side and shoulder.

“Oh shit, oh no,” he muttered, and began ripping at Ben’s clothes. “Go look at the other one!” he ordered. “I’m going to work on Ben. And call the medics!”

I stumbled to my aching knees beside Lass, but I didn’t need to touch him; his eyes were already dim and glazing as his breath dribbled out in a long, slow sigh. Sisiutl had snatched gullies in his flesh, leaving bone and muscle exposed and wet with gushing blood. I could see his spirit loosening from his mangled body with no hope to stop it.

The shades that roamed the island circled us in the fog, whispering and crying, teasing the tenuous threads to snap and dissipate into the pulsing swirl of the Grey. “Oh, no, you don’t,” I muttered.

Quinton caught my arm as I started to lean forward and reach for the tangle of energy that was slowly rising out of the shell of flesh. “What are you doing?”

“I have to catch him. He has to fix this—remember what Fish said about there being hell to pay? Lass has an appointment with some gods, and I’m not letting him duck out just because he’s dead. You need to call 911 for Ben. There’s nothing else to do for Lass.”

My hands closed on the burning cold of Lass’s soul.