I admit that I froze, and it wasn’t just because I was scared. I was woefully unprepared.
Locusts of Unusual Size weren’t supposed to exist. I had seen a large insect fairly recently, but it was a type of assassin beetle called a wheel bug, and it wasn’t really a bug at all but rather a demon using that shape to scare the bejesus out of people. Demons don’t belong on this plane, and Gaia has no trouble giving me an assist in dealing with them. I could use Cold Fire on them or summon the local elemental to throw down for me-which is what Sonora had done in that case. But these weren’t demons; as far as Gaia was concerned, they were natural creatures-just big’uns-so that meant magic was off limits, and Colorado wouldn’t lift a pebble to help me fight them directly. I turned off my faerie specs since they wouldn’t help me anymore, but left night vision on.
Normally bugs don’t grow more than six inches in length, due to the limitations of their tracheal systems, and all that heavy chitin they have to lug around has got to be a drag. Coyote had screwed that all up. He gave these bugs plenty of Wind-way too much, in point of fact-and those old First World spirits took full advantage of the chance to be on top of the food chain. The spirits of these locusts hadn’t been raised on a diet of grains but rather on human flesh whenever they could get it. If they lived to reproduce, cities would have to invest in antiaircraft batteries to protect their citizens from swarms. Locusts would descend on small towns and eat people like corn on the cob. Did FEMA have a contingency plan in place for something like that?
I found myself missing Mr. Semerdjian and his garage full of rocket-propelled grenade launchers. And again I missed Fragarach-I doubted Moralltach would make a dent in the locusts’ armor. It was green and sleek and looked like it was made of that impenetrable counter-top material. But… maybe I could pull a Rancor? You don’t find hard, chitinous exoskeleton on the inside of a bug. I almost immediately discarded that thought, because those multiple mandibles-blades and feelers and way more moving parts than a mouth should have-were alarmingly efficient at chewing up Coyote. But after checking to make sure Granuaile was still running for the hogan, I charged anyway, yelling as I went to snare its attention.
When one doesn’t have Fragarach handy, the answer to strong armor is stronger blunt force; a baseball bat will do more damage than a sword blade. Confined to a large, bulky body, the spirit didn’t have unnatural speed anymore-it had the speed of a grasshopper, to be sure, but that wasn’t impossible for me to match. Boosting my speed and strength and transferring Moralltach to my left hand, I bent down and scooped up a stone the size of a softball, like a shortstop on a 6–3 play. First base in this case was the locust’s left eye. I whipped it at him, but he saw it coming and flinched away. Rather than hitting his eye, the stone caught him on the side of the mouth, knocking the lower half of Coyote’s body loose with a slurping noise, which was quickly followed by a keening screech. One of those little twitching maxilla thingies was hanging loose and slack now, and the creature leapt away, fluttering its wings with a low rumble of thunder.
“Aw, he got a widdle toof ache.”
The spirits probably had to deal with pain in a whole new way now that they had their own physical housings-dealing with it, period, would be a new sensation for them. I figured they’d let their human hosts feel most of the pain before-even with the fire, they’d fled the light more than the heat-but now they didn’t have a choice. Casting a quick glance at the hogan, I saw Granuaile disappearing around to the east side, where the door was. That seemed like a good idea, with one hopper distracted and the other one still munching away on Joe, so I swerved in that direction myself.
I swerved too soon.
The locust decided that the best way to deal with pain was to go after the thing that caused it. It wasn’t the correct lesson I’d wanted it to learn from the experience-but, then, if they weren’t used to feeling pain, then they weren’t used to fearing it either. The sound of its wings gave me a warning, but it was in the air so quickly that it was almost on me before I could spot it-directly above my head.
“There are only three things you can do when something falls from the sky,” my archdruid used to say. “Get out of the way, get underneath some shelter, or give it some reason to change its mind about falling on you.” Then he threw a pissed-off rooster at me.
I had no shelter from the locust except for the hogan, which might as well have been in New Zealand for all the good it would do me now. Trying to scramble out of the way when the hopper literally had the drop on me would only give it more convenient access to my flesh. So I would let it fall on top of my sword.
I dropped to my back, using my left arm to cushion the impact while thrusting Moralltach directly above my face and locking my elbow. If Coyote’s demise offered any clue, it wanted my head. It tried to brush aside the sword with a leg as it fell, but instead of properly doing so by slapping the flat of the blade, its leg caught the edge and neatly severed itself. That meant it took the point directly in its nasty ten-part grasshopper gob, falling directly down the blade until Moralltach erupted through the back of its head and kept going- gahh-
I hit my own head on the rock of the mesa and lost a fraction of a second there, during which the damn thing continued to slide down my sword. I admit that I lost my shit at that point, because the hilt didn’t stop anything and my hand and forearm disappeared into its mouth while its heavy, ichor-filled body thumped against mine like the world’s heaviest water balloon. It was dead and already turning black from Moralltach’s enchantment, but I couldn’t move. Something was dreadfully wrong with my hand and arm-I couldn’t move either of them, and it hurt like hell. My blood was leaking down my arm, and though I logically knew I had won, my instincts were screaming that I was being eaten by the grossest thing in the entire world-which pretty much meant that I was screaming, period.
Hoppers have more than just mandibles; they have a labrum and labium and maxillae with segmented palps like spider’s legs, plus antennae waving around and those gods-awful alien eyes that stare without emotion while they eat your corn or wheat grass or whatever. I can reliably report that seeing any part of your body in the grasp of such mouth parts will freak your shit right out. Give me a shark with straight up-and-down teeth every time if I’m going to be eaten; don’t give me these chitinous plates and stubby appendages that come in from the sides and tickle as they feed you into a crop before you go to a proper stomach.
I bucked and tried to yank free, but something inside had pierced me and held me fast, and I had such poor leverage that I couldn’t get out from under the creature anyway. My ribs reminded me that they weren’t in good condition either. I shut down the pain in hopes that it would allow me to think. A throbbing buzz startled me- perhaps the locust wasn’t dead after all? But then I remembered that there was another one…
I turned my head and saw the second locust’s head approaching, six long legs splayed out from the sides; its perfectly working mouth parts were covered in Joe’s blood and twitching in anticipation of sampling mine. Its dead eyes were fixed on me and I’m sure it had no trouble locating me by sound, because I was hollering incoherently in an attempt to die angry at maximum volume. Anger was kind of taking a backseat to fear, unfortunately, but I don’t think even my eternally irate father could keep his edge if he was unable to move or defend himself from becoming the main course on the all-night bug breakfast menu.
A bright light overhead distracted me-
“All right, I heard you,” Granuaile said. She was holding aloft one of the kerosene-soaked stakes we’d prepared to defend the SUV in the hogan; she’d lit it up as a makeshift torch. Standing directly to the left of my head-or to the right of the dead locust’s head-she kept her eyes on the other locust and breathed, “You’d better tell me they’re still afraid of fire though, or we’re toast.”
The locust had stopped advancing. It remembered what fire was very well.
“Do you have any other weapons?” I asked.
“No, just this and a spare in my pocket. Get out of there.”
“I can’t. I’m stuck.”
“What do you mean, you’re stuck? Unstick yourself.”
“I seriously can’t. I’m hooked on something inside its head.”
“So do some magic.”
“Like what? I can’t think of anything.” Frank Herbert said that Fear is the mind-killer. He was a wise man.
“Well, look-I sort of can’t help you right now. Trying to outstare the spooky bug.”
It was inching closer. Much too close for my comfort. It made little clicking and fluttering noises as it moved. I think most of the noise came from its mouth.
“Be careful, it’s much faster than you think.”
Granuaile lunged at the locust with her torch and was rewarded with a small cringe and an unholy screech. But it didn’t fly away and leave us alone. We were too much like Lunchables, and this stalemate couldn’t go on forever.
