Lane was now sprawled fully across the bow, his legs in the air, and Castle tipped him face-first into the river to get him out of the line of fire. Bowie chopped again with the paddle, and the vinyl blade broke against the creature’s neck. It turned its head in Bowie’s direction and sniffed the air with cavernous nostrils.
It can’t see. Castle tried once more to draw a bead on the creature, figuring the kill shot would have to go to the skull, because its limbs were entwined around the blond’s body as if they were fiercely fornicating lovers.
The raft spun slowly, leaving a drenched Lane splashing upstream. Bowie waded after the raft, jabbing the broken end of his paddle at the creature, penetrating a few inches through the wrinkled flesh. The creature’s mouth opened, but no sound issued forth, only the strained rasp of its flapping tongue. Its head swiveled wildly, as if not understanding the source of its pain- if it even felt pain, Castle thought-but then its lips settled once more onto the wound in the man’s neck. Blood spotted the front of the blond’s life jacket.
Castle decided the safest shot would be from a stationary position. “Grab the line,” he shouted at Bowie before rolling over the bow into the river.
He kept the Glock above water. The river was colder than he’d realized, the chill shocking him and causing his breath to hesitate in his lungs. The water was knee-deep in the shoals, which allowed him to quickly regain his balance. Bowie gripped the thin nylon rope that girdled the raft’s bow, holding it in place, though it still bobbed up and down with the current.
“Shoot the fucker,” Farrengalli yelled as the second raft hurried toward the carnage.
Bowie lifted his paddle handle like a Zulu warrior chucking a spear. The jagged tip was covered with a viscous substance the color of used motor oil, the same liquid that oozed from the gash in the creature’s back.
Give ‘em hell, cowboy. Castle wasn’t sure whether the man in the raft had yelled the words or whether The Rook was still indulging in his Brokeback Mountain fantasies from beyond the grave.
“Hold still,” Castle shouted, his words meant for the blond. However, Bowie also froze, the line clenched in his right fist, his back arched as he fought to hold the raft in place.
This is for you, Rook. Castle leveled his arms in a two-handed grip, sighting down the barrel. The blond’s head slumped forward, the man either unconscious or dead. The movement gave Castle the moment of opportunity and he gently squeezed the trigger. The top of the creature’s gray skull exploded in a shower of ochre bone, black grue, and bits of ash-gray meat that might have been the thing’s brain.
The roar of ignited powder raced up the gorge and echoed off the cliffs, the sound like a cannon volley in the otherwise hushed wilderness.
Bowie released the raft, and it floated a few silent feet before bumping against a fallen tree. The boat gave a slow, full turn, and the two tangled bodies appeared unaffected at first. The creature’s mouth was still locked on the blond’s neck. The blond’s head lolled forward, his eyes closed, mouth parted in an unvoiced scream.
Castle was readying for a second shot when the thing’s fingersclaws, Castle thought, though he wasn’t sure whether the observation was his or the disembodied Rook’s-slackened and released their grip on its victim’s life jacket.
The creature’s arms dropped and it fell backward into the river, leaking a greasy, dark chum across the silvery surface of the river.
The blond pitched forward. The raft wheeled along the length of the half-submerged tree before the grab line caught on gnarled, exposed roots.
Bowie hurried past Castle, who checked the sky and listened past the gentle and constant wash of running water for a descending, primitive shriek.
“McKay!” Bowie shouted, flopping onto the raft and lifting the man’s head. The injured man’s face was pale and bloodless, but his eyes blinked. He was still alive, though he appeared to be in shock.
Twenty feet away, the river erupted in thrashing foam. The gray, skeletal creature lifted from the shallows, beads of water cascading from its flesh. The ivory rim of its skull was jagged, still oozing a putrid fluid.
You should be dead, Castle thought. You don’t have a fucking brain anymore.
But, like the creature under the bed that never went away even when the sun was out, this thing was stubborn.
The creature twitched and whirled in crazy loops like a kite in a hurricane. The circuits of its airborne path became more erratic. Then it steadied in mid-flight, like a wingless hummingbird. It hung weightless for a moment, and then made a beeline for the forest, crashing into the high pine branches.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Downriver’s the best bet,” Bowie said, addressing the group on a sandy stretch of shore. Expect the unexpected was a lame little cliche, but it sure beat the alternative: G ray creatures will drop from the sky and suck your blood. “We could rig a makeshift stretcher, but it would take two days to hike out from here.”
“I want to know what the fuck that thing was,” Farrengalli said. He jabbed a thumb toward Castle. “He blew its head off but it didn’t die.”
“The worst thing we can do is panic,” Bowie said. “Let’s just all calm down and talk it out.”
“This ain’t no self-help circle jerk,” Farrengalli said. “This is totally fucked. Look at Golden Boy.”
McKay was wrapped in blankets, shivering, cheeks pallid. Dove attended to him with her usual precision, the same bedside manner that had soothed Bowie’s brow on more than a few troubled nights. The difference being that Bowie hadn’t suffered bite marks to his chest, except those passionate little nibbles she sometimes left.
“He’s in shock,” Dove said. “Blood pressure dropping, breathing shallow. He won’t make it if we don’t do something fast.”
“We can’t do anything fast out here,” Bowie said. “It’s not like we can dial 9-1-1.”
“I should have insisted on a more thorough first aid kit,” Lane said. “I was expecting some scrapes and bruises, maybe a broken bone. Certainly nothing like this.”
“The fuck you were,” Farrengalli said. “You wanted somebody to die. Like you told me, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
Lane could barely suppress a grin. “This will cause our liability insurance to take a big hit. Though I suppose we can wiggle out under the ‘Act of God’ clause.”
“Like a bat-faced bloodsucker dropping from heaven is an act of God?”
“One thing I want to know,” Bowie said to Castle, who stood watch as if he were in the 1940s South Pacific and Japanese kamikaze pilots could drop from the clouds at any minute. “We didn’t know what hit us, but you reacted like you expected something like this.”
“Training,” Castle said.
“There’s no training for a wild animal attack.”
“That wasn’t an animal.”
I know it’s not an animal. But I’ll be damned if I’ll be the first to admit what we saw. Or that it took a. 357 caliber bullet to the head and flew away like a butterfly at a church picnic.
“I saw one,” Raintree said. “During the last stop. I thought it was some kind of bird, then I thought it wasn’t, then I didn’t know what to think.”
“You been smoking that shit in your medicine bag?” Farrengalli said.
“My people had legends about this place, about the Raven Mocker, an evil spirit that could change forms.”
“Don’t give us that redskin voodoo shit,” Farrengalli said.
“What do you think it is, then?” Dove asked, taunting him. “Count Dracula?”
“Vampires ain’t real,” Farrengalli answered, though his eyes flicked upward. “Even if they were, they’re all European poofs, fags who wear sunglasses at night.”
“What about it, Mr. FBI?” Bowie asked. “Did the Boys Upstairs brief you on those things?”
“Need-to-know basis,” Castle said, his eyes cold, the Glock tucked into his exposed shoulder holster, unstrapped and at the ready.
Though Castle outweighed him by thirty pounds, Bowie fought an urge to grab the man by the front of his shirt and snap his head back and forth. Better to be calm. The others were looking to him for guidance, and he couldn’t fail them now. He’d done enough of that. “Maybe we do need to know.”
