It was not the best moment to pass the sheriff, but pass him we did. He was going in the opposite direction as we followed the truck at high speed. The department car slammed on its brakes, turned, and was after us for about fifteen seconds. Then it slowed, slowed further, and gradually veered off the road. He might not have shot the sheriff, but Suyolak had done something to him, and to the deputy too if he was with him- something probably permanent and considerably worse than what was in the song. And again I wondered-if he could do that with weak coffin seals, what would he be able to do if he did get out of that coffin?
I didn’t want to put it to the test, with Rafferty on our side or not.
“Shoot the tires,” I suggested.
“No.” Nik had checked the SIG to make sure one was in the pipe. Where was the trust? “Let’s see where he goes. Hopefully it will be someplace a little less conspicuous and less lethal to the local bystanders.” It truly was another four-way stop-ville as I said, but there were two gas stations and a tiny pizza place, or what passed for pizza in Utah. There were people-only a handful, but it was a handful that didn’t have to die because of Suyolak if we confronted him and whatever else was in that truck farther out.
“The salt of the earth, these people,” Robin said with a cheer that made me wonder how many times in his long life he’d chased after death with a smile and an immaculate wardrobe. “Ever made love to a Utah woman? Or man? They actually do taste like salt. I don’t know if it’s the salt flats or the air, but they’re like the very best potato chips. You can’t eat just one.”
“Does he ever shut up? Damn it,
“Whatever. You’ve spent two days with him. Try the past three years of your life. Or is it four? It’s too traumatizing to remember.” I hit the door again as we turned right. “And maybe you should concentrate on why Suyolak isn’t trying to do to us what he did to the cops back there.”
“He is.” Rafferty’s face was drawn now that I bothered to take the time to notice, his knuckles white where he clenched the seat beneath him to stay upright during the rough ride. “Just consider me your force field of cold, flu, and goddamn plague repellant and try not to distract me.” He closed his eyes, the better to concentrate, I hoped. I didn’t have a desire to have my body try to drown itself again. “Particularly you, Goodfellow.”
Robin had already opened his mouth for another comment. I didn’t have to see him to know that. I only had to know him. He kept quiet, though. I didn’t know what diseases pucks could catch, if any, and I knew they were resistant to poison, but he had a heart the same as the rest of us. And it could stop the same as the rest of ours. He could lose his life. The following silence was a sign of the high premium he put on that life. He might be a trickster, but he was up- front with his priorities and
I respected that.
I respected his driving even more as we took another turn. I didn’t think we took it on two wheels, but there was no way we took it on all four. I knew it the same as I knew Rafferty was keeping Suyolak from inserting invisible fingers into our brains, our blood, our bones, and contaminating them with his touch. I wouldn’t call it faith; I’d call it fact, the fact that we were still alive. That made Goodfellow one helluva driver and Rafferty one helluva healer. It also made me tired of sitting on the sideline. That’s not who I was, not what I did.
So instead I took a chance, one stupid, reckless chance. It was also one I was lucky to survive, but I didn’t care. I didn’t think “lucky” at the time, because it was what I was supposed to do, and who I was supposed to
Being unable to not do something is a bad sign that should make you think, and think hard, but I didn’t. Not then.
Because I was free.
I couldn’t make a gate inside the car, but I could build it around myself, and I did. Between one breath and the next, I was on the hood of the truck. I snared one hand on the rim of the windshield wiper well and pulled the Eagle with the other. I felt exhilaration as the wind hit me, as I saw a glimpse of a pale face and silver hair behind the glass, and most of all as I started to pull the trigger. The feeling didn’t disappear as the truck slid in a circle to leave the road, and I slid myself. I lost my grip and flew through the air. It could’ve been nasty, that fall.
Jack and Jill went up the hill… Weren’t things broken when they came back down?
But I wasn’t Jack. I wasn’t going to break. The truck had braked next to a creek bank, the creek rocky and ten feet down. I tumbled through the air toward it and into the second gate I’d made in three seconds. Passing through, I came out on the other side standing in knee-high water. I was about to go through the third gate and back up when the fight came to me.
There was a willow-type tree lining the banks of a creek, many of them, but they were wispy like feathers and didn’t block much of my view. I saw the back of the truck burst open, but it wasn’t Suyolak who came out. He must’ve been still trapped in the coffin-one for the home team. The driver, being sapped of life, was still enough of an expert in folklore to know Suyolak could have the cure for his wife, but he could also be the death of the husband if he escaped before the truck made it home. He hadn’t opened the coffin. How he planned to negotiate with Suyolak and depend on the bastard to keep his word was his business. Or an impossible dream, because we weren’t going to let it happen, no matter the flood of night that poured out of the truck when the doors opened.
I still didn’t know what they were. They were as big as werewolves and somewhat similarly shaped, but sharper, leaner, with muzzles as pointed as the end of a sword. They were like foxes… if foxes were bigger than Great Danes, black as crows plucking at the eyes of a dead man, and their own eyes-gray. They were gray like mine and Niko’s, only paler, but I wasn’t in the mood to claim them as kissing cousins.
They slithered out of the truck in waves. I didn’t know how many of them managed to fit in there, but they were emaciated, as if they’d run a long way. The truck started moving again while they were still coming out, its tires spinning, churning dirt and grass. It was out of sight in seconds, the same amount of time it took for the creatures, a tsunami of shadows, to cover Niko’s replacement car. Several split off from the pack to come for me, vaulting through the trees and down the embankment with a speed that said they weren’t only starved; they were ravenous.
They were almost beautiful in their own way. A lot of things that could kill you were. It didn’t stop me from shooting the first two in the head, then ripping space and appearing behind them to shoot two more. The four remaining ones hit the water, turned, and leaped back toward me. They weren’t cowed by the deaths of three of their own or the one still thrashing in its death throes. They came for me so quickly that I didn’t see the surface of the water ripple under their paws. Their bones showed under their black coats, but it didn’t mean they were weak. Water didn’t curve under them and my eyes could barely follow them-hardly frail; the opposite in fact. Did that make it less fun? Hell, no.
It made it better.
“Come and get me,” I said, and traveled again, a fraction of a second before they would’ve reached me. This time when I appeared I was on the other side of Nik’s new car, firing as soon as the world materialized out of silver light. I killed two and injured one, and it was easy. It was so easy that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been doing this every time I came across a bad guy or a creature that wanted to eat me. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been doing it every damn day just for the on-top-of-the-world, king-of-the-goddamn-universe feeling. It was good-so good, it was simple, and it was effective. It hadn’t always been, but it was now and not using it would be practically criminal.
Two more ebony heads turned in unison away from the car and toward me, their eyes reflecting me… a distorted, twisted image of me, at least. Or maybe it was a true one… and that didn’t bother me either. Both of them gave a yowl so high-pitched it could’ve been responsible for the shattering of the back window behind them, but it wasn’t. Catcher got credit for that as he sailed through the glass. He landed on one of them, rode it to the ground, and snapped its neck with his massive jaws. He might have liked beach bunny calendars, playing hangman, and sticking a cold wet nose in your ear just as you fell asleep to see you jump out of your skin, but Catcher was also a Wolf-a born predator, and genes would tell. They always did.
Surprising how easy it was to forget that.
