“You’re too big and ugly to be coy. Let us go. Or you’ll never have it.”
Behind me, Cole whispered, “Never have what?” and I swatted at him without looking.
The Yeti chuckled, but his speaker never moved. “And just how do you propose to stop me?”
“Because if you don’t let all of us go, right now, when I get back to that cabin, I’ll blow my own fucking brains out, and that’ll be the end of that.”
“Jesse!”
“Shut up, Cole!” I smacked at him again, and kept my eyes on the Yeti’s little pet. “You know me. You know the samurai believed in ritual suicide. Don’t push me.” I wouldn’t, of course. The samurai may have believed in ritual suicide, but I believed very strongly in me-not-being-dead. But I was hoping the Yeti wouldn’t call my bluff. Really, really hoping.
Suddenly, the Yeti was no longer amused. The handless female’s claws shifted on her branch, unsettled in her master’s anger. “You will not. I will devour them all.”
“Then it seems we’re at an impasse, aren’t we?” And this was the tricky part. How to deal with a demon, without really dealing with a demon. Take lessons, kiddies. “How about we talk this out, once everyone’s back on safe ground? Say, tomorrow?”
She scuttled closer, the branch dipping under even her slight weight until her gaunt and filthy face was level with mine. “You will swear this. To willingly present yourself.”
“ If you let us go now. All four of us. Let us get back to the cabin untouched, and without any of your choir boys singing out.”
A low growl uttered from the skeletal creature’s chest, but in the end the Yeti agreed. “I will see you on the morrow, champion.” The light in the minion’s eyes went out like a snuffed candle, but she didn’t move. Her head slowly rotated back the other direction, keeping us in her hungry black gaze.
“Guys… start walking. Slowly.” I didn’t know if those things were like most predators, but I didn’t want to take the chance that running would trigger them into pouncing. I didn’t believe the Yeti’s promise of safe passage for a moment. I just hoped it would buy us a bit of time.
“Jess… what have you done?”
“Just walk, little brother. Keep walking, and don’t stop for anything.”
Cole got us pointed in the right direction-I’d been right, they’d been luring us the wrong way-and we started picking our way through the thick underbrush.
The creatures shadowed us all the way back. Duke’s constant rumbling growl was indicator enough, even if we hadn’t been able to see them slipping through the branches like demonic spider monkeys. Every once in a while, we’d round a fallen tree or a pile of dead limbs to catch one of them leaping silently out of our path. They kept their distance, and there were no more eerie calls to scramble our brains.
It was hard, once we could see the clearing through the trees, not to just bolt for safe ground, but I had Cole’s shirt knotted in my fist, and he held Marty’s, and the three of us calmly and slowly crossed those last few yards. “Walk,” I kept murmuring to them. “Just walk.”
The tingle of Cam’s consecration spell never felt so good, as we crossed that invisible line of safety.
I could breathe again.
12
W ill was waiting for us on the porch, with Cole’s handgun. My brother made a big show of taking it back from him and unloading it, glaring at me all the while. I glared back. If he didn’t know me well enough to know I’d been bluffing, that was his problem.
And of course, the damn voices started up again the moment we were inside. “Ain’t he a dandy!” “I’m bored, are we there yet?” “I’m a little teapot!”
“I swear, if I never hear ‘I’m a little teapot’ again,” Cole growled, and I was inclined to agree with him. The song was forever ruined. “We’re never gonna get any sleep if that keeps going on.”
We tried, at first. Those who weren’t on watch tried muffling the calls with their sleeping bags pressed tightly against their ears, but nothing seemed to drown out the wheedling, entreating pleas. I could feel it like a mosquito whining in my ear, and any time I started to let my guard down, to try to sleep, it was there, trying to lure me out the door. So long as they were calling out there, we were all in danger of dashing off to our deaths, and I had the feeling they intended to call all freakin’ night.
I briefly entertained the idea of trying to negotiate better terms with Big Ugly, but deep down, I knew the Yeti wasn’t going to bargain twice in one night. Besides, he was well on the way to getting what he wanted from me already. I had nothing left to offer.
Zane had a bad night too, but it seemed to be more from the pain in his arm than the eerie voices in the dark. He tossed and turned, whimpering quietly in his sleep, but as I watched him closer, it didn’t coincide with the calls from outside. Even Cameron, who was borderline unconscious, twitched and flinched in time with every pleading voice in the darkness. But Zane was definitely sleeping, even if it was unsettled.
“Hey, little brother?” Cole was propped up in the corner, half dozing, but he opened his eyes when I called to him. “Watch the kid.”
“He’s not hearing them,” Cole concluded after a few minutes. “Why is he not hearing them?”
“The poison, maybe? The brand? Protecting Ugly’s property?” Or maybe… Cameron had prayed over the kid. He’d anointed Zane with the blessed water. And while I still wasn’t sold on this whole “god” thing, I did believe in the power of will. “Look at his arm.” There, where Cameron had traced his mysterious symbols, the creeping blackness had hardly advanced at all. It wasn’t healing the damage, but it was at least slowing it. If it could stop the poison, maybe it was stopping the magic in those voices, too.
Cam’s glass was still sitting on the mantel, half full, and when I dipped my fingers in, they tingled. Hmm. “Cole, c’mere.” I gestured at his forehead with my wet fingers. “Cross or pentacle?”
“What?”
“Cross or pentacle, they’re the only ones I know.” Hey, just because I didn’t have any magic of my own didn’t mean I was above using other people’s.
“Um… cross, I guess.” I drew an invisible cross on Cole’s forehead with the blessed water, while my brother raised a skeptical brow at me. We both stared at each other for a few seconds, and then Cole finally nodded. “I think… that helps. It’s still there, but
… not as bad.”
“Not as bad is good enough for me.” I went through the house anointing everyone else, including the dog. Out of sheer perversity, I painted a pentacle on the sleeping priest’s forehead. Almost immediately, the tension started to fade from the room.
Luckily, once we’d broken out of the lure, it seemed easier to resist. We bedded down as best we could, still taking turns at watch, and tried to salvage what was left of the night.
There was one nasty tussle with Will around two a.m., trying to keep him from walking out the door. It never occurred to me before how much heavier he is, and he packs quite a wallop when he puts his mind to it. It took Cole and me both to put him down, and then Marty dumped the last of Cam’s blessed water over his head. He came out of it spluttering, soaked, and embarrassed as hell. I came out of it with a healthy new respect for my buddy’s strength, and a bruise across my right cheek that was gonna be a shiner by morning.
Marty was up most of the night too, watching out the window. They say there’s nothing so dangerous as a man with nothing to lose, but I don’t think that’s true. Men with nothing to lose go out in a blaze of glory-big, but quick. When you have everything to lose, when you know what you’re fighting for, that’s when you’re a truly dangerous man. That’s when you take out every single motherfucker in your path, calmly and cleanly. That’s what I saw in Marty’s eyes. All he wanted was to get back to his wife and his unborn child. They almost got him once, and nothing out there in the dark was going to stop him now.
Close to morning, Zane started running a fever. I remembered that fever, so bad I’d hallucinated in full Technicolor and surround sound. Even thinking about it made my mouth dry and parched, and I drank sparingly of our small water supply. Poor kid was in for worse.
Oscar tried to stay up and care for his son, but in the end even he drifted off. I felt for the guy, really I did. If
