evaded two slaps of its giant paws, letting out a defiant, mocking snarl as it slid free.
But Injun Joe wasn’t done yet, either. The bear lifted itself into a ponderous leap, and came down to earth again as a coyote, lean and swift, that raced after the ferret nimbly, fangs bright. It rushed after the fleeing ferret- which suddenly turned, jaws opening wide, and then wider, and wider, until an alligator coated in sparse tufts of yellow fur turned to meet the onrushing canine, which found itself too close to turn aside.
The canine form melted as it shot toward the alligator’s maw, and a dark-winged raven swept into the jaws and out the far side as they snapped shut. The raven turned its head and let out mocking caws of laughter as it flew away, circling around the clearing.
The alligator shuddered all over, and became a falcon, golden and swift, its head marked by tufts of yellowish fur that almost looked like the naagloshii’s ears had in its near-human form. It hurtled forward with supernatural speed, vanishing behind a veil as it flew.
I heard the raven’s wings beat overhead as it circled cautiously, looking for its enemy-and then was struck from behind by the falcon’s claws. I watched in horror as the hooked beak descended to rip at the captured raven-and met the spiny, rock-hard back of a snapping turtle. A leathery head twisted and jaws that could cut through medium-gauge wire clamped onto the naagloshii-falcon’s leg, and it let out another alien shriek of pain as the two went plummeting to the earth together.
But in the last few feet, the turtle shimmered into the form of a flying squirrel, limbs extended wide, and it converted some of its falling momentum into forward motion, dropping to a roll as it hit the ground. The falcon wasn’t so skilled. It began to change into something else, but struck the stony earth heavily before it could finish resolving into a new form.
The squirrel whirled, bounded, and became a mountain lion in midleap, landing on the stunned, confused mass of feathers and fur that was the naagloshii. Fangs and claws tore, and black blood stained the ground to the sound of more horrible shrieks. The naagloshii coalesced into an eerie shape, four legs and batlike wings, with eyes and mouths everywhere. All the mouths were screaming, in half a dozen different voices, and it managed to tear its way free of the mountain lion’s grip and go flapping and tumbling awkwardly across the ground. It staggered wildly and began to leap clumsily into the air, bat wings beating. It looked like an albatross without enough headwind, and the mountain lion was hard on its heels the whole way, claws lashing out to tear and rake.
The naagloshii disappeared into the darkness, its howls drifting up in its wake as it fled. It continued to scream in pain, almost sobbing, as it rushed down the slope toward the lake. Demonreach followed its departure with a surly sense of satisfaction, and I couldn’t say that I blamed it.
The skinwalker fled the island. Its howls drifted on the night wind for a time, and then they were gone.
The mountain lion stared in the direction that the naagloshii had fled for long moments. Then he sat down, his head hanging, shivered, and became Injun Joe once more. The old man was sitting on the ground, supporting himself with both hands. He stood up slowly, and a bit stiffly, and one of his arms looked like it might be broken midway between wrist and elbow. He continued to look after his routed opponent, then snorted once and turned to walk carefully over to me.
“Wow,” I told him quietly.
He lifted his chin slightly. For a moment, pride and power shone in his dark eyes. Then he smiled tiredly at me, and was only a calm, tired-looking old man again. “You claimed this place as a sanctum?” he asked.
I nodded. “Last night.”
He looked at me, and couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether to laugh in my face or slap me upside the head. “You don’t get into trouble by halves, do you, son?”
“Apparently not,” I slurred. I spat blood from my mouth. There was a lot of that, at the moment. My face hadn’t stopped hurting just because the naagloshii was gone.
Injun Joe knelt down beside me and examined my wounds in a professional manner. “Not life-threatening,” he assured me. “We need your help.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “I’m tapped. I can’t even walk.”
“All you need is your mind,” he said. “There are trees around the battle below. Trees that are under strain. Can you feel them?”
He’d barely said the words when I felt them through my link to the island’s spirit. There were fourteen trees, in fact, most of them old willows near the water. Their branches were bowed down, sagging beneath enormous burdens.
“Yeah,” I said. My voice sounded distant to me, and full of detached calm.
“The island can be most swiftly rid of the beings in them,” Injun Joe said. “If it withdraws the water from the earth beneath those trees for a time.”
“So?” I said. “How am I supposed to-”
I broke off in midsentence as I felt Demonreach respond. It seemed to seize upon Injun Joe’s words, but then I understood that nothing of the sort had happened. Demonreach had understood Injun Joe only because it had understood the thoughts that those words created in my head. Communication by sound was a concept so inelegant and cumbersome and alien to the island’s spirit that it could never have truly happened. But my thoughts-those it could grasp.
I could all but feel the soil shifting, settling slightly, as the island withdrew the water in the ground beneath those trees. It had the predictable side effect that I realized Injun Joe had been going for. Once the ground around the trees’ roots had become arid, it began to leach water from the trees themselves, drawing it back out through the same capillary action that had brought it in. It flowed in from the outermost branches most quickly, leaving the structures behind it dry.
And brittle.
Tree branches began to break with enormous, popping cracks. A lot of branches broke, dozens, all within a few seconds, and it was like listening to packs of firecrackers going off. There was a sudden cacophony of thunder and gunfire that rose up from the docks below, and flashes of light that threw bizarre shadows against the clouds overhead.
I tried to focus on my other knowledge of the island, and I felt it-the surge in energy being released below, the increased flow of strange blood into the ground beneath the affected trees-blood that they drank thirstily, in their sudden drought conditions. The Wardens were moving forward, into the tree line. The vampires were racing ahead of them, their steps the light, swift stride of predators on the trail of wounded prey. Strange things were dying in the trees, amidst bursts of magic and flurries of gunfire.
A light rose over the island, a bright silver star that hung in the air for a long moment, like a flare.
Once he saw that, Injun Joe’s shoulders sagged a little, and he let out a slow, relieved breath. “Good. Good, that’s done for them.” He shook his head and looked at me. “You’re a mess, boy. Do you have any supplies here?”
I tried to sit up and couldn’t. “The cottage,” I blurted. “Molly. Thomas-the vampire.” I looked toward the bushes where one loyal little guardian had bought me precious seconds in the thick of the fight and started pushing my way to my feet. “Toot.”
“Easy,” Listens-to-Wind said. “Easy, easy, son. You can’t just-”
The rest of what he had to say was drowned out by a vast roaring noise, and everything, all my thoughts and fears, stopped making any noise at all inside my head. It was just… quiet. Gorgeously quiet. And nothing hurt.
I had time to think to myself, I could get to liking this.
Then nothing.
Chapter Forty-six
I heard voices speaking somewhere nearby. My head was killing me, and my face felt tight and swollen. I could feel warmth on my right side, and smelled the scent of burning wood. A fire popped and crackled. The ground beneath me was hard but not cold. I was lying on blankets or something.
“… really no point to doing anything but waiting,” Ebenezar said. “Sure, they’re under a roof, but it’s leaking. And if nothing else, morning should take care of it.”
“Ai ya,” Ancient Mai muttered. “I’m sure we could counter it easily enough.”
