by Jamie Davis
“Zis is going to be zo much fun,” Elsa said in her thick French accent.
“Right,” Jaz said. She continued, looking right and left at Dean and Joanna. “Dean, Jo, and I will be out to the side, in the woods, watching. Once the Demons are engaged by the Valkyries, that will be our signal to move from our hiding place and start heading south to the old mines.”
“Have you figured out how you are going to mask Dean from the demons’ senses?” Albion asked. “I can see and smell him clearly. The two of you are nearly invisible to me according to my Unusual senses.”
“Jo says she has a solution to that,” Jaz said. She hoped it worked. The witch girl had not been very forthcoming about what the solution was, just that she had worked something out. Jo had her own amulet, similar to Jaz’s, that masked her scent and cooled the heat pattern to hide it from Unusual senses beyond the normal visible light spectrum.
“Well, you three better get to your hiding places then,” Old Barney rumbled. “The forest is telling me that there’s trouble coming fast. The demons must almost be here.”
“See you on the other side,” Ingrid said. She and the other Valkyries spread their wings and launched themselves skyward, winking out of sight as soon as they left the ground. Dean knew that they could mask their presence from anyone if they chose to do so. The shifters started into the cabin with the two dryads, leaving the three of them on the porch. Jaz stepped down to the ground and headed to the northwest side of the cabin followed by Dean and Joanna.
They walked about a hundred feet from the house into and among the trees until they arrived at a large fallen tree lying on the ground amidst the brush and undergrowth. They climbed over it to the other side and found a sheltered area where the three of them could spread out and lay down on the ground. There was enough open space under parts of the tree so that they could still see the cabin through the brush. They were mostly hidden from view, especially in the dark.
Dean looked around. Now it was time to see if Joanna had been able to come up with a solution to mask his presence from the Demons as they approached the cabin. Once they were engaged, it would not matter as much and they could slip away to the south.
“Okay,” Joanna said to Jaz. “I came up with something that will extend your amulet’s effects to cover a larger area than just an individual. That should mask Dean as well. The challenge is that the area of expanded coverage is dependent on contact.”
“What do you mean by contact?” Jaz asked. She shot Dean a look.
Jo sighed and gave them a sheepish grin. “You two have to be touching, as close as possible, in order for it to work.”
“Wait a minute, how close?” Dean asked.
“Really close,” Jo replied. “Look, the amulets are our best protection. I can expand their area of effect but it has to be through contact. I decided that if it was with me it would just be weird, so it has to be you and mom.”
“When this is all done,” Jaz hissed between her teeth, “you and I are going to have a long talk, young lady.”
“Oh joy,” Jo said, rolling her eyes. “Look, we don’t have much time and I have still have to cast the expansion spell, so lie down.”
Dean watched as Jaz lay on her stomach behind the log, then he lay down beside her so that their adjacent arms and legs touched. He craned his neck around to look at Jo. She was shaking her head.
“No, you two have to be really close, closer than that,” the Wiccan teen said.
Dean looked over to his left and looked at Jaz where she had turned her head to look at him. This was going to get very uncomfortable.
“Fine,” Jaz said. She rolled onto her side. “Spoon up behind me, but don’t you dare enjoy this.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean said. He waited until she was still and then he moved up behind her, pressing his body against hers. He could smell the shampoo in her hair as he got closer.
“And don’t breathe on me,” Jaz said. “I hate that.”
“Don’t breathe, got it,” he replied.
He heard Jo giggle a little and then she said, “Perfect.” He heard her mutter a few words under her breath from behind and above them.
“Okay, the spell’s in place,” Jo said. “Don’t move and it should be fine. I’m going to go over here a little ways and get settled.”
As she moved away, Dean whispered in Jaz’s ear. “You know this is straight from the child of divorce’s handbook. You know, come up with a way to force your parents back together, or in our case, to get together.”
“Well, if I detect any evidence that it’s working on your part, you’re going to be sorry,” Jaz hissed in reply.
“Noted,” Dean said. He still had to admit it would be funny if the whole situation weren’t so deadly serious. He settled in to wait and distracted himself by peering into the darkness towards the cabin. He found he could see much better than usual. It must be part of the amulet’s effects. He could make out details in the dark that he would never be able to see under normal circumstances. He looked at the woods to the south of the cabin and tried to see if he could detect movement there that would signal the coming of the demons sent to kill them.
Dean didn’t have to wait very long. They were hidden only about ten minutes when he saw something coming through the woods, then another form moved up with the first. He thought they could be deer or something at first. That changed when two changed to five and more of the forms moved up, then more of the creatures were present. The demons were bunched in a group and he couldn’t get a good count. They spread out in a line and moved towards the cabin. As they moved into a line, he was able to refine his count. There were eighteen of the demons here. He wondered if there were more kept back at the mine, waiting for them to arrive. That was important to keep in mind.
The closest demon in the line was going to pass within about twenty-five feet of their hidden location. Dean held his breath as the creature passed by. He could make out the scaled hide of the beast as it reached its closest point to them. It paused to sniff the air and Dean wondered if it had picked up on something. Whatever it was, the demon soon continued forward, finding nothing worth investigating.
The approaching line of demons curved around the southern edge of the clearing in which the cabin stood and stopped just inside the tree line. Dean watched them as they took up positions behind trees as if they expected an attack from the house. He wondered what they were waiting for, but then with a unified snarl, the demons all rushed forward towards the cabin. They split into groups. The bulk of them went for the front porch with its front door and single window for access. The others split into groups of two or three and headed for the other ground floor windows visible on the south side of the building.
As the demons reached the cabin, there erupted a chorus of wolf howls, lion roars, and a loud growling snarl that must have been from Old Barney in bear form. Then the melee began. The demons struggled to get in their chosen entry points and the defenders inside, slashing and biting with claws and teeth to keep them out.
“Almost time,” Jaz whispered. “Be ready to move.”
“Got it,” Dean replied.
As if on cue, three shining forms materialized just above the ground. The light they emitted in the UV spectrum, as Dean could now see, aided by the amulet, was blinding. The Valkyries shouted battle cries together and charged into the rear of the mass of demons clustered on the porch. The surprise attack was successful and the cries of the demons were cut short as the battle maidens’ blades slashed through their tough hides without effort. As each of the Eldara warrior’s holy blades swept home, the demons cried out and then fell to the side in a burning heap of smoldering flesh. Their blades, like Dean’s, would actually kill the demons, not just banish their corporeal earthly forms back to hell.
“Okay, now,” Jaz said shifting her position behind the log to rise. It was awkward because of how Dean was pressed up behind her. He rolled backward away from her to give her room to rise. He got to his fe
et and turned to see that Jo had joined them as well.
“Dean,” Jaz said. “I know you are not going to be able to see as well where we are going in the woods. We will keep you between us and try to warn you of any obstacles. Try to keep up with our pace. We won’t have much time to reach the southern end of the valley before the cabin attack’s results are known to the Revenant at the mines.”
Dean nodded, checked his gear to make sure was all set and attached where it would not get in his way as he followed the women through the woods in the darkness. Jaz took the lead, with Dean following and Joanna taking up the rear. She set a pretty rapid pace, jogging off between the trees. He already missed his enhanced vision as he stumbled over a root, but he wouldn’t let that be the reason they failed this mission. He steeled himself to keep up and watch as best he could for hindrances in the darkness. He would keep up.
The three would-be rescuers set off together into the deep woods of the southern end of the valley. Hopefully they would reach their destination before anything happened to their objective. Dean thought of Ashley. He thought about her and how she counted on him with each step and that kept him going. Soon they were out of sight of the cabin and the sounds that came from the battle there. They could focus on the task that waited ahead.
Chapter 23
It took the trio nearly an hour to make it to the foothills that made up the southern base of the valley. Dean considered it a good pace, given that he could barely see the whole time. Jaz didn’t seem to agree with the paramedic based on the way she kept pushing him to go faster. As the upward slope announced their arrival at the southern-most point of the valley, the hunter finally called for a halt to rest and start the second part of the journey: finding the location of the mine’s entrance.
Old Barney had told them the entrance was likely hidden by a lot of undergrowth that would make it difficult to locate even in daylight. Jo said she had a plan to help with that and both Dean and Jaz looked to her.
“The demons are netherworlders who do not belong here,” Joanna explained. “That means they should leave a trace of their passing in a forest this thick. The plants themselves will react to their touch, which will start to destroy the leaves and branches as they pass. I think I can recognize it. Once we find the point where they came down the mountain, we can follow it back to their lair, in theory.”
“Are you sure?” Dean asked. “When you first mentioned this to us, you acted like you had cast this spell and seen it work before.”
“I mean, it should work,” the teen said. “It’s just a simple contrasting nature spell.”
Dean shared a look with Jaz, but they both chose to keep their thoughts to themselves. Dean figured they had already committed to this plan. They would just have to stick with it until something proved them wrong and they had to adjust.
“What do you need to do the spell?” Jaz asked.
“I need you two to stay behind me while I cast it,” Jo replied. “I have to keep it up until we cross their path down the mountain. Once we have that, it should be little trouble for either of us, Mom, to backtrack their trail to where they exited the mines.”
Dean stood up, adjusting his pack where it dug into his shoulders, and got in line behind Jo. Jaz got behind him.
“I’ll stay back here and watch our backs,” Jaz said. “Dean, you keep your ears open. Listen for anything that changes in the sounds around you. Things like the insects quieting down or other changes to the usual forest sounds. They could signal the return of the Oni demons from the cabin.”
He nodded and started listening, wondering if he, the city boy, would notice anything at all since he didn’t know what normal forest sounds were like at night. He paid attention to the sounds anyway as Jo started on a track perpendicular to their first path of travel. She was paralleling the base of the mountain, trying to find the track used by the demons.
They walked for about a half hour before Jo stopped them. She had taken them on a very slow walk. It was so slow, in fact, that Dean had little trouble picking his way along in the darkness. Now he peered ahead as Jo and Jaz conversed in low tones. The Wiccan teen was pointing out something on the side of a bush Dean could barely see ten feet ahead of them. Jaz nodded and the two of them came back to where he waited.
“We found it,” Jaz announced. “I’m going to take the lead now. Jo will follow me to help pick up anything I might miss. Dean, you’ll come last. Try to keep up. We are going to pick up the pace again as long as the trail is easy to follow. All those demons coming down the hill in one group has torn up the ground pretty well so I think we can easily follow this trail back to the mine’s entrance.”
“Got it,” Dean said with a nod. “Keep up.”
Jaz and Jo turned up the hillside and started moving through the brush. Dean stumbled along behind them, doing his best to move silently the way they did and failing at the attempt. He did, however, manage to keep up with the two women. He had thought of Joanna as a Wiccan, a peaceful spell caster. Seeing her in this element alongside Jaz showed him that she was a hunter as well. He wondered how she managed the two sides of her nature and what the rest of the Elk City coven thought of her hunter skills when she arrived at their doorstep, in the future.
The move up the side of the mountain was steep and grueling, and Dean was panting and soaked with sweat despite the cold night air by the time the women called another halt. Jo came back to him where he crouched, gasping for breath. She seemed unfazed by the uphill climb.
“We think we spotted the entrance. Mom is going to check it out and make sure it’s clear, then we’ll go in,” the teen said. She noted his heavy breathing. “Boy, you are really out of shape, Dad. Catch your breath. The exciting stuff happens now.”
“Running up a mountain in the dark wasn’t in my exercise plan,” Dean replied. “And remember, exciting is not always a good thing.”
He could make out the broad grin she gave him in reply and realized that she didn’t agree with him. Though their ages were not that far apart right now in this time and place, the things Dean had seen over the last year had aged him prematurely. He knew better than to take things for granted or assume that everything would work out the way they planned. The paramedic thought that his hunter counterpart, the teen’s eventual mother, would agree with him.
Jaz came back down the hill to where they waited. She looked around and then described what she saw.
“There’s an old rusted metal door set in the hillside up there,” the hunter said. “I listened at it for a while but didn’t detect anything on the other side. The demons definitely came that way and since I don’t see them shutting a door after they leave, I have to assume there are other, more intelligent inhabitants inside who closed it after they left. I can see light leaking around the door, so there is light on the other side.” Dean liked the sound of having some light for a change.
“What’s the plan?” Dean asked.
“We’ll go up and you will open the door while Jo and I stand ready to deal with any guards on the other side,” Jaz said. “Then we go in, shut and hopefully lock the door behind us to keep anyone from sneaking up on us from behind. If all goes well, we will be able to begin our search. I’m hoping your memory of what you saw in your visions will help us navigate inside.
Dean wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do that, but maybe he would remember some landmarks in the passages along the way. He just nodded in response, not wanting to give voice to his concerns.
Jaz must have figured out his lack of confidence, even in the darkness. He remembered she could see his expression clearly because of her amulet.
“Look Dean, you just pay attention to what is going on and tell us when you think something is important. You will remember more than you think you will. I’m going to take the lead and Jo will bring up the rear. We will take care of security, but if things get hairy in there, don’t be afraid to use that sword. Its mere presence will keep some of them away from you. Any netherworlder will be able
to sense the finality it represents for their otherwise eternal existence.”
Dean adjusted his shoulder straps and reached up to touch the hilt of Ashley’s sword over his right shoulder. He was as ready as he was going to be. He gave a firm nod in response and Jaz turned to go back up the hill with Dean right behind her.
With Dean’s eyes adjusted to the darkness and wide open to any light source, he noticed the outline of the doorway right away. He could see the light leaking around the edges of the door. It had the yellow tinge of fire or lantern light, but he was relieved that he would have some normal light for a change, and any light source would do as far as he was concerned. He reached a flat area in front of the door and Jaz pointed to the door’s handle without saying a word. She had drawn her sword and he noticed that Jo was standing just behind him with one hand outstretched and the other resting on the grip of her pistol in its holster.
He gripped the cold metal of the old iron door and looked to his companions. They both nodded to him and he turned the handle and pulled outward. The door swung open with a groan of metal on metal from the rusted hinges. Light spilled out from the entrance and Jaz and Jo both rushed past him in silence. He looked around the door and saw a small room on the other side with a passage leading off from it into the mountain. The two women stood looking down the passage. Jo turned and looked his way with a grin and single thumbs up to tell him it was okay.
Stepping into the room, he pulled the door closed behind him. He looked around the inside for some sort of latching mechanism but didn’t see anything. Then he noticed a large iron bar leaning against the wall and the bracket on the door meant to hold it in place. He lifted it up and slotted it into the brackets with one end extending past the door to wedge against the inside of the stone wall. It would hold that door securely for the time being. He was not sure how strong an Oni demon was, but he knew he would not be able to pull that door open from the outside now.