by Eric Asher
Sam fumbled with her phone, then brought up the flashlight. A moment later, she wished she hadn’t.
She could have mistaken the thing staring back at her for a death bat. But it was too tall, too narrow but for the bulge in its stomach. In a pile at the back of the little lair were countless gray bones.
Sam didn’t understand what she was looking at until she saw the helmets and breastplates of half a dozen dark-touched vampires poking out of the wreckage. Voices shouted above her, and she heard scrabbling sounds before Cizin dropped in right next to her.
He took a step toward the thing in the corner, but then Sam shouted at him to stop. The wide eyes of the nigh behind flicked from one vampire to the other. It pulled in on itself a little more, its long spindly legs bent at an angle so that its knees flanked either side of its head.
“It’s eating the dark-touched,” Sam whispered. “Look at the bones.”
A third shadow dropped in beside Cizin. Vik froze when he saw the nigh behind hunched in the corner of the lair. “That doesn’t change the fact it ate Dominic.”
The nigh behind’s stomach shifted, rising toward its throat before sinking back down. The narrow jaws on the elongated bat-like head distended, and a grotesque sound like a bear-sized cat with a hairball filled the lair.
Sam stared in horror as the nigh behind bent over, bracing itself on spiderlike arms as it regurgitated Dominic onto the floor in front of them.
“Dom?” Sam asked, unable to keep from gagging as she looked at her friend on the floor.
Dominic blinked, his eyes barely shifting, but he didn’t move.
“Some kind of paralyzing agent.” Vik frowned and stepped closer to Dominic, the nigh behind slinking into the corner by the dark-touched bones.
“Did it think he was one of the dark-touched?” Cizin asked.
The nigh behind leaned forward and pushed Dominic’s still form toward Vik. Sam could have sworn she heard Dom groan.
Luna joined them a moment later, freezing when she saw the nigh behind. She took a step closer to Sam and wrapped her arms around the vampire.
“Is he dead?”
No one answered Luna. The nigh behind stared at the snow-white death bat. It crawled toward her, without straightening its legs entirely, making the movement insect-like.
Sam couldn’t stop the shiver as the nigh behind’s ears twitched back and forth and it sniffed at the air. Luna squeaked when the creature leaned forward and rubbed its head against her arm. She hesitantly patted it between the ears. The nigh behind’s head snapped up and sniffed at Luna again before repeating the head rub and retreating back to the pile of bones.
“Why … aren’t … you killing it?” It took Sam a second to realize the voice was coming from Dom.
“I don’t think it was trying to hurt you,” Vik said.
Dom grunted, and Sam was fairly certain it was a furious grunt.
“Maybe at first,” Vik said. “I will give you that. But I believe you would have been long dead had you been a dark-touched.”
The tension in Cizin’s posture relaxed a hair. His grip on the daggers sheathed at his waist loosened and his hands fell unarmed at his side. His change in demeanor affected Luna, and she loosened her grip on Sam.
Luna looked at Cizin. “Is it like us?”
“Not exactly.” Cizin frowned. “But it doesn’t seem to be thinking of us as enemies, either.”
“What do you want to do with it?” Sam asked.
Vik glanced around the group before turning his attention back to the nigh behind. “The only bones here are dark-touched vampires. It has not taken a commoner, and likely mistook Dominic for a dark-touched if all it has seen here are dark-touched. We should let it live. We need to get after Vassili. Newtonia is not far from here.”
They backed out of the lair slowly. Luna stayed by Sam’s side as Vik and Cizin struggled to drag Dominic back above the earth.
The nigh behind didn’t move as Sam climbed up through the hole. And as she reached the surface again, she heard Luna whisper, “Bye.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Where?” Casper huffed into the phone as they ran for the front door.
Frank carried the case with the bomb lances as he adjusted his body armor with one hand. Graybeard balanced on Alexandra’s shoulder while Bubbles and Peanut brought up the rear.
“On our way.” Casper slid her phone back into her pocket. “Down by the bridge, close to the casino.”
Graybeard squawked. “Head for the Bone Sails. The crew will fight with us.”
Alexandra cursed. “Nixie wanted to leave more water witches here. Dammit. I talked her out of it, told her we didn’t know what was coming to Europe.”
“Worry about that later, lass.”
They hurried down the side street by Talayna’s. Frank was relieved to see the Bone Sails docked at the river’s edge. Distance running had never been a strong point for him.
Graybeard’s beak clacked in a rapid staccato and the deck of the Bone Sails sprang to life. The gangplank extended and dropped into the grass a moment before the group reached the ship. They hurried up the ramp of bone and sinew and almost spilled onto the deck as Graybeard barked out orders.
“Wheel us about!”
The sails unfurled in moments, the thin flesh catching the wind as Graybeard took up his perch on the skeleton with the captain’s hat. They spun the ship’s wheel as Frank and the others headed for the bow.
Casper cursed. When Frank followed her line of sight down toward the casino, he knew why. A mass of tentacles flailed in the middle of the river.
“A leviathan,” Alexandra whispered. “Here. But this makes no sense. There’s nothing for Nudd to strike here.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Frank said. “Sam said they’ve been dropping Eldritch things all over the country. Kansas City, Denver, and even here, apparently.”
Alexandra frowned. “He sent them against Nixie in Puerto Rico, too.”
Casper raised her phone. “Get the tanks down by the casino. Was I unclear about that? It’s a goddamned leviathan.”
“How long?” Frank asked.
“Too long.” Casper ran her hands together. “The nearest is up by the hospital.”
“Then it falls to us.” Alexandra hurried up the stairs to the ship’s wheel where she took up a post beside Graybeard. “What would you say to ramming the leviathan?”
Graybeard squawked. “I’d say you’re trying to sink my ship.” He looked up toward the broken prow of the Bone Sails. “But if you’re going to poke a leviathan with a stick, it best be a big stick.”
Alexandra grinned at the parrot.
“Aim for the eyes!”
The skeletons shifted the ship’s wheel, and the Bone Sails took to the center of the Missouri River on a collision course with the leviathan.
The cu siths started to glow as the ship closed on that writhing mass of tentacles. Frank dragged the case of bomb lances farther away from Peanut when his light hip check threatened to throw Frank to the deck.
“Hold your course,” Alexandra said. “I’ll do what I can to obscure the leviathan’s view, but it’s going to block out your view, too.”
One of the skeletons at the ship’s wheel clattered a response.
With that, Alexandra dove over the side, slipping into the Missouri River without a sound.
Casper slid a handgun out from her belt and exchanged the clip that was in it for another. “Should have brought my rifle.”
“I’d offer you the bomb lances,” Frank said, gesturing to the cannon at his feet. “But it’s a little unwieldy.”
Casper shook her head. “It’s not my rifle. It’s better off in your hands.”
Frank wasn’t sure if that was the best time to tell her that he hadn’t spent much time with the bomb lances, but at least he’d fired it a handful of times. He loaded the first into the barrel and leaned the assembly against his shoulder.
About the time Frank wondered what Alexandra was going to d
o, a wall of water some forty feet high erupted from the river. That thin veil, made of water that had looked so muddy a moment before, appeared almost blue and translucent as it rose into the sky.
Alexandra forced more and more water into the air, and Frank could just make out the outline of the water witch near the shore.
Casper whistled as she took a step back from the railing of the ship. “Can you see through that?”
Graybeard shook his head. “We have our heading, lass. From there, it’s a straight line to victory or death.”
Casper glanced at Frank. “Is he always this reassuring?”
“From what I hear.”
A series of growls shook the deck of the Bone Sails. Frank followed Casper’s stare back to the cu siths. The beasts had grown, and their heads now stood level with Frank’s chest. They crouched, ready to pounce, and Frank moved to the side, not wanting to be in either one’s way.
“I never saw the cu siths this close last time.”
“Last time?” Frank asked.
Casper nodded. “I saw them fight a dark-touched harbinger. When Lewena came here.”
Frank didn’t respond. He leaned against the railing and leveled the bomb lance to an angle off the bow. A flurry of tentacle tips crested over the wall of water. Alexandra didn’t drop it as the jagged prow of the Bone Sails cut into that cascade, and the force of the water sent vibrations through the entire ship.
As soon as the bow entered the water, they could see the leviathan, see how close it was to them, and a cluster of tentacles shot out toward the Bone Sails. But it was far too late to stop the ship, and Frank braced himself against the railing as the collision rattled his teeth.
Blood and viscera spilled from the punctured flesh of the leviathan as it roared and squealed and tried to pull away from the Bone Sails. Frank took aim and fired the bomb lance into that cluster. It punctured the rubbery flesh, and the explosion sent gray chunks and gore into the air.
Alexandra dropped the wall of water and surged into action. Frank reached for another bomb lance as Casper squeezed off several rounds from her handgun. Whatever she was firing lit up the air in front of the barrel and scorched the flesh of the leviathan.
Casper ducked when the cu siths launched themselves forward. Bristly green missiles shot through the air, soaring over the nearest tentacles that were tearing away the railing of the Bone Sails, only to land near the core and attack the leviathan with savage teeth. Alexandra kept the tentacles away from the cu siths as their growls grew savage.
Frank leveled the bomb lance at the leviathan again, but he feared hitting the cu siths. And then he remembered the tanks were on their way. If they didn’t stop this thing, the cu siths could be in the way.
Even as the thought crossed Frank’s mind, the leviathan roared and pulled back. Frank didn’t hesitate when the beak nearest to him opened wide. The bomb lance hissed as it shot out through the air, cutting through the same path as Casper’s glowing rounds. The lance vanished inside the maw of the leviathan. A muffled pop was followed by the anchor of the beak exploding outward, and the top half of that mandible falling away into the river.
The cu siths didn’t miss their chance, lunging for the leviathan’s open wound. Frank caught a glimpse of the blood on their fur, and he knew not all of it was the leviathan’s.
A tentacle found its way to one of the supports of the bridge that carried Highway 70 over the Missouri River. Frank cursed as the entire structure shook, the leviathan dragging itself deeper into the water, trying to distance itself from the Bone Sails and the casino.
But the prow of the Bone Sails was stuck inside the leviathan, and everyone on deck stumbled when the leviathan tried to jerk itself free from the jagged spear.
“Alexandra!” Graybeard squawked.
The river moved, a swell like a long rolling ocean wave crashed into the bow of the Bone Sails, as another swell pushed against the leviathan, creating an opening in the water that let Frank see farther into the river’s depths than he ever had before.
Frozen statues, undines struck down by stone swords, saw daylight for a brief moment before the rubbery flesh of the leviathan ripped away, and the Bone Sails came free once more.
The sudden change in force rolled the leviathan backward, its churning tentacles shattering one of the statues and threatening the bridge as metal screamed in protest from above. Frank stared in awe and disgust as one of the enormous black eyes bulged at the center of that mass. It burst a second later, sending clear fluids and gore to spill into the water as the matted green fur of two glowing cu siths erupted from its shell.
Bubbles and Peanut crashed into the river as the waves rebounded into each other. The cu siths swam toward the Bone Sails as the leviathan sagged in the water, its grip on the bridge loosening until at last it bobbed lazily in the current, as still as death itself.
Frank leveled another bomb lance at the exposed eye and fired. It sank into the leviathan, and the whumpf that followed cracked the superstructure around the beast’s eye, spilling blood and gray matter across the river’s surface.
“Probably unnecessary,” Casper said. She frowned, raised her pistol, and fired a couple of shots into the dead leviathan. “Feels good, though. I’ll give you that.”
Frank’s grip tightened on the barrel of the cannon. They had friends and allies who could fight these things and survive. What about the rest of the world, who didn’t?
Casper was on the phone by the time Alexandra dragged Bubbles and Peanut back onto the deck. Graybeard tacked the Bone Sails around, heading upriver once more to dock again by Death’s Door.
“It’s dead. No, no, don’t call off the tanks. I think you’ll need them to drag the body out of the river. How big is it? I don’t know. Big enough to almost pull the bridge down? Yeah, fucking big, Park. It’d be a good idea to get some engineers down there to check the supports.”
A smile crossed Casper’s face. “Yes, sir. I’ll be sure my next leave is less exciting.”
“Drop anchor!” Graybeard shouted as they reached the riverbank just down the street from Death’s Door.
Frank scratched at Peanut’s ruff while Bubbles flopped down at Alexandra’s feet. He hoped Sam was having a far less exciting morning.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dominic spent another fifteen minutes awkwardly strapped into the passenger seat of the SUV. The paralysis was wearing off. Sam was sure of that as Dominic complained more and more about Vik’s driving.
“Signal when you pass someone!”
Vik rolled his eyes. “We are well under the speed limit.”
Dominic stretched his arms and sat up a little straighter. “Signaling has nothing to do with speed, Vik. Literally nothing.”
Sam grinned at the bickering pair. Highway 60 wasn’t exactly a large road, and while the sun was up, there still wasn’t a lot of traffic, either. It was one lane headed either way, with no median, so Sam also understood Dominic’s concern about Vik’s less than stellar driving habits.
Guns and ammo billboards flanked the highway, standing tall above farms and the occasional small town. They passed by a Lowe’s, and Sam wasn’t sure exactly where they were until Vicky said something.
“Where the hell is Monett? I’ve never heard of it.”
Sam frowned. If she was being honest, she hadn’t heard of it either. But as fast as they’d reached that brief stretch of civilization, with a real live turn lane, it was gone again.
Sam pulled out the blood rune and studied it. “So all I have to do is bleed on this thing?”
Dominic glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “You’re asking the wrong crowd.”
Sam muttered something about stupid magicks being stupid and then sliced her thumb open, smearing the blood onto the rune. She pursed her lips and waited.
“Is it doing anything?” Vicky asked.
“Not a damn thing. I don’t know if …” Sam trailed off as her skin started to tingle before it felt like something was tugging on the en
tirety of her being. “Oh, what the fuck? Yeah, it’s doing something. It feels like all my skin is being pulled on. Oh, this is weird.”
They followed 60 to Highway M until Sam said that they should turn, and Vik took it sharp enough to smack Sam’s head into the window. Luna and Vicky cursed in the back seat, and Dominic gripped the dashboard hard enough to put dents in it.
Low wire fences and baled hay in the fields were about the only things flanking Highway M. It was peaceful there, and a no-passing zone, so far less panic-inducing than the rest of the trip with Vik behind the wheel.
“Was that a gravel road?” Vicky asked. “How far out is this place?”
“Newtonia?” Dominic asked. “Not much farther, unless Sam tells us to go somewhere else?”
Sam shrugged and gave them general directions. The rune clearly didn’t follow the roads, so Vik was left to turn where he could to follow Sam’s instructions.
He took a left onto Spring Street, another narrow road, but trees crowded the edges of the asphalt as if trying to form a tunnel. It was a short but beautiful section of road that reminded Sam of Coldwater.
Sam remembered Zola’s stories about Newtonia. She couldn’t remember if the old Cajun had actually been there or not, but she remembered that there had been two battles in the town.
One thing that always stuck out in her mind was the fact Native Americans had fought on both sides in at least one of the conflicts. She wondered if Hugh might know more about it.
Cizin leaned over toward Sam and stared out the windshield. “There’s not much left here from the war. There are battlefields off to the right, and an old home one block north of us that has stood since the battles.”
Vik glanced out the window, toward the southern fields, before turning the wheel to the left. He steered them onto Mill Street, and it wasn’t long before a modest manor rose beside them.
The pull swung around behind Sam, as though their target had either moved, or they’d driven past it. She cursed. “Behind us now, I think.”