by SM Reine
“It’s true that a brilliant hero needs a trusty sidekick to do the grunt work.” Simon pointed inside. “I’d like the green one, please. Would you mind?”
“Locking you in the shed?” I grabbed his arm. “Not at all.”
“Are we ready to go?” Temi asked from behind us.
I released Simon. “As soon as everyone picks out a kayak and drags it down to the beach on his or her own.”
“Hm,” she said.
I’d meant my comment for Simon, of course, but remembered that her knee might preclude such activities. “Do you think you’ll be able to do this, Temi? Or will it hurt your leg?” If she couldn’t kayak, she’d have even more trouble scrambling over those boulders or into the bowels of a cave. Maybe it’d be best to leave her back as the support staff again.
“I’ll manage,” Temi said tersely.
There was a determined set to her jaw, so I didn’t mention my concerns. If she wanted to come, I wouldn’t stop her.
Simon dragged out a two-person green kayak. It might have been my comments or perhaps a desire not to appear puny in front of Temi, but he hauled it down to the water himself. I helped Temi tote a blue one-person model to the lake while Simon grabbed paddles for everyone. Before I could ask if she wanted to share the double or go on her own, she tossed her shoes and water bottle into the back of the single. She rolled her pants up to her knees. I caught a glimpse of nasty scar tissue and the bottom edge of a knee brace before she pushed the kayak into the shallows, and I decided I should be doing the same thing.
We soon had all our gear loaded and were paddling across the lake. I shivered at the chilly breeze sweeping across the water. The sun was shining, but it was starting to feel more like November than October. The leaves on the cottonwoods at the end of the lake had turned orange and yellow, and I bet Prescott would see snow before long. It was a far cry from Phoenix with its daytime highs still in the 80s and 90s.
I would have expected the two-person kayak to be faster, with Simon and me paddling together—I’d taken the back seat to make sure he paddled—but Temi’s strokes were effortless and powerful. Her craft surged ahead and she had to pause to wait for us. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she’d been kayaking all of her life, but we hadn’t grown up around water, and I doubted she’d had time for many hobbies during her tennis career. I might have been slightly pleased when she’d first shown up, needing my help, but watching her now, I had to admit that it was sad that the car accident had ended her career. She was meant to be an athlete.
“Veer left when we get close to the rocks,” Simon called to her. “We’ll have to get close to find a place to land.”
The granite mounds came all the way down to the water, but there were inlets here and there, and I remembered a few grassy spots accessible from the hiking trail. Of course, we didn’t want to go anywhere near the trail, not if it’d been booby-trapped.
Ahead of us, Temi stopped paddling and pointed to the right, back toward the wetlands. The ducks were taking off with a frantic batting of wings. I didn’t see anything in the trees and tall grasses behind them, but that didn’t mean much. I hoped our predator wasn’t making an exception to its preference for the night shift.
Temi pointed again, this time toward an inlet between two towering gray mounds. “In there?”
“Let’s try it,” Simon called softly.
We’d all lowered our voices since the ducks flew off.
We slipped into the cove and followed the rocks until we reached an area clogged with floating branches and logs. A faint animal trail cut across the grassy bank rising behind it. We picked our way through the deadwood and helped each other pull the kayaks out.
A great thrashing came from the tall grass a few feet away. I lunged for my bow—it was still in the back of the kayak. A splash sounded, then the grasses grew still. The whole cove grew still. I forced myself to loosen my grip on the weapon.
“I don’t know what that was,” I said, “but it wasn’t big enough to be our monster.”
“Nah, the monster would have jumped toward us instead of away from us,” Simon said. “It was probably a fat beaver.”
Despite his words, he had his phone out, probably with his camera app loaded. I hoped his obsession didn’t get us all killed. I was already beginning to think coming out here had been a mistake, the coolness of an undiscovered cave not withstanding.
Temi turned slowly, gazing up at the rock on all sides of us. “How are we going to figure out where Eleriss and Jakatra are?”
“We’ll have to climb up to a high spot and look for smoke,” I said. “If they use... whatever they used before, there’ll be some smoke or fumes at least. Though I admit, it’ll be hard to see outside.”
“In other words, we’re hoping to get lucky,” Temi said.
“That’s usually how our business goes.”
Simon grunted in agreement. As soon as we’d put on all of our gear, we hunted for a promising spot to ascend. The mounds were uneven, some tall, some low, and some in between, so we didn’t have to scale any cliffs, but the climb was challenging. Temi struggled because of her leg, I struggled because I was carrying the bow as well as my backpack, and Simon struggled because he couldn’t be bothered to buy a pair of real shoes. We were all sweating by the time we clambered onto the top of one of the higher rocks. The view was magnificent though, with the lake stretching behind us and the lumpy granite formations heading off to the horizon. I spotted the rail trail about a half a mile away. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any smoke or anything that would suggest our employers were in the vicinity.
“Where are we in relation to their bikes?” I asked.
Simon pulled out his phone. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean? They left?”
“No, I’m not picking up a signal any more. They were over there a half hour ago.” He waved toward the trail. “But now, I’ve got nothing.”
“Meaning they drove out of range?”
“Or finally found the tracking device and destroyed it,” Simon said.
“Oh.”
“We could wander around these rocks for days and not find a cave entrance,” Temi said.
“I know. Anyone have any ideas? Simon, would your program be able to show a newly constructed tunnel?”
His “uhm” didn’t sound promising, but he did start poking at his phone.
I sat cross-legged and watched the sky, still hoping to catch a wisp of smoke. An eagle that had a nest on top of one of the outcroppings took off, flying away from us. Maybe it found our presence intrusive. It flew straight, but it banked and did a few circles, rising higher with each revolution. At first, I simply watched, but then I bolted to my feet.
“That might be it.” I squinted, trying to note landmarks beneath it and pick out a route for us to take.
“What might?” Temi asked.
The eagle reached the altitude it wanted and headed out.
“A thermal?” Simon asked.
I nodded. “That’s my guess. If we’re right, something’s heating up the ground over there.”
“Let’s check it out then.”
CHAPTER 22
Temi didn’t complain as we climbed and descended, weaving through the dells and scrambling over the rocks, but I caught winces on her face more than once. I also winced a few times from scraped hands and banged knees. When I’d first seen that eagle, my heart rate had tripled in anticipation of finding a fresh tunnel and following Eleriss and Jakatra into some underground chamber that had been sealed for countless centuries, maybe forever. After almost an hour of trying to reach that spot, my excitement had waned.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Simon asked.
“I’m sure we’re closer to the place than we are to the Winslow rest stop,” I said, bringing up our long-standing joke.
“How comforting,” Temi said. We’d have to fill her in on the story later. Or perhaps not. That hadn’t been my bladder’s finest mome
nt.
A clatter arose in the distance somewhere ahead of us. Rock fall. Our feet—and our mouths—halted as one. We exchanged long looks with each other. As agile as Eleriss and Jakatra were, it was hard to imagine them knocking rocks loose.
We were down in one of the hollows and couldn’t see far ahead. I listened for further noises, but not even the birds were talking.
“What was that?” Temi whispered.
“Rock climbers?” Simon suggested.
“Who would be out climbing when there’s a man-slaying monster roaming around town?” I whispered.
“Uh, us?” Simon said.
A faint scraping sound reached my ears. It wasn’t continuous but intermittent and so faint that it might be in my imagination.
“Are those claws?” Simon breathed.
Not my imagination. He’d heard it too.
I wished I had something more deadly in my hands than a bow. We could have stopped and bought firearms—from what I’d seen, Arizona had some of the most lax gun laws of any state in the country—but I reminded myself that neither bullets nor arrows had put a dent in that creature at the campground the other night. The glowing sword might be the only thing that could hurt it. In that case, we’d be best served by catching up with Eleriss and Jakatra and staying close. Well, technically that wasn’t true—we’d be best served by going back to the motel and locking the door.
“Is anyone else having second thoughts about this adventure?” I whispered.
Temi nodded. “Yes.”
Simon shook his head. “No.”
I stared at the dust and tufts of grass at our feet while listening for more scrapes. I didn’t hear anything. It’d either moved on or it was hiding in the shadows somewhere, waiting for a chance to pounce on us. Except that it hadn’t proved that subtle yet. It simply attacked when it wanted. Maybe we’d heard something else. Or maybe it had bypassed us and was after the sword. Either way, I was less enthused about hunting for caves. When I’d agreed to follow the riders, it had been under the assumption that our monster friend wouldn’t be roaming about during the day.
“Why not?” I asked Simon quietly.
He shrugged. “We need to keep an eye on our employers. Once they get what they want, they might take off and we’d never see them again.”
“I believe Eleriss would return to the vet parking lot to bring us our coin,” I said.
“But he wouldn’t explain anything. I want to know what they’re looking for in there. Besides, they might need our help with that creature. They already fought it with the sword and barely hurt it, if they hurt it at all.”
“How would we hurt it?” I asked.
“With our crafty cunning.”
“How... optimistic.”
“That’s not the word I would have used,” Temi said.
“All I know is that someone needs to kill that thing,” Simon said, “because it’s murdering people left and right. And if we’re there when it faces off with those guys—if we can help when it happens...”
“You can get a picture of yourself standing with your foot up on its dead corpse?” I asked.
“Well, yes, but it’ll still be dead, won’t it? That’s gotta be the goal here, not just to learn languages and look at artifacts. Getting rid of it has to be the most important thing.”
Simon of all people was lecturing me on morality? “I don’t disagree with you,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm, “but I don’t think we’re qualified to do it.”
“Who is?”
“Them.” I flung a hand toward the rocks, though I had no idea where Jakatra and Eleriss were in relation to us.
“They’re not even human,” Simon said. “How much can they really care?”
“We don’t know that. We don’t know what they are.”
“Exactly, and we don’t ultimately know why they’re here, no matter what they say. We have to make sure that monster gets killed one way or another. And if it’s following them and trying to get that sword, then that’s where we need to be.”
“With our crafty cunning,” I said.
“Exactly.”
Temi was looking back and forth between us, probably trying to decide how serious our arguing was. I had assumed Simon’s ulterior motive in stalking the riders had been to get more pictures of the monster; I hadn’t thought he’d been dreaming of killing it. Sure, he’d said something about killing it and saving the town, but that had been a joke, hadn’t it? Like I’d told Temi, I knew his entrepreneurial streak had been born out of wanting to help his people—or prove himself to his people anyway—but I’d never taken him for some knight-errant in geeky armor. I sure hoped this wasn’t about impressing Temi.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got some kind of clever trap in your pack then?” I asked.
“I did have the idea of setting a trap for it with that sword,” Simon said, “if we can get a hold of it, but I think we need to see what else those guys are going to pull out of this cave first. And it’s a foregone conclusion that they’re not going to tell us what it is; we have to be there when they get it.”
I sighed and looked at Temi. She shrugged back at me. And here I’d wanted a third person so I could have the deciding vote.
A breeze whispered through, again hinting of cooler weather. It also hinted of... I sniffed a few times. “That’s that acid chemical smell from the cavates.”
“They’re burning holes again,” Simon said. “We must be close.”
“All right.” Afraid I’d regret it, I whispered, “We might as well take a peek.”
“Famous last words?” Temi asked, though she followed us when we continued through the little dell.
The rock walls grew narrower, and we had to walk single-file. I watched the route ahead but also the tops of the boulders on either side, all too aware that something up there could jump down and land on us before we knew what was happening.
I stepped around prickly pear cactus and shrubs that were only slightly less prickly. I’d lost track of where the hiking trails were, but this area definitely wasn’t traveled often. We rounded a jumble of boulders and walked into a tiny box canyon, the ground flat and dusty and dotted with more cactus patches.
Simon gripped my arm and pointed at a big clawed and webbed print. A fresh one. The scent of the sea hung in the air, utterly out of place in the desert clime. If someone killed that monster, at least it could be thoroughly examined and we could figure out what exactly it was.
“There’s your hole.” Temi, taller than Simon and I, pointed at something behind a manzanita shrub growing out of a narrow crevice. The tracks led straight to it.
“If it charges out,” Simon whispered, “we can try climbing up those boulders to get away from it. I bet something that big isn’t that agile at scaling walls.”
I wasn’t going to take that bet. I hoped it’d gone down after the others and that we wouldn’t see it until they’d dealt with it.
I slipped an arrow out of my quiver and crept forward. Several of the manzanita’s ropy red branches had been snapped. A dark hole gaped behind it. Like the one in the cavate, it was perfectly round and not nearly as wide and inviting as I’d like. It sloped downward and toward the lake, the angle not so steep that one would have to slide down on one’s butt—or use a rope and grapple to climb out. That was something, I supposed.
Simon squeezed in beside me. He touched one of the tunnel’s walls. “It’s cool. We’re farther behind than we were last time.”
“I think... maybe we should stay even farther behind. Like how about we climb up on the rocks where we can watch down here and wait for them to come out? We’ll see whatever they carry out, and if we’re curious, we can go back into the tunnel after they—and the monster—are gone. Plenty of time to explore then, right?”
Simon frowned, but Temi was nodding. “That sounds wiser than crawling down there into the middle of trouble.”
Rocks shifted and clunked somewhere outside the canyon. I whipped my head in t
hat direction so quickly that I almost fell in the hole. I couldn’t see anything, but a soft scraping came after the rocks settled. The rasp of claws on stone again? The noise sounded like it came from higher than ground level.
Temi and Simon were staring toward the mouth of our narrow canyon too. Without moving, I lowered my gaze to the footprints again. The tracks led to the hole, and I’d assumed the creature had gone in, but what if it’d turned around, planning to wait for Eleriss and Jakatra to come out, just as we’d thought to do? Ugh, yes, there was a print pointing in the other direction. It’d come up to the hole, then turned back.
A shadow fell across the canyon floor.
I gulped and looked up. The dark figure crouching above us was all muscle beneath its sleek, black hide. Though its weight rested on four legs instead of two, its head seemed more human than animal, mounted on a thick corded neck. Its ears were close to its head, and the face seemed simian rather than canine or feline. Its stout muscular arms and legs gripped the edge of the rock, long dagger-like claws biting into the stone. Tiny shards fell away, the dust trickling down the granite wall. If those claws could cut into rock, they’d have no trouble tearing off a man’s head...
“Down the hole,” Simon whispered. “We have to go down the hole.”
The creature’s eerie iridescent eyes stared down at us, utterly soulless and without mercy. It shifted its weight, the muscular haunches bunching, preparing to spring.
My instincts cried out against the idea of throwing myself into a tight space, but trying to flee out here would be even more suicidal. We wouldn’t be able to outrun it, wouldn’t be able to—
“Go!” This time Simon shoved me toward the hole.
The predator leaped from the ledge, claws glinting in the afternoon sun.
I dove headfirst into the tunnel. My bow caught, and I lost it. I didn’t care. I scrambled into the passage on hands and knees, heedless of the inky blackness ahead. All I knew was that I had to keep going so there’d be space behind me for the others to fit inside. I fumbled at my belt, unhooking a flashlight. I thumbed it on, and the beam brightened smooth, uniformly curved gray walls.