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Hunting Season (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 4)

Page 6

by Annie Bellet


  I racked my brain. Surely this was something Samir and I had discussed. I couldn’t remember it ever coming up and I wasn’t willing to take a super in-depth trip down memory lane to find out if it was something he knew about me or not. “Huh,” I said.

  “Clyde is blond, looks mid-twenties, and is very pretty,” she said, her eyes keen but her voice fading almost to a whisper with exhaustion. “He’s a little taller than you, but almost as thin, and his voice is nasal, whining. He’s also completely devoted to Samir and a total idiot about what Samir will do to him when he finally tires of Clyde.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Rest. I have to go away in the morning to help hunt down those hound things, but you’ll be safe here, I think.”

  “I can stay?” she said and the hope in her face broke my heart all over again.

  “Yes,” I said, because I no longer had it in me to say no.

  Max, Ezee, and Harper were arguing in the living room when I emerged.

  “What? I’m totally Oona!” Harper said.

  “I called dibs on Jack already. I mean, I totally helped save Lir, both times,” said Max.

  “I think that makes us Screwball and Brown Tom,” Ezee said with a tired grin.

  “So wait,” I said, figuring out after a moment what the hell they were talking about. “I’m Lili, right? I look good in black.”

  “That would make me Jack,” Alek said, rising from beside the door where he’d stationed himself and coming up behind me to wrap his arms around my waist. “But I’m far too tall and blond to play Tom Cruise.”

  “Wait, you showed him Legend?” Harper asked.

  I looked up at Alek, impressed. “Nope,” I said. “He got this reference all on his own.”

  “In Soviet Russia,” Alek said, smiling down at me and playing up his accent, “references get you!”

  When everyone had stopped dying of laughter and shock, we regrouped in the living room. Aurelio had left to check on his pack and Rosie had gone to bed.

  “Is she staying?” Harper asked me.

  “Tess? Yeah. I think so. I am going into the woods with Alek and Yosemite tomorrow. We might not be back for a couple days. If she tries anything, just cut her head off and stick it in the freezer and I’ll deal with her when I get back.”

  “I’d laugh, but one, my sides hurt already, and two, I think you are like totally serious.”

  “Mostly,” I said, smiling at my friend. “She’s pretty damaged. Just… Be careful.”

  “We’ll keep an eye on her for you,” Ezee said. “But seems like she could use friends, too.”

  We gathered just after daybreak. Alek and I had made a run to my apartment to collect things, like clean clothes, sleeping bags, and my hiking boots. Yosemite said he had a feeling where the hounds had come from, now that he’d seen them, but it was going to be at least overnight to hike out, maybe longer since we’d have to track the survivors if we could and make sure they weren’t doubling back for more.

  I described Clyde as best I could from what Tess had told me and Aurelio said he would pass it on to his wolves. Everyone was going to stay at the Henhouse. I’d put the closed sign up on my shop, as had Brie. There’d be some questions from regulars about it, but we’d deal with those later, I figured.

  Tess woke up long enough to promise me that Clyde would get to my friends only over her dead body. I still wasn’t sure what to make of her yet, but from the grim approval in Alek’s eye after she said this, I had to believe she meant it enough to pass his lie-detector senses. That was some comfort.

  I walked out to check on Lir, the unicorn. One of Max’s ponies had been mauled, a little grey named Merc, but Ezee had told us all about how the unicorn had touched his horn to the wounds and brought the pony back from the brink of death. The little gelding would have scars to show, I saw, running my fingers over the long pink lines, but he was alert and munching hay.

  Lir greeted me with a huff of air and a gentle bump on my shoulder with his nose. I stroked his uber-soft fur.

  “Lend us some luck, okay?” I murmured.

  His intelligent dark eyes watched me in silence as I left the stall. He was magnificent, and my heart hurt looking at him, a tightness in my chest full of wonder and fear for his life. I wanted to kick even more Fomoire ass, and this Clyde guy, too.

  Alek had been right. Killing did get easier, especially when the stakes were so high.

  Yosemite explained what he thought might be happening and to my surprise he said that he’d spoken with Tess and she agreed it was in the realm of possibility for Clyde to do.

  Apparently, back in the time of legend in Ireland, there’d been a really bad dude named Balor Birugderc, also called Balor of the Evil Eye. He’d led the Fomoire against the Tuatha Dé Danann and been slain by a guy named Lugh.

  The part of the legend that hadn’t made the books and retellings was that the head of Balor had been given to the first druid for safekeeping, and passed on through the ages until it fell to one of the last druids, a youth named Iollan, who, after a few centuries, emigrated from Ireland to what became the United States, and buried the head in a wilderness full of powerful nodes and unbroken ley lines.

  Working theory was that Samir, and thus Clyde, had somehow learned this and figured out a way to peel back the lid of Balor’s evil eye.

  “Seven lids,” Yosemite said as we hiked. “Balor’s power is much reduced by his death, but it could still kill this whole area.”

  The forest we hiked through was in full autumn foliage, the deep greens of the evergreens mixing with red and gold from birch, maple, and oak. The ponderosa pine needles had turned to flame red, and fallen leaves created a thick carpet under our feet. Deer flashed tails at us as they took offense at our intrusion. We climbed elevation, the forest growing sparser. Many of the bushes and ferns had turned to red and gold as well, and the grasses between boulders and sheets of grey rock were yellowed. For hours we hiked mostly in silence, moving more slowly than the two of them might have without me. Occasionally Yosemite would pause and point out a wildflower, or a tiny squirrel. His love of the land radiated from him, showed in how he moved through the woods and over the open, rocky areas with ease and comfort.

  Occasionally he would stop and confer with Alek about the trail we were following. I tried to pick out tracks, look for signs, but broken twigs looked like broken twigs to me, and the hounds hadn’t left much. Yosemite and Alek agreed about which direction we should keep moving in, so I put my trust in them and tried to keep up.

  I’m a nerd, I hang out in my store, I play video games. My idea of a workout was playing paintball for a couple of hours. I’d been getting in better shape over the last few months out of sheer self-defense, swimming, even lifting weights with Levi’s coaching. Alek and I had started going for runs now that he was back. I still found myself breathing hard as the sun climbed, hit its zenith, and began to descend.

  There was that whole “we could be attacked at any time” tension, too, which didn’t help. I couldn’t just relax and enjoy the nature walk. I kept looking around us, waiting for the proverbial killing shoe to drop.

  Day moved to night and we set up camp on a wide stretch of open ground on a hill above a large creek. Two huge boulders had crashed together at some point in the last million years and created a wedge-shaped shelter. With rock on three sides, we felt safe enough camping, though we didn’t risk a fire. Dinner was protein bars and water.

  Alek slept in tiger form, eschewing a sleeping bag. I dragged myself into mine and curled up against his huge, furry side. I was used to sleeping next to a giant tiger at this point. There’s something comforting about it, like knowing you have the biggest, baddest mofo in the room on your side, keeping watch over you. Even so, it took me a long time to get to sleep. I stared up at the stars, wondering where Samir was, worried about my friends back at the Henhouse. Eventually the physical exertion of the day won out and I faded into sleep.

  The second day we crested a ridge and then beg
an a slow, painstaking descent down shale-covered slopes toward a thick patch of forest below. The sky was overcast, but so far the day was mild for October and it hadn’t rained on us. Even to my untrained eye, it was clear something was wrong with the land here. The leaves were off the trees and the trees themselves looked charred, as though from recent fire. The air smelled of smoke and wet charcoal. The grass was all dead—not the aged yellow it had been the day before, but a wet, unhealthy, slimy brown color.

  “Was there a forest fire here?” I asked. “I don’t remember that being on the news.” Fires this late in the autumn would have been reported, especially one close to Wylde. We’d hiked all day, but I doubted we were more than twenty or thirty miles inside the wilderness area.

  “No,” Yosemite said. “This is worse than it was even days ago when I last came this way. I fear I am right about Balor’s Eye.”

  We had hit the bottom of the valley, almost to the tree line, when movement caught my eye. I froze, turning toward the wide expanse of dying grass to my left.

  The dead forest covered much of the valley floor and the far side, but there was nothing but open ground to our north. Shale and grass and brush spread out from the edge of the dying forest in a wide plateau. In the very edge of the distance I could see, a huge grey boulder stood up and shook itself with a roar that crackled in the dead trees and echoed down the valley and back with eerie reverberations.

  Then the giant rock charged, shaking the ground as it moved. Moved straight at us.

  Alek went from man to tiger in a blink beside me. Yosemite shouted at me to run for the trees, but he had his feet set like he was preparing for a fight, so I said fuck that and summoned magic, bracing myself as well.

  The rock monster bounded closer. It looked like something dreamed up by the artists of Shadow of the Colossus only without the pretty green mossy bits or the shiny scrolly bits. Instead it had cracks between plates of grey stone that gleamed with dull red light. It was shaped like a rhino crossed with a turtle and a bit of insect thrown in, its six legs stumpy but apparently effective in moving its bulk. Its head was huge with thick horns protruding from the sides like a bull’s and a round nose like the head of a hammer. If it had eyes, I couldn’t make them out at this distance.

  Distance that was quickly going away. Yosmite shouted in Old Irish and vines burst up from the ground, wrapping around the rock beast’s legs. They might have been made of dental floss for all the care it took of them. The vines fell away, snapping like Silly String, with no effect.

  “The earth here is too sick,” Yosemite gasped out, sweating beading on his forehead. “It cannot fight properly.”

  “Maybe we should move,” I said. I didn’t think a fireball was going to do much to that thing. It definitely looked like it was made of rock.

  “Trees,” the druid said.

  The three of us turned and bolted for the forest, but it was clear from the shaking of the ground that we weren’t going to make it. I veered at a ninety-degree angle and dove painfully over a chunk of rock as the beast reached us, its huge head sweeping side to side as it reared back and tried to stomp on Alek. Tiger-Alek leapt for its face, knifelike claws extended. He didn’t even scratch the surface, and the beast threw its head around until he was forced to leap free. He landed with a rolling skid and regained his feet, a deep roar coughing from him as he retreated and circled toward me.

  I aimed bolts of force at the dull red cracks in the stone, hoping that would be a weak point. No dice. My bolts sizzled, fizzled, and did little more than attract the creature’s attention. It bellowed again and backed off, pawing at the ground.

  We ran for the trees again, putting distance between the beast and ourselves. The dead forest would provide little coverage, but little was better than none.

  I stumbled into the treeline next to Yosemite and looked at the druid.

  “How do we stop that thing?”

  “I have no idea,” he said. “Drop trees on it?”

  “Can you do that?”

  “In another part of the forest, perhaps. Here, there is not enough life to answer my call,” he said, shaking his head. “This was one of the guards set long ago. But something is wrong with it. She will not heed my call; she is no longer tied to the land.”

  The beast shook itself and oriented toward us, pawing the earth, sending grass, topsoil, and chunks of shale flying. It was going to charge again.

  “Like something out of a freaking anime,” I muttered, trying to figure out how to stop it. Transmute rock to mud? It was an oldie but goodie from the Dungeons & Dragons spell book, but I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, not without that thing holding still so I could concentrate. “Wish we could summon Goku.” Never a Super Saiyan when you needed one.

  Or was there? I stood up straighter as the beast pawed the earth again. Tess had said we had specialties, right? She thought mine was elemental magic, but I knew that wasn’t really the case. I was best when it came to throwing around lots of raw power. I had been training all summer to gain more finesse, more control, to do more with less. Shoring up the areas I was weak more than trying to strengthen the things I was good at. Maybe I’d been going about it all wrong.

  “Get behind me,” I shouted as the ground shook and the beast charged.

  I pulled power into myself, grabbing at every shred I could summon and hold without losing concentration. I slid my left foot forward and thrust my arms out behind me, focusing all that energy into a ball between my hands.

  Yosemite and Alek moved, retreating further into the trees. Smart men.

  The beast wasn’t so smart. It crashed toward me like a wrecking ball. What happens when an irresistible force meets an immoveable object? I had no idea why that popped into my head, but I went with the thought, pouring every ounce of strength and belief in my own irresistible power. I waited until the stone beast was almost to me and then…

  “KAMEHAMEHA,” I screamed. I threw my hands in front of me, unleashing the beam of pure force right the beast’s ugly face.

  The beam exploded into the beast, lifting it completely off its feet and rolling it up like a potato bug before flinging it back along the ground like an out-of-control, off-balance bowling ball. I had to turn my head away from the sudden gritty wind that erupted as debris flew into the air in its path.

  Rubbing my eyes with my shirtsleeve, I peered out of the trees and down the deep furrow the rolling beast had left. It lay, unmoving, about two hundred yards away, half buried in the side of the valley. I reached for more power and stumbled toward it.

  Up close it smelled like ash and rot. The beast wasn’t dead, its side rose and fell very slowly, but its chest was caved in and rust-colored ichor leaked out, too thick to look like proper blood. I really didn’t want to touch it, but I couldn’t have pulled off another giant spell if my life had depended on it.

  Gripping my d20 for focus, I pictured what I wanted to do, and laid my hand on its bulbous nose. The beast snorted, dull red nostrils opening and closing as fetid smoke gushed forth. I choked and hacked as my eyes watered, but kept my hand where it was.

  Rock to mud. I couldn’t remember all the details of the spell, though I knew there was something in there about not working on magical stone. Fuck that, because the manual wasn’t a spell book, not in reality. In reality, I just needed to have the power and the belief I could do it.

  At that moment, I believed I could do anything. I’d just cast Kamehameha, or Turtle Devastation Wave, as translated from the Japanese. It had seemed appropriate, given the way this beast looked. Super effective, if utterly exhausting.

  I pressed power down into its rocky skin through my hand. The magic animating it was inky and black, just like the corruption I’d burned out of the unicorn. Clyde, if I had to guess. My power sank in and the stone bent to my will, softening, cracking, turning to black, sludgy mud and finally splitting and sliding away in huge chunks. Rust-colored smoke gushed from the melting head and I held my breath, keeping my magic sinking in
to the sludge beneath my palm until the creature stopped breathing.

  Stumbling back, I spat to try to clear the filth from my mouth, and then gasped in mostly fresh air. Alek, back in human form, was there to catch me as I collapsed. This time, I didn’t even resist as he lifted me into his arms. I buried my head in his chest and let exhaustion take me away.

  I came awake tucked against Alek’s side. It was nearly dark, the moon rising above the rim of the valley. He’d brought me back up to the top and we were tucked against a large rock.

  “Didn’t want to camp down in the valley of death?” I asked.

  “Not safe,” Alek said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I just stopped a freight train with my face,” I said. My mouth tasted of smoke and sour beer and my eyes were gritty when I rubbed them. I took the water Alek offered and tried to drink slowly.

  “Where’s the druid?” I asked, looking around.

  “Valley,” Alek said. “He went to check on the head.”

  “Hope there aren’t any more of those stone turtle things.”

  “He says there are two others.”

  “Great,” I muttered. “Can we fight them tomorrow? Because I don’t think I can do that twice.”

  Alek’s smile flashed white in the gloom. “Whatever that was, it was impressive.”

  This was what I got for falling for a non-nerd. Harper or Levi or Ezee would have been gushing with glee over what I had done. They’d be talking about it for months. I just hoped they’d believe me, but there was no way it would be as cool when I told it as it would have been if they had witnessed it, damnit.

  “Gee, thanks,” I said, knowing he’d see my eye-roll with his much better low-light vision. “We got any more of those power bars left?”

 

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