by Peter Nealen
I got through the first trunk. Whatever had done this, hadn’t done it with a chainsaw or an ax. The end of the trunk was splintered, as if something had simply snapped the tree off at the base. That didn’t bode well, either.
Even with the log cut through, there was still a lot of work to do to get the tree freed up enough from the glorified blowdown that we could wrap a chain around it and haul it out of the road. The branches of all three trees were tightly intertwined, and I was having to almost completely delimb the whole tree to get it free.
I had almost succeeded when Kolya called out. I couldn’t make out his words over the chainsaw’s snarl, but his tone communicated enough.
I looked up and saw movement out in the woods. Like before, it was furtive; dim, pale shapes flitting from tree to tree. There were a lot of them, and they were unnaturally silent. There was none of the cackling, hooting, and howling of before.
And they were just the skinnies, presumably. There had to be something else, something worse, back in there. No skinny had pushed those trees down.
My Winchester was slung across my back, and the chainsaw was in my hands. The saw itself would be a formidable weapon, at least for a while. But I didn’t really want to put it to the test, not there. I started praying. I could already hear Kolya praying in Russian, his voice low and even.
I started to back toward the tractor, keeping the buzzing chainsaw in front of me. I could see the glints of dark eyes in the woods now, watching me. A few of the skinnies actually showed themselves, either capering in the road on the other side of the roadblock, or peering around trees, slowly and lazily winding their long, clawed fingers around the trunks, leering with mouths full of blackened shark’s teeth.
The nearest ones were starting to stalk me, slipping from tree to tree, muttering and chuckling. A skinny’s chuckle is a gruesome, gurgling sound, like a dying man’s death rattle.
One darted forward, and Kolya shot it. It jerked back, black blood spraying from the wound in its bony chest, then took a ten-foot leap straight backward and into the trees.
I didn’t dare look over my shoulder to check where I was going. As soon as I turned my head, they were going to swarm me, and there would be too many of them for Kolya to keep them off me. I’d get a few with the chainsaw, but I knew from personal experience that skinnies tend to be rubbery, and they don’t go down quickly. One of them would trap the saw, and the rest would be all over me, tearing at me with their claws and their sharp, rotting teeth.
So I kept my eyes forward, that saw rumbling and snarling in front of me, turning it to threaten any skinny that started to try to come closer, while they slowly closed in. Finally, I felt the edge of the trailer hit the backs of my legs. “Kolya, get on the wheel,” I called.
“Tractor is too slow,” he warned. “We will never outrun them.”
I knew he was right, but what other choice did we have? I hitched myself up onto the trailer as best I could without using my hands. I needed both for the chainsaw.
The skinnies sensed that their opening was coming. One leaped on top of the pile of trees, capering and cackling. More of them were coming out of the woods, right up to the edge of the road, slavering.
And then, like music to my ears, Magnus’ barking echoed through the forest. Almost as one, the skinnies vanished, leaping back into the woods and disappearing into the shadows and the branches. Whatever had happened before, they were scared of Magnus.
And again, in the echoes of those barks, I could have sworn I heard distant horns…
Kolya started the tractor moving, heading back to the house. It was slow going, but we didn’t stop. The skinnies might have been scared away, but I was sure that whatever had pushed those trees over was still out there, and that the skinnies’ retreat had only been a temporary one.
“So,” Kolya said flatly, as we reached the barn. “We are trapped.”
“Yeah, we are,” I agreed, looking back down the road toward the bend where it vanished into the trees. “And I can’t help but think that it was all part of the plan from the get-go.”
The Captain had spoken of mortal and immortal enemies. I had a hunch that we hadn’t seen anything yet.
Chapter 7
Ray was waiting on the porch when we got back to the house, his big Gibbs-Summit in his hands. “Did you get it cleared?” he asked.
I shook my head. “A small army of skinnies was waiting for us,” I said. “We had to clear out. Magnus saved our hides, but going out there with less than a dozen Hunters isn’t a good idea right now.”
Ray’s eyes narrowed above his forest of beard. “So, somebody wants us hemmed up in here,” he said.
“Someone or something,” I agreed, as I climbed down off the trailer. I stepped up on the porch and lowered my voice. “Ray, something pushed those trees over. They weren’t cut down.”
He blew a deep breath out, stirring his mustache hairs. “Well, that ain’t good,” he said, echoing my own sentiments. “But all you saw were the hobgoblins?”
I nodded, and so did Kolya, when Ray glanced down at him. “That was it. And they disappeared into the woods when Magnus came barking through the trees...” I hesitated. Ray fixed me with a keen glance.
“What?” he asked.
“It might be nothing,” I said slowly. “But when Magnus showed up, I could have sworn that I heard…horns.”
Ray didn’t even blink. He didn’t look surprised at all. He just said, “Huh,” and turned back to the house. “Well,” he continued, as if I hadn’t said anything, “if we’re going to have guests for a while, we’d best get them bedded down and hunker down for whatever comes after dark. If these things came out of the trees in daylight, it could get bad tonight.”
I was thinking the same thing, though my own eyes narrowed as I watched Ray’s retreating back as he stepped inside. I’d always known there was something strange about Ray’s place, going back to the first time Dan had taken me there. Between Magnus and the Fae girl, Fand, out in the woods, there was plenty of eeriness to go around there, as homey as it was otherwise. But while Ray had always been cagey about it, he’d never reacted quite like that before.
Of course, aside from a demon-possessed homunculus attacking the place my first night, the place hadn’t ever been under siege like this, that I knew of.
I was going to have to ask Raymond some very pointed questions that night. I started in the door after him, Kolya on my heels.
Trudeau was already kicking up a fuss. “This is ridiculous!” she stormed. “Is there really any more proof we need? We should arrest all of them for conspiracy right now!”
“That’s enough, Karen!” Miller bellowed. His voice lowered. “Yes, there’s something very, very strange going on here, but I don’t think that these folks have anything to do with it.” He looked around at us, and it was more than just a glance around the room. His eyes were keen and observant, carefully taking each of us in, our stance, our body language. Miller was an old hand, and he could read people. I suspected that Trudeau didn’t have anything near his experience. “Until we have more answers, we simply don’t have grounds to arrest these people, even if we could do it with only two of us, and the road blocked.”
“Just the fact that they blocked the road should be enough!” she exclaimed, but Miller cut her off in disgust.
“And just when were they going to sneak off to block it, Karen?” he demanded. “Between you and me, we had our eyes on all of them the entire time!”
“So, they’ve got an accomplice out in the woods!” she snapped. “Seriously, Miller, this isn’t that hard!”
He sighed. “No,” he said. “I’m the senior agent, and I’m making the call. We’re going to see what develops. You can file a complaint later, when we get back to the office.”
She glared at him icily. “Oh, I will. You can rest assured of that,” she said. She turned her back as if to storm away, seemed to realize that she had nowhere to go, and stood there, her fists clenched, before abrupt
ly sitting down and crossing her arms.
“I’ve got a couple more spare rooms,” Ray said into the sudden silence. “They should be secure enough, and the doors lock, if you’re that concerned about us. No one will bother you.”
At least, no one standing here physically in the room.
Trudeau stared at him, her lips pursed, then apparently decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and nodded tightly, standing up again and smoothing her shirt. Ray held a hand out to indicate the hall leading to the guest rooms, gallantly inviting her to precede him.
As the two of them disappeared into the hall, the rest of us looked around at each other.
Miller hadn’t moved; he was standing next to the coffee table in front of the fireplace, the same one we’d all been ready to pour rifle fire into, should one of the skinnies have made it down the chimney. Paul was still huddled on the couch on the far side of the room, his eyes haunted, with Father Ignacio standing over him like a protective gargoyle. Frank and Charlie were close to the still-shuttered windows and still armed, and Eryn had come to stand closer to me as Kolya closed and bolted the door.
“She hasn’t worked a beat, has she?” Frank asked Miller.
When Miller hesitated, I added, “Look, Special Agent Miller, I get you not wanting to air your partner’s dirty laundry to strangers, but we’re not exactly strangers right now. Whatever’s out there wants to get at all of us, so that puts us into the same boat. If she’s going to be a problem, I think we need to know, along with why.”
He frowned, glancing down, before he finally sat on the couch. Taking a deep breath, he said, “Yeah, okay. No, she hasn’t worked as a cop. She came right out of college to join the FBI. Don’t get me wrong, she’s brilliant at what she normally does, which, you guessed right, is bank fraud and things like that. But the Bureau needed bodies for this investigation, and since it was time for her to transfer to a new assignment, she got put on this one.”
Frank nodded, looking toward the hallway where Trudeau had gone with Ray. “I can tell that she’s not all that good at reading people. You are, though.”
Miller laughed hollowly. “I ought to be. I’ve been in law enforcement long enough.”
“How long?” Eryn asked quietly.
“Fifteen years, give or take a few months,” he said tiredly. “Not all at once. I was a cop in Houston for a while, after I got out of the Army. Then I quit and went be a contractor overseas for a while, then quit that and joined the Bureau. So yeah, I’ve been doing this for a while, and I did enough time on the streets that I’m pretty good at reading people.” He looked around at us. “That’s why I refused to jump to conclusions here. I’ll be the first to admit that something is very off about this situation—and not just because we’re apparently under siege by monsters in a log cabin in the mountains. But I trust my gut enough to know that whatever is going on, most of you, at least, are sincere about it. That doesn’t mean you might not still be crazy, but at least you’re sincere. And after what I saw out there…I’m willing to forego judgement until I know a bit more.”
“Well, given your partner’s attitude, that’s good of you,” Frank said. He took another glance out the window, and when he didn’t see anything, he stepped over to sit across from Miller. I nodded fractionally. Frank had been a sheriff’s deputy. He could make a professional connection that the rest of us probably couldn’t.
“You were a sheriff?” Miller asked him.
The big Indian nodded. “Sheriff’s deputy,” he answered. “I was one of the first responders in Coldwell when the…incident that you’re investigating kicked off.”
“What can you tell me about it?” Miller asked.
“Only that it was probably a lot worse and a lot weirder than you’ve heard,” Frank replied. “I took myself for a fairly rational individual before that happened. The things I saw on the way to Storr’s Hole…I tell you, brother, some stuff just can’t be explained by a normal, mechanical universe.”
Miller had frowned at the mention of Storr’s Hole. It occurred to me that since the Hole had been a ghost town prior to our final confrontation with the Walker there, the FBI might not have heard of that part. I kept my mouth shut, though. Ian and Brother Ezekiel had their own worries without the FBI coming to call.
He looked up at me, after glancing at Father Ignacio. “What’s going to happen?” he asked. “I haven’t heard any more noises, but you seem pretty certain that we can’t get out.”
“Whatever’s out there is biding its time,” I said. “It’s got the road blocked, and if we try to clear it, we’ll get swarmed. It’s probably going to wait until dark. These things like the night better, anyway.”
“Then what?”
I looked at Kolya, who shrugged. “Maybe a repeat performance of that earlier attack,” I said. “Maybe worse. The only thing we can do is pray and wait.”
“Pray,” he grunted. “Yeah.”
“I take it that’s not a regular habit for either of you?” Father Ignacio said. The gravel in his voice made it almost a growl.
Miller shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, I believe in God, and I pray every now and again. But Trudeau…” he trailed off.
“I think this is the part where you explain some of Special Agent Trudeau’s hostility,” Frank said quietly.
Miller sighed. “She came from a very, very conservative family. They were part of some little splinter church, I don’t even know which one. Hell, I don’t even know if it exists anymore. They believed some odd stuff, but were generally good people. Generally.”
I winced. “Abuse?” I asked.
He nodded. “I don’t know a lot of details, and I haven’t asked. But the best I can gather, she rebelled a little as a teenager, and someone, either her father or her pastor, put her in the hospital because of it. It got swept under the rug, presumably because one or both of them had connections. As soon as she was old enough, she ran off to school, and then never went back.” He sighed again. “It’s formed some…very intense opinions in her mind about religion and religious people in general. She’s got some scars, and she’s let them color her entire outlook on life and people.” He looked around at the rest of us again. “So you’ve got to understand, she already doesn’t trust religion in the first place. Religion backed up by guns and talking about demons and monsters…she’s convinced that it’s dangerous.”
Father Ignacio only nodded. “I can see that, unfortunately. We’ve seen a considerable amount of damage done in the Church by this sort of thing, and worse. And it means that those who are guilty are going to face even more severe punishment when the Judgement comes,” he finished grimly. And when Father Ignacio gets grim, let me tell you. It’s grim.
“We’ll do what we can to ease her mind,” Eryn said. “We have to; she’s going to be at even greater risk facing the Otherworld with her current attitude, isn’t she, Father?” she asked Father Ignacio. The priest nodded.
Kolya gave me a look that suggested he would believe that Trudeau could have her mind put at ease when he saw it, but I just shrugged. Eryn was good at that sort of thing, certainly more so than most of the rest of us, who tended to be wandering loners with lots of guns and even more nightmares.
Ray came back into the living room, his eyes clouded. Apparently, he was rather less than impressed by Miss Trudeau’s manners. “She’s in the first room next to Paul’s,” he said. He looked over at Father Ignacio. “Father, if you wouldn’t mind quietly blessing the door? I think it might be a good idea.”
Father nodded, took his flask of holy water, and headed toward the hallway. Miller stood up to follow. “I think I’ll go find a room, myself, and see if I can’t help get Karen calmed down a bit.” He took another deep breath. “Wish me luck.”
I nodded, then turned to check the yard outside again. It was empty and still. The clouds were getting thicker, but there were still bits of blue showing in the sky. Sunset was still several hours away. “How long is Magnus going to stay out t
here?” I asked Ray.
He shrugged. “As long as he figures he needs to,” he said. “He’ll come back in when he’s ready.”
I studied him. “There’s something you’re not telling us, Ray.”
He grinned. “There’s probably a lot I haven’t told you, Jed,” he answered.
“Cut it out, Ray,” I snapped. “I know, you’ve been mysterious for years, but I know I’m not the only one to have noticed that there’s something strange going on here. Magnus ain’t no ordinary dog, there’s that Fae girl, Fand, out in the woods, and you never set foot away from here, even though you’re quite capable of still being on the road, Hunting. What’s the deal with this place, Ray?”
Ray’s eyes had gone hooded. I could already tell that I wasn’t going to get any answers. When he turned and walked away without a word, I almost cussed. It wasn’t like Ray, but whatever held him to this place, whatever was behind all the little weirdities and oddities, it was something that he simply would not talk about. And I didn’t know why.
I also knew better than to ask for support from Father Ignacio. The one thing that I did know about Ray’s secret was that it was under the auspices of the Order. Even if Father Ignacio didn’t know what it was, he wouldn’t press.
There wasn’t a lot to do in the way of physical preparation. The house was defensible; Ray had made sure of that, from its siting to the thickness of its log walls to the heavy shutters that we had closed across the windows. So, while Paul and the FBI agents retreated to their rooms, the rest of us gathered in the living room around Father Ignacio and prayed.
As the sun began to go down, Ray fixed dinner in the fireplace. He was as cheerful as ever, acting as if my earlier questioning had never happened. We ate sparingly; the anticipation of what the night might bring was sapping appetites. Trudeau and Paul didn’t even come out of their rooms, so Eryn made a point of taking each of them a plate. We could hear Trudeau’s icily polite “Thank you” from out in the living room. She sounded like she’d rather have slapped Eryn, and I stifled the urge to walk back there and slap the Special Agent myself for disrespecting my wife, whispering an Act of Contrition under my breath for thinking it.