The Deadliest Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

  Dave waved him off. “Don’t bother with me, Miles. I’m comfortable using the tools I’ve been trained with.” Having cleaned off both his knives, he resheathed them and led the cemetery crew back toward the tour bus thinking that, considering he was about to become a dad and he’d like to be around a lot more than Albert had been, maybe soon he wouldn’t even need those anymore.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Saturday, June 16, 11:20 p.m.

  One of the easiest ways to infiltrate an enemy base is to let a patrol catch you and then demand that they take you to their leader. Of course, then you’re depending on the patrollers to have some sense of honor and military discipline. This couldn’t be the case with any member of Brude’s army. Which was why, once the Shit Sniffer had led us to an enemy patrol, we’d decided to put a slight twist on that plan.

  The unit we targeted was made up of Brude’s finest and most diverse fighters. They came to him from every age of Earth’s history—their uniforms ranging from barely scraped animal skins to medalplastered dress blues. As expected, their weapons ran the gamut too. Except, since firearms didn’t function in the Thin, they’d all hung on to their favorite blades. Some had remembered them long and glittering, engraved with the runes of their personal gods. Others carried daggers so dull only the violent double-fisted shove of heavily muscled biceps would prove them fatal.

  Counting Aaron, our numbers matched almost evenly. And considering we had Vayl, Raoul, and two Dogs fighting on our side (not to mention me, with a sword from Raoul’s armory that felt like it had been forged to my hand) I figured our odds wouldn’t bring huge winnings on a two-dollar bet. And then he stepped out from behind the tree line that had separated us.

  We’d been hiding behind a long line of scrub interrupted by piles of fallen trees and mounds of ivy-strangled branches that’d all flame like a hairspray-soaked wig the second somebody thought to bring a match to the game. Still, good cover, until I got my first real look at the blemuth lumbering toward us. And then I reminded myself to write thank-you notes to every one of my trainers, who’d once again done such a good job that despite the shock of seeing a creature I had been sure never existed outside Sandy’s Bar (where the stories always outsize the hangovers), I managed not to give away our position with the gasp of awe that had shot up from my quaking stomach. I didn’t even break the twig sitting right next to my foot, despite the fact that my knees had begun to shake so badly that my pants would probably have ridden right down my thighs if I hadn’t been wearing a decent belt.

  I rolled my eyes toward Vayl, who’d thoughtfully clapped his hand across Aaron’s mouth and wrapped another steel-muscled arm across his chest before he could accidentally betray us.

  Can’t be, I mouthed. He nodded. Which was as close as he’d ever get to Can too, Jasmine. Now wrap your mind around this before all your moving parts freeze permanently.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, feeling the air of a rarified plane slide in and out of my nostrils as I accepted the inevitable. I’d just seen one of the most twisted creatures ever created. According to legend the first blemuth had begun life as a dragon’s egg, but once the sorcerer Aliré had shoved his wand and a huge glob of ogre slime into the guts of the poor thing’s DNA, it had very little chance of hatching into anything but what it became: A war machine, programmed to decimate every living thing it encountered. What surprised me was that it had enough soul left to get itself trapped in any sort of afterlife. Most creatures like the blemuth managed to incinerate themselves completely when their time came. The fact that this one had remained to rampage through the Thin worried me more than I liked to let on.

  I caught Vayl’s attention and mimed shivering and then breaking spaghetti between my hands. He understood that I wanted to know if he could freeze the blemuth long enough for us to attempt to hamstring it. When he shrugged, I understood we’d be winging this one. Vayl might be überexperienced, but even he’d never had to face a creature with the reputation for being resistant to attack. As in every. Single. Kind.

  I wondered how keen the Dogs were to complete their mission now they’d seen how much tougher the blemuth was going to make it. They didn’t leave me curious for long. Pointing to each other and then making huge circles with their hands, they let us know that they wanted to be the ones to tackle the creature.

  Hey, the dumbasses wanna be heroes. That’s so damn sexy, said my Inner Bimbo. She spun around on her bar stool, singing, “I think I’m in love, and my life’s lookin’ up.”

  She should let Eddie Money do his own songs. She’s just butchering the hell out of that piece, Granny May murmured. What she really wanted to say was that Bimbetta was sick and twisted, so that was the issue I addressed.

  I said, If not for you it could’ve been worse.

  So true. Granny looked at me, then she pointed to the needlepoint of the cowboy, Zell Culver. Once you’ve unchained Aaron Senior, don’t let him go until you ask him about the cowboy.

  Wow, that was kinda out of the blue, Gran, but okay.

  Sometimes it pays to listen to the voices in your head. Sometimes you end up looking like a complete loon. Soon I’d get to see which category I’d be playing for. But for now I watched the Dogs get into position to take down the blemuth. It wasn’t pretty. Later I figured their lack of good judgment was caused by the fact that they’d been forced to leave their uniforms behind. Some people just don’t think well in civvies. Like the Dogs. Who stood up. Barked. And charged.

  “Why does it always seem like our team is heavily seeded with dumbshits?” I yelled to Vayl as I followed him into the melee.

  He grinned over his shoulder at me. “You are only saying that because we are outnumbered, outsized, and outvicioused.”

  I felt my lips draw back from my teeth, the pre-battle smile brought to life by my lover’s excitement. “Vayl! Did you just make up a word?”

  “Perhaps I did at that.”

  And then we were too surrounded to talk. Vayl and I stood back-to-back with Raoul and Aaron just to our right. Brude’s mercenaries came at us randomly, their attacks as disordered and chaotic as the realm they defended. It worked to our advantage. A foe who fights out of pure emotion leaves plenty of openings for the clear-minded defender to exploit.

  I’m not saying it was easy. Their blades were just as sharp and deadly as ours. But raised too high, or held too far away from the body, they did nothing to protect the most vulnerable spots, the places we’d been taught to target since our rookie days in the field. The moment my sword sliced through a former Nazi’s jugular, I knew we were going to clean up.

  Grunting. The sound of whistling blades, the scream of dying spirits, and I was right. We were winning. I could feel the tide turn before I saw it. Brude’s mercenaries fell at our feet like dead leaves. They hadn’t even managed to cut one of us, so that the smell of our blood would bring more spirits screaming down on our heads. And then the blemuth stepped into the center of our ring, one screaming Dog clutched in each taloned fist.

  It slapped them together like a couple of cymbals and spirit residue fell on our heads like bloody rain. Before the Dogs could melt into the ethos, the blemuth stuffed them into his giant, gap-fanged mouth, crunching them up like fresh celery sticks.

  “Shit!” I yelled, wiping sweat and Dog remains out of my eyes.

  My Spirit Guide skewered two of his foes like they were a couple of chickens headed to the barbecue. Nobody stepped up to take their places right away, which gave him time to yell over to me, “Save yours for later!”

  I said, “Okay!” My opponent, a former member of the Republican Guard, made a stupid move, raising his sword over his head with both hands. I took the advantage and split him like a ripe melon, amazed that the sound of skin tearing and blood spurting still worked here, where so many of the world’s rules had been shattered. I looked over at Raoul guiltily. “That was just too easy. You saw.”

  “Can’t you do one thing without putting your signature o
n it?” Raoul bellowed.

  Vayl snorted. And although he didn’t say anything, I got the picture. Jaz had forgotten how to be a team player. Probably sometime during childhood, when all Evie wanted to do was play Barbies, and Dave couldn’t be distracted from his G.I. Joe’s imaginary missions to, of all places, Pennsylvania.

  Well, fine. If Raoul wanted a prisoner I could probably round one up for him. In fact… the stench of rotten flesh brought my attention to the blemuth. Who was picking pieces of Dog out of his teeth with a bloody talon and, in the brain-scrambled way of his kind, just now deciding what to do next. Something I’d heard years ago swam to the top of my head. A way to tame these huge beasts so that they were forced to obey every command. I couldn’t remember which of my college professors had done the field research, but I decided now was the time to put it to the test.

  I ran toward the blemuth. The closer I got the more I decided the yellow gunk caked under its thick black toenails was probably old, rotten cheese. Wishing for a bandana to tie over my nose, or even a horrible cold, I charged toward the opening between the pads of the blemuth’s first toe and the one right next door.

  Wanting badly to look away, knowing I couldn’t even squeeze my eyes shut, I shoved my sword into the gap between pads, gagging as the smell of foul feet and new blood mixed with the air my body needed for survival. It got even worse when the blemuth bellowed in pain and jerked his foot back, pulling me and the sword I clutched with him.

  “Jasmine!” I heard Vayl call behind me. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking a prisoner!” I yelled back. “Just give me a—” A dry heave stopped me as a big chunk of toenail trash came loose and flew past my head. Knowing I could only dangle from my sword for so long before I was either smashed by the blemuth’s descending foot or so revolted that I willingly jumped to my death, I scrambled to the top of the foot. Which was when I realized the creature was made of more than wisps of soul and cosmos dust. Somehow Brude had managed to import a real live soul-crusher into his realm.

  I knew I was right when the king’s tinny laughter echoed off the insides of my head, leaving spikes of pain every time it bounced off one of the walls that kept it contained. I felt a wetness beneath my nose, pressed it into my shoulder, and knew without looking that blood stained my sleeve. More laughter from Satan’s most dangerous adversary.

  Go ahead and laugh, you fucker. You’re still my prisoner. And soon you’ll be staring down your own execution.

  Silence, sweet and pure as a mountain stream, inside my mind. It allowed me to climb the blemuth’s blue-scaled foreleg with the ease of a kid on a jungle gym. I kept moving up until I’d reached the top of its plated shoulder. I found the joint where a pathetic sort of chicken wing grew out of its upper back, a reminder of what could’ve been if Aliré hadn’t mutilated Mother Nature. Balancing myself on that spot, I drew my knife and shoved it into the blemuth’s scale-covered earlobe. It pinched just enough that he yelped. “Listen up, train wreck. You feel that pain in your foot?”

  He nodded. One fat tear rolled down his snout and plopped so close to Aaron that his pants were soaked from calf to ankle. He jumped and swore, looking up to find the source of the attack. When a snot bubble quickly followed, he dove for cover.

  I might’ve felt sorry for the blemuth. After all, the worst pains often seem to be the smallest. I was gored by a Kyron and shed not a single tear, but paper cuts have made me cry. And he was obviously hurting. Except that part of a Dog’s disguise had gotten caught in his lower tooth and was still dangling out of his mouth. So, yeah, no sympathy for the spirit-eater.

  Instead I said, “I’m the thorn in your paw.” Suddenly I realized. Oh crap. I’m basing this entire idea, not on years of professorial research, but on some kid’s story Granny May read to us that I thought was bogus then! We are so screwed.

  But it was way too late to back out now. So I talked fast, hoping this blemuth’s brains were more scrambled than breakfast eggs at Denny’s. “When you’ve done everything I ask, I’ll stop the pain for good. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. Blinked. A few more tears plopped to the ground. Raoul and Vayl, who were far too self-respecting to run for cover, chose the next best course and ascended the blemuth like a couple of seasoned mountaineers. I kept talking while they climbed, hoping he wouldn’t notice all the “fleas” he’d suddenly attracted.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Daisy.”

  I coughed. “Wh-huh?” My eyes took another roam over the blemuth’s reptilian body. “You want me to call you Daisy?”

  He nodded. “I’m Daisy.”

  I blew out my breath. I’d just temporarily enslaved a gigantic, Dog-eating blemuth named Daisy who, if everything went right, would help us save a trapped spirit. Even Granny May didn’t dare tell me that stranger things had happened. This one broke the scale.

  I called down to Aaron. “Climb up here, ya quivering sack of pudding! We’re taking the express to Brude’s place!”

  Aaron peered up at us, briefly weighed his options, and then shook his head.

  “Another patrol will find you,” Vayl told him. “They are just as capable of eating you alive as this blemuth.”

  Raoul, who’d settled on Daisy’s other wing joint, sat forward to frown at Vayl and me. I shrugged and held up my hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

  Still, Raoul told Vayl, “Your fatherly advice is about as helpful as a case of smallpox.”

  “I was simply telling him the truth.”

  Raoul called down to Aaron, “Why don’t you want to come?”

  “I’m afraid of heights!”

  My Spirit Guide’s frown deepened as he looked over at us. “I don’t suppose either one of you thought to bring rope.”

  “One of our Dogs was carrying some,” I said. “Should we assume it got eaten?”

  “Blech,” said the blemuth.

  “I’ll take that as a no.” I leaned over until I could see the acrophobe. “Yo, Aaron! Look around for the Dog’s pack! It had rope in it!”

  While he searched I said, “Vayl, do you trust me?”

  “Implicitly,” he replied.

  “Then will you let me handle this situation? I think it needs a woman’s touch.”

  He lifted my hand and kissed it, his lips lingering just long enough to remind me that we hadn’t had any us time in so long that my body had started to ache in all the special places only he could touch. “As you like, my love. Only be quick. I sense another patrol approaching.”

  I licked my lips to keep them from pressing against his and climbed down as fast as I could. Yanking Aaron from cover and whispering fiercely, “Quit being a big pussy just when your dad needs you the most,” I pulled the pack from the bush where it had landed when the straps had broken, and jerked the rope out of it. As I unwound it I said, “I’m going to tie this around you. Then I’m going to climb back up there and tie it around the blemuth’s wing. There will be no way you can fall because Raoul and Vayl will also be holding on to the rope and together they’re about as strong as a construction crane. So all you have to do is climb. Got it? Good. How the hell long is this sucker? Shit, we could probably summit Mount Rainier after we’re done here. Come on, turn around.”

  After I knotted Aaron in, I also cut myself a good length and secured it to the pommel of the sword that was still securely jammed between the blemuth’s toes. Taking the ends of both ropes, I wrapped them around my wrist a few times, tucked the raw ends under, and made my climb, all the time saying, “See how easy this is? A monkey could do it. In fact monkeys do it all the time.”

  “Monkeys have tails!” Aaron called.

  “They are also often being chased by bigger monkeys,” Vayl told him. “In your case, that would be another group of Brude’s fighters, closing in on our position more quickly than I anticipated. Is someone bleeding?”

  We all checked ourselves, found no cuts or bruises. Then I realized. “It’s the blemuth. He’s as real as
we are. They’ve got to be smelling his injury.”

  Raoul called down, “Aaron! You have about thirty seconds before we’re surrounded again! Get your ass up here!”

  I glanced at Vayl and whispered, “Raoul said ‘ass.’”

  Vayl’s head descended a notch, his version of a nod. “He seems to be quite excited. I think he may be enjoying this adventure of ours.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “I am with the woman I love and one of my sons. My life has never been so complete.”

  I glanced down. “So how long are we going to let him dangle there before we start pulling him up?”

  “Give him a few more seconds. His character could use some polishing.”

  “You really do love him, don’t you?”

  Vayl sighed down at Junior, who was making the ascension about fifty times more difficult than it had to be. “I love him more than life itself. However I do not like him much yet. I am hoping that will change as we spend more time together.”

  “Aaah!” Aaron looked down, flipped out, lost his grip and slipped a total of twelve inches. Vayl nodded to Raoul, who came over to our side to help haul the kid up. “He’s something next to useless,” Raoul growled.

  “Not everyone was meant to save the world,” Vayl said. He looked down at Aaron fondly. “But the fact that he is trying to rescue his father, despite the fear that hounds him, continues to draw my admiration.”

  I wasn’t sure how impressed Vayl was when Aaron finally joined us at the blemuth’s shoulder, accidentally caught sight of the ground, and passed out. But, having spent some anxious moments inside elevators and, once, a very small closet, I could admit that we’ve all had better moments. Maybe Junior’s were still ahead of him.

  Vayl didn’t seem quite as hopeful. He leaned over his son and brushed his hair back from his forehead. When he looked up the concern made deep furrows between his eyes. “Tell me, does it look to you as if he is fading?”