A Shot in the Dark

by K. A. Stewart

  I called his kind Skin demons, the animalistic Abrams tanks of Hell, and the Yeti was the biggest I’d ever seen or heard of. Though he moved along on all fours, it was more of an apelike walk, leaning on the front limbs only as a convenience. Fully upright, he’d top me by a good four feet, and his forelegs were as long as I was tall. Christ, was he this big last time? Or was my own remembered agony coloring my perceptions?

  He’d changed, that was for sure. He’d been a four-legged death machine when I’d faced him last, but more like a polar bear than a gorilla. He’d grown strong enough in just four years to come back across the veil into the real world, and he was closer to humanoid this time. He was evolving.

  “Jesse James Dawson.” Oh yeah, he remembered me. His oil-slick voice oozed into my head, and I fought the urge to hunch my shoulders against the intangible taint. He came to the edge of the clearing, his muzzle wrinkling as he sniffed the air. “You reek of fear.”

  “You try staying cooped up in a cabin with six other guys and no shower for a couple days. You’d reek too.” I rested my hand loosely on my sword, mostly because it would stop the shaking. He was right, I was freaking terrified. He was standing yards away, but in my mind I could feel that hot breath on my face, feel those claws digging their way into my rib cage. You beat him once. You can do it again. That was getting me nowhere. I tried again. A samurai does not fear death, only a bad death. Yeah, that didn’t help much either. Not in the face of that.

  “What do you want, little man?” As if he was thoroughly bored with me already, he rubbed his curved horns against a nearby tree, stripping bark in wide swathes and gouging deep into the heartwood.

  “I think it’s more about what you want. You’re here for me, right?” He smiled, exposing great white fangs as big as my palm, and didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. “So let’s deal.”

  The chuckle was more of a growl. “What makes you think you have anything I want?”

  I got to answer with a chuckle of my own. “Oh come on. I handed you your ass four years ago. I spanked you all the way back down to Hell, and that was after you got a look at my insides. You know you want a piece of me again.” That wasn’t entirely accurate, but it got the job done.

  The Yeti swung his massive head in my direction, claws raking lines in the forest floor. I could smell the sulfur of his breath as he snarled. “You got lucky, sack of meat. And this time, I will finish the meal I began.” He snapped his teeth on empty air, and I was insanely proud of myself for not flinching.

  “Then this is the part where we start discussing boundaries and whether or not we can see other people.” I moved my scabbard and dropped down into a crouch I could hold for hours. I’d need to, if this negotiation went like normal. “You wanna start, or should I?”

  “Stakes!” he barked. Of course. Always know the reward for your toils. “I will return the soul of Zane David Quinn.”

  Oh that was just pathetic. “Nice try, and no dice. I will, however, take the soul of Zane Christopher Quinn.” I shook my finger at him admonishingly, and I was secretly proud that I’d thought to ask the kid’s full name the night before. Sometimes, Jesse is smart. Not often, but sometimes. “Tsk-tsk, you can do better than that. And just for that, I want his soul, and I want a promise of safety for everyone inside that cabin.”

  He growled, something I could feel vibrating through the earth where I sat. “And what do you offer?”

  “I offer the soul of Jesse James Dawson.” I hoped he’d accept it. It was all I had, after all.

  He actually paused to think about it, the bastard. His head swayed back and forth, rattling twigs out of the lower tree branches. Finally, his eyes flared red, and he snarled, “Done!”

  A black slash seared across the back of my hand, from the first knuckle almost to my wrist, and the smell of burning flesh filled the air around me. The mark had delicate little hooks at each end, the beginnings of a more elaborate design.

  Shit, that always hurt. The pain would pass in a moment, but that first burn was always startling, always the worst. Even more startling was the fact that he’d accepted my terms. Safety for the guys had come way too easy. I’d screwed up already, somehow, even if I couldn’t see it yet. If I could figure it out before this was over, maybe I could compensate.

  “Weapons.” We’d trade off like that, one of us making a demand, the other agreeing or vetoing. And every single word was so very important.

  “I will fight with what I am given.” He flexed his claws at me, waiting for me to make assumptions about his weapon choices. Assumptions are bad, m’kay?

  “No. Declare it.” I watched him closely. His efforts at deception were amateur at best. He was playing me, somehow. A demon didn’t get to be that strong by being bad at his job.

  My demand was followed by another growl, but he conceded. “Claw, and fang, and horn.”

  “I will fight with a melee weapon of my choice.”

  “NO!” Something in my insides went to jelly at that roar, and I heard it bounce off the mountain, echoing back at us. “Declare it!”

  Damn, he called me out on that one. “I will fight with this sword.” I drew my katana from its scabbard, holding it up for display. “The sword that ripped your throat out and sent you back to Hell once before.”

  I hate being pinned to one weapon. If my sword broke, or mysteriously disappeared sometime before the big fight, I’d be screwed.

  “Done.” Another acceptance, another flash of pain as the terms seared into my very skin. This time, my grimace was more of a smile. I’d won that round, though an onlooker might not realize it. In agreeing to only his physical weapons, the Yeti had forfeited any use of his magic. Sadly, so had I, but since I didn’t have any magic, it was a small loss.

  “Your call, fuzz ball.”

  His head swayed a bit, muzzle wrinkling as he sniffed the air, pretending to be deep in thought. “Aid.”

  Oh, that was a laugh. Like I was going to even dream of going up against him and his pets. “A one-on-one fight, just you and me.”

  The mammoth creature blew out a breath, the reek of sulfur hanging heavy in the air, before nodding his horned head. “These will not aid me.” He gestured to the trees above, and I looked up to realize that there were at least five of the gaunt minions up there, all watching me with the same black eyes. “And the ones in the cabin will not aid you.”

  This one was tricky. “These” was such a mutable term. Did he mean “these five here,” or “these types of creatures,” or . . . ? And what did he define as aid? Marty couldn’t reinforce my armor? Cam couldn’t say a prayer for me (not that I’d ask him to, but just as an example)?

  Still, he’d left me a loophole too. Only those in the cabin were banned from helping me. If they left the cabin, however . . . Or even better, if I could call in Ivan and the cavalry . . . It was all about the letter of the contract. There was no spirit to it.

  Did I call him on it, force a better deal, or recognize the danger and take the loophole? I pondered that for a few moments, before nodding. “Done.” Zap, another streak of black wound itself through my flesh.

  It was a weak term. He knew it, I knew it, and we both moved on. I personally thought I had the best of that deal. I knew what he’d throw at me. He had no idea what those brilliant lunatics in that cabin might come up with.

  We addressed armor. I wanted some, and just because I didn’t have mine on me at this moment didn’t mean that I couldn’t come up with some later. It took some flattery on my part (“You have that thick pelt—it’s only fair. Do you think your claws can’t open me up through a thin layer of metal?”) but he accepted.

  We couldn’t agree on a “where.” My answers were too vague for him, and his were obviously designed to put me at a disadvantage. We argued that one point for forty-five minutes, while the sun crept westward and the light shifted in my favor. There was something comforting about basking in that warm glow while the big fur ball cringed farther and farther into the trees. Even so,
I wanted this done. The sun would pass beyond me soon, and then the trees’ shadows would creep back in my direction. I didn’t want to be out here when that happened.

  “A clear area, at least forty feet in diameter, with no innocent lives to endanger.”

  “I did not ask about dimensions or populations, I said WHERE?” His white-furred fist hit the ground, causing a minor explosion of soft forest soil. He really wasn’t going to let this one go. “Will these mountains suffice for you? You have the whole range to choose from, to find your ‘clear area.’ ”

  It’d have to do. Pissing him off any further wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Besides, the “where” was easily manipulated by the “when?” I agreed, and he growled at me, indicating that it was my turn to name the next term.

  “When I call your name.”

  That brought him up short, and he shuffled back and forth on his huge paws for a bit. I knew what he was thinking. On the one hand (paw?), it allowed me to completely control my environment. I could make sure we were somewhere without collateral damage; I could make sure I was armed and armored. Hell, I could wait a year and never call the fight due, if I wanted.

  On the other hand, calling him by name meant he could get to this plane, fully formed and ready to brawl. He could ride my voice (if Axel was to be believed) across the veil on that one word, without any drain on himself. Just mentioning his name made it swim to the surface of my mind, and my mouth went dry. I’d never spoken a demon name, had sworn I never would. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

  Yes, I knew what advantage I was giving him. But if I was going to have any chance at all in fighting him, I had to delay this as long as possible.

  The word “done” wisped through the air, and my forearm burned in response. The design stretched from my knuckles almost all the way to my elbow in sharp angles and impossible swirls. Like Zane’s brand, it writhed if I looked at it too long, and made my head ache.

  The minions in the trees shifted a bit, the first sound they’d made since they perched themselves above us, and I glanced upward. They were all looking at me now. Well, they’d been looking at me all along, but now, their gaze held some kind of hungry anticipation, and two of them slid a few feet down the trunk they were clinging to, getting closer. What in the world had drawn their attention?

  That’s when I felt the barest caress across the back of my knuckles where they rested on my knees. It was the feeling of a soap bubble, opening slowly around an intrusion.

  Cam’s spell had reached me.

  I stood up, dropping my sword into my hand again as I stepped back away from the ever-shrinking barrier, and the Yeti chuckled deep in his barrel chest. “I think we are finished here, champion. I will listen for your call.” He stepped backward, fading into the safety of the shadows.

  “Wait. I’m not done! You will let us leave here!” Dammit, I wasn’t ready to let him go.

  The darkness itself seemed to laugh. “I think not.”

  “Motherfu- . . .” Wasn’t going to do any good. He was gone, and his pets faded back into the canopy. I expected a demon to try to screw me in a deal. Didn’t expect him to just walk out on one. Every time, a new trick.

  Hours spent in a crouch left me stiff, and I hobbled the few yards back to the cabin. Maybe Dr. Bridget was right. Maybe I was getting too old for this crap.

  The walk to the cabin was shorter than I would have liked, proving just how small our consecrated area had become. The spring would be exposed by now. I hoped we had enough water to last. Last for how long? Shit, I didn’t know. I had to find a way to get them all out of here, to get help for Zane. If the spelled area kept shrinking at this pace, we had one more day, tops.

  Cole opened the door for me as I stepped up on the porch, and I got the impression that he’d been standing vigil for me for the last few hours. The smell of food hit me like a ton of bricks, and I suddenly realized how very hungry I was.

  “I don’t know what it is, but it smells good.”

  My little brother grabbed my arm as I tried to slip past him. “What’s the deal, Jess?”

  I looked down at his hand on my arm, then back up with a raised brow. “The deal is I’m hungry. Who cooked?”

  He ignored me. “When are you fighting?”

  “When I choose. I have to call his name.” I lowered my voice to answer him. “Then I intend to take my sword and lop off his furry head. Any more questions?” Honestly, it was no one’s business, except maybe Zane, and I didn’t feel like discussing it in an open forum. All I really wanted was breakfast. Well, lunch by now. I stared at Cole until he released my arm, and went to fill up my plate.

  Lunch was a silent affair. We huddled over our plates of nondescript slabs of venison and some canned baked beans. Nobody talked, really, but I could feel their eyes on me. Mostly on my newly tattooed arm. By now, they all knew what it meant.

  Nobody really had the guts to ask me about it, and I didn’t feel like offering up any information. That’s the thing about demon slaying. Ultimately, it’s a very solitary activity. They couldn’t help me. I was on my own.

  I spent a lot of time thinking about what the hell I was going to do, but quite honestly, I wasn’t having a lot of luck with it. Calling the fight due now, when I had no armor, was just suicidal. I’d faced the Yeti like that once. I had no illusions about surviving it a second time. But I had no idea how to get the guys out of here safely. The Yeti wasn’t just going to let us wander down the trail whistling “Dixie.” Every scenario I ran through in my head ended badly. Very badly.

  There was some small discussion among the others about trying to get the hell out, but about the time they started that, the shade from the tall trees was creeping up on the front porch. The minions weren’t openly prowling the clearing, but we could see them slipping in and out of the brush, testing the boundaries of the light and Cam’s spell. None of the guys were crazy or desperate enough to want to brave the night with those things out there. Yet.

  By morning, the consecrated ground would be gone. And since Axel had proven that Cam’s wards were strained at best, I knew we’d have to move then. Seemed like everyone else knew it, too. They started packing up their gear in somber silence, and we ate dinner without saying a word.

  We knew the moment the sun set, because that was when the voices starting howling from the woods again. They were closer this time, sounding like they were right under the damn windows. There were more kids’ voices this time, like they’d figured out the perfect way to rattle us.

  Standing at the front window, I could see the dark shapes moving against the forest. In the dark, in the trees, it was impossible to count them. They clambered through the trees, dangled from branches, scurried over each other without regard to any law of physics. Occasionally, one would stop, raise its head, and we would hear a voice calling out of the dark, pleading, enticing.

  Even knowing the lure was there, protected against it, I could feel the pull, somewhere below my ribs, just in front of my spine. That was the part of me that would feel better, feel calm, if I could just put one foot in front of the other, just walk out the door to the waiting calls. It wasn’t overwhelming, and knowing it was there made it easier to resist, but it was enough to make everyone unsettled, almost queasy. Either that, or the venison had turned. Same sensation.

  The guys bunked down to try to get what sleep they could, but no one really expected to be well rested come dawn.

  Marty found me by the window after a while and stood with me in silence, the both of us watching the night grow darker. Finally, he cleared his throat a little, his voice coming out hoarse. “One of them sounds like Mel.” When I looked down, there was anguish in his eyes, a strain in his face that he was trying very hard not to let me see.

  I tilted my head, trying to listen for that particular voice without success. If he said one of them sounded like his wife Melanie, I would have to take him at his word. No one would know her voice better than he. “She’s fine, Marty. She
’s at home, or out with Mira, probably shopping or baking or whatever it is they do when we’re not around.”

  “Then why do I hear her out there? Calling for help, calling my name . . .” He pressed his hand against the windowpane and it fogged up immediately, leaving a ghostly palm on the glass. The temperature had dropped during the day. Autumn had arrived in the Rockies while we were busy with other things.

  “Because you miss her, man. Because right now, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.” Okay, I made that up, but it was as good an answer as any. “You think I don’t want to be home right now, with Mira and the kids? It’s just your mind playing tricks on you.”

  I had to wonder, though . . . Axel’s earlier comment about the voices niggled at the back of my brain. They had no voices, he said. Voices, which were our doorways to our souls. They had no souls, then? They mimicked others, aping something they could no longer do on their own. I had to wonder, did they have souls at one time? If so, what were they before? As human as they looked, the thought unsettled me to my core.

  “But what if it’s really her? What if they found her, took her?” His eyes searched the clearing out front, looking for the source of his wife’s voice. With night fully fallen now, he’d never be able to see the minions creeping around out there. “The baby . . .”

  “Marty, she’s fine. I promise you, she is not out there.” Oh please don’t let me have just lied to him. Marty hadn’t signed up for this shit. This wasn’t his fight, wasn’t his fault. But he was stuck in it, just like the rest of us, because of me. How do you apologize for something like that? Can you, even?

  He gave me a bleak look. “Easy enough for you to say. It’s not Mira calling for help out there.” He wandered over to where Cam and the others had started bedding down by the fire, and burritoed up in his bedroll, trying to muffle the sounds with the down sleeping bag.