Hounding The Moon: A Tess Noncoire Adventure

by P. R. Frost

  No time, dahling. Do the best you can.

  I twirled the shaft in both hands, like a baton while my imp completed his transformation. His grinning face leered back at me from the shining metal of the curved blade on the right side.

  Let’s kill the bastards, Scrap said with morbid glee.

  “My thoughts exactly.” An invigorating tingle started at the base of my spine and shot up and out, filling me with resolve and purpose. Adrenaline overcame the need to favor my leg.

  A bat swooped across my field of vision.

  I screamed and tried to hide beneath the Blade.

  It’s just Morris come to help, Scrap cajoled. Isn’t he cute?

  I whimpered.

  Morris won’t hurt you, but that blond Sasquatch will!

  Gregor dropped to all fours and leaped across the room in three bounds. The last one launched him up and forward, directly at me.

  I had no choice. I had to swallow my fear. Murmuring prayers to any God or Goddess that might hear, I met his attack with a curving swish of the staff. The righthand blade sliced neatly through his neck. His body collapsed and twitched. I yanked the blade free of muscle, bone, and gristle.

  Green blood dripped onto the floor.

  “Oops! I’m wearing the wrong color underwear.”

  Kaylor appeared at the door at the head of the pack.

  Two or three could enter at a time, no more.

  I had my work cut out for me.

  The lead demons saw Gregor’s still twitching body and snarled a warning.

  Too late. The left-hand blade severed Kaylor’s spine in midback. He yowled in pain and confusion as his body convulsed. He scrabbled around in a circle lying on the ground. A stench arose as he lost control of his bowels and bladder.

  He didn’t stink any worse dead than alive.

  “Next time, take a shower before you attack someone.”

  Another circle of the blade to adjust my grip while the surge of demons halted just outside my range.

  The bat flew back and forth between us.

  I clenched my jaw and locked my knees so I wouldn’t run screaming into the corner. Not that I could run. But I could stand, as long as I watched my balance and locked that left knee.

  “What’s the matter, boys, afraid of one angry human bitch?” Sarcasm always hid my fears and hurts best.

  A third demon tried to slip under the twirling blade.

  He lost a leg and rolled out of the action.

  Behind you, babe.

  Without thinking, I extended my twisting of the shaft to my back and clobbered a lurking demon.

  Four down, only twenty to go.

  We can hold out longer than they can, Scrap reassured me.

  I wasn’t so sure.

  Three of the demons melted away.

  Three more jumped forward. I shoved the staff to meet their chests. They dropped back, winded but still breathing.

  The bat dove and tangled its claws in their head fur, yanking hard as it flew up.

  The Sasquatch squealed loud enough to wake a Marine out of a dead drunk.

  Better them than me. I had no hope that the Marines would come in time to rescue me. Their weapons wouldn’t do more than bruise these guys.

  “Left!” Cynthia screamed.

  My blade flew back and forth, up and down. Two more stinking bodies littered the ground. Exhaustion crept up my arms to my shoulders and back. My leg burned all the way to the hip. I paid heed to only the next demon. My vision narrowed and turned red.

  I even forgot the bat.

  And then my swirling blade bit nothing more substantial then air. I stumbled at the lack of resistance.

  The Celestial Blade lost substance.

  Eight demon bodies lay piled around me. I caught a glimpse of a cinnamon-brown fuzzy butt tucked between hind legs disappearing out the back door as the last of the Kajiri slunk away.

  Energy and strength drained out of me. Scrap disappeared.

  I bent double, hands on knees, gasping for breath.

  Cynthia touched my back. “Tess, there’s a commotion at the gate.”

  “Of course there is. Rescuers always come a day late and more than a dollar short.” I rose to my knees. Cynthia helped me stand. I stiffened my spine and turned to face the Marines pouring into the compound.

  To mask the shock and horror tremors that filled my body and mind, I whistled a jaunty tune that I couldn’t name, placed Cynthia’s arm around my waist while I leaned on her shoulder. Together we marched (limped) out to meet the Marines.

  I stumbled at the doorway and fell into Gollum’s arms.

  Totally off balance, I dragged us both to the ground.

  He rubbed my back and held my shoulders while I vomited and retched way beyond empty.

  Chapter 36

  “HOW DID THE DEMONS get Cynthia?”

  Showered and dosed with three cups of coffee, I sat on the sofa in the living room of my suite with Gollum. Cynthia stretched out, sound asleep, with her head in my lap. Neither one of us wanted to let go of the other.

  Scrap had shown up long enough to lick the hideous wound on my leg. My blood revived him a little. Enough for him to take on color and pop out to feed elsewhere.

  “I don’t know what happened. I’m sorry. I should never have left her alone,” Gollum apologized for about the fiftieth time. “She was with Sapa over at the office. She must have been returning here, after dark. They grabbed her between the two buildings.”

  He took a big gulp of coffee. “Leonard showed up. I called him like you said I should. We went over to the office to get Cynthia. She wasn’t there. Sapa was agitated. Pacing, growling at everyone, unwilling to leave the blanket to Donovan’s goons. Leonard took off.”

  “He must have hiked up the hill to Fort Snoqualmie and sneaked in under the radar of the Marines,” I said on a regretful sigh. “The boys caught him inside the fence and… and their demonic nature took over. They couldn’t stop themselves.” My coffee threatened to come up again as I remembered all the gory details.

  We endured an eternity of silence, wrapped in our own thoughts and horrors.

  “Is this what my life is going to be like from now on? Horrible deaths and torture for people I like and respect, and then I have to go out and kill monsters who appear to be just misguided teenagers on the outside.”

  “Innocents you don’t know will die, too. More of them will die if you do nothing. The demons are on the move. Somehow, they’ve found a way around the guarded portals. This rogue portal must bypass the chat room.” Gollum stared into his coffee cup as if startled that it was empty. “Either that or the Warriors of the Celestial Blade have become incredibly lax and complacent.”

  “I don’t think so. From what little communication I’ve had with the Citadel, they seem besieged. Under heavy stress and pressure at the portal they guard.”

  “Feints to keep the Sisters from noticing their use of the rogue portal?”

  I shrugged. We sat in silence a while longer. Chills took over my body, upsetting my stomach again.

  “I quit. I’ve had enough blood and gore to last a lifetime. Cynthia is safe. The blanket is safe. This job is done. I quit.” I rose, settling Cynthia’s head on a pillow, then headed toward the bedroom, still limping. I needed another shower.

  “I don’t think it works that way, Tess,” Gollum said quietly. “What are you going to do about Scrap?”

  “Send him back to his own dimension. He can pick a new warrior.” A hole opened in my emotional gut.

  Scrap had filled a big part of my life in the last three years. He’d helped me stop thinking about Dill every minute of the day and get on with my life and my career.

  “I’ve got a book to finish. The demons destroyed my laptop. Can I borrow your machine?” I’d lusted after the top-of-the-line computer since I first saw it.

  “No backups?”

  “Backups!” I dashed for the pile of dirty clothes in the corner. A search of my jeans pockets turned up the flash d
rive. “Thank Goddess for long habits.” I sank to the floor in relief. For a minute I’d feared it lost or destroyed in the battle.

  A bit of my depression left. I could work. I’d forget while I worked.

  For how long?

  “You are wrong about Cynthia and the blanket. Neither of them is safe as long as Donovan Estevez has possession of the blanket,” Gollum reminded me. “Humanity may not be safe while Estevez has possession of the blanket. I think the blanket is the seal to the demon portals. No one is working on it, so the seal is weak.”

  “Where is the bastard, by the way? Do the Marines still have him, or has Homeland Security taken over?”

  “He’s free. They let him go. Apparently, his story of being blackmailed by the ‘terrorists in search of a homeland’ held up. I believe he went back to his house.”

  “Which is where?”

  “On a lake island between here and Dry Falls. I hear it’s guarded like a fortress.”

  “How… how did the Marines explain the demon bodies I left behind?”

  “I don’t think they did. They probably swore themselves to secrecy and burned the remains before the press showed up. What little press they allowed in. Most of the reporters—the legitimate ones anyway—packed up and went home with a story Vlieger spun and altered dramatically.”

  We sat in silence again, I on the floor by the dirty laundry, Gollum in the armchair with his big feet on the coffee table.

  “You should get some sleep,” he said quietly.

  “I don’t think I dare.” Every time I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments, I lived again the sickening sight of demon Sasquatch lunging for me, their fangs dripping green saliva; their dead bodies dripping green blood;

  Leonard’s severed head dripping red gore.

  I lunged for the toilet, vomiting again. The stink nearly set me to retching again.

  Vaguely, I heard a telephone ring. I didn’t care. I just wanted everything to end.

  “Your mother,” Gollum handed me a cell phone while I lay on the floor, resting my cheek against the cool tiles.

  Limply, I held the tiny receiver to my ear.

  A spate of angry, garbled French stabbed at my brain.

  “You spoke French to her!” I accused Gollum.

  “What was I supposed to do? She reverted to it when I gave her the news that you’d been kidnapped. Really weird dialect of it, though.” He shrugged and left me in private with my mother and the crude invention of a language she thought she spoke.

  I let Mom babble on for several minutes, picking out an actual phrase now and then. When she finally wound down, I replied in English, reassuring her that I was indeed safe, I had not been harmed. But no, I was not coming home on the next plane.

  After a bit of negotiation, she agreed to ship me some clothes so I could attend the World Fantasy Convention in a few days. And yes, she would file a claim with my insurance company for the loss of my laptop.

  Or rather she’d tell my sister Cecilia to tell my dad to do it. Maybe I should call him in the morning and make sure the message got through. Cecilia was good at “forgetting” things that might help me.

  We talked for a long time. Slowly, I absorbed my mother’s love for me. Warmth returned to my limbs. My stomach settled, the horror began to fade.

  Despite her eccentricities, her irritating habits, her need to manipulate and control, my mom loved me. And I loved her.

  When my world and balance tilted back toward normal, I allowed her to hang up.

  “Scrap?” I called when we finally disconnected.

  “Scrap, what’s my schedule?”

  No answer.

  The imp, my best friend, had to recover in his own way, much as I did.

  “Gollum, get on the Internet and order me a new computer. My credit card is in my purse. I’m going to bed.”

  Only then did I notice the fat, fluffy white cat sitting in his lap. The beast blinked green eyes at me. It opened its mouth in a satisfied grin as if he’d just swallowed the canary.

  I hate cats, Scrap whimpered into my mind. He sounded stuffy and insecure.

  Chapter 37

  “IF THE BLANKET is a metaphysical seal on the demon portal, why don’t the demons just burn the blanket?” I asked at dawn as I stretched out in preparation for a run.

  Gollum roused himself from where he’d fallen asleep in the armchair, his laptop across his knees, the screen gone black in sleep mode. He looked all tousled and vulnerable, approachable, likable.

  Then he adjusted his glasses back onto his blade of a nose and put an impenetrable emotional barrier between himself and the world.

  His cat peeked out from beneath the chair. I hissed at it.

  It hissed back at me.

  If the beast was keeping Scrap from me, then I wanted it gone. I’d spent too much time without him in that creepy warehouse at Fort Snoqualmie up on the plateau.

  “You say something?” Gollum looked just a little baffled and confused, but his eyes focused clearly.

  I wondered briefly if he truly needed the glasses.

  I repeated my question.

  “For the same reason they didn’t destroy it the first time they took possession of it.” He straightened up and placed the laptop on the coffee table. Idly, he reached down to scratch the cat’s ears. It leaned into his caress and purred.

  “Which is?” I asked, ignoring the interplay between the man and his pet.

  For a moment I wished Scrap were more tangible so we could pet and cuddle like Gollum and his cat.

  “I haven’t figured that out yet. But there has to be a reason why the demons protect the blanket even if they work just as hard to keep it out of the hands of a weaver.”

  “I’m going for a run. You might wake Cynthia. We’ll go to breakfast when I get back.”

  Our charge still slept on the sofa. At some point he’d placed a blanket over her and she had cuddled into it, looking once more like the child she was rather than the tortured adult she had been forced to become yesterday.

  “Breakfast, yes. Good idea,” he mumbled. The cat meowed, demanding its own meal.

  “And you might go back to your own room and clean up. You know you could have slept there last night. And take the cat with you.”

  “You might have needed me. I expected you to have nightmares.” He lifted the cat and held it close to his face, all the while scratching its ears.

  “Well, I didn’t.” I’d had nightmares. But I’d dealt with them in my own way, by outlining the next scene of my book in my head. If all those horrible things happened to my characters, then perhaps I could persuade myself they hadn’t happened to me.

  I couldn’t dismiss the burning demon wound. It would leave a scar. I was growing a collection of them. I’d run on it anyway. If I let it interfere with my life, then the demons had won.

  “I want the cat gone by the time I get back. Scrap hates it and Scrap is more important than your pet.”

  My slow run through town and along the lake, with frequent breaks to rest my leg, cleared my mind. While my feet made slight indentations in the salt-encrusted sand I looked for traces of the cave I had found across the water. Too many cracks and crevices defined the landscape for me to find the specific spot where ghosts had loomed over me and Donovan’s minion had shot at me.

  All the while, the briny scent of the lake water filled me and refreshed me. People had been coming here for many generations to find healing in the waters. A lot of them had stayed to continue the beneficial effects of both the lake water and the slow, low stress, pace of life here.

  Until Donovan decided to build a casino.

  I could see men swarming over the half-finished structure today. He hadn’t wasted any time getting back to work.

  Maybe his primary concern was merely the financial commitment to the casino. Maybe he was merely another victim of the overzealous demon children.

  Maybe he was more.

  I had no way to tell at this point. My focus had to be
to keep Cynthia and the blanket safe. Permanently.

  I turned away from the lake, crossed the deserted highway, and sent my feet pounding along a dirt trail. Memories of my first visit to this area flooded through me.

  Dill grubbing in the dirt for a choice geological specimen and coming up with a near perfect arrowhead.

  We’d exclaimed over the treasure, hugged, and kissed.

  Sister Mary showing me how to properly hold a bow and nock the arrow with a similar broad arrowhead. “It won’t kill a demon, but it will slow him down while your imp rests,” she explained patiently as she guided my hands to find a proper aim for the straw target fifty yards distant.

  Dill patiently climbing a rock face, expertly seeking hand- and toeholds. I waited anxiously at the base of the cliff, my heart in my mouth as he braced himself with one hand and his feet, tiny pickax in his hand. Dirt fell into my face as he chipped away the effluvia that held a fossil in place. Then his wild and exultant slide back to me with an ugly lump of rock in his hand that looked like every other rock but delighted him.

  Sister Electra sparring with me, forcing me to push myself beyond my physical and mental limits. Me shouting in triumph as I finally found an opening in her defenses and sent her sprawling on the ground, both of us panting from the effort and wiping sweat from our eyes.

  My ankle twisted on the uneven trail and my weakened leg nearly gave out on me. I turned around and headed back toward the lake. My body told me I’d had enough exercise. My mind rebelled, wanting more physical effort to help banish the memories.

  Little puffs of red dust sprang up with each pounding footstep. The dust was real. Here. Tangible. Just like the black clouds scudding across the sky to the west, obscuring the top of a nameless peak. A flash of lightning revealed jagged and tortured rock formations. The sharp smell of ozone replaced the dusty dryness, purging the air and my mind of the past that tried to rule my thoughts and actions today.

  My rental SUV was parked in front of my room at the lodge when I returned. Lieutenant Vlieger in crisp fatigues, along with a man wearing a dark suit and sunglasses, sat on the steps leading to my room. The suit positively screamed Homeland Security or FBI. They rose, as one, at my approach.