Alexandra let out an unsteady giggle. “I…didn’t think of it that way.” Her laughter faded. “Would the Knight be upset that we crossed his demesne?”
“Probably not,” I said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you and I are nobodies. I know a little magic, and you’re an event coordinator. We’re not the kind of people that a lord of a Shadowlands demesne would care about. So long as we don’t actively piss him off, I doubt he’ll notice or care.”
“How would we piss him off?” said Alexandra, stepping carefully over a root.
“Don’t know,” I said. We reached the edge of the trees, and I saw the castle waiting ahead. It was another mile or so. My ankles and calves were starting to hurt from walking over the uneven ground in high heels. Next time I did something like this, I would disguise myself as a janitor or a waitress or someone with an excuse to wear comfortable shoes. “Let’s get out of here before we accidentally find out.”
I took another step forward and froze.
“What is it?” said Alexandra.
I gestured for her to be quiet.
Something was moving in the trees to my left. I went motionless, listening, but heard nothing but the unending cold wind of the Shadowlands making the glowing leaves upon the trees rustle and moan. Damned hard to hear anything moving through that. My heart pounded against my ribs. There were any number of things that might be stalking us. Perhaps was best to run for the ruined castle. Or to simply open a rift way here and take our chances with where it deposited us.
Then I saw the dark shape moving along the edge of the trees, head rotating back and forth like a dog lifting its nose to smell the wind. It was a tall, thin man in a crisp black suit, his face pale and gaunt, his black hair slicked back from his skull, his eyes like black pits in his face.
The anthrophages I had fought outside of the Silver Dollar had looked just like that.
Which meant that they had found me again.
Chapter 5: Intruders
I grabbed Alexandra’s arm and leaned up to whisper in her ear.
“Keep quiet,” I hissed. “Don’t make a sound, and follow me.”
“What going on?” said Alexandra. At least she had the sense to whisper. “That man…couldn’t he help us?”
“That’s not a man,” I said. “And for God’s sake shut up. If it finds us we’re dead.”
Alexandra swallowed and nodded, her eyes wide, and she followed me as we retreated into the trees, their eerie blue glow painting the ground. I shot a look at the ruins of the castle. It was about a mile away. If we ran in a dead sprint, we might be able to make it, assuming we didn’t twist an ankle on the way. But the anthrophages were fast, and in open country they could run us down without much effort. For that matter, I would need at least a few moments to pull together my magic and open the rift way back to Earth. It would be easy for the anthrophages to kill me while I cast the spell.
But I didn’t think the anthrophage had noticed us yet.
It looked, at least for now, like a man strolling through a shop, looking for a particular item. If I hurried, maybe we could hide long enough for the anthrophage to wander away.
I stopped beneath one of the twisted trees, the blue light from its leaves falling over us. That made us too visible, so I took a couple further steps back, until my back was almost to the glossy black trunk. Alexandra followed, casting nervous glances at me and at the disguised anthrophage. The creature still hadn’t noticed us, at least as far as I could tell, but I suspected it thought I was nearby.
Else why would it be here…and wearing an identical disguise to the ones I had seen at the Silver Dollar?
“Listen to me,” I whispered. Alexandra gave a sharp nod, her earrings flashing in the light. “Don’t move. I’m going to touch you and cast a spell that will make us…harder to see.” I didn’t want to tell her that I could work illusion magic, but she would probably figure that out on her own. “Also, don’t touch those leaves. I don’t know what they do, and I really don’t want to find out.”
Alexandra nodded again, her eyes wide, her breath coming sharp and hard. She was afraid, but she was controlling it. Hell, I couldn’t blame her for that the fear. God knows that I was terrified. In fact, I had a better reason to be terrified.
I knew exactly what the anthrophages would do to us.
The dark-suited form moved closer. I cleared my mind, gathering magical power, and cast a spell. Silver light shimmered around my fingers, and I gestured with my left hand, reaching up to put my right hand on Alexandra’s shoulder.
As I did, my spell Cloaked us both.
I hoped it would be enough. We might have been invisible and undetectable…but nothing would stop the anthrophage from blundering into us by accident. The creatures had keen noses, and they could follow our scent right up until they walked into us. If the anthrophage hadn’t yet scented us, it would go in search of other prey. If it had caught our scent, it would not stop hunting until it found us, and then we found have to fight.
I could deal with one anthrophage. Guns didn’t work in the Shadowlands, and neither did electronics (I had bricked poor Alexandra’s phone by bringing it with me), but Corvus had taught me a spell to unleash a globe of lightning. I could hit the anthrophage with enough lightning to kill it, or at least incapacitate it, and then Alexandra and I could run like hell for the castle.
The trouble was that anthrophages hunted in packs. If this one found us and sounded the alarm, its friends would arrive in short order to kill us and eat us.
Hopefully in that order.
I stayed motionless, watching as the anthrophage circled the edge of the eerie little forest. The creature’s hands were tucked in its trouser pockets, and I wondered if that was an affectation of its disguise, or if its hands were simply cold. The anthrophage looked for all the world like a man out for an evening stroll…if people went for evening strolls in the Shadowlands.
Alexandra remained motionless next to me, and I heard the harsh rasp of her breathing. I wondered if I should have warned her about the anthrophage’s true appearance. If the creature changed form suddenly, and she screamed…
Well, too late to worry about it now.
The anthrophage went motionless directly in front of us, about thirty yards away, and I waited. Little spasms went through my limbs from the effort of holding the Cloak in place. The anthrophage’s head rotated back and forth, its nostrils flaring, and its gaze turned towards the ruined castle and the dark river. Perhaps something had captured its attention, and the creature would wander off.
Then the anthrophage’s head snapped around to look right at me.
Alexandra shivered, trembling a little beneath my fingers. I wanted to snap at her to be quiet, but I didn’t dare make any sound. The anthrophage went motionless as a statue, its deep black eyes seeming to sink right into me. I stared back at it, my heart thundering in my ears, sweat slithering between my shoulder blades from the effort of holding the Cloak in place.
I couldn’t have told you how long we stood like that. No more than a minute or two, surely, but it felt like hours. Still the damned anthrophage did not move. Maybe it would just stand there until I could no longer maintain the Cloak…
The creature dropped to all fours, its face pressed to the ground, its arms and legs bending like those of an insect. Alexandra shuddered at the grotesque sight. The anthrophage crawled back and forth over the ground like a giant black-suited spider, its nose pressed close to the earth, and as it drew nearer I heard it sniffling. It was following our scent, and in only a few moments it was going to follow our trail to where we stood Cloaked.
Cold certainty closed around me like a fist.
Just as well. I couldn’t maintain the Cloak for much longer anyway. I prepared myself for what I would have to do. Or I tried to, anyway, since the Cloak absorbed all my power and concentration.
I would have to be quick.
“Be ready,” I rasped out, and I released the Cloak in the same instant.
There was a flicker of silver light, and we became visible. Alexandra looked back and forth between me and the anthrophage, her eyes wide and wild. I staggered to the left, wobbling a bit as a wave of dizziness washed through me. Magical exhaustion is a bit like exercising too hard and too long without staying hydrated, and it took every bit of strength I had to focus my will for another spell.
The anthrophage’s head snapped up, its black eyes staring at me, and a wide smile spread over its gaunt face.
A smile that was too wide and too sharp for a human.
The anthrophage’s body rippled and changed as it discarded its human guise. Its skin turned gray and glistening, black fangs filling its mouth and black claws like daggers bursting from its fingers. Its eyes turned into venomous yellow pits, its nose a triangular black crater. Black spines burst from its back, shredding its jacket, and the creature’s vile smell washed over me, a mixture of sulfur and rotting meat. The anthrophage leapt to its feet, still wearing the black suit, and launched itself forward, claws reaching for me. Alexandra was screaming, and I couldn’t really blame her, because the anthrophage looked like something from the imagination of a deranged artist on powerful drugs.
Fortunately, it had taken the creature a few heartbeats to discard its human guise, and that was all the time I needed to catch my breath and summon more power for a magical spell. I summoned as much of it as I could hold, until a torrent of fire roared through me at the uttermost limits of my control.
The anthrophage was only a few paces from me when I cast my spell, which was just as well, since I almost made a botch of it. The power took shape and burst from my hand, and a globe of bluish-white lightning the size of my head erupted from my fingers. It wobbled on its axis, and likely would have missed the anthrophage entirely, but the creature was only a few feet away.
So the globe hit the anthrophage in the face with gratifyingly dramatic results.
The anthrophage’s head snapped backwards, crawling fingers of lightning shooting up and down its limbs. The creature’s snarling voice rose in a furious scream of pain, and it staggered back, its claws slashing at the air. Alexandra shrieked, and I drew in my power, trying to ignore my aching head, and cast the spell once more. Another globe of lightning spun from my fingers and struck the anthrophage’s head, and more bolts snarled up and down its body. Its grayish hide blackened and charred, and it fell upon its side, smoke rising from a crater in its forehead.
The smell was absolutely horrendous. Burned flesh smells bad enough, but burned anthrophage smelled as if I had poured a bucket of rotting entrails and hair clippings into a fire. It made me glad that I hadn’t eaten breakfast.
Nothing else moved in the forest.
I let out a long breath, making sure not to breathe through my nose.
“Oh my God,” said Alexandra. “Oh my God, oh my God. Oh, Jesus.”
“If you keep pestering him like that, he’ll never answer,” I said.
Alexandra blinked at me, her blue eyes full of tears, and I felt a little bad.
“What was that thing?” said Alexandra.
“Anthrophage,” I said. “Creature of the Shadowlands.”
“Yes, but…what is it?” said Alexandra.
“Don’t really know,” I said. I gripped her shoulder and steered her forward. The anthrophage had been alone, but anthrophages always hunted in packs. Best to be back on Earth before the dead anthrophage’s friends found the corpse. “They can disguise themselves as humans when they want, and they…uh, well, they eat us. They’re pretty smart, too, and are hard to fool. It was smelling the ground. My spell hid us from sight, and it blocked our scent as well, but the anthrophage could still smell the trail we had left. It would have walked into us sooner or later.”
“What did you do to it?” said Alexandra. “That light came from your hands…”
“Lightning,” I said. “Elemental magic.”
She blinked at that. “I thought…human women don’t usually learn magic. Were you part of the Wizards’ Legion?”
“I told you,” I said, “you can’t ask me who I am.” If she started thinking along those lines, she might figure out that I had turned both of us invisible. Then she might realize that I had used illusion magic, and the less that she knew about me, the better off we all would be. “Let’s go before our dead anthrophage’s friends start looking for it. Or for me.”
“For you?” said Alexandra, pulling her torn blouse and blazer closed again. “You’ve…seen these things before?”
“Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t tell her about Paul McCade and the cult of the Dark Ones. “I ticked them off a couple of weeks ago. They’ve been following me ever since.”
“What did you do to tick them off?” said Alexandra.
“They tried to eat me, and I objected,” I said.
Alexandra blinked, let out a hysterical little laugh, and then got herself back under control. “That was just terribly rude of you.”
“Wasn’t it?” I said. We reached the edge of the trees again, and I saw the crumbling gray stones of the ruined castle, the bleak mountains rising in the distance. “Then let’s get out of here before we have the chance to be rude to them again.”
“Oh, God, yes,” said Alexandra. “I think…”
A wet, rumbling chuckle cut off her words.
I whirled so fast my heels cut a half-circle into the dirt beneath my feet.
A white shape moved through the trees with slow deliberation, coming towards us. For a moment my brain could not make sense of the sight, but then it snapped into focus.
It was an anthrophage, but one unlike any I had seen before.
My first thought was that it looked like a corrupt Southern sheriff from 20th and 21st century pre-Conquest movies. The creature looked like an enormously fat man, almost as wide as he was tall, and it wore a white suit with a white vest, white shirt, and silken white tie. Yet the creature was obviously not human. It had the gray skin of an anthrophage, the fang-lined mouth, the black claw-tipped fingers, the triangular crater for a nose and the malevolent yellow eyes. The other anthrophages had been gaunt and emaciated, yet the rolls of fat somehow made this anthrophage look more threatening, almost like a fat spider lurking in its web. Despite its bulk, the anthrophage moved with fluid, light grace.
And it was laughing, its yellow eyes fixed upon me. Its neck bulged out as it laughed, making the creature look like a huge carnivorous toad.
“Right,” I muttered, raking my hand through the air as I summoned more power and forced it into a spell. Blue-white light flared around my hand, and a globe of lightning spun into existence over the tips of my fingers. I focused my will and flung the globe at the bloated anthrophage. I hadn’t conjured enough lightning to kill it, but hopefully the spell would stun the thing long enough for us to escape.
The anthrophage made no effort to dodge. Still chuckling, it lifted a clawed hand and gestured. Purple-black flames shimmered around its claws, and I realized that the anthrophage was casting a spell of its own. My lightning sphere struck him and shattered in a spray of brilliant blue-white sparks, leaving him untouched.
The thing could cast spells, just as the anthrophage I had killed in Los Angeles had done.
The bloated creature’s rasping, wet laughter got louder.
“Oh, God,” whispered Alexandra. “What are we going to do?”
“Nice suit,” I said, keeping my eyes on the anthrophage as I tried to think of something clever.
“Thank you,” rasped the anthrophage in English, its yellow eyes fixed upon me.
“But it does make you look like a big damned snowball,” I said. “A big damned snowball with the head of a carnivorous frog. It’s not an appealing look. You know, you could try exercising, lose some weight. You’d feel better. Start small. Maybe a walk a couple of times a week, some light weight training, a…”
“The masters said,” rumbled the anthrophage, “that you were overly fond of words. In this, as in so many other things, t
he masters were correct.”
“The masters?” I said, my mind racing. Likely the ‘masters’ meant the Dark Ones, which made a twisted sort of sense. There had been no surviving witnesses to my actions at Paul McCade’s mansion, save for Corvus himself, and I didn’t think that the Shadow Hunters would send anthrophages to kill me.
Not when they could do it themselves so easily.
But a Dark One had possessed McCade when I had helped kill him. We’d killed McCade, but the Dark One had just been banished back to the Void. If the Dark Ones could communicate from the Void to their servants here, that would explain why the anthrophages sought me.
“You offended the masters greatly,” said the anthrophage, “so they have decreed your death. This, at least, shall be no hardship.” His smile widened, showing his black fangs, and his yellow eyes glittered with hunger. “My pack failed to find you, so I may feast upon you myself. Young human females are a fine meal. Especially…ah! Neither have you have yet borne children.” His gleaming tongue slithered over the black fangs. “Your wombs will be rich with potential life. Such a splendid feast you shall make!”
“Yeah,” I said, drawing the word out as my mind raced. “That’s not creepy or anything.” The anthrophage walked towards us with slow, patient steps. It was taking time to enjoy itself, like a man savoring the smell before digging into a good steak. Alexandra and I were both backing away step by step, trying to keep our distance from the creature. I shot a glance over my shoulder, but I didn’t see any other anthrophages lurking behind us. Likely the fat anthrophage really did want to eat us alone.
I wondered how many people it had eaten to become so fat.
Yet I noticed that the anthrophage took care to avoid the blue-glowing leaves on the low-hanging branches of the trees. I didn’t know what they were, but if the anthrophage was avoiding them, then likely I had been correct to assume they were dangerous.
“What are you?” said Alexandra, her voice quavering. “Why are you doing this? We’ve done nothing to you!”
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