by Tom Deitz
There was almost no pain this time, and it came so quickly that when he eased himself up again from behind the tree, Brock hadn’t made it more than a couple of strides closer. Robyn was still hanging back, but Brock assessed the situation pretty clearly and hollered over his shoulder: “See, told you so! He was the eagle, sis—only he…he ain’t got no clothes on!”
Calvin emptied his mouth of scale and arrows and crouched as coyly as he could behind the windfall. “They don’t change,” he explained sheepishly, as Brock trotted into easy speaking range.
In response, Brock skinned out of his T-shirt and handed it to Calvin, who draped it around his hips, seated himself on the trunk, and breathed a little easier. “Thanks,” Calvin told the boy, then, louder: “It’s okay, Robyn—come on over, we’ve gotta talk.”
Robyn joined them, sat lower than Calvin, and tried not to look at him directly.
“First of all, I owe you both more than I can say,” Calvin began. “So…thanks for helpin’ to spring me. I don’t know what you know about what’s goin’ on, and all; and there’s not time to tell you much, but…well, I guess you know I’m a skinchanger by now. And I imagine Don’s told you that there’s another shapechanger out here as well, an ogress from Cherokee myth that I accidentally let into this World—that’s what I’ve got this bow for: it should kill her. Trouble is, she could be anywhere and she’s after Don, so I can’t stay. I—”
“What about us?” Robyn asked pointedly, and this time she did look at him. “We saved your ass and you’re gonna leave us here, with something awful on the loose?”
“I don’t have any choice,” Calvin replied. “But there’s two of you, which makes you less likely targets, plus you’re further away than Don is from where the thumping in the ground’s coming from. If this works, I’ll be back, I promise.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Calvin shrugged helplessly. “Climb a tree, I guess. That’s all I can think of. Stop up your ears if you even start to hear any kind of singing. What I’d really advise you to do is to get as far away as you can.”
“No way,” Brock interjected. “We’re stayin’ with you. You might need us!”
“Brock!” Robyn hissed under her breath, then spared Calvin a confused and rather apologetic shrug. “Sorry, but…well, we’ve gotta get goin’, Brock and me. I mean I really just can’t take any more of this…first runnin’ away, and then the cops, and then all this weird shit. And we’ve gotta get outta here real soon. I mean I’m sorry, and all: I like you a lot, Calvin, I really do, but…but I’m just too wired. It’s just too much!” By the time she finished her eyes were wet and her shoulders were shaking.
“But, sis, he needs us!”
Calvin regarded her soberly. “It’s okay, Robyn,” he said gently. “I know you’re in a bad place. You don’t owe me anything, and if you did, you’ve already paid it by getting the scale to me. But there’s a couple of things you ought to know. One is that Spearfinger may very well come after you and Brock if I fail, in which case you will need to be as far away as you can. The other thing is that this place may be crawlin’ with cops real soon: after me and who knows what else. So what I’d advise you to do is to lie low for the next few hours—presuming I accomplish anything. After that—”
“Great,” Robyn interrupted. “If we stay we’re fodder for monsters, and if we go we’re fodder for the cops and it’s back to Dear Old Dad. We’ll be eaten alive either way!”
Brock was obviously distressed. “But sis, we’ve gotta help him!”
“How? If it’s something supernatural like he said, what good are we gonna do?”
“What’s he gonna do?”
“He’s a shapechanger.”
“Brock’s right,” Calvin agreed, looking uneasy, for the tempo of the thrumming had speeded up. “There’s nothing either of you can do except stay away. The fewer folks around, the less likely you are to get hurt. Lord knows I’ve got enough deaths on my conscience now!”
“But…” And then a look of horrified realization crossed Robyn’s already tear-stained face. “Oh jeeze, Calvin—I’m sorry. I…I never thought of that, but I…I guess they are your fault. It’s just that…well, I’ve never seen ’em—all these dead folks—so it’s, like, remote to me. God, your conscience must be killin’ you!”
“I can’t worry about that now,” Calvin told her. “And I’ve got to go. I may have wasted too much time already. You guys can watch or not, but this may be kinda disconcerting.”
And with that, he returned the scale and arrows to his mouth, closed his eyes, pinned the talisman between his beak and tongue so that it pierced the latter, and once more worked the change. When he opened them again, he saw Brock gazing at him steadily, and Robyn looking away, with tears flowing steadily down her cheeks. Calvin seized the bow and gun with his talons and rose into the sky. The last thing he heard was Brock shouting vehemently, “No, we’ve gotta help him,” and Robyn’s sobbing reply, “I don’t know, I just don’t know!”
And then the whistling of onrushing wind and the heavy thump of his wings drowned out their voices.
*
Now that Calvin had touched base with Robyn and Brock, he badly needed to check up on Don—if he was not too late—and then get on with the business at hand. He was heading for the meadow now, could already see it shining gold amid the surrounding browns and greens. A moment later he crested a low rise and found his gaze drawn to an uncommonly tall live oak at the edge of the open space. There was movement among its branches, too: more than could be accounted for by squirrels.
Don was in trouble, no doubt about it, for the ground had squeezed out what looked like white termite mounds directly beneath the tree, and Calvin was now close enough to hear snatches of Spearfinger’s song. He slowed cautiously, torn between his sense of urgency and the knowledge that for his plan to succeed he had to move stealthily, to give Spearfinger no sign that he was nearby.
Which meant that he had to avoid touching the earth as much as possible, for it seemed to be able to tell her things. With that in mind, he started gliding lazily among the trees, until he found a suitable perch perhaps forty yards from his foe—one that was thick enough to support his human form, screened him in shadow, yet gave him a relatively unobstructed view.
He managed to get situated without dropping either weapon—the strength of his talons helped there, along with the width of the branch and its slightly depressed upper surface—but did not immediately change.
And always he kept his eyes focused on his foe.
That was difficult, too, for she was perched atop the tallest mound of stone and was working her way into the lower boughs, and even with eagle eyes he could only glimpse her obscurely: as a dusty shape among the small glossy leaves. This close her song came to him fairly clearly, and he had to fight its soothing, paralyzing effect. Fortunately the eagle body was an asset, the feathers over his ears muffling the sound barely enough.
But what of Don? Calvin could see the boy clambering frantically ever higher in the tree, pausing frequently to clap his hands over his ears—probably when he could no longer resist the song. But already he was straining the limits. Any farther, and the limbs might not support his weight, while Spearfinger had the whole strength of the World to hold her firm.
The song ceased abruptly, and Calvin could just make out Spearfinger’s voice, taunting: “You can go no higher, boy—but I can. I will catch you, and when I do I will eat your liver! Just think of it: a few breaths from now you will find yourself trapped, and then you will hear my song in your ears so close you cannot escape it, and you will not be able to move, and then I will touch you, oh so gently, I will slide my nails along your naked side and I will find the place where your liver lies, and then I will slowly stick in my finger and drag out a little and devour it as you watch. It will take me maybe half a day—and all that time you will live in agony and fear and every morsel will taste better than the one before because of that, so I will want to prolon
g my feast as long as possible. But eventually there will be no more liver, and then I will commence on the rest of you until nothing remains save your mind. Then I will let you die. Think of that, boy: a day from now you will be dead. You will face the Greatest Darkness.”
“No!” Don screamed desperately, taking advantage of the lull in the song to scramble to a yet more perilous perch, which brought him into clearer view. “You lie, you lie, you lie! Calvin’ll get you! And you’ll be the one that’s dead, you…you ugly old woman!”
Spearfinger did not reply, but she took up the song again, louder than before, and much more vehemently.
Calvin noted with sick dread that the mound beneath her was rising again. He also saw that Don Scott had frozen where he was, evidently victim of the song at last. Probably at that range he could not resist it plugged ears or no.
Calvin could delay no longer. A deep breath, eyes closed, the change willed, and he was a man once more, balancing precariously on a tree branch. He removed the arrows from his mouth, spat the scale into his hand, and carefully stepped off the bow and revolver. Steadying himself with one hand, he retrieved the bow, nocked an arrow, and took experimental aim.
No good. There were too many leaves on his tree blocking his way, and Spearfinger was almost completely enshrouded by a particularly dense mass of Spanish moss on the other oak. He had to get a clearer view.
Which meant he had to wait until she was higher—but the only way to be sure she would go farther up was to make her stop singing so that Don could move again. And what would make her do that?
A distraction? But what kind? It had to be obvious, had to be threatening, but could not betray him. Maybe he could—
“No!” A boy’s shout cut the silence of the meadow. Calvin’s heart skipped a beat, and an awful sick feeling crept into the pit of his stomach. He was too late, Spearfinger had started working her vengeance on Don. Calvin lowered the bow in disgust.
Except…that wasn’t Don’s voice! And it had not come from the live oak, but from the ground somewhere between there and Calvin’s tree…
Brock! His gaze darted frantically away from Spearfinger, probing the dark foliage to his right—
—And saw a small, slim figure dart into the meadow, still yelling “No”—except now the shouts were segueing into song: REM’s “Radio Free Europe,” of all things, loudly and badly rendered in an uneasy tenor, and with half the lyrics replaced by da-das.
What on earth was Brock doing? Calvin wondered. Then he realized that the boy’s melody was clashing with Spearfinger’s song, muddying it, disjoining the troubling harmonies of the spell.
“Uwelanatsiku. Su sa sai!”
“…Raaaa-dee-oh Freeeeee Eur-opppp…”
Don was moving again, too, scrambling—not higher, but toward the trunk, where he could maybe get purchase to sturdier branches—or possibly make the ground again and escape. That route took him perilously close to the second stone spire, though, and Calvin heard the boy shriek as he brushed it and it oozed out to block his way. The boy was faster, though.
And—thank Brock…Kanati…the God of Abraham, all—Spearfinger was climbing again, in exactly the direction Calvin wanted. Bracing himself as well as he could, Calvin slowly rose from his limb, hooked a leg around a branch that angled out from the one on which he stood, and once more took aim. He could feel his body relaxing into the stance he had worn a thousand times since he was ten, the one that had accounted for more than a deer or two in its time. He could feel the centers of strength easing into alignment: the tension in his shoulders as he drew the bow, the matching twinges in his biceps, the pain in the fingers he’d curled around the string.
He had it, was squinting down the shaft, then looking beyond, to where Spearfinger was almost in full view. Her song had grown louder, too, and acquired a secondary melody, and Calvin forced himself to ignore the way Brock’s tune ended abruptly in a strangled scream.
The ogress was maybe twenty feet from the ground now, with Don perhaps five feet higher and to her left and looking as frightened as Calvin had ever seen a kid look. Now all he had to do was to draw perfect aim on Spearfinger’s hideous hand and send an arrow through the very center.
It was a broad-tipped hunting arrow he used, one of the three he had, and there was rust on it from disuse. He wished he’d had time to clean it, to purify it, to mutter spells of accuracy upon it. But the only charm he knew, he slowly whispered.
“Usinuliyu Selagwutsi Gigagei getsunneliga tsudanda-gihi aye ‘liyu, usinuliyu…
“Instantly the red selagwutsi strike you in the very center of your soul—instantly…”
And there was the hand, rising higher as Spearfinger used it to push aside a branch, even as the stone beneath her lifted her another few inches.
Closer…
Closer…
Calvin released his breath he’d been holding in a shouted “Yu!” and loosed the string.
The arrow flew slowly, or so it seemed: too slowly; and in that long instant Calvin felt his heart stop cold.
For the Stoneskin’s song had ended abruptly.
And as he gaped incredulously, the arrow buried itself exactly where he had aimed: into the center of Spearfinger’s left hand.
The air suddenly rang with a horrible shriek like stones being ripped asunder, and even at this distance, Calvin could see blood gushing out, for the arrow had continued straight through until stopped by the fletchings. Another scream, a sort of incredulous gape as stony black eyes probed straight at him and then the ogress was falling—but she did not tumble off the mound. Rather, it was as if she simply lost her substance and her whole body trickled down the precipitous slope.
A startled exclamation followed quickly by a burst of agitation from the foliage was Don’s reaction.
“Stay there!” Calvin shouted. He pitched the bow and remaining arrows to the ground, grabbed the .38 and the scale, and started down the tree. Not as easy as it looked, either: his limb was too high to leap from, and he saw no point in changing for that one act. The bark of this particular tree was uncommonly rough, too, yet free of useful projections, so that Calvin’s bare chest and thighs bore more than their share of scratches and gouges when he finally let go and leapt the last few feet to the ground.
A quick trot out from under the low-hanging branches showed him poor Brock in the embrace of a low mound of stone that had risen up behind him and prisoned him in much the same way the stones had earlier captured Calvin. The runaway was yelling like a fool, but once he saw Calvin, his tone changed to one of joy: “Hey, good job, Calvin, m’ man! Hey, you done it, you done it!”
Loping across the meadow, Calvin hoped he had.
As he neared the fingerlike projections he unlocked the safety on the revolver, still on guard, though those excrescences too were shrinking, evidently freed by their mistress’s demise.
Closer and closer, and then he was standing maybe a yard from the ogress, on the side opposite the wounded hand.
Above him, Don had made his way to the lowest branch, but an upraised finger and a warning shake of Calvin’s head kept him from coming any closer.
Calvin stared down at his adversary. She lay flat on the ground amid the knee-high grass, arms outstretched, mouth agape, eyes staring and dull. The arrow still protruded from her palm. She looked dead. Very dead, and Calvin suddenly felt his gorge rise because murderer or not, she was also a sentient being and the idea of killing a sentient being repulsed him. For the merest instant this was not a shapechanging monster, but merely a withered old woman, not unlike his own grandmother. Except that he did not dare allow himself to think along those lines. No, this was Utlunta Spearfinger, the Stoneskin, and he had laid her low. Above him the falcons circled lazily, their shadows tracing spirals across the ground.
Finger still on the trigger, Calvin nudged the body with his toe. It gave no resistance, though it seemed unusually heavy. But Spearfinger’s withered breast neither rose not fell, and the long gray hairs on her chin d
id not quiver with even the shallowest of breaths.
Finally he lowered the weapon and sidled around her; at a loss as to how to proceed, since none of his schemes had extended beyond this point. It would be another body, he supposed. More grist for the mill that could hang him—which he imagined meant that he’d now have no choice but to make some kind of lightning shapechanged raid on Sandy’s house, explain things, and move on, adopt another identity, or maybe simply do what he’d considered a time or two before: become animal and never return.
“Is she dead?” Don whispered nervously from his limb. “Is she, Calvin?”
Another prod of his toe, and Calvin nodded. “I reckon so.”
“So what d’ we do now?”
“Good question. I guess we—”
But he could not finish, for without warning the dreadful awl-finger stabbed up at him. He had just time to fling himself backward before Spearfinger leapt to her feet and was slashing at him over and over again. He dodged twice, but the third time he felt the edge of her nail scour a line across his belly.
“So you thought to slay me, did you, Edahi?” she cackled, as Calvin scooted backward crabstyle, unable to rise because of the way she was looming over him, and unable to shoot because Don was so close above. “So you thought to slay Spearfinger? Well, you trusted too much in white man’s wisdom in that, Calvin, for if you had thought, you would have known the truth. Spearfinger was slain, so how could she live again? She is not like the beasts of Galunlati, gifted with endless lives. She was a woman of this World once, and was slain and rose no more.”
“But how…?” Calvin blurted, so full of despair and dread he could barely function.
“That Spearfinger was my mother,” the ogress shrieked. And then she lunged.
The horrified shouts of two boys and one young man broke the quiet of the meadow, but rising above them all was a maniacal female cackle.
Chapter XXIX: Gathering at the River
A quick roll sideways was all that saved Calvin, and even then he felt hot agony bounce along his ribs as the terrible fingernail grazed his side. A second, duller pain was the arrow fletching raking his hip raw as the hand continued its arc—and then he was clear: on his back and kicking out at Spearfinger’s thin brown ankles. He connected, too, but it was like impacting stone, and more pain shot through his shins. The ogress, however, did not seem to be affected at all. He glimpsed her from the corner of his eye as he rolled once more—and saw just enough to know she was yanking on the arrow that impaled her hand, jerking the shaft inch by agonizing inch through her stony flesh.