Mythmaker

by Tim Waggoner

  Adamantine looked at her for a few moments, and then she motioned for Geoffrey to come with her. She walked out of the room, and Geoffrey followed, closing the door softly behind him. She started toward the center of the store, and Geoffrey accompanied her.

  “How long do you think she will sleep?” he asked.

  “She shall awaken before the end,” Adamantine said.

  “Sounds ominous,” Geoffrey responded.

  Adamantine ignored the remark. “I want you to select two people to guard her. Make sure they both have…” She hesitated, as if the word she wanted eluded her. “Those small devices that allow you to speak to one another at a distance. There are some in this store, are there not?”

  “Cell phones,” he supplied. “Yes, there are many here.”

  “Good. Make sure you have one as well. I want them to be able to contact you when the Mythmaker wakes.”

  “You make it sound as if we’re going somewhere,” Geoffrey said.

  “We are. Now that I have increased the number of my followers and the Mythmaker is in my possession, it is time to go out into the city and engage more of my fellow gods in battle. Defeating them is the fastest way to increase my strength, and I shall need all the power I can acquire if I am to be the One.”

  “Please excuse me for saying this, but is it wise for you to leave Renee here? The others will do their best to take care of her, but most of them aren’t fighters. Hell, they aren’t even armed. What if some other god gets wind that she’s here and tries to steal her?”

  “Your concerns are understandable, but you have no need to worry. Now that she is within the walls of my temple—the center of my power—she is hidden from the senses of my fellow gods.” She smiled. “She will be perfectly safe here.”

  Geoffrey didn’t feel as confident about that as Adamantine obviously did, but he decided not to push the matter any further. He’d just end up making her angry, and that was something he preferred to avoid.

  “I also want you to select a half dozen people to accompany us,” Adamantine said. “They should be young and strong. I may need them for… support.”

  Geoffrey had a pretty good idea what sort of support she was talking about.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  At that moment, a group of around twenty people entered TechEdge. Geoffrey recognized some of them as Adamantine’s followers, and he assumed the remainder were more new recruits.

  “Make the arrangements we discussed,” Adamantine said. “Meanwhile, I shall welcome the new members to our family.”

  Geoffrey did his best to overlook the undisguised hunger in her voice as she started toward the entrance. He turned away rather than watch her Bind the newcomers and then headed off to do his god’s bidding.

  * * *

  “What is that thing?” Dean looks at Julie as he asks this, hoping she won’t notice him pulling against the zip ties binding his wrists and ankles. They’re too tight and there’s no give. He assumes Sam’s are the same.

  “Honestly, I’m not really sure,” Julie says. “The Lord of the Hunt is just a nickname I gave him. Seems to fit, though, doesn’t it?”

  “He’s some kind of wood spirit,” Stewart says. “We found him a couple weeks after the Sheepsquatch killed Dad.”

  “He’s old,” Gretchen says. “I mean, really old. We’re talking like thousands of years.”

  “Maybe tens of thousands,” Julie says. “I managed to find some Native American lore that describes a creature like him, but according to those stories, he was here long before humans of any kind set foot on this continent, so who knows how old he is? He could be as old as the world itself.”

  “From the way he looks, I can believe it,” Dean says.

  “Why are you holding him prisoner?” Sam asks.

  Julie laughs at this, and Gretchen and Stewart smile.

  “He’s not a prisoner,” Julie says. “He’s so weak, he can barely move. We tied him to the chair to keep him from falling over.”

  Dean looks around the basement, seeking something, anything that he can use to get him and Sam out of this situation. He remembers what his father once told him: If you find yourself without a weapon, there’s always something you can use. Keep a cool head and you’ll find it. His gaze locks on one of the storage shelves. It holds a number of weapons, including several knives, and the set of shelves next to it holds jars filled with powders and chemicals. A plan begins forming in Dean’s mind, but he needs Sam to keep the Underwoods’ attention off him while he gets in position. He looks at Sam, but Sam’s looking at the Lord of the Hunt, and Dean can practically see the wheels turning in his brother’s head.

  Dean lets out a soft ssst. Sam’s eyes flick to him, and Dean flicks his own eyes toward the Underwoods, hoping that Sam gets the message. Sam hasn’t hunted as often as Dean has. He’s younger, and their father has been careful about exposing him to the dangers of hunting. More careful than he was with me, Dean thinks, and suppresses a wave of resentment that accompanies the thought. So Sam doesn’t have the same amount of experience at thinking on his feet as Dean has. But they’re brothers, and given how often John Winchester has left the two of them alone over the years, they’ve become much closer than most siblings. They’re highly attuned—maybe at times too much so—to each other’s thoughts, feelings, and moods. But Dean’s relying on this closeness now, and when he sees Sam give him a slight nod, he’s relieved.

  It’s game on.

  “Why did you bring him here at all?” Sam asks. “Why not leave him where you found him? Weak as he is, he doesn’t look like he’s a threat to anyone.”

  As Sam speaks, Dean begins to scoot his body closer to the shelves containing the chemicals. He keeps his movements to a minimum and makes sure to look at Sam the entire time, hoping to keep the Underwoods’ attention on his brother and away from him.

  “He’s not a threat, dumbass,” Stewart says. “He’s like a genie in a lamp.”

  “You mean he grants wishes?” Sam asks.

  That’s it, Sammy. Keep them talking… Dean scoots a fraction of an inch closer to the shelves. He only needs to hook a foot around one of the metal rods, and he’s already halfway there.

  “He gives life,” Gretchen says. “Strength, speed, endurance…”

  Stewart grins. “For a price.”

  “That’s why the three of you are so high-energy,” Sam says. “The Lord of the Hunt gave it to you.”

  “When we first found him in the woods, we let him be,” Julie says. “He appeared harmless enough, and there are a lot of strange things living in these hills, not all of which are dangerous. When we can in these parts, we tend to live and let live.”

  “But then you checked the lore,” Sam says, “and when you learned what he could do, you realized you could use him.”

  Another inch…

  Julie’s expression turns grim. “I was determined to take down the sonofabitch that killed my husband, and I intended to do whatever it took to make that happen. The Lord of the Hunt grants strength to those who sacrifice to him, and I realized that if he could make the three of us stronger, we’d have a better chance of finding and killing the goddamn Sheepsquatch. So we began bringing him sacrifices. Nothing big at first. Small animals like squirrels and rabbits. Alive, of course. He won’t accept anything dead. He… I guess you can say he absorbs them.”

  “It’s really disgusting,” Stewart says. “He takes hold of the animals, hugs them to his chest, and then his body just kind of sucks them in. I almost puked the first time I saw it happen.” He turns to Gretchen. “She did.”

  Gretchen blushes in embarrassment but doesn’t say anything.

  “I bet you didn’t get much energy in return for such small sacrifices,” Sam says. “Especially not when it was spread between the three of you.”

  Almost there, Dean thinks.

  “True,” Julie admits. “We started trying larger sacrifices—cats, dogs, pigs—as well as more than one at a time. That helped, but
it was never enough. We came close to catching the Sheepsquatch a couple times, but he always managed to get away.”

  “That’s when we realized that the Lord needed bigger and better sacrifices,” Stewart says. “Something much higher up on the food chain than kitties and doggies.”

  “You mean people,” Sam says.

  “Yes,” Julie says, “but who could we use? One of us? Gretchen volunteered—” she pauses and gives her daughter a loving smile “—but I’d already lost my husband, and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing one of my children, too. I considered sacrificing myself…”

  “But we wouldn’t let her,” Gretchen says. “We were already one parent down, and we didn’t want to become orphans.”

  “I thought we should pick someone from around here,” Stewart says, “but Mom said there was too good a chance we might get caught.”

  “There aren’t that many people living in this area,” Julie says. “If someone went missing, it would be noticed.”

  The tip of Dean’s boot now touches one of the shelves’ metal supports. He’s almost ready…

  “So you decided to wait for us to show up?” Sam says.

  “We didn’t know you were coming, idiot,” Stewart snaps.

  Julie scowls at him. “Be nice. These are good boys, and they’ve helped us out a great deal. And remember, their father is an old friend of mine.”

  Stewart purses his lips in irritation, but he doesn’t reply.

  “When your father called me to come get you, I realized we’d been given an opportunity,” Julie says. “John knows how dangerous hunting can be. If we told him that the two of you were killed helping us go after the Sheepsquatch, he’d believe it.”

  “And since the Lord leaves nothing behind when he feeds, there’d be no evidence that anything different happened,” Stewart says, grinning again.

  “I don’t understand,” Sam says. “I thought the Lord needed to be fed before you hunted. If that’s true, why didn’t you sacrifice us to him as soon as we got here?”

  “You are John Winchester’s sons,” Julie says. “If you boys were even half the hunter he is, I knew we’d have to catch you off guard. Plus, I figured we could use your help on the hunt. So I made a deal with the Lord. We’d give him two human sacrifices—a pair of strong young men—in return for granting us the energy we would need to kill the Sheepsquatch. It had been a long time since he’d fed that well, and he agreed. He gave us the energy we needed, we got the Sheepsquatch, and now it’s time for us to hold up our end of the bargain. It’s nothing personal. If it helps, think about how many people will be spared because the Sheepsquatch is gone. That could never have happened without your sacrifices. When you look at it that way, what you’re doing is very heroic. I think if your father knew about this and could look at it unemotionally, he’d be proud of you boys for what you’re about to do.”

  Dean slowly slides his foot around one of the shelves’ support rods.

  Sam looks at Gretchen. “Are you okay with this?”

  A tear runs down her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “Enough talk,” Stewart says. “It’s feeding time.”

  Julie sighs, and she gives the brothers an apologetic look, as if to say she wishes her son had better manners. “I suppose you’re right. The Lord is hungry, and I don’t know how much longer he can wait.” She turns to her children. “Keep them covered, but don’t shoot unless you have to, and if you do shoot, shoot to wound. They’re no good to us dead.” She clears her throat and then speaks in a louder voice. “Lord of the Hunt! We thank you for giving us strength in our time of need. Please accept these two offerings as tokens of our gratitude. May their lives sustain you and—”

  Dean yanks the storage shelves over with his foot. Both he and Sam roll out of the way as jars of glass and clay tumble to the basement floor and shatter, releasing their contents. The shelves hit the floor an instant later. Dean has no idea what chemicals the Underwoods kept stored here, but he knows that hunters often have need of some pretty volatile stuff—not all of it natural—and he’s gratified to see several small-scale explosions happen, followed by a cloud of foul-smelling smoke that rises into the air. The cloud is large and thick enough to hide them from the Underwoods, which is exactly what he’d been hoping for.

  “Get them!” Julie yells, but then there’s the sound of snapping wood, and she shouts, “Wait! The Lord is moving! Stay back!”

  Dean doesn’t like the sound of that. He sits up and scoots across the floor on his butt, ignoring pieces of broken glass and clay. He holds his breath, hoping that Sam’s doing the same, and he squints his eyes shut. It’s not like he can see much anyway. The cloud stings his flesh, and it hurts like hell. He wonders if he’s going to end up looking like Freddy Krueger when this is all over. Assuming he survives, of course.

  Eyes closed, he heads for the shelves where the knives are stored. When he reaches it, he shoulders it over, and it falls to the ground with the sound of clanging metal. He reaches blindly, searching for a knife, and he finds one when he slices his index finger on its edge. He grabs the handle and starts to call for Sam, but then he sees his brother has scooted over to him. The cloud is already beginning to dissipate, and Dean sees a shape coming toward them—a human shape, with large antlers protruding from the head. Evidently, Julie ringing the dinner bell was enough to get the ancient monster off his wrinkly butt and moving. Dean knows he and Sam have to work fast.

  They position themselves back to back, and Dean quickly slices through the zip tie around Sam’s wrists. Sam then takes the knife and does the same for his brother. Dean grabs a second knife while Sam cuts the tie binding his ankles, and Dean follows suit. As soon as they’re free, the brothers rise to their feet, only to see all three of the Underwoods pointing their guns at them.

  “Please don’t move,” Julie says. “You’ll only make it worse for yourselves.”

  Dean doesn’t want to, but he turns around and sees the Lord of the Hunt coming toward them, moving with awkward, jerking motions, as if the creature has forgotten how to operate its body. The chair the Lord was tied to lies in pieces on the floor, and the cloth strips that held it in place are torn and discarded. Its head lolls to one side as it comes, and a thin rope of drool stretches from its lipless mouth. Its moist black eyes shine with unmistakable hunger, and it reaches skeletal hands toward them, bony fingers eager to grab hold of warm flesh. All of this is bad enough, but to Dean, the worst thing is the way the creature walks, sliding the leathery soles of its feet across the basement floor—whsssk, whsssk, whsssk…

  “Uh, Dean…” Sam says, staring at the Lord of the Hunt with wide, frightened eyes.

  Dean’s pretty damn scared himself, but he won’t allow himself to show it, not in front of his brother.

  “Let’s take him out,” Dean says, doing his best to sound like their dad.

  The brothers grip their knives tight and move forward.

  ELEVEN

  Sam’s eyes water and his exposed skin stings. The chemical cloud that resulted from Dean knocking over the shelves is little more than a haze now, but it feels like he’s sucking in steel wool every time he breathes. He doesn’t have time to worry about that, though, not with an antler-headed mummy coming at them—a hungry antler-headed mummy.

  Dean reaches the creature first. The Lord grabs for him, but the monster is slow, and Dean easily evades his grasp. He slams his knife into the Lord’s side, the blade sliding between the ribs and entering the creature’s heart. It’s a good move, Sam thinks. The heart is a weak point for many supernatural beings. Unfortunately, it appears that the Lord isn’t one of them. His arm lurches outward and strikes Dean, knocking him away and sending him stumbling into another set of shelves, this one full of books and papers. Dean hits the shelves hard, knocking them against the wall. They rebound and fall forward, hitting Dean in the back, their contents spilling all around them. Dean fights to keep his balance and manages to do s
o, but he’s momentarily distracted. Worse, he no longer has hold of his knife. His hand’s bleeding—Sam guesses he cut himself when he was first trying to get hold of the blade—and he wasn’t able to maintain his grip when the Lord hit him. The knife is still stuck in the monster’s rib cage, leaving Dean unarmed.

  Sam glances at the Underwoods. Instead of coming to their Lord’s aid, they merely hang back and watch. Has the Lord forbidden them to interfere or are they afraid to get too close to him, in case he might try to feed on one of them? Sam supposes it doesn’t matter. He’s simply grateful he and Dean don’t have to contend with the Underwoods as well as the Lord right now.

  Sam attacks just as the Lord turns toward Dean. He has to go in low to avoid skewering himself on the monster’s antlers—the points of which look sharp as hell—so he doesn’t have his choice of targets. Since stabbing the heart didn’t work, he’d rather go for the head, as decapitation is another time-honored monster-killing technique. But the antlers make this impossible right now, so he’s forced to try the heart, too. Maybe Dean’s blade didn’t actually strike the Lord’s heart, or if it did, maybe it didn’t penetrate deeply enough to kill the creature. He knows it’s a long shot, but at this precise instant, it’s the only shot he has. He too has little trouble keeping away from the Lord’s grasping hands, and he’s glad he and Dean don’t have to fight the creature in its prime. If the Lord was at full strength, Sam knows they wouldn’t stand a chance.