Tooth and Nail

by Chris Underwood

  Something wrapped around my ankle and tightened. Before I could gasp, it yanked hard. I plunged beneath the surface of the water, dragged down into its depths.

  15

  Water rushed up my nose as I plunged deep into the murky darkness. I spluttered, thrashed. The thing continued to drag me down.

  I swept my glow stick around, trying to make out anything in the blurred, muddy water. An indistinct shadow, the size of a small child, twitched back and forth around my feet, one long limb clinging to my ankle.

  I kicked out, but the thing easily darted away from the strike without letting me go. Trying to rein in my panic, I fumbled for the truncheon at my side.

  Before I could get it loose, the creature released me and zipped beyond the reach of the light. I didn’t stick around to try to catch another glimpse of it. Kicking my feet, I swam upward as fast as I could.

  I broke the surface, sucking in air. Without stopping to wipe the muck out of my eyes, I grabbed my truncheon and wrested it free of my belt. Desperately treading water, I spun in place, ready to bring the head of the truncheon down on whatever came at me next.

  A low chuckle echoed through the cavern. I spun toward the sound. Over the laughter came a wet, slapping sound—damp flesh against stone.

  I held up the glow stick and caught sight of a small shape crawling out of the water onto the shelf of stone at the far end of the cavern. Its skin glistened in the orange glow.

  My first thought was that it looked a little like an overweight Gollum. It climbed out of the water on all fours, naked and fleshy, the size of a six-year-old. Then it turned toward me, and I decided the Gollum comparison didn’t fit so well.

  Its face was wide and pear-shaped. It had no lips and no nose to speak of, except a couple of long slits that served as nostrils. Big black eyes that were just a little too far apart shone in the orange light. Tendrils drooped like whiskers from its cheeks, forming a kind of beard that dragged against its barrel chest. It was one third fish, one third frog, one third human. And all ugly.

  The creature pulled itself completely out of the water using its webbed hands and feet. Without bothering to cover its nakedness, it sat down cross-legged on the stone. Only then did it stop laughing at me.

  “The hell was that for?” I snapped. “You’re lucky I didn’t crack your skull open.”

  It chuckled again at that, a croaking sound that made me think of a frog trying to throw up.

  “You too slow for that,” it replied, its jowls wobbling as it talked.

  “Yeah? You sure about that?”

  The creature shook its head violently, spraying droplets of water from the long tendrils on its cheeks. When it stopped, its skin was no longer damp.

  “I’m a cunning man,” I said, trying to rein in my temper.

  “Heard you before.”

  “Then why the hell did you attack me?”

  It gave a grunt and frowned at me. “No sense of humor.”

  Sense of humor? I’d show it a sense of humor…

  With great difficulty, I took a deep breath and forced myself to be calm. I couldn’t keep treading water much longer—my arms and legs already ached. Eying the creature carefully, I paddled toward the shelf it sat on. It just sat there and watched me.

  I tossed my glow stick onto the shelf then tried to scramble up out of the water. The slick, smooth stone meant it was much more difficult than the creature had made it seem. Three times I splashed back down into the water before I finally got enough purchase to pull myself out. The creature offered no assistance.

  Panting, I flopped onto the stone and sat up. The ceiling was too low to stand fully upright, but at least I was out of the water. I dragged my hand across my beard and hair, trying to squeeze the water out.

  “Thanks for the help,” I said.

  The creature just stared at me with its big, black eyes.

  I looked back. It was my first time ever getting a good look at a vodyanoy up close. I hadn’t anticipated the smell. It wasn’t unpleasant, really, just…interesting. Sweet, almost.

  Now that I was closer, I could make out the slight roughness to the vodyanoy’s skin, like it was made up of thousands of tiny scales. It had an oily sheen, no doubt to keep the water off. Its shoulders and back were dotted with soft brown spots.

  It—he, I suppose—was old, I thought. I didn’t know how long voydanoys lived for, but this one looked worn, sagging, faded.

  I glanced around at the shelf of rock. It didn’t stretch back more than twenty feet before it met the wall of the cavern.

  The shadows I’d glimpsed when I was in the water now resolved themselves. One of them was a plastic outdoor chair sized for a child. It was battered and dirty, but I could still make out silver stars scattered across its neon pink surface. Next to the chair was an old camping cooler that looked like it was being used as a table.

  Makeshift shelves lined the walls of the vodyanoy’s home. They’d been built from scrap pieces of plastic mostly, though there were some sheets of what looked like aluminum as well. They were propped up on broken buckets, jars, milk bottles, and whatever else the vodyanoy had managed to get his hands on.

  Every single shelf was filled with crockery. Plates, saucers, tea cups, the works. Several were chipped and some looked like they’d been broken in half before being carefully glued back together. Though they were crowded on the shelves, they were all displayed with a degree of care, so that none hid the others.

  The vodyanoy caught me staring at the shelves of crockery. His chest puffed up in pride.

  “Beautiful, hmm?”

  “It’s…something, all right.” I licked my lips. “These…uh…all yours?”

  He nodded enthusiastically, unfolding his legs and leaping to his feet. “Collecting many years.” He moved to one of the shelves, his feet making a wet, sucking sound as he walked. He carefully took a tea cup off the shelf and slowly turned to show me. “This my favorite.”

  It looked like exactly the sort of tea cup you’d expect to find in your grandma’s china cabinet. White porcelain, silver-rimmed, with floral patterning around the side. There was a chip out of the rim. The vodaynoy had to hold it awkwardly, since his webbed fingers wouldn’t fit through the handle.

  “Pretty,” I said.

  The vodaynoy’s wide mouth split to form a terrifying grin. He had a lot of teeth. I’d never seen teeth on a frog before, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  He held the cup for me to inspect a few moments longer, then he hurried back to the shelf and carefully put it back down. After precisely adjusting its position, he turned to me. He didn’t say anything, so I decided it must be up to me to break the ice.

  “I’m Osric,” I said. “Osric Turner.”

  The vodyanoy just nodded.

  “What about you?” I asked. “You got a name?”

  The vodyanoy thought about it for a second. “Kor.”

  “Kor?”

  “No.” He exaggerated the movement of his mouth. “Kor. Yes?”

  “Uh…sure.” I decided to move on before he checked my pronunciation. “Look, I’m sorry for barging in. This is your home, right?”

  Kor nodded again. He was staring at me intently, but the look was curious rather than hostile.

  It wasn’t exactly the reception I’d expected. I’d pictured the vodyanoy as a crotchety hermit shaking his fist at anyone who came too close. Instead, he reminded me more of an old, lonely widower who invited in Jehovah’s Witnesses just to have someone to talk to for a few minutes. I half-expected him to offer me a glass of lemonade.

  “I need your help,” I said.

  The look of curiosity deepened. If he’d had eyebrows, they would’ve been raised.

  “You saw what happened last night, didn’t you?” I asked.

  Kor hesitated for several seconds. “Some.”

  “I’ll take anything I can get.” I pointed toward the ceiling. “Up there, there’s a lot of angry folks. Vampires and ogres. They’re all blaming each other
for whatever happened last night. I’m just trying to calm everything down. And to do that I need to find out the truth.”

  The vodyanoy shuffled in place. He looked suddenly nervous. Something was worrying him.

  I studied him a few seconds. “What is it?”

  His eyes darted from his china collection to the black pool of water that lapped against the edge of the shelf. I watched him for a moment, confused. Then something dawned on me. This place was his lair, but it was within the territory claimed by the vampires. The vodyanoy had undoubtedly lived here for years, hiding beneath the village, “borrowing” things from its residents. Now, maybe Lockhart’s brood wouldn’t give a damn about that, but I didn’t know that for sure. Maybe they’d kick him out. Maybe they’d demand a tithe from Kor. Maybe they’d just snoop around a little, keep an eye on him—which was the last thing a creature like Kor would want.

  “Listen,” I said, “no one but me knows you live down here. I didn’t tell anyone. Not the vampires, not the ogres.”

  “When you leave, you will tell them?”

  I shook my head. “They don’t need to know.”

  Kor nodded, but he still looked nervous. I leaned forward.

  “I think you heard the fighting up on the surface last night,” I said, “and you went to see what was going on. You wanted to make sure you and your home were safe.”

  A long tongue slipped nervously out, licking at the hard edges of his mouth. He nodded. “Don’t want to get involved.”

  “I know. I understand. But a very important vampire was murdered a few feet from the entrance to your home. If I don’t figure out what happened, things will get worse. Others might come snooping. Vampires, maybe, or ogres. Or worse.”

  His black eyes widened. “Worse?”

  “Humans,” I said. “Unaware. If we don’t put a lid on this quickly, there’s going to be more fighting between the ogres and the vampires. If that spills over, we all risk exposure. Even you.”

  The vodaynoy frowned, looking confused. “Been fights before. Humans don’t know.”

  “What fights? When?”

  “When Kor small.” He held his webbed hands a few inches apart. “Tadpole, yes?”

  Now it was my turn to frown. “How old are you?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How long…how many years have you lived? How many winters have you seen?”

  The creature looked up at the ceiling of his cavern and dragged his palm along the tendrils dangling from his face. “Two hundred and eleven. No. Two hundred and twelve.”

  I blinked a few times. “You’re two hundred and twelve years old.”

  He nodded, like it was no big thing. The fact that he was older than most of the vampires in Lost Falls seemed to be lost on him. Assuming he wasn’t mistaken. Or trying to prank me again. He seemed to have a strange sense of humor, after all.

  I turned away from the vodyanoy and watched as the reflections of the glow stick on the water cast dancing light across the cavern’s ceiling. Sighing, I tried to come up with a way to make the creature understand.

  “Listen,” I said. “Do you know what a cell phone is?”

  He stared blankly.

  I sighed again. “I don’t have one with me, but it’s…like…this big, kind of flat. Humans like to stare at them.”

  “Ah!” Jumping up, he scurried across the cavern and pulled a small plastic crate from beneath one of his shelves. He started rummaging through. A few seconds later, he gave a grunt of excitement and hurried back to me.

  He was holding an old, cracked iPhone in his webbed hand. “This?”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  He examined it, shook it around a little. “It’s for eating off? An ugly plate?”

  “No, it’s not a plate. It’s a phone. You can talk to people with it.”

  “Talk?” He looked at the phone with sudden concern in his eyes. Slowly, he brought the thing to his mouth. He hesitated. “Hello?”

  “No, it’s…” I exhaled and rubbed my eyes. “That one is broken. And out of battery. And you probably drowned it as well when you brought it here. Turn it over. You see that? That’s a camera lens. It can take pictures. And video. Like on TV. You’ve seen TV, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Nowadays, almost every Unaware human carries a phone like that. If they see something weird, they can take photos. Videos. And then they can share that with every single Unaware person in the world at the touch of a button. If that happens, we’ll all be in trouble. You won’t be able to hide. You’ll be on TV. You’ll be everywhere. It’s not like the old days. Things have changed.”

  I was scaring him, I could see that. Wide eyes darted around in search of invisible predators. But he had to understand the stakes. This went beyond him, beyond all of us. If I had to be an asshole to get him to understand, then so be it.

  “That’s why I’m trying to figure this out,” I said. “That’s why I need to bring the truth to light. To head off a war. To save all of us. I need your help, Kor. I need to know what you saw last night.”

  He didn’t say anything for several seconds. Instead, he made a low, rhythmic croaking noise that he didn’t seem to be conscious of. He turned the broken phone over and over in his hands. His black eyes shifted about as he warred with himself.

  Then, finally, he stopped croaking and his eyes settled on me.

  “Was sleeping,” he said quietly. “Then heard shouting.”

  I leaned forward. “You went to look.”

  The vodyanoy nodded.

  “And what did you see?”

  He hesitated. “Fighting.”

  “The ogre and the vampire?”

  He paused again, then shook his head. “No ogre.”

  “He would’ve been glamoured. He would have looked human. But big. Strong. Bigger than me.”

  Kor shook his head again. “Maybe in car. Couldn’t see.”

  “Then who was fighting?”

  “Woman. Vampire, maybe. She was hurt.”

  “And who else?”

  “Man. Small. Thin.”

  “A human?” I asked. I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice. If Kor was telling the truth, then my suspicions were confirmed. A third party had been involved. If I could figure out who that was…

  Kor began to nod, then he froze. His head cocked to the side as if he could hear something—although the closest thing he had to ears were a pair of dark recesses on either side of his head.

  The vodyanoy gave a loud gulp and turned his wide eyes back to me. “You said you alone!”

  “I am alone,” I said.

  And then I heard it too. The slightest change in the sound of the water lapping against the edges of the cavern. A disturbance I would never have noticed if Kor hadn’t drawn my attention to it.

  I spun toward the water, raising the glow stick. The dark surface of the water rippled softly, catching the orange light. There was nothing there. Nothing…

  At first I thought it was a trick of the light. A shadow beneath the water, only just visible against the rest of the darkness. It could have been anything. Some piece of debris, some strange reflection, some part where the water wasn’t quite as deep.

  Then I saw something else. Something round and thin, its tip just breaking the surface of the water. Like a large metal drinking straw, its surface blackened so it wouldn’t reflect the light. It tilted slowly down.

  Until it was pointed right at us.

  “Get down!” I roared.

  16

  I threw myself at Kor, slamming bodily into the vodyanoy. We both crashed to the damp stone floor.

  At the same moment I heard a soft sound, like a puff of air. As Kor and I hit the ground, something tugged at my shirt sleeve. Some kind of blow dart, I realized.

  Kor let out a squeal as my weight crushed him. He writhed, oily skin slipping against mine as he tried to squirm out from beneath me. One flailing arm caught me right between the eyes. He was small, but the blow was enough to stun me for
a second.

  Groaning, I rolled off the squirming vodayanoy and blinked a couple of times until my vision cleared. In a flash, Kor jumped to his feet and darted toward the back of the cavern. His webbed feet made wet slapping sounds against the stone as he ran.

  I didn’t have time to see exactly where he was going. Before I could rise, there was a loud splash. In a fountain of spray, a figure came leaping out of the water and onto the stone shelf.

  He was human—or close enough that I couldn’t tell the difference. Young, small, lithe. Black hair poked out from beneath a tight, sodden beanie. He was wearing a dark tank top and a pair of slim shorts. For a split second he stood crouched at the water’s edge, muscles taut, eyes scanning. In one hand he held a thin pipe, two and a half feet long. In his other hand he held a knife. Both the blade and the handle were curved, and the light of my fallen glow stick glinted against a series of thin grooves etched into the blackened steel blade. Something shone like oil in the recesses, rejecting the beads of water that flowed from the blade.

  I had the space of a heartbeat to take all that in. In the next moment, he was moving again.

  He darted to the side of the cavern, trying to loop around me. He was a quick little bastard. Not vampire quick, not quite. But close. He barely made a sound as he ran.

  He wasn’t going for me. He was after the vodyanoy.

  I caught a glimpse of Kor at the back of the cave, where the ceiling was so low even he could barely stand upright. He was shoving aside a stack of old plastic storage boxes. Behind, I caught sight of a thin fissure in the stone wall. An escape route.

  Before I’d fully formed the thought in my head, I’d launched myself at our attacker. My truncheon was in my hand, though I didn’t remember pulling it from my belt.

  The dark-haired man was fast, but he had little space to maneuver in the tight confines of the cavern. He couldn’t get away from me. Teeth bared, I swung my truncheon.