Lindsay Buroker - Torrent

Eleriss found a rag and applied some of the rust remover to the lip of the scabbard. It must have fused to the sword. A couple of minutes passed while they worked on the weapon. Eleriss glanced toward the camera-no, out the windshield behind it-a few times.

“That must be why they burned your rope,” Temi said. “They were worried we’d catch them here.”

I thought of the easy way Eleriss and Jakatra had kept us from escaping their hotel room. “I doubt they’re all that worried about us. Maybe they were concerned about something else out there, lurking in the trees. What do you think, Simon?”

His face didn’t give away anything, but there was a smirk in his tone when he said, “You never know.”

“Why would it be out here?” Temi asked, no hint of smirks or pleasure of any sort in her tone. Rather, it seemed to silently add, “And why would we be out here if we thought it would be?”

“Those two guys are linked to it somehow,” I said. “They can track it… and maybe it can track them .” I glanced at the closed windows-we hadn’t seen the riders roll them up, but that had to be coming. I wagered something more than mosquitos has prompted it. “Eleriss said they were looking for a way to kill the creature. What if that sword is it? And what if the monster knows and doesn’t want them to have it?”

“A sword?” Temi asked. “When police with rifles haven’t harmed it? And didn’t you shoot it with an arrow?”

“I shot at it. I’m still not sure I connected with it.” I wondered if Autumn had received my mail yet. Flagstaff was only a two-hour drive, so the post office should have delivered it in one night.

“Look.” Simon pointed at the screen.

Eleriss had lifted a hand, his head cocked. He rushed into the front seats, almost knocking the MacBook off the dashboard. He rolled up the windows. His comrade said something. As usual, the words meant nothing to me, but they sounded sarcastic.

They redoubled their efforts on the sword. Finally, they were able to pull it free.

“Whoa,” Simon mumbled when it came out of its scabbard.

Not only was the blade inside free of rust, but it was glowing silver.

“That’s… not normal,” Temi said.

“Uh, no,” I said. “Simon, got a Star Trek episode for this?”

“For glowing swords?” He shook his head. “I think we’ve moved out of science fiction and into RealmSaga .”

The silver illumination didn’t surprise Eleriss and Jakatra. They held the blade between them, touching and pointing and discussing. The sword was too far from the camera to make out any symbols or runes that might be running down its side-and the glow further obscured the details-but it was a long curving blade similar to a scimitar. But nothing about the design reminded me of the middle east where that type of sword had been popular with horse troops. Nothing about the design reminded me of anything . The back side of the blade had a handful of serrated teeth near the tip, not large enough that they should affect the balance of the blade, but they’d do some damage sinking into one’s flesh.

I groped for an explanation for glowing metal and couldn’t come up with anything besides radioactivity. Given that the sword had been in our van, I hoped that wasn’t the case.

“Just like that giant coin in their hotel room,” Simon said.

The disk had been glowing gold instead of silver, but maybe both items came from the same culture. Whatever that was. I’d never read about anything like this in my archaeology books. This was either brand new technology to go along with our genetically engineered or otherwise enhanced friends or… I rubbed the side of my head, not ready to accept the notion of aliens and alien technology on Earth. Eleriss wiped off the rust remover jug and returned it to the cupboard. At least he was a conscientious alien.

“There’s no such thing as magic, right?” Temi asked.

Simon cupped his chin and said, “Hm,” neither agreeing nor refuting.

“Enh,” I said, finding my new-technology and genetic engineering theories more plausible than magical swords. I didn’t follow the metallurgy world; for all I knew, there was a way to create luminescent alloys.

On the video playback, a shadow moved across the back window, and I jumped a foot.

The riders spun toward it. They barked a few words at each other, then Eleriss thrust the sword into Jakatra’s hands and pointed at the door. That surprised me, because I’d taken the sterner of the pair as the leader. The stream of vitriolic words that flowed from Jakatra’s mouth needed no translation, but he opened the door and jumped outside regardless.

A dark hulking form darted past a side window, moving with alarming speed for something so large. Though daylight remained outside the van, it had blurred by too quickly to distinguish details, and I had no better idea of what the monster looked like than I’d had before.

Thrashing noises came from one side of the video pickup. Even though this had happened a half hour ago, I found myself leaning forward, my fingernails curling into my palms, as if I expected to help somehow. I didn’t know if it was concern for the riders or concern over the notion that the creature had been right here , practically in our vehicle, but my heart was racing.

Still inside the van, Eleriss opened his jacket flap and pulled out some kind of wooden baton, about six inches long. He flicked his wrist, and a serrated blade flipped out of the side, locking into place to make a wicked knife. He eyed the weapon and shook his head. Maybe it, like my bow, couldn’t harm the creature. His youthful face grim, Eleriss jumped out of the van after his comrade. He slid the door shut behind him, and both riders disappeared from our sight.

My fingers twitched toward the laptop, as if moving it now could change the way the camera had faced thirty minutes ago.

A shout, or maybe that was a cry of pain, sounded on the video. A screech followed, like metal on bone-or metal on claw. Something thudded against the van, shaking the camera. The motorcycle engines started up, the roar drowning out the other noises. The van quaked again, and the video blurred, then went dark. That must have been when the MacBook ended up on the floor.

“Dang,” Simon said, “I would have mounted it to something if I’d known there’d be rambunctious happenings.”

Rambunctious happenings, what an understatement. I stepped out of the van to look around. The two motorcycles were gone, so Eleriss and Jakatra must have both escaped, but had they been injured? Had they injured the creature? And had it chased after them, or was it still in the area?

That last thought set my heart to pounding again, and I rotated three hundred and sixty degrees, peering into the trees on all sides. It was quiet out there and getting darker. We ought to leave ourselves, but I had to know what had happened.

I studied the grass and dirt around the van, searching for evidence of the battle. Now that I was looking, I had no trouble spotting it: trampled brush there, broken twigs there, a spraying of blood there, and footprints all over the place. In addition to the booted prints of the riders-I gulped-those of the monster marred the earth as well.

Though I hadn’t been thinking of it as a bear, somehow I’d expected a bearlike print. These were closer to wolf or dog tracks, though they were far larger than the prints of any canine I’d seen, and they were webbed between the digits, like duck feet. I moved to another print, thinking the first had been smeared somehow and that I was mistaken, but there were plenty of other examples.

“What is this thing? A mutant platypus that grew to huge proportions in the sewers of Phoenix? Or the radioactive waters of the nuclear power plant?” I snorted at the ridiculous notions. There were stories of strange aliens and bizarre critters in underground caverns in the Superstition Mountains east of the city. I didn’t recall any mention of web-footed monsters though.