Lindsay Buroker - Torrent

I finished scanning the Daily Courier ’s latest entries. “Did you check your tracker this morning? If our new friends are still at the Vendome, they might have had a difficult night.”

“I forgot. I didn’t think they’d go anywhere interesting until they heard back from us.” Simon dug out his phone. “What happened?”

“Rabid Bear Slays Four at Historic Prescott Hotel,” I read the headline aloud.

“The Vendome?” Simon asked.

“The Vendome. The front door was torn from its hinges, the carpet and furniture shredded on the first floor, and three doors on the second floor bashed in. Those doors were on the street side of the hotel. A businessman was killed in his bed in one room and a couple of tourists in another. The bodies were mauled horribly, two with the heads decapitated. None of the eyewitnesses saw more than a black blur, though most people were busy fleeing the hotel, some through their second-story windows, when the screams started. The police say it was the same animal that attacked the campground. Residents are being told to stay inside until its been found and brought down.”

“It sounds like staying inside didn’t work out well for the people in the hotel,” Simon said.

“Yeah.”

“The street side of the hotel on the second floor, you said?”

I nodded. “The article doesn’t specifically say that corner room was targeted, but I think we can assume the creature was looking for our friends.”

“And the sword that can supposedly damage it, though it doesn’t seem like anyone has drawn blood from it yet. Unless…” Simon drummed his fingers on his laptop. “Unless it doesn’t have blood.”

“Because it’s made from Mountain Dew bottles?”

“Well, all the evidence points to it being something weird. And we didn’t see that fight. We don’t know for sure that it wasn’t injured.”

“It couldn’t have been too injured if it was tearing through the forest, flinging itself at innocent people’s vans,” I said.

“True, but Eleriss and Jakatra must have driven it back somehow to buy themselves time to jump on their bikes and get away.”

I flicked my hand to concede the point.

“They’ve moved,” Simon said, eyeing his tracking app. “They’re at… let me switch to the better map and check that street. They moved to the Best Western. Just up the street from our Motel 6.”

“How wonderful.” It was a good thing last night’s sleep had been peaceful, because tonight’s might be less serene. “They must have decided it’d be less reprehensible to invite monsters to destroy chain hotels rather than historic buildings.”

“Yeah, I wonder why they’re staying in one place at all if they know they’re being hunted. They could sleep during the day and drive around at night to avoid the predator.”

I shrugged. “Whatever logic is guiding those two, I don’t think it’ll end up making a lot of sense to us.”

“I also wonder what it is they’re still looking for. Maybe they only have half of their weapon, or it’s missing some key part that will make it more powerful. Otherwise, why would they be searching for another cave? Something else that they need is here in Prescott.”

“You better find their cave for them then.”

“Yes, yes.” Simon tapped on the keyboard. “I’m on it.”

I sat down beside him and pulled out my own computer. A breeze whispered down the empty street, pushing orange and brown leaves before it. Even though I’d grabbed a jacket that morning, the cold from the cement soon seeped through my jeans. I hoped the sun would rise over the buildings and warm our spot soon, especially if no one showed up to open the library.

Simon had finally uploaded the voice file to our server, so I sent the link off to the linguistics professor I had in mind. Next I pulled up local maps to see if I could help identify potential cave spots. Simon’s software was good, but we’d need to narrow down the search area or it’d take a year to cover all the ground around Prescott.

“We’re looking for limestone caverns, right?” he asked.

“Must be. There are lava tubes up around Flagstaff, but I don’t think there was any volcanic activity this far south.” Of course, I hadn’t thought there were any significant caves in these mountains. I ran a quick search for limestone quarries and came up with a hit. “Yeah, it looks like there are deposits around.”

“And limestone caves are formed by water,” Simon mused, his fingers tapping across his keyboard.

“Yes, they’re usually just below the water table. We’ve got the Prescott and Chino aquifers around here. Those might be likely spots.” I ran a search to find the exact locations of the subterranean water supplies.

“Anything right under town or in the farmlands would be unlikely,” Simon mused. “Especially if the caverns are as big as those guys think. People would have found them when they were drilling for wells.”

“Hm. The Prescott aquifer is to the north-northeast of Prescott and northwest of Prescott Valley. This map isn’t very good, but it looks like the Granite Creek area, maybe including Willow and Watson Lakes.” I was guessing because the map I’d found lacked above-ground terrain features. I wondered if we could find out where the librarian lived, show up at her door, and ask for the key.

Simon leaned over to study my screen. “There are some good-sized parks in there. Remember that hike we did the first day? The one that went north of the rail trail? Nobody could have drilled under all that granite around the lakes.”

“Oooh,” I said, the craggy Granite Dells popping into my mind. We’d clambered all over those giant boulders. In spots, the trails were simply marked with white dots painted on the rocks. “Think that’s a big enough area to hide their cave?”

“Could be. It’ll be hard for my program to see under that much solid mass. I’ll mark the lakes though. Where’s the Chino aquifer? Under town?”

“Yeah, and under the farms out there. It looks like it might extend into the national forest to the west.” I pulled up another map. “Of course, there’s nothing guaranteeing a cave would be in the aquifer systems. If we’re looking at the entire Verde River watershed… that’s hundreds of square miles.”

“I’ve got it all up over here,” Simon said. “I’ll do some comparisons and see what matches our criteria.”

I sneaked a peek at his screen. He’d found much more detailed maps than I had. It figured.

The rumble of big trucks drifted up the street. Someone was out in town, risking the monster-infested neighborhoods.

“Ah,” I said when they came into sight. A convey of National Guard vehicles rolled past, hummers and 5-Tons painted in tan desert colors. The soldiers in the seats peered to either side of the street with interest. A grizzled older man with gray hair who was being driven by a woman my age gave us a suspicious squint. I waved cheerfully.

“Sorry, no monsters out before dusk,” I murmured as the hummer drove out of sight.

“Huh?” With his attention focused on the screen, Simon hadn’t noticed the trucks.

“Nothing.”

My phone bleeped. I had a text message from an unfamiliar number with a Phoenix area code. It read: What the hell was that?

I took a guess and texted back, Professor Wilkons ?

Yes. I’m running it through the computer, but there’s nothing familiar about that language. Where are you?

I’m not surprised. Prescott. I thought about calling him, but remembered him as a quirky introvert who preferred research to teaching and dead languages to spoken ones.

Isn’t a bear mauling the city up there?