Kevin Hearne - Tricked

“You know them?” I said.

“Maybe,” Sophie admitted. Her fingers danced nervously around the edges of her coffee mug and she eyed Frank, asking him if it was truly okay to share this information with me. He gave her a nod to go ahead.

“It’s speculation, not hard fact,” she stressed.

“Understood,” I said.

“I only know this because of my clan,” she began. “And all the workers, including Ben, are from my clan, if that helps you understand why we’re on board with Frank here. There was a murder about ten years ago, and it was a big deal. Divorced woman killed in her home. So, uh … wait. I need a pen.”

She fished a retractable gel pen out of her jacket pocket and then grabbed a napkin out of the dispenser lying on the table. Before she could continue, the waitress arrived to take our order, and we paused to do that. It was a bit depressing for me, because I had nothing to order for Oberon; I asked for an extra side of bacon anyway in his honor.

When the waitress departed, Sophie began to write on her napkin. “All right,” she said, “I don’t want to say the names of the dead or attract the attention of those who may still be living”—and here Frank nodded sagely at her caution—“so I’m going to just show you these names and explain from there. You don’t read them aloud or anything, okay?”

Granuaile and I murmured our agreement. Sophie flipped around the napkin and pointed with her pen to the name at the top, which read Millie Peshlakai .

“This person was the murder victim, distantly related to me and the rest of the crew. She was only about forty, and the cause of death was clearly violent. Nicest lady. Nobody could figure out why she’d ever be a target. And these two here,” she paused, pointing to the names Robert and Ray Peshlakai , “were her sons. Twins in their late teens. They disappeared. Haven’t been seen since the day their mother was found. Most people figured they were kidnapped by their father, and they thought he’d done the murder too. He’s a bad sort, lives up in Utah. But once they tracked him down and interrogated him, it was obvious he had nothing to do with it. Ironclad alibi and everything. So the murder’s been unsolved all this time, and we still don’t know what happened to the boys.”

“So you think …?” I said.

“Anybody can start followin’ the Witchery Way whenever they want. But there’s only one way to become one of those things we’ve been dealin’ with,” Frank rasped. “Only one way to make your soul so black you attract a spirit from First World and gain powers nobody oughtta have.”

Sophie circled the two boys’ names and then drew an arrow to their mother’s name. “You have to kill a family member,” she said. “You become pure evil.”

“Hold on a second,” I said. “If they’re so evil, how come they haven’t been going around killing people?”

“ ’Cause they haven’t had to go around anywhere to do that,” Frank explained. “Plenty of people climb Tyende Mesa for the hell of it. You know how those climbers are. They see a rock that looks cool, an’ their life won’t be complete until they manage to stand on top of it. They bring their pitons an’ rope an’ shit an’ walk around town smiling at everybody ’cause there’s a decent chance they’ll fall down an’ go splat . Well, for the last ten years, some o’ them people never came back. They don’t go splat, they simply disappear, gear and all.”

“The skinwalkers are burying them?”

“The bones, maybe. After all the meat’s off ’em.”

“They’re cannibals ?” Granuaile said.

“Aw, I don’t know for sure,” Frank said. “But cannibalism is part of the Witchery Way that they follow. Besides that, I don’t know what else they’d be eatin’. Ain’t like the shepherds ’round here been missin’ sheep. Nobody’s missin’ their veggies or their breakfast cereals. So what are they eatin’ up there? It ain’t delivery pizza.”

“People have been vanishing on the mesa and nobody notices?”

“O’ course somebody notices. Funny thing is, that only attracts more of ’em, because they think the rock’s a challenge. And then o’ course you get their relatives comin’ out to search for ’em, and they disappear too.”

“Why doesn’t the tribe close off the mesa?” Granuaile asked. “They wouldn’t have to give any specific reason. Just say it’s too dangerous.”

Frank shrugged. “Guess they like the revenue that climbers bring in. Hotel taxes, dining, souvenirs, all that. They go up there at their own risk. And most o’ the council don’t believe in skinwalkers anyway. After last night I think they’ll start believin’ though.”

Sophie chuckled. “I swear we have leaders like everyone else: Some of them are genuinely bright, but some of them aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed.”

“The sharpest tools … oh!” I said. “That’s it, that will work! Frank, I know how to slow them down.”

“What? How?”

“Caltrops. They won’t be expecting them after having clear ground for days now. They’ll run right into them, and they’re barefoot. We’ve already seen that they’re suckers for booby traps.”

“Psssh. They ain’t runnin’ at us anymore. Their tactics have changed.”

“They will if we lay out some bait.”

“Like what? Prime rib?”

“Like me. I’ll surround myself with caltrops and ring the dinner bell, and they’ll come running.”

“That ain’t gonna stop ’em. They’ll fight through the pain to get to you and then deal with the injuries after you’re all tore up. The First World spirit will guarantee that.”

“They won’t be able to fight through it if the caltrops are poisoned.”

Three jaws dropped and three pairs of eyes stared at me, and the waitress appeared with our food. No one said anything until she’d brought back some syrup for Granuaile and refilled our coffee.

“Poisoned?” Frank said. “You gonna dip ’em in bleach or something?”

“Or something, if you get me to a drugstore. I can whip up something pretty good.”

“A geologist who can mix poisons?” Sophie said.

“He’s a Renaissance man,” Granuaile explained as she poured syrup on her pancakes, and I shot her an amused glance. Yes, I was a Renaissance man. And a man of the Enlightenment, a Victorian man, a Postmodern man …

Frank squinted at me doubtfully and wagged his head back and forth slowly. “I don’t think that’s gonna work,” he said.

“Why not?”

He sighed and took a stab at his omelet. “I don’t care what kind o’ poison you got, they ain’t gonna step on one and keel over dead. They’re gonna keep going based on momentum if nothing else. And skinwalkers have a hell of a lot o’ momentum. They’re gonna get a shot at you, and one shot’s probably all they’re gonna need. Poison might get to them eventually, but not before they get to you.”

“Maybe. I’m betting that anything traveling that fast is going to fall down and go boom as soon as it runs into an obstacle. They’ll not only get one in their feet, you see, they’ll fall down and get punctured multiple times. Once they’re down with that much poison in them, they won’t be getting up. But even if they don’t fall down, Frank, they’re going to be stepping mighty ginger right away; they’ll slow down to manageable speeds, enough for us to get a shot at them.”