C.E. Murphy - Demon Hunts

A small, weary part of myself thought I should probably be able to hold spirits, as well, and that we were going to pay heavily for my lack of skill. But slowed-down time or not, I didn't have the luxury of dwelling. "Coyote, can you kill it?"

"Me?" Incredulous horror spiked through the question, though he toned it back down with the next question: "With what?"

I shot a sideways glance at him. He looked like breathing and maintaining his part of the shield was just about the limit of his capability, which made my brain cramp again. He was my teacher, for pity's sake. I wasn't supposed to walk all over him in the sheer wattage department.

On the other hand, again, not such a good time to worry about it. I turned my attention back to the wendigo and the popping net. One hand fisted of its own accord, like I was holding on tighter, and the rest of me divorced itself from the wendigo just long enough to reach across space and seize my rapier.

It became real in my hand, a solid silver weight. I threw it to Coyote and hissed, "With this."

He caught it clumsily, and stood agog for what seemed like a horribly long time, maybe a whole second or so. Then he bolted forward, black braid bouncing against his spine, and I found myself the unhappy maintainer of both the entire shield and the net.

Screw it. We didn't need the shield as long as the net held. I let it go and focused on the rippling power containing the wendigo. The popping stopped, and relief lightened my heart. We were going to win.

The whine and roar of gunshots ceased abruptly as Coyote tore past the federal agents. Only Sara's protests followed him, unexpectedly thin after the world-shattering noise of the guns. The wendigo still howled, but the mountain was a bastion of silence, compared to what it had been an instant earlier.

Coyote's attack was cinematic. Two quick steps up the wendigo's bulk and he was on top of it, sword lifted in both hands. Power sparkled around him, dune yellow and sky blue connecting with the net, glimmering along the length of the sword, though I could See he hadn't infused the blade with power the way I'd once done. He froze there, captured in time like the Iwo Jima photo, and I Saw sudden gut-churning reluctance splash through his aura.

I was already roaring approval, a tremendous yawp of sound, and it hit him like a physical thing. He flinched and drove the blade downward.

The wendigo vanished.

Gary's whoop of triumph echoed mine. Coyote stood on air for the briefest instant, levitating before he crashed to the snow where the wendigo had been. The rapier plunged deep, leaving him kneeling over it like a king of old, and Gary snatched me up and spun me in a circle, both of us shrieking like idiots.

The others—the federal agents, the news crew—were less excited, their questions an endless round of what the hell? Coyote stood up slowly, expression grim as he pulled my sword from the snow and came back to us. He offered me the blade and I took it happily, turning it this way and that to examine it. There was no blood, nothing but a shimmer of melted water against silver. Coyote, unexpectedly softly, said, "Where did that come from?"

"It's the one I got skewered with. I kept it. Spoils of war." I peeked toward Corvallis, trying to make sure the camera wasn't on me, and whispered it home again. It disappeared as readily as the wendigo had, sending a little thrill of glee through me. Healing powers were handy and all, but a magic sword was six kinds of awesome. I wanted one. I had one, and I still wanted one. That's how cool it was.

Laurie elbowed me in the ribs and shoved her microphone in Coyote's face. "Laurie Corvallis, Channel Two News. You are?"

Coyote gave me a genuinely panicked glance, and I insinuated myself between them. Her camera guy's light turned the world to a bright blur, but I figured I was too close to focus on, which was a small favor. "He's not part of your story, Laurie."

"The hell he isn't. He just killed that thing with a sword. A sword! Where'd he get a sword? Where'd it go? What was that thing? Where did it go? I could barely see it. Did you see how it bounced back during the attack? Like it hit an invisible wall—"

I was going to have to ask Gary what that whole thing had looked like with unSighted eyes. "Ms. Corvall—"

"This is not a case open for discussion." Sara got between me and Laurie, which more or less put her nose against the camera lens. She put her hand over it, too, blocking any hope of a picture, focused or not, and repeated, "I'm sorry, Ms. Corvallis, but this is a federal situation and I'm going to have to ask you to respect the on-going nature of the investigation. I'll be happy to release what information I can, when I can."

I stepped backward gratefully, removing myself from sight and, I hoped, from Corvallis's mind. All the major cases I'd been involved in so far had been cover-up-able with some kind of vaguely plausible story. I couldn't think of a damned thing to explain away the apparent reversal of certain laws of physics, like an object in motion will remain in motion after everybody'd seen the object in question hit an invisible wall and bounce off. Nor could I explain where Coyote'd gotten the sword, or even more importantly, how he'd slain a monster which disappeared upon being skewered.

As it turned out, I didn't have to. While I was worrying about it, the wendigo rose up out of the snow and snatched Gary.

The old man roared louder than the wendigo did, though it sounded more like surprise than pain. I dived at them with no plan beyond save Gary, and passed right through both of them to face-plant in the snow beyond. I shoved up to my hands and knees, spitting ice, and twisted around to gape helplessly as an epic battle erupted.

The wendigo was in no way damaged from the sword thrust. It had to have gone incorporeal, losing cohesion just as Coyote drove the blade down. Either that or having a four-foot-long pointy thing stuck through it simply didn't have any effect at all, which was not a happy thought.

Sara had her damned gun out again. I wasn't sure I could help Gary, but I could at least keep him from getting shot. I flung up my shield again, this time willing it to be visible. I knew it could be—a few hundred partygoers had gotten an eyeful of it at Halloween—but visible wasn't its natural state. It worked, though. Sara cupped the gun's butt and pointed the muzzle toward the sky as silver-blue burst into being all around her. Around her and everybody else, in a sort of doughnut with Gary and the wendigo in its hollow center. Sara, for the hundredth time, yelled, "What the hell?"

I got to my feet. "Don't shoot. I don't know if the shield will hold bullets or ricochet them. And don't touch it. You might get fried." I was sure she wouldn't, but I hoped it would keep her out of the way while I figured how to answer her.

For something I'd fallen through, the wendigo looked pretty damned substantial. It seized Gary in its mouth and shook him wildly, and when he refused to bend or break, flung him to the ground again in a huge poof of snow. I cried out, but he just rolled to his feet, a slow pedantic action that went well with the way his shoulders gathered in a methodical hunch. He muttered, "Let's dance," and the wendigo paused a moment, like it was smart enough to be surprised at the phrase.

Gary charged it, a slow run that slammed a broad shoulder into its gut. They both went flying off the side of the road and bounced through the snow. Like everybody else, I rushed over to watch. They bashed into two pine trees, breaking first their fall, and then the trees, which creaked and shuddered and collapsed in a rain of snow and needles.

The wendigo was on its feet first, but Gary swung a fist up, catching the thing in its enormous jaw. The crack reverberated up the hillside and everybody around me hissed in a painful, impressed breath. Me, I wasn't breathing at all, and didn't know if I ever would again. Gary was a tough old coot, and still had the linebacker build of his youth, but it seemed utterly impossible that he could hold his own against a semi-embodied, soul-sucking, flesh-eating monster.