C.E. Murphy - Demon Hunts

She glanced away, a trace of guilt slithering across her pretty features. It made me feel a little better, not because I wanted her to feel badly, but because maybe it meant we had been friends and she'd just heaped a lot of after-the-fact resentment onto the relationship. I was coming to realize I knew more than a little about that kind of behavior.

"It doesn't matter. I guess I am still into it." I had no recollection at all of being into mystical stuff in high school, and wondered if those memories had faded the same way my Coyote dreams had faded. Wondered, in fact, whether they'd had help in fading, which made me want to kick Coyote's shin just in case. "It's kind of what I'm doing now. It doesn't really matter if you believe in it or not, but you're not going to f…" I trailed off because Laurie Corvallis had worked her way into my line of vision, and was staring at us very nearly hard enough to set my hair on fire. I'd forgotten she was there. "Shit."

Sara glanced at her like she was of slightly less significance than a bug. "Don't worry. I can seize her tapes under the Patriot Act if I need to."

For the first and possibly the last time in history, Corvallis and I started spluttering in outrage for the same reason. Sara said, "Oh, great, you're still a bleeding-heart liberal, too," and grabbed my arm to haul me several steps away. Corvallis tried to follow, but two of Sara's agents materialized—a word I should've use more cautiously, given the wendigo's vanish-and-reappear act—between us. Corvallis bounced on her toes, trying to see what was going on. A mean little part of me snickered. Sadly, that part was attached to my voice box, so it happened out loud, but Sara only smirked and didn't chide me. "You were saying?"

"That you're not going to find a conventional killer. I know there's no point in asking you to step back, but unless the FBI has its own paranormal investigative team, you're not going to find an answer." A sudden childish hope sparked in me. "Do you? Is there really like an X-Files department? I would've made a great—"

"Mulder," Sara finished, which was not at all what I'd been going to say. "If we've got X-Files, I don't know about them." And don't want to, her tone said. "Are you for real? You think there's some kind of mythological monster out here in the woods killing people?"

"Can you give me a logical explanation, a clear definition, of what you saw in the last half hour?" I raised a hand, blocking any answer she might give to what was effectively a rhetorical question. "Seriously, Sara, what did you see? Because I can hardly see this thing myself, and it's probably easier for me than most people." That sounded better than "for you."

Her upper lip curled and flattened again, almost invisible signal of frustration. "A wolf," she finally said, in much the same way Gary'd named it a bear. "I don't know, Joanne. I could barely focus on it. It had teeth, that's all I know, and all my victims have been eaten. Let's say I believe you."

Way, way, way under my breath, I mumbled, "I believe you," obediently. People hardly ever thought that was as funny as I did, though, so I hoped she hadn't heard, but mostly I wished life came with emoticons, so I could stamp a disembodied smiley face in the air next to me as an indication that other people should think I was funny, too.

"If I believe you, and this isn't something bullets can handle, what am I supposed to do? Go back to my bosses and say sorry, no idea what happened, but I promise it's over? What are you going to do? And how are you going to prove you're right if you kill this thing?"

"By Seattle not being the epicenter of cannibal killings anymore? Honestly, I don't know yet how to stop this thing." That was clearly the wrong thing to say. Sara's jaw tensed and she turned her shoulders in a way that indicated closing-off body language. I hurried along, words tumbling over each other. "It's coming at me from a different place than anything else I've gone up against, Sara. I'll take it down. I always have before. But it's a lot easier if I don't have civilians around to worry about."

I'd forgotten her quirky lifted eyebrow. She didn't raise it up high like most people did. She only twitched it just enough to indicate she was amused, and that hadn't changed in thirteen years. Hopeful, I smiled back just a little. "I use the word 'civilians' advisedly."

"You better. Look, Joanne. I can't pull out. You know that."

"Yeah, I do. Just…if you believe me at all, just drop when I say get down, okay?"

She sighed, the sound starting somewhere around her ankle bones. "Okay."

"Good," I said. "Great. Get down! "

Sara hit the deck, and the wendigo came tearing over us.

It smelled of desperation, a scent I'd only associated with humans before, and even that as a parable rather than an actual definable stink. But its stench was sour, and there was no method to its behavior, just a frenzied launch at those closest to it. Sara was facedown in six inches of snow, and the thing rebounded off me, sending me into a backward stagger.

I could feel the agents' life-pulses so clearly I didn't need to see them, and snapping fresh shields up was by now instinctive. The wendigo leaped from body to body, bouncing off, and finally, with a howl, turned back to me. Shields or not, it landed on me like a ton of bricks. I sank down but shot my hands upward, grabbing at its thick neck.

Thick, but smaller than it had been. Gary'd done a lot of damage in his brief battle, and I knew it was starving for lack of souls, for lack of flesh.

Given that it had backed off from me twice now, it had to be desperate to attack me when it had been weakened. It made sense: I could probably power it back up to its previous size, all in one tidy snack, but I didn't think it was happy about its range of choices. It swung its head, hot saliva spattering my face as it pressed down, trying to make my arms buckle. I wasn't about to falter, but neither did I know exactly what to do now that I had it by the throat. Using my magic as a weapon was a cosmic no-no, and I didn't dare let go so I could draw my sword. I had unpleasant visions of lying here in the snow for the rest of eternity, trying to throttle something that wasn't exactly alive.

Coyote appeared, a silhouette against the blue sky, and clobbered the wendigo with a tree branch. It howled, whacked him away, and fled. I heard Coyote hit the snow, and then silence broken only by the harsh breathing of those around us. Even that faded after a minute, and there was nothing but wind and the occasional plop of snow falling from trees to the ground. I ventured, "Sara?" and got a muffled grunt in reply.

"I think it's gone. I think maybe you and your people should go back down to the lodge and keep anybody from going hiking or skiing or whatever. What do you think?"

"I think that sounds like a good use of federal resources." She sounded almost like the girl I'd been friends with a lifetime ago. Snow squeaked as she got up, and I lay there listening to the brief, unconvinced and unconvincing arguments presented by her forensics team. A couple of them decided to stay behind, with a handful of others offering to stand guard while they worked. I didn't think any of them imagined they were going to find anything, but I admired their work ethic. The rest took Corvallis and her cameraman, the former complaining bitterly, and headed back to the hotel to keep tourists from getting themselves eaten.

I was pretty sure I should join them, but staring at the sky as I lay deep in what would be a snow angel if I could muster the energy to wave my arms and legs had its appeal, too. "So," I said eventually. "Nice job there at the end, scaring it off."

Coyote's voice drifted up out of the snow. "I think it was trying to escape and went after you because it was desperate. That wasn't a real attack."