Ghostcountry's Wrath (26 page)

It also showed him two figures trudging up the slope from the opposite side.

One was low-slung, sinuous, and feline; the other bipedal, and obviously a woman.

“Sandy!” he cried joyfully, and for the second time in less than half an hour found himself running toward one of his companions.

“Cal!”

They met, hugged, kissed impulsively, and Calvin was relieved to note that though she was as cold and wet as Brock had been, Sandy showed no signs of either chill or shock.

“You okay?” he asked when they drew apart.

“As well as I can be, given I don't have a clue where we are or how we got here—and would prob'ly be out of a job if I did,” she replied, but then her face clouded. “Where's Brock?”

“Dryin' out and warmin' up half a mile over the hill,” Calvin told her, drawing her close with an arm around her waist. “We'll be there in no time.” They started up the slope.

But a low growl from the panther made them turn again. It wasn't following, but was frozen where it stood. Calvin eased away from Sandy, walked slowly toward it, knelt, rubbed between its ears. The fur was almost dry
—almost.
Would have been if it had stayed beside the fire instead of coming to find Sandy. “Thanks, Okacha,” he whispered.

The beast did not move, but made a sound deep in its throat that was somewhere between a growl and a groan. A wind sprang up, first cousin to that which had earlier presaged the lightning. It played around them, warm and insistent.

And as it did, the panther's fur dried; and as each tuft lost its moisture, skin showed beneath:
human
skin, writhing and changing as the wind blew Okacha's humanity back to her.

She turned her face into it. Already mostly human, she rose onto her hind legs. Her mouth opened whiskered and jowly, but closed again with small red lips. “I would've done this before, but I needed my nose to find Sandy,” she gasped, her voice still with an odd timbre, but becoming more recognizable by the second.

And then the wind subsided, and Okacha stood there, fully human.

She was also naked—sleekly so. And very beautiful, Calvin couldn't help but notice. He felt his cheeks warm, knew he was blushing. She laughed, oblivious to her nudity.

Calvin's face grew hot—not from embarrassment, but from a surge of bitter anger that welled up in him so fast it made him choke.
What had this crazy bitch done to them, anyway?
In her desperation to escape Snakeeyes, where had she brought them? And at what cost? Shoot, Brock had almost gone into shock! And here she stood, stark naked and laughing at him, when he'd risked everything on the slimmest of explanations.

“You!” he spat. “You—” Rage made him inarticulate.

“To get us here as quickly as we did, you had to wish yourself dead
and
think yourself dead,” she said simply. “I gave you a pain that made you want to die to escape it. And I slashed your throats to make you believe you were dying. The river healed you.”

“Bitch!”

“Cal!”
Sandy snapped. “Stop it!”

“No!” Okacha shot back. “He's gotta get it out. Balance has to be maintained. I had to release the human in the beast to return to myself, but to balance that, he has to release the beast in him—his anger. There's no room for deception here.”

Sandy scowled uncertainly, and Calvin was on the verge of venting yet more ire. Except, he realized, it was gone. It had flared, even as Okacha's change had flared. Now it had vanished, burned away, as the beast was burned away in her. “That's gonna take some gettin' used to.” He gulped. “It is if we have to watch every emotion.”

Okacha shrugged. “My magic awoke your magic. Or it awoke whatever fuels your magic, anyway.”

Calvin shrugged and turned again. “We need to get back to Brock.”

Sandy was fumbling with her pack. She dragged out a wad of sodden fabric and handed it to Okacha. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Okacha murmured. “But if it's okay with you, I think I'll stay like I am until I can put on something dry.”

Silence, a little strained. Then, from Sandy: “Where are we, anyway?”

“Nowhere near the Land of the Dead, that's for sure,” Okacha replied easily. “From the way my mother described it, I'd say we were just on the fringe of the Darkening Land.”

Calvin frowned, then frowned more when another thought fought its way through the muddle of his mind to reach the surface. “Snakeeyes…”

“What about him?”

“Can he follow us here?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“'Cause he doesn't know the way—and 'cause he has no business here.”

His eyes narrowed. “And we
do
?”

“So it seems.”

“But—”

“Hush, Cal,” Sandy interrupted. “I don't wanta hear about that kinda stuff right now.”

“Maybe you're right.” He sighed. “Maybe we need to get centered.”

“I
need
to get warm,” Sandy replied tartly, and drew closer.

“I can see the fire,” Okacha noted as they topped the ridge.

Two minutes later they were in sight of the tree, on a far-side limb of which the fire blazed. And a minute after that, had rounded it. Calvin, intent on briefing Sandy on his doings since regaining consciousness, and on fleshing out the details of her story, had temporarily forgotten about Brock.

But there he was: all curled up fetus-style between the fire and a limb, bare as the day he was born, and evidently fast asleep. The fire gave his pale skin a healthy golden glow. Calvin couldn't resist a chuckle.

“Cute kid,” Sandy observed. “Even cuter without his…attitude.”

“Cute little butt, too,” Okacha noted in turn, elbowing Sandy in the ribs. Calvin found his face warming again, embarrassed for Brock's sake. “Uh, maybe you ladies oughta boogie for a second, while—”

But he'd evidently spoken too loudly—or someone had. Brock's eyes suddenly popped open. He sat up abruptly, and had exactly time to assess the situation—that he was bare-assed in front of two women, one of whom was also blatantly sky-clad—before he leapt with amazing speed and dexterity behind the trunk. Calvin caught a flash of very white buttocks, which were quickly replaced by an indignant stare of blue eyes beneath soggy black hair as Brock peered across the weathered wood.

Calvin guffawed. “Lose your cool?” he called through his laughter. If the kid had regained his modesty, he was obviously fine.

“Pants,” came an irate mumble.

“Pants?” Calvin teased. “You mean, like,
your
pants?”

“Traitor,” Brock gritted, his eyes flashing with adolescent fury. Then: “Jesus
shit!
What th' fucking
hell
?”

Whereupon he leapt back over the trunk—snagging a foot in the process, which tumbled him into an untidy and
very
revealing sprawl—with a toe perilously near the fire, which made him flop and curse inelegantly as he scrambled to his feet.

“What th—?” Calvin echoed, eyes wide with bemusement.

“Something fucking
tickled
me,” Brock spat, grappling unsuccessfully with his jockey shorts as he bounced about on one foot.

“Tickled you?” from Okacha.

“Fucking yeah!” Brock growled, having just realized he had started his skivvies on backward.

“
Tickled
you?” Sandy chimed in.

“Tickled you?” came a third, deeper voice.

Calvin froze, abruptly all seriousness. Where had
that
come from?

More laughter. From beyond the log.

Calvin crept that way at a wary crouch, atasi in hand, but before he'd gone two paces, a shape reared above the driftwood.

As large as a Shetland sheepdog it was, and as furry. But it also had long ears and dark, nervous eyes. And as Calvin gaped in surprise, it hopped atop the tree trunk and squatted there, wrinkling its small pink nose. Calvin blinked. He'd thought it was gray, but now it seemed more tan. But one thing was clear: it was a rabbit—albeit a very
large
one.

The bunny surveyed them solemnly, displaying no fear. It seemed especially interested in Okacha and in Brock, who was minimizing his problem by turning away from the women—and toward the animal. His briefs hung limp in his hand.

“Now I know why you wear so many clothes,” the rabbit observed, with what sounded suspiciously like a chuckle. “If I looked like that without my fur, I'd cover my skin, too!” And with that it bounded to the sand before them. “Mind if I join you? Oh, but I've forgotten my manners! It's nice to see you again, Edahi. I'm
sure
you remember me: your old friend,
Tsistu
?”

Sandy stared, Brock alternately blushed and gaped. Calvin looked troubled. And Okacha looked strangely…hungry.

Chapter XV: Hide and Seek

“Tsistu,” Calvin groaned, his hand lingering by the war club at his belt. “Shit!”

From its place behind the driftwood log, the rabbit stared at him with eyes as dark brown and moist as the leaves blanketing the bed of a mountain stream. Its nose twitched. Its right ear kinked downward. Somehow it was larger. The tawny fur became ticked with gray. It hopped onto a nearer limb—and was instantly the size of a common Georgia cottontail.

Calvin scowled and puffed his cheeks.

A long furry ear cocked his way. “What was that…
Utlunta-dehi
?”
Tsistu demanded, abruptly twice his previous size. “The word has not been whispered in Galunlati, or the Lying World, or Usunhiyi, the Darkening Land, either, that eludes me! If you
think
too loud I hear it! I can hear the anger in your blood as it flees your brain and seeks your limbs through veins drawn tight to speed its flow. I can hear each metal spike click into its fellow on the odd thing that boy uses to close his leggings. I can hear the hiss as Ancient Red chases the Long Man's spit from that fair-haired woman's clothing to seek the open air. I can hear—”

“Can you hear me tellin' you to stop this chatter, or you'll be
dead
?”
Okacha broke in sharply, her voice dripping with implicit menace.

Again an ear tilted. “Can you hear
me
telling you that if I am, you will lose the only guide you have in this place, O long-gone child of the Underworld and the Middle?”

Okacha's eyes flashed fire, looking at least as feral as they had when she was entirely feline. “Cool it,” Calvin gritted; then, to the rabbit, “What did you say about bein' a guide?”

The creature shrugged—or that was how it registered. “I showed you the way once, Edahi,” it sighed. “I thought perhaps you might want me to again.”

Calvin's eyes narrowed suspiciously, liking neither the situation itself, nor the way Tsistu kept invoking his secret names. “Yeah, you showed us the way, all right: when me and my friends first went to Galunlati. But then you tricked us into killin' an eagle and almost got
us
killed for our pains!” His fingers closed around the shaft of the club.

“Or you
could
say I brought you to the attention of those you sought more effectively than would have occurred otherwise. Do you suppose Uki would have given you a
second
of his time had you simply come to his door? Poor witless weaklings that you were? I made it so that he
had
to notice you.”

Calvin merely snorted and folded his arms—but kept his fingers near the club. Sandy grimaced uncertainly, clearly out of her depth and willing to let more experienced heads prevail. Okacha was gnawing her lip. And Brock, who had finally managed to contrive a minimum of modesty, flicked his belt home and turned. “You still haven't told us what you meant about being a guide,” the boy noted.

The rabbit blinked at him. “So those tiny ears
do
work.” He chuckled. “Well, apparently those of your elders do not. But you are correct. I will be your guide—if you will have me.”

“Guide to what?” Calvin asked carefully.

“Why, to Tsusginai, the Ghost Country,” Tsistu shot back. “That
is
what you seek, is it not?”

“Maybe.”

“Suppose I told you a man called Snakeeyes has sent many of my kin in the Lying World there? More than he ought, for he kills them for sport and leaves them to rot without thanks or apology, using neither their meat nor their skins?”

“I would say that's true,” Okacha replied sadly, “'cause I've seen him at it. He kills for the love of killin' but doesn't use the bodies. Once I saw him run over a nest of baby rabbits with a lawn mower. He spent an hour lookin' at what was left. Another time he tied one alive to the exhaust of his car and drove a hundred miles with it there.
Another
time—”