Halfway Dead (19 page)

The dream was, to put it mildly, irritating. I had to pee, which meant that my mind was nudging me through the layers of wakened states with a series of the usual images—waterfalls, me at the beach, the lake, and any other of my mind’s oh-so-subtle reminders that I have a bladder the size of a thimble. As I began to stir, I awoke to Wulfric’s big hand lightly on my mouth. I looked up, cleared my eyes, and instantly realized he was watching something with a primal intensity.

He looked down at me, then shook his head slightly as a means of telling me to stay silent. I nodded, and his palm slowly lifted from my mouth. He pointed to the east, waggling his hand from side to side with indecision. He was telling me something was near, but he didn’t know what. The fact that his vampire senses were unable to discern exactly what was coming sent a pulse of adrenaline through my body like a silent bolt of lightning.

I sat up, bangles clutched to my wrist with my free hand in order to stay completely silent. To my surprise, Jim Dietrich’s eyes glittered in the moonlight. He wasn’t just awake; I saw the menacing gleam of his pistol pointed in the general direction Wulfric had pointed.

I held up my bracelet and raised a brow.
Should I cast a spell?
My question was silent, but Wulfric understood. He nodded and slid quietly back to give me a clear vision in the direction of our unknown threat.

Centering my will, I let my senses fly outward, free and unburdened by the bonds of any physical laws. My sight swept across the spill of moonlit ground before I saw a hulking shape of complete blackness, hidden in a pool of shadows near an enormous boulder. The rock was easily eight feet high; the thing behind nearly that tall and just as wide. The angle of shadow was too perfect to be accidental. It was a predator, and, judging by my spell, it was less than forty yards away.

It was waiting for something. I could feel the inert cloud of stealth around the being, or creature—whatever it was. I sensed corruption and death. The hair on my arms rose of its own will, and I clamped my lips together in order to hold back a curse.

I held up a single finger to Wulfric, who nodded. Jim Dietrich raised a hand, asking about the size of the enemy. I looked up past Wulfric’s head and frowned.

Jim Dietrich moved silently for a human. I watched him uncoil from his resting position and train his weapon toward the boulder. He raised a shoulder in the ghost of a shrug, and ceased moving.

Wulfric jabbed a thumb at his chest and made a circling motion. He was going to flank the thing, which meant that the witch, that being me, was going to stand in front of something that was likely visiting our humble park from one of the nine hells.

What a plan.

Sometimes I think the Vikings actually preferred doing things the hard way. I gave my consent to Wulfric’s alleged plan of action and rose to a crouch. One second, the Viking stood before me. The next, he was gone. There was no sound. I resolved to never let him play hide and seek with me, and strained my eyes to peer into the uneven shadows cast by the moon. The land had taken on a sinister quality, and my nerves began to jangle with the act of waiting.

I lifted my hand and reached deep within my power for a clean, bright thread of magic that I like to use for non-specific ass kicking. When you don’t know what you’re fighting, a safe bet is to use wind and light. Occasionally, I’ll go for electricity or the odd curse, but tonight, I let my most focused, raw energy come out to play. I readied the spell and held my hand out, feet braced at shoulder width. I let a breath of the crisp night air fill my lungs, and then I stood up.

In one fluid motion, I began to walk forward across the uneven gravel of our campsite, the birch bark and pebbled wash of the mountain crunching under my feet. An answering grunt chilled my blood to ice before I’d gone three steps. The sound was deep, primal, and from the chest of something that I was certain had never walked on mother earth. Ever. My own skin reverberated with the vile growl, and I wavered, then thought of my training, and set my feet once more. I would not allow doubt to crash this party.

“I am here, beast. Who. Are. You?” I asked in clipped tones. I fought to make sure my voice rang with bravado. I know my heart was ringing with disquiet.

“An emissary,” came the answer.

I froze again. I’d not expected a reply. The voice was silky, low, and wicked.

“Show yourself. I stand ready, fiend.” My voice was steady. My heart was not.

“Now why . . . would I,” said the unseen creature, moving quickly to my right, “do something like
that
?”

I whirled at the low rumble behind me to see something massive shouldering aside the underbrush.

A hulking black shape rushed at me as I unleashed my first spell. Gran trained me to treat magic like a cannon; you don’t fire it indiscriminately. Based on the slavering noises, I felt confident I was doing the world a favor when the spiraling explosion of wind leapt across the space between me and the enemy. A second later, the light followed, dragged along in a coruscation of white and yellow as the spell slammed into the onrushing beast.

It was a demon. Sinister and misshapen, it churned the earth as it hurtled toward me, illuminated by my casting. The spell struck shoulder high on the pulpy looking gray mass of the creature, its maw opened wide to reveal a serious case of gingivitis. Broken tusks littered the upper and lower jaws in a grotesque parody of human teeth. The tongue was unrolled and spraying saliva as it ran. The demon was bear-sized, hairless, and lumpy, with all four limbs ending in wicked-looking claws of dark blue ivory.

So, yeah. It was disgusting.

I had no problem loading a second spell while the first was still dissipating on the demon’s skin, but took note that, even though there was now a large hole in the beast’s meaty shoulder, it hadn’t slowed down enough that I could say if I’d killed it. I raised my hands and shouted above the growing crash of the demon’s feet, when Wulfric appeared like a mirage, one muscular arm holding a dried tree limb before him like a lance. He didn’t make a sound as he drove the wood deep into the demon’s ribs, slamming his own shoulder behind the makeshift weapon to drive the sun-bleached point well past whatever bones might be under the slick gray skin.

The demon unleashed a howl of such fury that sleeping birds scattered in a flurry of wings. I flinched from the sheer humanity of the scream, but steadied myself and let the second spell fly. At a range of ten feet, I couldn’t miss. The bolt hit true, and the demon rose up, front arms spread wide like a benediction as its back legs began to collapse. Wulfric’s strike had done some serious damage, and the black ichor demons use for blood was spraying like party favors into the night air. With a final herculean effort, the vile beast rolled in midair, shrieking for vengeance and mustering one last hateful swipe with its front claws.

It caught Jim Dietrich in the bicep, raking a single blue talon downward with a wet tear until the claw snagged in the bones of his wrist. He went down under the heaped flesh of the demon, just as Wulfric leapt up onto the exposed back of the hellbeast, another bleached peace of pine in his hands. He drove the stake downward in a powerful thrust, pinning the sagging head to the earth like he was anchoring a tent. At that instant, my third spell, a minor ball of fae fire, erupted from my charm and vanished down the open gullet of the demon. A muffled thump and a long, repulsive belch emitted from the demon as it shuddered and died.

Even dead, the thing couldn’t stop being gross. It really was an art form to be so universally nasty. I interrupted my condemnation of demonic bodily functions at the sight of Dietrich’s arm flopped out over the moist earth.

“Jim!” I shouted, leaping over the extended forelegs of the demon to reach our fallen friend.

The answering groan was weak, but present. I found his hand even as Wulfric put his shoulder into the beastly corpse and shoved it off of him in a liquid tumble. The creature sagged into a new resting position and quivered to a stop. Ichor gleamed black in the starlight, waves of steam wicking away into the night. I felt my gorge rise at the wrongness of the demon, and drew several short breaths through my mouth to calm my roiling stomach. Up close, the demon smelled like a wet hamper full of gym socks, and I pinched my nose indelicately with one hand.

“Yeah, me too,” Wulfric said, his face in a sour grimace. “Jim, are you well enough to sit?”

“Maybe.” Jim coughed. “Maybe not.” He grunted with every tiny motion, and Wulfric was examining the wicked gash in his arm with clinical interest.

“Please tell me that demon venom isn’t fatal,” I wheedled to no one in particular. I know very little of the biology of demons, but based on their aroma alone, I was betting it wasn’t harmless to humans.

“No, it isn’t.” Wulfric eyed Jim’s arm, then looked into the drawn features of his patient.

For a man who was bleeding and partially squashed, he seemed remarkably calm.

“But he isn’t going to use that arm for some time.” In a businesslike manner, Wulfric quickly cleaned the wound and wrapped it, then fashioned a sling out of a coil of rope he produced from his pack.

Jim looked at his arm with mild surprise. “That’s my shooting hand.”

“No it isn’t,” Wulfric corrected. “Both hands are calloused. You use either with some degree of skill.” He narrowed his eyes, then asked, “Why would you lie about such a skill?”

Dietrich regarded us both with a grimace. “I didn’t want to brag.”

I threw my hands up halfway, then laughed. “Why would we care? You can still shoot, right?”

Wulfric inched closer to Jim, then pulled him to his feet. “Let’s get away from this corpse, and you can explain why your nature precludes you from acts of misplaced pride.”

We moved camp. It took the better part of an hour, but we all agreed that staying close to a mound of decaying demon could be bad luck. I—and my nose—agreed. With a fire burning brightly at the new campsite, I looked at Jim, who was pale and a bit worn, but alert. Before I could open my mouth, he stilled me with a single flattening gesture of his good arm.

“You don’t have to ask, Carlie. Let me explain,” Jim said. “I’m a practical man, who has recently discovered that the world is much more interesting than I previously imagined. I’d be a fool to brag about my career in the service or as an investigator, so I clammed up for a moment. There’s nothing complex about my unwillingness to crow about myself, I simply prefer to look at the evidence before me. Those facts indicate that you are considerably more powerful than you know, and Wulfric is fast and strong, and more than a little taken with you.”

“Hey, I—” I started, then looked at Wulfric.

At that moment, he didn’t
look
immortal. He looked like a young man who’d been caught staring at a pretty girl. I rather liked being the object of his affection, because the interest seemed genuine. Lust bores me after a while, because it’s hot but shallow, like a puddle in August. I hadn’t dated enough, because my needs were for a deeper, cool connection that could be explored over time. What can I say? I’m the analytical romantic type . . . sort of, unless you count food. The man that cooks for me will win my heart, and I found my thoughts wandering to Wulfric’s culinary skills. Did vampires like waffles? I could live with the whole undead thing, but not making, or at the very least loving, waffles was a deal breaker.

I turned to Wulfric and threw down the metaphoric gauntlet. “What are you going to do about it?”

He thought about demurring in the face of my direct question, but then composed himself with old world dignity and said, “When the time is appropriate, I will let you know.” His eyes flashed as he turned to Jim. “Are you happy, meddler?”

Jim grunted and settled onto his pack with a smile. “Yes. Yes, I am.” And with that, he turned his face away and fell instantly asleep.

I slept well, taking first watch and watching Wulfric and Jim snore with equal aplomb. Men of any size or shape seem to possess the ability to enter a near coma in seconds. I treated the experience like a safari where I would watch exotic beasts snort and mumble their way through an evening’s rest, occasionally scratching themselves idly as they grunted and changed positions. The remainder of the night passed in unremarkable slumber, and I awoke to the scents of campfire and coffee.

“Morning, gents.” I stretched luxuriously, which is to say that I lifted myself on my toes twice before patting my hair experimentally. I wasn’t surprised to feel the springy resistance of a numerous cowlicks. I’d slept in one position, apparently, leaving me with a decidedly windblown look, despite having been prone on the ground for six hours. When I caught Wulfric’s smirk, I narrowed my eyes and said, “Not a word, big guy. Not. One. Word.”

He covered his mouth and bowed with considerable grace as Jim let a chortle escape. Since Dietrich was handing me a cup of coffee, I let the infraction go unpunished. I took a sip of the steaming brew, then looked up into the brightening sky and saw Bindie hovering inches above my head. She unleashed a burst of machine-gun fire fae, and then flittered away at speeds I’d not thought possible.

“What was that about?” I asked, blowing across the cup. It was hot, but not so hot that I wouldn’t drink it. I’m not crazy.

Wulfric’s face grew solemn. “The spring is near.”

I looked around, nonplussed. It had been such a glorious morning. “How far away?” I asked. There was no sense in ignoring the reality of our task, even if it did ruin breakfast.

“Less than an hour. Directly around that blowdown, you see the rocks?” Wulfric asked, pointing to a place that was so close it gave me pause.

I
felt
nothing. I expected some kind of warning, given the purported evil we were approaching.

“The spring will not move if we enjoy our coffee,” Jim said as he unwrapped one of the largest candy bars I’d ever seen. “I need to discuss something with you both, regardless. Let’s take a moment.” Although his tone was light, his body language was tense.

“Okay.” I sat expectantly.

Wulfric said nothing, but gave Jim the entirety of his considerable attention.

“We need a contingency plan in case things go awry,” Jim began, and I felt my face drain of color. This was a reality I’d not yet confronted, despite the serious nature of our journey. I know that death is possible; I just don’t consider myself a candidate. I’m optimistic that way. “Wulfric, do you have any experience with ship building?”

“What?” The big vampire’s shock was as sudden as mine. “I mean, of course, but—do you plan on sailing to the spring?” He laughed, a short bark of nervous surprise.

“No, but I have an idea that requires an experienced shipwright, and I’ve heard that your people might have some experience in that field.” He grinned easily, and I began to get a strange feeling that I was being cut out of the plans. Dietrich read my expression, because he turned to me and smiled at my open discomfiture. “Carlie, you are a critical cog in my plan, don’t worry.” He hunched over and began to draw in the dirt near the fire. “We’re going to a battle, and we must plan for success. Sadly, we must also plan for failure, and that’s where the two of you come in. Look here—
”

Over the next ten minutes, Jim expounded on his thoughts, and I sat back, smiling, as Wulfric’s face broke into an expression of such unalloyed joy that I thought he might faint. Jim Dietrich was a detective, and a soldier, and apparently a solver of puzzles. I lifted my cup as we crushed out the fire, squaring my shoulders for the short trip to a place where evil awaited our arrival.

I’d never felt better.