Chapter Four #2
“So I have gathered,” Max mused. He took up his cider and took a long sip. “What makes you want to help Mr. Gregory, if I may ask?”
“I told you. Marcone—”
Max raised a forefinger in a negative gesture. “Not that. You, directly, personally. What makes you want to help him?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I said.
Max arched a skeptical eyebrow and tilted his head. “Last spring, you were willing to let him go to his death without interference,” he noted. “What changed?”
“He’s afraid,” I said simply.
“With good reason. And for good reasons,” Max said. “That’s not it.”
I frowned and said, “Last spring, he was set on doing bad stuff. Now he wants to do good stuff. And he asked for my help.”
“Ah,” he said, very gently.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He smiled, sadly, but his eyes were kind.
“I’ve wanted to feel that redemption was possible once or twice myself.
” He tilted himself back in his chair and laced his fingers over his belly.
“You may well be tilting at windmills here, you know. No matter the purity of our intentions, we cannot change other people. Ultimately, it will be his choice and not yours.”
“I know,” I began.
Then Peppermint the basset hound suddenly lifted his head from my foot and let out a low, hard growl.
At the same time, the hairs on the back of my neck went up and a cold feeling of naked fear slithered down my spine as my wizard’s senses tripped to the presence of some kind of supernatural danger.
The dog went tearing out of the doggie door and into the yard, barking furiously.
“What?” Max blurted, sitting up.
“Stay here,” I snapped, and rushed out to the front yard.
Tripp was standing in the yard, having just lit up a cigarette, and was turning with a frown to consider Peppermint. Chickens aren’t real bright, but they went crazy with fear all at the same time, flapping madly about the yard in a thunder of wings and panicked clucks and flying feathers.
I charged Tripp.
I only got a look at the thing for a second as it blurred around the corner of the yellow house.
It was long, low to the ground, like some kind of hairless feline the size of a jaguar.
I had time to think Fast and to fling Tripp to one side with both arms, and then it was in the air and on me, driving me back and to the ground with the kind of raw power that reminds human beings that we aren’t on top of the food chain due to our physical prowess.
One of its front paws struck against my spell-armored leather duster. The other hit my T-shirt, and I felt claws sink in like pinpoints of pure flame.
I rolled back, getting my knees underneath its weight, and used the momentum to fling it on over me.
The cat-thing twisted in the air, landing on its feet, and came back toward me, yellow eyes glaring, baring a mouthful of fangs with extra-long canines.
I’m quick, especially for my size—but I wasn’t going to be fast enough to regain my balance and face it before it was all over me.
That cold supernatural fear soaked into my bones, spiking my adrenaline, threatening me with instant and overwhelming nausea as I flailed my limbs in a hopeless effort to defend myself from the creature’s next attack.
I got lucky.
Peppermint saved me.
The basset hound went in low, jaws closing on one of the cat-thing’s hind legs, and it let out a scream like a woman being axe-murdered.
It whirled on Peppermint, raking with one paw, and batted the dog ten feet across the yard like a stuffed toy, spinning as he went.
Then it turned back to me, eyes furious, and its gaze tracked to Tripp.
It shifted its weight and sprang toward him.
I lifted my right hand in a fist, focused my attention on the braided silver rings on each finger, upon the kinetic energy stored inside them, and triggered them all at once, just as the thing went airborne.
The kinetic energy blast caught the thing as its claws struck at Tripp’s face, hitting it like a wrecking ball.
It flew up through the misty air, hitting a metal lamppost about twelve feet off the ground, and its spine broke with a sickening crack.
It bounced off the metal pole and fell heavily to the ground, its rear limbs limp, front legs spasming wildly.
“What the fuck!” Tripp half-screamed. He was on his feet, but his face was pale, his eyes huge.
He had a long cut from being raked with a claw along his jawline, missing his carotid artery by maybe three-quarters of an inch, and the side of his neck and the collar of his crisp white shirt were bright red. “What the ever-loving fuck!”
I came to my feet, shield bracelet ready now, and drew the blasting rod from the inside of my duster. I approached the beast slowly, one step at a time, the runes of my blasting rod glowing with ready power.
It looked emaciated, now that it wasn’t moving so fast. Greyish skin.
A few tufts of golden fur, here and there.
Its gums had peeled back from its teeth, and the pink flesh was mottled with black spots.
Some kind of discharge was running from the animal’s ears.
The paws looked absolutely enormous for the rest of it, and the claws on them were long and jagged.
Its thrashing had slowed, eyes staring sightlessly ahead.
Tripp had approached with me. He swallowed and stared down at the thing.
“I think it was a mountain lion,” I said quietly.
Then the thing heaved, body convulsing.
I brought my shield up, a glittering, translucent quarter-dome of green and gold energy that formed in place between the creature and us.
It convulsed again. And one more time. And then it vomited out some kind of gelatinous, oozing black mass.
The mountain lion collapsed then, its death rattle wheezing out of its lungs, and before it had settled into stillness, the black ooze shot ten yards down the street, slithering like some kind of ultra-swift serpent, and vanished into a storm drain.
Tripp jumped when it did, but I’m telling this story, and I can assure you that I didn’t flinch at all.
We both stood over the dead mountain lion for a long moment.
I’d have said something smart, but my heart was beating hard enough that my throat wasn’t working.
Over the next minute, that hideous sense of the presence of supernatural evil faded, until we were both just standing there in the fog and mist.
Peppermint came shambling over toward us, limping heavily on one of his forelegs, making little huffing sounds of discomfort. Tripp turned and absently picked the dog up, supporting him gently without putting any pressure on the wounded leg.
“Dog needs patching up. Claws got him,” Tripp said in a dull tone, and his voice had none of its usual unearned confidence. “What just happened?”
“Someone tried to kill you,” I said quietly. “Someone sent it for you.”
Tripp swallowed and looked up and down the street warily. “What was that thing?”
I blinked a couple of times. Then I shook my head and said, slowly, “I don’t know.”