6. Song in the Night #3
"No joke. I don't want to ever visit where that fell through, thanks." The harrier shook a little. "I do not like the shield."
"No." He turned back to the thing and joined the Hunters studying it.
The flesh sagged in, as if the beast starved.
"The tail is new." He gestured with his right hand to the appendage.
It had deflated, as if it never had bones, but the stinger or spike remained round and very sharp.
The remains of something lay off to the side, or at least, a few bones and scraps of flesh did.
"It is. I'm glad it didn't have armor," one of the Hunters said. He stood from where he'd crouched. The other Hunter used his Hunting blade to pry the muzzle open and wrinkled his nose. "They never brush," his partner reminded him.
Shoim leaned toward the fence. Still in English, he said, "I need a snack.
" His mage got the hint and retreated to the closest good fencepost. He set Shoim on the post, then got his food box out of the rucksack and opened it for him.
Blue-green flared behind them as the Hunters cleansed the remains and the ground under them. "The second thing's gone."
"I wonder if this one ate it?"
He extended some power and read the night once more. The breach had closed on its own. That was very good. "If so, I hope all of the second thing went into the hell hound. I do not care to have someone call the office tomorrow and report finding strange bones."
Shoim slurped entrails, then said loudly, "Nah, they'll just take photos and upload them to that one website the coven was complaining about."
Jude covered his eyes with one hand as the Hunters came a little closer. "Thank you. Not. I do not care to have Dispatch calling to ask us to rescue the Fish and Game lady from an animated skeleton or something else interesting."
The little halo glowing over his Familiar's head did not go well with the blood all over his beak, or the bit of liver dangling from said beak. He heard a fast-muffled chuckle and a muted groan from his right.
"Sir, you mentioned a second beast?" one of the Hunters began. Jude turned to him. He was an inch or two taller and bigger in the shoulders than Jude himself. The other was smaller, more lightly built.
"Yes. My Familiar and I were working and sensed the breach. He observed two creatures, but we do not sense a second non-local presence."
He heard a soft hiss, and turned toward Shoim. An air Elemental danced in the grain chaff, then said, "Isss gone, night warden. Issss gone."
"Thank you for the news." He turned back to the Hunters. "The Elementals say that the second one is gone, as in no longer here on this plane," he pointed down.
"I wonder if it doubled back and returned to wherever it came from?" Buuuurp. "Sorry." Shoim did not sound truly sorry.
The other Hunters made small warding-off gestures at the harrier. His mage did not disagree. "Thank you, sir," the smaller man said. "If you do not need our aid?"
"No, and thank you for your help." He turned back to Shoim, giving them time to depart. Once they'd gone, he returned to his own tongue. "The thing it was eating."
"Also disappeared, so it might have gotten whatever it chased through the breach.
And we need to go." His word implied great urgency edged with trouble.
Jude took the box and his rucksack. He'd recharge later.
Shoim launched and disappeared into the darkness.
Jude followed as far as the state hunting land.
A full-sugar soda and two of Wednesday's over-done cookies eased his headache.
A meat stick and water finished the job.
He took a slightly different route on the way back to the house.
Could the Hunters have dealt with the thing on their own?
Perhaps, but not easily. One would distract, the other stab or slice.
At least, that's what he would have done back when he was Karol and just a Hunter.
Shoim waved a wing from his perch on the shed. "Doamna beatsu," he called, quietly, as Jude passed. Lady of Night be with you.
"Apporatzu-szent condu lamatse," he replied. Defender-archangel guide your blade.
A small platter of sandwiches sat on the kitchen table, under a large, heavy, domed glass lid with a dictionary on top. Bauxite sulked beside the stack, watching it with unblinking green eyes.
"They are cheese and bacon," he informed her, then moved the tome and lifted the lid. "You do not like bacon." She sniffed, wrinkled her nose, and backed away, then dropped onto a chair. "Told you, miss kitty."
"Mow." She stalked over to her dish and crunched kibble in a distinctly disgruntled sort of way. He rolled his eyes and ate two of the sandwiches, then put the rest in the fridge. He'd need them later.
The next morning, he arrived at the bakery a little before five and found two coworkers studying the remains of a bag of snacks. "Is there anything that wasn't in there?" Mina asked as she read the back of the package.
"Not if it was sweet," Marie said. She slumped, shoulders sagging as she pulled on her hairnet, then reached for the denim duster hanging from her hook. "He ate it when he got home from school yesterday, and was still doing everything but swinging from the barn rafters at eight last night."
Mina handed him the offending mix. "Do not let the boys get into this," she commanded.
He read the first five ingredients, considered what he could see in the bag, and returned it.
Then he made a cross toward it with his fingers.
The ladies chuckled, and Marie took the bag back, tucking it into her cubby behind her handbag.
"I assure you, ma'am, I will keep that far away from the house." Caramel corn, chocolate, marshmallows, Graham cracker bits, toffee bits, and more? No, nothing good would happen if AJ and Levi got into that. Or Claire for that matter.
He traded jacket for denim duster, and changed the filters in his heavy dust mask.
The Scharbauers were already weighing flour for the rye and corn loaves, and other heavy breads.
He clocked in, pulled on food gloves, and checked the order list. Five apple spice pies, two of those with lattice crusts, four peach pies, three chilled pies with cookie or Graham cracker crusts, and two orders of fancy bars, plus the usual pies.
Friday tended to be busy, since they didn't make pies on Saturday unless it was for same-day pickup, special order filling.
No pumpkin yet, thanks be to St. Isadore.
Sweetened squash for dessert ... He shook his head yet again, then got the butter and eggs out of the big cooler and turned on the scale so it could test itself and confirm tare while he did other tasks.
Later that morning, Jude rolled the bread cart into the sales area and restocked.
As happened every fall, spicy nut breads sold briskly, cinnamon raisin as well.
He removed a honey wheat from the rye shelf and returned it to the proper place.
Why had honey wheat decided to roam? Last year it had been the cheddar potato that kept migrating.
Bread replenished, he tidied the table of pre-packaged cookies as he passed.
"Can you steady this, please, Jay?" Mrs. Scharbauer called, trying to balance an overloaded tray of cookies.
"Yes, ma'am." He grabbed the end and braced it as she opened the cooler case and restocked frosted, chocolate drop and other cookie varieties, along with the fancy bars.
The front door opened. She glanced up and called, "I'll be with you in just a moment.
" The young man nodded, then made his way to the bread.
He moved smoothly, like a Hunter or someone who had studied a martial arts discipline.
Jude shifted his grip, using his left forearm to support the tray as he rotated it for Mrs. Scharbauer. "Thank you, Jay."
"You're welcome."
The Hunter glanced at them, then went back to considering loaves. He pulled a rye and corn, a cinnamon walnut, and a cheddar wheat, then came closer. His eyes seemed to light up when he saw the Everything Cookies. "You do have them," he said, as if to himself.
What was in them this week? Jude took the empty tray and the bread rack back into the work area.
Oh, two kinds of nuts, the toffee chips, the last of two chocolate chip bags, and bits of chopped dried apricot.
No one could recall what they'd used the dried apricot for, although Mina had guessed it might have been Hummingbird or Lady Baltimore cakes.
Those had been custom orders for the museum's fund-raising dinner.
"Jay, can you move these before you get busy?
" Marie pleaded, hands full. He slid the tray of decorated custom cookies out of the way, then eased the next tray into place.
"Thank you!" She set to work with the piping bag.
He cleaned the work counter, emptied the sterilizer now that things had cooled enough to touch, and took out an overfilled sack of trash.
A chilly wind swirled some bits of paper and leaves around the alley.
It felt good after the heat and humidity of the work area.
The flour mill had collected the empty cloth sacks, so he trundled their bin back into the room with the big mixers.
It lived there until they had sufficient empty sacks to fill it once more.
Jude clocked out a little after eleven and began strolling toward St. Boniface. He'd not left his tithe earlier this week, and needed to do so. Shoim made a low pass, then alighted on a sign ahead of him. "Anything interesting?" Shoim asked as he drew near.