Traitor's Son: The Raven Duet Book #2 (25 page)

They buzzed angrily around the fragile shell, the throbbing in his neck and shoulder reminding him of how much damage they could inflict. But they couldn’t touch him, because he was sheltered in a bubble of magic . . . the same size as his car.

He, his body, had reached the Tesla in the real world, and somehow had the sense to close the doors.

The enemy couldn’t harm him.

Jase stood, clutching the spear and gasping for breath.

The bees gave up throwing themselves against the glowing shield, flew into a seething mass, then morphed into the shape of a man. The eagle flapped down, landing awkwardly on one leg, then grew and melted into human form. A man, Jase noted, who stepped forward on two sound legs.

That hardly seemed fair—the cuts on his arm were still oozing. The football squad stopped outside the circle of light, but they said nothing. Otter Woman strode into the open meadow and stalked up to the protective bubble.

She carried Jase’s belt in her hands.

“I will wrap this around your grandmother’s throat, and pull till the last spark of life gutters out. I will—”

“No, you won’t,” said Jase. “Bear will stop you. I haven’t broken the bargain.”

The dawning realization on her face was almost funny.

“I haven’t got any dust,” Jase went on. “I don’t have a sample hidden away to use later. And as long as that’s true, you can’t hurt Gima.”

“But you’re up to something!” Otter Woman proclaimed.

“Yeah, well, I never said I wouldn’t try something.”

“He didn’t.” The great bear trundled around one of the heaping piles of rubble. “So he’s right. You can’t harm the human woman. On the other hand, this little war’z beginning to get distracting. Disturbing. And Raven’s right. Long as her human’s fighting, she hazn’ los-t.”

Otter Woman threw out her arms in a gesture of furious frustration. “But if we turn Raven loose this fight will go on and on. She won’t quit. She’ll squirm and scheme till some- one stops her. The humans are destroying our world. We have a right to defend ourselves.”

Bear nodded. “So we finish it here. If the boy’ll come out of that shell t’ do it.”

“Why should I come out?” Jase asked. “If I do I’ll have to fight all three of them, and who knows who else. I won’t quit, but I’m not crazy either.”

He also didn’t know how to get out, even if he was pretty sure how he’d gotten in.

Bear rolled his shoulders into a forward shrug, a little like Frog People’s. “If you don’ come out, you won’t be able t’ fight the Olmaat.”

“The Olmaat?” Jase looked around in alarm. “It’s not here.”

“No!” Otter Woman exclaimed. “I control this Olmaat, and I won’t bring it.”

This Olmaat? Were there others? It was an appalling idea.

“You will,” said Bear. “Raven’s human haz earned the right to fight for her, so you’ll bring your monster and give the boy a chanze to end it. One way or the other. For all of us.”

Otter Woman opened her mouth to protest, saw that Bear’s decision was made, and closed it. Her clear reluctance was a more persuasive argument for leaving the safety of his car than anything Bear had said. Goose Woman had told the truth. The medicine pouch was hidden in the Olmaat’s heart. If Jase could kill it, take the dust, he could get his grandmother back.

If he could kill it.

He turned to Bear. “Can this spear kill the Olmaat?”

Bear looked closely, not at the weapon, but at the shell of light around it.

“Yez, but you’re going t’ have to break it. Nothing else will release enough magic for the kill.”

“Break it?” Jase considered the strong shaft and honed stone point. It didn’t look breakable.

“Shatter it,” the bear confirmed. “In th’ Olmaat’s body. Only way.”

Otter Woman looked happier now. “I’ll summon the beast.”

She made no other move, but Jase knew the Olmaat was being summoned. Horror swamped him at the thought of seeing that nightmare monster again.

He wasn’t a fighter. Not with a spear, or anything else. He hadn’t signed up for this shapeshifter war. But this was his only chance to get Gima back, and if she didn’t awaken the war in his own family would blaze out of control.

If he could end the shifters’ war, he might also earn a chance to end the war his father had started.

He might not be able to break the spear—but he could break the Tesla.

Jase took his right hand off the spear and made the familiar gesture of punching the Tesla’s starter button. Listening with those other ears, he heard the faint, distant p-ping.

He groped until the fingers of a hand that wasn’t in this world found the switch that lowered the Tesla’s roof. The glowing circle around him disappeared.

“I’ll fight,” he said. “Bring on your beast.”

***

He smelled it before he saw it, rotting fish and flesh, and an acrid choking stink that made him think of that brown cloud that had all but smothered the planet before carbon emissions were banned.

Bear laid down some ground rules, that this was between Jase and the Olmaat, with no one allowed to interfere. That this was Jase’s one chance; if he lost and lived, he would never be allowed to return to the Spirit World again.

Never returning to the Spirit World sounded just fine to Jase, win or lose.

It was as dark now as the Alaskan summer night ever got, a dim gray light that dissolved the details of the Olmaat’s shambling shape. A bit like a gorilla, but with a longer, thinner body, and legs that rippled bonelessly as it strode forward. Piggy eyes glared above what looked like a mountain lion’s jaws, but it was hard to be sure under the coarse black fur. Its wiggling fingers, surely more than five per hand, were tipped with eagle claws.

Jase’s hands tightened on the spear . . .

. . . tightened on the steering wheel as the car lurched and slithered down the track to the beach. The Tesla’s wide tires were good on sand, but the low-slung body scraped over every rock. Part of Jase winced at each grating scratch, but the rest of him was focused on his goal. Most of him was missing, but the part that was here knew what it had to do.

Jase summoned all his courage and took a step toward the Olmaat. It opened its mouth and roared like an avalanche, and he leaped back.

Laughter came from the sidelines, where Otter Woman and her cohorts waited, and Bear gave an amused grunt.

Heat flooded Jase’s face, but that animal roar had startled him, shocked him.

Then the monster charged and Jase leaped away again, swinging the spear wildly to fend it off.

The Olmaat wasn’t as fast as he’d feared. He could stay ahead of it, darting first to one side then the other, swiping with his spear to make the monster keep its distance. If it ever hooked those claws in him, he would die.

Jase knew he hadn’t turned, but the car was heading for the surf again. He swore and wrenched the wheel around, feeling how sluggish the Tesla was on sand, driving once more in the direction of the Olmaat rock. Half of him, half of the part of him that was there, thought he was crazy. The rest of him focused on two things: the great dark rock that was his target, and the glowing number on the control panel that tracked his speed.

45 miles per hour. The Tesla’s engineers guaranteed a driver could walk away from any crash at 45 or less. But 45 mph was more than fast enough to shred carbon fiber and bend the light steel alloy, to crack a wooden staff and shatter a stone . . . Jase shook his head, shook off the alien thought. He was driving toward the bluff now. Was he going in circles? He corrected the car’s course once more.

The Olmaat was driving him in circles.

Sweat ran down Jase’s body, stinging in the cuts on his scalp and arms. Those cuts proclaimed the cost of getting within reach of the monster’s claws, but he couldn’t kill it from a distance. The mad thought of throwing the spear had occurred to him several times, but he’d never thrown a spear in his life. If he missed—and he’d almost certainly miss—he’d lose his spear, and the Olmaat could close and finish him.

If it kept running him around the beach, simple exhaustion would finish him.

To kill it, he would have to get close. Close enough for the claws at the end of those whipping arms to reach him.

Close enough to use the spear.

Jase gritted his teeth against a burst of panic, and started toward the Olmaat.

The rock appeared before him. This time, when Jase punched the accelerator, that view wasn’t replaced by rolling waves or the low bluff. Steady, steady. He glanced at the speedometer: 45 miles per hour.

The Olmaat wasn’t surprised by the change in his tactics. It kept darting away, trying to keep out of the spear’s reach. And it was doing better at that than Jase was at dodging its claws. One swift swipe left his shirtsleeve in tatters. Another opened three shallow gashes above his knee.

The Olmaat’s arms were too long for Jase’s spear to reach its torso, and those arms moved too quickly for him to hit them. But its feet were slower.

He ignored the clothing that shredded on his body, the stinging pain, and the drip of blood above his knee. 45 miles an hour. 45. 45.

The rock was nearer.

Jase leaped in, changing the spear’s direction at the last moment to thrust down at a furred, stationary foot.

The sweeping claws barely missed his head, and the spear was almost pulled from his hand as the monster jerked back, bellowing with rage and pain.

It limped back, blood staining the sand, and then stopped, waiting for him.

No more easy shots. No more running.

He took a breath and closed his hands around the spear. One step forward. Two. He darted to the right, dodged left, and lunged . . .

. . . the rock was in front of him, filling the windshield. Finally. Now. Jase punched the accelerator.

Four long gashes opened across his chest in a brilliant flash of pain, but Jase threw himself forward and thrust the spear into the Olmaat’s body. Its anguished shriek shook the shaft in his hands, shook his world. For a horrible moment Jase thought he’d failed. Then the spear exploded, splinters raking his face and hands, and the world exploded with it.

“Mr. Mintok? Mr. Mintok, our instruments show severe damage to your vehicle. Are you all right? Should I send medical assistance?”

Jase opened his eyes and found himself in the driver’s seat of his car. What was left of his car. The windshield’s safety glass had disintegrated, giving him a horribly clear view of the smashed hood.

“Mr. Mintok, I’m alerting Whittier Emergency Services now. If you can hear—”

“Don’t!” The air bags were still deflating, so he couldn’t see the control panel, but Jase knew he was talking to Travelnet. “Don’t send anyone. I’m all right.”

He thought it was true, though his face felt bruised where the air bag had slammed it. The Tesla’s engineers had made good on their promise—he would walk away from this crash. And there was nothing in the Tesla, even smashed, that could explain the four long gashes across his chest to a medic.

“I’m OK,” he told the dispatcher. “Really.”

“If you don’t want medical assistance, that’s your choice,” she said dubiously. “You appear to be conscious and coherent. But our diagnostics show severe damage to your vehicle. Are you certain you don’t want medics? And if you don’t want medical services, do you need us to send a tow truck?”

He would need a tow truck. And it would be expensive.

Not as expensive as crashing the Tesla.

“Not yet,” Jase told the dispatcher. “I’d rather set that up myself. I want to take a look at the damage first.”

“That’s up to you, sir,” the dispatcher said. “Do you have any further need of our services?”

“No, thank—wait! I can’t find my com pod. It’s probably around here somewhere.” Jase was looking for it as he spoke. “But I don’t see it. Would you call my home com unit and leave a message for my parents? Tell them the Tesla’s . . .”
Wrecked.
“ . . . out of commission,” Jase finished, though his throat was almost too tight to speak. “And that I can’t find my com pod, but I’m going on to Gramps’ anyway. I’ll contact them from his house. Got that?”