“Sherwood,” he said.
“Sherwood,” he repeated softly, caressing the name softly. It set off echoes in my mind.
He closed his eyes and for a moment his entire form blurred. When he opened his eyes, he shook his head. “Too many possibilities. I’m going to need more information.”
“She reached out to me,” I said. “At first she was in a featureless void, but then it resolved into a specific place, like a movie set from
Wuthering Heights
.” The Wendigo looked at me blankly. “Her favorite movie,” I explained. “Moors, fog, stunted bushes, bleak vistas—that sort of thing.”
“Ah, I see. A construct. That makes it easier.” He closed his eyes again, and this time when he opened them, he nodded. “I see her. I can call her.”
“What does she look like?” I asked, not trusting him.
“Dark hair. Pretty. She’s sitting on a rock, high on a hillside, overlooking the moor you described. Not really, of course, but that’s the way she perceives it.” So he might not be trustworthy, but he wasn’t faking it, either. “The question now is,” he continued, “what are you going to do for me in return?”
“Well, there’s a problem about that,” Eli said. “You tried to take Mason from us once already. I don’t think it would have been a good thing for him if you’d succeeded. What’s to say you wouldn’t try the same sort of thing once you were free? A lot of innocents walk through the woods. It was hard enough to catch you once, and I don’t think it would be easy to catch you a second time.” The Wendigo chuckled, deep in his throat.
“No, probably not.”
“So you see the dilemma.”
“I do. Well, first of all you seem to have the wrong idea about me. I have no use for ordinary humans. Although I find them interesting. Especially their music.” He looked over at me. “You’re a musician, yes?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I said.
“Everything, but you should know that. Practitioners, now, that’s a different matter. I absorb energy from them. But as far as people go, what do you think I’d do with them? Eat them?” He made it sound like a joke, but that was exactly what I thought he’d do. “The energy is what keeps me strong. But it doesn’t hurt them any—in fact, afterward they usually forget they ever met me.”
“Richard Cory,” I said.
“Ah, you know him? Delightful fellow. I got enough from him to keep me going for a month.”
“And where is he now?”
“Back with his friends, I imagine. Have you checked with them?”
I hadn’t, and of course there was no way to do that now. But it wasn’t impossible. Rolf wouldn’t have bothered to tell me if Richard had returned. He just didn’t think that way.
“What about those hikers,” Victor said, “the ones who were torn to shreds. We’ve been assuming it was something else, but now I’m beginning to wonder.”
The Wendigo gave him what was supposed to be a bright and cheery smile, but under the glow of the rune stones it looked more like a satanic leer.
“Oh, come, now. All of you seem strangely eager to jump to conclusions, based on nothing at all. Now, that beast, yes, it’s possible. It’s a vicious animal, though not truly intelligent.” He gestured over at Lou. “And although it hates everyone and everything, it especially despises Ifrits.”
“Why is that?” Eli asked. Once again, academic curiosity had overcome the practical problem in front of us.
“Because of how it came into this world. It was pulled in by an overload of talent—I would guess from these very stones you used to trap me. The magic has run wild, coursing through its bloodstream, and that’s made it sick, almost like a rabid dog.” He looked over at me. “So it’s not really the beast’s fault—it’s yours.”
“Never mind that,” Victor said. “Mason, you’re the one this fellow first called—you must have some idea of his nature. Do you buy it?”
I thought about what Campbell had said, about it not really being a Wendigo the way Eli had assumed. More like an elemental, with unknown motives. And I realized I had indeed made a lot of assumptions about it. But letting it out of the circle did not seem safe.
“Could be,” I said slowly. “But there’s no way to know for sure.”
“Well, how about if you call up Sherwood for us,” Victor said. “If you can. Then we’ll talk about what’s to be done with you.”
“I have a better idea. How about you let me out of here, and then we’ll talk about getting this Sherwood person back.”
Classic impasse, a Mexican standoff. I don’t know how it would have been resolved, but then the unexpected happened, as it often does.
We’d all been focused on the Wendigo, not surprisingly. So when the fake Ifrit burst out from behind the closest bush, it caught us all by surprise, even Lou. It ran right by, ignoring me, and sprang at Victor. That made sense; he was the one holding the shotgun. Victor spun around, but he didn’t have time to line up the barrel for a shot. The creature launched itself at his throat, snarling with a thick, guttural roar. Victor did just manage to get the shotgun up to protect his throat, using both hands, but instead of blocking the creature’s charge, he threw himself backward. He used the length of the gun as a lever and flipped the creature over his head as he went down. It was like watching a goddamned ninja movie.
He sprang to his feet as if he were made of rubber, leveled the shotgun, and pulled the trigger. The sound was enormous in the quiet. Before I could even react he’d pumped off four more rounds. The creature dodged, incredibly fast, and despite Victor’s vaunted marksmanship and competence he only managed to graze it at best. The creature screamed as if it had been hit and dropped to the ground, where it flopped around like a dog’s chew toy. But it was on its feet almost instantly. Victor was out of rounds and would need to reload, but it didn’t know that. It decided it had had enough on this particular night. It bolted past me, whipping out a passing claw in an attempt to slice through Lou, but he ducked it easily. Then it was gone, bounding off into the night. The whole thing had lasted no more than ten seconds.
But there was one small unintended consequence. Between the flying pellets and the creature thrashing around, the circle of stones was in ruin. Not that it was a circle anymore; it was now merely a random collection of stones. The Wendigo casually stepped forward out of what was left of the circle, kicking a few of the remaining stones out of the way.
“Well,” he said. “This certainly changes things.”
EIGHT
WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT WAYS OF HANDLING such situations. If I’d been alone, I would have run without a moment’s hesitation. Hell, it had worked once. Victor automatically crouched into a fighting stance. I don’t think he even knew he had done so; it was just a reaction as unconscious and natural to him as breathing. Eli simply walked forward until he was two feet away. He gestured toward the darkness where the fake Ifrit had vanished.
“Was that your doing?”
The Wendigo smiled, but it wasn’t bright and cheery this time.
“Not at all. I would imagine your clever stone circle attracted it.”
“Quite possibly,” said Eli. “So, you’re free. What now? Are you going to help us or not?”
You had to admire him. Eli just assumed, matter-of factly, that there was no danger now that the Wendigo was free. He just carried on as if nothing about the situation had changed. I’ve seen him do that before. Mostly, it works, but that’s because it’s Eli. If I tried something like that, I would most likely end up as lunch. But the Wendigo seemed more than happy to play along. Maybe he’d been telling the truth after all.
“Again, what’s in it for me?” he said. “You don’t seem to have as much to offer now.”
Eli pointed at the stones scattered on the ground. After the test runs and the trap, they were barely glowing.
“You absorb magical power. Those stones have enough to keep you going for I don’t know how long—months, at least, I’d say.”
The Wendigo glanced down at them.
“Not anymore, they don’t. They’re almost used up.”
“Yes, but we have more of them. We’ll trade you—stones for Sherwood. You bring her back and we’ll give you enough of them to last quite a while.”
“Now, that is tempting.”
“He claims Richard Cory is back safe,” I put in. “If he is, if he’s telling the truth, great. But if not . . .”
“You’ll hunt me down like a dog?”
“We can at least make your life difficult,” said Victor.
“I’m sure you could. And if I just take care of you all right now? I could, you know.”
“Possibly,” said Eli. “But to what purpose? You wouldn’t get any stones that way. And maybe it wouldn’t turn out for you as well as you might think. Those stones are not our only tools.”
Eli seemed to grow in size and bulk, and his voice became quietly menacing. He was an impressive figure, and anyone or anything would think twice about taking him on. What the Wendigo didn’t know was that it was entirely a bluff. Eli of course has great intellect and presence, but no real intrinsic power. Victor would put up a fight, but even with my help I had a feeling we’d be badly outmanned. But it worked. I don’t know if the Wendigo was unsure of our powers, or if he simply had no bad intentions, or if he really wanted those stones, but it worked.
“Deal,” he said. “I’ll be at your house tomorrow morning. I’ll call back this Sherwood for you, and you’ll hand over the stones.”
“My house?” said Victor. “You don’t know where I live.”
“Don’t I? I’ll see you there.”
He walked off, brushing by me. Lou looked over at me, asking if I wanted him to follow, but I shook my head no.
I WAS AT VICTOR’S EARLY NEXT MORNING. IT hadn’t been a bad night’s work. We’d found the Wendigo and got him to agree to do what we wanted. The fake Ifrit had been a surprise, but at least no one had got hurt.
Victor was eating breakfast and grudgingly provided me with coffee. Lou didn’t even bother to beg; he knew it was useless. Victor looked tired as well, which was unusual for him. His earlier leg injury must have taken more out of him than I’d thought. He hadn’t even got around to reading the morning
Chronicle
, still secure in its orange plastic wrapper.
“Do you think he’ll show?” I asked for the third time. Victor had thrown open the tall front windows, and the early sunlight was streaming through. A pleasant breeze came off the ocean, uncharacteristically warm for so early in the day. For once there was no morning fog. I was sipping coffee, Eli was pacing back and forth, Maggie was sitting by the window, and Lou was lying on a rug, hogging a patch of sun and catching up on his interrupted sleep. He hated mornings almost as much as I did.
We’d got home late, since as soon as we’d left Fort Point I’d driven down to the Bay Bridge to try to find Rolf. He wasn’t around, and even Lou had some trouble tracking him down, so it was a while before we’d run him to ground. And yes, it turned out Richard Cory had indeed returned.
“Was he okay?” I’d asked. “Can I talk to him? He must have some information about this Wendigo.”
“Depends on what you mean by okay,” Rolf had answered. “Weirder than ever—he’s finding it hard to keep a human form these days. And I’m sure he could tell you a lot, but I don’t think he’ll talk to you—I’m not sure he could even if he wanted to. But otherwise, yeah, he’s fine.”
I didn’t bother to complain that he might at least have informed me. It wouldn’t have done any good. But if that much had turned out to be true, there was a good chance our Wendigo would be showing up. And if he did, there was a good chance he could do what he said he could. Otherwise, why bother to make an appearance?
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe for him to materialize in the middle of the study with a puff of smoke, or something equally dramatic, so when the knock on the front door came it was an anticlimax.
Victor answered the door, and there he stood. His forest garb had been replaced by a colored tee with a picture of Elvin Jones behind a drum set and a pair of jeans. He stood in the doorway and looked around appreciatively.
“Quite the warding system,” he said. “Very impressive. I’m not sure even I could get in here without your permission.”
That was something of a relief. The wards around Victor’s house were not strictly his own—Eli and a lot of other knowledgeable practitioners had helped design them, as well as contributing their own power into keeping them strong. The wards around my own house are clever and subtle, strong enough to do the job, but nothing special. Victor was protected by state-of-the-art constructions, utilitarian, sleek and gleaming, and composed mostly of lines of sheer and forbidding power. It was reassuring they could block even a magical creature of power.
Victor reached out and touched him on the shoulder. An almost invisible spark of energy passed between them, providing the Wendigo with the magical equivalent of a key card. Once he was inside, Victor led the way up to the study.
“Very nice,” said the Wendigo, looking around at the dark paneling, huge fireplace, and tall windows. “A bit too faux Victorian for my tastes, but nice, nonetheless.”