Fourteen

fourteen

Kris

Sometimes in life you had to ask the important questions. Like, how did I end up in the Appalachian Mountains, at a moonshiner’s cabin, at three in the morning?

I mean, I’d lived through this series of events, but I was still catching up on how, exactly, I’d ended up here. Um, if someone could explain, that would be smashing.

Sheriff Parker escorted Bobby down to a safe place, which was only fair, as that poor man was definitely still rattled. Joe and Enoli showed up in a beat-up pickup, armed with a bag full of stuff, and they looked fit to be tied. Joe, I think, had been wrestling with clothes while on the phone because nothing was put on right. Even his sweatpants were on inside out. I wasn’t going to tell him. Enoli was in jeans, boots, and a white wifebeater that had seen better days. He also had a large thermos of something in one hand with a bunch of smaller cups tucked up under his arm.

“Anyone want coffee?”

“I love you,” I informed him, making a beeline straight for him. “I will have your babies.”

He laughed, the sound raspy. “Let’s not tell Zhen, then. Uh, Kris, you got something mighty big following you. Is that another one of your huodou ?”

“That’s right.” I turned to make the introductions. “Guo, this is Enoli and Joe.”

Guo ducked his head a little in greeting. His nostrils flared wide as he took them in. “You both smell of magic.”

“We’re medicine men, you could say,” Joe answered slowly. He kept staring at Guo like he was trying to reconcile what his eyes were telling him and kind of failing. “Well, Enoli’s more of a dabbler—”

Enoli snorted in agreement.

“—but I figured we could use all the help we could get here. Uh, where is Zhen?”

“Having fun,” I answered wryly.

Jake was pouring himself a coffee from Enoli’s offering and laughed.

Since they didn’t know how crazy Zhen could be, I explained. “One of the huodou , Jun Hie, tracked the Raven Mocker after wounding it. He thinks he can track it all the way, but Zhen wanted to go with him. Ergo, my husband is now on the back of a Chinese hellhound, riding like the wind through a monster- infested forest in the dead of night. It can’t get any more fun than this for him.”

Jake was still laughing, nodding along in agreement.

On the other hand, Joe gave me an odd look. “I know demon slayers are a different breed…but he volunteered for this?”

“This is, sadly, one of the tamer things he’s done.”

“Huh. Uh. Good luck?”

“If he makes me a widow, I’ll find a way to resurrect him so I can kill him again.” I shrugged.

Jake asked of them, “You two game to try hunting this thing down tonight?”

“You said it’s wounded, right? Then there’s no better time to go after it. We’re not going to get a better chance than this.” Joe’s grin reminded me of a shark who smelled blood in the water. “I’m all for it. I brought strong medicine with me.”

“Awesome.”

Now, since we were standing here waiting on Jun Hie and Zhen to give us word, I decided to gear up myself. Plus, I had questions. “Joe?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“The owner of this place unloaded a shotgun into the Raven Mocker and it didn’t do a damn thing, according to him. What weapons can we use against a Raven Mocker?”

“Well, not the usual bullets, that’s for sure.” Joe dug into his bag and pulled out Ziploc baggies of…bullets? “I spent the day preparing for a fight. Kris, these are yours.”

I took them, then used the flashlight on my phone to get a better look. Huh. They all had some kind of engraving on the side? Oh, no, wait, that was a marker’s work. Plus, there were some herbs mixed in with the bullets that I could smell even through the baggie.

“I put strong medicine on them,” Joe explained to me. “These will find their mark in a Raven Mocker. Just shoot carefully. I only had so much ammo on me to work with.”

“That I can do. Thanks so much, Joe.”

“No problem. Jake, I’ve got ammo for you, too.”

“And I’ll take it, sir, thank you very much.”

I got my Glock out of my purse and unloaded, then reloaded. I wanted the special bullets ready to go. If something came out of the dark right at me, that would not be the moment to try and reload the gun.

The bond abruptly went ouch . I winced, putting a hand to my chest, and in the next second it went ouch again but a lot harder. Zhen was clearly too far away. I hated to do it, but I had to call him because there was no way he was checking his phone for a text right now. Hopefully the call wouldn’t get him in trouble.

I pulled my phone out and called. Zhen answered on the third ring, sounding breathless and delighted. Well, of course he was.

“ Lǎo pó ?”

“Too far,” I gasped around another painful tug.

“ Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I’ll turn around immediately. Jun Hie, turn. We need to go back .”

I breathed around the pain for a second, trying not to let it cripple me. Ow, ow, ow. Come on, bond, he was coming back. Settle. We still had a fight on our hands tonight.

“ All right, we’ve turned around and are on our way back. ”

“Thank you. Any luck?”

“ Some. I’ll update you when we get back. ”

“Okay. Hanging up, then.” I did so but kept the phone in my hand because that flashlight was a necessity. It was stupid dark out here. Even with the front porch lights on, it was hard to see all the details I needed to.

Zhen was good to his word and was back to me about twenty minutes later. It’d felt like he’d been gone much longer, so I was surprised it took him only twenty minutes to return. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

He hopped off Jun Hie with a bright smile, and I could tell he’d had fun. Uh-oh. This might be an addiction in the making. He immediately came to me and pulled me into a bear hug. That made the bond settle, and I nuzzled into him, pleased to have the hyperactive thing settle down.

“ That ,” he said with a shit-eating grin, “is like a rollercoaster danger ride in one pretty package. Jun Hie, you move like the wind.”

Jun Hie’s tongue lolled out the side of his mouth in a laugh. He was one of the larger huodou , almost the size of a small horse, really, his fur so inky black he was like a walking void. Surprisingly, his voice was high, almost a baritone. “I’m glad you liked it. We should run together more often.”

“We totally should!”

Never mind, addiction already formed.

“Hi, Joe, Enoli, glad you can join us. Uh, so, we’ve got a bit of a problem here.” Zhen pointed to the northwest. “We tracked the Raven Mocker going thataway but kind of lost it at a certain point. I still feel like we could have gotten its trail again, as it was landing every so often. The wounded wing definitely was slowing it down.”

“Oh, it’s wing is wounded?” Joe brightened considerably. “That’s great. If we follow the trail you were on, I’ve no doubt we can track it. I’ve got medicine in my bag that will help with that.”

“Yeah? Great. Let’s do it, then.”

Joe turned to Jun Hie. “Show the way, cat.”

“Not a cat?”

“Lead the way, boy,” Joe amended.

“Not a dog?”

I tried not to laugh and interceded. “His name is Jun Hie.”

“Oh. Jun Hie, then. I’m Joe, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Joe.” Jun Hie thankfully seemed to be taking this in stride. “Also, as for me taking you there…I have a thought. My pack uses shadow portals to hop from place to place. It would be far faster for me to bring you in that way rather than ride on my back.”

I could see his point—it undoubtedly would. But…was I the only person here with severe reservations about this?

Jake also had a frowny face on. “You sure that’s safe for humans to do?”

“I am not,” Jun Hie admitted. “I do not even know if it’s possible. But I would like to test it.”

Zhen’s hand shot up. “I’m game!”

Of course he was. No one was even surprised.

Jun Hie turned his head to speak to Zhen. “I think it will only work if you’re riding me. So, get back on.”

“Wow, we’re going straight in, not even any lube?” Zhen laughed and stopped hugging me to hop right back on Jun Hie. “Man, I hope this works.”

I was of two minds, myself. Because this might be handy, but it might also be a really bad idea. Hard to know at this point.

I watched as Jun Hie targeted a dark patch of shadow made by one of the trees and hopped in. Well, Jun Hie disappeared at least, and Zhen went flying backward. He rolled and lithely hopped back up to his feet, apparently no harm done.

Still, my heart was in my throat watching him be thrown off. “Zhen?!”

He waved me off. “Just bounced me off, no harm done.”

Phew, okay, that was a relief.

“Jun Hie!” Zhen called.

The huodou popped right back out of the shadow, head ducked in apology.

“Sorry. I thought you were on tight.”

“I was. I got thrown off when you tried. Which means only one thing.”

Well, at least he realized this wouldn’t work.

Zhen continued brightly, “We need to try again with you at running speed.”

I stared at him for a moment, flabbergasted, then groaned. Why was he so smart about some things and yet so dumb with others?

“Sorry,” I apologized to Joe and Enoli, who were staring at Zhen like he’d lost some of his marbles. “I would say he’s not usually like this, but I’d be lying. Zhen. Honey. Running into the shadow will not make this work.”

He pouted at me. “I just want to try.”

“You can play with Jun Hie later. Right now, we have a Raven Mocker to track down, remember?”

“Oh. Yeah, that probably should take priority. Jun Hie, you and me, at a later date.”

Jun Hie also looked at him like he was crazy, but this didn’t faze Zhen. It never did.

“Well, if a portal isn’t the answer tonight, then we need to hop on and ride.” Zhen rubbed his hands together in anticipation, as giddy as a schoolboy on lunch break, looking at us all with a shit-eating grin. “No one’s afraid of doing rollercoasters in the dark, are you?”

“’Cause you’re about to be,” Jake chimed in sarcastically.

“Now, Jakey, don’t shit on it until you try it!”

I was personally with Jake on this one. Just saying.

I called more huodou to me and briefly explained what we were trying to do. Briefly, because most of them seemed pretty up to date on the situation. I really didn’t know much about how the huodou communicated with each other. It wasn’t quite a hive mind, but it worked similar to one. They could share basic information with each other over long distances. I’d seen them do so. Asking how that worked just confused the hell out of me, so I’d stopped trying to understand it.

I had never ridden one of the huodou before this moment, so climbing on felt awkward as hell. The only person who mounted gracefully was Zhen, which was ironic since he’d just been thrown off. I found it to be an odd sort of experience. I had no saddle, of course, and no reins—nor did I need them—but that left me with nothing to grasp except fur. Which…wouldn’t that hurt?”

Guo turned his head to speak to me. “Grab on.”

“Grab on to what?” I really wasn’t sure. “I don’t want to pull fur out.”

He gave me that side grin that all the huodou did when I said something cute but silly. Well, excuse me for not wanting to cause them pain.

“The fur at the base of my neck is not sensitive,” he assured me. “Nor will it pull. Grab there.”

“Oh.” I grabbed, tentatively at first, then firmer when I realized I really had to hold on if I didn’t want to fall off like Zhen had just done. “This okay?”

“Tighter is fine.”

“I’ll adjust if I need to. I don’t want to hold so tightly that my fingers cramp, after all.”

“Fair enough.”

It took a few minutes before we were each on a huodou . I looked about to see if we were all ready to go, only to find Joe loading his pipe. Uh…smoking while riding seemed like a bad idea to me.

“Joe, uh…”

He grinned. “Not smoking this.”

“I’d hope not, considering what we’re about to do. Mad dash and all.”

“It’s to help track,” Joe explained. “Best way to get the direction of a Raven Mocker is to mix old ash and tobacco together. The smoke will show us the Mocker’s direction.”

“Oh.” I blinked at the pipe.

“Normally, we put this in the middle of a room and have it stable. I’m adjusting on the fly here using my pipe. I’m hoping it works just as well.”

“In that case,” Qian murmured, “I will take lead with you.”

“I appreciate it.”

Everyone seemed to be ready. I made sure my thermos of coffee—I had about half still—was firmly in my purse. The purse was over my shoulder for security. Glock was in there, and of course I had the special bullets loaded. Aside from night vision goggles, there wasn’t anything else I could wish for.

Well, I could’ve wished to still be in bed, but that clearly wasn’t happening tonight.

We all seemed ready to go, so Qian took off at a lope with everyone else following. I found Guo’s gait to be smoother than anticipated. Kind of like a horse, but without as much up-and-down motion. Okay, if he ran like this, then I might not need to have a stranglehold on his fur—

He almost stumbled over a prominent tree root, front paw dipping before he caught his balance, and I shifted abruptly forward as a result.

Never mind, this was going to be a long-ass night either way you cut it.