Fifteen

fifteen

Zhen

I was absolutely not going to tell my wife this, but owwww.

I may have possibly tweaked my ankle when I got thrown off Jun Hie. And by possibly, I meant I absolutely had landed on it in a bad way because it was now throbbing. I didn’t think she realized because I got to my feet so fast, and I was hoping it was a minor twinge thing that would go away, but… Yeah.

The doctor may have had a point about the whole going easy thing on a newly healed bone. That’s all I was saying.

Fortunately, I wasn’t running right now. I rode Jun Hie as we raced back to the point where we’d lost the trail to begin with. Joe rode right alongside me, as much as you could without any kind of trail in thick, untouched woods. He had his pipe clutched in one hand, and the smoke tendril was reed thin, something I smelled more than saw. I could only hope that, once we hit the point of the lost trail, the pipe smoke would do its magic.

This. This was why I hated the EFTs. It was so hard to track them! No trail was left behind in the air, after all.

Fucking EFTs. Evil. I hates them, precious.

Jun Hie slowed a little, then stopped altogether. “Here. I cannot pick up the scent from here.”

Honestly, it just looked like a bunch of trees and bushes—much like the last, I dunno, three miles. Didn’t help it was darker than inside a garden hose out here. I trusted his judgement. If I was navigating through this, we’d be so lost Marco Polo wouldn’t have been able to find us. Landmarks, people. I needed landmarks.

Trees did not count as landmarks.

I looked toward Joe for direction. Frankly, he was our only shot. It was a little hard to see in these dark woods, but the glow from his pipe gave some kind of illumination. Enough for me to kinda, mostly, somewhat discern where his head was.

“Joe?”

He grunted.

“I don’t speak grunt, man.”

Joe let out a sigh. “Hang on, the pipe’s needing some attention. It’s trying to go out on me.”

“Oh, okay.” I could let him do that. I turned to look behind me, but I basically just saw shadows on shadows. “Wifey, how you doing?”

“I am unnerved,” she informed me, and I could hear the unease in her voice. “Do you even know where we are?”

“No clue.”

She sighed heavily. “Guo, I’m counting on you.”

Hey now! Well, all right, I couldn’t protest. She was smarter to rely on the huodou than me in this moment.

There was some grumbling from Joe, then a noise of satisfaction. “Ah, there we go. All right, straight ahead.”

That put a spark of hope back into me. Oh good, maybe we could track this thing down tonight after all. I’d really rather have killed it before it killed someone else.

“Move at a walk,” Joe requested. “I can barely see the smoke as it is.”

Everyone got back into motion, at a walk as he suggested, which was probably smarter, anyway. What with all of the trees, no trail, and thick underbrush, it was hard to move in this kind of terrain.

My foot kept throbbing, and I winced, glad the darkness covered my expression. With the fuss it was making, I’d probably undone some healing. Which meant it was going to be obvious that I’d overdone it, and Kris was likely to get mad at me. Dammit. Never fun to be in trouble with the wife.

“Riddle me this, Zhen.” Joe spoke in that mild-mannered way of his, like we were sitting down to tea in a garden. “How’s your sight work?”

“Oh, you mean my otherworldly sight? Basically like regular sight.”

“No difference to you, then?”

“Naw, not really. It’s not so much that my sight registers things as something different, but that I have intrinsic knowing that comes along with the seeing something. It’s a very fine distinction that I don’t always get right. It was hell on me as a kid because I had to learn how to differentiate between solid reality and otherworldliness, but it’s handy now. Certainly safer because I’m not having to switch sights to see all the dangers around me.”

“Huh.”

“Not how that worked for you?”

“Well, took some training.” Joe’s tone turned more nostalgic. “I was always sensitive as a kid, so my mother knew I’d be a good medicine man, but it did take some training. Sometimes, like in the case of a Raven Mocker, I take a little something to enhance my vision.”

“A little something…” I had no idea what he meant but I had a gut feeling. “Like a hallucinogenic?”

“Something like it, yeah. Because the Raven Mocker can disguise itself as an old human. Also works well for situations like this, when we’re out in the middle of the woods with no light.”

“So, you’re telling me you can see.”

He turned his head, and I swear to you, despite the fact I couldn’t see his eyes, he’d locked eyes with me. I felt it.

“Yes. I can. Including how bad your foot’s looking. It’s turning black and blue, do you realize that?”

“Awww, shit.” I let my head hang for a moment.

“You should have said something, Zhen.”

“Didn’t realize it was this bad at first.”

“Oh.” He ruminated on that for a moment. “Well, don’t walk on it. If there’s fighting to do, leave it to me and your friend.”

“I’ll try.”

“Try, huh?”

“I hear that amusement in your voice. Look, I can’t help it, okay? I’m a properly raised Southern gentleman, and I just can’t sit by and watch other people work. Gives me the heebie-jeebies. You would not believe how bad of a patient I am. It’s a miracle Kris didn’t strangle me.”

“You were hurt?”

“Broken ankle. Same ankle that’s now apparently bruised to hell.”

Another ruminative pause. “Zhen, how long have you had that cast off?”

“You ask really mean questions, you know that?”

“So, not long ago at all, huh?”

Man was quick on the uptake, I gave him that.

The branches above us rustled as the wind blew through them, which sounded eerie when you were out in the woods with possible monsters nearby. Was it my imagination, or did I feel some drops of water, too? Surely, it wasn’t raining. I mean, it’d smelled like rain since earlier, but normally it smelled like that for at least a few hours before rain actually hit.

“How about Kris?” Joe inquired. “She born with sight like you?”

“Oh, no, not at all. She wasn’t sensitive at all before she met me, not able to see things unless they were more corporeal. Once we got married, though, her sight came in with a vengeance. Mostly because she’s tied to me.”

“Ahhh. Wait, then she was feeding the hounds before her sight even came in?”

“A-yup.”

Joe chuckled, the sound deep and earthy. “She’s a special breed.”

“You’re telling me. Also, I do not think that’s my imagination. We’re getting rained on, aren’t we?”

“Sure feels like it.”

I spied with my little eye Kris moving in closer. She did not look like a happy woman. Couldn’t say I blamed her.

Joe patted his ride’s shoulder. “Hey, little one, can you stop?”

The huodou carrying Joe stopped immediately. Joe turned on his perch to speak to everyone behind us. “Now, we’re in trouble here if we keep going like this.”

It didn’t take me more than a second to realize what he meant. Oh. Right. The rain would keep putting his pipe out. Which meant we’d not have any reliable way of tracking the Raven down. Shit, what a way for this night to go.

Kris sounded exhausted when she spoke. “I personally do not like the idea of walking around in soaking-wet clothes in monster-infested woods, no. Joe, your pipe looks like it’s trying to go out.”

“It is,” he confirmed. “Which is part of why I say, let’s call it a night. We can’t continue like this.”

“What’s the other part?” Jake inquired.

“Well, Zhen’s hurt.”

Dammit, Joe, don’t get me in trouble!

There was a certain tone in a woman’s voice that let you know what degree of trouble you were in. Every man knew exactly what I was talking about.

“Zhen. You overdid it on that leg, didn’t you?”

Shiiiiiiit. “The evidence for such is entirely circumstantial—”

“What was that?”

“I dunno,” Jake drawled. “I didn’t understand him. I don’t speak bullshit.”

“That’s what I thought.” Kris sighed. It was the sigh of a woman already over my shit. “Zhen, seriously, how bad is it?”

“Twingey,” I admitted meekly. Meek might get me out of trouble. Worth a shot, anyway. “I may have landed on it a little wrong when I fell off Jun Hie earlier?”

“And you waited until now to say something?”

“I didn’t realize it was that bad? Joe’s got better sight in the dark than I do.” Which was true. Misleading as hell, but true.

Enoli piped up. “Let’s argue and make our way back at the same time.”

“Sure,” I agreed, mostly because the idea of propping my bad leg up with some ice on it sounded heavenly about now. Hard to manage that out here in the woods.

We turned about and started back the way we’d come. A little faster than the walk, kind of a lope, as of course the huodou knew the way back. It meant we’d get to the Jeep that much faster.

Our call to retreat turned out to be a smart one, because not five minutes later, the skies really let go. What had been maybe a drizzle before was a full-out storm now. I got soaked pretty quickly. I was so going to need a shower after this. I already smelled like wet dog as it was.

I knew the huodou could cover vast territory without much effort, but I also knew that no one in their right mind rode them either. I didn’t count. Anyone who knew me knew I was not in my right mind. Point being, they weren’t used to carrying weight. I grew concerned for all of them.

“Jun Hie? How you doing, buddy?”

“Tired,” he grunted.

“I bet. I’ll dry you off and get you some peanut butter once we’re back at the cabin.”

There was a happy grumbling sound. “Good. Give me lots.”

“You got it.”

I checked my watch and found it was almost six a.m. Yikes. We must have been having fun for time to fly by this quickly. But, well, that meant the gas station was likely open. I’d need to clean out their peanut butter, grab something to make an ice bag with, and the like. A quick stop on our way back to the cabin, nothing fancy.

It was no wonder I had a skewed sense of time, though. With the storm raging overhead, it’d blocked the dawn light, so it still felt like night to me. Well, not wholly, as we did have some lightening of the sky—enough to see by.

Jake fell in beside me as our huodou navigated around trees, and he grumbled, “This is why I hate the EFTs, man.”

“Always takes a few days to track them down,” I agreed, also irritated. “Maybe the rain will slow them down too.”

“From your lips to god’s ears. The foot really that bad?”

“Throbbing.” I winced as a particularly painful spike shot up my leg.

“Zhen, you ever hear the words take it easy ?”

“Uh, no. That French?”

He laughed, not at all taking me seriously. “You fucking smart aleck.”

Honestly, I felt more worried about Kris. She wasn’t used to all-night treks like this. She was really tired—I could tell from her voice—and all I wanted to do was get her back to the cabin so she could sleep the day away. I could manage getting my leg up and ice on it. Getting her to bed was my priority.

Jun Hie abruptly spun on his hind legs, nearly throwing me off. A snarl rippled out of him—I felt the tremor of it between my legs—and then he darted forward. The movement was so abrupt that I got thrown off the back.

I landed with a pained oof on uneven ground and prominent tree roots. Owww. Why was the world being mean to me today? I hadn’t even done anything to deserve it yet!

I gave myself a full second of pity and then I scrambled to my feet, unsheathing my silver sword, because if Jun Hie had reacted like that, then something seriously bad had just popped out of nowhere.

The other huodou were reacting the same, snarling, hackles rising. The only one not thrown off was Kris, thankfully, with Guo backing up. Good, he was trying to keep her out of the fray. That was what I preferred.

Joe started shouting something in his native language, which sounded cool as hell, but alarming. What the hell had just attacked us? I still couldn’t see—

A dark grey mist rose from the earth, almost like fog, but with more weight and the color not quite right. Or perhaps it was my otherworldly sight insisting it wasn’t right because it glowed faintly. It had a more corporeal feel and dimension. I’d seen something like it only once before, but it had been on a totally different continent. And it wasn’t quite the same.

Jun Hie was abruptly thrown, his large body sailing about ten feet before the huodou was able to roll back up to his feet. In that second, I got a clear view of what it was. It looked…like a dog? But so much larger, almost completely made of mist and malevolence. The red eyes alone gleamed with an irrational hate and hunger. Huge, too, easily the size of a van, its dark grey fur unrelieved from head to tail, the hackles raising along its spine.

Enoli took up a fighting stance next to me, shotgun held up and at the ready.

“Smoke Wolf,” he snarled. “Keep your distance.”

Smoke Wolf? Seriously?

What the hell was that?!