Back From the Undead (31 page)

“Geez, what is it with me and the jumbo-size baddies lately?” I mutter under my breath. “If I keep attracting them they’re going to start calling me Jace the Giant-Killer.”

“I very much doubt even you could kill
that,
” a voice says from the shadows. “But then, I once saw you banish an Elder God, so perhaps I’m wrong.”

I recognize the voice, of course. “You weren’t actually there for the banishing,” I say in a low voice. “You were in the brig of a US aircraft carrier at the time.”

Tanaka’s crouched behind a jumble of logs. He glances in Dagon’s direction, then motions me urgently to run. I dart across the beach, feeling horribly exposed, and throw myself down on the pebbly ground beside him.

“What are you doing here?” I say. I keep my voice down, but I doubt we’re in danger of Dagon hearing us—it’d be like me being able to eavesdrop on an ant.

“Looking for trouble.” He’s wearing a loose black coat, black drawstring pants, and black sneakers; he looks more like a burglar than a ninja.

But then, he isn’t a ninja—he’s a samurai.

“Well, you’ve found it.” I scan the beach, looking for Charlie. He’ll be safe enough on the bottom unless he gets stepped on, and even then he’ll probably just get smushed into the mud. I hope that doesn’t happen; the last thing I need right now is to mount a marine salvage operation to retrieve my partner.

But I don’t see him. He might be waiting for Dagon to leave, but that’s not Charlie’s style. Which means—

“Oh, no,” I say to myself. “He wouldn’t. He
couldn’t
.”

I fumble for the small binoculars in my soggy pocket, pull them out, and scan the water around Dagon’s legs. And sure enough, there’s a very determined-looking golem in a very wet wool suit climbing the back of the monster’s leg, pulling himself up by gripping the edges of scales.

I shake my head. “What does he think he’s going to do? Climb high enough to poke him in the eye?”

Tanaka smiles. “He will do whatever is necessary to protect you. You inspire great loyalty, Jace Valchek.”

“Yeah? Guess you missed that memo.”

I know it’s the wrong thing to say the second after I’ve said it. Tanaka’s only reaction is a brief incline of his head—an acknowledgment of his guilt, an acceptance of my accusation. “Tanaka, I’m sorry. I—”

“No, Jace. You are correct. I betrayed you, and by doing so dishonored my family name. I must make amends—that is why I am here.”

I abruptly realize the obvious. “You’ve been following me. Since the park.”

“It seemed the best course to pursue. Isamu is a wary target, but I knew that sooner or later he would approach you directly. It is his nature.”

I thought back. “So you saw the whole fight in the graveyard?”

“I did. You acquitted yourself admirably.”

“It never crossed your mind I might need a little assistance in taking down a giant, chomp-crazy skeleton?”

“It did. Should you have ever appeared to be in any serious danger, I would have intervened. But you rarely seem to need assistance.”

I accept the compliment grudgingly. “Yeah, well … so you know where Isamu is holed up now, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you here?”

He meets my eyes calmly. “Because my debt is to you. It occurred to me, in the course of my inquiries, that a greater threat to you than Isamu might be lurking. I see now that I was right.”

Charlie’s up to mid-thigh by now. Dagon hasn’t noticed him, but his attention is on the shoreline, still looking for me. “What, this? This is no big deal—just your run-of-the-mill angry Ancient One, looking for a little trouble. Once I catch my breath I’m going to march out there and kick his ass.”

“I believe that would require an elevator, at the very least.”

I grin, despite myself. “Got one handy?”

“I have something better.” He reaches behind him and draws his katana from the sheath slung on his back. I eye it dubiously. “No offense, Tanaka, but that thing’s not going to be much more use than Charlie’s
gladius
. Frankly, I don’t see what could take that beastie down short of a cruise missile, and those don’t even
exist
here.”

“It’s not the size of the weapon, Jace—it’s how you use it.”

“Yeah, like I haven’t heard
that
one before—”

Charlie’s made it to the small of Dagon’s back, though
small
isn’t a word I’d use to describe anything about the situation. I’m starting to worry. Charlie’s as bad as me when it comes to being stubborn, and he doesn’t know how to back down from a fight. This could wind up getting him killed.

And then the creature spots us.

“Uh-oh,” I say.

Dagon roars. Okay, it’s more like a high-pitched screech with bass undertones, but even that doesn’t really convey the sound very well; let’s just say it sounds like a recording of whale noises played backward at really high volume and leave it at that.

I don’t have to tell Tanaka to run. We both bolt from cover and sprint away from the water, and I hear the splash of Dagon’s first tremendous step behind us.

Now what? There’s a busy street not far away, and buildings after that. I need cover, but not something Dagon can just smash; unlike King Kong and Fay Wray, I’m pretty sure my pursuer’s intentions aren’t amorous. He might just destroy anything that gets between him and me.

Stanley Park or the tunnel?

The tunnel’s farther away. It’s big enough to let semi-trailers drive through it, but Dagon would be a tight fit—he’d have to squirm through like a snake. If nothing else, it would slow him down and maybe even trap him, giving the authorities a chance to bring in some heavy-duty sorcerous firepower. I just hope the Canadian military has something in their HPLC arsenal that can deal with a being like this.

But there’s collateral damage to think about, too. Vehicles with people in them, going too fast to stop when a big scaly foot stomps down in the middle of the road. No, it can’t be the tunnel.

That leaves the park. Tanaka’s come to the same conclusion; he wolfs out as he runs, going to half-were form to boost his speed and strength. His clothes are baggy enough to contain him, but his sneakers burst and fall away in pieces.

Tanaka reaches cover first. He resheathes his sword and crouches, watching me. I can see how badly he wants to dart out, grab me and run back, but he doesn’t. He knows I hate being rescued.

I make it to the trees one step ahead of Dagon—one giant step. No sooner am I under the canopy than I hear the enormous thump of his foot. So much for him not leaving the water.

I wonder if I can use the same hiding-beneath-the-foliage strategy I did with Gashadokuro, even though this guy’s considerably bigger. I get my answer a second later, as Dagon grabs the old-growth spruce I’ve ducked under and rips it right out of the ground like a gardener yanking out a head-high weed. Dirt and loam shower over me as the root bundle rises up, and then Dagon tosses it aside. It flies a few hundred feet and lands in the harbor.

I keep running, deeper into the park. He can’t uproot the whole rain forest—can he?

Tanaka lopes beside me. He could go full-wolf and just take off, but I know he won’t. What I don’t expect is what he does next: He stops at the base of a redwood and leaps up the trunk, catching a branch nimbly and pulling himself onto it. He turns back to me for a split second and gives me a very formal nod of his wolf’s head.

Then he starts to climb, springing from branch to branch, using his claws as nimbly as a jungle cat. I know what he must be planning.

“Tanaka,
no
!” I shout, but it’s no good.

Dagon decides there’s no point in ripping trees out of the ground when he can just swat them out of his way; he’s around the same height they are, but apparently a lot stronger. The sound of timber cracking and crashing is deafening as he bulls his way forward. I run to the left, using the same tactics I employed underwater, and then stop when I’m out of the path of destruction.

Through a break in the canopy I can just see Dagon’s head and shoulders. And then, working his way around the monster’s neck, my partner appears. He’s moving away from the head and toward the edge of the shoulder, still gripping the scales but only holding on with one hand; he cocks his other arm back like a major-league pitcher winding up for a fastball. Even though I can’t see it, I know what’s he’s about to throw: a steel-cored, silver-coated ball bearing, several ounces of metal Charlie can hurl with deadly force and accuracy.

Which he does. Right through Dagon’s eardrum.

I understand his strategy now. If it walks, it has a sense of balance, and that sense of balance is regulated by delicate mechanisms located inside the inner ear—in most animals, anyway.

The ones that breathe air. And aren’t a hundred feet tall. Or owe their existence to supernatural forces that sneer at little things like physics.

It’s still a good plan, and if it works it’ll bring Dagon crashing to the ground like one of the trees he just knocked down—but it doesn’t. It must hurt like hell, though, because his whole body shudders violently, and then Dagon lets loose with a roar that makes his previous bellows sound like whimpering.

Two things occur while this is happening, almost simultaneously. First, Charlie gets shaken loose and goes flying into the trees. I’m not too worried—they’re mainly spruce and pine, with plenty of thick foliage between the peak and the ground to break his fall. He’s survived much worse.

Second, as Dagon starts his roar, Tanaka springs from the top of the redwood, katana held in his jaws. His leap is perfectly timed and executed, taking him exactly where he intends to be.

Through Dagon’s gaping, fanged jaws.

“No,” I whisper.

It must take a lot to surprise a god. I swear Dagon’s huge, jet-black eyes get a little wider. He does his best to cough the unexpected morsel out, but Tanaka’s got claws on all four limbs to keep him anchored. Even gods don’t have armored throats—not on the inside, anyway.

With the exception of silver or decapitation, it’s hard to kill a thrope. They can survive drowning, burning, disemboweling, and just about every poison known. I never considered adding being swallowed alive to the list, but once you’ve gotten past the perils of chewing, all you have to worry about is being digested. Ugly way to go, feeling your flesh being slowly dissolved until the acid eats through your spinal column and separates what’s left of your skull from your body.

Unless you use your claws to stop your descent partway down. Then you can do some damage of your own … especially if you’ve been smart enough to bring your own scalpel with you.

I start to think that maybe Tanaka will be okay. That maybe he can actually survive this.

Dagon roars again; this time there’s more pain in it than fury. He’s not used to his snacks biting back. But then, Tanaka is more like a nasty virus than a meal, a bad case of food poisoning with a lethal agenda. I can just imagine him in there, chopping though the soft flesh of the gullet, escaping into the thoracic cavity where he can wreak some real havoc …

Dagon claws at his own chest. Scales rip loose and fly through the air like fishy Frisbees. “Awwww,” I say. “Got a little indigestion, big guy? Should have stuck with that all-seafood diet.”

I hear heavy footsteps behind me and turn to see Charlie rushing toward me. His suit is wet and ripped in many places, and he’s got a few branches sticking out of him, but other than that he looks okay. “What’d I miss?” he growls.

“Just the appetizer,” I say. “Main course is coming right up.”

Dagon seems to have forgotten all about me. He’s pounding on his own torso like someone trying to get a stuck candy bar out of a vending machine. I wonder which way he’s going to fall when he finally keels over.

But that doesn’t happen. I’m forgetting that Dagon is, after all, more than a giant, two-legged amphibian—he’s a deity, an otherworldly being from a different dimension with different rules. If explosive decompression can’t kill him from the inside, what can one thrope with a sword do?

Just enough to save my life.

In the end, Dagon places both his hands flat against his chest and utters something—actual words, though they sound nothing like any language I’ve ever heard—and his whole body glows with an eldritch blue light. He drops his hands to his sides, opens his mouth, and exhales a small puff of black vapor.

I watch it disperse in the breeze.
Sayonara,
Tanaka.

I almost expect Dagon to spit out the katana as an afterthought, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, the monster turns back to the ocean and strides into it, not looking back. In a minute he’s completely submerged, gone like he was never here.

And so is Tanaka.

TWENTY

Charlie and I leave before the local cops show up. Lots of rubberneckers pull over to gawk, but everybody’s attention is focused on the not-so-jolly Green Giant; Charlie might have been spotted, but I doubt anyone noticed me at all.

Except Tanaka.

“We must have hurt him some,” Charlie says as we walk through the lobby of the Clarion. “Either that, or that blue zap he used took a lot out of him. Either way, we got the job done—”

I give him a look that could cut glass. “We got the
job
done? We lost one of our own today, Charlie. That’s not an accomplishment, it’s a major screwup.”

“I know. I’m sorry—”

“Sorry? What have
you
got to be sorry about? That Tanaka was the one who got to sacrifice himself for my sake, instead of you?”

Charlie doesn’t answer.

We’ve reached the elevator doors. I punch the
UP
button with my thumb. “That stupid, selfish
bastard
. So goddamn concerned with his
honor
he went and got himself
killed
for it.”

Charlie doesn’t say a word.

“I mean, what the hell
is
honor, anyway? A million different things to a million different people, and none of them understands any of the others. It’s not a word, it’s an excuse—people make it mean whatever they
want
it to mean.”