Dying Bites: The Bloodhound Files-1 (38 page)

“The spell is a magnificent thing,” she says. “The gun spell, I mean, though the golemconjuring is impressive as well. It has three layers to it, and they work, not on the laws of physics, but on the mind of any thinking creature. The first layer tells the mind that using explosions to power weapons is a concept not to be taken seriously. Not that such a thing is impossible—for it’s not—and for a spell to last, it mustn’t collapse under the weight of internal contradiction. This just places a blind spot in a being’s thoughts, a prejudice more emotional than rational.

“The second layer is more insidious. It says that the first idea is perfectly fine and acceptable and thinking about it is a waste of time. It ensures that not only does no one think guns or bombs are viable weapons, but also that no one should ever question why.”

She pauses. “And the third layer?” I prompt.

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“A warning system. Should the first two be breached, should someone hammer away relentlessly enough at the spell to break it in another’s mind, it would alert the caster of the spell to such an event. Presumably so they could locate the disturbance, and end it.”

“You and I don’t seem to have any trouble talking about it.”

“You are from another universe, and thus immune. I am not. To me, a gun is an absurdity, an improbability I am unable to believe in. The only way I have to counteract this effect is a spell which continually reminds me that my opinion in this matter is unreliable.” She smiles, but there’s pain in her eyes. “A disturbing sensation, to be sure. Somewhat like being a little crazy, all the time.”

“How do you know this?”

“From spying on your world. From seeing what guns can do, and how they’ve shaped your entire society. Detecting the spell itself was much more difficult . . . but I am a powerful witch. Powerful enough to open a window onto your world, powerful enough to concoct a solution, of sorts. But even I wouldn’t risk trying to break the spell, even in myself; I have no wish to meet its creator.”

“Wait. So this sorcerer is a pire? Because if he’s still alive—”

“He is no pire, nor is he a thrope. He is . . . something else.”

“Spying on my world. Does that mean—”

“We should eat before we leave.”

She’s avoiding my question, but I suddenly realize how hungry I am. The last food I ate was a sandwich I bought in the Santiago airport, and that must have been at least
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twelve hours ago. “Hope you have enough for two, because I kind of forgot to bring anything to this barbecue.”

She puts aside my scythes, pulls a small pack from behind a boulder, and rummages inside. “Here.”

I catch what she throws me. Cheese sandwich, wrapped in cellophane. I tear it open and devour it; I never thought that white bread would taste so wonderful. The body reacts in primitive ways to primitive situations, and apparently witnessing a murder is one hell of an appetizer. My previous nausea has abandoned me like a blind date in a restaurant with a back door, and when I’m done Selkie tosses me an apple as well.

“Thanks,” I say, and pitch it back at her as hard as I can.

It’s a Granny Smith apple, which is good. Decent weight, solid, nice hard crunch to it. It catches her just over the left eye, producing a loud thwok and a startled yelp of pain. She stumbles backward a step in surprise, trips over a rock, and goes down on her backside.

I’m already moving. If I could get to my gun in time, this fight would be over, but it’s too far away. I dive for the scythes instead.

I have barely enough time to grab them before Selkie’s back on her feet. Right about now is when I should be toast, except—thanks to Eisfanger—I know a little more about magic than when I first arrived. Dispelling an enchantment like she did with my bonds can be done in a second, but it takes a little longer to prepare to cast it in the first place. Likewise for most magical attacks—you can’t just point your finger and zap someone with a fireball. I have no doubt she has something nasty all charged up and ready to go, but I don’t intend to give her time to use it.

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She gets the first two syllables out before I break her jaw; I don’t have the luxury of being nice. Her head snaps around and a tooth flies out of her mouth. Ouch.

That’s not gonna do it, though. She’s a threat as long as she’s conscious, which means my second strike will have to knock her out. I smack her just over the ear—

And my stick hits something a lot more solid than a human skull.

She hisses at me from a mouth full of sharp teeth. Muscles bulge under skin turning scaly and gray. Her fingernails bulk into long, curving claws. All her hair falls out as her skull elongates to form a blunt-nosed, reptilian snout. I guess she doesn’t need to talk to shape-shift.

She takes a swipe at me with a claw and I dance back, wanting to see just how fast she is. I’m pretty sure she can’t use any other spells while in another form, but I don’t intend to test that—I have to keep her busy enough that she won’t have the opportunity.

She stalks toward me, a six-foot lizard-woman complete with tail. I snap the scythe blades out and meet her attack.

She’s fast. The transformation has apparently fixed her jaw, too, because she snaps at me with a mouthful of yellowy fangs. Her breath smells like a dead pig left in the sun for a week—and I realize what form she’s shifted into.

I saw a documentary on the Komodo dragon once. Largest lizard in the world, with the habit of swallowing entire goats—up to 80 percent as large as themselves—the way a boa constrictor gulps rats. The thing that stuck in my head was the image of one particular dragon that was having a little difficulty getting the whole goat down his throat, so he was ramming it against a boulder, over and over, forcing a little more into his gullet every time. That and the fact that so many virulent microbes live in their filthy mouths that any bite will probably kill you within days through infection.

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She hasn’t transformed into an actual Komodo dragon, more like a were version of it—

probably drawing on the essence of the dragon through some kind of fetish. But I’m sure her claws are just as sharp and her bite just as deadly as the real thing.

I’ve got the reach on her, but she’s got more weapons than I do—she can tear me apart with her jaws while I’m busy parrying slashes from her claws. I can’t use the blades to stab, I can’t risk them getting stuck in muscle or bone. With a pire or thrope, the silver would probably let me slice right through a limb, but it’s not that hard a metal; her scales—reinforced by subdermal bony plates, if I’m remembering correctly—will be a lot harder to chop through.

She pivots, turning her back to me, and I step back in anticipation of a kick. Nope. Forgot about her tail—and there goes my reach advantage. It slams into my shoulder, knocking me sideways, but I somehow manage to stay on my feet. Selkie completes her spin and is facing me again.

I go on the offensive, slashing furiously with both blades, weaving a pattern of destruction in front of me. She hisses and retreats.

There’s no way this will end well.

I don’t want to kill her. But I don’t think I can just incapacitate her anymore, and I’m pretty sure she’s trying to kill me.

She tries the tail stunt again, but this time I’m ready for it. I step in as she spins and slash across her spine with both scythes. She screams as momentum carries her around, and the tail smashes into my belly an instant later. I double over, the breath knocked out of me, as my vision goes gray and I try to stagger backward out of range.

I force myself to straighten up. She glares at me from the ground where she’s fallen, and from the way she’s lying I can tell her legs don’t work anymore.
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That doesn’t stop her.

Ever seen a crocodile run? They can move amazingly fast on land with their muscular little legs. Selkie may be down to half of hers, but she scuttles straight toward me on the remaining two, moving so much like a real lizard it’s unsettling. She gets within grabbing distance and snags my ankle with one hand, yanking hard and knocking me down to the ground with her.

At that point, I really have no options left.

The way a real Komodo dragon kills its prey is by pinning it down with its claws and tearing it apart with its teeth. As long as she’s holding on to me, Selkie can do exactly the same thing, meaning I’ll probably bleed out as soon as she rips open my femoral artery.

She latches on to my leg with both hands and drags me toward her jaws. I spread my arms as wide as they’ll go, then swing them together like a pair of mandibles closing.

The blades slam home on either side of her head, about where her ears should be. I swear I feel the ends of the blades click against each other in the middle.

She slumps to the ground between my legs. I stare at her for a long second, barely able to breathe, and then I roll over and throw up.

Waste of a perfectly good cheese sandwich.

Shut up, brain.

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And now I’m trapped on one of the most isolated places on the planet, with two corpses for company and no transportation. I guess I’ll hike back to the village and try to scare up a radio or a telephone—but first I search through Selkie’s bag.

I don’t expect to find much, but I’m wrong. There’s a journal and a sheaf of notes—it looks like Stoker was having her transport his research in case he was captured, probably because she could destroy it with a prepared spell very quickly.

I glance over at Selkie’s body. I expected it to change back to human as soon as she died, but it’s been a slow, gradual process, almost like the magic is seeping out of her. I look away again, fast.

The notes are fragmentary, but I piece together what they mean fairly quickly: The object Stoker stole from the Mc-Murdo research facility is called the Shining Trapezohedron, an ancient artifact used to contact other-dimensional beings. Trapezohedron is simply a fancy name for a cube; Stoker’s trying to sketch a “deformed trigonal trapezohedron” on a global scale, with each of the murder sites representing a corner of the cube. The center corner—the one that if you stare at a drawing of a cube can appear to either be inward or outward facing—apparently represents both the seventh and eighth points simultaneously, in some sort of non-Euclidean mathematics that I can’t even begin to understand.

What I do understand is this: he’s taken the trapezohedron to that central point, and he’s going to use it to bring the eighth point into focus with our world.

That eighth point was known in ancient times as Mu. Stoker’s going to summon a continent.

FOURTEEN

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I can’t figure out how to use the satellite broadcaster to do anything other than what it’s already doing, so I just turn it off. Then I trudge down to the village to find a phone.

Turns out I don’t have to bother. A seaplane buzzes overhead when I’m halfway there, and by the time I reach the dock it’s landed offshore, just about at the limit Stoker mentioned. There’s a motor launch at the dock with the keys still in it; I start it up and head out to greet my ride. I’ve got a pretty good idea who it is.

I kill the motor and let the boat drift up to the plane, bumping gently against a pontoon. The door swings open.

“Hello, Jace,” Tanaka says. “Need a lift?”

I stare at him in disbelief. “Tanaka? What are you doing here?”

“Doing a favor for a friend. You are very much—what is the saying—a nonperson, right now.”

“Persona non grata.” I climb into the plane, hoping the tide will push the boat back to its owners and not out to sea. “Yeah, I thought that might happen. Figured Cassius would send someone after me—just didn’t think it would be you.”

“Have you learned anything important?”

“You could say that.” I fill him in as he prepares the plane for takeoff. “We have to get to these coordinates,” I say, showing him a map I found in Selkie’s bag. “This is where he’s going, and he’s already got a head start.”

“I believe we can do so on my remaining fuel—this craft is equipped for extended flights.”

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“Then let’s get going. If we have to, we can stop to refuel in the Marquesas.”

I slug down some Urthbone as we get airborne, and my rising headache vanishes. My supply is almost gone—if I don’t find a way to get my prescription refilled, Stoker won’t have to worry about me as a threat.

“We should radio ahead,” I say once we’re in the air. “Cassius can probably get someone there sooner than us.”

“That is unlikely. This is a Japanese aircraft; I flew out of Tokyo Bay. The favor I am doing is not for Cassius, Jace—it is for you.”

That stops me for a second. I’d heard Tanaka went back to Japan after our little talk outside my apartment—I never would have guessed he’d go rogue out of concern for me. “So we’re both in the same boat—well, plane—now. Okay, but to misquote Bogey: the problems of two small people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this soon-to-be-postapocalyptic world. Stopping Stoker has to be our first priority—”