Matt Archer: Redemption (18 page)

“And Mamie’s lucky exam pencil and the arrowhead from Jorge,” I said. “Never leave home without them.”

He smiled, looking ready to kick some ass. “You ought to be safe from everything, carrying that many good luck charms.”

Jamison gaped at us like we were crazy, but I didn’t feel like explaining my talismans. They were too personal, and I had something else to worry about. I shined the beam down on our dead intruder. My guess that it was a monkey wasn’t too far off. It was only about three feet tall, with overlong arms and large hands with thin fingers. But that was the end of the resemblance. Its face was disturbingly human, with high cheekbones and a delicate chin. If it weren’t for the needle-sharp teeth, the dark claws tipping its fingers and the furry torso, I might’ve thought it was a little kid. The best thing I could come up with was goblin.

Will, after glancing at the trees, scratched his head. “I thought Parker said there were only Pandas out here.”

“Guess not. The real question is what do we do about
them.
” I nodded at the creature’s friends. “They’re holding back for a reason, and I doubt it’s a good one.”

“How’s the leg?”

I put some weight on it and hissed as pain shot through my calf. “I’m not going to be running anywhere for a while.”

Captain Johnson, followed by Lanningham and Blakeney, fell in next to us and peered into the trees. “Why did I know this trip had been too easy?” He glanced down at the dead monster at my feet. “We’re fighting Ewoks?”

“Ewoks with homicidal tendencies,” I said. My leg shook. “Anybody think we should rush them and be done with it?”

“Maybe, but why are they waiting?” Will asked.

A good question
, Tink said.
And I think you need to get that leg fixed quickly.

“Why? Something worse on the way?” I asked.

A huge roar came from farther back in the forest and the little goblins cried out in triumph.

You might say that.

Right. “Somebody bind up my leg,” I snapped.

Kelly came running with a first aid kit and cut my pant leg open. “You need stitches.”

“Too late for that. Tie it up.”

While he did that, Captain Johnson took off, telling Nguyen to ready ordnance. Will stepped in front of me. The trees creaked and swayed in the distance as something enormous blundered through the forest.

“It’s been quiet this whole time,” Will muttered. “A couple of Pandas, no big deal. Then you show up and Gigantor makes a move less than twelve hours later.”

“Hey, don’t blame me for this.” I grunted as Kelly bound my leg tight with a layer of medical tape and several pieces of gauze.

Um, I wouldn’t be so sure.

“What?”

It’s entirely possible this creature
has
been waiting for you to show up. From what I can sense, it’s been hanging around here since the very first eclipse. Why would it do that if it weren’t waiting for someone? Like, say, you?

Tink sounded both intrigued and excited by the fact. Me, not so much. The string of curse words I rattled off had an eloquence I was rarely capable of.

Will laughed like a grave robber. “Told you so.”

“One of these days, I wish something would go right,” I muttered. “Done with the leg?”

“Best I can do,” Kelly said, pressing one last piece of tape on it. “You won’t want to make any sharp turns.”

I didn’t think I’d have much choice because the new threat was drawing even with the little goblins. “Tink, rock on.”

This might burn a little bit.

I didn’t doubt that, especially when she lit a fire behind my eyes, determined to char my brain.

To my right, Will was doubled over. “Dude.”

“Not as bad as an eclipse,” I said, blinking to clear my vision. “We’re getting better at this.”

Ahem.
I’m
getting better at this. Now, stop with the gabbing and go.

“Bossy.” Still, I took a step on my bad leg. It hurt, but the pain was distant, blocked by the tingle of magic tripping through my blood. Despite the aftereffects, I loved this part. It scared me, too, having all this power. I let out a loud cry and the shaking in the trees stopped dead.

Will laughed and yelled, “Prêt ou pas, nous voilà!”

The forest exploded into motion. I gripped my knife, ready. “Everybody clench up. We got incoming.”

The little goblins led the way, leaping out of the trees with unnaturally long bounds. Half of them ran straight at Will, and the other half bypassed me, going for the team. Rifle shots cracked behind me.

“Remember we’re downrange!” I snapped. I hadn’t heard Johnson give the order, which meant one of the green beans had fired prematurely. God, if they panicked and shot me or Will, I’d haunt them for fifty years.

For a split second, I considered going after the goblins attacking the team, but our bigger problem arrived. The thing skidding to a halt right in front of me had a lion’s head and a bull’s body and was as tall as a passenger bus. It blew out a breath stinking of rotted leaves and growled deep in its car-sized chest.

“What are
you
?” I muttered.

“Nian!” Jamison squeaked out. He sounded like a man on the verge of meltdown.

“What’s a Nian?” I called, never breaking eye contact with the beast.

“Mythological creature from Chinese legend. Comes down at the new moon to eat children.”

The beast chuckled. “The man isn’t entirely correct. I came down at the blood red moon to seek one particular child.”

“Did you now?” I backed away a few steps, taking in my surroundings it case it rushed me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Will struggling with three of the goblins. One was on his back, trying to bite at his neck. I backed that way, careful to keep my body angled toward Nian.

“Yes. Except the child wasn’t here. I’ve waited a long while to meet him.” The creature—Nian—shook itself like a wet dog. “Yet, now that he’s come, he’s no longer a child.”

“Why is it speaking English?” Jamison squeaked.

The monster spared him a withering glance and said something in Chinese that made Jamison’s eyes pop open wide.

“Yeah, so I’m tired of the games. What do you want?” I asked as orange light flashed behind me. A whoop of excitement went up and goblins screamed. They must not be fireproof. “Because your friends are going down pretty fast.”

“Your power,” it said. “Your blood.”

“Sorry,” I told it. “I’m not giving that away today.”

Nian stared at me through half-lidded eyes, and its back haunches tensed, like it was about to pounce. “I didn’t think it would be easy. But it’s worth the risk.”

Will was down to one last goblin and edging toward us. From the sound of magazines slamming into rifles and Johnson’s rather dangerous humming of “How Do You Like Me Now,” I gathered the team was at my back, ready to go, too. I just needed to keep the beast distracted long enough.

“Pretty big risk,” I told it. “Why bother? What’s so special about me?”

It snorted and stamped a hoof, sounding more like a bull than a lion for a moment. “Don’t take me for a fool, Archer. We all know who you are,
what
you are. For someone like me, your lifeblood would feed me for an age.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “Then try to take it. Come on, I dare you.”

At the taunt it roared, and Tink roared back inside my head. Before I knew what the plan was, she launched me at Nian’s head, knife out. I almost gouged out its eye, but it managed to duck at the last second. I sailed over its head, landed on its back and slid over the side.

I hit the ground on my bad leg. The pain took my breath away—long enough for Nian to turn and snap at me.

Will dodged between us and slashed the creature across its snout. It howled and butted him with its head. Will flew over me, landing hard and skidding another ten feet over rough ground before slamming into a tree trunk. Nian chuckled, and came at me again.

I rolled out of the way, struggling to pull in air. My only lucky break was the monster was too big to corner well—and I was quick.

Someone hosed Nian’s hind end with a flamethrower, but its hide seemed to be made of iron and all the heat did was piss it off. It turned and charged at the team. Johnson leapt on top of the Jeep, Nguyen dove under it and Lanningham jumped into the driver’s seat as the creature pounded past them. Poor Jamison wasn’t as quick. Nian rammed its giant skull into his chest with an audible crunch, then flicked him away like a fly. Jamison sailed into the darkness outside of camp. There was a thump when he hit ground, and nothing more.

Will’s word, redshirt, echoed in my head and Tink’s fury fed mine. “Hey. You want me, not them. What are you waiting for?”

It turned once more and faced me. I stood my ground, a memory bubbling up out of nowhere. I gripped the knife with my right hand, bracing the heel of the handle with my left palm. Blade up, elbows turned out. Feet dug into the dirt.

Sometimes old ways were the best ways.

Nian charged, a frenzied red light in its eyes, but I didn’t flinch. Between one blink and the next, the creature became a Bear, running at a terrified fourteen-year-old boy in the Montana woods. Another blink and it was Nian again, almost on top of me.

I sidestepped the beast, sprang up and jammed my blade into its chest. Too big to stop on a dime, Nian continued forward even as I cut a line from its shoulder to its hip. The monster toppled over, shaking the ground beneath it, but it wasn’t dead—just nearly.

I walked over to kneel in front of its eye. “Is this what you came for?”

It blew a shallow breath out of its nostrils. “Yes.”

Okay, that wasn’t what I thought it would say. “Yes? Really, you came to die?”

“I wanted … ” It shuddered and its eye closed. “To see if the legends were true. Our lord asked me to seek you out to gauge your power.”

“Your lord? Who’s that?”

“A living flame who gives us life.” It shuddered again. “He comes and you will burn.”

Before I could ask any other questions, Nian let out a soft, rattling breath and died.

The creature of Fire,
Tink answered.
We’re on his trail.

“Technically, it sounds like he’s on ours,” I said.

Semantics.

“Yeah, semantics.” What mattered was that we’d identified the fourth point on Zenka’s star, Fire, and someone would likely burn. We had to find the shaman before the prime monster found us. Which led me to a difficult request.

“Captain Johnson?” I said.

“Yes?”

“I need someone to find my dad.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Kelly came out of Will’s tent, squinting in the early morning light. His face was pale but his stride was determined as he crossed camp. Although he wasn’t a big guy, I could tell the others respected him by the way they nodded as he passed.

Unspoken rule: never diss the guy who might have to stitch you up after a fight. Especially if he’s good at it. That had been true about Klimmett—who I missed, but he was on Ramirez’s team in Alaska—and I suspected I’d come to believe it about Kelly after a while.

I was sitting on an upturned crate while Blakeney cleaned debris out of the punctures on my calf. All the rolling and dodging had torn my bandages off, and bits of rocks and plant matter had ground into the open places. When Kelly made it over, Blakeney stood aside.

He held my leg out into the sunlight, peering into the teeth marks. “Looks good, considering. Sergeant did a good job.”

“How’s Cruessan?” I asked, massaging my temples. Tink had tried to ease the withdrawal this time, or that’s what she said anyway. My pounding head couldn’t tell the difference.

“Bruised hip, punctures on his shoulder and right arm and a righteous case of road rash from sliding across the ground after being thrown, but he’ll live. He needs a day to recover from getting his bell rung, but nothing major enough to need to evac him.”

“How about … ” I found I couldn’t say Jamison’s name. The scene was too fresh.

“We found him,” Blakeney said quietly, and I noted how Kelly’s hands shook. They must’ve been friends. “The colonel will send someone to retrieve him and bring in more supplies.” He flashed me a wry smile. “Nguyen asked for a shoulder mounted rocket launcher with anti-tank missiles. The terrain’s too tough for vehicles, so he wanted something with kick that he could carry.”

“Well, Nian did say the Big Boss is after us. A few anti-tank missiles don’t sound like overkill to me.” I winced as Kelly deadened my leg with lidocaine. “I’m guessing air support isn’t feasible?”

“The captain said not unless we pinpointed the location. With the forests, a fighter or an Apache can’t see what’s happening on the ground, especially since we’re on a slope in the mountains.”

“Okay.” I turned my head away from the needle going through my skin. I hated this part. No matter how many times—and it’d been a
lot
—I’d gotten stitches, I was still grossed out by the idea that someone was sewing me back together.

A clamor of voices distracted me from the needle and thread. Lanningham led a group of Chinese soldiers through camp. As they passed me, most bowed their heads in a show of respect before moving on. I wondered if I’d ever get used to it. I kind of hoped not; all those celebrities who started to believe their own press were assholes.

Lanningham took his visitors to the edge of the tree line and showed them Nian’s carcass. It was too big for us to move, even just to create a funeral pyre. We’d asked them to bring in a helicopter to lift it out.

What none of us expected was their reaction.

A few of the men staggered backward, making signs to ward off evil. A few others started stamping their feet and yelling.

“What are they doing?” I said.

Blakeney shook his head. “No idea.”

“I know what they’re doing,” Kelly said, still bent over my leg. “Jamison and I were assigned to this post because we both spent time here as kids and speak a couple of dialects of Chinese between us. I mean, we
did
.” He sighed. “Anyway, the legend of Nian is that he’d attack villages at the new moon or at Chinese New Year until a wise old man figured out Nian was afraid of the color red and of loud, percussive noises.”