Stoneskin's Revenge (41 page)

The ogress screamed piteously, as if she had been plunged into boiling oil, and Calvin was startled to see steam rising around them, steam that he felt hot against his skin. Utlunta was flailing more than ever, but he clearly had the upper hand and the strength to restrain her. Brock backed away a few more paces and stood with his arms outstretched, shielding Calvin from the bank, but he could hear shouts and the sound of running and knew the cops would not be long in arriving.

A deep breath, a fast decision, and he thrust Utlunta's head beneath the surface. More steam rose, and he could actually feel her weight decreasing, as if she were dissolving, melting away, washing downstream with the water.

A sudden convulsion so startled him that he would have lost her had he not yanked her back by a strip of leather thong that bound part of her garment. Her head broke water, though, and his gorge rose, for the ogress really was partly dissolved: her lips were in tatters and her cheekbones showed through her skin. Their eyes met, but where before those stony black orbs had been filled with hate and arrogance, now there was only fear and pain. And Calvin realized that he truly did not want to do this. Spearfinger was his foe, a monster from his childhood nightmares made manifest. But she was a sentient creature, too: had a brain, feelings, cognizance of her own mortality, and more on her conscience to make her fear death than many. Lord knew he understood how she might feel about
that,
had she any feelings left.
He
had deaths on his conscience, at least four of them. She had many times that number across uncounted years. He wondered if they came back to haunt her as his already were doing not a day old.

Did he want
another
death on his conscience?

“I'll let you go” he gritted. “I'll raise a fog and send you back to Galunlati if you'll give me your word you won't come back to this World.”

“They will kill you, boy; you know that.”

“Maybe; but that's not your problem, is it? I don't
want
to kill you, Utlunta. I just want you out of this World, I want you where you belong.”

“You want to save your friend, that is all.”

“Isn't that enough? But you're wrong there; I want to save more than him; I want to save
all
your victims.”

“I will have victims in Galunlati!”

“But you're
part
of Galunlati.”

“Death is death, and life is life. Do you trade lives here for lives there?”

“I have no choice,” Calvin choked. “But there's a thing you should know, and that's that even if you remain here, even if I'm jailed and you go free, others'll still be after you. Maybe Dave'll even bring the folk of Tir-Nan-Og to hunt you, sealed borders or not. And if
our
folk catch you, Utlunta, then you'd
really
better watch out, 'cause they won't imprison you in
chains,
they'll imprison you with
science.
They'll find out that you're not like anything they've ever seen, and then they'll begin to wonder about you and where you come from, and they may find out about Galunlati, and then men from the Lying World will go there in such numbers that everything that makes Galunlati special will cease to be! Do you
want
that, Spearfinger? You came here to save your World. If you don't return you'll destroy it, more surely than the secrets Dave knows ever will.”

“You lie!” Spearfinger shrieked. “All men are liars!”

And with that, she broke loose and floundered toward the shore. The force made Calvin fall backward, and when he surfaced again, it was to see Spearfinger almost to the beach. Brock was there, and Don as well, both gaping incredulously. But then two more figures loped into view behind them: Abner and Adams, both with naked .38s.

They took in the scene in an instant, and though Abner's revolver wavered briefly toward Calvin, it soon shifted toward the ogress. She seemed to be totally insane now, and leapt straight toward the startled deputy.

“Uwelanatsik—”
she screamed, but as she did twin barrels spat lead into her and she staggered, one leg apparently shattered. But she was not so easily cowed, and somehow found strength to stumble another few steps toward shore before guns blazed again and the other leg collapsed. She fell with her left hand on the bank and her body in the stream. Nor could she rise, though she tried. Calvin splashed over to where she lay, while the boys hung back and the two deputies made their way down the bank, guns still drawn and cocked.

But they were too late: for the water had finally eaten its way through Spearfinger's right wrist, and even as they watched, it separated and swirled away in the tannin
dark waters, and with it went her hidden heart. The pace of her dissolution accelerated then, and Calvin glimpsed three more faces at the top of the bank: Robyn and Robert, who together were supporting an obviously limping coroner. He had a video camera on his shoulder, and with it he taped the final dissolution of Utlunta Spearfinger, the Stoneskin.

When nothing remained but her left hand and her tattered dress, Calvin hauled himself to shore. Robert passed him his black leather jacket, which he tied around his waist by the sleeves before slumping onto a rock, where he stared vacantly at the forest on the other side of the creek. It was over. He had won. But he was in nowise free of either guilt or responsibility.

Robyn flopped down beside him. She took his arm, laid her head against his shoulder, then removed a black and white bandanna from her pocket and began to try to pat him dry.

Someone joined him on the other side: the round-faced coroner. “I reckon we're gonna need to talk to you some,” he said. “But I reckon I saw what I saw, and I reckon I've got witnesses, and I reckon this here camera ain't gonna lie.”

“What'd you get?” Calvin asked dully. “How'd you know how to find us?”

The man grinned broadly. “Well, first there was that eagle where there shouldn't have been any eagles, and then two Abners in one place was a little more than even
I'm
willin' to take for granted, so I just had to find out what was goin' on. And I'm a little better tracker than some of these folks, so I just followed your trail away from the Scotts' house until it ran out. Lost you for a while there, but then I looked up and saw that eagle again, only this time it was flyin' along with something in its talons and beak that looked a whole lot like a bow and arrow, and I just climbed up in a tree and followed it with my binocs till it dived down behind some timber, and then I guess I just trusted to luck and headed that way.”

“He's spry, for an old guy,” Robert inserted.

“Not spry enough, though.” the coroner laughed back, though there was a trace of pain in his face was well. “Just about the time I got to where I could see something—you'd just jumped stark naked outta that tree—I tripped and fell. Twisted the
hell
outta my ankle, but by then I wasn't goin' nowhere anyway, not with what
I
was seein' out there in the meadow.” He patted his camera like he would a favorite dog. “Fortunately I had me a walkie-talkie, and Robert had seen me leavin' and wanted to ask me something, so he followed. I radioed back for help and got him—and Adams and Moncrief.”

“And the camera?” Calvin wondered. “Did you…?”

The coroner grinned broadly. “Not
everything,
but I got that whole fight on tape—got proof that thing could change shape. And I've got proof she washed away. Also,” he added, resting a plastic bag carefully on his knee, “I've got her hand here with that finger on it. And I bet it'll match samples we've got off at least four bodies.”

“Four?
So that woman in Jefferson too…?”

“'Fraid so—but I think we've got enough between 'em to clear you, if you're willin' to make a deposition. And if these kids are willin' to answer some questions as well.”

Calvin eyed Don and Robyn and Brock curiously. “Don will, I think; won't you?” he asked, and Don nodded eagerly, but his voice cracked when he spoke.

“For Calvin, and for my sister,” the boy said. “And…and for Michael.” And with that name his eyes misted and he finally gave vent to the last of the anguish he had so long suppressed, burying his face in Robyn's shoulder when she rose to comfort him.

“What about you two?” the coroner inquired. “I 'spect they'd like statements from you as well.”

Calvin could see Robyn stiffen. “
That
may be a problem.”

“No it won't,” Brock interrupted. “We'll tell the truth, and the whole truth. We'll tell it about everything.”

“No,” Robyn cried again. “Brock, we
can't.
It's too awful.”

“What is?” the coroner asked, taking Brock's chin in his hand and forcing the boy's eyes to meet his own. Robyn looked desolate. “I…I'm pregnant!” she wailed. “My stepdad knocked me up. I tried to tell 'em, but nobody'd believe me. That was the final straw.”

“Oh Christ,” Calvin groaned. “Why didn't you let me know?”

“Why? Wasn't your fault. Nothin'
you
could do.”

“Yeah, but…well, maybe I'd have been a little more considerate.”

“One person's as important as two,” Robyn countered. “And besides, you
were
pretty damned considerate—I just didn't know you were.”

“Georgia law allows DNA evidence,” the coroner inserted. “A couple of samples, a test or two, and you're home free.”

“Not quite,” Robyn replied flatly, her hands still patting Don absently.

“Never
home
,”
Brock appended. “One thing, man: we
ain't
goin' home again.”

“Well, I certainly can't guarantee that,” the coroner replied, somewhat taken aback, “but I kinda imagine they're gonna want you to stick around up here a day or two, anyway. After that, we'll see. And now, if you don't mind, we need to get this circus moving.” He cast a glance at Calvin. “You okay, boy? Well as can be expected?”

Calvin nodded wearily and rose, then knotted the jacket sleeves more tightly around his waist and joined the party at the bank. There were more cops there now, but none seemed disposed to harass him, though Abner definitely looked more than a little disappointed.

“You know, this could get to be a real mess,” Calvin told Robert confidentially. “This can't go far, or there's no tellin'
what'll
happen.”

Robert raised an eyebrow in reply. “It won't go no further than it
has
to, that's for sure! Still, most of what's happened, we can chalk up to some poor old bag lady gone insane. Sheriff's boys had to shoot her. Got physical evidence to link her to the murders' that oughta be enough.”

“What about me?” Calvin wondered.

“We'll need you to talk some,” the coroner said, joining him on the other side, with Robyn helping him along and Brock proudly lugging the camera. “And then I'll need to find some way to arrange a power outage to destroy the files. I understand your little friend here might be of some use there—hear he's got quite a knack for managing those kinda occurrences.” He grinned at Brock and cuffed him. “Not much for Southern hospitality, are we? And if I was
any
of you, I'd think a long time before I come down here again, and longer before I fooled around with magic.”

Calvin started at that. “How'd you know?”

“I've read some books,” the man chuckled. “And a coupla days ago I was down at Cumberland to tape the storm—that's kinda a hobby of mine—and right in the middle of the worst part I seen a fleet of ships sailin' in the air. That enough for you?”

“It's enough,” Calvin agreed, for the man had obviously witnessed the Faery naval battle that had marked the end of his and Dave's previous adventure—the one he had come here to sort out. “Don't ask me any more,” he added. And then they started across the meadow.

The sun came out then, and cast Calvin's shadow dark beneath him, but he was not surprised when two more joined it: winged ones, darting in to flank him on either side. And then two more, and then two more, and then dozens.

“Peregrines,” somebody exclaimed. “Thought they 'uz gone from here.”

“Wrong season anyway,” someone else decided.

“Not this time,” Calvin told them, and bent over to whisper so that only Brock and Don and Robyn could here. “Not when they're your totem.”

Epilogue I: Road Trip

(east of Whidden, Georgia—Friday, June 20—mid-morning)

It was not, Calvin reflected as he wandered through the oak woods east of Whidden, an optimum day for magic. But that conclusion was not based on any consultation of signs or portents, not on a reading of auguries in sheep entrails or the position of planets and stars. Rather, it was founded on the simple assumption that there was no way on earth that magic could have improved on the world around him that particular morning.