Thinning the Herd (12 page)

Lawrence sighed, “Yeah, time's short. You're right. Sorry.”

Della said, “I'm not guiding you. Remember that.”

“You mentioned awakening a god?” Hal reminded Lawrence. “Which god? What culture?”

“Keep in mind this is speculation on my part,” Lawrence said. “Based on what Louis's cards revealed.”

“Fair enough.”

“I think someone's trying to unchain Fenrir and begin Ragnarok.”

“Ah,” Hal murmured. “So the gods will battle and destroy the world.”

Lawrence looked at Hal. Arched an eyebrow. “You're versed in mythology. Yes, destroy the world as we know it. Fenrir will die, as will Odin. That'll leave the playing field open for a lot of other gods—ancient, nameless deities.”

“So, not a literal destruction of the planet,” Hal said, rubbing his chin. Stubble whisked against his fingers. “Of course. A societal destruction. And I bet organized religions will get their asses handed to them by these awakened deities.”

“These awakened gods will be hungry,” Lawrence said, voice low and his face grim in the dash-light glow. “And empty.”

“Their offspring will roam the land—the thing that you fought at my place.”

“I
told
Nick it wasn't global warming,” Hal muttered. A pang of regret pierced him. He'd give anything—including making mistakes, being wrong—to have Nick back, safe and sound.

His mind flashed back to the dream that'd yanked him up from unconsciousness. Giant forms stalking from the forest. Swallowing humans and shifters.

“Not on my watch,” Hal said, sitting up straight. He slid his fingers along his catch pole. Bent his neck from side to side. Rolled his shoulders. “Anything special I need to know about kicking their awakened, hungry asses?”

Lawrence laughed. “I don't know if you're fearless or just crazy deluded, but I like you, Hal Rupert.” His gaze shifted to the rearview mirror again. “Sure you don't want to guide him?”

“Positive,” Della snorted. “You wanna die, keep on talking. I plan to keep breathing.”

“Ass-kicking?” Hal reminded. “Special?”

“Fenrir could already be awake,” Lawrence said, all humor vanishing from his face. “Sacrifices will be needed. My guess is that's why your friends were taken.”

Hal stared straight ahead. “Sacrifices?”

“Your friends are
y
ō
kai
?”

Chains of ice looped around his heart. Hal nodded. “Nick's a wolf and Galahad's a cat—an orange tabby. A smart-ass tabby.” The chains tightened.

“Okay. Maybe Nick represents earth and maybe the tabby represents air or fire.”

“No, fire would be Desdemona,” Hal said. “They need human sacrifice too?”

“Yes,” Lawrence said. “Sorry, but yes. They'd really want Dezzie anyway.”

Hal's gaze narrowed. Fixed on Lawrence. “What're you saying?”

“Well . . . of course you
know
this, being her . . . uh . . . boyfriend and all,” Lawrence said. “Dezzie's a virgin.”

Hal's thoughts whirled. A virgin. His alluring, avenging beauty! She'd been saving herself for Hal. For her creep. Remembered the color in her cheeks when Louis had kissed her.

“Of course,” he said. “How do
you
know that?”

“Louis
is
her best friend,” Lawrence said. “She tells him everything. And he, uh, tells me.”

“Lousy at keeping secrets, then,” Hal murmured. “Good to know.”

“And Louis—what do they want him for?”

“For his magic. They will devour him.” Lawrence's voice faltered, gained strength. “But they screwed up when they left you, alive and whole.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You possess a hero's undefeated heart.” Lawrence waited a moment before adding, “One that should've been torn from your chest—”

“And gobbled down by the alpha god,” Hal finished, remembering his dream. “Got it. Well, they're gonna find this heart a little tough to chew.”

“Maybe they didn't know who you were then,” Della said. “But they do now.”

Hal swiveled around. “You guiding?”

Della slapped a hand over her mouth and shook her head vigorously. Her pink rollers wobbled.

“I didn't think so.”

“I'm not sure how to advise you on deity ass-kicking,” Lawrence said. “Depends on the god, depends on who's serving it, depends on the goal. Once we're in the pot dens below—”

Lawrence's words ended abruptly as he slammed on the brakes. The Mustang skidded to a tire-smoking stop, stuttering sideways across the highway. “By the stars,” he breathed.

Hal turned around in his seat. A shape rose in the darkness. And rose. And rose. Fire glimmered at its edges, defining its monstrous shape, its elm-slender limbs. The ground shuddered as it stepped forward and crossed the river.

“Crap,” Hal said.

“The old ones walk,” Lawrence said.

“Crap,” Hal and Della repeated together.

Lawrence's fingers touched the crescent-moon pendant hanging at his throat. “Cernunnos, give me strength.” Twisting around in his seat, he grabbed his antlered staff from the back.

Hal shot a hand out and locked his fingers around Lawrence's wrist. “Not your fight,” he said. “Mine. Mine alone, I figure.”

“How you figure that?” Lawrence asked, his gaze shifting from Hal's face to the god beyond the windshield.

“This is what I do,” Hal said.

Brianna leapt out of the Mustang's window and dashed up the highway toward the Valley River Center.

“Brianna!” Lawrence cried. “No! Let go, Hal. That's my
sister
out there!”

Hal tightened his jaw. Held Lawrence's fierce, determined gaze. The ground trembled. The Mustang bounced across the highway. Passing cars screeched to stops. Slid. Metal crunched. Horns blared. People screamed.

“No time to argue,” Hal said. Locking his fingers around his catch pole, he clocked one end hard against Lawrence's temple. The Wiccan's eyes rolled up white. He slumped against the driver's-side window.

The ground tremored. The Mustang vibrated into a guardrail. Red glowed in the sky. Like hell had cracked wide-open and lit the night from below.

“What the hell you do that for?” Della asked.

Hal snatched the antlered staff from Lawrence's lax grip and tossed it in the backseat. He met Della's gaze. “I don't want anyone to die guiding me.”

Throwing open the passenger-side door, Hal glanced at Della. “Can you drive a stick?”

“Yeah, darlin'.”

“Then get the hell out of here.” Hal jumped out of the car, catch pole in hand, and slammed the door shut. He glanced up as the god stomped into the VRC. Light streamed up from the crater in the roof. People ran around in the parking lot, screaming. Others poured out of the mall. Screaming.

“See you on the other side,” Della said. She revved the Mustang's engine.

“Drive safe,” Hal said, stepping away from the car, his attention still on the god. He thumped his catch pole against the road. “Bring it.”

His heart drummed slow and steady in his chest. He drew in a deep breath. The air stank of scorched rubber, burning oil, and antifreeze. His fingers tightened around the catch pole.

I was born for this.
That thought resonated like chiming crystal through Hal's mind and pounded in time with his heart. A hero and a catch pole for Eugene. Yeah, yeah, and Springfield.
My people.

Della steered the Mustang in a tight U-ey, then peeled away in the opposite direction from the VRC. The earsplitting screech of brakes made Hal swing his head around. A swerving semi headed straight for the Mustang, the driver staring, mouth open, at the looming horror striding through the mall.

The Mustang shot off the overpass, spiraling for a heartbeat, maybe two, in the night air, then dropped, disappearing from view.

“Della,” Hal whispered. “Lawrence.”
Both
doomed for helping him?

The semi plowed into cars angled to stops across the highway, birthing a catastrophic chain collision. Hal heard crunching, shrieking metal, smelled the pungent odor of gasoline. A dragging muffler struck sparks across the highway as the semi bulldozed the twisted and smoking mass of cars along the road.

WHOOMPFFF!

The gasoline burst into flames. Lit the night and the god striding the highway.

And both—god and screeching, burning collision—headed straight for Hal.

17

MEANWHILE . . .

Galahad opened his eyes to darkness and bouncing movement. Head spinning, stomach queasy, he was definitely not feeling his best. Too much of Hal's whole milk?
Always
stick to cream, dammit. When would he learn?

Wait. Hold on. Was he upside down? The blood pounding in his temples answered yes. Galahad tried moving his hands and discovered that his wrists were bound together, his fingers numb. His elbows thunked against something solid—hard plastic? It reeked of wet cardboard, smelled like the pulpy smell of the paper mills in Springfield.

Galahad tried to remember what had happened. Tried to wrestle memory past the huge, ugly ache in his head.
Pot dens. Hal unconscious on the ground, Nick kneeling beside him, patting his face. Desdemona with a pitchfork. Louis spilling out of a monster's gut
 . . .

A sound echoed up from the depths of memory.

*  *   *

DING!

“Does that sound like an elevator to you?”
Nick asks from where he crouches beside Hal's unconscious form
.

“Well, it's not a bicycle bell.” Galahad swings his flashlight around at the sound, aims it down the tunnel. Metal gleams
. SHOOSH.
Another sound from the same direction. He hears Nick rise to his feet, dirt grating beneath his shoes
.

CLICK.

Light explodes through the tunnel, buzzing from recessed fluorescent tubes in the ceiling. Vision dazzled, Galahad shades his eyes with the edge of his hand. A man with graying hair, dressed in gray janitor coveralls stands beside an elevator door, frozen in the act of switching on the lights, his eyebrows lifting as he takes in the scene of blood and guts drenching Galahad's end of the tunnel
.

A blond guy in a red plaid flannel shirt and worn jeans pushes a blue recycling bin out of the elevator. The door slides shut behind him with a soft clunk. He lifts his head, tosses his hair out of his face, blowing at the strands as he does so. He comes to a screeching halt. Stares
.

Janitor Man drops his hand from the light switch, his gaze twitching from Galahad to the gutted wolf-man to Desdemona and wolf-man-slimed Louis, to Nick and motionless Hal, then back to Galahad. A smile stretches the man's lips. He leans in toward the guy in red flannel and whispers
, “
We need more bins
.”

“How many?” Flannel Boy asks
.

Janitor Man counts with his index finger
.
“Four,”
he whispers
. “
No, wait. Make that five
.”

“We can hear you,” Galahad says, switching off his flashlight and lowering it to his side.

“Yeah, so don't bother with more bins,” Nick says. “The one you've got should be enough.” He nudges the wolf-man's body with the toe of his shoe. “We'll just get our friends and go. Sorry about the mess.”

“About that—” Janitor Man starts, but Desdemona's excited cry cuts him off.

“There! A pulse! He's alive!”

Galahad turns around. Desdemona looks at him from where she kneels beside Louis's body, her face practically incandescent
. “
I knew it. I
knew
it
.”
As if to underscore her words, Louis sucks in a breath of air, then coughs. But his eyes remain closed
.

“Desdemona,”
Galahad warns, inclining his head toward the newcomers and their recycling bin. He offers her a hand up
.
“We have company.”

Sudden wariness scrubs away Desdemona's joy. She grasps Galahad's hand and allows him to pull her to her feet. “Who are they?” she asks softly
.

Galahad shrugs. “Could just be the janitorial crew—”

“Holy shit!”
Flannel Boy exclaims, his eyes Holy-shit-wide
. “
Bob
ate
the magic kid!
Gobbled him up! Bad, Bob! Bad!”

Janitor Man sighs. Rubs the bridge of his nose
. “
I think Bob is a little past scolding, Eddie. Besides, he didn't eat the lad. He was merely carrying him
.”
Sauntering forward
,
Janitor Man smiles and Galahad's flesh crawls. Empty, that smile. And cold
.
“For safekeeping.”

“Safekeeping?” Galahad whispers. He catches a peripheral flash of movement as Desdemona bends down. “From what?”

“Safe keep this, asshole,”
Desdemona says, straightening with the pitchfork in her hands. She aims it like a spear
.
“Come any closer and you can party with Bob
.
”

Janitor Man stops. He is close enough now that Galahad can read the name embroidered on his coveralls
—Alan.
He slides a hand into one of the coverall's pockets
.
“No need for hostility,”
he says before yanking a large gun with a yellow grip from his pocket. He holds it steady in both hands. His smile returns
.
“Just kidding, gang. There's a definite need. Who would like to be firs
t?”

Galahad studies the gun. It looks odd, the muzzle thicker, square
.

“My guess would be you, buster,”
Nick says, doubling his hands into fists. He skips forward as fast as vintage Ali and hammers a fist into Alan's face just as Alan pulls the trigger
.

“Nick!” Galahad cries. “No!”

Nick stumbles as wires hit him mid-chest and belly. He stiffens, jerks, and then drops to his
knees. He falls over onto his side, spasming
.

Not bullets.
Relief pours through Galahad as he dashes to his friend. He kneels and yanks the barbed prongs free of Nick's flesh. The detective shudders. He stares at the ceiling, expression dazed
.

“Waz tha' a choo choo? Fel' like a choo choo
.
”

“Galahad! Look out!”

Galahad swivels on his knees at Desdemona's shout. He sees a shape silhouetted against the lights, twirling something in the air, then tossing it. Galahad throws up a defending arm as the net falls. A weight attached to it slams against his temple and knocks him flat. Color flickers through his vision. He hears Desdemona's rapid breathing as she tries to push the net away with the pitchfork. But the damned net pins them both to the floor
.
Galahad closes his eyes and plays possum while Desdemona, unknowing, provides distraction as she flails at the net
.

“Whazz tha'?”
Nick slurs
.

A voice dry as straw, a voice Galahad hasn't heard before, says
,
“I suggest you take the pitchfork away from her.”

“How?” Eddie asks, anxious.

“Figure it out,” the new voice replies. “And get more bins. You'd better hope that the boy's still alive, Alan.”

“He ith! He ith!” Alan says, ragged fear and a broken nose chewing up his words. “The girl even thaid tho.”

“Get away from me!”
Desdemona shouts. The net shudders and vibrates as she kicks and twists away from Eddie's attempt to grab her pitchfork
.

“Goddammit, just give me that thing! No one's gonna hurt you. Well. Not much, anyway.”

“Come here and take it then, big man!”

Galahad decides,
What the hell.
He can't leave Desdemona to fight alone while he waits for his perfect opportunity. Maybe this
is
his perfect opportunity. Opening his eyes, he reaches up and grabs double handfuls of net. Eddie, looking grim, hoists the edge of the net in an attempt to kick away the pitchfork from the punching, slapping woman
.

Desdemona lands a wild roundhouse punch into Eddie's gut; he doubles over. But Alan quickly steps in and seizes her by the hair
.
Yanks her back
.

Galahad narrows his eyes,
wishes his ears would lay flat. Stupid useless ears. Yearns to twitch his tail. Stupid tailless body. He uncurls, rising to his knees, and throwing back the net. Standing, he leans over Desdemona and jabs Janitor Man in the throat with a rigid knife hand. Alan lets go of Desdemona as he clutches his throat, gagging and gasping for air. He falls to his knees
.

Galahad pushes Desdemona away from him. “Run,” he says. “Go!”

“Louis . . . Hal—”

“RUN!”

Desdemona spins and sprints toward the pot fields. Eddie staggers after her, his arms pressed against his belly
.

A loose-limbed figure steps in front of Galahad, a sinister smile stitched across its face in big, black Xs. Its eyes gleam like shiny buttons, and in one straw-stuffed hand, it holds a steel scythe—which it swings through the air
.

Galahad dances backward, sucking in his gut as metal whispers against silk and parts it. He feels cool air on his chest. His mouth dries. He refuses to look down to see if he is bleeding. The scarecrow grins. Of course, it couldn't do anything
but
grin. Galahad decides to literally wipe that grin from its face—pluck it off thread by thread if necessary
.

Motion beneath the net tells Galahad that Nick has regained his senses and, hopefully, his feet. Stepping forward on his toes, Galahad sways from side to side, luring the scarecrow in. He
throws fast rights and knife hands, mixing it up
.

Nick comes up from behind the scarecrow and clobbers it with both hands locked together, slamming down on its head with all his thick-muscled strength. The scythe clatters to the tunnel floor and the scarecrow drops like a bag of wet sand
.

Galahad kicks the scythe out of reach. He looks at Nick, heart pounding. He winks. Nick grins. The scarecrow was fast, scary fast, but not fast enough. Teamwork. Brawn and brain—a winning com
—

Something slams beneath Galahad's chin. His teeth click together. He catches a glimpse of Nick's widening eyes, along with a hint of a black stitched-on-forever grin, then an even better look at the ceiling as it drops on him
.

Lights out
.

*  *   *

So, Galahad reflected, head still throbbing, he could blame his lousy condition on an evil, animated scarecrow and a recycle bin, but not Hal's whole milk. Peachy. Just plain peachy. He imagined the others were all in the same peachy predicament.

Galahad squirmed. His shirttail dangled in his face, tickled his nose. He sneezed. He tried to twitch his tail in displeasure, then remembered he was still in two-legged form. His mood darkened.

He kicked against the bin's plastic interior. Kicked again. Almost as good as twitching his tail. Almost. He kicked as hard as he could, kicked until sweat trickled into his hair and his shirt clung to his chest. Kicked until he panted for air. Kicked until orange, red, and gray spots flecked his vision.

“Hal!” he yelled. “Nick!”

Silence. No answering shouts. No admonitions from bad guys to knock it off. Just silence. And that scared him.

Drawing in a deep breath of stale air, Galahad closed his eyes and forced himself to settle into the bin. He listened to the drumming of his heart, to the blood pulsing in his temples. He wished he could groom himself.

As his breathing evened out, dreams threaded through his mind, intertwining with memory—a yellow-feathered bird beneath his claws; Hal's fingers, smelling of wood and dogs, stroking his fur; Nick chasing his squeaks, fur gleaming in the moonlight, legs loping through yellow-feathered grass . . .

Galahad cat-napped. The pounding in his head lessened and his heart rate calmed. The jouncing movement slowed, but continued. He felt several twists and many turns, then a hard jolt thumped his head against the bin. The movement stopped.

He opened his eyes. Listened. He heard a car door clunk shut. Heard a second clunk. Heard the scrunch of boots across dirt. Heard muffled voices. Galahad tensed. When they opened his bin, he'd lash out with his feet, then tumble and somersault his way to freedom. Once free, he'd find a way to rescue Hal and Nick and Desdemona. Oh. And Louis. Of course.

Galahad sucked in a breath as his bin was grabbed, jerked forward, then spun around. Lifted. Thunked down onto the ground. He winced as his head and neck slammed into the bin. Little blue stars flitted across his vision. He blinked them away. Tensed his thighs. All he needed was one good, solid kic—

Galahad was dumped out of the bin and onto the ground. He landed headfirst, his shoulders taking the main brunt of his impact. His breath whooshed out of his lungs. Gasping for air, he squinted in the daylight that seemed way too bright after the dark bin. He rolled onto his side, then jumped to his feet. Or tried to—that was the plan, anyway. Instead, he managed to turn over, butt up, chin down.

Someone laughed. A dry laugh. Dry enough to spontaneously combust.

Stupid scarecrow.

Galahad struggled to his knees with as much dignity as he could muster. He blinked, taking in his surroundings. Trees stretched up into the twilight-faded sky, the sunset streaking a rosy color across the horizon. The air was scented with pine. Shadows lay long on the land, merging to form a mini-nightfall across the twigs and undergrowth.

Galahad's body tingled. Not due to circulation returning to his bound hands or his long motionless legs. No. Excitement blazed through him. It was nearly time for his Shift back to True Form. He lifted his gaze. The scarecrow stood in the shadows, the last fiery rays of the dying day shimmering against the scythe in his straw-plump hand. His black button eyes, unlit and cold, held nothing.