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“Just like that giant coin in their hotel room,” Simon said.

The disk had been glowing gold instead of silver, but maybe both items came from the same culture. Whatever that was. I’d never read about anything like this in my archaeology books. This was either brand new technology to go along with our genetically engineered or otherwise enhanced friends or… I rubbed the side of my head, not ready to accept the notion of aliens and alien technology on Earth. Eleriss wiped off the rust remover jug and returned it to the cupboard. At least he was a conscientious alien.

“There’s no such thing as magic, right?” Temi asked.

Simon cupped his chin and said, “Hm,” neither agreeing nor refuting.

“Enh,” I said, finding my new-technology and genetic engineering theories more plausible than magical swords. I didn’t follow the metallurgy world; for all I knew, there was a way to create luminescent alloys.

On the video playback, a shadow moved across the back window, and I jumped a foot.

The riders spun toward it. They barked a few words at each other, then Eleriss thrust the sword into Jakatra’s hands and pointed at the door. That surprised me, because I’d taken the sterner of the pair as the leader. The stream of vitriolic words that flowed from Jakatra’s mouth needed no translation, but he opened the door and jumped outside regardless.

A dark hulking form darted past a side window, moving with alarming speed for something so large. Though daylight remained outside the van, it had blurred by too quickly to distinguish details, and I had no better idea of what the monster looked like than I’d had before.

Thrashing noises came from one side of the video pickup. Even though this had happened a half hour ago, I found myself leaning forward, my fingernails curling into my palms, as if I expected to help somehow. I didn’t know if it was concern for the riders or concern over the notion that the creature had been right
here
, practically in our vehicle, but my heart was racing.

Still inside the van, Eleriss opened his jacket flap and pulled out some kind of wooden baton, about six inches long. He flicked his wrist, and a serrated blade flipped out of the side, locking into place to make a wicked knife. He eyed the weapon and shook his head. Maybe it, like my bow, couldn’t harm the creature. His youthful face grim, Eleriss jumped out of the van after his comrade. He slid the door shut behind him, and both riders disappeared from our sight.

My fingers twitched toward the laptop, as if moving it now could change the way the camera had faced thirty minutes ago.

A shout, or maybe that was a cry of pain, sounded on the video. A screech followed, like metal on bone—or metal on claw. Something thudded against the van, shaking the camera. The motorcycle engines started up, the roar drowning out the other noises. The van quaked again, and the video blurred, then went dark. That must have been when the MacBook ended up on the floor.

“Dang,” Simon said, “I would have mounted it to something if I’d known there’d be rambunctious happenings.”

Rambunctious happenings, what an understatement. I stepped out of the van to look around. The two motorcycles were gone, so Eleriss and Jakatra must have both escaped, but had they been injured? Had they injured the creature? And had it chased after them, or was it still in the area?

That last thought set my heart to pounding again, and I rotated three hundred and sixty degrees, peering into the trees on all sides. It was quiet out there and getting darker. We ought to leave ourselves, but I had to know what had happened.

I studied the grass and dirt around the van, searching for evidence of the battle. Now that I was looking, I had no trouble spotting it: trampled brush there, broken twigs there, a spraying of blood there, and footprints all over the place. In addition to the booted prints of the riders—I gulped—those of the monster marred the earth as well.

Though I hadn’t been thinking of it as a bear, somehow I’d expected a bearlike print. These were closer to wolf or dog tracks, though they were far larger than the prints of any canine I’d seen, and they were webbed between the digits, like duck feet. I moved to another print, thinking the first had been smeared somehow and that I was mistaken, but there were plenty of other examples.

“What
is
this thing? A mutant platypus that grew to huge proportions in the sewers of Phoenix? Or the radioactive waters of the nuclear power plant?” I snorted at the ridiculous notions. There
were
stories of strange aliens and bizarre critters in underground caverns in the Superstition Mountains east of the city. I didn’t recall any mention of web-footed monsters though.

“Given that it’s running around with people with glowing eyes and glowing swords, I think you can stop looking for a logical explanation,” Simon said from the doorway of the van.

“I guess you’re right.”

“Temi thinks we should get going.” Simon pointed to the passenger seat where she’d already staked out a spot, but he hopped out and started taking pictures of the footprints. With the lighting dimming, he’d have a hard time getting much. He finished quickly and hopped back inside.

I took a last look around, thinking I might spot some interesting or useful vestige of the fight, but the combatants had left nothing except their tracks. And their blood.

I started. Blood.

“Just a sec,” I blurted and raced into the van, nearly knocking Simon over. I grabbed a spoon and a couple of plastic bags out of a cupboard, then ran back outside. I scooped up stained dirt from two different spots. I didn’t know whether the blood belonged to Eleriss, Jakatra, or the monster, but I bet a sample from any one of the three would go a long way toward helping solve some of these mysteries.

“Ready now,” I said, plopping into the driver’s seat.

When the key turned in the ignition, Simon let out an audible sigh of relief. Even though we hadn’t seen signs of sabotage on the video, he must have been worried about Zelda starting up. I understood the sentiment—I sure didn’t want to spend another night out here.

“I just hope we don’t run across that monster on the way back to town,” Temi muttered, her eyes toward the darkening sky.

CHAPTER 16

S
weat trickled down my ribcage as I gripped the steering wheel at ten and two, my posture and positioning so perfect my driver’s training instructor would have beamed. Zelda tilted and groaned as we maneuvered through the dry riverbed. Pebbles flew up, dinging the bottom of the van, and branches scraped at the exterior. The drive out seemed to be taking even longer than the drive in, or maybe the fading daylight made me extra conscious of the passing of time. I could handle maneuvering down one of the old forest service roads in the dark, but a riverbed?

“Do you guys see that?” Simon pointed ahead and to the right.

With my focus toward the motorcycle tracks in front of our tires, I hadn’t seen anything in the woods. I wholeheartedly wanted there to be nothing out there
to
see.

“What?” Temi came to stand behind our seats.

“Something big and dark.”

I groaned. “I don’t want to encounter big and dark tonight. Or any night.”

“There it is again.” Simon tapped his finger on the window. “It’s loping along up in the trees, paralleling us.”

“Not chasing us?” Temi bent her head to peer toward the hillside.

“No, it’s ahead. See it?”

I wanted to keep my eyes on our route, but found myself glancing anyway. He was right. Something was running up there, though the trees and gloomy light made it hard to make out.

“Can we go any faster?” Temi asked.

“I’d like to but—” We hit a rock and only my seatbelt kept me from pitching into Simon’s lap. “Yeah, that.”

“Keep driving,” Simon said. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”

Temi pointed. “There’s the road up ahead.”

Good, though I wished it were the highway instead of the first of several winding dirt roads that would eventually lead us to a gravel road and then a paved road and
then
the highway… if I didn’t make a wrong turn.

“It’s not veering in this direction, is it?” I asked, glancing to the right again when some branches moved.

“I don’t think so,” Simon said. “I bet it’s chasing the riders, but it’s fallen behind. Or maybe it was injured in the fight and lost time.”

With a lurch, the van climbed out of the riverbed and onto the road. Though deep ruts scoured the packed earth, I pressed the gas, wanting to put distance between us and that creature. Even if it wanted to catch the riders, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happily take a few minutes out to kill us for sport—or dinner.

Too bad the road didn’t run straight. It curved, following the hilly terrain, and I couldn’t help but think that something running straight might catch up with us.

“Can you check the map, Simon? Make sure we’re going the right way?”

Paper rustled, and the overhead light came on. I was debating on turning the headlights from regular to high beam, not because it’d grown that difficult to see the road yet, but because I had a notion that a brighter forest would be a better forest at that moment.

The road straightened for a stretch. I leaned on the accelerator, my eyes on the distant bend.

A dark figure leaped out of the trees in front of us.

“Look out!” Temi barked, even as I swerved.

It wasn’t enough. The front corner of the van struck the creature, and its huge black form smashed against the windshield. Glass snapped and cracks streaked through my line of sight. Then a clawed limb flailed toward me—clawed and
webbed
. I threw on the brakes. The creature rolled forward and away from us, but we’d come up on the bend. I couldn’t turn the wheel fast enough—our momentum hurled us off the side of the road. The dark form had disappeared, but a huge tree dominated the view through the windshield.

Cursing, I swerved in the other direction, trying to get us back onto the road. The tree almost took off the driver-side mirror, but we missed it by an inch. I manhandled us back into our ruts and expected to see the creature lying in the dirt behind of us. But it was gone.

“It’s over there,” Simon blurted, pointing right again. “Go, go, it’s turning to come back.”

I found the accelerator and we surged forward, my grip on the wheel so fierce nothing would have pried off my hands. In the rearview mirror, the dark figure leaped onto the road, twisting in the air to land in a run—a run headed our way. Those webs didn’t slow it down on land at all. It raced along on four legs, loping like a wolf, albeit a torso-heavy version of one.

“It’s gaining on us.” Simon had twisted in his seat so he could see out the back. “Gotta go faster.”

We were heading toward another bend, and I dared not accelerate. It’d have no trouble catching us if we hurled the van into a ditch. But the image in the rearview mirror had doubled in size. Once we reached the highway, we could outrun it, but here, on these bumpy curving roads?

“Are we getting close to our first turn?” I asked.

When Simon didn’t answer, I risked glancing over at him. The map was on the floor while he leaned halfway out the window, trying to take pictures of our monstrous pursuer.

“Are you kidding? Simon!”

“I’ll look.” Temi grabbed the map.

As soon as we’d cleared the dangerous part of the curve, I leaned on the gas again.

Simon yelped and caught the window frame to keep from falling out. He fumbled his phone and almost lost it.

“I hear riding on the
inside
of the van is a good idea,” I yelled.

He slithered into the seat, his face ashen.

“Take the left at the fork,” Temi said.

The creature continued to lope along behind us, but it wasn’t gaining ground. I risked a few more glances, trying to get a good view of its head—its face—but it’d grown too dark. It was a shadow moving behind us now, nothing more. I focused on a fresh crack in the windshield for a second. A
heavy
shadow.

I took the left and Temi directed me through two more turns. We lost sight of the creature after the second turn, but I didn’t let myself relax until we reached the paved blacktop of the highway. When the lights of town came into view, I could scarcely believe we’d made it out without a flat tire—or worse. The cracked windshield seemed a minor price to pay for coming face to face—or fender to face—with that creature again.

“Anyone else think we should stay in the city from now on?” I asked as we drove past the Safeway on the south side of town.

“Yes,” Temi said. “A nice city on the East Coast preferably.”

Simon was busy surfing through his latest photos. Wonderful.

CHAPTER 17

A
fter a hot shower in Temi’s room at the Motel 6, I almost felt like a normal person again. I dressed in clean clothing and stepped out of the steamy bathroom, expecting to join a lively conversation on monsters, swords, and inhuman motorcycle riders. Instead Simon was hunkered on the floor in a corner, his MacBook balanced across his lap as he stole glances at Temi, who was lying on the bed reading a book. I laughed when I recognized the faded cover of Sex and the Single Girl. That would get Simon’s imagination going. I hoped the book represented a lack of other reading materials rather than an indicator of Temi’s usual tastes, but who was I to judge? I read books about vampires, werewolves, and modern-day magic-flinging druids for fun. Oh sure, I threw in a little Camus and Rand when people could see the covers, but my e-reader was full of paranormal smut. Though oddly this week, I hadn’t felt the need for fiction…

“Who’s next?” I waved toward the bathroom. When Simon didn’t move, I nudged him with a foot and made a point of sniffing. “What I meant to say is
you’re
next.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shut the lid on the computer and stood up. “Recently washed people are so sanctimonious.”

He grabbed rumpled but clean clothing out of the canvas Trader Joe’s bag that passed for his suitcase and disappeared into the bathroom. I plopped down on the second of the room’s two double beds. Simon and I had plans to flip for it later.