I took the tripod framework out of the cart and pulled it apart into a mount, sighting the path past the pillars. I planted the tripod into the ground and took my huge crossbow off the cart. Dark letters ran along the stock of the bow: THUNDERHAWK.
“This is new,” Kate said.
I snapped the crossbow into the top of the mount, took a canvas bundle from the cart, and unrolled it. Crossbow bolts, tipped with the Galahad warheads.
“This is my baby.” I petted the stock.
“You have a strange relationship with your weapons,” Roman said.
“You have no idea,” Raphael told him.
“This from a man with a living staff and a man who once drove four hours both ways for a sword he then put on his wall,” I murmured.
“It was an Angus Trim,” Raphael said.
“It’s a sharpened strip of metal.”
“You have an Angus Trim sword?” Kate’s eyes lit up.
“Bought it at an estate auction,” Raphael said. “If we get out of this alive, you are invited to come to my house and play with it.”
It was good that Curran wasn’t here and I was secure in our relationship, because that totally could be taken the wrong way.
I grabbed my backpack. Raphael slung the deer over his shoulder. Kate pulled a leather bundle from the cart. It had a bead pattern along the side that looked very familiar. I’d seen similar designs before on an Oklahoma Cherokee reservation—it was Indian scrollwork.
“Is that a Cherokee design?”
Kate nodded. “I bought this from the Cherokee medicine woman.”
I motioned Ascanio over. “Aim like this.” I swiveled the tripod, moving the bow. “Sight through here. To fire, flip this lever and squeeze the trigger. Slowly. Don’t jerk it.”
“Even if he jerks it, he’ll hit, trust me,” Kate said. “He’ll have a large target.”
“Don’t listen to her, she can’t shoot an elephant from ten feet away. She would bash him with her bow and then try to cut his throat with her sword.”
Kate chuckled.
“Your turn.” I nodded at the bow.
“Aim, sight, flip lever, squeeze the trigger slowly,” Ascanio said. “Try not to panic and cry like a little girl.”
“Good man.” We followed Kate single file up the path, leaving him at the cart.
The forest grew grimmer, the trees growing darker, more twisted, still full of leaves but somehow dead, as if frozen in time. The fog thickened into soup. The usual scents faded. Not even squirrels ventured here, as if life itself was forbidden. These were some screwed-up woods.
I smelled carrion. Strong and recent, butter-sweet.
We came to a clearing—a small stretch of mossy ground slightly larger than a basketball court, bordered by massive trees. In the center of the clearing rose a big stone, tall and flat like a table. A hollowed-out space had been carved into the stone and stained with red. I sniffed. Blood. Only a couple of days old.
“The deer goes on the rock,” Kate said.
“So what brought you here the first time?” I asked.
“A dying child,” Kate said. “It was me, Curran, and some vampires. He and I were the only ones to get out in one piece. Still time to leave.”
“Leave?” Roman rubbed his hands together. “And miss this? Are you fucking crazy?”
He wasn’t swearing because he was freaked. He was swearing because he was excited. Wow. For once, I had no words.
“Are you sure about this?” Kate asked me.
I had the most important job in this awesome plan of ours. “Will you get on with it already?”
“She will be fine,” Raphael said. “She’s the fastest.”
To the left some creature screeched, loud and desperate. Another joined it. I fought a shiver.
“The draugr was once a Viking named H?kon from Vinland,” Kate said. “The Vikings living there traded with local tribes, who told them that Cherokees were soft. They said that the Southern tribes were farmers, not warriors, and had a lot of gold. So H?kon sailed down on two ships to rape, plunder, and pillage. Except that the Cherokees had good arrows and strong magic. He died in the skirmish. Nobody stopped to bury him, and he was so pissed off by that, that he rose from the dead as a draugr, chased down his remaining men, and ate them.”
“Literally?” Roman asked.
Kate nodded. “The Cherokees found him gnawing on their bones. He was too powerful and they couldn’t kill him, so they locked him on this hill with their wards to keep him from running loose.”
The light gained an odd bluish tint. Somehow the forest had gotten darker.
“This is a bad place,” the black volhv said. “We shouldn’t be here. Well, I should. But you shouldn’t. You see, my god holds dominion over dead things, but this creature belongs to a different pantheon, so I have some protection here, but not too much. Not enough to kill the draugr. Just enough to bind him and survive.”
“You’re doing wonders for my confidence,” I told him.
Kate put the bundle with the Cherokee beadwork on the ground, knelt by it, and untied its cord. Inside lay four sharpened sticks, each about three feet long. She picked the first one up, found a rock and pounded it into the ground by the beginning of the path. That was the way I’d run when it came time to get the hell out of there. The second stick went to the left side of the clearing, the third to the right, and the final exactly opposite the first.
“These are our defenses. They will delay him a little bit. Don’t fight him. Just run.”
Kate got a pipe out of a box and began smoking it. The tobacco hit her and she coughed.
“Lightweight.”
“Whatever.” She circled the clearing, waving her pipe around.
“I’ve never seen this before,” Roman said. “It’s very difficult to witness Native American rituals these days. So much has been lost due to assimilation and lack of written records. Exciting stuff!”
“Well, so glad we could indulge your intellectual curiosity, Professor,” Raphael told him.
“I’m probably making a hash job of it, but the tribe refuses to approach this hill, so I’m all you’ve got,” Kate said.
She completed the circle, sat down, and started pulling things out of her bag: a plastic honey bear, a metal canteen, and a little bag.
I blinked and the forest was full of eyes. Elongated, solid yellow, they peeked at us from under the boulders, from the darkness by the roots of the trees, from the branches…
I bared my teeth. “What are these?”
“I’m not sure.” Kate kept her voice low. “They came out last time, too. I think they might be uldra. Ghastek said they’re nature spirits from Lapland. They didn’t attack us the last time.”
To my right, one of the uldra crawled up on the end of the fallen tree trunk, just feet away. An inch or two over a foot tall, it perched on the tree bark, gripping it with avian feet. Dense dark fur covered its humanoid body. Its face vaguely resembled a baboon.
The uldra found its spot, moving with slothlike slowness, and froze, oversized hands with long, large-knuckled fingers folded in front of it. Its mouth gaped open, displaying a forest of long, deep-water fish teeth.
“It’s just some small nechist,” Roman said next to me.
“Nechist?” I asked.
“Yes. Unclean thing. They’re harmless.” He dug in his bag. “Hang on…Here.” Roman pulled out a small pack of crackers and shook one out. “Here, you want a cracker?” He offered the cracker to the creature.
“Roman…” A warning crept into my voice. Those teeth didn’t look good.
“No worries,” he told me. “Here.” He clicked his tongue. “Come get a cracker.”
The uldra’s pale eyes focused on the cracker. Slowly it reached for it and plucked the small square from Roman’s fingers. The uldra took a bite.
“Good, huh?” Roman clicked his tongue some more. “Come on. Come.”
The uldra crawled onto his forearm and climbed up the black sleeve to sit on his shoulder.
“Jesus,” Raphael said.
Roman made smoochy lips at the uldra. “Who’s so good? Want another cracker?”
A second uldra made its way out of the bushes and sat by Roman’s boot, funky arms folded, waiting for a handout. Roman tossed another cracker on the ground. A couple of smaller creatures trudged over and tugged on the hem of his robe.