Undead - One Foot In The Grave Part 25

And they that be wise shall s.h.i.+ne. . . .

The darkness embracing my dreamless sleep was blacker than the absence of light, deeper than the confines of my encompa.s.sed bed.

Now the shadows cut to the bone.

Chapter Thirteen.

I peered at the image that flickered in the RV's tiny bathroom mirror and tried to shave. The lather reflected better than the bleary topography of my face. "I suppose the fact that I still have to do this everyfew days is a good sign," I muttered.

"Maybe." Garou sat with feet propped across a seat, where she could watch me and still keep an eye on the coffee pot. "But then a corpse's hair and fingernails continue to grow for a while, even after it's been planted six feet under."

"Actually, that's a myth," Mooncloud called from down the aisle. "It's based on old reports of exhumations. Back then they didn't realize that decomposition causes tissues to shrink as they dehydrate, receding from the hair follicles and the base of the nails. It only gave the appearance of growth after interment."

"So I am still alive," I qualified.

"The jury's still out on that," Garou returned.

"And thanks for your support."

"What is it with you?" she growled. "You've got the best of both worlds, right now: near immortality, near invulnerability-and you can still walk around in broad daylight!"

Well, not exactly, but that wasn't the point. "Hey," I said, pointing my razor at her, "you think being undead is so G.o.dd.a.m.ned wonderful, why don't you ask the Doman to bring you over?"

"She is a were," Suki said placidly. "It is not permitted."

"So what's with the att.i.tude? Incisor envy?"

"I wouldn't take it if it was offered," Lupe snarled back.

"Smirl called Chicago, today," Mooncloud said, turning us back to the business at hand. "They're going to send an airplane to help with an aerial search. In the meantime, he's looking for a nearby airport where he can rent a plane and pilot for the next day or so."

"So what do we do in the meantime?" I asked.

Garou shrugged. "Without Luath the only thing we can do is drive through every town and down every back road, ask questions and keep our eyes and ears open."

I frowned into the mirror. "What are they looking for?" My reflection seemed a little slow in frowning back. "I mean, they came down here to find me, discovered that I'd relocated to Seattle, tried to nail me up there-then, all of a sudden, they're back here, still snooping around like they've lost my trail."

"The obvious answer," Garou said, "is that they're not looking for you. They're looking for someone or something else."

"Someone or something connected to you, most likely," Mooncloud added.

"But what? Or who?"

"The same thing we're ultimately looking for, I guess." Mooncloud sounded thoughtful. "What infected you in the first place."

"Shhh!"

We looked at Lupe, who had her head c.o.c.ked to one side. "Did you hear that?"

I listened. Heard the growl of the RV's motor, the purr of tires over gravel. Nothing more.

"Hear what?" Mooncloud asked.

"Hus.h.!.+" Lupe turned toward the front of the bus. "Suki, pull over and stop the engine."

A moment later all was silent save for drone of crickets in the fields that surrounded us.

"Listen!" Lupe held up her hand. "There! Did you hear that?"

I looked at Mooncloud. She shrugged.

"It's Luath!" Lupe looked at us. "Can't you hear him? He's still out there!"

I looked up the aisle at Suki. Her shoulders copied Mooncloud's, and she shook her head, as well.

Mooncloud said, "Are you sure?"Lupe looked at the rest of us. "You don't hear him? I know he's a bit faint-but-" Disappointment crossed her face. "You think I'm imagining it?"

"No." Mooncloud considered. "You hear beyond the human range of audibility in wolf form-maybe you can in human form, as well."

I looked at Lupe. "So where is he?"

She c.o.c.ked her head again. "I'm not sure. . . ."

Mooncloud and I began opening windows along the sides of the bus.

"Shhh! There! He's sounding . . . that way, I think. . . ." She pointed toward the southeast.

"This should be fun," I murmured as Suki started up the bus and tried to turn around. "Do we stop every five minutes and listen for Luath to bark?"

"No." Lupe began to unb.u.t.ton her s.h.i.+rt. "Give me one of the walkie-talkies. I'll track him and report our positions back to you."

"You can't carry a walkie-talkie while you're in wolf form."

"Find something to tie it around my neck."

I held up Luath's collar with the transponder still attached. "How about this?"

"Perfect!" Mooncloud took it out of my hands. "We can use this to track you the same way we tracked the cu sith." She studied its length, obviously adjusted for a neck that was five times the size of Lupe's. "Hand me one of the combat knives from the weapons locker, will you, dear?"

Five minutes later we were pa.s.sing the southern end of Somerset, hunting for a side road that would take us back toward the east.

Mooncloud and I were hunched over the monitor, crouched behind the driver's seat. "I think this is going to work," she said.

"Yeah?" I frowned at the phosph.o.r.escent blip as it moved across the screen's glowing grid lines.

"Well, we've lost the general, Smirl and company are off chasing down an airplane, and we still don't know what happened to Luath. If we find what we're looking for, what makes you think we'll come out any better than last night?"

She gave me a sharp look. "You got any better suggestions?"

I didn't. Something had destroyed my life and my family. Something that was still out there somewhere. If our quarry wasn't responsible, it was a safe bet that they could lead us to it.

"Getting closer! Closing the gap!" Suki called.

"Cut the lights," Mooncloud ordered. "Go to silent running."

It was reminiscent of an old submarine movie: switches were flipped and the engine noise was muted to a murmur. The lights were extinguished and Suki had to depend on her night vision and a faint glimmer of starlight to steer by.

"Getting a return," Mooncloud said.

"What?" Suki was distracted. "There's a campfire out across the field-east. Maybe two to three miles."

"The signal on Lupe's collar is coming back toward us." Mooncloud considered. "Slow down and be ready to stop."

"I see her." The RV stopped and Suki opened the front door.

A moment later Lupe was standing on the steps in human form and breathing hard. My night vision was compensating for the darkness and I tried not to stare.

"Satanists," she said.

"Satanists?" So much for not staring.

She nodded, still trying to catch her breath. "Out in the field, there. Some sort of ceremony. Torches.Truck. Two, three cars. One of them's the limo we're tracking."

I looked at Mooncloud. "Satanists?"

"Did you ID anyone?" Mooncloud asked.

Lupe shook her head. "Robes with hoods. Everybody covered. Except the altar."

"The altar?" I asked.

"Satanic ceremonies usually require a nude woman to act as the altar," Suki explained.

"Oh." h.e.l.l of a recruitment angle.

"Did you see Luath?"

Lupe shook her head. "I could hear him. He sounded strange: faraway and-and-I don't know how to describe it. It was like he had fallen into a hole or something and was running about and barking under the ground. . . ."

"This complicates things," Mooncloud said. "How many of the others?"

"Only saw one perimeter guard. Maybe eight, counting everybody."

"Bad enough risking our own necks," Mooncloud groused, "without having to worry about innocent bystanders."

"Innocent bystanders?"

"Chris," Mooncloud put a hand on my shoulder, "most people who call themselves Satanists are just sad, maladjusted folk who like to dress up in robes and act out silly rituals."

"Sounds like most mainstream religions to me," Suki said.

Mooncloud silenced her with a look. "We're not talking Wicca, here, or Deists or Pagan religions that wors.h.i.+p the Lord and Lady. And if these people were true Satanists, we couldn't get this close without Lupe or I knowing it."

"So why would they pretend to be devil wors.h.i.+pers?"

She looked past me, staring at the pinpoint of firelight across the field. "Why do most of us pretend to be what we only seem to be?" She sighed. "While there is the occasional closet s.a.d.i.s.t who uses Satanism as an excuse to torment and kill animals, most of them are just social outcasts, looking for other misfits who will accept them. Some think it's a private club for kinky s.e.x and others are acting out their dissatisfaction with the religion of their formative years. . . ."

"Most of them," Suki added, "deep down inside, don't believe that they are actually invoking the Powers of Darkness. And the few that really do want to sell their souls to the Devil-well, they know more effective means than acting out symbolic rituals."

"We're here to put down real evil," Mooncloud finished, "not hurt some overgrown children playing dress-up in the dark. . . ."

The first hour was almost exciting: I waited, clutching the general's halberd, crouching in waist-high pasture gra.s.s while Suki and Lupe reconnoitered the outer perimeter of the gathering. Both were pros at this, able to move silently through the brush and foliage while I still tended to glide like a drunken rhino.

Small wonder I was told to stay back and wait. Though both promised to check in with me from time to time, only Suki made good on her word.

The second hour was a lot less thrilling.

To help pa.s.s the time I experimented with my extended senses, counting crickets and determining the gender of toads by their individual voices. And checking the time. I had yet to find a watch whose luminous dial lasted much past sunset but, even though the moon was new, I could clearly see that it was a little before midnight. Comforting to know that for the rest of my un-life I could get by on cheap watches.

By hour three I was trying to tune out the audible and visual spectrums, opting for a zenlike approach to my boring vigil. Which is why I was slow to react to the sound of a footfall behind me: perhaps Lupewas finally making an appearance. More likely that Suki was making a return visit. Lupe had been distant and formal-even a bit frosty, of late. When she wasn't ladling the sarcasm, that is. . . .

I was getting a cramp in my back and, since we were far enough back and into the trees that no one would see us, I straightened up, using the halberd for leverage.

The ache in my lower back exploded into a burst of agony.

I would have cried out, but the breath had already been driven from my lungs. My stomach cramped and, as I pressed a hand to my abdomen, I found something poking through my s.h.i.+rtfront.

Three somethings poking through my s.h.i.+rtfront!

I turned around, feeling a bit woozy and definitely off balance.

It wasn't Suki or Lupe. It was a couple of guys dressed in black robes with their hoods thrown back.

One was big and middle-aged, over six feet tall, with spa.r.s.e hair and a big, bushy black beard. The other was short and old with greasy, silver-white hair and about three days' worth of stubble on his pinched face.

"What'd you let go a' that pitchfoke for?" the short one said, doing a more than credible imitation of Strother Martin. He raised the s.h.i.+eld on the hooded lantern that he was carrying.

"I got 'im, Henry," the big one said. "He oughta be fallin' down now."

"Hist! You imbecile! Don't say my real name!"

"Oh. Sorry, 'Asmodeus.' "