Brute whuffed again, his front paws patting the ground up and down as if excited.
Liz asked Brute, “Did the creature eat all the prey around here? Is that why it went down the mountain?”
Brute nodded slowly several times.
“Rabid animals have a lot of trouble swallowing,” Liz said. “That might explain why the chickens weren’t carried away and why so many weren’t eaten. And Brute says there are more than one. Maybe not all of them have rabies.”
“Hoss, if it’s out of prey animals, means it’s likely to take on a human next. Or maybe it already did and the body’s under the surface and piled with the other bodies of its prey.”
Liz checked her watch and then her cell. No signal. “We can’t call for backup. We don’t know when it will need to eat again. If it’s sentient, and there aren’t any dead humans, can we kill it?” she asked Eli.
“No.”
“So what do we do?” she asked.
Eli grunted.
“Honest to God, talking to you is sometimes like pulling teeth. Or talking to the werewolf.”
“He’s thinking,” Chewy said. “It’s in the eyes. He goes away inside, doesn’t focus on anyone, but without losing any situational awareness.”
“Oh.” Liz thought back to all the times she had tried to draw him out. He had been thinking. That had to make her terribly annoying. “Well, dang.”
Eli blinked and said to her, “Chewy and I draw them out and you capture them in an invertedhedge of thorns.”
Liz stared at him. “Say what?” He repeated what he had said, and Liz laughed. “So, I’m going to create multiple circles of stones, set an undetermined number ofhedgesto be working cages, and you’re going toencourage,” she made air quotes with her fingers, “an insane paranormal creature with unknown magical gifts and abilities to step inside it, so I can activate thehedge.”
“Pretty much.” He grinned, his full lips slightly teasing. “I figured I’d let them chase me and I’d run across the circles. Is that a problem?”
“Yeah. What if it can leap fifty feet in single bound. What if it can fly? Teleport? Spit poison? Turn you to stone with a single glance? What if there are a dozen, some under the ground, or they have young that are hungry? What if they’re fast and they eat you before you take a single step?”
“I like your girl, Hoss. She’s smart. And what she said. What if all that shit?”
Eli ran a hand across his head, his military short hair making a scratching sound. “You got a better idea?”
“No,” Liz said. “Not until I know what it is and what it can do.”
“How ‘bout we not depend on the eye witness account of a nine foot tall wolf and go look ourselves,” Chewy said. “No offense,” he added when Brute showed his fangs. “Big teeth you got there grandpa. Now I know where that fairytale of the big bad wolf came from. Good thing I carry an ax, like any self-respecting woodsman.”
Brute showed them all his butt and went bounding back up the trail.
Chewy grinned at Eli and said, “I ain’t had this much fun since that weekend in Frankfurt.” He shouldered his pack and followed Brute.
Liz pulled her pack on too, and asked, “What happened in Frankfurt?”
“Neither one of us remembers, except that Chewy woke up after three days of drinking to discover he had a tattoo of Chewbacca on his butt. And no, that’s not how he got his call sign. That’s a different story entirely.” Eli walked away, carrying his packs and Liz’s stones.
“All I need is a yellow brick road,” Liz said, as she clambered over a rock fall and up what had to be a forty-five degree hill. “At least I brought my magic wand / walking stick.”
Eli
“At least Ibrought my magic wand / walking stick,” Liz grumbled. Eli smothered a laugh and led the way, up a slight hill, hearing her breathing, steady and deep, and her feet on the animal track, steady and sure. Yeah. She was getting stronger. She was holding. And though she looked all curvy and soft, she could take care of herself. He kept saying those words to himself, but in the back of his mind, she was a woman. She was weak and easily broken. And he knew if he gave into that fear and she saw it, she’d be pissed. Especially after she saved them on another mountain, on another type of hunt entirely. Of course, a pissed off Lizzie was the best kind… He grinned into the day, his eyes automatically taking in the surroundings, high, low, left, right, ahead.
Eli
At 13:42,they reached the crest of the steep hill where he had secured climbing ropes to help Lizzie and Chewy and the gear to the top. Autumn had been on hold this year, the weather too hot and dry since August for the leaves to change color much in the North Carolina mountains. But at this elevation, it was already autumn, and brown leaves lay in piles on the ground.
While Chewy and Liz put food together for a late lunch and chatted like besties—he was for damn sure gonna rip Chewy about girl-talk—Eli assembled the drone and got it ready to fly. It was cool under the tree canopy, and the wind was steady, and slow. Should be a good place to launch.
