“Watch me.”
Liz looked around. The crest of the hill looked like … like a tornado hit it.Haha. She sucked in a breath. Her chest was tight. She felt lightheaded. A little like she might hurl. But she stretched out her back and then did her best to get the big man propped against a tree stump. Limbs and debris were piled behind him, giving him protection. Movement made him bleed again, but she didn’t think he would survive another clotting amulet. She found his pack and his weapons. By the time she got that done, they were both breathless, and she figured they were about out of time.
Trying to control her heartrate and breathing, mentally creating scenarios that would give them a chance to survive another attack, she dropped two stones from her amulet necklace onto the ground, one at Chewy’s feet, one three feet behind him, before turning her attention to the packs she had emptied. She stuffed things back inside in case they needed to get away. Gave Chewy a bottle of water and took one for herself.
She felt the magic happening, a cold, hard, brittle power that made the hairs on her arms stand up. The Dwayyo was drawing up power again.
There had been no gunshots. Was Eli in trouble?
Fear, which had been strangely absent until now, shot through her like lightning.
Brute
He trottedout of the time tunnel and into the clearing. Stopped short.
He’d heard the wind. The gunshots. But the twisted, blasted, ripped trees and the blood smell from the big guy were still a shock. Brute opened his jaws and dropped the pups on the ground by Chewy. Sniffed the man. Not dead. Not even dying, if he got medical help. Brute walked to Liz, who had glanced in his direction when he appeared but hadn’t bothered to pay attention. She was stuffing things into the packs.
Brute stopped and chuffed.
Liz looked up and focused on him. “Son of a witch on a stick,” she muttered. “What did you bring me?”
Brute lay down and the grindy held out to her the other thing they had found in the shack.
Gingerly, she took the bundle of rags and placed it on the ground. The grindy chittered, worried, and hopped off his head to lean over the bundle. Liz opened the cloth. Inside was a human-wolf-monkey-bear hybrid. A baby Dwayyo. She looked at the two pups. Back to the… the thing. “Two forms of young? Two born as animals and one as a human hybrid?”
“What the hell?” Chewy asked.
“Dwayyo pups. I’m guessing it’ll be back and it’ll be mad.”
“You think? Hey dog,” Chewy said.
Brute showed his teeth. The grindy chittered in anger, but this time at the human and not at him. The grindy defending him? Brute laughed, which, in wolf form, came out like he had something caught in his throat. A hacking cough.
The grindy stood up on his back and scolded Chewy.
Brute laughed some more.
Chewy looked like the Michelin man from the chest up, if the cartoon was bloody and bearded. He’d positioned his weapons all around him, extra ammo, shotgun, handguns. “I ain’t scared a your teeth, dog. Can you find that thing’s trail? Eli is after it. He’ll need backup.”
Brute trotted toward the shack and into the trees, turned around and came back. He locked eyes on Liz. He whoofed and then growled. Patted the ground with his front paws, like a cat kneading.
“It’s coming back, isn’t it?” she asked.
He nodded slowly.
“Okay.” She looked at Chewy. “I can get a ward up, but you won’t be able to fire through it.”
“No. I got the right ammo now.”
He held a shotgun shell in his blood-smeared fingers and she noted that the blood was dry, well clotted, not slick.
“Eli tossed it at me when he took off. It’s what he hit the thing with, the shell that caused the damage. Lead shot and steel shot allowed it to heal as fast as we pumped into it. Same with lead and silver composite rounds. But the special packed bismuth and zinc shot rounds did the trick. Hurt it.” He put a hand to his upper chest and breathed for a while.
“You dying?” the witch asked him.
“Not yet. And thanks for the … whatever took away the pain.”
“Welcome,” Liz said. “They’ll make you drunk in about half an hour. Be prepared.”
