Blood Creek Beast Read online

  Jack shook his head. “No, we fought the bandits!”

  “You expect us to believe that? You think we are stupid? We know what giants do! We know why you are here!”

  As usual, the truth wasn’t winning Jack any support. He couldn’t win an argument against the locals with their misplaced grudges. He needed a distraction, but that usually required a third party. He’d been the distraction in a battle against a witch not long ago. He’d been in disguise and recited old folk songs he’d learned from his grandmother, convincing the witch that he was casting spells. It worked because it had been what she’d expected. Only the unexpected would work here, but his grandmother’s dumb old songs might work once more. “You do? That’s awesome! I am glad you know why we are here!”

  The man with the club paused, looking confused at Jack’s sudden agreement. Jack took advantage of the pause to keep going. “Y’all are in for a treat today, because we’re here to dance! This here is Rumela, the dancing giant, here to dance for your entertainment!” This quieted the crowd, out of confusion more than anything else. Jack continued, “Y’all ready to see her dance? Yeah? Of course you are!” A handful of people looked up expectantly. Even the shouters paused, wondering what they were about to see.

  Jack wondered too. Rumela leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I don’t dance!”

  Jack whispered back, “And I don’t lie. So follow along as best you can!” He turned back to the audience. “This here song is called ‘The Ugly Mug.’ Mug means face, here, if y’all didn’t know. Feel free to sing along once y’all get the hang of it. Here we go!” He held his hand in front of him and looked at Rumela. She did the same, looking as confused as many members of the crowd.

  Jack sang, miming motions to the song as Rumela followed along.

  I put my right hand in

  I put my right hand out.

  I give my right hand, shake, shake, shake,

  And turn myself about!

  He waved his hand and spun around, and Rumela did the same. For the next verse, he called out to the audience to join in. Nobody did at first, but by the time he got to the verse about putting feet in, people joined in.

  A mob leader screamed for people to attack. He shuffled forward with a knife in his hand, followed by four stragglers half-heartedly moving forward with makeshift weapons, but Faran raised his crossbow to a ready position, and the group quickly backed away. By the time Jack got to the verse about “I put my ugly mug in, I put my ugly mug out,” almost half the crowd was laughing, dancing, and singing along. There was a contingent that stood fuming and scowling at those who participated, but it would take them a while to stir the crowd into a frenzy again.

  As they finished, Jack took a bow, and Rumela did the same. She added a little flourish of her own with a wink at one of the young men in the crowd. People laughed. Jack said, “With that, we must be off, but thank y’all so much for your kind hospitality. So long!”

  He picked up the big sack and handed it to Rumela and grabbed his bag. They waved as they made their way out of town, followed by Faran. As they passed the edge of town and the road became flanked by thick trees again, Faran stopped. “I don’t know how you did it,” he said. “I believed things were about to get ugly.”

  “Jack is very clever,” Rumela said, nodding emphatically.

  Jack shook his head. “We’re lucky they ain’t never watched the cartoon channel on TV,” he said. Rumela and Faran looked at him blankly. “Well, whatever, we were more lucky than clever. But I’ll take it.”

  Faran once again returned the crossbow bolt into his quiver. “This is as far as I go. If I might offer a suggestion, the next time you come this way, you may want to go around the long way.”

  Jack laughed. “You don’t think that trick will work twice?”

  “Nope.”

  “Thank you, Faran.”

  “It was my job. Good luck to you.” He looked up at Rumela. “Good luck to you both.” With that, he turned and went back up the road toward town.

  Rumela looked down at Jack. “You’re all brave and clever back there. I’s just scared.”

  “I was plenty scared. Still am. It’ll be a while before my nerves calm down.”

  “I reckon that Korak done something terrible here.”

  “I reckon so. I reckon I know how they feel. A giant tried to eat me, too.”

  “You want me to go away now?”

  Jack scowled. “What? Just ‘cause some folks got a bug up their nose? No way. I wanted an adventure, and I sure am on one now. Let’s find that city the sheriff mentioned... Sanguine?”

  “Pretty name.”

  Jack shrugged. “It sounds like a word I ought to know. But I ain’t all that sharp with vocabulary.”

  “You’n me both.”

  The road from Dane’s Point was far busier than the one from Hobbfield. Travelers coming the other way moved off the road as Jack and Rumela approached unless they had a wagon trapped in the ruts of the road. Those with wagons stared in obvious fear as Jack and his companion passed. Jack took pains to greet them cordially, taking off his hat and offering a little bow. Rumela gave a bow of her own, which Jack admitted was a little frightening, as if she was bending over to take a bite out of someone. Instead he taught her to curtsy. Her clumsy attempt was more comical than courteous, especially in her crude outfit, but Jack wasn’t sure how to improve it. Comical was an improvement over threatening. Still, nobody seemed to be in the mood to have a conversation with them, or even confirm he was heading in the right direction.

  They spent nearly two days on the road, passing several villages. The heavy forests of the mountains gave way to more clear fields of the valleys, but Jack and Rumela took advantage of the patches of thick woods to spend the nights.

  Two days after their near disaster in Dane’s Point, Jack awoke to found the hiking had taken its toll. His muscles protested his every move as he got up and rolled the blanket.

  “What’s ailing you, Jack?” Rumela asked.

  “I loved hiking back home. I did it almost every day. But this is a lot more than I’m used to,” he said. “I’m having trouble getting my motor started this morning.”

  “What’s ‘motor’ mean?”

  “It’s the part that makes a car... I mean, it’s... it’s the part gets you going in the morning. Never mind.”

  “Ah. Motor is belly. You need more food?”

  Jack shook his head. The giant had gone through the dried meat a bit faster than he’d expected, but there’d been enough for the both of them so far. After a slow start, they began what he hoped was the final leg of their journey. Jack wasn’t moving as fast as he had previously, and the soreness wasn’t going away as completely as it had before. By lunch, the creek they’d followed from Hobbfield fed into a large river.

  Jack paused to look over the river. Clear and brown with high banks, sparkling with the noon sunlight, it forced them directly westward after days of southwest travel. “Huh. I wonder if that’s the Elk River.”

  Rumela shook her head. “Don’t know. It’s a river.”

  “I feel like we’ve hiked a third of the way across the state already. If this is the Elk, then we practically did.”

  “What is ‘state’?”

  “It’s part of a country.”

  “What is ‘country’?”

  “It’s... um...” For the first time in his life, Jack regretted not paying attention in his middle school civics class. “It’s a large place with a common... um... you probably don’t know the word, ‘government,’ do you?”

  “Nope. Sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Folks like us don’t have much to do with governments anyway.”

  Rumela shrugged. “Okay.”

  They followed the river for two more hours. The valley around the river was dotted with settlements, and Jack felt conspicuous without the cover of the forest. Doubt crept into his mind about Faran’s advice. If these people had the same attitude toward giants as those in Dane’s
Point, it would take a lot more effort to flee. Jack hoped he’d overcome his soreness for a good run if it came to it.

  By mid-afternoon, the road met with two others at a stone bridge crossing the river. Two uniformed men wearing breastplates stood at each end of the wide, solid-looking bridge. A stone building on the far side of the bridge no doubt housed more guards. Three wagons waited in front of the bridge while a third guard looked them over. After a few seconds, he spoke to a driver who gave the guard some coins. The guard waved them through, and they crossed the bridge.

  Jack and Rumela approached, and one guard moved his hand closer to the hilt of his sword. Even the guards on the far side of the bridge took interest and watched as the guard who had taken the money approached. “Heading across?” he asked, keeping his eyes on Rumela.

  “I think so,” Jack said. “Is that the road to Sanguine?”

  “That it is.” The guardsman looked up at Rumela’s face. “What is your intention with this giant?” It was strange, as he stared straight at Rumela, but indicated his question to Jack.

  “That’s Rumela. She’s my traveling companion.”

  “Is that so? You do realize you will have to report her.”

  “Um, no. Is that a bad thing?”

  The guard shook his head. “No, we just need to keep tabs on the giants within the borders. Is she for sale?”

  At first Jack thought he hadn’t understood the question. “What? No, of course not!”

  The man shrugged. “Suit yourself. I could offer you a good price and save you the trip and fuss.”

  Jack glared at the man, who seemed completely unfazed. Jack kept his voice in check and asked quietly, “How much to cross?”

  “With that giant? A dollar.”

  Jack nodded slowly and reached for his coin bag. It wasn’t there. He opened his traveling sack and dug around until he was satisfied there was no coin bag to be found. The guards watched in silence as he turned to the giant. “Rumela, let me see your bag for a minute!”

  She handed him her sack, and he nearly emptied it looking for the money. Finally, he repacked both bags.

  “I take it you misplaced your money,” the guard said, voice neutral.

  “I think so. In all the confusion, I must have left it with that merchant in Dane’s Point.”

  The guard shook his head. “I am not interested in the reasons. If you don’t have the money, you’ll have to take the pauper’s trail.”

  “What’s that?”

  The man pointed westward, along the road they’d been taking along the river. “Around three miles that way is a decent crossing. The water doesn’t get too fast or too deep at this time of year. You’ll have to circle back on the other side. If you hurry, you might be able to make it to the city before they close the gates at nightfall.”

  “All this because we can’t pay the fee to cross the bridge?”

  The guard nodded, his face showing growing boredom after Rumela’s novel appearance. “That is how this works.”

  Jack grudgingly thanked the man, and they continued along the road. The three miles felt like six, but they finally came to where the river widened and grew shallower to form a crossing. Jack squinted at the western horizon. The sun was only a little more than an hour away from touching the mountain peaks. “I need to rest. Do we camp on this side and cross it in the morning or cross now and sleep wet?”

  Rumela shrugged. “Wet don’t bother me. I make sure you cross safe. Plenty of sun still left, reckon you and me cross now and yours and my clothes get dry by morning.”

  Jack nodded, and they descended into the water. The shock of the chill water invigorated Jack after the long, hot summer hike. The river never came up above Rumela’s hips, though Jack found it up to his chest in spots, and he had to raise his sack over his head to keep the contents from getting soaked. Once they reached the other side, Jack set the sack and his hat on the ground. He waded out into the river and plunged in.

  Rumela stepped back into the river and splashed beside him, face worried. “Did you slip, Jack?”

  He laughed. “No. I realized it’s been a few days since I had a bath. Figured this was as good as anything else.”

  “Oh. You wanted to get clean.”

  “Yeah. I reckon I probably stink, even with the rain shower we had a couple of days back.”

  Rumela took several steps back toward the center of the river and tried her best to immerse herself. It wasn’t quite deep enough to do the job, but she rolled over and splashed around enough to get most of the job done. Her wild brown hair looked darker and almost nice when soaking wet. Jack wondered how he looked, overdue for a haircut and with several weeks’ growth of beard, now sopping wet. He couldn’t see his reflection clearly in the water, but he was sure he must be a sight.

  He submerged again and scrubbed at his hair and around his body, then made his way to the shore. Rumela followed him. He replaced his hat to keep the late afternoon sun out of his eyes. The main trail wound eastward again, probably rejoining the road from the bridge in a few miles. Jack chose to leave the trail and head toward a forested hillside.

  Once inside the forest, they found a place to camp for the night. Jack stripped down to his underwear and hung his clothes on tree branches to dry. Part of him felt immodest doing that around Rumela, but she had never noticed nor cared for such things. She never seemed to understand why he turned his back when she decided to relieve herself. But mostly, he was too exhausted to care. He hoped it would give him a chance to feel clean in the morning.

  He gave Rumela the last of the dried meat. They still had a number of apples left, and Jack enjoyed two of them for dinner. They needed to find more food soon, but without money, it would be a challenge. This thought, too, he pushed from his head. His muscles ached, and he could barely keep his eyes open. With the sun still in the western sky, Jack rolled himself into the blanket like a sleeping bag, and was almost immediately asleep.

  Jessabelle-the-panther crouched behind the tree in the darkness. The moon was waning, but still bright enough for her to see by. Unfortunately, it went both ways. Her black fur usually made her seem like nothing more than a shadow. Usually, but not always. She’d never tested it against a cunning hunter who knew what he was looking for, like she was now.

  But this was her strength. Over the last two weeks, Leon had taught her to how to shoot an old .38 revolver, how to pick locks, and several first aid techniques. She wasn’t good at any of them, and she could tell he’d gotten frustrated that she hadn’t learned faster. But hiding and sneaking, particularly as the cat or the panther, was as natural as breathing. He might be able to turn into a jaguar, and had military training, but Jessabelle thought she could show him a couple of tricks of her own.

  “The Coven may center on a group of witches and their devil of a leader, but that doesn’t mean they are stuck in the fourteenth century,” Leon said out loud. He wasn’t far, but he wasn’t close enough for her to pounce yet. He knew she was close, and he knew she’d seen him, or he wouldn’t be calling out his position. Was he really that confident, or was he trying to sucker her out of her hiding place? They’d been performing these exercises for a week, as he’d taught her all kinds of tricks for dealing with the Coven. He usually won whatever game they were playing. But she won often enough that she could taste the excitement. Especially in panther form, the thrill of the hunt felt electric. She only wished her friends could be here, learning with her, and enjoying these games at her side.

  Leon walked forward, holding a flashlight as if it were a handgun. He didn’t have it pointed at her, and he was walking diagonal to her, as if sensing her general direction. He wore a device like a pair of binoculars that fit like goggles on his head.

  “Much of the Coven uses high-tech gadgets and computers. Skilled hackers and detectives. Night vision goggles allow them to see at night even better than you can. Cameras, bugs, you name it.”

  He grew closer, but still didn’t look directly at her. She coiled her
muscles for a spring, but it didn’t cause her to move a single dead leaf beneath her. Leon removed one hand from his flashlight and flipped up the binoculars. He was almost close enough.

  Then he turned, blinding her with the flashlight beam, while shouting, “Bang! Bang!” Jessabelle reflexively jumped to the side and several feet away. Leon switched the light off, pulled the device back over his eyes, and then turned to face her.

  “Infrared, thermal imaging, works even better than night vision for spotting someone who is hidden. In thermal, your body makes you light up against the ambient temperature. So while you normally work best late at night, with your black coloration, you’ll be the most visible with thermal when things have cooled down around you.”

  Jessabelle shifted back into the girl. The night still felt warm, so she didn’t know how she stood out. “If they’ve got that infer—whatever, I can’t hide?”

  “Not easily. You may be able to hide in dense underbrush, or behind trees or walls. I evaded a Coven hunter once by digging in under a fallen tree and covering myself with as much dirt as possible. It might not have worked in the winter, but it was good enough that time. More importantly, unless they have laser sights on their weapons, they can’t shoot straight while wearing night vision gear like this. That’s why I had to take mine off.”

  Jessabelle shook her head in disbelief. “Did you say lasers? They can shoot people with lasers?”

  “No. They shine a little glowing dot around where their shot will land.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ve seen that on TV.”

  He nodded. “Just remember, if you see people wearing goggles like this, your best bet will probably be to run. Even changing into a house cat won’t help, because the Coven knows you can do that. Change into your panther form if you can and run like hell.”

  Jessabelle put her hands on her hips. “Give me another chance. I bet I can hide from you, even with those infer-glasses.”