Gunmetal Magic(113)
Gods are vicious, selfish assholes. I shrugged. “Roman is an expert and he gave you his expert opinion. Gods are weird.”
“I can hear you,” Roman called from behind us. “I’m not deaf.”
Raphael shook his head and dropped back.
Anapa wasn’t just weird. No, he had a plan. And all his good humor and funny smiles were calculated. They masked his true essence the way soft fur covered a cat’s claws. And I would keep his plan to myself. If I told Raphael, he would do something rash to save me. If I told it to Kate, she would worry and try to fix it. There was no way to fix it. It was what it was.
The road turned, forking into two paths ahead. The larger road, marked by an old birch, curved up the hill. The smaller, less traveled path veered right, into some woods.
A man walked out from behind the tree and barred the path. Six and a half feet tall and hulking, he resembled a man-sized tank draped in chain mail. He wore a dramatic cloak of black fur and a polished war helm and carried an enormous single axe on a long wooden handle.
“Good to see you again, Gunnar,” Kate said. “We’re going to the glade.”
The bottom half of Gunnar’s face paled. “Again?”
Kate nodded.
“You’ve been once. You can’t go again.”
“I’ve got no choice.”
Gunnar rubbed his face. “He’s got your scent now. You know what happens to people who go to see him twice.”
“I know. I still have to go.”
He shook his head and stepped aside. “It’s been nice knowing you.”
Kate touched the reins and our small procession rolled on.
“What exactly happens to the people who go to see him twice?” I asked.
“He eats them,” Kate said.
The old road narrowed, slicing its way into the forest. Tall trees crowded the road, as if protesting its intrusion in their midst. The air smelled of forest: pine sap, the earthy odor of moist soil, the faint harshness of bobcat mark somewhere to the left, and the slightly oily squirrel musk. A bluish fog hung between the trees, obscuring the ground. Spooky.
We came to a stone arch made by tall pillars of gray stone, bound together by vines.
Kate hopped off her horse. “We hoof it now. Raphael, will you take the deer?”
“Sure.”
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.