“There’s no such thing as magic, right?” Temi asked.
Simon cupped his chin and said, “Hm,” neither agreeing nor refuting.
“Enh,” I said, finding my new-technology and genetic engineering theories more plausible than magical swords. I didn’t follow the metallurgy world; for all I knew, there was a way to create luminescent alloys.
On the video playback, a shadow moved across the back window, and I jumped a foot.
The riders spun toward it. They barked a few words at each other, then Eleriss thrust the sword into Jakatra’s hands and pointed at the door. That surprised me, because I’d taken the sterner of the pair as the leader. The stream of vitriolic words that flowed from Jakatra’s mouth needed no translation, but he opened the door and jumped outside regardless.
A dark hulking form darted past a side window, moving with alarming speed for something so large. Though daylight remained outside the van, it had blurred by too quickly to distinguish details, and I had no better idea of what the monster looked like than I’d had before.
Thrashing noises came from one side of the video pickup. Even though this had happened a half hour ago, I found myself leaning forward, my fingernails curling into my palms, as if I expected to help somehow. I didn’t know if it was concern for the riders or concern over the notion that the creature had been right here, practically in our vehicle, but my heart was racing.
Still inside the van, Eleriss opened his jacket flap and pulled out some kind of wooden baton, about six inches long. He flicked his wrist, and a serrated blade flipped out of the side, locking into place to make a wicked knife. He eyed the weapon and shook his head. Maybe it, like my bow, couldn’t harm the creature. His youthful face grim, Eleriss jumped out of the van after his comrade. He slid the door shut behind him, and both riders disappeared from our sight.
My fingers twitched toward the laptop, as if moving it now could change the way the camera had faced thirty minutes ago.
A shout, or maybe that was a cry of pain, sounded on the video. A screech followed, like metal on bone—or metal on claw. Something thudded against the van, shaking the camera. The motorcycle engines started up, the roar drowning out the other noises. The van quaked again, and the video blurred, then went dark. That must have been when the MacBook ended up on the floor.
“Dang,” Simon said, “I would have mounted it to something if I’d known there’d be rambunctious happenings.”
Rambunctious happenings, what an understatement. I stepped out of the van to look around. The two motorcycles were gone, so Eleriss and Jakatra must have both escaped, but had they been injured? Had they injured the creature? And had it chased after them, or was it still in the area?
That last thought set my heart to pounding again, and I rotated three hundred and sixty degrees, peering into the trees on all sides. It was quiet out there and getting darker. We ought to leave ourselves, but I had to know what had happened.
I studied the grass and dirt around the van, searching for evidence of the battle. Now that I was looking, I had no trouble spotting it: trampled brush there, broken twigs there, a spraying of blood there, and footprints all over the place. In addition to the booted prints of the riders—I gulped—those of the monster marred the earth as well.
Though I hadn’t been thinking of it as a bear, somehow I’d expected a bearlike print. These were closer to wolf or dog tracks, though they were far larger than the prints of any canine I’d seen, and they were webbed between the digits, like duck feet. I moved to another print, thinking the first had been smeared somehow and that I was mistaken, but there were plenty of other examples.
“What is this thing? A mutant platypus that grew to huge proportions in the sewers of Phoenix? Or the radioactive waters of the nuclear power plant?” I snorted at the ridiculous notions. There were stories of strange aliens and bizarre critters in underground caverns in the Superstition Mountains east of the city. I didn’t recall any mention of web-footed monsters though.
“Given that it’s running around with people with glowing eyes and glowing swords, I think you can stop looking for a logical explanation,” Simon said from the doorway of the van.
“I guess you’re right.”
“Temi thinks we should get going.” Simon pointed to the passenger seat where she’d already staked out a spot, but he hopped out and started taking pictures of the footprints. With the lighting dimming, he’d have a hard time getting much. He finished quickly and hopped back inside.
I took a last look around, thinking I might spot some interesting or useful vestige of the fight, but the combatants had left nothing except their tracks. And their blood.