“What if that’s true?” Shotgun asked me. “Maybe we should keep our distance.”
“That seems to be the safe bet everyone else is making,” I told him. “I wouldn’t blame you much.”
“Much?”
“You’d still be retreating at a time I think the locals really need to be mustering their forces. Conquest is fucking dangerous. I’d blame you for ignoring that.”
Shotgun didn’t respond.
I polished off the sandwich and coke. “Can?”
Shotgun pointed.
I dropped both wrapper and coke bottle in the can.
“What do you know about shamanism?” Shotgun asked me.
“I know… maybe three symbols, off the top of my head. Dealing with the smallest spirits.”
“I’m going to show you two more. One for quiet, for the chain.”
“Quiet is good,” I said. “And the other one?”
He showed me the shotgun. The butt-end of the weapon had a symbol inscribed in the wood, so it sprawled all over the wooden surface, curving around to the other side. I turned to look, but my view was obscured as he pushed it closer to me. Against my chest, into my hands.
He didn’t let go of the weapon, though, holding it with one hand.
“I thought you said a weapon was a bad idea,” I said.
“It’s a bad plan. As contingencies go, it’s something. Consider it a loaner, not a keeper. You don’t use this on my family, and you don’t use it in any way that leads our local Lord to think we’re against him.”
I could have argued, pressed for better terms, quibbled over intent to hit his family, to cover for the slim circumstance where I accidentally clipped one.
Not worth it.
“I swear I’ll do my best to get it back to you,” I said. “I swear I won’t use it in a way that harms your family or informs the Lord where your allegiances lie.”
He nodded, letting go.
“That symbol is one for wind.”
“Wind?”
He shrugged. “Mess with other elemental forces, and you risk disrupting the mechanism. Weapon is maybe a little lighter, pushes a little harder.”
I nodded.
The other two returned with the chain. They laid it out on the counter.
Shotgun grabbed the lock, turning it over so the side opposite the dial faced us.
“Your blood will work best,” he said. He began sketching out the symbol.
My blood. I was leery, but I had only so much of the glamour to spare after I’d touched up my injuries.
A noisy chain could lead to far more blood being spilled.
I pricked my finger and began drawing out the mark he indicated.
“You gave me your gun,” I said, while carefully copying it.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t suppose you’ll give me your name?”
“Nick,” he told me.
“Thank you, Nick.”
“That thing in the factory fucked us up so bad we can never even fathom what it did to us,” he said, his voice low. I could see him glancing over at his son, at the other end of the room, as if verifying the guy was out of earshot. “I think we had actual lives before.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“If you want to stop it? Or something like it? I’m not getting in your way.”
“Right on.”
■
The truck pulled to a stop.
I shifted the chain’s position at my shoulder. Coils looped over one shoulder and across the body, held close by my jacket. It barely made a noise as I adjusted it.
Hatchet at one hip, flare gun at the other, shotgun at my back, strap cross-wise with the chain. I had a box knife in one pocket, pens and twine in the other. Nails and other construction stuff in one cargo pocket, a small paint jar with far too little glamour inside in the other.
I was painted in the glamour-ink, but I’d had only so much to spare, not nearly enough for full coverage. I’d gone for a hodgepodge job on skin and clothing both, instead. Streaks, that I might match the colors of it to the background.
“I’d drop you further in, but…” the fat man, Teddy, trailed off. He had an explanation, he just didn’t want to give it.
He was scared.
So was I, frankly.
“Wish me luck,” I said.
“Good luck.”
I made my exit.
Ghosts were already emerging from the trees. Some ethereal, some so real I had to look twice to see where they weren’t quite real. Feet a little hard to make out, or faces a touch too contorted. All bore ghastly wounds where the goblin had bitten them.
Some veered my way. I backed away at the same time the car pulled a ‘u’ turn, and the ghosts chose to follow after the car rather than me.
That wouldn’t remain the case.
I’d inscribed my boots with quieting runes, and the crunching of snow and branches were muted. More blood spent. I could have used glamour, but I valued the versatility the small tin offered me over the cost that the blood payment involved. Being a little bit more me wouldn’t keep me alive in a pinch. Being able to change my voice or features could.
Overhanging pine branches had caught the snow, meaning it wasn’t so deep that I was sinking in knee-deep, as I’d feared. With the quiet the runes afforded, I could move reasonably quickly. Not running, but not walking either. I had to conserve strength. This was a hike, a marathon, and chances were good that I’d need to run at some point.
A glance behind me indicated that a ghost from that initial pack had followed me. A man, missing an arm, a mess of gore around his knees, floating as much as he staggered. He didn’t care too much about the intervening obstacles. Slow, steady progress.
I sped up a fraction.
Another being a distance away. Something bigger and Other. Huffing, panting in what sounded like quiet agony. I couldn’t make it out beyond the intervening branches and the shadows that the overhanging needles and snow afforded.
It didn’t notice me, and my steady forward progress left it behind soon enough.
In a slow moment where I needed to find a way past a fence of crossing branches, the pursuing ghost drew a little closer to me.
I could hear him speaking. “It hurts. Why does it hurt so much? The car…”
I scanned the area. I had a choice of either pushing through the branches in front of me or going around. Pushing through the branches meant noise. Going around meant looping closer to the pursuing ghost.
“I’m… my arm wasn’t crushed. What happened to my arm, Day? Day?”
I circled around. Couldn’t waste time debating, or I’d only corner myself.
He grew more agitated as the distance between us closed.
“Day! It’s- the car hit your side, Day! It’s supposed to be your arm!”
We were no more than fifteen feet apart. I rounded the thicket of trees and started to make more distance between us.