Harvest of Holidays (4 page)

“Six is bad enough.” Damian cocked his head. “Listen,” he murmured softly.

Tally listened. There was nothing to hear. The others had moved far away, out of her range of hearing, although Damian could probably still hear them. Was that what he was telling her to listen for?

Then she realized that the hairs on the back of her neck were trying to stand up under the collar of her coat. They were prickly painfully. Without thinking about it, she reached under her coat and pulled out her sword and gripped it.

Damian turned, quartering the area. He had the greater range of hearing, smell and even his eyes were far-seeing, although he had told her he rarely relied on sight when he was hunting. “I can hear and smell something from a lot further away when they’re sneaking up on me and can’t be seen.”

Now he was questing, searching for information.

It had become perfectly still and silent. Even the wind overhead had momentarily halted. In the silence, Tally could hear her heartbeat, loud and too fast.

Then she heard it. Above them.

“Drop!” Damian yelled, as she stepped away from him to give herself room. She looked up. The black shape blanked out the stars. As she looked, the big wings cupped and shortened as it dropped its body downward from pure flight to landing position. It was moving fast and heading directly for them. Now she could hear the wind whistling past the edges of the leathery wings, making them flap.

“Tally, move it!” Damian screamed.

Time slowed down. Tally could feel the grip of her sword, true and reassuring. She could feel the strength running through her. The certainty. There was a grim determination to end this. She knew she could do it. She knew it with the same bone-deep way she knew how to drive a car.

She stepped to the left. Not to get out of the way, but to put herself in just the right position. She already knew how this would go. She could see it clearly in her mind.

From the size of the gargoyle dropping down on to them, she knew that it was either Lirgon or Andurag, the biggest two in the clan. Lirgon, the leader, would never risk himself in a solo assault. So this was Andurag. From all her study, she knew that Andurag had a big head and a short jaw that he tended to keep tucked up against his chest. It made him less vulnerable than the others, but it was also his weakness. He
expected
enemies to try to punch in through his chin, up into his brain. A gargoyle’s flesh under the chin was thin and easily punctured and the vulnerability had been well reported in the hunting community.

But they had one other weak spot…if you could reach it.

All this flickered through Tally’s mind as Andurag’s wings back-swept, sending thick, musty air over them, that stank of old badly-cured leather and harsh, sun-bleached stone, the peculiar scent of gargoyles. He lifted up, the front feet coming forward to the attack position. He was aiming for her and Tally stood, waiting for him to come close.

“Don’t stop me, Damian,” she whispered, knowing he would hear it. “This is my one chance…”

She didn’t wonder if he would obey. She had spent the last six years with Nick as her partner and they had argued themselves into a standstill at times because Nick found it next to impossible to just be a partner, and not a guardian or friend. He would constantly step in to protect her, to fend off the enemy for her, when she was perfectly capable of doing it herself. After six years, Nick was finally starting to learn that she was very good at this and would leave her to take care of her side of things. Damian didn’t have that conditioning, but he also wasn’t as stubborn as Nick.

All her concentration was on the descending gargoyle. Although her perception of passing time had altered, she knew in the back of her mind that Andurag was dropping on her at bullet speed. It just
seemed
slower.

She had to time this perfectly. If she moved too soon it would tell Andurag what she was going to do. If she left it too late…

Fleetingly, barely registering, she recalled an image of Spanish bullfighters, who stood in the line of the charging bull, until the very last second when they swayed aside with a balletic step or two, then leaned in to plant their barbs.

Tally swayed. She felt the rush of air as Andurag’s claws whisked past her. He was still in the air and couldn’t maneuver, but as soon as those claws bit into the earth, he would have leverage to turn himself and leap around to deal with her.

She reached up…and up, and gripped the thick, bony extrusion at the bottom of his ugly ear. With a grunt of effort, for she was heavier than she ever remembered, she hauled herself up. A boot against his shoulder, then she flexed her thigh, working against gravity. Andurag’s momentum gave her added impetus and she dragged on his ear, flipping herself over onto his back by the drag on her arm.

Andurag screamed his outrage in the high, almost supersonic squeal that meant he was pissed as hell.

It was too late for him, though. Tally squeezed her knees around the back of his short neck, pulled the katana back, as far back as her arms would take it, then thrust the point into the spot at the base of his neck, where the thick shoulder blades didn’t quite meet. The flesh there was almost as soft as under the chin and there was no bone, except for the spine, which was slender right there to get past the massive shoulder bones that drove the wings. The katana was sharp and Tally angled the blade, so it sliced sideways into the spine and severed the cord. She kept pushing, angling upwards. She knew she had reached the brain when Andurag stiffened.

He made no sound and gave no other reaction. For a heartbeat he remained perfectly still. Then he toppled sideways, taking Tally with him. She tugged at the sword, trying to remove it, then realized it didn’t matter.

“Tally, here,” Damian called. His arms were up as he circled around the falling gargoyle.

Perched on the back of Andurag’s neck put Tally nearly ten feet above the ground, but she didn’t hesitate. She jumped, pushing off hard so that her landing would be clear of Andurag’s body. It gave her too much impetus and she knew that as soon as her feet made contact, she would fall forward onto her rounded belly and the baby.

But Damian had already calculated that. As her feet made contact and she staggered forward, her already unwieldy balance completely gone, his arm hooked around hers and she was hauled backwards and up onto her feet once more. They came to a halt with her back against Damian’s chest and her heart slamming around in her chest, and not in a good way.

From somewhere north of them, came another inhuman, high-pitched cry. This one sounded thick with fury and frustration. Distant shouts, not nearly as loud, followed.

Tally swallowed. “The one they thought they had cornered…it was a lure, to pull them away.”

Damian let her go and walked over to the carcass and yanked on her sword, pulling it out with a wet, sucking sound. “If that’s true, then they anticipated you would hang back.” He looked up at her, the sword dripping dark, unaromatic liquid into the leaf litter. “That means this was a trap. For you.”

Tally licked her lips. “How could they anticipate this? How could they possibly know what I would do?”

Damian cocked his head, listening. “Carson is coming.” He picked up a big pile of leaves from the ground and cleaned the blade with them. “Those are good questions. But we shouldn’t stop to answer them now.”

Then Tally heard what Damian had. Someone was crashing through the bush land, careless of being heard, or of anything but speed.

“Tally!” Carson cried.

Tally drew in a big breath and lifted her voice. “Here!”

There was more rustling now, from several different directions. The rest of the team was doubling back to check on her. The abrupt departure of the gargoyle they had cornered would have told them the same thing that it had told Damian, that this was a set up.

Carson burst through the trees into the tiny clear space where they stood next to the body going cold beside them. Even lying on his side, Andurag’s shoulders was level with Tally’s head.

Carson almost swept her off her feet. He held her up as he staggered. He was breathing hard and his body was hot against her. “Sweet Jesus,” he breathed and kissed her. It wasn’t in the slightest bit romantic. He was giving vent to his relief.

Then he looked over her shoulder. “For someone who keeps saying they’re not a demon hunter, you did pretty damn good, Damian.”

“I’m not a demon hunter,” Damian replied. “The real hunter did this, not me.” He held Tally’s cleaned sword out to her. “Here.”

She felt Carson’s surprise in the way his arms loosened around her. He stepped back. “
You
killed him? When you’re pregnant? Tally, for the love of god—”

“She had no choice,” Damian said sharply. “And she was the only one here with the skills to do it. Accept it, Carson. Your wife is one of the best demon hunters in the country and she just proved it. I don’t think Nick could have pulled this off.”

Nick’s tall shadow stepped out from among the trees. “I couldn’t have, not if it happened the way I think it did. I have reach and strength, but only Tally has the agility required.”

The others emerged from the trees behind him and they gathered around the carcass silently, almost in awe. Jimmy spat on the thing and Miguel kicked its hide, like he was testing a tire. Then he gave a mighty sniff of disdain and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “Felicitations, Bonita,” he said softly, looking at her.

Joy and Connie came around to the front of it and crouched down together, examining it.

Donna blew out her breath. “Better you than me,” she told Tally, with feeling.

Carson hugged her to him. “I don’t care if you are the best in the freaking world. You can’t take risks like that.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s why I think I should retire.”

Everyone gasped, and for three seconds silence gripped them. Then eight people began to talk at once, tripping over each other, their voices high and loud in protest.

Bero

“You’re really serious about quitting?” Donna asked Tally, as they trailed far behind Jimmy and Miguel. The two men had wanted to check out a rumor they had heard. Kids had been talking about a monster in a basement, in one of the almost derelict buildings in shanty town, down by the old train yards. The only people who lived in the district were the homeless and junkies. No one went there even to work, since the Albany Port Railroad had built the big switching yard at the north end of the city. The mayor kept talking about gentrifying the area, but no one was willing to start the ball rolling by voluntarily moving into an inner city slum, no matter how great the real estate prices were.

It made the rail yards and the buildings around them a great place for gargoyles to nest and since they had been driven out of the woodlands around the river valley nearly a month before, everyone had been on the lookout for hints about their new nest.

Jimmy had heard about the “real Halloween monster” living in the basement directly from one of the neighbor kids of the guy he bought his pot from. The neighbor kid had been terrorized, reluctant to talk and his eyes had rolled the whole time Jimmy talked to him. It was enough for Jimmy to think there was something real going on.

Carson had liked the idea, but he had a shift at the restaurant that he didn’t want to give up. Rent day was looming.

Instead, Carson had turned to Tally. “Why don’t you go with them? You need to get out of the house. You’ve been cooped up here for weeks. Take a walk in the sunshine – it’s a gorgeous day.”

Tally didn’t want to go. She knew this was Carson’s way of keeping her involved in hunting. She had cut herself off from all of it for three whole weeks despite his anguished arguments that she stay in the business one way or another.

“Of course we’re going to have to make adjustments!” he’d said one night, his arms around her as they lay under the thick quilt on their bed, the warmest spot in the whole house. November had come in colder than usual, and the ancient furnace could barely keep up with the heat being sucked out through old windows and even older doorframes. “I’m not stupid, Tally. We’ve got a child on the way, and that’s going to change…everything. But not this, not you giving up the only thing that has any real meaning in your life.”

“You are the meaning in my life,” Tally told him. “For you, I could do this.”

“I’m not asking you to,” he said bleakly. “I
won’t
ask. I wouldn’t even think of asking, ever. I don’t want you to quit. A year from now, two years…you’ll hate your life and you’ll hate me because I’m still in the game.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

He kissed her neck. “I knew what you were when I married you, Tally. You’re never going to be content with running kids to school and scrubbing the bathtub.”

“But the baby…”

“Will grow up with two hunters for parents,” Carson said firmly. “I don’t know how we figure this out yet, but we will. And you don’t quit.”

“I’ll think about it,” Tally said cautiously, but doubt filled her. It seemed impossible to raise a child if both of them were hunting. Donna and Oscar managed it because he wasn’t a hunter, and provided nearly all the stability in their lives; money, a parent that was home every night, and a career that the neighbors considered respectable.

She felt Carson’s silent laugh, by the reverberations of his chest against her shoulders. “
Stubborn
,” he breathed. “I love it.”

Now as they walked down the alley, trailing Jimmy and Miguel, Tally reconsidered yet again all the reasons why quitting was a good idea. “I’m thinking about it seriously,” she told Donna, answering her curious question. “I can’t see how else to make it work. You and Oscar seem to have it figured out and he’s not a hunter. He doesn’t even want to be a hunter.”

“Is that what you think? That we have it figured out?’ Donna gave a dry laugh and kicked at a discarded Coke bottle, making it roll along the dirt with a scratchy sound. “I’m lucky to be home at night to tuck them into bed. They speak Spanish almost better than they speak English, because Juanita spends more time with them than I do. I’m just lucky that Oscar thinks hunting is so fascinating. If he thought it was frivolous, or that I should be a proper mother and stay home and raise the girls, I don’t know what I would do.”