became more inventive. Dustin used one particular word as a noun, verb, and adjective, which is always good for bonus points. I think he would have stormed up out of the car seat if he hadnât still been slightly afraid of me.
There was a copy of the paper that I had bought in Oklahoma City still folded in the footwell of my back seat. I wordlessly got it and let him look at the date. It was too much for him. Dustin didnât scream or run off or try to attack me; he didnât seem to hear or see me at all any more, just rocked his head back and forth slightly.
Okay, maybe I should have let someone with lots of letters after their name and access to Thorazine deal with Dustin after all. Oops.
I looked around, studying the area so that I could find my way back. If Iâd had a cell phone with a GPS application, I could have marked the location by satellite, but I didnât have any cell phone at all. Itâs too easy to track someone who has one of those things, and even if it werenât, cell phones scare the bejeezus out of me. Iâve been around enough evil magic to know that there are some things you can possess and some things that can possess you.
It was only while I was checking for distinctive landmarks that I saw the shrubs lined up on the side of the road. They were hawthorn trees. That wasnât a good sign.
*Â Â *Â Â *
A little over an hour later I was back. I had dropped Dustin at a truck stop three exits away. He was still shaky but halfway lucid again and talking about a brother and an ex-wife by the time we got there. I gave him a phone card and enough money to buy a few meals. If he couldnât find his way to the help he needed from there, well, I had problems of my own.
I was wearing a camouflage jacket by this point, carrying an ax in my hand and a compound bow and quiver across my shoulders. A Ruger Blackhawk was holstered at the small of my back and the knife was still on my hip, along with a waterproof belt that had several pouches.
It didnât take me long to find Dustin Seaversâs scent. I followed it along the side of the road, and I only had to step off into the woods three times, twice to avoid headlights and once to use the ax. I cut a straight, sturdy-looking branch from a hawthorn tree. Separating the branch from the trunk was easyâIâm stronger than I have any right to be, and Iâm intimately familiar with the use of an axâbut stripping the branch down to a crude sturdy pike and sharpening both ends was still a pain in the ax, so to speak. I went ahead and made a stake out of a smaller branch while I was at it, poking two holes in the interior lining of my jacket where it fell loose at my left side and threading the stake through them.
And no, I wasnât hunting vampires.
When the Fae visited our realm in great numbers thousands of years ago, they didnât just materialize like someone on a transport or teleport beam in one of those science fiction movies; the copses and glens and glades where they performed their traveling spells came with them, and some of the vegetation that they introduced to our soil flourished. This is how the word elder got in elderberry and why holly and holy used to be synonyms. Hawthorn trees are another example, and places of power where the Fae perform their ceremonies are often marked by an abundance of them.
Itâs why people used to believe that taking anything from a hawthorn tree into your house was bad luck.
I left the ax by the tree and picked up my crude pike in its place. After about a mile and a half, I found the place where Dustin Seavers had emerged from the woods.
The ground was dry and the stars were out and Dustinâs scent was still strong. He hadnât washed with anything but river water in a very long time, and I might have been able to catch his scent even with normal senses.
I heard the sound of distant gunfire popping through the trees. Not single shots like a
There was a copy of the paper that I had bought in Oklahoma City still folded in the footwell of my back seat. I wordlessly got it and let him look at the date. It was too much for him. Dustin didnât scream or run off or try to attack me; he didnât seem to hear or see me at all any more, just rocked his head back and forth slightly.
Okay, maybe I should have let someone with lots of letters after their name and access to Thorazine deal with Dustin after all. Oops.
I looked around, studying the area so that I could find my way back. If Iâd had a cell phone with a GPS application, I could have marked the location by satellite, but I didnât have any cell phone at all. Itâs too easy to track someone who has one of those things, and even if it werenât, cell phones scare the bejeezus out of me. Iâve been around enough evil magic to know that there are some things you can possess and some things that can possess you.
It was only while I was checking for distinctive landmarks that I saw the shrubs lined up on the side of the road. They were hawthorn trees. That wasnât a good sign.
*Â Â *Â Â *
A little over an hour later I was back. I had dropped Dustin at a truck stop three exits away. He was still shaky but halfway lucid again and talking about a brother and an ex-wife by the time we got there. I gave him a phone card and enough money to buy a few meals. If he couldnât find his way to the help he needed from there, well, I had problems of my own.
I was wearing a camouflage jacket by this point, carrying an ax in my hand and a compound bow and quiver across my shoulders. A Ruger Blackhawk was holstered at the small of my back and the knife was still on my hip, along with a waterproof belt that had several pouches.
It didnât take me long to find Dustin Seaversâs scent. I followed it along the side of the road, and I only had to step off into the woods three times, twice to avoid headlights and once to use the ax. I cut a straight, sturdy-looking branch from a hawthorn tree. Separating the branch from the trunk was easyâIâm stronger than I have any right to be, and Iâm intimately familiar with the use of an axâbut stripping the branch down to a crude sturdy pike and sharpening both ends was still a pain in the ax, so to speak. I went ahead and made a stake out of a smaller branch while I was at it, poking two holes in the interior lining of my jacket where it fell loose at my left side and threading the stake through them.
And no, I wasnât hunting vampires.
When the Fae visited our realm in great numbers thousands of years ago, they didnât just materialize like someone on a transport or teleport beam in one of those science fiction movies; the copses and glens and glades where they performed their traveling spells came with them, and some of the vegetation that they introduced to our soil flourished. This is how the word elder got in elderberry and why holly and holy used to be synonyms. Hawthorn trees are another example, and places of power where the Fae perform their ceremonies are often marked by an abundance of them.
Itâs why people used to believe that taking anything from a hawthorn tree into your house was bad luck.
I left the ax by the tree and picked up my crude pike in its place. After about a mile and a half, I found the place where Dustin Seavers had emerged from the woods.
The ground was dry and the stars were out and Dustinâs scent was still strong. He hadnât washed with anything but river water in a very long time, and I might have been able to catch his scent even with normal senses.
I heard the sound of distant gunfire popping through the trees. Not single shots like a
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