Page 33 of Freedom
The man blinked and then snorted, sheathing the blade in one smooth motion and tucking it back under the counter. “Now that you mention it, it was pretty much the second that I drew this. Lucky, I guess. Or maybe it just recognized a weapon.”
“Maybe,” Jake agreed. “Anything else, Toby?”
Tobias shook his head. “No, Jake. Thank you, sir, for the books and everything.”
Jake didn’t look back to see if the guy gave any kind of acknowledgement, just followed Tobias out of the shop.
Tobias met his eyes outside, his own wide and filled with a determination that Jake couldn’t imagine denying. “I think we need to focus on the hunt,” he said. “This”—he gestured with the hand swinging his new books—“is important, but not as important as hunting. So, who do you think we should talk to next?”
Jake shrugged. “Maybe this Burns guy? And then I think cheeseburgers for lunch.”
And if Jake experienced a twinge and a twitch setting aside the books, these textbooks that Tobias wanted, in favor of hunting and what had always been Jake’s life, what he understood best in the world, he eased that with the knowledge that they would come back to books and classes and school. Today, Tobias was right that the hunt had to come first.
If Tobias felt any of that unease, it didn’t show in his smile. “Sounds good.”
~*~
That night, two nightsbefore the new moon, Tobias and Jake were about twenty miles outside Harrisburg, where the western shore of the Susquehanna River degenerated into a twisting mess of forest and swamp. Jake had parked the Eldorado in a county park half a mile back. Before they left, he’d taken a crowbar and a camping lantern for himself and had given Tobias a heavy iron knife and a flashlight that neither of them had suggested turning on, even if Tobias had been concerned about losing their night vision. It was dark, but there was enough starlight not to run into trees or end up drowned in the river.
His steps squelched in the mud, no matter how hard he tried not to make a noise; there hadn’t been much opportunity in Freak Camp to walk silently through grass or to navigate the soft land by a river. Beside him, Jake was nearly silent, only the glint of his ring and the crowbar he carried giving him away. Tobias focused on matching that noiselessness. Most of the attacks had occurred within two miles of this spot, and they didn’t want to warn their prey.
He was so focused on maintaining silence that Jake’s hand landing on his shoulder made him suck in a startled breath. “Did you hear that?”
This time, Tobias heard the nearby splash. It could have been a fish, but something was off about it. Tobias didn’t have much experience with wildlife, but nothing he had seen so far on the Discovery Channel would have explained the low hiss that accompanied each successive almost-footstep. He nodded sharply, sure Jake would feel the movement even if he couldn’t see it.
“You go left,” Jake whispered, “and I’ll go right, and we’ll try to—”
Something moved on the edge of Tobias’s peripheral vision: a fast, pale blur.
And just like that, he was back in camp. But not because of a panic attack, not in the way that made him fall apart in supermarkets and malls or when reals looked him in the eye and smiled slightly askance. This was the old, easy thrum of adrenaline, a complete awareness of his environment that made the world a crystal clear exercise in precision, with every nerve and sense on edge to anticipate—and incapacitate—any threat. Tobias had survived eleven years in Freak Camp, and guards hadn’t been the only danger.
Almost without conscious decision, he locked one hand around Jake’s arm, the other weighing his iron blade, knees slightly bent and ready. “Did you see that?”
“Kinda,” Jake said. “You?”
Tobias shook his head and then spun. Something charged them from behind, long claws and pale arms lunging for his stomach, a low chittering sound coming from the dark. Tobias sidestepped the attack with reflexes the Director had sharpened to a razor’s edge and drove the long hilt of the knife forward with muscles Jake had trained. When the claws struck his blade—a blow Tobias could feel in his bones—the chittering changed to a scream and the beast jerked away, leaving behind the smell of burning hair.
The chittering resumed at a distance, sharper this time, ups and downs that almost mimicked language. Maybe Jake would know what they were saying if he’d learned words more practical than archaic Latin and Old Germanic. Tobias blocked another blow, acting on instinct more than sight, responding to each pale flash of movement, rocking from the hits he managed to block.
“Toby, close your eyes!”
From nearly anyone else, Tobias wouldn’t have listened. It was a fight, he had a blade, the enemy was coming hard and fast, but when Jake pushed in next to him and gave the command, his shoulder a solid weight against his, Tobias clenched his eyes tight just before the lantern lit up the night. Tobias couldn’t remember the last time he’d fought beside someone (Kayla) he trusted without question, someone who wouldn’t leave him to his enemies’ claws should he become too damaged to continue. It filled Tobias with that same fierce joy as when they fought the ghost, and he grinned as he opened his eyes a moment later, already adjusting to the glare.
It could have been an innocent by the river that night. Someone without iron, unprepared and alone, but instead it was Tobias and Jake, the Hawthornes, and this particular freak would never hurt anyone again if Tobias could do anything about it.
The monster, a furred, yellow, vaguely humanoid creature, screamed and wheeled back, clawing at its own face from the sudden light. Jake swung the crowbar hard and hit the thing squarely in its chest. The beast screamed again and swiped at Jake, cutting a jagged line through his jeans, before its small, beady eyes widened. It coughed wetly twice and died, black steam rising from the dirty yellow fur on its arms from Tobias’s earlier cuts, the flesh dissolving into white ooze where the crowbar entered its body.
Tobias and Jake stood over the monster, panting. It was smallish, about three feet tall, wearing a strip of greenish cloth across its loins and covered with fur everywhere else. Its stubby hands, splayed out in death, were clawed and webbed; its mouth, open and filled with jagged teeth beneath two slits where its nose should have been, was stained with blood. Not just fresh, but layers and layers of old blood, in shades from dry, dark black to bright red and all the browns in between, glistening wetly over its flat chin and down to mat the fur of its chest.
“Nice work there, Toby,” Jake said, limping closer to him. “Definitely some kind of fairy. I’m glad we brought iron.”
Tobias sheathed his knife and grabbed Jake, dropping to look at his leg. “Jake, you’re bleeding.”
Jake grinned, hoisting Tobias back to his feet by his elbow. “No biggie, Tobias, it’s just a scrape. We’ll patch her up in the Eldorado, and I’ll be sprinting from the cops in no time.”
Tobias had to force himself to breathe normally. Jake wasn’t supposed to be hurt. If anyone was hurt, it wasn’t supposed to be Jake. But a scratch was normal; Jake had come to visit him with worse than that even when he was in camp. He’d be okay. They’d be okay.
And then something slammed into him hard from behind, sharp points digging into his back where the layers of shirts gave some protection, and he and Jake were tumbling forward, that same chittering in his ears, louder and furious now. Jake landed hard, and Tobias launched himself over him, trying not to barrel into Jake with his full weight and throwing the monster off in the process.
