Page 15 of Mountain Man's Muse
Wolly was staring out into the night, hackles raised and lips drawn back over shining teeth.
Josh’s fingers twitched. Slowly, he released the belt loop around his knife and let the sturdy wooden handle fill his palm. He had left the rifle in the house. Maybe Adelyn… No, she wouldn’t know how to use it. She’d seemed taken aback by the workings of the shower massager.
Could be one of the usual valley critters, nosing around, but Wolly had a good bark for all those. This was something else. Josh faded back from the revealing brightness of the stable light.
He wasn’t letting anything—or anyone—near Adelyn.
Giving Wolly the stay signal and a hard stare, Josh crept toward the trees, staying out of the reach of the lights.
The quiet of a winter night in the wilds of Oregon had a particular tone, like the silence after a bell was rung, clean and clear. Tonight, a jangled tension—and not just his own—raised the hair on the back of his neck. Something was off.
When everything had been going so right. The coincidence seemed suspicious.
Despite his steady grip, the knife was cold in his hand. And still it wasn’t as cold as the blood in his veins. He had never killed a man, but whoever had bound and burned Adelyn might very well be the first.
The pine needles bent silently under his boots as he threaded between the blackjacks. The moon had not yet risen but the starlight on the remains of the snow gave the scene a ghostly, night-vision cast.
Strangely, he caught the first glimpse out of the corner of his bad eye, but he didn’t have time to wonder about that. He was expecting a man, so when the shape scuttled low, waist-high, and broad, he was almost relieved. A grumpy bear wouldn’t be so hard to run off.
But it wasn’t a bear, too small. And too big to be a wolf. It moved like a predator though, intent and aggressive.
He didn’t think it had seen him. It was circling toward the house and he had come up on its rear flank. He kept the bulk of a big pine between them as he advanced.
He was so focused, he didn’t hear the cabin door open or see the spill of light over the porch.
He heard his name though, clear and beautiful as a second bell ringing.
“Josh?”
Shit. He hadn’t expected her to come out. Neither had the thing he was stalking, obviously. It froze on the other side of the tree.
Just for a heartbeat though. Then it sprang toward the house.
“Adelyn!” he yelled. “Get inside! Now!”
The thing moved fast, freakishly fast, and its dark hide reflected no light. It would have been invisible against bare earth, but it stood out against the snow, thin legs skittering over the ground.
On the porch, wrapped in his comforter, Adelyn turned toward his voice.
He was already running. “Get inside!” he roared. “Go!”
She turned, but the thing—a blur of motion—was almost at the bottom step. She screamed as she stumbled toward the door.
Wolly burst from the shadows. He launched across the steps to slam the thing hard.
The two shapes rolled across the yard, giving Josh precious seconds to reach the fight. Wolly yelped in surprise as he was thrown off. Josh hauled back and gave the creature a bar-room kick, the boot-powered kind that could lift a grown man several feet in the air.
The thing shrilled some unearthly cry that iced his spine. It scrabbled at him with—what the hell?—three legs.
He dodged away as one of the three spindly legs stabbed at him again, piercing the edge of his coat. The sharp tip of the leg gleamed as it went right through the heavy sheepskin.
It spun toward him, oddly graceful. And one bulging eye glared at him from the middle of its head.
He choked. Shock made him hesitate and it launched at his face. Instinct as much as intent drove the knife out in front of him. The thing slammed into him and impaled itself.
It shrieked again, but it didn’t stop. All three legs scrabbled at him.
Adelyn was screaming, not incoherently although he didn’t quite understand her. “It’s an imp, Josh. Kill it!”
