She jumped when a hand touched her shoulder. Turning, she found her wolf tottering in human form, his features drawn with pain. She drew him down beside her, only just supporting his weight until he was able to kneel on the ground beside her.
“It… it’s the sculptor…” he said, his gaze on the struggling figures.
Ellie? It couldn’t be.
But when the Glasduine gave the spider a sudden shake, making her scrabble for balance, Bettina got a different view of the pair and she saw that her wolf was right.
She shook her head. “But if Ellie brought this spider,” she said, “then who answered your call?”
“They spoke Spanish,” he reminded her.
“They… ?”
She realized what he meant as soon as the word left her mouth. The reply had been made up of many voices, speaking in unison. So she wasn’t surprised by their arrival, a line of brightly colored cadejos on the heights above the canyon. They came down the steep sides, finding passage along almost invisible ridges and trails, goat hooves scrambling in the loose rocks. When they reached the bottom of the canyon, they paid no attention to Bettina and her wolf. Launching themselves at the battling monsters, they broke the pair apart and herded them to separate sides of the canyon with all the assurance and skill of a pack of border collies.
The spider let them back her up against the canyon wall where she shifted from spider shape to that of an old Native woman who promptly collapsed into Ellie’s arms. The Glasduine wasn’t nearly so acquiescent. Snarling, it struck out at the closest of the little dogs. It might as well have struck the side of the mountain for all the good the blow did. The cadejo was unmoved, unhurt. The Glasduine narrowed its eyes, studying its attackers. It feinted toward one of the little dogs, grabbed at another.
But los cadejos were quicker. One of them darted in and tore the creature’s arm from its torso. Dragging it across the dirt, the cadejo worried at the still moving limb as though it was a bone. Another of the little dogs charged forward, knocking the creature to the ground. Two more leapt for its throat.
“¡Para!”Bettina cried. Stop. “Don’t harm it.”
“Are you mad?” her wolf asked.
She ignored him. “Your bargain must be with me,” she told los cadejos. “I won’t have another die for my sake.”
“What does it matter who makes the bargain?” el lobo said. “We need the monster dead.”
But Bettina had the little dogs’ attention. The Glasduine took the opportunity to try to break free, but they kept it pinned to the ground, small immovable weights that snapped at it every time it moved. A sappy green blood seeped from where it had lost its arm, but it didn’t seem greatly affected by the loss of blood, or the limb itself.
“It matters to me,” Bettina said. “¿Y bien?” she asked los cadejos. “Is the bargain between you and me?”
She wondered if descendants were always doomed to repeat the mistake of earlier generations, for here she was, putting herself in the middle of a struggle between spirits—just as her abuela had done to her own great loss so many years before. But she refused to let her wolf pay the price. It was because of her that los cadejos were here in the first place. Any pacts to be made with them would be hers and hers alone.
“We already have a bargain,” one of los cadejos told her.
She shook her head. “We have a debt. This will only put me more deeply in it.”
The little dogs had one of their moments of silent communication before the foremost nodded.
“We will kill it for you,” it said, agreeing. “Not for your wolf.”
“Is that how it must be?” Bettina asked. “Can it only end with the Glas-duine’s death?”
“Once woken, un monstruo such as this cannot be sent back to its place of origin. Even with its vida en hilodela”—the little dog nodded with its chin to the ribbon of light that was still connected to the creature—“to show the way.”
“So we let it go or we kill it,” Bettina said.
She was unhappy with either choice. With the Glasduine’s rampage momentarily contained, she felt they had the breathing space to consider other options. Unfortunately, none presented themselves to her and no one else appeared interested in pursuing them.
“Why are we even discussing this?” her wolf asked. “We have no choice but to kill it.”
Bettina sighed. She knew he wasn’t being so much bloodthirsty as pragmatic. The Glasduine was simply too powerful. If los cadejos hadn’t answered el lobo’s summons, it was likely they’d all be dead by now and then who knew how many others would be imperiled? Pero…
“There is a third option,” a new voice said.
Bettina turned to see that a stranger had approached while they were talking. He was an unimposing man, not a great deal older than she was. New to la epoca del mito, she judged, by the nervous glances he kept giving los cadejos and the Glasduine they guarded.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Hunter.”
For one moment she thought he’d meant he was a hunter, that he was here to deal with the Glasduine. Then she realized it was only his name.
“Y bien,” she said. “And I am Bettina.”
He held out the rosary her mother had sent her. Bettina hadn’t even realized that she’d dropped it.
“Is this yours?” he asked.
She nodded, accepting it with a nod of thanks.
“What can you tell us of this third choice?” she asked.
“Well, I’m no expert…”
14
When Hunter finally caught up with the others his first thought was that he’d stumbled into some otherworldly circus. It was the colored dogs more than the grotesque creature that gave him this impression. The dogs seemed so… frivolous. At least they did until he realized that they were all that was keeping the creaturecontained.
As he approached, he listened to the conversation and a thought occurred to him which was what led him to speak up. Normally, he’d have been just as happy to keep in the background, out of the way of everybody else who were undoubtedly far more competent to deal with the situation. But like the woman who’d introduced herself as Bettina, he was unhappy with the idea that violence was the only solution. The death of the hard man he’d killed in Miki’s apartment still haunted him.
“It’s just,” he said, “from all I’ve been told about these kinds of beings, they’re not evil of and by themselves, are they?”
“It makes little difference at this point,” muttered the man who knelt beside Bettina. He looked far too much like the Gentry for Hunter’s comfort.
“Let him speak,” Bettina said.
Hunter nodded his thanks. “They’re supposed to be some kind of fertility symbol—part of that whole hero-king business. They bring in the spring, bless the fields for seeding. All the things we need for the world to pull out of winter and get back to the pursuit of growth and recovery.”
“Sí. This I have been told as well.”
“So that potential must still be inside it. Kind of like yin and yang. It has two sides, destructive and creative.”