I put my back to the van and checked the police cars, making sure armed men were in earshot if I shouted for help. The younger rider carried a stick. He was walking and gesturing, waving it about as he spoke with his comrade. The flashing police lights fell upon them for a moment, and I realized it wasn’t a stick, it was an arrow. My arrow. Nobody else had been running around with a bow. I’d only shot the one, and it had hit the creature. At least I’d thought it had. How had these two gotten it? What if they knew where the creature had run to and had retrieved it somehow? I chomped down on my lip, torn between wanting to jump out and interrogate them and knowing it’d be smarter to hide in the shadows and hope they didn’t notice me. They couldn’t be happy about the fire extinguisher incident, not to mention those slashed tires… Albeit they’d since replaced those tires, for there was no sign of the damage on their Harleys.
As they neared the dumpster where they’d parked, I caught a few snippets of their conversation over the clamor of approaching sirens. And it floored me. Whatever language they were speaking, it sure wasn’t English. I didn’t think it was a romance language either. True, I wasn’t hearing them well, but I’d studied enough Roman history in school that I figured I could identify something based on Vulgar Latin. It didn’t sound Slavic or Germanic either, though I was less familiar with those groups of languages. Their words had a lot of variation in tone-I thought I heard a couple that were repeated, only with different inflections. It reminded me of Mandarin, but these guys were awfully white for Chinese people. On looks alone, I would have guessed them Scandinavian, but even in those countries, they’d stand out.
I was so intent on listening to their words, that I almost missed the fact that they’d reached their motorcycles and turned to look at me. The older rider twitched his head-it wasn’t quite the side-to-side motion of a head shake, but it had the same negative gist-and hopped onto his bike. He roared away without a backward glance. One of the cops shouted at him to stop, but an ambulance and a news crew rolled into the campground, and the Harley weaved around a couple of cars and disappeared from sight. This was about to become a circus. The remaining campers who’d apparently been reluctant to leave their tents and motorhomes to talk to the police, flowed out of hiding as soon as the news van stopped.
The remaining Harley rider, Blue Eyes, walked toward me, my arrow held at his side. As he drew closer, I could see his face and hands well enough to tell that there weren’t any signs of injury from the fire extinguisher propellant. My own skin was raw and red in spots, and I hadn’t even been the target.
I shifted from foot to foot and scanned the trees for Simon, but I didn’t see him. The authorities were swamped by now too. This guy better not be trouble, because it looked like I was on my own for dealing with him.
“Hello,” he said. “I am Eleriss. What is your name?”
“Er?” I’d been tensing, ready for him to stab me with the arrow, so this frank introduction took me off guard.
He tilted his head. “Er?”
“No, I mean, it’s Delia.” Belatedly, I wondered if I should have lied.
“I located your arrow.” Eleriss held it out to me.
“Uh, thanks. Was it in the haunch of anything when you located it?”
“Haunch? Ah, no, the jibtab would not be injured by such a weapon. Perhaps you… what is the expression? Gave it a hangnail?”
In the poor lighting, it was hard to tell, but I thought a slight smudge darkened the arrow tip. Maybe I’d made the creature bleed at least. Truth be told, I was impressed I’d hit it at all given how much my hands had been shaking. Of course, that might be a smear of dirt on the arrow too.
“But you attacked it,” Eleriss said. “It will remember you now.”
“Oh, good.”
“This… conveyance-house-” he pointed at the van, “-will not protect you from its fury if you cross it again. The jibtab is very strong.”
“So moving back to New Mexico would be a good idea now?” As soon as I said it, I rejected the idea. On the off chance that something-a jibtab, whatever that was-was hunting me, I wouldn’t lead it back to my family.
Eleriss considered my question for a moment, mouthing, “New Mexico,” a couple of times. “Ah yes,” he said, “the territory adjacent to this one. Perhaps a farther destination? Your Alaska may be safe for some time.” He smiled, like a man making a joke, but I didn’t find any of this amusing.
“Safe for some time? What do you mean?”
“It is lightly populated by humans, so will not attract the wrath of the jibtab’s master for now.”
I digested that for a moment. It was hard to concentrate as fully as I would have liked with people shouting and setting up lighting and equipment in my peripheral vision. It was only a matter of time before someone came over and wanted to interview me. Or arrest me. I wasn’t sure which sounded less appealing.
“Just to be clear, you’re not the jib-thing’s master?” I asked.
Eleriss took a step back. “Me? I would not create anything to harm humans. I like humans.”
“Yeah, me too.”
This guy was seriously weird. I was beginning to think there was some merit to Simon’s idea that our strangers were Vulcans, or nut jobs who thought they were Vulcans. Would he be affronted if I told him Prescott didn’t have a Live Action Roleplaying Group?
“It would not be within my abilities to create a jibtab regardless,” he said. “I am not a… scientist, is that the profession?”
“For someone who makes monsters? I don’t know-I didn’t see those classes under any of the degree paths at ASU.”
He did that head tilt that seemed to mean he was trying to figure me out.
“So if you didn’t make it, what are you and your buddy doing here?” I asked. “Why do you keep showing up when it kills someone?”
He could have asked me the same question, but he didn’t. He probably knew we were clueless. “We can track it.”
“Oh? Do you know where it is now?”
“It ran up a dirt road over there.” Eleriss pointed in the direction that the first people had been killed.
I knew the road. We’d hiked up it to a trail that led to a lake. It’d been a nice hike, and there was no way I’d do it again now.
“Are you trying to kill it?” I asked.
“That is not currently within our power.”
“Then why follow it?”
“We seek to find that which can destroy it. Also, we seek to protect humans from it.” Eleriss gazed toward the woods where the husband and wife had fallen. “We are failing thus far.”
“Join the club. That which can destroy it-you want to kill it then?”
“That is desirable, yes.”
“Maybe my friend and I can help. We’re good at research. Simon over there has GPS apps that can find all sorts of things and lead us to them.” I decided not to mention the broken shovel haft.
“You would be wise to leave this place. Your Alaska would be a good destination.”
“That’s a little cold for my desert blood. Besides-”
“Ma’am?” a man asked from the side, startling me. It was the police officer who’d been talking to Simon earlier. Simon stood by the patrol car, a sheepish expression on his face. Ugh, they must have caught him practicing his photography skills.
“Yes?” I asked.
“We’re going to need you to come downtown to answer some questions.” The officer’s eyebrows twitched. “Again.”
Double ugh. The left hand had been talking to the right hand. He eyed the arrow I was holding, but all he said was, “This way, please.”
I pointed to the van. “Mind if I park this back in our spot? It’s in the way here.”