I did what he asked, concentrated on my breathing, and one by one blocked out the distractions around me. It wasn’t that hard; it’s a basic of both yoga training and magical discipline. The last senses to go were touch and smell, the breath of salt air on my face coming through the open windows.
It grew stronger, and the tang of the ocean was replaced with the slightly musty odor of gorse and bracken, and the breeze had turned cold and damp. When I opened my eyes I was back on the moor.
But this time it was different. It was dark, as if the winter sun was just sinking under the horizon. Patches of thick, evil-looking fog closed in around us, obscuring the landscape one moment, swirling away the next to reveal a barren and desolate scene. Before, the moor had been dramatic and full of mystery. This time it gave off an aura of evil and danger.
The Wendigo was standing next to me, but Lou was nowhere in sight. I had a moment of not quite panic-he’d never failed to follow me anywhere before. But then he burst out of a nearby thicket and stood there, tongue out and panting as if he’d run a long way. The Wendigo looked surprised.
“I didn’t think that was possible,” he said. “He didn’t come with us, and there’s no way he could have followed us here-there isn’t any ‘here’ to follow us to, strictly speaking.”
“He is a talented creature,” I said. “So, what now?”
“Your part is done. Now that we’re here, all I need to do is call her home. It won’t be a problem.”
I could have told him that was the wrong thing to say. It’s a form of unconscious hubris, poking your finger in the eye of the gods. Sure enough, the minute he finished talking I heard a long-drawn-out, muffled howl in the distance, sounding like a hound from hell.
“What in God’s name is that?” I asked. For the first time since I’d seen him, the Wendigo looked ill at ease.
“Oh, shit,” he said. Not a reassuring response.
“I didn’t hear anything like that the last time.”
“Last time, you were pulled into Sherwood’s construct. This time, it’s partly yours as well. You mentioned that the moor looked like a movie set. Wuthering Heights, I think you said.”
“Yeah.”
“This isn’t exactly the same place, is it? Have you ever actually been on a moor?”
“No,” I said.
“But this is partly your own construct. So where did you get your idea of it from? What do you think of when you imagine a moor?” I didn’t have to think about that one.
“The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Another howl, closer, punctuated my remark.
“And that is?”
“Sherlock Holmes. A story about a gigantic, spectral hound who roams the moors, killing people.”
“I see.”
“But in the story it wasn’t really anything supernatural,” I explained. “It turned out to be a huge, vicious, but quite ordinary dog.”
“Maybe in the story. But not in your construct-trust me on that.”
Another howl, long-drawn-out and definitely closer. Now it sounded less like a hound and more like some creature from hell. Lou flinched involuntarily and started picking up first one paw, then the other, the way he does when he’s nervous.
“What are you worried about?” I said. “You can take a shotgun blast without it bothering you, and you can control things with just your voice. A ghostly hound shouldn’t pose much of a problem.”
“You’d think. But you mostly missed me with that shotgun. You only thought you hit me. A couple of pellets nicked me, but that was all. Misdirection and illusion are my true strengths.” So we had something in common after all.
“Your voice is no illusion,” I said.
“Sure, it is. It doesn’t control anyone. It just makes them think they have no choice.” That seemed like semantics to me, but this was no time for a philosophical discussion.
“So use it, then,” I said.
“Believe me, I would if I could. But things work differently in places like this. I can call Sherwood; that’s what I came here for. But other than that, I’m as vulnerable as you are. Maybe more so-it’s your place, and you at least should still have your talent here. So it’s up to you, I’m afraid.”
Another howl, worse than before, and considerably nearer. My throat got dry, and this time it wasn’t only Lou who flinched. For the first time since I’d met him, the Wendigo had lost his self-assured demeanor.
About twenty yards to the left of us the ground cover thinned out and dissolved into a small patch of swampy bog, no bigger than a double bed. I reached out to see if I could feel talent working, and it was. I didn’t have enough power to expand it to a useful size, at least not directly. But I could gather swamp essence from the small patch and flip it over, effectively doubling it in size. Then again, and again once more. With the power of geometrical progression, it wasn’t long before I had created an area some fifty yards square. Technically, I wasn’t using enough power to transform a large area, but it worked. That’s why it’s called magic, at least by those who don’t fully understand it. Which would include me, though I usually don’t use that term.
I called Lou over and worked on his paws, expanding and flattening them until they were like tiny snowshoes, which took more energy and skill than creating the entire swamp did. When I was done, he ran back and forth, trying them out and stumbling a few times. Twice, he even fell over his feet before he got the hang of managing them. He wouldn’t be nearly as agile as usual, but he wouldn’t have to be. He’d just need to make it to the swamp.
I used the rest of my energy to put a deflection spell around myself and the Wendigo, using the fog and the bleak and featureless landscape as my model. It wouldn’t fool the hound for long-for one thing, dogs rely on scent as much as they do sight, but it would make us hard to locate at first. I hoped it would work. If it didn’t, we were in trouble, since I’d now used up most of my power. I would have been a lot more confident if I could have somehow brought along the Remington 870.
Just as I finished, the hound materialized out of a patch of fog. It was close to two hundred pounds, looking like a cross between a mastiff and a wolf. Muscles rippled under a short coat of hair, and it bounded toward us, light on its feet. No clever dodging aside was going to work with this one. Its eyes glowed a deep phosphorescent green, and its muzzle was full of strong and sharp teeth, covered with foaming slobber.
If the Wendigo was correct, it was a creature created in part out of my own subconscious. Which didn’t say much for my imagination. It was a stock Hollywood monster, a stereotype. But that was just its physical appearance. It also projected an aura of inevitability-it was going to kill us all, rend us limb from limb, slashing muscle and crunching bone. When things created from the unconscious take on an independent existence, they’re always worse than your everyday monster.
Despite my attempt at masking, it instantly zeroed in on our location and swerved toward us, uttering a bay of triumph. The closer it got, the larger it looked, and there was nowhere to hide. It didn’t notice Lou, discreetly standing behind me, and just before it reached us, Lou bolted out from behind me and ran right under the beast’s muzzle. It snapped at him out of reflex, like a dog after a fly, but Lou knew what he was doing. He dodged just as the muzzle lowered, and the teeth snapped shut on empty air.
Lou squealed as if mortally hurt, and the thing couldn’t resist. Prey drive kicked in and it spun and went after Lou as if he were a wounded rabbit. Lou took off toward the swamp area, occasionally uttering that wounded cry. The hound was faster in a straight line than Lou was, especially a Lou with altered paws, but it couldn’t change direction like he could. Lou zigged and zagged, always just a little out of reach. At one point he stumbled and nearly went down, and my heart skipped a beat. But he was just playing the beast, making sure it wouldn’t abandon the chase, like a mother duck who pretends to have a crippled wing to draw a predator away from its brood.