I leaned back, testing the whip with my weight. The tree branch I had wrapped creaked ominously.
“Better try another one,” Temi said. “I’m heavier than you.”
As if it was so easy to unfasten a whip that was wound three times around a limb. We were standing at the end of the ledge, trying to find a way over to a tall straight pine tree that grew up higher than us. Its tip reached higher than the top of the cliff. Temi had volunteered the notion that it might be easier to climb up the branch-laden trunk than trying to scale the vertical rocks. I wasn’t that certain.
I shook my wrist, trying to work the whip loose. It took several tries before it unraveled, falling slack.
“Or we could try climbing down.” Temi pointed at the ridges in the vertical wall. “There might be enough handholds.”
“You’ve been hanging out with those elves too long. Besides I’d rather go up than down. Climbing up is easier, and I’m not sure there’s a way out of that canyon, regardless.” I tapped the GPS unit fastened to my vest. I had already checked for potential alternate routes, and at the least, we would have a long way to walk to get back to the others.
“There would be more cover down there if our attacker comes back. And there might be somewhere else where we can climb up.”
A couple of weeks ago, Temi would have gone along with what I suggested, since this was more my milieu than hers. It was hard to believe her training could have changed her that much in a week, but she was definitely thinking more of tactical issues now.
“There might be, there might not.” I cracked the whip again, aiming for a lower and thicker branch, one just above us. “Let’s see if we can get to the tree, and we can decide from there. I would like to take a peek up there to see if I could spot the thorn thrower. Not to mention whoever took our stuff. If the ropes were still up there, and had simply been wound up and put out of sight, I wanted to get them back too. We weren’t rich enough that I could afford to go shopping for climbing gear every week.
“All right.”
The whip had caught, and this time the branch remained strong and solid when I tugged against it. “You want to go first?” I asked. “Now that you’re all trained and fixed up?” I waved to her knee.
“I will if you want.”
I hadn’t expected her to volunteer, but she tucked her sword into the scabbard on her back and held out her hand. Shrugging, I dropped the whip handle into it.
She tested the anchor herself before creeping to the edge. “I’ve been told momentum is best in these situations,” she said, giving me a weird look.
“What kind of momentum?”
I thought she would sit on the edge and wiggle over, getting as close as possible before swinging toward the tree, but she surprised me by jumping off. She swung down and out, the whip pulling her toward the trunk. Pine needles swatted her, but she avoided the branches and landed with both feet on the tree, her knees bending to absorb the impact.
“Never mind,” I said. “I see.”
Temi climbed to the top, not gracefully exactly—I had been the more likely one to scramble around in trees and caves when we had been kids—but efficiently. It probably wouldn’t take much practice before she was making me look like a klutz out there. I wasn’t envious. Really.
When she reached the branch, she loosened the whip, rolled it up, and tossed it in my direction. I had visions of it hitting the ledge below me or getting caught on something, but she had an accurate throw. It almost landed in my hands.
As soon as she climbed up out of the way, I repeated the whip snap. This time it missed the branch, only knocking a few needles free. It took a couple more tries to hook my target again. I tested it and was tempted to act out my earlier notion of sitting on the ledge, sliding off, and letting gravity take me to the tree, but some bravado or unwillingness to be shown up gripped me. I jumped off the ledge as Temi had done, swinging toward the trunk.
Rock and clumps of green needles blurred past. A branch scraped through my hair, and I ducked. Thanks to the distraction, I wasn’t ready when the trunk came up. I got one foot on it, but the other missed, and I almost ended up straddling the thing. That would have hurt. As it was, taking the impact on one leg jarred me all the way up my spine to my teeth. I held back a groan, hoping Temi hadn’t seen the awkward landing from her perch. There were a few needle-filled branches between us.
“I’m going to wrap this whip around the neck of whoever took our ropes,” I growled, bringing the other foot to the trunk and shaking the jarred leg before starting up.
“What if it was Simon?”
“It wasn’t.” We had called up a couple of times, hoping for an answer, but only the wind whistling through the canyon had responded. “He’ll make fun of your climbing skills, but he wouldn’t mess with your head like this.”
“My skills?” The branches shivered, dropping needles as Temi climbed higher.
“Well, no, he would think your skills were lovely. But he’d mock mine.” I reached my whip, unfastened it, and looped it on my belt again.
The branches thinned as we climbed higher, and I started to second-guess my decision to go up. Wind batted at us, and the whole trunk swayed back and forth. The rock wall seemed farther away than it had from below too. We would have to creep out on one of those narrow branches to have a shot at jumping and reaching the top of the cliff.
“I’m going to try to get over,” Temi said. “I don’t see anything up here though.”
“No monster? No ropes?”
“Neither.”
“Damn. What kind of person steals another person’s climbing gear?”
It was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t expect an answer. But after a pause, Temi said, “An elf person, perhaps.”
“You know something I don’t?” I hadn’t seen any evidence that someone was following us, not since we left Prescott, but that didn’t mean much.
“On my last night of training, someone tried to kill me. Jakatra too. They sent animals after us, then started a forest fire.”
“Any idea why?”
Temi hesitated again before saying, “Humans aren’t welcome there.”
“You think this person—elf—is trying to finish what he started?”
“The impression I got from Jakatra… none of them was ever that straightforward with me, but he said to research the sword. That makes me think someone else might want it. Or want for me not to have it.”
“Ah.”
I prodded at a dry clump of sap on the side of the trunk, wondering why someone who had tried to kill her would simply be messing with us now. Why not shoot or do something more damaging? The elves had technology or magic that we didn’t have, so a human-slaying weapon shouldn’t be out of the picture. Maybe the jibtab had run the person off, and grabbing the ropes had been all he could manage. After all, the last monster hadn’t had any problem with attacking Jakatra and Eleriss. It seemed to want everybody dead equally.
“Here goes,” Temi said.
Before I could warn her to be careful, the trunk swayed violently. I had been holding it and a branch, and I gasped, turning that hold into a bear hug. My knees came around it too. Dry needles rained upon my shoulders, and a pinecone clunked me on the head.
“Thanks,” I muttered, before thinking to look for Temi.
Through the needles and branches, I glimpsed her back. She had made it and was crouching on the edge of the cliff, looking in all directions.
“Anything up there?” I called softly, needing a moment before I was ready to unwrap my limbs from their death grip on the tree.
“Nothing.”
I couldn’t tell if she was relieved or not. I was.
“It’s safe,” she added, looking down at me.
Meaning I was supposed to find a way to duplicate her feat of leaping prowess. Reminding myself that going up had been my idea, I started climbing again. I made the mistake of glancing down at one point, the hard, cactus-covered rocks and dirt nearly seventy feet below me, and I had to take a moment to catch my breath—and courage.
“Almost there,” I called, lest Temi think I was dawdling. A thin branch snapped as soon as I hung my weight on it. I caught myself on the trunk again, but decided to stop there. There was no way I would be able to jump off these branches if they were breaking under a portion of my weight. “Which branch did you crawl out on?”
“I didn’t. I went up a little higher than the cliff and jumped from the trunk.”
That sounded very logical… and very difficult to do. I grimaced but crawled higher, seeing few alternatives. At least the cliff was closer than the ledge had been. I wished I could use my whip for extra security, but I didn’t see any handy nodules sticking up out of the cliff, nor were there any trees or shrubs growing out of the rock.
“Okay, I’m coming.” Maybe if I said it, that would make it true. I took a moment to pat myself down and tuck in anything that might catch on a branch—having that whip be the instrument that sent me plummeting to my death would not be poetic at all.
Temi faced me, an arm extended, and gave me an encouraging nod. I cut a branch away so it wouldn’t impede me, then shifted my weight the best I could, trying to get both feet on the trunk. It reminded me of being on the side of the wall in a swimming pool and pushing off.
“As easy as a flip-turn,” I muttered. One, two… three.
I pushed off with my legs with all of my strength. My “wall” moved, knocked backward with my shove, and it threw off my jump. Terror filled me, as I realized I wasn’t going to get nearly the distance I had imagined. I flailed in the air, as if that could somehow propel me farther.
Something clasped my arm an instant before I landed, almost tumbling forward, thanks to my awkward momentum. Temi kept me upright, giving me a wry smile.
“You looked like you were trying to jump over a skyscraper.”
I glanced at the edge of the cliff, four or five feet away and felt sheepish. “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t close.”
“Understandable.”
After patting myself down and making sure I hadn’t lost anything—not that I would go back down to retrieve my tweezers or toothbrush if they turned up missing—I jogged over to the spot where we had originally descended. Unfortunately, the ropes weren’t twined up and hidden in a crevice anywhere. The anchors we had hammered into cracks remained, but that was it. There wasn’t enough dirt on the rock to hold footprints, if anyone had walked out there to start with. Maybe the jibtab had taken our ropes before it attacked. Scary to think of a monster with that kind of intelligence, but the last one hadn’t been stupid. It had been luck more than smarts that had allowed us to best it in the end.
“We should go.” The buzz hadn’t returned, but Temi’s eyes were skyward.
“Good idea.”
We jogged away from the canyon at a much faster pace than we had used that morning. I pulled out my phone to check the reception, though I would wait until we reached the trees to call Simon.
Temi pointed in that direction. Leaves moved, and my breath caught. Had we been right before? Was the creature lying in wait for us?
But the figure that burst out of the trees was running, not flying. Simon waved, his phone in his hand. I threw a thankful look heavenward. He wasn’t wearing the look of utter terror of a man who had just been shot at by deadly thorns.
A moment later, Alek jogged out of the trees farther down. We had found jeans, a couple of T-shirts, and a sweater for him, the jeans on the tight side—something Simon had pointed out while rolling his eyes—but it was hard to be picky when one had a twenty-dollar clothing budget. Simon had magnanimously paid for a package of underwear. Alek had tied his hair back, and he might have passed for a normal twenty-first century human, but he did still have his sword scabbard, complete with sword. I guess I couldn’t find that all that odd when I was running around with a whip.
“Where have you been?” Simon asked.
“Let’s get into the trees.” Temi pointed toward the forest and glanced toward the sky behind us. “Just in case.”
Alek gave her a sharp look. Had they encountered the creature too?
“We climbed down and found some stuff,” I said as we ran for the cover of the forest, my pot-filled pack clanking with each step. “But someone or something took our ropes while we were down in a cave.”
“Took or cut?” Simon asked.
“Took. There was some buzzing creature that attacked us too. Did you hear or see it? We didn’t get a look at it.”
“I didn’t,” Simon said. “But I was in the van working. Mr. Sexypants heard something though. He was the one agitating that we go look for you, and since you weren’t answering your phone…” He glowered at me.
“We didn’t have any reception in the cave. And I assume you’re referring to the hot underwear you picked out for him and not anything else.” Was he really feeling jealous of Alek right now? What, was he afraid he had competition for the woman he’d never had a chance with anyway? I hadn’t caught Temi ogling Alek, but I hadn’t been watching, either. The last I had seen, she had been giving her dreamy looks to Jakatra, though that had been before his hat had come off and the ears had come out. Not that any of this mattered now…
Alek touched his ear, pointed to the sky, and did a fair impression of the buzzing sound.
“You heard it,” I said.
He nodded.
“Did you see it?” I switched to Greek; Simon hadn’t brought his pack, so he probably didn’t have the tablet, though he was carrying something that looked suspiciously like a homemade grenade. Well, I had been wondering how we could strike at something in the air. When Alek didn’t answer, I touched my eye and pointed to the sky. So fun to be reduced to Charades to communicate.
Alek hesitated, then shook his head. Maybe he, like us, had seen the shadow but hadn’t glimpsed the rest of it. He held up a hand, something squeezed between his fingers. One of the thorns.
“Oh, you shouldn’t be touching it.” I grimaced. Whatever poison was on the tips, it was slow-acting. According to the news report, nobody knew exactly when the kid had received his puncture wound and how long he had been lying out there unconscious before being found, but it had taken another twelve hours for him to die after he had been delivered to the hospital. “One didn’t hit you, did it?” I looked into his eyes, willing him to understand me, and feeling more concern than I would have expected over the question. For him to have survived so much and to have been frozen for two thousand odd years only to die within his first couple of weeks in this new world… That was even less poetic than the idea of my whip getting me killed.
Alek shook his head. I fished the baggie containing the other thorn from my pack, then withdrew my tweezers and approached him.
He pointed at the tip and said, “Careful,” in English.
I dropped my tweezers and gawked at him.
Frowning, Alek looked at Simon.
“Nah, you got it right,” Simon told him. “She’s just a klutz.”
“Don’t tell him things like that.” I scowled, realizing Alek and Simon must have already had a discussion about the thorn, with the word careful coming up a number of times.
“He’s observant; he would have figured it out.”
“Ha ha.” I retrieved the tweezers, plucked the thorn from his grip, and deposited it into the baggie with the first one. “Looks like we’re going to need the use of Autumn’s lab, after all.”
“I already texted her about it.” Simon waved his phone.
“I didn’t know you had her number.”
“Funny, she said the same thing.” He held the phone up so I could read the display.
Can we use ur lab tonight? Got pokey thing with mystery poison on it.
Who the hell is this?
Simon. We had moment together in Preskitt. Smooches.
Did Delia give you my number? Tell her she’s so dead.
Is that a yes?
Where are you? I don’t want your scruffy fingers on my eq. I’ll come there.
Manziti Campground. Sedona.
Be there after work.
“Manziti?” How was that even close to Manzanita? Now Autumn would be driving around Sedona, looking for campgrounds that didn’t exist. “Do me a favor, Simon, and don’t teach Alek how to write.”
“Actually that was what the voice recognition came up with. We were already scrambling up mountainsides when I texted her.”
“Don’t teach him how to speak then, either.”
“Sorry, bro,” Simon told Alek, “careful is all you’re getting.”
I rubbed my face. “Let’s get back to the van, all right? I think we’re going to have to come up with a strategy to fight this thing before we actually face it. So long as it obliges and doesn’t jump us on the way back.”
Alek set the pace at a jog and nobody objected. We hadn’t gone shoe shopping for him yet, so he still had his Spartan sandals. They didn’t slow him down at all. With Simon running after him, his own dirty white socks and faux Birkenstocks throwing up dust as he ran, they made unlikely line leaders.
Someone’s phone bleeped. I checked mine, and I had a text on there, though it was from an hour ago, Autumn’s promise of, You’re so dead.
Simon slowed down, staring down at his own phone. “My laptop sent me a message. Activity on the police scanner I left set up.”
“Nothing to do with miscreants in the Manzanita Campground, I hope,” I said, emphasizing the word in case he ever needed to spell it, or pronounce it, again.
“No… They found two more people, a couple of guys who rented an ATV. Unconscious on the Munds Wagon Trail.”
“Oh.” My humor evaporated.
“One had a knife out, looked like he’d been in a fight. Some bruises. Nothing to explain why they’re unconscious though. They’ve been taken to the hospital.”
“How much you want to bet they find some puncture wounds on them later?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t take that bet,” Temi murmured.
“Should we go out there?” Simon asked.
He, Temi, and Alek looked at me. Oh, was I in charge again? Wonderful. “I don’t think we can help anyone at this point by going out there. Unless we cut up Temi’s sword into arrows, I don’t see how we can fight something that can fly circles around us. And I lost my bow in that cave-in anyway.”
“I have a prototype weapon that can be thrown.” Simon smiled.
“Which may or may not do anything to harm the jibtab.” Temi also sounded more in favor of coming up with a solid plan before going out and looking for trouble again. We should get Autumn’s analysis of the thorns first too. If some poison coated the tip, there might be an antidote.
“The only question is whether there might be more clues there that we’d miss out on if we don’t go,” I said.
“We would probably get more clues from the bodies,” Simon said, “assuming these guys don’t make it, either. I’ll try to get the hospital report later.”
“Munds Wagon Trail. Let’s see how long that one is and if it’s on the way back.” I pulled up the web browser on my phone, hoping there would be enough reception for it. We were a ways out of town and not on top of that cliff anymore.
Alek’s head jerked up, and he peered into the woods. Uh oh. Now what? I didn’t hear any buzzing, but we never had figured out who was responsible for the missing ropes. The jibtab or some green-eyed elf who wished us ill? He held up a hand, then walked into the trees.
“Again?” Simon asked, then told Temi and me, “He does this a lot. Next time I go hiking with him, I’m going to bring the cooler.”
“Huh,” I voiced, musing over the web search.
“Huh, you found something interesting about that trail or huh, you found a good restaurant for us to visit for lunch?” Simon patted his stomach.
“Only you could read a police report about dead people, then ask about lunch,” I muttered.
“They’re not dead yet. They might survive. Either way, we have to eat.”
“The Cow Pies?” Temi asked, reading over my shoulder.
“That’s what caught my eye too.”
“Because of the silly name?” Simon asked.
“No, because they’re supposed to be a vortex spot,” I said.
Simon snorted. “You’re not hoping Naomi’s grammy is out on the trail and gets pronged, too, are you?”
“No. I’m just wondering if there’s a connection. That first guy was found over by Cathedral Rock, isn’t that what your newspaper article said, Simon?”
“Yup.”
“That’s a vortex spot too.”
“A supposed vortex spot, right?” Simon asked. “We’re not believing in the new age nonsense now, are we?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly, thinking of the circle in the cave painting, the one my mind wanted to label as a portal. “We’re believing in magical swords and interdimensional travel.”
Simon raised a finger. “Technically we haven’t established what kind of portal Temi went through. It could simply be a wormhole to another planet in our galaxy. In our dimension.”
“Simply, as if that wouldn’t be kind of a special thing.”
Temi wore a bemused expression as we discussed this back and forth. Yeah, it was a weird conversation. What would Alek make of us when he learned to understand our words? Speaking of Alek, where had he gone?
“You said Alek ran off to look in the woods a couple of times on your way to find us?” I asked.
“Yeah, sometimes he was hunting for tracks, since you two neglected to take an established trail.”
As if established trails were where the archeological goodies waited.
“But a couple of times…” Simon shrugged. “He seemed agitated. Like last night in camp.”
“Looks like you might be right,” I told Temi. “An unfriendly elf might be keeping an eye on us.”
“And stealing our ropes?”
“Maybe so.”
Alek returned, looking like he wanted to say something, but he grunted in irritation and simply pointed back toward the main trail and the parking lot. Not being able to communicate had to be getting old. I would work more with him tonight while Simon was building his weapons.
By the time we returned to the parking lot, I had refined my thought of language tutoring, wondering if I could find some app to download that would further help him. I was sure there wasn’t an Ancient Greek to English program out there, but maybe something with pictures that was designed to teach children who had no base from which to translate could work.
Simon groaned. “What happened to Zelda’s tire?”
The van was slumped to one side, the front driver-side tire blown. Or punctured? I couldn’t tell from here, but imagined it riddled with thorns. The van didn’t appear otherwise damaged though—no broken windows or gouged paint, at least not more gouged than usual. Simon jogged ahead to take a look.
“Zelda?” Alek asked.
“Van,” I said, not knowing how to explain that Simon had named his vehicle after a video game character and that this was an odd thing, or at least not a common thing.
“Zelda Van?”
“Close enough.” I trotted up to join Simon. “Thorns?”
In the summer, this parking lot would be packed, but ours was the only vehicle left in it this afternoon, so there were no witnesses who might have seen something.
“No.” Simon pointed to a big gash. “A knife or sword or something else with a blade.”
Alek nodded, as if he knew exactly what had happened. Or as if he had expected more trouble, anyway.
“It’s just one tire, right?” I asked. “We have a spare.”
“Yeah, but it’ll take a while to change, and then we’ll have to buy a regular-sized tire.”
He sighed, probably thinking of the cost. Monster hunting wasn’t turning out to be a profitable occupation. “Guess we’re not meant to explore the Cow Pies today.”