Key Of Valor - Key Trilogy 3 Part 38

Annoyed with herself, she stuffed her hands in her pockets and started back. The air had chilled while she walked, and the scent it carried was more of snow than rain. She walked quickly, in a hurry to be on her way as much as to keep warm.

The trees looked bigger, closer together than they should have, and the shadows much too long for so early in the day. There was no tapping woodp.e.c.k.e.r now, no rustling from squirrels running about their business. The woods had gone quiet as a tomb.

She stopped again, baffled that she should be so disoriented in a place where she'd run tame as a child. Things changed, of course, everything changed. But hadn't it struck her when she'd come into it how little this place had changed?

Her stomach dropped as she stared down at the long, deep shadows crossing her path.

How could there be shadows when there was no sun to cast them?

As the first flakes of snow fell, she heard the low, throaty growl from deeper in the trees.

Her first thought was bear. There were still bear in these hills. As a child she remembered seeing their tracks and their droppings. Once in a while they would wander into the court at night and bang around in the garbage if it hadn't been stored properly.

Even as her heart fluttered at the base of her throat, she ordered herself to be calm. A bear wasn't interested in her. She had no food, she posed no threat.

She simply had to get back to the court, or out to the field and her car.

She walked backward for a time, scanning the trees in the direction of the growl. And began to wade through a creeping fog that was edged with blue.

Turning on her heel, she walked quickly now through the thickly falling snow, and dug in her back pocket for her penknife.

As weapons went, it was pitiful, but she felt better with it in her hand.

She heard the growl again, closer, and on the other side. She quickened her pace to a jog and gripped her shoulder bag with her free hand. It had weight and a long strap. It could suit up as another weapon if necessary.

She set her teeth to keep them from chattering. Around her the snow fell so fast and hard, it filled in her footprints almost as soon as they formed.

Whatever stalked her matched her pace, turned as she turned. It had her scent, she knew. Just as she had its- strong and wild.

Briars seemed to spring up, straight out of the ground fog to block her path, with stems thick as her wrist, with thorns that glinted like razors.

"It isn't real. It's not real," she chanted, but those thorns tore at clothes and flesh as she fought through them.

And now she smelled her own fear, and her own blood.

A vine whipped up like a snake to wrap around her ankle and send her face-first onto the ground.

Panting, she rolled onto her back. And saw it.

Perhaps it was a bear, but not one that had ever wandered these woods or foraged for food in the garbage.

It was black as the mouth of h.e.l.l, with eyes of poisonous red. When it snarled, she saw teeth long and sharp as sabers. As she hacked desperately at the vine with her pocketknife, it rose on its hind legs and blocked out the world.

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h. You son of a b.i.t.c.h." Tearing free of the vine, she sprang to her feet and began to run.

It would kill her. Tear her to pieces.

She sucked in the breath to scream as she darted left, and let one rip. She heard its answering call behind her, and it sounded like laughter.

Not real, not true, she thought frantically, but deadly all the same. It toyed with her, wanting her fear first, and then...

She was not going to die here. Not this way, not on the run. She was not going to leave her child without a mother to satisfy and amuse some h.e.l.l-bent G.o.d.

She bent down, scooped up a fallen branch on the fly, then spinning around, she held the branch like a club and bared her own teeth.

"Come on, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Come on, then."

She held her breath and reared back as it lunged.

The buck came out of nowhere, one high leap out of the air. The rack speared into the bear's side, gored it. The sound of rending flesh and the furious howl was horrible. Blood gushed, splattering red over white as it turned to swipe the buck with those vicious claws.

The buck made a sound that was almost human as his white flank bloomed with blood, but he charged again, rack to claw, pivoting to range his body in front of Zoe's like a s.h.i.+eld.

Run! She heard the command explode in her head, jerking her out of the shock of watching the battle. She s.h.i.+fted her grip on the branch and, using all her strength, swung hard.

She aimed for the face, and aimed true. The force of the contact had her arms vibrating, but she swung again.

"See how you like it," she muttered mindlessly under her breath. "See how you like it." And slammed wood against flesh and bone.

The bear screamed, stumbled back. As the wounded buck bunched, dipped its head for a killing charge, the bear vanished in a swirl of filthy mist.

Gasping, Zoe went down on her knees in the b.l.o.o.d.y snow. Her stomach clutched, had her retching uselessly. When the nausea and the wracking shudders eased, she lifted her head.

The white buck stood, knee-deep in the snow. The gouges on his side glistened with blood, but his eyes were steady and unblinking on hers.

"We've got to get out of here. It might come back." She pushed to her feet and, swaying, dug into her shoulder bag. She came up with a pack of tissues. "You're hurt, you're bleeding. Let me help you."

But he stepped back as she approached. Then he bent his forelegs, lowered his great head in what was unmistakably a bow.

And vanished, in a s.h.i.+mmer of light.

The snow was gone, and the path to the field was clear once again. She looked down where the blood had stained the ground, and saw a single yellow rose.

She bent to retrieve it, and let herself weep a little as she limped out of the trees.

They're just scratches, but some of them are nasty." Malory pressed her lips together hard as she swabbed the cuts on Zoe's flesh. "I'm glad you came straight here."

"I thought... No, I didn't think." She was feeling a little drunk, Zoe realized, a little light-headed and punchy now that she was back. "I just drove here, didn't even consider going home first. Jesus, I hardly know how I got here. It's all one big blur. I needed to see you and Dana, tell you about it, make sure you were both all right."

"We weren't the ones off in the woods alone, fighting monsters."

"Hmm." Zoe tried to ignore the sting of antiseptic.

She'd driven back to the Valley in a fog that had kept her numb. She hadn't started to shake until she'd walked through the doors of Indulgence.

She'd had to shower. She'd needed hot water, soap. Clean. The need for it had been so urgent that she'd asked her friends to come up to the bathroom with her so she could explain while she washed.

Now, wearing only her underwear, perched on a stool in the bathroom with Malory tending her hurts and Dana off to get her some clean clothes from home, it all felt like a dream.