CHAPTER 161

"Emery. We need you." Mike let Dana help him up. The pure agony in his knee had faded to tolerable levels, allowing him to put a bit of weight on it. "With Abella gone, you're our eyes in the sky. We need to find Yuki, Quetzalli and the owl." He looked over his shoulder at the forest, then pointed. "Last I saw the owl, she was headed that way."

Emery nodded, then shot into the air.

"Then we shall head that way as well." Bigfoot moved ahead of him. "I will ask the trees if they've seen them."

"Good thing the others are memorable," Mike muttered with a wince. He wasn't entirely certain how a tree's memories worked, but imagined the magical trio would be fairly distinct. He took a step that became a hop. "Do we have anything I can use as a crutch?"

Bigfoot looked over his shoulder. "We've never had a shortage of legs around here, but I'll see if I can find you something." He disappeared into the trees, leaving Mike with Dana.

"Glad to see he still has a sense of humor," Mike said.

"It's either that or scream." Dana helped him walk toward the trees where Bigfoot disappeared. Once they were there, Bigfoot appeared with a large branch with a scoop that would fit beneath Mike's armpit. Dana used her sword to cut it to the right size.

His knee was already feeling better, but the crutch helped immensely. Bigfoot moved ahead of them and would come back every few minutes to check in. Emery would dive down to hear the report, then take to the sky once more.

Moving through the dense woods, Mike felt the familiar humming return. If he tried to focus on it, he could hear individual whispers in a language he couldn't quite grasp. Every now and then, he would get the impression that someone had passed by recently, or hear two trees speaking with one another. If he closed his eyes, he could almost see the words translated to images in his head, like a waking dream.

It was nearly an hour later when Emery dropped down and flitted about like a hummingbird. At the same time, Mike detected a dead spot in the ramblings of the woods, as though a part of it had gone silent.

"There's something over there!" Emery pointed off to the left. "There was a fight!"

Mike limped ahead as fast as he could but was grabbed from behind by Bigfoot, who pulled him through a portal with Dana. For just a moment, he could hear the forest as it shouted in his ears, and then it went quiet when they came out of the portal and into a small clearing. At its center was a spiked dome made of ice, the ugly lovechild of an igloo and a morningstar. All around the dome, dead Nirumbi with bloody handprints on their foreheads lay on the ground. A small group of Nirumbi who were attacking the dome froze when they saw Dana.

Dana let out a shriek before diving into their ranks, causing panic among the Nirumbi. The sword whipped through the air, removing limbs as the zombie carved up the remaining attackers.

"What the hell?" Mike knelt down to check one of the dead Nirumbi. The handprint was distorted, a definitive match for Leeds' claws. The body was riddled with bloody wounds, some still packed with shards of ice.

"Quetzalli?" Dana moved up to the dome and knocked on it with the butt of her sword. "You in there?"

"We're all in here!" The muffled voice that answered was Yuki's. The ice crumbled and turned to slush, revealing the kitsune standing over Quetzalli. The dragon was kneeling over a bloody figure on the ground.

It was the owl. Her body was broken, and her wide eyes darted back and forth from Mike to Bigfoot as they came near.

"It was an ambush," she whispered, her cracked beak clacking. "These Nirumbi were loyal to Leeds, please do not punish..."

"Easy." Mike knelt by her side and tried to maintain a neutral expression when he realized that there was no way she was going to survive her injuries. He was fairly certain there were bones protruding beneath her thick feathers and wasn't about to ask. "We won't punish the others for the crimes of the few."

The owl relaxed, letting out a sigh mixed with a gurgle.

"I don't understand." Bigfoot knelt down by the owl. "Leeds shouldn't have been back until nightfall at the earliest."

The owl coughed, then tilted her head toward Mike.

"I underestimated him," she said. "These Nirumbi weren't just looking for...a leader, they... wanted a god. We stumbled on...shrine..."

"Shhh." Yuki knelt and put her hand on the owl's forehead, then looked at Mike. "The Nirumbi built an altar in the woods. When we found it, they ambushed us. They were using ritual sacrifices to summon him."

"How does that even work?" Mike asked.

"A life for a life. They were able to shorten his revival at the cost of many of their own. He is technically a demon, and they can be summoned for a price." She looked sadly at the owl. "We thought we had him. The Nirumbi were only armed with spears, but then Leeds summoned this giant floating head from deep in the woods. It bit down on her and then spit her out when Quetzalli zapped it. That's when I summoned my barrier, but we thought it was still out here waiting."

"I killed the head," Dana added. "It's just Leeds now."

"Don't...assume..." The owl looked at Mike. "Caretaker. I am unable to hold up my end of the bargain."

Mike gritted his teeth. He couldn't exactly hold it against her. The plan had been to lure Leeds into a set of runes powered by the owl's magic. The runes had been carved into a large log that could be carried as a mobile prison. Bigfoot was going to carry it out of the woods, thereby breaking Leeds' barrier.

"We'll figure something ou—holy shit, no, stop!"