Chương 21: Eight Paces

"That's the vineyard, over there," Nadia said, pointing at the patch of overgrown vegetation on the side of a hill. I tapped the reserve button on the bounty app before putting my phone away. The little spinning circle took its time, fighting the poor signal, then finally turned into a green confirmation. The claim was ours. If we completed it, one unregistered claim would remain.

We could see the sea behind a thin layer of pines and other trees, with patches of scattered sunlight reflected on its wind-blown surface here and there, where the clouds opened up. Old snow clung to the shaded side of the hill and filled the ditches in hard gray banks. The vineyard itself was a mess of dormant vines, bare branches and misshapen hedges that had gone wild enough to swallow most of the old trellises.

There was no road leading to the vineyard, not anymore, so we had to ditch the truck and continue on foot. I led the way, Nadia following while checking the satellite map. Her trained operative mask was back, all serious and business-like, head on a swivel even when she looked down at the screen. I cut my way through the dense vegetation with the machete. Nadia could make plants grow. Or she could kill them. But dead plants don't move out of the way, so cutting it was.

"Next time, we pick a monster that lives somewhere with a road," I complained.

"You saw the same map I did, yesterday when we decided to take this job, love," she replied curtly, tapping on the app using my phone.

"Now come on. We are close." I took the hint and remained concentrated, looking around in search of clues. I only saw rural decline where civilization had retreated away from these hills, leaving behind spaces that nature was slowly reclaiming—and changing. She, on the other hand, saw much more.

"That branch over there," she said.

"There's dried blood on the upper side, and those trellises are all cut up in a strange way." I followed the line she indicated. Several of the old wooden supports had been sheared through at different heights. The snow beneath them was stained where blood had dripped down and thawed into it, but there were no tracks approaching from either direction.

"There was a commotion here," Nadia continued.

"A vicious one, but no approach tracks." She hummed in thought for a moment, eyes narrowing cutely even though I did my best not to stare at her. I kept my eyes open and my time-stop ready in case it was needed in a pinch.

"I thought it was a ground stalker of some kind," she said in the end.

"But I don't think so anymore. This is probably a flying monster." I looked over the cut supports again. The marks were clean, long and almost level.

"And it didn't land to attack," I said.

"It cut whatever it was chasing while passing over it." Nadia glanced at me, then back at the damage.

"That would explain the spacing." Near the bottom of the next terrace, an old tractor sat crooked and rusted between two collapsed rows. An idea came to mind. It might have been a crazy idea, and I was ready for Nadia to laugh it off and tell me it was stupid, but instead she listened without interrupting as I explained it.

"If it needs to pass close and fast to cut," I finished, "then we don't have to overpower it." Her eyes moved from the tractor to the open sky, then across the vine rows between them.

"The tow cable," she said.

"So there's no risk you can't finish it off before your power runs out, and no risk it takes your head off as retribution."

"Yep. The tractor can be the anchor. I stop time when it's close enough, hook the other end onto it, and get out of the line before the world starts again."

"It could work," she said.

"With some adjustments." Her mouth curved upward.

"Not bad, my prince. Not bad." I left to fetch the cable while Nadia studied the vineyard. By the time I returned, she had identified her chosen location and cleared the snow from around the tractor's rear axle. We tied one end of the cable there, rather than trusting any of the rusted fittings, then tested it together. The tractor creaked but did not move. At the other end, she made me prepare a wide loop with the cable's locking hook.

I could slip it around a leg or the root of a wing and snap it shut without wasting half my standstill trying to tie a knot with numb fingers. And now came her part. Eyes and hands glowing violet, she stalked the land like a predator herself. She worked one patch at a time, getting into range of a few dormant plants and reshaping them with her ability. Snow slid from the sudden growth in soft collapses.

The new wood came out warped and ugly, dense in some places and full of gaps in others, but each patch narrowed an approach or made one escape look easier than the rest. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. By the last bout of accelerated growth, she was heaving for air.

"Make sure you are always ready with the cable," she warned.

"You never know if the monster decides to show itself ahead of schedule, and we don't want to be caught by surprise." I nodded, showing her the loop of cable in my hands.

"If it comes from the sea, it sees the bait between those two rows," Nadia said.

"The hedge makes the left approach too narrow, so it should come down from the right. You stay here, behind the wall. If it climbs away after the pass, let it go. Don't spend your ability activation to chase it."

"Ah, I think I see it now. You're not trying to trap it with the plants, are you?" I said slowly.

"You're trying to make it choose one predictable route, close to where I can get to it from an optimal angle. Or something like that." Her eyebrows rose. I pointed at the low gap past the bait.

"And if it takes that exit, it crosses the cable's reach before it can climb. Low enough that I can reach it."

"Look at you," she said, openly pleased.

"Learning." We put some meat on the ground, where it was easily visible and in range of the cable, then hid and waited. A blur appeared above the trees.

"There," I said. Nadia immediately raised the phone and snapped the required geotagged picture as the blur circled once and came down from the sky. Now that I knew where to look, I could make out the change as it built momentum. A silver-white sheath compressed around the leading edges of its wings, thin at first, then meaner and brighter as the creature accelerated into its dive. The name for this monster came to mind by itself: razorwing. Made sense. I was holding my breath. Nadia leaned forward.

"It's almost at..." Then she cursed. The razorwing cut through her most obvious wall of overgrown vegetation as if it were smoke. Branches burst apart, cut cleanly. The monster snapped up the meat too quickly and too far away for us to intervene, then banked hard around an old apple tree before climbing back toward the ridge. The silver glow vanished as soon as it lost speed. Nadia watched the shape of its retreat.

"So, when it's coming down, it doesn't really care about my traps," she said.

"But..." She made a gesture with her hands that resembled the way the razorwing had curved.

"It had to turn," I said.

"No silver when it's slow and climbing."

"And it banked into the wind before it gained height." She looked at me sharply.

"You noticed." She moved in a frenzy. Two more patches of vegetation changed under her power. Then she walked me through the new plan once. Eight quick paces from the wall to the corridor. Stay inside the cutting edge. Hook the near wing at its root. Cross behind the creature, never in front of it. Return on the tractor side of the cable so I would not be standing inside the line when it went taut.

"And if it does anything else?" I asked.

"We let it go and make another plan." Made sense, of course. We placed the last of the bait. Nadia took position with the phone. I held the prepared loop and waited behind the low wall. The razorwing returned and this time, it came exactly where Nadia said it would.

"Now," she called. I immediately activated my time-stop ability. I was on. The world held its breath. Nadia froze with the phone raised and her mouth still open, the words of her command silently stretch on forever. Snow hung in the air where the razorwing's passage had disturbed it. The monster itself was suspended low in the corridor we had created for it, one wing dipped into the turn, its silver-white cutting edge bright and perfectly still.

I walked quickly, mindful of the seconds, breathing the strange not-air of my ability that smelled and tasted like nothing. During the first bounty, I had wasted precious seconds staring at the boar and thinking about everything that could go wrong. I was not going to do that again. Eight paces. From up close, the razorwing was rather big, mean and misshapen, all heavy chest and hooked talons beneath wings too long for its body. The lowered wing passed just above my shoulder.

I stayed close to the body, away from the silver edge, threw the prepared loop over the wing root and pulled it snug. The locking hook clicked shut on the first try. The weight of the cable made my arms burn and drained the blood from my hands, but I did not fight it. I let the slack fall, stepped across behind the frozen tail and followed the route Nadia had made me repeat. Back on the tractor side of the line. Clear of the wing. Clear of the cable. The world awakened and drowned me in its smells and noises.

The razorwing finished its dive. For a fraction of a second nothing changed. Then the cable ripped across the snow and snapped taut. The creature jerked sideways with a shriek. Its own momentum folded the caught wing against its body and flung it into the low stone wall at the edge of the corridor. Stone cracked. The razorwing hit the frozen ground once, hard, and did not move again. Silence returned slowly, this time the ordinary kind, at least until Nadia reached me.

Her eyes moved over my face, my hands, the cable and the place where I stood safely outside its path.

"Clean," she said.

"No need to hose you down this time." I let out the breath I had been holding.

"You sound surprised."

"Impressed." Her mouth curled.

"It's very attractive when you follow instructions that well."

"Is it?"

"You know it is," she said with a grin.

"Out in the field, I call the shots." I chuckled.

"I say it's fair. I'm your little foot soldier prince." She smiled.

"Careful with that. I might start expecting competence from you." Nadia checked the razorwing from a safe distance before approaching it. The crash had killed it. She took the geotagged picture, and I applied the recovery marker before we freed the cable from the wing and left the body for collection. By then, the strain in my arms had settled into a deep ache.

"Hit me?" I asked. She grinned and touched me with one finger, eyes flashing violet. My body flushed with electric energy. The ache did not disappear, but the worst of the fatigue did, replaced by a warm, tingling alertness.

"Ah, that hits the spot," I said with a groan.

"Addicted," Nadia joked. Maybe I was. Not to the power, but to her, to her touch and the pleased little smile she made when she could take care of me. I loved it almost as much as I loved her. She submitted the evidence under my profile as we made the trek back to the truck.

"One left before I need to register," I said. The money would come later, as usual. But we checked, and it should be enough to cover the basic roof job with a little to spare. She handed me the phone, and I watched the last of her field tension leave with it. Her smile changed as she stepped closer.

"I have been a good girl, haven't I?" I matched her grin.

"You have."

"Then why doesn't my prince treat me to a nice dinner out tonight?"

"Sure," I said.

"Meat and caviar and fine wine," she said, before bursting into laughter.

"Your face! My Adrian, I would never, you know that. I am a simple woman to please. How about that pizza near the docks, the one that's so thin it almost feels like flatbread? You know, the one you hate?"

"Fine," I conceded grandly, as if it was a huge sacrifice I was making.

"Let's go eat thin pizza. But only because it's you."

"Yay!" she whooped.

"And you are dressing me up tonight. I want you to choose pretty clothes for me to wear, and then you'll stare at me and think about tearing them off when we get back home."