Hunter's Trail

“Those are terrible bargest names,” I informed him. “Everybody knows that.”

A grin broke out on his face. “What, then?”

“Well, it should really be Hunter, but that’s a boy’s name, and I’d like to think she can escape the trappings of her upbringing.” I pursed my lips, watching the bargest lope after Max as he made joyous circles around the house. Where he was lively, excited, and rambunctious, she was more serious, grave. It was like all the natural liveliness of a big high-energy dog had been taken away from her through her training. What was left was restrained grace and dogged pursuit. Max was probably the fastest dog I’d ever seen, but the bargest looked like she could have run right over him whenever she felt like it. But she stayed glued to his heels instead.

“Shadow,” I said aloud.

When I turned to look at him, Jesse was watching me closely. “You’re not getting attached, are you?” he asked, not unkindly.

I shook my head. “I know she’ll have to be put down,” I told him quietly. “She’s too dangerous in the wrong hands.”

Jesse looked like he wanted to say something, but fell silent instead. After a moment, he said, “Shadow, huh? Well, I guess we have to call her something.”

I took a sip of my tea. “We should probably work on our plan for tonight.”

Jesse smiled. “Hang on, I gotta go get something.” He jumped up and left the room, and a second later I heard his footsteps on the staircase in the other room. Max and Shadow changed course to go investigate what he was doing, and I smiled as Shadow easily overtook Max, leaving him looking after her with a confused expression.

A few minutes later, Jesse and the canines came back down the stairs with a decoupage cardboard box, the kind my mother used to have for storing photos. “Take a look at this,” he said, climbing back onto the table and discarding the lid. “I think I might have some pictures of the spot Sharon Remus was talking about.” He began sifting through the photos.

“Why?” I asked. “Magical premonition?”

“That, or because my mom got a new camera a couple of years ago and I wanted to mess around with it.” After sorting through the box for a few minutes, he finally pulled a little wad of photos out of the box. “My mom is a chronic photo developer.” He leaned forward and began laying them out on the table in front of us. “Max is in most of these, but you can get a sense of the background.”

I leaned forward too, scanning the photos while he spoke. “See, this is the road that leads up to the Observatory—the tunnel’s right over there—and then just down the hill there’s this long clear path that goes to a circular picnic area,” Jesse said. He pointed to the relevant photo, which showed a seated Max panting happily in the middle of a clear-cut, sand-colored trail. The trail was like the landing on a staircase: on the left side, the hill rose steeply enough to create a natural wall, and the right side of the path, the hill dropped off completely. In the distance behind Max, the path seemed to dead-end at a big flat area with blurs scattered around. I squinted. Picnic tables.

“What’s behind the picnic area?” I asked. “Does the trail go off in another direction?”

“No, see, that’s why I think this is the spot,” Jesse said excitedly. “That picnic area is a big flat circle, and behind it there’s nothing—the ground drops off to form a cliff. There’s this short winding path that goes for a little ways below it, kind of like a narrow bridle path, but with rocks and brush everywhere. You’d basically have to be a mountain goat to navigate it in the dark.”

“Or a werewolf,” I concluded.

“Right. But it’s a fantastic overlook; you can see the whole city from there.” He raised his eyebrows significantly.

“So you think Remus will hide on the bridle path, for lack of a better term, waiting for someone to come see the pretty view, and then pick them off?” I said skeptically. “How can he be sure anyone will show?”

Jesse shrugged. “I’ve never been up there at night, but it makes sense. The Observatory’s right there. If the parking lot is full, people have to park all the way down the road, almost to the picnic area.” As he spoke he twisted around to the counter and pulled a pad of paper out of the stack of clutter. He grabbed a pencil too and began sketching as he spoke. “Even if he doesn’t stay in the picnic area, he could creep all the way to the road to attack people and drag them back down the bridle path, one at a time. Nobody would think to look there at nighttime, and if anyone chases him toward the picnic tables, he can disappear.”

He turned the paper toward me. It was a rough map of the area: a wide path in the foreground leading into a big circle, with the wiggly little bridle path on the other side. I studied it. “I don’t know anything about tactics,” I said slowly, touching the spot on Jesse’s map where the wide path met the road. “But he could hide here, if there are bushes or shadows that can hide him, and then he’s got a perfect trap. Some dumbass brings his girlfriend to the picnic area to see the romantic view, and then Remus attacks, trapping them in the picnic area.” I traced the hypothetical dumbass’s route on the paper while Jesse looked on, nodding approvingly.

“That’s how I see it too,” Jesse confirmed. “But we’ve got two advantages. One is the bargest, obviously. But the other advantage is that, from what I understand, there’s no reason for Henry to know anything about a null.”