Gremlin Night Dale Smith (comprehension books txt) 📖

I looked back at the fox. A fox, here in the industrial district? I suppose it was possible, the West Hills were nearby. But even so, a coyote was more likely.

“What are you up to?” I asked the fox. I spied a faint purple glimmering around it. “Did you conjure the gremlins?” I put my hands on my hips for emphasis.

“That would be telling,” the little voice whispered, again from behind me.

I slapped my thigh. “Come on! Why can’t you just cut to the chase and tell me what you are up to?” This was why I hated tricksters. They never just cut to the chase.

“Perhaps you should ask yourself why I cannot tell you. That would be the better question.” The little voice pointed out, still behind me. Its tone was grave.

“Stop throwing your voice,” I told the fox.

It licked a paw, then looked at me sideways. Very funny.

“What do you know about the gremlin outbreaks?” I demanded, hands still on my hips.

The little voice murmured in my ear. “You’re a sorcerer agent. Gremlins are loose in this fair city on the longest night of the year. Chaos is afoot. Someone is responsible. Shouldn’t you be finding them?”

“Listen, buster, whoever you are, that’s what I’m doing.”

Soft laughter that was far more mocking than Mister Trickster’s mad chortling had been. “Not from where I sit.”

The fox chased its tail, then saw me looking at it, and trotted off.

“Not so fast,” I muttered. I jogged after it.

Spell, I needed a spell, but I used up all the ones I had on hand. Even switching languages wouldn’t let me cast a spell I’d already used, not without taking the time for a refocusing ritual.

Taking the time, that was a laugh. That had been in short supply. If Tully were here with me—I cut off the thought. Pointless.

Maybe I could catch the fox. It ran ahead, an easy lope, but somehow it kept well ahead of me. I ran faster, my breath ragged. The little devil just trotted ahead of me, not breaking a sweat.

We passed the Ducati.

I smiled. That would even the odds.

12

I jumped on the Ducati, turned the ignition. The engine rumbled. I leaned to the right and kicked the stand up. The fox was probably around the corner by now.

I looked up. It waited for me twenty feet away.

“Oh, you think?” I muttered.

I turned the throttle, hit the shifter pedal with my left foot. The Ducati roared toward the fox. The creature turned and trotted away.

Now I had it.

The distance closed, but then, when I thought I’d be able to reach down and tap it with Tully’s wand, the fox trotted faster. It moved at what still seemed like an easy lope, but still just out of tapping distance. I accelerated faster. The Ducati’s speedometer passed thirty, forty, fifty, and yet the fox kept ahead of me. We turned onto Highway Thirty, heading toward the Fremont bridge, rising up ahead.

Sixty miles an hour and the fox still ran ahead of me. Even for a manifestation in the form of a fox, that seemed impossible. We rounded the corner. The next intersection’s light was red. A line of cars slowly drove from Twenty Fifth street onto the highway, so I couldn’t just run the red. I braked, and lost sight of the fox in the cross-traffic. Had it been struck by a car? I sat at the light, fuming.

A light drizzle began falling.

The light finally went green. A gold-red form appeared twenty feet ahead of me and began running off at an easy lope. The fox. I accelerated until the Ducati was doing sixty again, but the fox was still just out of reach. We drove over the bridge, the fox in one of the northbound lanes, heading toward Interstate 5. A semi coming up from the 405 signaled, pushing its way in front of me.

The fox disappeared beneath the wheels. I slowed down. The semi continued to signal, and went to the far right, onto the ramp for I-84.

The fox appeared again, still trotting ahead.

I gunned it, getting the Ducati up over seventy, far over the speed limit. But the fox remained just ahead. I slowed down. Just my luck Oregon’s finest would have a speed trap set up ahead. The last thing I needed was to be stopped.

We reached I-5. The fox took the first exit immediately after we crossed the Fremont, running up the exit ramp. I followed. The fox turned and ran west on Alberta, on the overpass over I-5. Leading me on a merry goose chase if there ever was one.

I was tired and hungry, but I wasn’t letting the trickster get away. A true trickster, a resident manifestation. Possibly even one of the old ones.

The fox led me down the hill to Swan Island and the sea of cranes and trains, next to the big storage tanks. I’d just traveled in a big U, from the industrial district on the west side of the river to loading terminals on the east, north of downtown Portland.

The fox turned into a terminal lot. Ahead of it a gate closed off the road. It could easily run under the gate, but I’d be out of luck.

The gate opened, giving the fox and me plenty of room to enter. It wanted me to follow. But why?

What was here? Storage tanks, cranes, freight cars, lots of stacked cargo boxes, trailers minus the trucks. The place looked deserted. Why come here?

Maybe it wanted to get me into a more isolated area? But that didn’t make sense. Things hadn’t exactly been bustling in the industrial district.

There was nothing here. No people, other than maybe a few security guards yet to be encountered. Why had the fox bothered to come here? There was a reason why few manifestations roamed the desert or any other trackless waste. No people meant nothing to pull from, to live from. Only the most ancient resident manifestations could survive in a wilderness. The fox clearly had