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The bird turned left and let out a single loud quack.
"What is it? Did Timmy fall down a well?"
"Quack!" I took a few steps forward and saw a narrow gap in the wall of green. A path, ping deep into the park. I peered at the forest. It didn't give off an "I'll kill you with my trees" vibe the way Sibley did, but it didn't look welcoming either.
The underbrush was too dense for a duck flight. Hard terrain to cross on foot, especially if you have to waddle.
"How am I supposed to follow you in there, you demented bird? You can't fly through that wood. Unless you're planning on dropping ten pounds ..."
The duck shivered. Feathers crawled, sinking back into flesh, folding on themselves. My stomach lurched. Dense fuzz sprouted as the duck's body flowed, reshaping itself. The blob that used to be duck stretched one last time and snapped into a small brown bunny.
I closed my mouth with a click.
The bunny swiped some nonexistent dust from his nose with both paws and hopped down the path.
I went back to the Jeep, shut off the engine, and chased the duck-rabbit down the path into the dense thicket of the John White woods.
THE FOREST TEEMED WITH LIFE. TINY SQUIRRELS dashed up and down the trees. A ruffed grouse shot from the forest floor. Somewhere to the left a feral pig grunted. Three deer watched me pick my way down the path from a safe distance. I sank into the quiet measured gait I used when walking through the woods: quiet and deceptively unhurried. The little rabbit fell in step and scampered down by my side.
A bowstring snapped. I jerked to the side and jumped behind an oak. The rabbit crouched by my feet, shivering.
I leaned out just enough to see. An arrow sprouted from the ground where my foot had been a second ago. The angle was high. I looked up. Across the path, a man crouched in an old tree, poised in a spot where the trunk split into two massive branches. Young, mid- to late twenties. Tattered jeans stained with brown and green, plain brown T-shirt. Looked like Army issue. Hair cut short. The branches obscured his face and most of his chest. No place to sink a throwing knife.
When unsure of the stranger's intentions, the best policy is to open a meaningful dialogue. "Hey, dickhead! Who taught you to shoot, Louis Braille? That arrow missed me by a mile."
"I was aiming at the rabbit, you stupid bitch."
"You missed." If I pissed him off enough, he might move to get a better shot at me. My throwing knives couldn't wait to say hello.
"I see that."
"I figured I'd let you know, since you must be blind. Maybe you could practice by aiming at a barn." A bowstring twanged. I ducked back behind the tree. An arrow sliced the leaves a hair left of the oak. He was good, but not great. Andrea would've nailed me by now.
"You alive?" he called out.
"Yep. Still breathing. You missed again, hotshot."
"Look, I have no problem with you. Give me the damn rabbit and I'll let you go."
Fat chance. "This is my rabbit. Get your own."
"It's not your rabbit. It's the witch's rabbit."
Figured. "You got a problem with the witch?"
"Yeah, I got a problem."
If Evdokia wanted him dead, he would be dead by now. This was her forest. She hadn't killed him, which meant she was amused by his antics, or worse, he was a relative or a son of a friend. Injuring him was out of the question, or I could kiss good-bye any chance of cooperation from Evdokia.
"Last chance to give me the rabbit and walk away from this."
"No."
"Suit yourself."
A shrill whistle burst through the woods, lancing my eardrums. It drowned all sound and shot up, higher and higher, to an impossible intensity. I clamped my hands over my ears.
The whistle built on itself, slicing the petals off wildflowers to the left and right of the oak, stabbing through my hands into my brain. The world faded. I tasted blood in my mouth.
The whistle stopped.
The sudden quiet was deafening.
Russian fairy tales talked of a Nightingale Bandit, able to bend trees with his whistling. I seemed to have run into the real-life version.
"You alive?" he called out.
Barely. "Yep." I dug in my brain, trying to recall the old Russian folk tales. Did he have any weakness ... if he had, I couldn't remember any. "You whistle so prettily. Do you do weddings?"
"In five seconds I'm going to split that tree down the middle and you with it. Hard to make jokes with your lungs full of blood." I slid a throwing knife from the sheath on my belt and sneaked a glance. He sat in a tree, one leg under him, the other dangling down. Relaxed and easy.
"Fine, you got me. I'm coming out."
"With the rabbit?"
"With the rabbit." I slipped a throwing knife in my hand, flipped it, and rustled the weeds to my left with my foot. The Nightingale leaned to the side, trying to get a better look. I lunged right and threw the knife. The blade sliced through the air. The wooden handle smashed into his throat. The Nightingale made a small gurgling sound. I sprinted to the tree, grabbed his ankle, and jerked him down. He crashed to the ground like a log. I hit him in the throat a couple of times to make sure he stayed quiet, flipped him on his stomach, yanked a plastic tie from my pocket, and tied his hands together.
"Don't go anywhere."
He gurgled something.
I circled the tree and ran into a horse tied to the branch, its head swaddled in some sort of canvas. A coil of rope waited on the saddle. Wasn't that nice.
I snagged the rope and hauled the Nightingale upright against the tree, facing the bark. He was short but well-muscled, his dark hair cut down to a mere fuzz on his head.
A hoarse gasp issued from his mouth. "Bloody bitch."
"That's nice." I finished tying him to the trunk. He couldn't even turn his head. "Just remember, it could've been the other end of the knife."
I stepped back. He looked secure enough. I sliced the tie off and dangled it by the bark so he could see it. "I'm going to go see the witch now. In your place, I'd try to get free. I might be in a bad mood on my way back. Come on, bunny."
The rabbit hopped down the path and I followed it, listening to the sweet serenade of curses.
THE STICK WAS SIX FEET TALL AND TOPPED WITH A grimy human skull, decorated by a half-melted candle. It jutted on the side of the road, like some grisly path marker. A few feet past it another yellowed skull offered a second candle. Some people used tiki torches. Some people used human skulls . ..
I looked at the duck-bunny. "What have you gotten me into?"
The duck-bunny rubbed his nose.
