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to be almost as arduous as hauling the raft. Every step seemed to require hacking away some bush or sapling. And the knife was growing dull with use. Twice, sudden sheets of rain descended, pattering on the leaves and Ramon's shoulders, but the little squalls didn't last. When the storm did hit - if it hit - it promised to be rough. But perhaps the runoff would speed the river.

It was just before dark when they reached the water's edge. Ramon tried for a low whoop, but it came out sounding sarcastic. The man grinned wearily. They surveyed the damage their transit had caused. One of the floats had lost a few ties and needed rebinding. The structure of branches that made up the bulk of the raft had suffered, but not so badly that Ramon felt moved to repair it.

"Give me the knife," his twin said. "I'll strip a little bark, tie that cane back together. You get a little firewood, and we can launch this motherfucker again. Leave tonight, maybe outrun this weather."

"Good idea," Ramon said. "But you sure you don't want to get the firewood? It's easier than stripping bark."

"I don't want to take another fucking step," the man said. "You do it."

Ramon handed back the knife in answer. His twin smiled as if some tacit agreement had just been made with the weapon's return. Ramon pulled himself back into the trees to the sound of the other man scraping steel against the whetstone. It was a fast-growth forest here, soft wood that rose quickly and collapsed. No centuries-old copperwood here. Just black-barked idiotrail and the spiral-trunked godsarm oaks. It would be easy to find fallen branches and double handfuls of moss analogs to use for tinder. The question was how many trips back to the raft he wanted to make before they set out.

If it was raining upstream - and it was clearly raining upstream - the runoff could raise the level of the river anytime. It might already be running high. If they were lucky, the extra runoff might cut over some of the bends and give them a straighter path to the south.

Lost in his calculations, Ramon didn't realize what he was looking at until he felt the fear start his heart beating hard and fast. There, in the soft ground, were fresh prints as wide as his two hands together. A four-lobed paw with deep-dug claw marks. Chupacabra. Somewhere nearby was a fucking chupacabra!

He dropped the branches held in his arms, and turned to run back to the river, but he hadn't made it halfway before he skidded around a stand of close-knit godsarm oaks and found the beast itself, glaring at him with what seemed like equal parts hunger and hatred. The mouth hung open, the thick, split tongue lolling out of it. Its teeth were yellowed and sharp as daggers. Ramon froze, and the black, rage-filled eyes met his. He braced himself for death, but the thing didn't attack. Even then, knowing something was wrong, it took the space of five fast breaths together before he noticed the flattening in the animal's neck ruff, the fleshy, ropelike thing buried in the chupacabra's neck. A sahael.

He let his gaze move past the chupacabra to the form looming behind it. Beaten, battered, slashed across its chest and legs, Maneck still stood at its full, towering height. Its wounded eye had gone black and oozed a noxious ichor, but the uninjured one remained the hot orange Ramon remembered. The alien's arms waved for a moment, gently as kelp under the sea. When it spoke, its deep, half-sorrowful voice was perfectly familiar.

"You have done well," it said.

Chapter Twenty-Two

"What the fuck?" Ramon said through a tight throat. "You're dead!

You died!"

The alien shifted its head. The quills rose slightly and fell again. "What you say is aubre. I am not dead, as you can see," Maneck

said. "Your task was to engage in flow as the man would. You have done so in accordance with your tatecreude. My own function was compromised for a time, but has now returned to its proper channel."

"How did you find me?"

"The river flows south. You are constrained by the river," Maneck said. "This is a strange question."

"But we were traveling faster than you. We could have been on the other bank of the river. You couldn't know we'd be here."

"I could not reach you farther down the river than I could go. I could not reach you on the river's