Fireshaper's Doom by Tom Deitz

Sidhe.
    David felt behind him, began to inch his way back up the hood, slipping up the windshield to sit on the roof.
    The elk pawed at the pavement, lowered its head farther, antlers pointed straight for the front of the car.
    And began to run.
    There was a rumble behind them, suddenly loud—a squeal of brakes, a blast of horn.
    David’s gaze darted to the left, just in time to see a dark green Jeep Cherokee swish by. Yellow markings were emblazoned on its side: FOREST SERVICE. It swung wide to miss the crippled Mustang and headed straight for the charging elk.
    The beasts’s head jerked up; its steps faltered.
    The driver was good, David handed him that, especially in such an ungainly vehicle. The tail broke loose but he caught it, flicked the wheel, and was beside the animal. Another flick, and the back end snapped smartly sideways—a little too wide, so that a ragged corner of the Cherokee’s left rear fender flare snagged the creature along its lower thigh. An angry red slash darkened the pale hair.
    The creature leapt straight into the air—ten feet or more, David was certain—crossed the road in two bounds, and disappeared down the side of the mountain to their left.
    The burning in David’s eyes, the light and heat of the ring ceased abruptly.
    The rangers’ Jeep shuddered to a halt at a scenic overlook a little farther up the mountain. The driver killed the motor and opened the door. A muscular middle-aged man with black hair and a lined and weathered face stepped down, followed a moment later by a shorter, younger man whose hair was only slightly darker than David’s.
    Somewhat self-consciously, David and Alec slid off the car and walked up to meet them.
    “Hell of a place to put a deer—if that’s what it was,” the older man said when he came into easy speaking range. “You boys okay?” He indicated the Mustang. “That your car?”
    David grimaced sheepishly. “Uh, yeah, ’fraid so. Ran off the road—was run off, actually. Deer ran in front of me. Same one you just missed.”
    “Stood in front of you, you mean,” Alec amended.
    “ Stood in front of you?” The man’s mouth hardened to a thin line. He looked thoughtful, almost troubled.
    “Yeah, I know it must sound funny,” David said. “But that’s what happened. I rounded that corner just like you did, and there it was, just standing right there in the middle of the highway.”
    The ranger’s face clouded. “Anything…special about this deer?” he asked carefully.
    Dave glanced first at Alec, then at the ranger. “You saw it: you tell me.”
    The older man’s nose twitched; he shot a troubled glance at his partner. “Uh, yeah… Look, if I tell you boys something fairly confidential, can you keep it quiet? Nothing really bad, we hope, but it don’t hurt to be careful. It wouldn’t do to upset folks right at the start of tourist season.”
    “Sure thing,” David replied, though he personally would have been glad to see something upset tourist season.
    The older ranger took a breath. “Yeah. Well, I think it was what we’ve started calling the Crazy Deer—if it even is a deer—looked more like an elk to me. Anyway, there’ve been a number of…encounters, you might say—most pretty much like yours. Animal appears virtually out of nowhere. Runs across the road sometimes, but most often just stands there and stares down cars, almost…almost like it was trying to wreck them. That’s what unnerves folks: that strange behavior—even more than the size and that funny-looking rack. Doesn’t seem scared of people at all, or cars either. Even chased a bunch of picnickers off over near Hiawassee.”
    “That far?” David whispered incredulously.
    The ranger nodded. “Been seen all over.”
    “Hey, Benj, look here,” the younger ranger called from the other side of the road. They all followed him to the soft dirt beyond the shoulder, almost at the guardrail. There, amid the stray leaves and bottle caps, was a single cloven