Well, I had a posse now.
Or maybe a herd.
Either way they had guns and that was a significant improvement over my previous situation. The discovery it was Rudy doing all of this was the non-revelation of the year and yet it made me sad. If he was possessed by the Big Bad Wolf or trying to lay to rest the monster then he wasn’t really evil. Maybe my head was screwed up by my encounter with the kelpie, though, because killing people was pretty damn evil no matter what. I felt pretty damn awful for Maria, though. I mean, her brother was the murderer. Mine was just a drug-dealing black wizard. Which was better, right? Ugh. I hated finding out all this stuff about my family!
I squeezed Emma’s hand. “We’re going to take care of this, don’t worry.”
Emma pulled away, her eyes turning wolf-like. “I’m not four years old!’
I grimaced. “I’m sorry, I was just trying—”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Jane! You’re about to run right to the place where everything is awful.”
She was right. “I’m sorry.”
Emma covered her face with both hands, both of which had grown fur as she hovered in the place between wolf and human. Don’t ask me how to explain it. It’s not like science has many answers about magic yet. “I remember that place, Jane. It was full of whispers and memories. My grandfather and worse.”
I closed my eyes. “It taunted me, too, Emma. The Lodge showed me my cousin Jill. I don’t know if what it said was true or whether or not I just misremembered. This place is evil and there are evil forces here. I overcame them, though.”
Alex surprised me by speaking. “My father, Elliot Blackwood, was a highly decorated FBI agent as well as a wizard himself. He was also a cruel, vicious, and unpleasant man with unnatural appetites. He could not control the latter and inflicted them upon others. My mother, Diane, for all her genius, was unable to see the evil within her own home. What my father did, though, was not as bad as what he made me feel about it. That I deserved it.”
Emma looked up from where she’d started crying. “Really?”
Alex nodded. “I spent many years coming to terms with the fact the evil was within him not me. To overcome the fear and anger he tried to poison me with in order to make himself feel justified.”
“What happened to him?” Emma asked.
“He died,” Alex said, his voice soft. “I wished him to die every day for a year and it came true. I can’t say whether I had any part in his death, as magic is slippery and strange like that. However, I have devoted myself to becoming a sin-eater as a result. I will use the pain I suffered to try to bring an end to others’ suffering. I would take the agony of your experiences tonight into me if you wish me to.”
I stared at him. “Excuse me?”
Emma’s eyes widened. “I…don’t know what to say.”
“You do this for free? If so I’ve got some breakups I’d love to shove off on you,” Harvey said, listening in on a conversation he had no business involving himself with.
“Shut up, Harvey!” Deana said, growling at him.
Dave also gave him the stink eye while Lucien kept his gaze squarely on his brother.
“I believe it is the purpose of a magician to use his powers for the betterment of all,” Alex said, his voice soothing. He extended out his hand. “The word ‘wizard’, after all comes from the word ‘wise’. I may not know anything, but I am aware of how much I don’t know. One of the few things I do know, however, is that the hand of compassion is not wrong to extend even if it hurts.”
Emma reached to take it then pulled it back. “No.”
“No?” I said, surprised.
“No,” Emma said, her face becoming like Lon Chaney’s The Wolfman as her fingernails became claws. Apparently, Alex’s speech had worked in changing her mind about returning to the Lodge. “I’m not going to pass this off on someone else. The Red Wolf deserves to pay for what it’s done. I’m going to fuck its shit up.”
My eyes widened at her sudden use of profanity. A second later, she turned into a red wolf again but this time a much larger and more dangerous-looking one. It was a dire wolf, only I imagined it was even bigger than the extinct canine species. Emma’s present form was the size of a small pony and resembled the kind of creature Peter Jackson had orcs ride in The Lord of the Rings movies. There was also an angry and vicious expression on her face that made me think she was ready to rip someone in half. That Emma, my sweet and gentle friend, was capable of doing that. Emma trotted over to join the ranks of Lucien’s group.
“Good doggie,” I said, watching her leave.
“Vengeance is a bitter medicine,” Alex said, taking a deep breath. “Though it can sometimes be achieved within justice, the ending of a threat.”
I looked over at him. “You are way better at this shaman stuff than I am.”
“Do you want to be a shaman?” Alex said.
“No,” I said, pausing. “Yes. I dunno, maybe. I want to matter. This seems like it matters.”
“You already matter, Jane,” Alex said, looking over at me.
Our eyes met. His were beautiful, blue, and possessed of a power that seemed to draw me in. I hoped mine were equally fascinating.
“Remember,” Alex said. “Wherever you go, there you are.”
That killed the mood instantly. “Did you just quote The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai?”
“Not many women your age are familiar with that movie.”
“You’re not that much older than me!” I said.
“Just saying!” Alex said, smiling. “Good advice is good advice!”
I shook my head and pulled out his gun before handing it back to him. “Here ya go. I imagine you’ll be better at using it than I am.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve had to use it before,” Alex said dryly. “But you should keep it. I have other ways of defending myself.”
I didn’t know if I was comfortable gunning down Rudy after what I’d seen with the kelpie. Still, I took the weapon.
“You know your brother came out here,” I said, looking over at Lucien. “To save everyone.”
“My problem with Lucien is not the good in him but the evil,” Alex said. “Every act he commits as a petty crime boss doesn’t bring him closer to Marcus O’Henry and his conspirators but makes him more like them.”
I disagreed there. “You know, I never understood why Batman didn’t just kill the Joker. Everyone always talks about how if you kill a murderer you’ll be just like them. That’s not the case, though. One is killing evil and the other is killing innocents.”
“Do you still think it’s that simple?” Alex asked, surprising me. Had he picked up, somehow what had happened between me and the kelpie?
“I dunno,” I said, frowning. “But if I was killing people I think I’d hope someone would put me down. Is your brother doing that?”
“Not yet,” Alex said. “But I dread the day when I feel like I’d have to do him that favor. One can’t wade in a lake of evil.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I said, trying not to remember what I’d seen. I started walking toward Emma and the others. “Let’s go kill a demon.”
“You can’t kill a spirit,” Alex said, walking beside me. “You can, however, force it to reincarnate.”
“Fine by me,” I said. “Let’s hope its next form isn’t a complete ass.”
It wasn’t lost on me the Red Wolf had been driven to his actions by vengeance too. The difference, though, was the fact that he was going after the children of the people who had wronged him. That was a big difference.
Would I think ill of him if he’d killed every person involved in burning down his home with his family in it? I didn’t know the answer to that. Yet, if Lucien ever found out my mom was involved in killing his family, would I be willing to kill him? Probably. Damn. It made me think there was more than just a cuddly long-legged omnivore down inside of me but a little bit of a monster. I really was going to have to talk to my mother after all of this.
I thought I’d have to assume my deer form again and travel alongside Emma. Instead, it turned out the Lodge was only a couple of hundred yards away through a group of trees that concealed a nearby clearing. Except, mind you, I explored the preserve a hundred times or more before Jill drowned and I can assure you such a clearing didn’t exist there before. Reality and space were like water around here, constantly shifting and flowing.
I hated water.
The clearing was a circular grassy plain surrounding a single one-story wood-and-stone house that looked like it had been sitting in the woods for decades. Despite its decay, it had electric lights powered by a buzzing generator outside but windows that were covered in drapes that only showed said lights’ reflection. Hundreds of blackbirds were sitting on the roof, chimney, and a pile of logs outside like we’d stepped into Hitchcock’s The Birds.
There was a huge black bear and group of similarly black dogs sleeping around the front of the house. They weren’t natural, I could tell, but corpses carrying something vile. I knew the smell of natural animals and these smelled of death as well as sickness. The noise from earlier around the lake, that terrible alarm, was coming from within the house, but it was almost imperceptible here. Background noise.
“So the Lodge is actually a lodge,” Harvey said, coming up behind us. “Cute.”
“Nothing is cute about this,” Lucien said, looking at the clearing. “My family had their hearts cut out here.”
“I remember,” Harvey said. “Like six people gave a shit.”
Lucien looked ready to murder Harvey.
“No,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Don’t. It wants to turn us against one another. It did that to me, Emma, and Maria.”
The moon turned bright red again and the alarm grew louder only for me to grab Emma and Alex’s hands while concentrating really hard on trying to hold away the anger. That was when the red light dimmed and the noise abated.
“It worked,” I said, smiling.
“No,” Alex said, pulling out an amulet that looked a lot like the one I’d picked up off the ground near the lake. “I actually brought this to immunize the group.”
“Oh,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my copy before putting it on. “That probably should help.”
“A bit,” Alex said.
“Maybe I should learn magic before trying to use it,” I said.
“A wise decision,” Alex said.
None of us advanced to the clearing, all of seemingly waiting for someone else to make the first move.
Dave lifted up his rifle. It looked somewhat comical in his hands. He seemed way too nice of a guy to shoot anything. I knew plenty of decent hunters, was one some days, but we all had a killer instinct he didn’t have. “Are we going to have to kill the animals to get inside?”
“They attacked me when I fled with Emma,” Alex said, staring at the Lodge. “They’re dangerous and part of the barriers that keep this place safe. We have to get in, though.”
“Assuming Sheriff O’Henry is still inside,” Harvey said.
“I’m still for letting the crazy serial killer finish her off,” Deana said. “I’m not happy about any mission that begins with the premise of rescuing cops.”
“Then do it for Maria,” Lucien said. “Or me.”
Deana didn’t say more.
That was when the Lodge glowed and I saw images of translucent people carrying flashlights and lanterns as they surrounded the place. They were dressed in the attire of their professions from mechanics to police as a man resembling a younger Marcus O’Henry was leading the group alongside Mary Doe. I recognized my paternal grandmother from pictures scattered around my house. She was a beautiful woman with long, dark hair in a 1950s cut and wearing a waitress’s outfit despite the fact that she was carrying a shotgun. She was far from the only woman present that refuted the idea lynch mobs were strictly a male activity.
A woman walked out of the trailer, wearing a pair of pants and a flannel shirt as she carried a shotgun, which she fired in the air. The resemblance to Victoria was tremendous, except this woman was in her thirties and looked a helluva lot tougher. Behind her were four children of various ages, all copper-skinned and looking terrified. The eldest, a boy of about eleven, concealed the others behind him.
The entire scene carried on soundlessly but I got the general gist of it. Marcus O’Henry tried to argue with his sister (?) about something, she pushed back. Mary then got up in her face and the Red Wolf’s wife smacked her in the face with the butt of the rifle. That was when one of the children turned into a wolf and growled. He was trying to protect his mother. Except this mob hadn’t been formed solely out of shapeshifters. It had humans, too, and one of them lit a Molotov cocktail before hurling it. That landed right at the children’s feet, next to their mother, and she caught fire trying to rescue the eldest.
It was an ugly scene.
There was a lot of horror among the mob I realized hadn’t all been intending violence. I didn’t know the exact circumstances of what they were there for, I suspected to separate the children from their mother but a few tried to rescue the kids with her. They were held back by others as the humans in the mob actually cheered the fire on as it spread.
A nine-foot-tall wolf walked through the trees that parted for him. Its fur was blood red and its eyes glowed like embers. Marcus O’Henry turned into a wolf and fled along with several of the other shapeshifters but the rest of the mob either fell to its knees or were frozen in place by fear.
That didn’t save them.
The Red Wolf stood over the bodies of some fifty human beings and a few dragon shapeshifters that day, none of them able to escape the horror beyond. Almost as an afterthought, it huffed and it puffed before blowing the fire out from its house. I understood what it was doing now. It was explaining itself.
“I understand,” I said, taking a deep breath. “But the people involved are dead. Most of them. You can’t avenge yourself further.”
In fact, a part of me wondered why it had spared Marcus O’Henry and my grandmother. Was it because they hadn’t taken direct part? Or did it just want to make sure they experienced what it had? If so, it was a lost cause. Mary Doe had been dead since before I was born and Marcus O’Henry didn’t give a crap about his grandchildren. I suspected the Big Bad Wolf knew it too.
“I will have my bride and my sacrifices, Deerchilde,” a voice sounding like a distorted Victoria’s spoke from the Lodge. “I am still hungry.”
That was when all of the animals woke up and came at us.