(Wendigo Girl Book 3)
Copyright 2017 Kaye Draper
I ran.
I was hunger. I was rage. I was emptiness.
I was something else too…but I couldn’t remember.
Sand and crunchy fallen leaves, stones beneath my feet. Cool air smelling of growing things. And living things. Pumping blood.
Fur beneath my hands. Wet snapping. Gurgling. Crunching. Hunger. More hunger. Always hungry.
And empty.
Hot blood in my mouth, life from the animals I devoured flowing into me. Their life force bright and strong and wild like mine. Not enough. Never enough.
More running. Someone calling my name.
I am hunger. I am rage. I am emptiness. But I am something else?
I ran.
Now I walk. I’m slowing.
Burning, evil, vile orb is rising in the sky.
Fucking sun.
Strong, cold arms and the smell of fresh dirt.
Fucking Tommy. Always bringing me back. I want to be lost.
“Tess,” he says. “Hey, Tess c’mon, the sun is coming up. Let’s go home okay?”
Home?
My belly is full but I’m still hungry.
My head hurts. My heart hurts.
I am supposed to be something else. Do something else. What was I doing?
“Tommy?”
Strong arms are carrying me now. But not the warm arms that used to carry me. All warmth is gone. “Yeah, Tess?”
“I’m cold.”
“I know, Tess. We’ll get you inside.”
The blood is warm, but it doesn’t keep me warm. “It doesn’t last.”
The arms tighten, squeezing as we go up my stairs. To my place. My cabin. “I know, Tess. I know.”
The sun is coming.
“I remember who I am,” I whisper.
Then the pain comes back. But the anger is stronger. “I remember who I am,” louder now.
My soft bed. My soft, empty bed.
They are gone. He’s gone. She’s gone. Even the bird is gone. It’s just me. And Tommy.
“I remember who you are too,” he says. “I promise, I’ll always remember who you are. And I’ll help you remember, okay?”
Clarity returns with the energy I’ve taken from the deer I ate. I know it won’t last. But for now, the madness is passing.
“We’ll figure this out, Tommy.”
My ghoul’s eyes are still a little milky. I need a human. I know it. He knows it. But we don’t say it.
“I have an idea,” he says, sitting on the edge of my bed. “You sleep. I’ll work on it while you rest.”
He strokes my head until I drift off to sleep. At least there is one person who will never leave me.
I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Because he’s suffering too.
Taking in a deep breath, I lay there, watching the knothole people on my ceiling move about. I had seen them forever. But they only started moving once I was infected by the wendigo. My best hypothesis was that this was a manifestation of the nature spirit that lived in the wood. But I had no clue if my guess was right.
The person who would know about nature spirits was gone.
That little knife-stab in the chest, that catch in my breathing whenever I thought about Kwan…and Cloud…was so familiar it almost seemed normal now. Unremarkable.
I took stock of my body. My throat was a low-level burn that went with my constant hunger these days. I was also a little foggy-headed, but not too bad. I fed last night, I could remember that much. I could usually go about one day without hunting. I ate raw meat from the grocery store every day. But for some reason, the beast inside me wasn’t appeased until I hunted. Until I chased, and killed and devoured.
There was a wildness in me that the hunter’s magic and their little bracelet shackle had been suppressing. With Kwan dead and Cloud off plotting my murder, I was on my own with the full brunt of it. And with no human snack bar.
I sat up, pushing my long, tangled hair back behind my antlers, using my claws to brush it out. I set a handful of twigs and leaves on my nightstand as I plucked them out of my hair. A tiny alter to my madness. Shower. I needed a shower.
How long could I keep this up?
Tommy was gone, his energy signature distant. He spent more time at my house now than he ever had before, and I wouldn’t be getting by half as well if it wasn’t for him. I vaguely remembered the idiot saying he had an idea to help us last night. He must be off working on that.
Or with his human girlfriend.
I hadn’t seen Suzie for a while now. I could smell her on Tommy from time to time. And it made me hungry. But if I fed from a human who didn’t have the hunters’ resistance, I risked tainting them. Like the wendigo had tainted me and ruined my life.
I showered, turning the water up as hot as it would go. I was cold all the time now. Feeding from a live animal warmed me up for a while, but it didn’t last. I thought of how Cloud and Kwan had always seemed to be burning up. What I wouldn’t give to sink my fangs into one of them right now, to feel the warmth inside.
But Kwan was dead.
I trailed my long, dark claws down the side of the shower, gouging the surface slightly in frustration. Death had killed Kwan. Kwan had killed Kwan by not listening to me. By not being willing to see the truth. But I missed him. His smile and his steady, comforting strength were gone from the world. All because he met me.
Cloud was right. If they hadn’t saved me, so many lives would be different now. Tommy would still be alive, not an undead ghoul who was tied to me for the rest of his existence. Kwan would still be alive. Even the asshole Brutus would be alive. Though that one wasn’t a mark on the positive side.
I stepped out and grabbed a fluffy towel to dry off. My skin was flushed lobster red, but already it was starting to fade back to its usual fish-belly white.
Throwing on a pair of jeans and an old, comfortable hoodie, I padded into the kitchen to make coffee.
It seemed so normal, sitting at my desk sipping a sugary slurry of coffee from my Batman mug. Like the last few months had never happened. A girl could dream.
I stared at my laptop, sitting closed on my desk. I wanted my old life back. Even the life I’d had after my husband and child died. The one where I was wounded and lonely but still managed to write horror novels, buy groceries, and work part-time at the library. The one before I became a monster, a tool and a curse.
Finishing my coffee, I went outside on my back porch and stared out at the dark woods. Glowing eyes of every size, shape, and color stared back, winking at me like demented fireflies. Winter was coming. I hoped they were all snow-resistant. Cause they sure as hell weren’t coming inside for the winter.
The thought reminded me of Ahanu, my raven. At least, I had thought he was my raven. Turns out he was a traitor. When the fucking Cloud Princess abandoned me and promised to murder me, the ghost-bird had gone with her.
I stared at the glowing eyes in the forest. They stared back. They were mine. My responsibility. But I had no clue how I was supposed to do anything to help them. Not now. Not weakened and out of control, and half-out of my mind most of the time.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
A cold voice spoke from the shadows, and I wasn’t sure if it spoke out loud or in my mind. They need you, Tess.
“Fuck you,” I replied, not turning to look at him. If I ignored Death, with his sad, pleading eyes, and cold, whispering voice, maybe he’d go away and leave me alone.
My Tess. You are hurting.
I snorted and waved a middle finger in his general direction, still not looking. “And whose fault do you think that is, exactly?”
Death had haunted me all my life. It had taken my mother, my son, my husband, my friends. “Either kill me already or go the hell away and leave me alone.”
A whispering sigh, like the breeze through fall leaves, was my only reply. Then I was alone. Just me and my colony of monsters.
And my hunger. Always my hunger.
*****
Tommy got back in the wee hours of the morning, before the stupid, painful sun rose. I had even less tolerance for the useless UV orb now than I ever had. Ugh.
He was smiling when he walked in, and I didn’t smell Suzie on him. “What are you grinning about?” I asked in a growl. “You didn’t get laid.”
He snorted. “Nope. But I still do, occasionally. Jealous Tess?”
I rolled my eyes. “Since the people I fuck end up either dead or wanting me dead, I’m gonna go ahead and say no more sex for me. Ever.”
He sighed, and guilt flashed across his boyishly handsome face. “Sorry.”
I shrugged. No biggie. So what if absolutely every area of my life sucked ass through a straw. I was used to it.
“You said you had an idea?” I prompted, staring distractedly at my laptop. I still wanted to write, even now. But what was the point?
Tommy slumped on the couch, all pale, blond bad boy in his jeans, wife-beater, and leather jacket. I remembered the cheery, preppy grocery store employee he’d once been. I ruined everything.
But Tommy didn’t seem to care. I narrowed my eyes at him. I still suspected there was something strange hidden in his past. But I did not have the time and energy to psychoanalyze my ghoul.
He ran a hand through his tousled blond hair, his scent of fresh dirt and leather rising about him like cologne. “I think I know someone who can help. But it’s been hard to track him down.”
He glanced up at me and I frowned at how opaque his eyes were. If he was “fully charged,” his eyes would be an iridescent opal color. But they were like milk now, cloudy white. Because I didn’t have enough power to keep the both of us going. If I couldn’t maintain his energy, he’d eventually turn into a zombie, rotting from the inside.
“I don’t care what we have to do or who we have to talk to,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “This has to fucking stop.”
Tommy just nodded. “I know Tess. Shit, I’ve seen how much you are struggling.” He shrugged and looked down at his hands. My ghoul was usually brash, rude, and completely unconcerned about what came out of his idiot mouth. Why was he suddenly looking so nervous?
“Out with it, Tommy,” I demanded.
He sighed and looked up again. “Well, this guy…he doesn’t like people. He was hard to pin down, but he eventually agreed to take a look at you. He has strong magic…I think he might be able to help with the hunger.”
“But?” I could feel a really big but coming. I wasn’t going to like this at all.
“Well, he’s not exactly human, Tess,” he said finally.
I shrugged. “So?” Nothing around me was exactly human these days. In fact, “exactly human” was bound to become “exactly dead” around me.
Tommy stood, looking suddenly young, like an uncertain, awkward teenager. “He knows my family. He…well I think he’s like my great, great, great, great grandpa or some shit.”
I raised my eyebrows. “And your grand pappy isn’t human?”
Tommy nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not exactly. Not anymore.”
One more person hiding things from me. Telling me half-truths. I wanted to believe that if Tommy had lied to me, it was for a really good reason. This was Tommy we were talking about.
But I was getting sick of being burned.
“What the hell, Tommy?”
He gave me a sheepish look. “I couldn’t tell you before. My family is…well they’re messed up. And they went off and left me behind because I wasn’t like them. So, I thought, fuck them, you know? And once I realized that you knew about the weird shit out there, and that maybe I could actually tell you…well, by that point you were my family.” He shrugged. “So, again, fuck them.”
I sighed. I couldn’t say that I didn’t understand. If my family had simply walked away from me, rather than being taken away by Death, I’d probably be just a little bit sullen and pissed myself.
“Okay,” I said. “I get it. Let’s go see Grand Pappy.”
He let out a breath. “Sure, Tess. But one more thing?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. What now, goddamn it?
“Try not to stare too much, okay?”
Cloud entered the rustic hunting lodge and walked to the hearth to take a seat cross-legged on the bear-skin rug before the fire. Winter was coming, and the air was chilled. Ever since she was gifted with her hunter powers, she seemed to feel the contrast between her own body heat and the cold more acutely. The heat of the flames against her skin was perfect, bordering on too hot, too intense.
Like Tess. The wendigo girl was cold and shadows, but she burned.
Cloud mentally shook herself, shutting out all thought of Tess. The way she tasted, the way she felt in Cloud’s arms, like a cold flame. The desire to tear her apart if it would bring Kwan back. If it would get her to see reason. If it would just put Cloud’s world back together.
She had to keep it together. Anger and pain, heartache and betrayal all swirled through her like a sick cyclone, threatening to tear her apart. She swallowed, feeling as if something sharp was stuck in her throat.
The old woman on the rug across from her studied her with faded brown eyes, the whites gone yellow and veined with age. Cloud wondered, not for the first time, how old the elders who formed the loose hunter’s council were. And how they maintained that longevity. It wasn’t natural, that was for certain. But it wasn’t her place to question it. At least not yet.
“Hanging Cloud,” the old woman’s voice split the silence, rasping and dry as a sliding sheaf of paper. “Tell me all you know about Brutus and the evil he encountered in your province.”
Cloud breathed deep and steady, inhaling the spicy incense of the herbs that had been scattered in the fire. Apparently, the ancient hunter had been sending back reports. Brutus hadn’t revealed everything. But he’d given the council just enough information to be dangerous to Tess. The wendigo. The cold bitch who had chosen the monsters over her humanity.
“I believe he encountered a creature he could not handle, perhaps several of them,” Cloud said, careful to keep her voice neutral, emotionless. She raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I caught faint hints of his blood and magic, but by that time he was gone, returned to the earth.”
The elder was quiet for a time, processing this. “What evil could overtake our oldest hunter?”
Cloud met her eyes, steady and calm. No defiance. No rage. No hurt. Those she kept buried. They belonged to Cloud alone. “I don’t know,” she said. “But there is a concentration of creatures there, as you know. I think they are perhaps more vicious because they’ve been cornered, run out of their original haunts.”
The elder nodded, considering. “You are cleansing the area.” It was more of a statement than a question.
Cloud inclined her head. “Yes, elder. I am methodically working on a purge. But it will take time. I wish to avoid further backlash by riling the creatures up.” She smiled then, channeling all of her feelings into that one curve of her lips. “By the time they realize what is happening, it will be too late.”
The elder nodded. She was pleased. Cloud was one of their most obedient hunters. Dedicated. Cold. Methodical.
If the elder knew how badly she had fucked up, what would that lined face look like? How many hunters would be ordered in to execute Cloud?
And would she even bother to fight back?
*****
I slipped down out of the tree and dangled from the lowest branch for a moment before dropping to my feet. Tommy was silent as I made my way to the water’s edge and washed my hands and face. Cupping my hands, I took a mouthful of Lake Huron’s cold, clear water and rinsed out my mouth, gagging a little at the soft fur that clogged my mouth and throat. The lingering metallic tang of blood didn’t bother me at all. But the fur. Gah. And the memory of crunching through bones. Ugh.
The squirrel took the edge off the clawing, burning hunger in me. But only a bit. By tomorrow, I’d be out of my fucking mind again. “Hopefully old Grand Pappy Weirdo can do something about this,” I said as I stood, pushing damp tendrils of hair back, pulling a twig out from behind my antler. “I’m eating fucking squirrels, Tommy.”
My ghoul snorted. “Dude, Tess. Who do you think has to listen to you up there gnawing on the wildlife? It’s no picnic for me either.”
I tilted my head, glancing at him. Tommy was starting to look gaunt, like me. Hollow. He hadn’t been a big guy to begin with. He didn’t have much mass to lose. And those fucking dead white eyes.
I didn’t say anything more as I followed Tommy deeper into the forest. We traveled north for so long, I wasn’t sure where we were anymore. We kept an easy pace as we jogged through the forest, over fallen trees and between the scrub brush like a couple of rabbits. The thought made me think of the black and white rabbits I had seen in my little sleep-walking incident prior to Kwan’s death. I swear I could still feel Death watching me from the shadows. But why? Was the god really getting that much amusement in watching my life fall apart time after time?
I could feel Death now, that cool caress of energy that felt like the moon on a fall night. But this felt different, distant. As if it was only an old trace of the energy that I felt coming from the very ground beneath me.
Tommy slowed, and I paced at his side. “Do you feel that?” He asked softly. “It’s damned creepy here.”
I frowned at him, surprised. Apparently, it wasn’t just me. “Where are we?”
He shrugged. “Bum-fuck nowhere. Middle of the state, but far enough north that there’s not much around.”
I swatted at him. “Idiot. I thought you knew where we were going. What the hell?”
He rolled his white eyes at me. “He moves around a lot. He said he’d be around here tonight.” He gestured at me. “You remember how you tracked the dogman when you were hunting with Brutus? Well, go find him, girl.” He made a little sound at me and slapped his thigh, like he was calling a dog.
I glared. “Your long-lost relative is the freaking dogman?” Figures. What Tommy thought a creature like that could do for me, I had no idea.
But once he had planted the idea and I sent my senses out, searching for powerful non-humans, I felt him there. “A little farther.”
We made our way over several strangely symmetrical hills, that sensation that Death had been here growing stronger with each step we took.
And then there he was. The dogman. The creature had been sighted in Michigan since the 1800’s. I always thought it was just our local werewolf myth. But apparently there was more to the story. The creature was sitting on a fallen log, his shaggy, man-ish shape covered in patchy, reddish-brown hair that looked black in the night. He stood as we approached.
The dogman’s face was caught between dog muzzle and human, kind of an elongated human face or a flattened canine one, with sharp teeth that protruded from the muzzle here and there as if they didn’t quite fit into his mouth. Glowing orange eyes studied me, filled with a sharp intelligence that I had not expected.
Brutus and the hunters had forced me to track and kill creatures like this. I could still hear their terrified cries in my sleep.
But as the dogman unfolded to stand well over six feet in a ripple of something that almost felt like hunter magic, I knew that this creature possessed a steely core that would never let it cower or beg.
“Hey,” I said with an inane wave. “What’s up?”
Tommy coughed and inserted himself between me and the dogman. “This,” he said with a look in my direction, “is Tess. The one I told you about.”
I raised an eyebrow. Tommy showed respect to absolutely no one. But he was begging me with his eyes to please behave. Interesting.
“So,” I said, glancing at the towering canine guy again. “The idiot here says you can help me stop wigging out and running amok in the woods bathing in blood?”
Tommy sighed.
I ignored him. The dogman’s eyes flicked to my ghoul then back to me. Then its muzzle stretched obscenely. It took me a moment to realize the thing was smiling.
Great. Even the crazy dog-monster was laughing at me.
The dogman paced closer to me and I stood my ground, crossing my arms over my chest. Sure, he was big and freaky. But I could take him. Even if he did radiate that weird magic. He circled around me, sniffing, eyes studying every inch of me. Shit, was this thing checking me out? I glared at Tommy. My idiot ghoul was wasting my time. My hunger burned like I’d swallowed hot coals.
The beast made a weird grumbling-whining sound that I can only describe as a dog trying to speak without human vocal cords. It was as wrong as it sounds. It reached out a hand…paw? The fingers were like stretched out digits from a dog’s paw. The undersides had thick, rough pads that dragged across my cheek, along with the sensation of dull claws. I hissed, baring my teeth.
I hated it when people touched me.
The creature tilted its head, but didn’t seem to realize it was in danger of losing an arm. I hadn’t ever eaten any of the strange creatures that came to my woods for sanctuary from the humans, but I was suddenly tempted.
It garbled again and patted at one of my antlers. I stepped back and dropped my hands, claws out and throat rumbling.
Tommy shook his head. “She doesn’t like to be touched.” Then he turned to me. “Tess, he’s just feeling your energy. I think he has to get a sense of your magic. I don’t have magic, but I’ve watched enough witches work to know they have to feel what they are working with sometimes.”
I tilted my head at Tommy. Fucking Tommy and his fucking secrets. “Witches, Tommy?”
He shrugged. Then he looked at the dogman as if for permission. The creature nodded its head.
“Our guy here…he used to be a witch. But something happened.” Tommy averted his eyes and I knew there was more to the story than he was sharing. “He ended up like this…but he has magic in him still. So, I thought maybe he could help with a spell or a charm or something….”
I stared up at the intelligent orange eyes that watched me so patiently. “Wow,” I said slowly. “You…you’ve been like this for a really long time, haven’t you?”
He nodded.
“That fucking blows.”
Another nod, and that terrifying grin.
“Do you think you can help me?”
A pause. A shrug. Then another nod.
Well, that wasn’t entirely comforting. What the crap would happen if he tried to help and failed? I mean…he apparently hadn’t been able to fix himself, after all.
But then again, what did I really have to lose? I knew, deep down in the black pit that was my soul, that if I didn’t find some way to stop what was happening to me, I was going to end up turning into a real monster. The kind that nightmares were made of.
The dogman made a weird gesture with one hand into the palm of his other. Tommy seemed to understand. He reached into the inner pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a little notebook and a thick Sharpie marker. I stared as the dogman took it in his clumsy paw-hands and went over to sit on the log. Bracing the notepad on his furry knee, he scribbled on the paper with painful slowness.
When he handed it back, Tommy squinted at it for a moment, then nodded. Thank God for night vision. “He wants us to come back in a few days. And…” he shot a sideways glance at me, “bring Ahanu.”
I tilted my head and drew in a deep breath through my nostrils, trying to calm myself at the mention of the ghostly defector. I glanced back at the dogman. “We’ll just pretend for a minute that it’s perfectly normal for you to even know about him. I haven’t seen the traitor in weeks. He wasn’t my guardian spirit. He was hers.” I growled. “He belongs to the hunters now.”
Tommy shifted from foot to foot and I turned my glare on him. Again, with the fucking secrets? Really?
“What are you looking so guilty for now?” I demanded.
Tommy shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. “I see him sometimes. Once in a while. I can get him to come.”
I curled my claws inward, slicing open my own palms as I opened and closed my fists. “No. Absolutely fucking not, Tommy. He’s probably just keeping an eye on us so he can report back to the hunters!”
The dogman stood up again, looking down at me with those orange eyes. He garbled out one of those terrible sounds, as if he wanted to chime in. Then he huffed impatiently and took the notebook back from Tommy. After some intense scribbling, he held the paper up before my face.
Bring the bird
Then he turned and loped away into the night.
Tommy shifted from foot to foot as if impatient to get moving himself. I narrowed my eyes at him. We were going to have words, my idiot ghoul and I. Talking to Ahanu. Magic relatives. Fucking witches.
But I had bigger problems. Because the sun would be up before we got back home if we didn’t get a move on it. And the hunger was still clawing at me. I needed something bigger to eat than a squirrel. There were a couple pounds of liver in my fridge at home. I was going to need it if I was going to have a heart-to-heart with my ghoul.
Because anytime I talked about her, my control slipped even more. Rage and heartache did nothing to calm the beast inside me.
“Let’s go, Moron,” I said, turning back the way we’d come.
Cloud squatted in the night-dark forest and licked the black, magic-infused blood from her fingertips. She shuddered as her own power was renewed. Loathing rippled over her along with the sensation. She had hunted the shadow creatures for more than a century. She had hardened herself to it. She knew the things were dangerous, tricksters. Even so, she tried to keep to the more ferocious among them, like the one she had just taken down, all claws and teeth that fed on human flesh.
But sometimes she wondered, even now, if she was missing something. Were they all evil? Were even the deadliest of them driven by something more than mindless violence?
It was all the wendigo’s fault. Of course they were monsters. How could she think otherwise? But she had seen the heart that beat inside her pet, and now she couldn’t unsee it.
If only Tess had chosen her. All she had to do that day was take Cloud’s hand. But she hadn’t. Instead she had backed away, eyes full of rage and pain, shielding the monsters who had taken Kwan from the earth.
Cloud wiped her hands off on the dead leaves that scattered the forest floor and stood. Tess had made her choice. Her human heart had been completely tainted by the darkness. The hunter ignored the constant ache in her chest. Pain was nothing new to Hanging Cloud.
The monsters had been stealing loved ones from her for nearly two-hundred years now. Why should one more loss upset her? She knew how to recover. By hunting.
She hated the taste of the dark blood that still lingered on her tongue. But this was the price of her immortality. The dues she paid in order to be able to continue hunting. To keep unsuspecting humans from death and destruction. If that made her a bit of a monster herself…well, she’d long ago come to terms with that.
There was a flutter of wings in the night, and Tess’s raven landed on a nearby tree branch. There was no mistaking the bird for a normal raven. Its body was outlined in a spirit glow and there was a sensation of otherworldly magic about it. Why it was here, she had no idea. The bird was the wendigo’s pet. Cloud had always thought the spirits wise and infallible.
Apparently, she was wrong. This one had chosen the monsters.
She touched the new tomahawk at her belt, knowing it was probably useless against the bird. She shivered at the thought that there was something else going on here. Something out of her realm of understanding.
Tess had insisted that Kwan had tried to hunt the god of death. Surely the woman was insane, her mind clouded by the wendigo madness.
The bird made a haunting sort of grating cluck and tilted its head, yellow eyes staring intently at Cloud.
“What?” She demanded. “What the hell do you want from me?” She felt betrayed somehow. The Great Spirit had sent guardians, spirits of the ancestors, to watch over a human who had turned her back on her humanity and chosen to become a monster. And yet Cloud, as always, was alone.
The bird fluttered its wings and cawed again. Then it hopped to another branch a bit farther away, looked at her, looked away, cawed.
She snorted. “I am not following you.”
But her heart was suddenly speeding up, thundering in her chest. Why was Tess’s spirit guardian trying to get her to follow it? Was it a trap? Or…did Tess want to speak to her? Maybe she had come to her senses and realized she shouldn’t be protecting the monsters.
Cloud scoffed at her own weakness.
But she followed the bird, slipping through the forest using her magic to glide through shadows and conceal her presence.
As they neared the national forest near Tess’s cabin, she sensed darkness. A powerful creature aura. It called to her in a way her other prey never had, and she trembled with the desire to feast on the creature’s blood. Tess had always made her want this way. Made her more aware of her monstrous desires than anyone else.
She stopped in the shadows under the branches of a towering pine tree. A dozen paces away sat the monster. Her monster. Guilt ripped through Cloud’s carefully maintained barriers. If she had been faster that night, she might have prevented the wendigo attack that turned Tess into a monster. If she hadn’t been so stupid and weak, she would have killed the girl the moment she realized she was tainted. But Cloud had kept her. Such selfishness never ended well.
And now, as she looked out at the scene before her, she knew Tess could never be saved. It was far, far too late for that. She gripped the handle of her tomahawk as she watched the creature before her—beautiful, chilling and heartbreaking. Tess was completely feral. Her wild brown curls streamed about her curvy body, tangled with bits of leaf and twigs. Her antlers had grown, and they arched away from her crown like those of a magnificent stag. Black claws and wicked, needle-sharp fangs sliced through flesh and muscle, cracked through bone as she devoured the deer she had killed.
The wendigo girl’s aura was strange and riveting, a bright outline closer to her body, surrounded by a smoky, pulsing black. She growled and made wild noises as she ate. As Cloud watched, trying to dredge up the courage to unsheathe her weapon and end this terrible existence, the creature began to shake.
At first, she assumed the girl’s body was simply vibrating with the force of her tearing into the deer carcass. But then she slowly sat back on her heels and Cloud realized Tess was sobbing. She let out a high, keening sound like a wounded animal, then fell silent again, her breath coming in puffs of air as she cried.
Cloud watched Tess lift her shaking hands and examine them as if she was seeing them for the first time.
Cloud’s heart wept. The woman had been through so much pain, and now she was watching herself turn into a mindless beast. Cloud had to end this, put her out of her misery. Perhaps that was what the bird had been trying to tell her.
She stepped out of the shadows, stilling as Tess whipped her head around, eyes locking on Cloud.
“What--” Her blue eyes burned with a fiery glow, like the hottest flames. They were confused at first, but then slowly seemed to clear. “Cloud?”
The desperate hope in that voice almost broke her. As if Tess expected Cloud to save her.
Cloud shook her head. “I am so sorry, Tess.” Her voice broke, cracked, as she choked back tears. She had never wanted it to end this way. And now…now she once again had to be the one to put the person she loved down like a rabid animal. Her hand shook, as she gripped her tomahawk, but she forced her emotions away and steadied herself. “I’m going to make it all stop.”
Tess had pushed herself to her feet, and Cloud watched as her words hit the beautiful monster like a physical blow. She bent forward slightly as if she had taken a hit to her middle. “You’re…here to kill me?”
“It was my keeping you alive that has caused all of this,” she whispered. “I need to right the wrong I’ve done to you.”
Tess stared at her for a heartbeat. Then she threw her head back and howled with dark, bitter laughter. Maybe she wasn’t as far gone as Cloud had thought. That sounded like a typical Tess reaction to a death threat. She nearly smiled at the thought, even though her heart was breaking.
Tess’s glowing blue eyes met Cloud’s. “The only wrong you’ve done me is to fucking abandon me, Cloud. But even that wasn’t your fault, was it?” She flexed her claws and licked her lips and Cloud could see the hunger in her despite her recent kill. “No,” she said softly, voice husky with unshed tears. “That was my fucking fault for thinking you actually cared about me. My fault for forgetting for just a second how goddamned much it hurts when you let yourself love someone.”
Cloud shook her head, even as Tess’s words stabbed through her like daggers. “You never loved me, Tess. You just needed a warm body to gnaw on and someone to keep your animalistic urges in check.” She felt her mouth twist into a bitter half-smile. “But it doesn’t matter. Even if I loved you more than life itself, I couldn’t let you go on like this.” Her eyes prickled with unshed tears. Some part of her hoped Tess would hear what she was saying.
Not that it would matter.
Tess shook her head, setting that glorious mane of chaotic hair swaying about her. Her jeans were torn. And her white tank-top was stained with dirt and blood. She had never looked more beautiful. Cloud gritted her teeth. She stepped forward, motions fluid as she drew her tomahawk. Tess crouched low, growling.
The raven winged between them, croaking out a warning just before the ghoul bounded out of the woods and came to a halt at Tess’s side. “Cloud?” He growled. “What the fuck?” He darted murderous white eyes at the raven. “I trusted you, Ahanu!”
Tess only laughed. “That’s what happens when you trust, idiot Tommy,” she whispered. “People die.”
She tilted her head at Cloud, and for a moment her face was too lucid, full of longing and vulnerability that Cloud knew Tess never let anyone see. Then her expression closed off. “Run, Cloud,” she whispered.
And the hunter cursed herself for being so clumsy. So stupid. Her attention had been so focused on Tess and her overpowering aura that she had not sensed the others approaching.
Glowing eyes peered out of the forest in every direction. She felt a press of creature energy as Tess’s people surrounded her. Hissing, snarling and strange barks of anger rose up around her. Cloud pulled her magic up and stepped into shadow. She felt a cold presence that sent tingles down her spine, but somehow, she side-stepped it, using the shadows to transport into a space between, stepping out miles away.
She stood in the chilly night, listening. She was alone.
Had she imagined it? Or had she heard Tess’s voice as she disappeared? She could have sworn she heard the wendigo order the others to let Cloud go.
She sheathed her weapon in her belt and, confident that she was alone now, sank to her knees, shaking. Her body was wracked with sobs as the tears came. The night she had been gifted with her shadow hunter powers came back to her in vivid detail. The way her heart had cracked. The feel of her tomahawk slicing through flesh that had once been human, destroying the person who had once held her and sang to her of love.
She knew the cost of duty. The pain of responsibility when someone you thought you knew became an enemy.
But what if she had been wrong all those years ago? And what if she was wrong now? Was she just shying away from the burden? From the pain of carrying around one more memory to torture her all her long existence?
Or was Tess still able to be redeemed?
She stood, wiping the tears from her cold cheeks, and struck out toward the dingy motel where she was currently staying. Maybe the spirits had not completely abandoned her after all. Maybe, like the raven, they had things to show her.
Things she would rather not see.
*****
Well, we had found the fucking bird at least.
I followed Tommy to the strange, death-touched hilly spot where we’d met the dogman a few days before. Ahanu stuck with us, flying ahead for a bit then waiting on a branch until we caught up. He seemed to know better than to try to land on one of our shoulders. I didn’t trust the bird. And it seemed Tommy was having his own reservations too, now that the bird had led Cloud right to me as if it wanted us to kill each other.
The stupid bird boy had supposedly been sent down here by God, or the Great Spirit or whatever, but I had no patience for it. I never asked to be part of whatever was going on with the monsters and the hunters. I didn’t want the God’s fucking destiny shit.
Up ahead, Tommy was holding a one-sided conversation with the raven. I didn’t know what to think of it all. I was still too hung up on Cloud. She had come there to kill me. But she had just stood there staring at me with…what? Pity? Regret?
Fuck her.
I felt like I was bleeding out.
“Hey-ya, Doggy,” I said as we came to a little dip between two of those long, oddly symmetrical hills. The dogman was sitting on a log with a pile of supplies near at hand. A candle, a broken antler, and some wilted bundles of herbs tied together with old, frayed string.
The dogman stood as we approached and stared at me with his orange eyes. He tilted his head and gave me the scary thing I hoped was a smile.
Tommy let out a breath. “Sorry, that’s just Tess.”
I shot him a look. Still with the respect the cursed relative thing? The Tommy I knew would be cracking flea jokes, not telling me to stop being mouthy. This guy must be a big deal.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the generic tablet I’d had Tommy buy the day before. Tapping the screen, I opened the notebook function and handed it over to the creature before me. “I set it up with different sensitivity and text size,” I said with a grin at his reaction.
The dogman turned the device to and fro in his big, awkward mitts. He surprised me by immediately sitting down and tapping at the screen. I had thought he’d need more convincing. He stopped and glanced up at me, then made a gesture in the air. I had to have him repeat it a few times before I realized it was a question mark. Moving closer, I showed him how to get to the punctuation keys. He nodded and continued tapping the screen with the fat pad of his index finger.
When he was done, he held up the device and I read the instructions there. Ahanu fluttered to the ground, the bird becoming smoke, then re-forming into his ghost form. “I can help translate, as well.” He offered in his hollow voice.
I narrowed my eyes at the ghostly Indian boy who stood before us. He didn’t look guilty, or flinch under the scrutiny.
“Like I can trust anything you say to be the real translation,” I said, flipping my hair back over my shoulder. “You’re on Cloud’s side.”
He blinked at me. As if a ghost had any need to blink. His deep, dark eyes studied me as if I was a particularly interesting puzzle. “You think I left your side to go with Cloud?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Yes, yes I do.”
“Oh.”
Oh? All he had to say to that was oh? I turned away.
Dogman’s instructions were to sit in the middle of a little cleared space, shut my mouth, and not move until he was done.
I did as I was instructed, watching in interest as he drew a circle around me in the dirt using a sharp stick. Then he planted Tommy off to my right and did the same thing with him. Finally, he turned to Ahanu and made a flapping gesture with his arms. I snorted with laughter. He looked ridiculous.
The dogman glanced at me as if to say, “I told you to shut up.” I zipped it.
Ahanu took bird form again and landed on the ground to my left. Dogman went to the bird and yanked out a feather, making the raven cluck in pained surprise. Then he drew a circle around the bird.
I ignored the way the wendigo madness wanted to rise up in me as I sat there. It was as if the monster part of me knew we were doing something to try to subdue it, and it wasn’t happy. I cleared my throat and tried not to think about how Cloud had smelled last night. Sometimes I felt like my memories of her were the only thing that kept me hanging on. The way she had smiled only at me. The way she had looked out for my dad, protected me from Brutus. Kissed me like she would fall into the dark with me and never let me go.
But then the pain came. And the wounded creature in me wanted to do anything to escape having to think about her and the way she had abandoned me. I let out an involuntary whimper as the wendigo hunger in me met the shattered shards of my human heart. The dogman made a wuffling sound at me. Shut up. Keep still.
He scattered herbs around us and I felt a bit of strange power crawling on the ground. Then he lit the candle by holding the wick between two meaty digits. The power increased, so reminiscent of the hunters’ magic—but different. He lit a bundle of herbs on fire and waved the thick, sweet smoke around us all.
Then he started making a low, rumbling sound that changed in tone with the cadence of a chant. I thought maybe this was his way of singing out a spell or something.
I shivered. The magic rose up stronger and I swear I could see the faint outline of a man’s shape over the dogman. Like a ghost of the person he used to be, maybe?
The magic sank its claws into me and I moaned as something in me dwindled. The monster in me howled. No…that was me howling out loud in pain.
I smelled Tommy’s blood. Then the dogman was draping a piece of twine around my neck. It took me a moment to realize it was a necklace made of the raven’s feather, which had been dipped in ghoul blood. “Aww…” I panted under the oppressive force of the magic. “Jewelry. You shouldn’t have….” Then I passed out.
When I woke up, I was briefly confused by the swaying motion around me, and the sight of upside down forest and the ground moving by below me. Then I realized I was slung over Tommy’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes while he jogged through the forest.
I lifted my head a bit, bracing my hands on Tommy’s leather-clad back to push myself up. Ahanu was flying along behind us, darting between trees and gliding where he could, keeping pace.
Tommy slowed and gently set me on my feet. “Welcome back, Tess,” he said with a grin. “Still alive then?”
I stretched out my sore muscles and studied his face. His eyes weren’t completely white. There was the tiniest bit of opal iridescence there. But not much.
“I’m fine,” I said. Then I glanced back at the bird. Ahanu landed and became a boy ghost again. “I take it this thing worked?”
I was talking to Tommy, but it was Ahanu who spoke. “It is only a temporary solution,” he said softly. “The witch said that you will still eventually fall to the madness, but this will buy you time. Casting it at the burial mounds as he did was smart. It will help it last longer if it is bolstered by the spirits.”
Burial mounds. That certainly explained the feel of the place. But I had worse things to worry about. I threw up my hands in agitation. Fuckity-fuck. “Well, what am I supposed to do then? When the thing stops working?” I clutched the feather charm in my fist as if I could will it to be permanent.
Ahanu cocked his head, the gesture just like his bird form. “The witch said that you need to find something to ground you to your humanity.” He gave me a small, sad smile. “Something you want to stay human for.”
“Sure,” I said. “Easy.” Not that I trusted anything the ghost bird said.
Tommy sighed, looking at the bird-boy with a pleading expression. “Ahanu, did Cloud send you to us? Did you want her and Tess to fight? Are you spying on us or some damned thing?”
The boy heaved a sigh. I suppose that was a clear indicator of how frustrated he was with us, since he didn’t technically even breathe anymore. “The Great Spirit sent me here to help.”
I waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “I need to think about this,” I said, turning away. “Tommy and I need to talk.”
The boy nodded, then turned raven in a puff of otherworldly smoke and winged up and away into the night.
I glanced at Tommy. “No.” I said firmly. “No way. It’s just us now, Tommy. We might not survive trusting someone else again.”
My ghoul looked like he wanted to argue, but he just closed his mouth and turned toward the cabin.
“And don’t for one fucking minute think that you and I aren’t going to talk about this witch relative thing, Tommy!” I called as I jogged after him.
“So…talk,” I said. Tommy was flopped on the couch, long legs over the armrest. He kicked them idly like a little kid, heaving a put-upon sigh.
“My family is part of a very old coven of witches,” he said, finally. “They’re super powerful. But their youngest son was a bit of a failure. They thought I was just a late bloomer or some shit. But really I’m just…human.”
I sank down cross-legged on the rug and put my elbows on my knees. “Is this why it always feels like you’re hiding something?”
He ran a hand through his hair, tugged the blond locks, then let out another exasperated sigh. Nope. I was not letting him get out of this. “Tommy,” I said with a warning in my voice.
“My older brother was really powerful. They were so proud of him. But he just kept getting more powerful. Which after a certain point, becomes a problem. Like when he can’t control his power and he accidentally incinerates the entire family home. It’s even more of a problem when one of the family can’t protect themselves with even the most basic magic.”
I stared at him. “That’s why your house is so new? It was a big ‘ol mansion like the rest of the neighbors, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “Yep. Burned to nothing. I mean, not even leftover bits of charred wood or metal. Witch fire. I have no idea how the local fire department explained that. My parents probably bribed them.”
He sat up and leaned forward, elbows on knees, mirroring my posture as he stared at the floor. Here it was again. Tommy never looked so nervous or…vulnerable. Apparently, his family had really screwed him over. “They left,” he said softly. “They said they did it to protect me, and to take my brother away somewhere so he could learn control before he hurt someone.” He wove his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “That was over five years ago. They ditched the weakest link and never came back.”
“Assholes,” I said, causing him to smirk, though he was still looking at the floor.
“The dogman is like…I don’t know…a long-lost family member, I guess. All the covens kind of give him space. Look out for him but let him be. I think he did something that he shouldn’t have tried. Either because he wasn’t powerful enough, or maybe because it was forbidden.”
I snorted. “You knew there were witches, and you couldn’t just take me to one who wasn’t a screw up?”
He laughed, finally looking at me with his puppy-dog eyes. “Well, I don’t know where any of them are. When my family left me behind, they essentially said I was no longer a part of the coven. After all, why would they accept me when I have no magic?”
I sighed. “Fuckers.”
He laughed again. “That’s what I said. Fuck them all. I have my family. And she’s pretty awesome. She’s got these cool claws, and antlers and shit.”
I stood and tossed a glare his way. “I am not your new mommy.”
“Nope,” he said as I went to find some raw meat in the fridge. “More like the older step-sister I’d like to bone, but I just can’t cause she’s family.”
I snorted. “Moron.”
There might be a gaping hole in my heart and a beast trying to claw its way out of my chest, but at least I had my ghoul.
*****
The next night, I gave in to Tommy’s constant hounding and tried to write. He insisted that I needed to do something “normal” for a while or I was going to go crazy.
He wasn’t wrong.
I stared at my laptop. Things were coming slowly, but they were coming. As long as I didn’t think about it too much. It seemed so strange to sit here, writing fiction, while I turned into a monster.
I sat back and closed my eyes, enjoying the silence. My compromise with Tommy about the writing had been that Tommy would go home for a while—to his home—and give me some space. Some peace and quiet.
He wouldn’t be gone long. He couldn’t be. With us both being depleted, and me at risk of going wendigo, he was spending most of his time here now.
I sat forward and dove into the writing, finding that flow state where the rest of the world falls away. I only came back to reality, grudgingly, at the sound of an irritating croak-caw from Ahanu. I turned to the sliding glass door that led to my back porch and swallowed a startled yelp. Orange eyes stared at me from a towering, shaggy body.
I slumped in my chair until my heart stopped pounding, then went and let the dogman in. The raven was perched on his shoulder as if they were old buddies and I narrowed my eyes at that bullshit.
The dogman came close to me and walked a slow circle around me, poking and prodding, then pausing to sniff at me here and there. I rolled my eyes, but stood still for the inspection. I could feel his magic, all wound up with his creature essence. It was…oddly comforting somehow, even though it reminded me of hunter magic.
Of her magic.
I refused to think of her. I forced my thoughts elsewhere. The dogman made a wuffling noise and I realized I was clenching my fists as memories of Kwan washed over me. His energy had always felt comforting. Calming.
And being involved with me had ended his long life.
I remembered Cloud’s face the day Kwan had died, coldly furious. Her words from that day still haunted me. Her accusations that I had chosen the monsters over the man who had kept me alive and sane, who had given me comfort, sacrificed his body for me. Who had tempered Cloud’s rough edges.
She was right, of course. It was cold of me. Callous. But there were beings who needed me. And the cold, hard truth was it had been his stubborn refusal to listen to me that had caused his death.
Well, that and Death himself. But I was ignoring that little fact at the moment. Of all the shit that I did not want to deal with, the thought that the god of death was obsessed with my little wendigo self was top of the list.
The dogman handed me his dead tablet and I realized I had left it with him last night. He must have been playing around with it all day. I smirked as I took it to my desk and plugged it into the charger I kept here.
Ahanu turned boy and the dogman made those odd, if-I-only-had-vocal-cords noises. Then the ghost turned to me. “He says the magic seems to be holding. But as I told you before, you need to find your anchor because it will not last forever.”
I looked at the dogman. “Is this spirit-chicken telling me the truth?”
He crossed his big hairy arms and looked down his smashed snout at me. I was not the only one in the room with an attitude problem. The thing rolled its eyes at me, gave an exasperated huff, and nodded.
I slumped into my chair, gesturing the for the dog to make himself at home. He went and sat on my couch, crossing his big shaggy legs primly, like an old-fashioned gentleman. I raised an eyebrow. A dog had more class than me. Figures.
He gestured at the bird boy again and began “speaking.”
Ahanu turned to me. “He wants me to tell you that he has been around a long time.”
I nodded. “I kind of got that.”
“He has seen terrible wrongs. The hunters do terrible things to the creatures they think are below them. And the creatures do terrible things to the humans.”
I jerked when I pricked my lip with a fang. Apparently, I was baring my teeth. I made a colossal effort and stopped. “I could have guessed that.”
The dog sat forward earnestly, wuffling and whining at me as if he could make me understand by sheer force of will.
Ahanu stepped up to him and put a ghostly hand on his shoulder. The spirit used to comfort me that way once. Screw him. “There is no absolute right or wrong, Tess. There is no “side” that is better than the other.”
I waved a hand flippantly. “I don’t need an ethics lesson.”
Ahanu spoke before the dog could, so I assume the words were his own opinion. “Just remember how blind you can choose to be sometimes, Tess. Cloud--"
I surged to my feet, shaking with sudden rage. “Cloud decided the world was better off without me in it. Talk about blind! Cloud has decided to keep hunting innocent beings just because some musty old snobs say that’s how it should be done!”
The dogman was there, without me noticing his movement, putting a big paw-mitt on my shoulder.
Then we all froze.
The creatures outside were restless. I could feel them as they drew back deeper into the safety of their forest. A buzzard from the herd of gatekeepers that circled my property gave an eerie cry.
The dogman tensed, then ran to the door and disappeared into the night. “What the hell?”
Ahanu gave me a strange, assessing look. “I would re-examine your ideas of loyalty, Tess.”
Pretty scathing for a dead child.
Then he was gone too.
I could sense a restlessness in the creatures that did not fade. They eventually came back to the border around my property, the treeline with its buzzard sentries. But I could feel fear in them, and unease.
Tommy came back the next night and stayed with me while I hunted. Now that the dogman’s magic was in place, I didn’t completely lose myself to the madness, but it was always there, just waiting for me to tip over the edge. I still needed to hunt down something living about every other day in order to keep Tommy fresh and to keep my mind from being overtaken by the hunger.
We were returning from the forest when I sensed foreign magic. I hissed and sped forward to the treeline to look out at my little cabin. Tommy cursed behind me and snatched the back of my shirt, getting a handful of hair at the same time. I hissed again, this time in irritation as he pulled my hair.
“Stop, Tess,” he said with another tug. “Don’t go running off like that. Jesus. There are hunters gunning for you, you know! And I kind of need you alive.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Shut up.”
Tommy was usually the stupid, impulsive one. When had he become my mommy?
But then again, if I died, so did he. For good.
We both crept forward, walking slow and careful across the yard and around the front of the house. A shiny white SUV sat in my driveway. I couldn’t even tell at a glance what the make was. Tommy straightened and let out a dry laugh. “A Bentley. Of course a fucking Bentley.”
He stomped up to the small front porch, where a bunch of pretty people that looked like models were scattered about in various poses under the yellow porch light. I hovered in the shadows of a big pine, hoping that these people couldn’t see in the dark as well as I could. I wasn’t sure if they should see me—a fanged, horned half-beast with leaves in its hair and bloodstains on its ripped t-shirt—even if they did reek of magic.
A pair of tall men stood from their seat on my front steps and waited for Tommy to approach. The older of the two had sandy hair that was going white at the temples, and slight lines around his eyes and mouth. The younger one looked like a larger, more present version of Tommy—blond hair, perfect features, broad shoulders that tapered to slim hips. While the elder one was fair, the younger had golden-brown skin. They were both dressed in that sort of understated class that said they were trying to look casual, but their clothes probably cost more than I had ever earned in a week.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Tommy demanded, stopping a few feet away, arms crossed and legs spread as if making himself a barrier between me and the strangers.
One of the women made a little gasping sound. She was about the same age as the older man, tall and model-thin, with deep brown skin and light brown hair swept up into some sort of fancy bun thing. She wore a flowy white pant and shirt thing that I’m sure had the word “natural” on the tag, and a purple crystal swung from a cord around her neck.
“Tommy?” She whispered. “Blessed thistle! What has happened to you?” She stood there quivering, arms at her side, as if she was torn between wanting to run to Tommy and wanting to run away from him.
“Hi mom,” he said in an overly cheery boy-next-door tone that he hadn’t used since I killed him. “Super nice to see you too.” He turned to the older man again, obviously his father, and dropped the sarcasm. “What the fuck do you want?”
The older man’s face looked pained. “Tommy, what--"
The other man—who had to be Tommy’s brother—paced forward, head cocked and magic flaring from him in little sparkles, like a spitting bonfire. His sky-blue eyes darted from Tommy to my hiding spot in the shadows. “You…who has turned my little brother into a ghoul?”
The voice was calm. It sounded warm and inviting, playful. But his energy said weary. Angry. Poised to strike if things went wrong.
I stepped a little closer, letting the weak porch light hit my bare feet. The man held out his hand, crooking his fingers as if coaxing a wild animal. “Come on, Sweetheart.”
I snorted. “Sweetheart?” I crossed my arms over my chest and quirked an eyebrow at him in disdain. Ignoring the fact that his carefully calculated gentle-approach was working. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
I stepped closer, making sure my claws were out when I reached to take his hand. I had hoped for a feminine squeal, maybe a flinch. At least a shudder.
Instead, idiot Tommy’s moron witch brother took my deformed hand in his long, slender fingers, skin sliding over mine in a gentle caress, but holding on with the threat of a greater strength underneath. Hunger flared up and I swallowed convulsively. He was a predator too, my instincts said. A killer masquerading in human skin just like me. We wanted to tear him limb from limb. And maybe lick him.
“Okay, that’s enough of that shit,” Tommy said, stepping between us and knocking his brother’s hand aside. “No touching.”
His brother gave him a weird look. “Oookay.”
The other girls, twins on the brink between teenager and adult, drifted closer. They were like shorter versions of Tommy’s mom. They were wearing jeans and t-shirts, at least. Even if they were designer.
“Hey,” one of them said, putting a hand on Tommy’s arm. She seemed to be the more dominant of the two girls, her hair slicked back into tight, twin braids. The other one hung back a step, shy and flushed, loose curls floating on the breeze.
Tommy flinched when the girl touched him. “We just came back to visit, Tommy. And you weren’t at the house…so we tracked you down. We were worried, okay?”
His mother twisted her hands. “I knew something didn’t feel right.”
Tommy scoffed. “What? Keeping magical tabs on me, even though you couldn’t be bothered to visit for five years, or to write more than once every six months?”
His brother reached out and smacked Tommy in the back of the head. It was such an ordinary, brotherly gesture that I let out a startled laugh. The guy’s pretty mouth turned up at the corner slightly before he focused a more serious look on his brother. “We were trying to let you live your life. We left to keep you safe, idiot.”
“And look what good that has done,” his father said in a cold voice, laced it its own power. “We come back and find you turned into an undead thing.”
I hissed, grinning when they all jumped. All of them except Tommy…and his weird older brother. Balls of steel, that one. “Fuck off, Pops,” I said, making my way to Tommy’s side. “You assholes left a seventeen-year-old boy alone because you were scared. You don’t have any claim on him anymore.”
Tommy nudged my shoulder. “Aww…thanks, Tess. I knew you loved me.”
“Shut the fuck up, fucking Tommy,” I muttered.
His brother smothered a laugh. “Look,” he said, holding up a hand when Tommy went all growly at him. “We’ll all go back to the house. Your house, if that’s okay? And maybe I’ll come back alone some other time and we can catch up?” He reached out and ruffled his brother’s hair. “We really have missed you, little guy.”
Tommy batted his hand away, but he had his eyes averted and his shoulders hunched. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”
I rolled my eyes. Hunger was clawing at me again thanks to the smell of human flesh soaked in magic sauce. “Touching. Really. Now get the fuck out. We’ve got…things to do.”
The brother’s eyes flicked up over my body, from my toes to my antlers, then slid back to Tommy. “Things?”
I growled. Tommy flipped him off. “None of your business,” he said, pushing past them all to head inside. He turned back to me and held the door open, bowing with a flourish. “After you, my lovely Wendigo Girl, Destroyer Of Innocents and Mistress Of The Undead.”
I laughed and took the steps, ignoring the freaked-out humans around me. “Alright. Come on, slave boy.”
He snickered and followed along, closing the door behind him with a bang.
I listened intently until I was sure the humans had loaded up and driven away.
“So,” I said, feeling twitchy. “Your family’s back…yay!”
He stared at me with his eerie white eyes. “No. My family is right here, Tess.”
But I could feel the yearning in him. He might want to murder them. But he had missed them.
“Your brother is hot,” I said, watching to see how badly I could piss him off.
Tommy rolled his eyes, an odd feat with such creepy eyes. “Gee, big surprise there. Another chick snared by his magical man mojo.”
I laughed.
“You know what though, Tess…maybe witches are resistant to the wendigo madness? I never thought of that before. Hell, I say snack on whoever you want.” He rolled his eyes. “Or fuck them. Just don’t trust the bastards.”
A thrill shot through me. Could I really feed again? Provided I could convince a witch to help? The trust thing though…that was dead on. I nodded in perfect agreement. Never again.
I strolled toward the forest, holding a sleeve over my nose to dampen down the smell of giant skunk. The aniwye was pacing at the treeline, snorting and growling. The energy and awareness of the odd creatures in my forest was still tense. Fearful and waiting.
And I thought there were more of them, pressing in from all sides, hidden under leaf and shadow. I reached the treeline and held out a hand. The giant skunk monster stopped its growling and pressed a surprisingly soft muzzle into my outstretched hand, giving a mewling little whimper.
“What is it?” I asked, my metaphorical hackles rising. Something wasn’t right around here. The creatures that shouldn’t exist had been slowly gathering in the woods near my home for some time now. Apparently, they thought I was going to protect them from the ever-increasing encroachment of humans. And the indiscriminate poaching of hunters. But they had never seemed this stirred up before.
The skunk nuzzled my hand again and I sighed as I stroked its head, careful to avoid the poison-tipped spikes that decorated its back. “Okay,” I said tiredly. “Show me what has you all upset.”
They weren’t my responsibility. But it wouldn’t hurt to look.
Oh, the lies we tell ourselves.
A stork-like creature with creepy human eyes and human shaped legs led me into the forest, all the way out to the outskirts of the national land. I smelled the thing long before I saw it.
It smelled of rot and poison and foulness. And…Cloud.
My eyes scanned the night-dark forest. This area opened into a small grassy place filled with scrub brush and the dried stalks that were left of fall wildflowers. It was a good thing it was so cold out tonight, the air crisp and clean. I couldn’t imagine this stench in the sweltering summer heat. But it was foul enough even with the mild refrigeration.
That hint of Cloud’s smell lingered with the foulness of the beast. The creature was thoroughly dead, head severed from its body. But the kill was fairly fresh, despite the scent of rot. I had run into this one other time, a giant bear creature that had seemed…wrong somehow…decayed, infected.
The thing before me would have once been a beautiful beast. Its body, tail, and legs were the muscular golden-furred form of a mountain lion. But the head had a wicked yellow beak, and a strange pair of brown feathered wings hung limp from its back.
It looked like drawings of griffins I’d seen in textbooks.
But it had been fouled somehow. I wondered, not for the first time, if there was an environmental reason for this. Was something making the creatures sick? Or did this kind of sick shit just happen when a magical thing got old?
I paced around the body, watching as it began to disintegrate around the edges, rising on the breeze and scattering like sand.
It was beautiful once, Death’s cold voice said in my head. It should have died in glory.
I sighed. “Not when a hunter is around,” I snapped, crabby from the tension that was thrumming through me.
Cloud had been here. And she had been hunting. Goddamn her. It didn’t matter that she was doing this thing a favor by ending its strange, infected fate. She had some balls hunting in my territory.
I crouched down closer to the ground, where the scents were stronger. And followed Cloud’s smell of incense and leather.
It took me a few moments to realize the griffin creature’s scent wasn’t fading as I followed the Cloud scent away from the dead animal. The two smells were entwined. She had followed it here. I followed their trail through the forest and to the outskirts of town. I found the cat-scent up in a tree there. Had the thing flown here?
Cloud had apparently chased it all the way to me before she killed it. Because it was fast and put up a fight? Or because she wanted me to find it? Was this a warning of some sort? For fuck’s sake, I already knew she wanted me dead. She had chucked her stupid axe at my head. What more warning did I need?
I stalked back the way I’d come. The creature’s body was nearly gone now. I stood and spun in a slow circle, straining my senses. But Cloud was nowhere near.
A cold presence slid from the shadows and I glared at the dapper man. His black hair was streaked with silver at the temples, his pinstriped suit perfectly pressed. I wondered why he bothered to put on such a show for me. “I preferred it when you were a rabbit.” I said, crossing my arms. “What do you want?”
Death smiled fondly at me. “There is more to all of this than you realize, Tess. Before much longer, the creatures who have taken refuge here will need you to take a more active role in their protection.”
I glared at him. When the god had first started whispering in my ear at the time of the wendigo attack, his words had been disjointed, more like impressions of fleeting emotions. He had gotten more and more coherent as my ability to sense him, and finally see him, had increased. Now he was a fucking philosopher.
“I can’t be responsible for other people,” I said tiredly. “I can barely take care of myself, for shit’s sake.”
He shook his head. “Choice often has little to do with matters of Life and Death, sweet Tess. But for what it is worth, there is some choice left to you.”
I flipped him off.
I could not deal with this shit. The wendigo clamored inside me, asking me to let it out and forget about my human worries, drown them in hunger and flesh.
I walked away from the god of death, and he let me go.
Cloud had been here. She was still hanging around here hunting. Was this what had the creatures so upset? Were they worried they were next?
Or was Death right, was there something more going on that I couldn’t—or didn’t want to—see?
*****
Cloud stood before the elders in the hotel room they had rented to accommodate the council member who had come to visit from California. Why was he here? The council was notoriously lacking organization and coherent leadership. The fact that they were meeting in an out of the way place like Michigan was concerning.
She folded her hands behind her back, legs a shoulder’s width apart and tried to relax into a sort of parade rest, appearing both respectful and unconcerned.
“We are still getting reports that the area you have been supervising is experiencing an infestation of creatures,” the elder from Michigan said slowly. “Please bring us up to speed, Hunter Cloud.”
Cloud nodded her head. “They are amassing there slowly,” she said, keeping her face carefully neutral. “I think perhaps it is because the area is so wild and pure…there are undisturbed forests, natural waterways….”
The elder waved her hand in an impatient gesture. “What are you doing about this?”
Cloud kept herself from sneering. Barely. The elders never hunted. No, it was there job to send others out to do the dirty work. “I have been methodically picking them off,” she said. “Starting with the most dangerous of them. Just last night, I tracked and killed a tainted feline creature.”
The second elder arched a brow. “A tainted creature? That is redundant, don’t you think? All of the creatures are tainted.”
Cloud clenched her teeth at her error. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I simply meant that this one was especially nasty, infected somehow.”
The elders shared a look that Cloud really didn’t care for. “This cleanse of yours is going very slowly, Cloud Princess,” the Michigan elder said, eyes narrowing. “We will consider calling in additional assistance.”
Cloud straightened and dropped her hands at her side, body rigid. “I am capable of handling the situation,” she snapped. After her long years of faithful, loyal service, the were this quick to doubt her?
“We shall see,” the second elder intoned from his place in an overstuffed hotel chair.
Cloud walked slowly from the hotel and got on her bike, nothing in her posture or her pace betraying her anger. Who would they send? She swallowed hard at the thought of Kwan and how easily he had been destroyed. Brutus’s life had been ended with a single touch, if Tess and that damned raven were to be believed. Would she lose another colleague—maybe another friend—to ignorance?
The elders had said they were considering sending in assistance. Cloud steeled herself to be more ruthless. If she could show that she was taking care of the problem, reducing the number of creatures gathered in the forest, then maybe they would back off.
“I’m sorry, Kwan,” she whispered as she started her bike. She had known the other hunter for fifty years. Though they didn’t always work together, it had been nice to have someone she considered a friend. He had always kept her darker urges and her impulsive anger in check. She was sure he’d have a few words of caution for her right now. But Kwan was dead. And there was only one thing Cloud cared about.
She took off at a sedate pace, not even gunning it the way she wanted to. Hunched low over the rumbling bike, she tried to think of something, anything that would allow her to keep hold of her last ounce of humanity before the hunter in her consumed it all.
Tommy and I stumbled in from the hunt, blood-and-grass-stained and riding the small bit of power we had gathered when I fed. My poor ghoul. He really deserved more than this, barely clinging to existence because I couldn’t sustain him.
But the only way for me to get back up to full power would be to chomp on a human. And that would spread the wendigo taint, the way it had back when I was bitten. The hunters had been resistant to it—something about their magic and their immortality. And Kwan had been able to survive me because he could heal ridiculously fast.
A real human wouldn’t survive me. Tommy was evidence of that. My feeding on him had put him into shock so bad his pre-existing heart issue had killed him.
Tommy made some ribald comment about my boobs for the fifth time that night and I gave up trying to hide the tear in my shirt that exposed the side of the left one. Deer antlers were more dangerous than I had given them credit for. I reminded Tommy he wished he’d got a chance at all this before he died. But our laughter and ribbing faded as we approached the cabin.
“Crap on toast,” I muttered.
Tommy’s brother was back. I could feel his magical signature. And my buzzards were restless. They usually only reacted to things that were a threat to my existence. Like wendigos or rogue hunters. But who knows, maybe witch magic gave them indigestion.
Tommy scowled. “Caldwell.”
I snorted. “Caldwell, really? What kind of douchebag name is that?”
The witch in question regarded us from his seat in the Adirondack chair on my back porch as we approached. “I’ll admit,” he said with a wry grin that reminded me a lot of Tommy’s troublemaking expressions. “About as douchey as Thomas Whitehall the third.”
I raised an eyebrow at Tommy and mouthed “Thomas Whitehall the third?”
He flipped me off. “Stuff it. That’s what happens when your whole family is from a long line of snobby aristocrats that think they are special because they can do magic tricks.”
Caldwell laughed. “Magic tricks? Sure kiddo.”
Tommy growled. “What do you want, Cal?”
His brother looked out at the woods for a time before he answered. “We really did miss you, you know?” He turned his dark blue eyes upward to look at his pale, ghoulish brother. “I’m sorry. It’s all because of me that everything…” he waved his hand helplessly, “fell apart.”
Tommy took pity on him. “Look, I admit, I’ve been pissed off for five years. And, yeah, it hurt like hell being the only talentless one in the coven. The weakest link, the family embarrassment.” He shrugged. “But hey, I’m not weak anymore. And I kind of prefer hanging around a foul-mouthed wendigo chick to dancing and flirting with the next gold-digging political match.”
I slugged him in the arm. “There’s nothing wrong with my fucking mouth.” Well, except the fangs. I mean, I didn’t swear more than your normal adult. Much.
Tommy shook his head. But he didn’t have any room to talk. He invented curses that left me dazed and confused on a daily basis.
Caldwell glanced at me in a way that made me re-think the mouth comment. What the hell was wrong with me? Jesus.
I brushed past the brothers and headed inside to change. Cal caught my arm suddenly and I froze, barely stopping the growl that rose up in my throat. He jerked his hand back as if he’d been burned. “Sorry! Your clothes are all ripped though, and you’re bleeding.” He gestured at my exposed side, where the ribs below my breast had been scored by hard, sharp antlers. “Are you okay? What happened?”
I narrowed my eyes at his concern. Not buying it. “I was hunting,” I said impatiently. “I should have been more careful of the horns.” I tapped my own antlers in illustration, hoping he took note of the sharp points.
Tommy pushed by us. “She’s fine, Cal. She’s not some flighty witch who can’t take a beating and get back up.” He called back over his shoulder. “Want a beer?”
Cal followed us inside, his brow furrowed as he regarded Tommy. “You can still eat and drink?”
Tommy shrugged. “I still get hungry like usual. I don’t really get drunk, but I like a beer now and then.” He made awful white doe-eyes at me. “And Tess loves me so much she buys me the good stuff.”
I pushed him away and trudged toward my bedroom to grab some fresh clothes.
Showered and changed, I emerged to a scene of tentative brotherly bonding. It was sickening. I suppressed a smile.
Tommy was telling Cal a story about a man-eating shadow creature we had helped Kwan and Cloud track, back before the whole…death and fuck off thing. Tommy was gesturing wildly and making absurd cross-eyed faces as he re-enacted the whole encounter.
“And Tess just goes ‘this is boring,’ and like, rips its head off and tosses it in the bushes. I thought the hunters were going to shit themselves.”
I shook my head. “Coffee.”
Tommy pointed to the end table, where a steaming mug of caffeine and sugar sat waiting for me. I nodded thanks and plopped down, aware of Cal’s eyes on me, evaluating.
“You worked with hunters?”
I shrugged.
Tommy looked at me for a minute, but apparently decided it wouldn’t matter if he talked about the past. “They saved Tess from the wendigo. They asked her to help them hunt the monsters, since she’s…one of them now.” He laughed. “Then I finally got her to go out with me and she tried to eat me. Kind of changed my outlook on life.”
I snorted.
Cal lifted an eyebrow at his brother. “So, you two are…?”
I choked on my coffee as I tried to laugh and swallow at the same time. Tommy came to pound me helpfully on the back. “No way,” he said, slapping me harder than necessary, just for good measure. “We’re like family now.”
I growled at him and he stopped pounding on my back, dancing aside with a grin when I made a swipe at him with my claws.
“The little shit won’t leave me the fuck alone,” I added.
Cal laughed. “Aspen and oak, Mom and Dad are going to hate this.”
I raised an eyebrow at the odd cursing.
Tommy disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a couple of beers. Handing one to his brother, he sank down on the old, worn out sofa next to him. They sipped their beer in silence for a few minutes before Cal looked up at me. “So, what happened to your hunters? There’s a lot of strange creatures hanging around out here….”
I felt like I had swallowed glass. But let’s face it, I had been expecting the question. The witches were obviously in the know about the shadowy creatures that the normal humans couldn’t see. “They thought they could use me like a tool,” I said softly. “Keep me like a pet. It didn’t work out so well.”
Tommy snorted. “It ended up with one of them dead and the other one swearing to hunt Tess down. Even though she secretly wants a piece of wendigo ass.”
Cal raised one eyebrow, utterly confused.
I sighed.
“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re wondering,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee and telling the monster inside to shut its fucking mouth. Coffee wasn’t flesh and blood, but damn it, it was coffee.
Cal regarded me in silence for a time, occasionally darting an intense blue gaze toward Tommy. I took mental note. They might be brothers, but these men were different. While Tommy might look the part of a bad boy ghoul, he was open and at times more honest than I’d like, with the unfailing loyalty of a puppy.
Something told me Cal was a much different flavor. There was a calculating intelligence there that I thought was sharper than he let on. I didn’t sense malice in him. But that quick, evaluating look told me he could be dangerous.
“So,” I said, trying to draw the conversation away from the creatures in my backyard—and avoid discussion of how Kwan died and who killed him. Or how he hadn’t been the only hunter to die in my woods that night. “Tommy said you left for some sort of training?”
Cal nodded and sat back with his beer, the sharp eyes going hooded. Interesting. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I…well I ended up being more powerful than anyone anticipated, and it happened too fast. I couldn’t always control it. Tommy told you? About the house fire?”
I looked right at Tommy. My ghoul fidgeted, glared, and took a swig of beer.
“Not much, actually,” I said pointedly. “The idiot never wanted to talk about his family. And I was stupid enough to think it didn’t matter.”
Cal snorted. He looked down at his hands as he spoke, picking at the label on his beer bottle. “Tommy was only seventeen. I was twenty. I should have had more control over my temper.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, now someone has to tell me what the hell happened.”
Tommy shook his head, but didn’t say anything.
Cal looked at his brother, maybe waiting for an objection. Then he said, “Tommy slept with my girlfriend, right in the middle of one of my parents’ big galas. I lost my mind and set the house on fire.”
I looked at Tommy. I wanted to be shocked, but then again not so much. I had first-hand knowledge of his skills. When he’d kissed me—right before I killed him—he had certainly not kissed like a sweet, dorky home-town grocery store clerk. “Right,” I said sagely. I could see the idiot being so cocky that he’d steal his brother’s woman when he was still only a kid.
Tommy grunted and drank more beer. “I was a shit-head. Cocky and jealous as hell.” He looked at his brother, finally, and I realized this was probably the first time they’d really talked about this. “I’m sorry, Cal.”
I stood up, all the emotion in the room making me want to run away as fast as my legs could carry me. The brothers looked at me. “Uh…I’ll just be…outside. Checking on things.”
I darted out onto the porch and shut the door behind me with a bang.
Eeew. Emotions.
I wondered what it would be like to have a sibling. Then I let out a dry laugh. If I had a sibling, they’d probably be dead right now. Just like my mom, and my husband, and my child, and Tommy, and the last person I’d fucked. How my dad was still kicking, I had no idea. Maybe he had enough poison in him to keep even Death away.
Sighing, I leaned my arms against the porch railing and looked out into the night. Glowing eyes peered at me from the forest. “Hey guys,” I said softly. “I see you. I know…just…give me a little longer, okay?”
Despite my lack of family, I knew I had a commitment. I just balked at taking that last step of accepting my responsibility. I was entirely the wrong person for the job. My heart was too shriveled up and dead to be able to care for the life I felt around me. And my soul was too tired. And I had not one fucking clue what exactly I was supposed to do anyway.
I kept waiting for someone else to come dashing in to save the day and free me of the burden of those glowing eyes, that fearful hope.
“Any day now,” I muttered around a massive yawn.
I could feel the sun lingering just out of sight in the murky dark. Turning, I made my way back inside, ignoring the fact that I’d caught the brothers hugging and thumping each other’s backs like a couple of idiots.
“Tommy,” I said tiredly. “Your brother can stay and hang out. But keep an eye on him and don’t let him wander off into the woods.”
My ghoul rolled his creepy white eyes. “Yes, oh Lord and Master.”
I glanced back, my eyes meeting Cal’s. “You can hang around, but I swear if you fuck with Tommy again, I will tear you into pieces, devour you, and shit you out.”
Cal’s expression was torn between laughter and surprise. Tommy just laughed. But I knew Cal understood—I might have been purposefully crude, but I was dead serious. I was down to my last nerve with loss and betrayal.
And fucking emotions. If he made my ghoul all lonely and mopey…if he fucking cried, I was going to murder someone.
*****
I dreamed of Cloud. We met in a moon-drenched clearing in the forest. She was cold, and angry and my rage was overpowering. And then everything changed. She whispered something I couldn’t quite catch. The words sounded foreign. Then her cold expression crumpled, and I saw everything I had always hoped was there, hidden under all her armor—longing, tenderness, need.
Her hands were buried in my hair, pulling desperately as she fed at my mouth, licking, nipping, dropping bruising kisses on my lips which I returned with my own brutal force. Her lean, muscular body pressed to mine, and I wrapped my arms around her, her knee between my legs, my hard, sensitive nipples pressed to her own full, heavy breasts.
Moaning, I dropped my head to her shoulder. The hunger burned in me and I bit her, my fangs sliding through her golden skin. Blood filled my mouth and it was heat and passion and Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud.
But something was wrong, and the oddity prodded at the flimsy walls of my dream world. The hunger wasn’t fading. It was getting worse. My throat ached, my belly cramped and burned. The beast in me clamored for me to chase, kill, tear, feast.
I opened my eyes and hissed in anger. The fucking sun was still up. Even though I’d installed blackout curtains in my room, I could still feel the sun out there, pressing on the walls of my house, trying to invade my senses and leave me blinded and exposed, without the comforting coolness of my shadows.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Then the smell hit me. I was out of my bed and in the living room, standing there in my underwear and a nearly see-through camisole. The scent of human flesh and blood called to me, begging the wendigo to let go and glut itself.
If the dogman hadn’t done his spells on me the other night, I would have given in.
I braced myself against the wall, claws digging into the aged paneling, as I stared at Suzie. She and Tommy were standing toe to toe, his hands on her shoulders as if they’d been arguing.
“Tess?” Her voice wobbled. She’d been crying.
It smelled wonderful.
I would make her cry more while I ate her. The more emotion I wrung out of my prey, the sweeter it would taste. I growled, a low, rumbling purr starting in my middle.
Tommy’s eyes widened. “Oh fuck. Mother fucker.” He stooped, flinging Suzie over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The girl shrieked, but he ignored it.
I loved the sound. It made goosebumps break out on my arms. I could make her make all sorts of interesting noises while I lapped her up like gravy.
I growled again, crouching a bit, hands splayed against the wall. Tommy made a dash for the door and I lunged, claws swiping.
I missed by a hair’s breadth. A shiny dishwater-blond curl drifted to the floor, sliced from Suzie’s head. Then my ghoul and his passenger were outside and bounding away toward town.
I growled and jumped to my feet, the wendigo howling. We loved a good chase. I grinned and stepped outside.
Only to howl again, this time in pain and anger. The fucking sun burned. It beat at my head with icepick strokes. My eyes watered. Every hunting instinct in me died down a notch.
It was enough for me to wrestle control away from the monster inside me.
“Son of a bitch!” I darted back inside. The place still smelled of human, so I ran around, opening all the windows to air it out.
I paced, both exhausted and strung out. I should be sleeping at this time of day, but my senses had been jerked around so much I was like a wind-up toy that had been given too many cranks.
After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, Tommy returned.
“Hey-ya, Tess,” he said casually, slipping inside and closing the sliding glass door and then pulling the blinds. “You okay?”
I glared at him, pacing forward with my claws out. Could I kill my own ghoul? Again? “What the fuck, Tommy?”
He held up his hands and I stopped, not more than a foot away. “What part of me being an out of control monster do you not understand, moron?” I punched him in the stomach and he let out his breath in a pained grunt. I hadn’t hit him that hard. Much as I wanted to right now. “I could have killed her,” I whispered, trying not to scream. “I would have fucking killed her if the sun hadn’t been up!”
He glared right back. “I didn’t bring her here, Tess. She just showed up!” He flung out an arm, keys dangling from his fingers. “Her car is still in the driveway. I was trying to get her to leave. Do you think I want her to get hurt?”
I backed down. “Maybe,” I couldn’t keep the petulance out of my voice.
Tommy slumped onto the couch and let out a whoosh of breath, covering his face with his arm for a minute before he finally looked at me again. “I want her Tess. More than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. I want to keep her.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face and willed the claws away. Then I sank down on the floor in front of Tommy, sitting Indian-style in my skimpy underwear in the middle of the goddamned day, because my ghoul needed to talk.
Fuck my life.
“Go.” I gestured with my hand for him to get on with it.
Tommy snorted, but did as asked. “I told her she can’t come here. I told her you were dangerous—we were dangerous. But she won’t listen. She insists that she…that she loves me.” He said it incredulously, as if he couldn’t possibly understand how that could be true. “She was worried because I haven’t been home lately. Because I’ve been out here.”
I rolled my eyes. “Tell me your girlfriend isn’t jealous of our relationship.” But I was being an ass. I knew better.
“No,” he said softly. “Suzie doesn’t have it in her to think something mean like that.”
I sighed. “I know.” It was the truth. She smelled like rainbows and lattes and was as sweet and human as a little librarian college student could be.
Tommy looked at me. “What am I supposed to do, Tess? I don’t want her to get hurt. But…shit, Tess, even when I was alive I never felt this way about anyone. And now…now I’m me. And she’s her. And fuck if I understand any of this.”
He looked at me, pleading. “Brutus said I was going to taint her. To ruin her humanity. I know I’m not good for her. Hell, I’m dead for fuck’s sake.”
I heaved a sigh, ignoring the grumbling of my wendigo madness to pay attention to the feelings. Ugh.
“Look, I don’t give a damn what that inbred asshat Brutus said. He was a fucktard. So just get that shit out of your head right now.” I put a hand on his knee. “Tommy, you are a fucking idiot every day of your life, but I love you. People can love you. It’s possible.” I smirked. “Though I probably don’t count as ‘people’ anymore.” I waved that away. “I don’t care if you want to fuck the little librarian. She’s a big girl. She knows what you are. So again, not a fucking issue.”
I squeezed his knee, fingers digging into flesh and making him squirm. “But,” I said, leaning close. “Do not let a human near me again until we figure out how to get this wendigo thing under control, okay? And for fuck’s sake especially not in the middle of the day!”
He nodded, but he looked more relaxed. “I wasn’t expecting her to go looking for me,” he said softly. “Won’t happen again.”
I stood. “Good. I was having a good dream before you morons interrupted. I’m going back to bed.”
I was almost to the bedroom when Tommy called to me. “Were you dreaming about Cloud?”
I didn’t look at him. “What? Fuck no. That’s stupid. You’re stupid. Goodnight.”
I slammed the door against the sound of his stupid laughter.
At least my ghoul could still smile.
I leaned my head back against the wooden door, breathing deep and trying to find myself. I had ruined Tommy’s life. He should be out there dating and getting married and raising little blond moron babies. Not half-dead and dependent on me to keep from rotting while he pined after some girl he’d never have a future with.
I stared at my bed. My eyelids were heavy, my brain was foggy, and the fucking sun was still taunting me. I needed to sleep. But I remembered my dreams, and I didn’t know if I could stand the waking up again.
I woke that night still feeling tired. Maybe it was just because of my interrupted sleep that day.
Maybe.
But I had a sick feeling that it was more than that. The dogman had said his magic was only a temporary fix for the madness. I was missing vital nutrients. Like human nutrients. Too bad the drugstore didn’t carry a flesh, blood, and pain multi-vitamin for the wendigo-tainted.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and stood. I still felt a restlessness that had nothing to do with hunting. The creatures of the forest called to me with their unease. I threw on a sweater and a pair of jeans and padded out into the cold night in my bare feet.
Standing on my back porch, I gazed out at the treeline. Part of me had already accepted these creatures as my responsibility. But another part of me still resisted. That part insisted that we run for our life. Because caring for people—even non-human people—was a path that would only lead to pain.
Ahanu flew in and landed on the porch railing near my arm. The traitor bird wisely didn’t try to land on my shoulder like the good old days. I ignored him.
“Go walk among them,” the little boy’s ghostly voice suggested.
I wanted to tell him to go mind his own fucking business, but it was hard to swear at him when he was in his little boy form. Damn it.
“Why?”
He heaved a gusty sigh. “The ancestors called it a spirit quest. Even if they later forgot which spirits they were meant to walk with.”
I shook my head. “Too bad for you. I’m not Native American. Darn. No creepy spiritual shit for me today.”
“Tess, you are touched by the spirit of death. The creatures who are the living embodiments of the earth are begging you to be theirs. This human stubbornness…this blindness of yours. Why do you cling to it?”
I refused to justify that shit with a comment.
The ghost boy turned bird and had the balls to flutter up to perch on my shoulder, tangling his talons in the fabric of my sweater and pecking at my hair.
I wondered what raven tasted like? Would harboring a ghost child give it a smoky flavor?
Sighing, I stepped down off the porch and headed into the woods. I wasn’t out here to walk with spirits, I told myself firmly. I just needed some fresh air. Early onset cabin fever in anticipation of the coming winter.
That sounded weak even to me.
I walked slowly through the woods, my senses trailing outward, not seeking anything, but absorbing. Drawing in the cool darkness of the night, the muffled forest sounds, and the comfortable energy of the creatures who called my forest home. I had no trouble seeing the creatures, even in the pitch-black of the almost moonless night. They all had a faint silvery glow about them.
Frost had fallen, creeping over the dried leaves and debris on the forest floor. It crunched faintly under my bare feet as I walked.
The stag that I had saved from deer hunters a few months back came to walk at my side. She could speak to me in my mind, but today she was silent. Her strangely beautiful horns trailed Spanish moss and wildflowers and her silver coat sparkled.
We walked in silence and I felt others join in the dark parade. Their energy around me felt right. It felt…almost whole. If there was still a hole in my chest where my frozen heart had once been…well at least the bleeding seemed to slow for a time.
The madness that constantly clamored in my mind seemed to quiet as well. To recede a bit.
Then Death slipped from the shadows. He was in his black hare form today. The rabbit hopped forward slowly on its long, powerful back legs, walking in that adorably awkward way of creatures who were not meant to move slowly. I didn’t speak out loud. For some reason I was hesitant to disturb the soothing silence around me.
But I looked at the black hare and thought with all my heart. Why me? Why had the god dogged my footsteps since I was a child? What had I ever done to be punished this way? What the hell did he want from me?
The rabbit cocked its head, one ear flicking forward and one flicking back, as if listening for danger. I sank down to sit cross-legged in front of the animal with a suddenness that startled me, as if I was a marionette with my strings cut.
Then…I wasn’t in the forest anymore.
I was a seven-year-old girl. I stood in a hospital room looking at my mommy. Tears were streaming down my face. I was scared. Confused. She didn’t look right. I was used to the way she looked now, after the sickness had taken away her wonderfully padded curves and soft places. The way her big brown eyes had looked like glowing lamps in her sunken cheeks. But she wasn’t moving now. Why wouldn’t she open her eyes? Any minute now, she would look at me with that happy sadness in her face and tell me to come give her a hug.
Dad was there. He sat in a chair by the bed, and it was as if I didn’t exist. He stroked mom’s hair back from her face and his hand shook violently. How silly. Why was he flapping his hand around like that?
Why was he making that noise? Like he was broken.
He hunched forward and lay his head on my mom’s chest, his whole body heaving as he sobbed in big, broken fits. Adults didn’t cry like that.
The tall shadow man that was always watching me stood in the corner, where it was dark. His eyes were blue like mine. Like my daddy’s. Daddy was scaring me. I went to the corner and slouched down with my back against the wall and my arms around my knees.
Mommy. Mommy, mommy, mommy. No, no, no, no, no! They told me this would happen. When she got sick, mommy said one day she would go away. But she said she would always be with me, even when she was gone. I didn’t get it. She wasn’t here. She was just gone. Gone, gone, gone. And Daddy was broken. And now I was broken too, because my face was wet and my body wouldn’t stop shaking.
The shadow man reached out and patted my head. He was cold. But I wasn’t afraid. Because he felt sad like me. She lived and died beautifully.
The world jolted.
The hospital again. Damn it I hate fucking hospitals.
I was an adult now.
I didn’t want to be an adult. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be alive anymore. Not now. Not for this. A doctor was holding on to my arms as I tried to hit him. He was old, and his eyes had kind patience in them as I tried to murder him.
He was supposed to save my son.
Toby.
Barrett’s arms were around me then, pulling me away from the doctor, squeezing me so hard it hurt. Toby was lying still and quiet in his hospital bed. No more fragile smiles. No more jokes about my bad hair days or how bad the hospital food was. No more talk of what he was going to do first when he got back home. He wasn’t going home. Ever. He wasn’t going to ride his bike, or color pictures for me, or leave his toys all over the house.
The waves of panic, and pain, and the need to escape it all overwhelmed me. Barrett squeezed me tighter, his solid, strong bulk holding me down, anchoring me. The shadows in the corner of the room rippled. I got a sense of sadness and…curiosity there. But I didn’t register that at the time.
Suddenly I was watching the scene from a few feet away. And my spirit eyes could see what my human eyes had not seen then. Death stroked my head, then went to crouch by Toby’s bed. He smiled softly, eyes sad and deep.
Beautiful little boy of your heart. So perfect.
Barrett dug his fingers into my skin as he clung to me. “I’m right here,” he whispered. “We’re still here. It…we’ll get through this. Somehow.”
Then I was away again. The hospital, but not a patient room this time. The ER. Beeping and alarms and noise. People calling out orders and rushing around. But not where I was headed. The rushing was over in the room I was guided to. That frantic energy was reserved for the patients who could still be saved.
Barrett. He was covered up to his chin. I tried not to notice how a spot further down seemed to be getting dark under the covering. Tried not to think of blood oozing from whatever damage that thin barrier hid.
His face was pale. There was a long gash down one side of his face from his temple, across his cheek, to his mouth. He looked foreign now, without his warmth, without that vital thing that was Barrett.
I felt like I was going to throw up. But I had insisted on coming in here and seeing him, even when the doctors said that I should give it a little time. They probably wanted to clean things up more, make viewing my husband more sterile.
I registered dimly that there were still a few smears of blood on the floor. Instruments on a covered tray that were waiting to be wheeled away.
But none of that really mattered. Hiding the evidence would not make him less dead.
Barrett was dead.
How could he leave me? He was supposed to keep me from falling apart. I ached at the phantom memory of his solid bulk, his strong arms wrapped around me.
“No,” I whispered. I couldn’t. I could not do this.
I started hyperventilating. I couldn’t remember exactly how his voice sounded. I wanted to see his eyes. Shit. Shit. Shit. A clawing panic overtook me, and I wanted to run, scream, destroy the world.
But I stood there frozen. Shaking.
One of the medical staff had come with me, but they were quiet. Unobtrusive.
I was alone.
A soothing numbness fell over me. I went black, cold. I pulled on a blanket of numbness that would let me walk out of that room and survive the night. “I love you,” I whispered, tears falling like rivers.
The me that was the observer saw it again. The things my human eyes had not known. Death stood at my side, holding my hand.
I wanted to touch Barrett one last time. But I was afraid. Death cocked his head as if listening, thinking. Then the shadowy man put a hand between my shoulder blades and pushed me forward.
At the time I thought I stumbled numbly forward through some strange surge in resolve.
I ran a shaking hand through Barrett’s soft hair. I kissed his forehead for the last time.
And another piece of me died.
I drew in a sharp breath as I found myself sitting on the forest floor once more, staring into the curious face of the black hare.
“You were there every fucking time.”
The rabbit drew a front paw over a long ear as if cleaning himself.
“Why? Why are you doing this to me?”
My voice was harsh against the silence of the forest. The creatures around me had drawn back from us. Not in fear but in reverence to the God before them.
I had no reverence for the asshole.
Then I was gone again. Damned Gods and spirits. Assholes every one of them.
The girl-child played in the woods. I kept to the shadows, so I wouldn’t scare her. She was curious about everything. Human children were such an enigma, so full of life, so open.
I felt strange emotions when I spent time around humans. They were strange. But they were entertaining. I wanted to know what they felt when they did all the strange things they did.
This one was happy. She was curious about everything. And her bright, quick mind made up stories and fantasies as she played.
I didn’t get to be this close to humans. They felt me and were afraid. They blamed me for my part of the natural cycle of energy in the world. I don’t know why I spent so much time with this one. But I knew I would see her many times anyway. So, what could it hurt to spend a little more time observing her?
I watched from the shadows, trailing along over hill and stream, climbing trees, running through the mudflats by the river, collecting animal bones and bird’s eggs and wildflowers.
The girl started to feel…precious to me. I stood by her while her eyes grew sad. She didn’t know that death was part of life. I watched her learn that. I did not understand the emotions she showed me. But she was in pain. I soothed her when I could. I stood by her when I could not.
She couldn’t see me anymore. And when she finally could, I learned a new emotion from her. Hatred. She hated me. She blamed me. The way they all do.
But she was not a faceless human. She was mine. My child. My gift. I did something I had never done before. Never thought to do.
When she was fated to die to feed the wendigo, I refused her the touch of death.
When the wendigo became feral, jealous, upset that I had ruined the natural balance of things, I knew I had made a mistake. But I wasn’t sorry.
Because the child was mine. More dear to me than my other children. And I could feel powers gathering around her. Perhaps even my strange intervention in her life had been part of the universal plan. Part of the Great Spirit’s will. Because now she had a destiny. My child was a protector, a savior, but one touched by pain. Etched by it. She had what others would not have—the eyes of the spirit world and the heart of a human.
I slammed back into my own body again and sat glaring at the dumb rabbit.
“Fucking stop doing that. I’m going to hurl.”
I put my head in my hands and breathed the cool, damp night air, trying to process whatever the fuck that had been. I lifted my head to yell at the goddamned bunny rabbit death god. But he was gone.
“Coward!” I yelled, startling an owl from its perch in a nearby tree.
The creatures had drawn close to me again. The stag nudged me with a velvety muzzle to my shoulder and I glared. “I have the creepiest stalker ever known to man,” I informed her. “What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
The stag shook her massive horns and gave me a look that I swear was exasperated. You protect us, she insisted in my mind in her careful, difficult human-speak.
I didn’t have it in me to explain to her that when I said the forest was “protected” I had meant that it was national forest land and hunting wasn’t permitted here. Not that I my fucking self was its protector. She wouldn’t listen. No one ever did when it came to what I wanted anyway.
Sighing, I heaved myself to my feet.
I started back toward the house, but I halted when my creature entourage suddenly scattered in fear.
What the fuck now?
I relaxed my stance a bit when I saw what had the creatures withdrawing. Cal.
The witch walked toward me cautiously, those sharp blue eyes darting around, cataloging the creatures that peered at us from a safe distance. I think they mistrusted his magic, which was so similar to the magic the hunters used.
“There are so many of them,” Cal breathed.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What are you doing here?” It was the middle of the night. Or way too early in the morning…I guess it depended on how you looked at it. I wondered if witches were nocturnal like wendigos and most of the other monsters.
Cal stopped and put his hands in his pockets, rocking up on his toes. The innocent look was almost as practiced as Tommy’s old mask had been. I narrowed my eyes.
“I was looking for Tommy,” he said. Then he shrugged. “I just assumed he’d be with you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “He doesn’t live with me.” Yet.
The idiot was certainly pushing the boundaries between occasionally staying over and suddenly just being there all the fucking time. But then, I sort of needed him to keep me sane these days. None of which was any of the long-lost brother’s business.
Cal studied my face for a moment, then let go of some of his act, his face relaxing a bit, the more serious face that I thought was the real one coming through. “We put ourselves up at a hotel. I thought Tommy might appreciate the space.” He shrugged. “I know he’s usually up at night. But when I went to see him at the house, he wasn’t there.”
I sighed. Suzie. “Are you…worried about him?” It seemed wrong that Cal would be so protective of his little brother after abandoning him for five stinking years. Did he have another reason to worry?
He raised a blond brow and gave me a familiar sarcastic look. “We did come back to find our one human family member turned into an undead monster. That’s not enough reason to be concerned about him?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “What else you got?” Cause that was bullshit.
He sighed. “Look, you seem to take all this weird shit in stride. But it’s not exactly normal, even in the magic culture. It sounds like you might have pissed off the hunters. That means they will be hunting you. And…well, we might be able to somehow keep Tommy alive with magic, but I seriously doubt it. And the results would be…awful. He needs you alive. Which means if we want to keep him alive, we’d better be keeping an eye on your lovely ass too.”
I digested that. “Fuck you.”
He stared at me for a moment. “That’s all you have to say about the whole situation?” He snorted. “Wait…that’s your answer to everything, isn’t it?”
I smiled, showing fang. I wasn’t sure if he could see me that well, but I was hoping so. “See, I knew you were the smart one in the bunch.”
He shook his head. “You aren’t concerned at all? I mean, there are hunters out there, probably plotting your demise, and my brother’s along with it.”
I sighed.
“Can you see them?” I asked, gesturing to the forest around me.
He nodded, eyes sliding over the area, spine straightening, his body taking on that loose alertness I had learned to associate with a warrior getting ready to defend themselves. “There are so many.”
I turned, gesturing for him to follow me deeper into the woods. He paced along beside and slightly behind me, taking my hand when he stumbled over a fallen log and almost face-planted. Okay, so that answered the question about the night vision. Stronger than a human’s but not so strong as mine.
I led him toward the pungent smell of skunk.
To his credit, he let me lead him. He didn’t bitch and moan about the smell, or the dark, or my lack of sanity. It was refreshing, really.
We stopped, and I squeezed his hand before letting go, warning him to stay still and not do something stupid. I hoped he listened better than his idiot brother in these situations. Cal stayed put while I walked forward to meet my aniwye. The skunk monster nuzzled its soft muzzle against my chest and made a little wuffling happy noise.
“Is--" Cal’s voice cracked and he paused to clear his throat. “Is that killer skunk wagging its tail?”
The killer skunk in question looked at him with glowing green eyes, bared its sharp teeth, and growled.
I frowned. “Oh, hush,” I told it, scratching between its ears. It quieted and followed along behind us like a big, happy dog while I showed Cal my secret world.
He saw them all. The big scary ones like the aniwye, the shy winged deer, the tiny ones that hid under leaves and rocks. The beautiful ones like something out of a fairy story. The hideous ones like something from a nightmare. All of them calmed by my presence.
“I don’t know what is going on out there,” I said, feeling like a reclusive mountain man who’d lost touch with the world. “But there are more beings depending on me than just one ghoul.” Not that I knew what the hell to do for them.
Cal was quiet, in that still way that indicated a sharp mind turning over a thousand questions, conclusions and possible actions.
“Do the hunters know they are here?”
I shrugged. “At least one of them does. I expected her to come back and try to kill us all. But…I honestly don’t know what she has up her sleeve. So far she’s only killed a few nasty ones—things I wouldn’t have been able to allow to live here with the others.”
Cal sighed. “There are rumors,” he said, giving me a sideways glance. “Do you watch the news?” At my negative reply, he looked even more grim. “Natural disasters are on the rise. There have been more wildfires, earthquakes, killer storms…some people in the magical community think this is because of the creatures. There is something upsetting them, making them act out.”
I tilted my head. His heartbeat had sped up. The big, bad witch was worried. “But look at them,” I said softly. “They all—even the more supposedly dangerous ones—came here scared. They came here for sanctuary, Cal.”
When he was silent, I whispered, “What have the hunters done?”
He laughed and ran a hand through his hair. “Or, what have you done, wendigo? Are you calling them here to you? Gathering them for a reason?”
I pushed my wild hair back around my horns, recalling how the hunters had asked the same question. “I’ve only ever tried to live out the rest of my miserable life alone.”
He took my hand again. I was tempted to rip his arm off. I stared at him pointedly. He tugged me back toward the cabin and then let go. “We need to figure out what is going on out there. In the world you are ignoring. Maybe whatever it is has caused the monsters to come here. Maybe with your connection to them you can figure out why they are going crazy and destroying the planet.”
I trailed after him, my mind whirling. I was pretty sure I already knew what caused the monsters to come here and cozy up next to the half-monster, half-human death chick.
Fucking hunters.
*****
When we got back to the cabin, my ghoul was there. He gave his brother a strange look when he trailed in the door behind me. “Look what I found in the woods,” I said, taking a seat at my desk and starting up my laptop. I needed to check out these so-called disasters.
Cal came to stand behind my chair. “Where have you been?” He asked Tommy. “I went to the house to see you, but you were gone. I just figured you’d be here.”
Tommy kicked back on the couch and put his booted feet on the coffee table, arms crossed, closed off. “None of your business where I go or what I do.”
I sighed. “He was probably with his human girlfriend,” I said helpfully. Let his brother help him sort it out. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to talk about love and feelings with my ghoul.
“Tess!” Tommy exclaimed, as if I had just betrayed him.
“Oh, fucking suck it up,” I said, typing “wildfire” into the search bar.
Cal put a hand on the back of my chair and leaned forward, sending a whiff of herbs and magic to drift over me. “Start with California,” he suggested. “For some reason, it’s bad there.”
I clicked a link and frowned at the screen, the article there helping me to ignore the little flare of hunger that Cal caused. He smelled too human.
“What are you doing?’ Tommy asked, coming to stand on my other side. He joined his brother in reading over my shoulder and I started to feel claustrophobic.
California was on fire. Seventeen large fires were reported, spanning over one-hundred miles. Thousands of homes and businesses had been destroyed, and the death toll was currently at fifty and rising. Dozens more wildfires were reportedly raging across the western united states.
“Hurricanes,” Cal prompted.
I searched.
The deadliest hurricane season to date.
Tommy hissed. “The earthquakes.”
I shot him a glare. How did he know more about what was going on in the news than me? I mean, granted, he hadn’t been spending his spare time battling the wendigo madness, but he sure spent a lot of time making sure I didn’t eat the locals.
I typed away.
There had been five earth quakes magnitude three or higher in the U.S. just in the past day. I had no idea if that was normal or not, but none of this sounded good.
And all of the articles and reports indicated that these natural disasters were on the rise. This year had been the worst across the board.
“You think the creatures are causing this?” I asked, spinning my chair to face Cal. He stepped away to pace the length of my living room. “Not just me. The magic community—all the covens—have been watching the trends. The creatures are getting more and more aggressive. There’s even been a push for the hunters to increase their numbers so they can take care of the threat.”
Tommy scoffed. “Fucking hunters.”