Mangled Read online

  (Wendigo Girl Book 3)

  Copyright 2017 Kaye Draper

  Chapter 1

  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.

  Chapter 2

  I woke as the sun set.

  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?”

  Chapter 3

  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?”