Mangled Read online

  The dogman led me in a frantic dash through the trees, out of the forest and across the road, back into the forest. I scampered along. At one point, I smelled smoke. Then Cal caught up and we started to slow. The dogman howled again.

  I could smell blood. Powerful blood laced with magic. And I heard harsh, feminine cursing.

  We slipped through the trees and I prayed that my nose was wrong. That I wasn’t about to see what I knew I was about to see.

  Cloud. She knelt on the ground, covered in blood. She had a new axe, which was also covered in gore. Two other hunters were slumped across the way in a heap, not moving. Cloud’s hair was matted across her forehead and I swear she was crying. But no. That cold bitch didn’t have enough heart to cry.

  Right next to her was Cal’s sister. The soft one. The one without the braids, who loved animals and thought I wasn’t a monster. Her throat had been slashed open and her eyes stared sightlessly at the canopy of trees. A small fire raged a few feet away. Witch fire, I thought. At least the little Whitehall had put up a fight.

  A howl rolled up from my chest and poured out of me. Pain, frustration, rage. Hunger.

  Cloud pushed herself to her feet and stood there, swaying, bleeding from a gash on her temple. Cal was vibrating with magic as he lunged for the hunter. I flung him back with a backward swipe of my hand. “Fuck off. She’s mine.”

  I stalked toward Cloud. “Not satisfied with terrorizing innocent creatures, Cloud Princess?” I hissed. “Decided you would graduate to killing helpless little girls?”

  Her glowing eyes widened. “You…Tess, you believe I would harm a human…a child?”

  I couldn’t stop growling and it colored my voice as I spoke. “I don’t believe anything of anyone anymore.” I circled her. “You think you know someone. You think you can trust them,” I glanced at Cal, who stood nearby, fists clenched. “And then they fuck you over.” I brought my gaze back to Cloud, my heart trying to beat, to feel something that wasn’t black. But my heart was too damaged to manage much more than rage. “And then they try to kill you.”

  Cloud slumped, holding one arm as if it pained her. “She’s losing herself to the monster,” she said to the witch, ignoring the danger in front of her. “You’ve got strong magic. You can suppress it. Stop her before she’s completely gone.”

  I continued to circle, laughing now. They thought they could stop me. I was going to devour them both. And the dog. And anyone else who was stupid enough to get in my path. The creatures in the forest howled with me, in a dark song that spoke of blood and death and pain.

  “Tess,” Cloud was pleading. “I did not kill that girl. I tried to help her. They are coming. The full force of hunters is coming, and you need to get a hold of yourself.”

  She smelled wonderful. Like power. Like life. Like death. Like a deep love that had been stomped into the ground under a hunter’s boot. I needed to taste her.

  “Tess,” Cal said, his magic rising around us. “Please, we need to know what this hunter knows so we can…God, Tess. Come on!”

  His magic caressed me, but then withdrew. “Please don’t make me do this.”

  Cloud backed away from me with weary steps. “Bind her!”

  He shook his head and dropped to his knees beside his sister’s corpse. “I…I can’t do that to her again. I won’t hurt her like that again. It’s why she is like this now.”

  Cloud snorted in disgust. “Tess,” she said in that deep, rich alto, pulling her own, weaker magic around herself. “Look at me, Tess. It’s Cloud. I want to help you fix this. I was wrong. The hunters are wrong. But you need to pull your head out of your monster ass and work with me.”

  I hissed at her. I needed. I needed to stop this blackness inside me that was sucking everything I loved in and devouring it. I needed to stop the hunger. I needed…her.

  I lunged. Cloud danced away, then kicked me in the back, sending me sprawling. She never had taken it easy on me when we were training together. She’d never been afraid of hurting me. I grinned. This was going to be fun.

  *****

  Cloud whirled dancing out of reach just in time to avoid another lunge. Tess’s powers had grown, even starved and magically castrated as she had been. Maybe being around the witch magic had increased her power somehow. Cloud clenched her teeth against the pain in her chest that obliterated the pain from the numerous cuts and scrapes she had gotten in her previous fight. She was not jealous. The witch had kept Tess alive when Cloud couldn’t.

  Why was he refusing to use his magic now?

  “Tess,” she said, wincing when a set of sharp wendigo claws raked her side as she dodged another blow. “You are stronger than this. Get it together.”

  Tess crouched down, her long fingers touching the ground, wild brown hair flowing about her in waves, tangled with leaves and sticks. Her eyes glowed with a cold blue flame. Sharp fangs flashed as she smiled. A wicked, primal forest creature baiting her prey. She lifted a hand and crooked one clawed finger. “Shh…come here, hunter. Let me show you the beauty of your own death.”

  Cloud shivered. That smooth voice, lisping between her fangs, held a cold, dark power that was more seductive than it should be. It spoke to some hidden thing inside Cloud.

  Cloud paced closer, body loose, but prepared, always on guard. The way it had been for over a hundred years now. “You can try,” she said. “Then I can knock some sense into your tiny monster brain, so we can move on to more important things.”

  Tess lunged. Cloud flowed into a spinning kick with sharp, upward force. She connected with Tess’s chin, flinging her head up and back before the wendigo rolled across the ground.

  The witch stood, his power flaring in unsteady waves of grief and rage. The girl must have been important to him. His magic flowed around the clearing, slowing Tess, but not completely halting her.

  The wendigo turned on him. “I was saving you for later,” she hissed. “Do you want to die now instead?”

  He set his mouth in a grim line. “Tess. I won’t take your will from you. Not again. But you need to calm down. Where is Tommy?”

  Cloud’s gaze snapped from the witch to Tess. “What do you mean, again?” She said softly. What had he done? “And…Tess, where is Tommy?” The ghoul should be here making a fumbling attempt to protect his maker with his brute strength and brutal disregard for bodily injury…unless….

  Tess threw back her head and howled. Cloud’s skin shivered with goosebumps at the sound of loss.

  The witch cringed. Cloud took a deep breath. He didn’t care for Tess. Not deeply enough to save her. He didn’t love her. Cloud clenched her teeth. She pulled on her own magic again and dashed forward. Tess was wounded. The monster was in control and beyond reason.

  And Cloud was really sick of having to hurt the people she cared about most.

  She landed a punch to Tess’s stomach, but it cost her to get so close. The wendigo girl grabbed her, and they went rolling across the forest floor. Terror roiled through Cloud, wendigo power drawing on her darkest fears. Her deepest pain, even as teeth and claws slashed at her flesh.

  She saw blood everywhere. Her grandmother’s face as Cloud cut her down like an animal. The funeral ceremonies of her family. The faces of every warrior she had lost along the way.

  She sobbed as she struck out, not letting it overwhelm her. Grabbing the wendigo by its horns, Cloud hit her with magic at the same time that she slammed Tess’s head against a tree trunk.

  The wendigo went slack under her and Cloud prayed to every God she could think of that she hadn’t just caused some sort of irreparable brain damage.

  “Don’t kill her,” the handsome witch said, approaching with his hands out, magic at the ready. “Please. I swear to you, she can still find her humanity.”

  Cloud grunted and pushed her hair back off her sweaty, bloody forehead. “I fucking know that.” She scowled up at him. “You…you have been keeping her controlled. You are her lover, and yet you wouldn’t use your magic to stop this.” />
  If you loved someone you were supposed to do whatever you needed to do to save them. Even if it meant hurting them in the process.

  He frowned. “You’re…Cloud?”

  She stood and got in his space, anger getting the best of her. “What did you do to her? You…are you still working for them?” She snorted. Of course he was. And the fucking ghoul had let him walk right into Tess’s life. She was going to murder them all. She gripped the witch’s throat, ignoring the burn of his magic that was warning her to back off.

  Tess moaned and sat up, her black power pulsating around her wildly, as if she couldn’t decide if the human or the monster should be in control. Releasing the witch, Cloud went to crouch near Tess. “Get it together,” she said coldly. “We need to find Tommy and put him back together. Then we have hunters to kill.”

  Blue eyes regarded her with weariness that cut through Cloud like a knife. “Cloud? What the fuck, Cloud?”

  The broken desperation and confusion in Tess’s voice almost undid her. She was Cloud’s responsibility. She had been from the moment Cloud let her live after the wendigo attack. Maybe even before that—when she had failed to get to the wendigo fast enough to stop it from attacking a human. And Cloud had failed her so thoroughly at every turn.

  The fire was getting bigger, drawing closer to them, the smoke suffocating. Witch’s fire was nearly impossible to extinguish, and it burned everything in its path down to nothingness. Cloud slipped an arm around Tess’s torso and levered her up. “Come on, I don’t want to know what cooked wendigo smells like.”

  Tess went rigid at her touch, standing then pushing her away, wrapping her arms around herself. “I….” She fell to her knees again, with a grunt, eyes flaring blue. “Hungry….”

  Cloud looked behind her, at the witch. He was trying to contain the witch’s fire with his magic until it burned out. He glanced at her, his dark blue eyes hooded with pain. “No.” He said firmly. “It won’t work. I’m not enough to anchor her to her humanity.” He gave her a meaningful look. “I never was.”

  Cloud knelt by Tess once more, watched those beautiful blue eyes flare with power, then die down to pain, only to flare again. She drew the blade of her axe across her palm, eyes never leaving Tess’s face.

  Tess shook her head, fangs bared. “Fuck off.”

  Cloud sighed. “We need you, Tess. This isn’t a battle the creatures can win on their own.”

  She snarled at Cloud. “So, I’m still a tool?”

  Cloud closed her eyes. “Tess….”

  Pain lanced through her hand as Tess yanked it upward in a bruising grip and, rather than lapping up the blood she offered, bit deep, fangs scraping bone. Despair, sadness, betrayal. The emotions Tess pushed on her were so heavy that Cloud felt like she couldn’t breathe.

  Tess tore away roughly and flung Cloud’s hand back at her like a dead thing. “There you go,” she said, voice sharp and bitter. “Your killing machine is all powered up, hunter. How will you use me now?” Her eyes darted between Cloud and the witch and Cloud’s heart broke. “Am I allowed to find my ghoul now?”

  Cloud stood, stuffing her emotions into the deep, black hole where she usually kept them. She turned her back on her heart and spoke to the witch. “The girl--”

  Tess spoke from behind her. “Rose,” Tess growled. “Her fucking name was Rose, Cloud.”

  She closed her eyes in a long blink, praying for composure that she sure as hell did not feel. “Rose,” she said to the witch. “Was she part of your coven?”

  The witch glared at her. “She’s my sister.”

  He went to the girl’s body and scooped her up, cradling her lifeless, blood-drenched form in his arms as he stood. He gave Cloud a glare that promised they were not done here. “I will find out the truth of how she died,” he promised. The threat was implied. He suspected Cloud had killed her. He would want retribution. But it would come later. Probably when Cloud let her guard down and thought he was over it.

  Cloud nodded. She was so tired…of everything. And she had used too much energy tonight. “You’ll do what you need to do.”

  He turned and walked away, his sister tucked close to his chest.

  There was a rustle of movement behind her and Tess was off in the opposite direction, moving with that terrifying speed of hers. Cloud sighed and stepped into the shadows, feeling the strain of pulling on her limited magic reserves one time too many. She slipped in and out of shadow as she ran, keeping up with Tess.

  Cloud knew there would be no redemption for herself. She had never thought there would be. But Tess was hers. And she wouldn’t forget that again.

  Chapter 16

  I dashed through the forest toward the pull that told me where Tommy was. For some reason, the thrumming in my chest that usually led me to him was growing fainter. Usually it got stronger the closer I got.

  But I had only raised him a couple of times before, and it had always been almost immediately after he was killed. I had delayed this time. I had lost myself and gone berserk over Cal’s betrayal and my monster’s obsession with the fucking ninja Indian chick.

  Because of that, had I failed Tommy?

  I stopped in a clearing. Trying to hone in on the direction more firmly. “How did you know about Cal?” I snapped at Cloud.

  Jesus, as if that was important right now.

  Cloud heaved a sigh and gestured upward.

  I raised my eyes and made out a dark form gliding in silent circles above us. Of course. The damned traitor-bird.

  “Ghost chicken!” I shouted up at the raven. “Where is Tommy?”

  The bird croaked and continued to circle frantically.

  I glanced at Cloud. “What the hell is wrong with him?”

  She frowned. “I…I don’t know. He appeared to me earlier tonight. As a boy.”

  The bird descended to land on a nearby tree branch. His feathers were all puffed up, and he hopped up and down, hissing and clicking. That was a pissed off raven if I’d ever seen one. Not that I had, really. But still.

  I crossed my arms. Bad feelings starting to ramp up. Fuck my life.

  “Ahanu, dude. Do the boy thing and talk to us. You might be a little back-stabber, but I’m sure one of us is bound to listen to your shit.”

  The bird flapped its wings and cawed again.

  “Is he…Ahanu, are you…stuck?” I breathed.

  The bird stopped its shuffling freak-out and glared at me with sharp yellow eyes. Then it snapped out a croak.

  “Fuck,” I said succinctly.

  Cloud pushed past me to stare up at the bird from just below his perch. “Can you take us to where Tommy died?”

  And I didn’t like the way she phrased that at all. Not the place where Tommy was. The place where he’d died.

  I growled.

  The bird took flight again and we dashed after him, following the ever-weakening beacon in my chest.

  We stumbled to a halt in a part of the woods I hadn’t visited in some time. It smelled like skunk. But the aniwye was nowhere to be seen.

  The place was bathed in black ghoul blood. It had splattered on the tree trunks, the leaves, the rocks. It soaked the soil. But Tommy was nowhere to be seen.

  “He put up a fight,” Cloud whispered.

  “But…” I ground out, wanting to move, to run, to find him. “He’s dead. I felt it.” I tapped my chest, right over my solar plexus. “Here.”

  Cloud swore softly under her breath in a language I didn’t understand.

  “Someone took him.” Her cold voice was sure. It wasn’t a question.

  “Someone killed my ghoul, then had the balls to take his corpse?” Why? Who? What the hell? The monster inside me roared.

  Cloud shook her head. And I didn’t feel one ounce of concern about how shitty she looked right now, all blood covered, exhausted and wan.

  Fuck her.

  I rubbed my chest.

  “I can hardly feel him at all,” I said softly. “And I…I can’t even feel a direction
anymore.” As if he were moving around. Being carried off somewhere.

  “We need to re-group,” Cloud said in that irritatingly calm voice of hers. “Let’s go back to your cabin. If the witches are still there, maybe they will help…now that they’ve been drawn into this.”

  Because one of their fucking children had been murdered. She didn’t say it. I glared at her. Had she really killed a child? And if so, what was she doing here now?

  I wanted to trust her. I wanted to murder her. I wanted to run as far away as I could and never interact with another human again. I was sick of being screwed over.

  We turned and headed back toward home.

  I ran, not caring if she could keep up with her fatigue and her injuries. I half-hoped I lost her and the forest creatures decided to take advantage of her weakness to get rid of her.

  As we got closer to my house, the acrid smell of smoke got stronger. I put on speed, cursing under my breath. Why was someone so set on burning the forest down.

  I slid to a halt in my back yard. “Son-of-a-mother-fucking-cunt-licking-bastard!”

  My cabin was engulfed in flames. It had been burning for a while. And with some sort of supernatural intensity. Already there was almost nothing left of it.

  My home. My sanctuary. The place where I had managed to keep clinging to life after my real life ended.

  It was gone.

  “Witch’s fire,” Cloud whispered.

  I jerked around to face her. “What?”

  “That is not natural. The place is saturated in magic.”

  I clenched my fists. I would recognize the taste and feel of that power anywhere.

  Cal.

  “He burned my fucking house down,” I said, voice gone flat. “Of course he burned my fucking house down.”

  Why? Was it a parting shot since he hadn’t been able to kill me? Rage because of his sister’s death?

  Cloud sat down suddenly, butt hitting the earth with a thump. I think she was running out of juice.