Mangled Read online

  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 s
igh. 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.

  Chapter 5

  “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 col
ossal 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.

  Chapter 6

  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.