Mangled Page 4

  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 madnes
s? 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.

  Chapter 7

  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 hi
s 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.

  Chapter 8

  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.