by Tess Oliver
"Do you have something to show me?"
He lifted a heavy paw and pounded the snow. Paw lifts and grunts were our crude form of communication.
"I'll get my cape."
I raced inside and glanced around, wondering if I should grab a quick bag of first aid items. I could only assume that Pilgrim had come to find me because some animal was in trouble.
I grabbed my canvas bag and shoved in some gauze and antiseptic and sutures. I added in a flashlight and a pair of binoculars. There was enough moonlight on the snow if I needed to see something in the distance.
Pilgrim reminded me of myself as he impatiently paced the snow in front of the cabin. I motioned Gunner inside and climbed onto Pilgrim's back. The bear took off at a lope before I could center my seat. I grabbed a chunk of flesh on his neck to steady myself. I settled the satchel of supplies in front of me.
While Pilgrim coasted along the snowy terrain, I fished out the binoculars. We stopped at the edge of the hill that looked out over the valley. The trees looked like chess pieces, strategically placed on an all white board. I saw nothing of interest, but it seemed Pilgrim was not going to take another step.
"Where is the animal?" I asked as I slid off the bear's back.
His big round head lifted and turned to the east. I stared down into the valley below but saw nothing except trees and the occasional snowy owl floating over the canopy. Then a flicker of movement caught my eye. I lifted the binoculars and swept them around the floor of the valley.
My instant rush of excitement that the figure on the horse might be Stryker was immediately dampened. The horse was gray, and the man on top was most assuredly not Stryker. The moonlight glanced off his bald head. As he turned his face, it revealed a nose the size of a lemon and a wide boxy chin. A long robe of crudely patched together animal hides covered most of the horse's flanks. And it seemed the rider was wearing a large, cumbersome necklace of some sort. He seemed to be wandering without direction in the trees as if looking for something.
I squinted into the binoculars and adjusted the lenses for a better look. The necklace was claws, thick, long claws all strung along a strap. The rider turned his horse away from the trees, and I caught a glimpse of the red tattoos on the side of his head and neck.
I stumbled back. I had never seen the man in person, but I'd heard vivid descriptions of Feenix's monstrous brother, Paygon. Blood red tattoos and a trophy necklace of animal and wraith claws. Along with his shocking appearance, Paygon was said to be a man who had no boundaries when it came to evil, mostly because he lacked any form of conscience.
My heart raced as I stumbled back to Pilgrim and pulled myself onto his back. "Take me home fast, Pilgrim. I need to gather a few things. I need to leave this place tonight."
Pilgrim turned around and took off toward the cabin. My mind swirled around like a hurricane as I tried to figure out where to go. Sabre's plan would come too late. It seemed that Paygon wasn't quite sure where to look in the vast snowy landscape. It was possible he would wander all night and only get more lost, but I couldn't take a chance.
Pilgrim trotted down the hill to the long, flat stretch of snow in front of the cabin. The bear's first set of prints were still carved in the powder, along with Gunner's plowing zig zag trail and my moccasin prints. There would be no snowfall tonight to cover the tracks. Not that it mattered, I reminded myself as I breathed in a scent that was so familiar to me I hadn't noticed it until right then as I took stock of all the footprints and clues that might lead Paygon to me. The thin, gray tail of smoke curled up from the chimney and faded into the night sky, leaving behind the semi-sweet scent of burning pine, a pungent smell that would bring Paygon right to my door.
I slipped off Pilgrim's back and dashed for the cabin but stopped after a few hurried steps, when I realized the bear behind me wasn't moving. He knew I was leaving. I spun around and ran back to him.
I threw my arms around his thick, plush neck and hugged him. "Stay safe, my friend. I might be back someday, but for now, this is goodbye."
I stepped back. Pilgrim stared at me with shiny black eyes before swinging his massive hips around and running back into the trees.
I raced to the cabin. Gunner sat up with a jolt when I flew inside. I headed straight to the hearth and picked up the bucket of dry loam I kept nearby to douse the fire when needed. I hadn't needed my crude fire extinguisher in a long time. I tossed the dirt over the flames, and they sizzled and popped before dying out for good. With the usual firelight doused, the cabin felt dreary and cold. I raced into my room and pulled on my jeans and a sweater. I gathered some things into my canvas bag and pulled on my warmest cape, cloak, scarf and boots.
All the while, Gunner sat in the center of my bed, watching me dash around like a mad woman. His thick tail wagged, not from excitement but from worry.
I pet him briefly. "Hope you're ready for a long walk, Gunny."
And as I said the words, a sob shot from my mouth. I sat down to regain my composure, and Gunner climbed onto my lap. Where was I to go? I had no money, no method of transportation other than my feet, no friends. I was utterly alone on a mountainside, and the worst kind of predator was trying to hunt me down. Only I wasn't destined to become a hunter's trophy, with my head neatly displayed on a wall. I was destined to be a trophy for Feenix, the leader of the underworld. If only I was being hunted for my head.
I shook off the moment of self-pity. I had, after all, survived alone out on the tundra with just my wits and determination. I would find a way out of this.
I stopped in the kitchen and packed a few biscuits and jerky for the journey, the journey that for the time being had no end point. I looked around at my little cabin, with its log walls and worn furniture. Lonely as it was, it had been a home.
Gunner looked up at me expectantly.
"You ready, buddy?"
His thick tail whipped back and forth.
"Well then, let's go."
Chapter Sixteen
Stryker
I hated Banshees. They weren't even natural to Wynter. They were like one of those invasive animal species accidentally or maliciously introduced to an ecosystem just to muck the place up. They were squirty white beings that had no purpose except to annoy. And they screamed. They fucking screamed until you wanted to figure out a way to rip your own ears off just to never hear the sound again. Fortunately, Flint had more skills than just annoying me when I was already in a bad mood. He was, as Nessa had liked to boast, as smart as a whip and as cool as a shade covered pond. I was the strategic problem solver when it came to things like cornering a pack of rabid hobgoblins in a place that had no actual corners, but Flint was good at inventing things, like banshee proof ear plugs. He'd experimented with rubber compounds for months until he finally created a substance that could be shaped and reshaped to fit any ear, even a horse's ear. At the same time, the substance was so close to a molecular solid it blocked out even the shrill screams of a crazy ass banshee. And the long haired creature Rogue and I had been chasing around Wynter's border for the last ten minutes was definitely crazy ass. It grew more frenzied as it slowly figured out that its only real defense, a deafening scream, wasn't working its usual magic on the hunter chasing it down.
After a long work shift, I was feeling the effects of my injury. I probably could have used a few days off, but I was sure I'd go mad sitting around with nothing to do except think about Willow. I wondered just how long it would take me to stop thinking about her. I figured the lingering weakness and pain from my injury would be long gone before I could even spend a slice of the day not thinking about her.
A ivory colored wisp of tattered clothing curled around a hole that spewed up boiling sulfur. Boiling sulfur was a signal that the area was dotted with sludge holes, the same deep, sticky pits that'd snapped Flint's leg in two. I couldn't take a chance with Rogue. I could survive a broken leg. It would be a different story for Rogue. And after the horse had sensed that I needed him and risked being seen by trans
forming from machine to animal in the mortal world, I knew I had a loyal friend, a friend I never wanted to let down by making a careless mistake.
I climbed off Rogue's back and he looked back at me with wide, curious nostrils. I patted his neck and motioned for him to stand still. My side ached as if someone had run a burning hot torch across it, but the work day was nearly done. I just needed to take care of one more creepy pest.
The banshee's black hole eyes turned to giant ovals as it saw me lumbering after it on foot. It let out another scream, but I continued after it unabated, thanks to the incredible fucking ear plugs. I lunged for the tattered ends of its cloak, and the fabric shredded like tissue in my grasp. I reached again for a larger clump of the cloak. The muffled sound of an ear-splitting scream followed. Its long thin arms waved through the air trying to grab at the heavy swirls of mist and finding no support. I flung it around and straight into the bubbling sulfur. A foul smelling steam shot up from the center of the yellow geyser as the banshee turned from plasma to gas. I watched the filmy white particles of banshee matter evaporate into the gray mist gluing up the atmosphere.
The earplugs had kept me from hearing Flint ride up on Harley, his massive buckskin stallion. Through the haze, I saw Flint's mouth moving, but I shook my head and pointed to my ears. I yanked out the plugs.
He cupped his hand to his mouth as if he needed a megaphone effect, but without the plugs I could hear him fine. "I said it's quitting time and what the hell is with all the damn banshees lately?"
"Don't know, they are multiplying like rats in a sewer." I walked over to Rogue and pulled his earplugs out and stuck them in my saddle bag. I held mine on my palm and waved a hand over them.
"You might be an asshole, but you are fucking brilliant, my friend. Which, I guess, makes you my fucking brilliant asshole friend with hair the color of the rusty underside of a fishing boat." I climbed on Rogue's back and we headed to the ferry to go across and collect our pay.
"Glad those plugs work, especially with the banshee population explosion. Speaking of fishing boats, Steemer told me that he thinks the first banshees got introduced to Wynter by some pissed off fisherman a hundred years ago. I guess the guy was a total fuckface, used to beat his wife and tossed one of his sons into a stormy ocean to drown just because he didn't like the way he mended the nets. Then the asshole was shocked he was heading to this lovely place instead of to the fields and meadows where the good people went. He snuck two banshees in under the yellow Mackintosh he'd gone overboard in, and he let the screaming little suckers go."
"Yeah? That Steemer is a wealth of useless stories and bullshit." Steemer was an old as the hills guy who had started out like us, one of the Wynter Boys, but during his first year a sickle clawed wraith cut his leg clean off. It turned out he was quite the accountant, so Feenix kept him on to handle payroll. He had been sitting behind the payroll desk for well over seventy years, and he had plenty of tales to tell, some true, some tweaked for entertainment's sake and some just downright bull crap. But he was a likeable guy, and he knew how to keep the books straight and keep Feenix honest, at least when it came to the payroll.
Flint and I left the horses at the watering trough Trex, the ferryman, had kindly arranged for on the south side of the river for the animals. Wilder was back in human form, but Maximus's wheat colored fur stood out as the only flash of color in an otherwise gray landscape. I could hear Trex's gravelly voice grinding on some angry words, unusual for Trex unless he had an especially whiny passenger or unless he was talking to Maximus. Trex hadn't always had his cloak in a twist about our oversized pack mate, but for the last several months something about Maximus just seemed to irritate him.
"You already smell bad enough in human form," Trex's words hissed out on a rough whisper. "I don't need a stinking wolf on my boat, especially one that's so big it nearly capsizes my vessel."
Maximus's low, angry growl caused the handful of petrified, worried souls waiting to go across to shiver. They pushed together for protection. I had no doubt it was shocking enough to discover that you were facing a bleak eternity, but it had to be extra rough on the poor souls to discover that the underworld was actually teeming with the monsters and ghouls they'd only seen in movies and read about in story books.
Maximus's large head swung away, and he loped off toward the dark haze at the edge of Wynter. Wilder, Flint and I climbed on board the ferry and sat on the wooden crates lining the bow.
Wilder looked over at me. "How'd you do out there tonight? Manage to get through the shift without reopening the wound?"
"Yep. Just some pain but nothing a bottle of whiskey can't erase."
The boat shifted side to side, letting us know that Maximus had climbed on board. He glowered at the ferryman as he hunched over his rudder, waiting to pull away from the dock. Trex didn't flinch. Although, with his face completely hidden by the black veil, it would have been hard to see if he had.
Maximus's purposefully heavy footsteps pounded the rotting wood of the deck and sent the passengers into a scrunched up ball of quivering souls. He reached the bow and pulled up a crate. It creaked under his weight.
Maximus stretched his long legs out, making sure to pound each foot against the deck. He crossed his arms and leaned against the railing running along the bow. "Getting pretty tired of that creepy little ferryman. Don't know what the hell his problem is."
Wilder leaned his elbow up on the bow as he used his free hand to comb back his hair. "Maybe it's all those times as a teen that you tried to get him to drop that hood and veil."
"Haven't done anything like that since I was fucking fifteen." Maximus's dark eyes shot daggers across the ferry, but Trex ignored him and motored us across the river.
"You could always swim across with the others," I noted as I titled my head toward the souls slipping past the prow of the boat in the murky water.
"Whatever. I just want to collect my pay and get the fuck out of this place."
Trex steered the ferry up to the dock on the opposite side. Steemer's booming laugh rumbled loud enough to frighten the souls on the ferry. They looked reluctant to get off.
Flint winked at them. "And that fat, wrinkly man with the thunderous laugh is the nice guy on this side of the soup." They all clung to each other like possum babies on a mama possum.
We climbed out of the boat and headed toward Steemer's tent. He was sitting behind his weathered table talking to Catch, a clever, spy goblin who had been given the job of soul driver, or as we liked to call him Mr. Hospitality. He was the meet and greeter for the souls getting off the ferry, an underworld tour guide of sorts. As if the frightened, directionless newly dead needed more shit handed to them, Catch's ugly, banana nosed goblin face was their first personal contact with their bleak new future.
Catch always used one long arm and hand to help him move quickly across the ground, so he rarely walked upright. His beady, deep set eyes flicked our direction. "Boys," he said quickly as he slipped past us. Since we spent a good deal of the hunt killing goblins, Catch had never learned to trust us. Probably a good decision on his part.
Steemer grew fatter each day. Soon he wouldn't be able to fit behind his desk. His thick fingered hands pushed forward four stacks of cash. "Here you go, Boys. Don't spend it in one place." His loud laugh made the canvas sides of his tent billow out. "I suppose most of it will go to one place. How is Jemma and that rundown shit hole of a bar?"
"Hey, watch it, old man," Flint said. "That's our home away from home you're talking about. And maybe you should stop spending all your cash on those meat pies and brownies you're always sucking down. Otherwise, they're going to have to pick up those tent stakes and move them out another foot or two just to fit you inside."
Steemer didn't look amused by Flint's comment. He was about to lay into him when the flaps on the tent flew open. Steemer sat back and crossed his arms over his round belly. "I've already paid you, Paygon."
The tattoos on Paygon's neck looked extra red, as if he'
d just ridden in from the mortal world or had a fight with his brother. His nostrils were wide as Rogue's when the horse was about to rear up with rage.
"Feenix needs to see you," he barked loud enough that it rattled the chain of claws hanging around his neck.
"What about?" Wilder asked.
"Not you." Paygon's beady eyes landed on me. "Just Stryker and be quick about it." He turned around and flung the flaps on the tent open so hard it nearly ripped the canvas.
All eyes were on me. It was rare for Feenix to call us in unless we'd made some kind of mistake or allowed a wraith to get into a city. I hadn't seen him since I got hurt and figured it had something to do with my midnight chase up the mountainside.
"What do you think he wants?" Maximus asked.
"Not a fucking clue. Don't wait for me. I'll see you at the Seven."
"Oh great. I've heard that line before," Wilder said.
I waved him off. "Just leave a fucking bottle for me." I grabbed my stack of money and headed out of the tent.
"Seems like I've heard that too," Wilder called to me.
Chapter Seventeen
Willow
It was one thing to live in the snow when you had a warm cabin and bed waiting for you at the end of a long day. It was a whole other thing when you were walking for hours in the snow and ice, with your boots and clothes soaked through, and there was no roaring fire or cup of hot tea at the end of it.
Gunner seemed just as put out by the lack of warm luxuries as me. We stopped and took shelter from the mild but icy breeze behind an outcropping of rocks. I pulled out a piece of jerky and handed it to the fox and took out a piece for myself.
We'd taken the least traveled path down from the mountain, which meant a lot of turns and detours around rocks and trees. The river that was usually frozen solid had thawed during the sunny day. Gunner and I had no choice except to wade across it, soaking our boots and paws in the glacial ankle deep stream.