Tethers

by Claire Farrell

  He shrugged. “They fooled me, too. I wasn’t going to let children be murdered, no matter what else has happened.”

  I swung my feet. “Glad I can count on you, at least.”

  He eyeballed the werewolf. “Yes, well, the way you dealt with those bodyguards was pretty impressive. Think I could persuade you into helping me set up some more classes at the boxing club?”

  I grinned. “Maybe I’ll think about it.”

  “Great. I should get back to work.” He took a few steps before looking back at me. “Think hard.”

  When he left, a familiar car pulled up a few feet away. Val and Peter got out and approached me. Great, another person who’s mad at me.

  “What are you two doing here?” I asked, shoving the werewolf back onto his side of the truck bed.

  “The same thing you are,” Val said. “We volunteered, and they accepted our help.”

  “Oh.” I looked at Peter, who was looking anywhere but at me. “Well, good luck, you two.”

  Val clapped me on the shoulder. “Same to you. Don’t look so worried. This creature will be ours tonight.”

  Peter finally met my gaze. “Good luck, Ava.”

  Callista came over. “Good, you’re here. Here are your packs. Torches, food, water, medical kits, and, most importantly, walkie-talkies. If you see the wendigo, call the closest team for backup. Val, Peter, head over to Shay to find out your position.”

  The pair thanked her and left.

  Callista beamed at me as she handed me a bag. “Phoenix should be ready to leave soon. It’s been exciting, setting the werewolves up with partners. This will go a long way toward repairing the damage the paragon did with his little interviews.”

  “Any experience with a wendigo?” I asked her.

  “I’ve heard old stories that I never really believed,” she said. “You should be extra careful. I’m told I had a great-great-great-grandmother who was speared to death by a wendigo claw.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Catch this wendigo for me to make up,” she said with a grin. She moved on to gather up more victims.

  I hefted the bag over my shoulder, ignoring Icarus’s heavy panting in my ear. Phoenix returned to us after the sun had set.

  “Let’s find this wendigo,” Phoenix said. “This way. We’re up next.” Icarus eagerly bounded after Phoenix.

  I followed them both into the darkness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Phoenix barely managed to hold on to Icarus’s leash. The werewolf panted as he struggled to move faster. But Phoenix had warned everyone not to let go of the leashes unless faced with the wendigo itself, and apparently, he had listened to his own advice.

  “It’s somewhere out here.” He sounded excited. “We’re going to find it tonight.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the best plan anyway,” I said. “Don’t you remember what happened last time?”

  He patted the sword hanging from his hip in a sheath. “I’m prepared this time. Besides, if we don’t kill it, someone else will. The woods are full of searchers.”

  “How sure are you that we’re in the right place?”

  He nodded at Icarus, who whimpered. “Very. All of the attacks circled this area. It stands to reason that the creature is nearby. And if not, we’ll keep looking until we find it.”

  “I wonder if the demon dies when the wendigo does,” I said. “I don’t think any of the books said.”

  “Maybe it returns to the place it originally came from.”

  “The thought of demons roaming around, persuading people to turn cannibalistic, doesn’t make me feel safe.”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have thought this would worry you so much.”

  “You almost died already. You. And the werewolves were almost exterminated because of it. What next?”

  “It’s just a little bad luck.”

  “It’s some run for a little bad luck,” I retorted.

  “Besides,” he continued, “the wendigo didn’t cause much real damage to me. The blood loss was the problem, and that was dealt with quickly.”

  I rolled my eyes at his idea of real damage. I had been convinced he was going to die on the ground next to me as I watched. I moved closer to Phoenix. Icarus whirled his head around and snarled until I stepped back.

  “Icarus, enough,” Phoenix said sharply. “It’s done. No more reminders.”

  “I’m sorry, Icarus,” I said. “I can’t change the way I was born.”

  Icarus stepped toward me and nosed my palm as if in apology. I kissed the top of his head and laughed when he yelped in alarm. When I looked up, Phoenix was gazing at us both as if he had just seen everything.

  Tension lifted, the werewolf strained to move on, and I gripped my dagger to make me feel better. If it did a special kind of damage to vampires and angels, then perhaps it worked well on demons, too. I walked parallel to the others, listening and watching with my other senses.

  The search parties were spread out at a good distance, but not so far that a wendigo might get between them and escape. Shay was excellent at the logistics of arranging the teams, and we had to be careful not to go too far ahead, or we would mess up the entire system. In the distance, I heard voices joking and laughing. Others spoke rapidly in worried tones. Phoenix and I maintained an uncomfortable silence.

  Every time I heard a twig crack or an extra strong breeze made the tree branches wave noisily, I jumped a little. A part of me was desperate to chase down our prey. Another part said that if the wendigo could take Phoenix down and a werewolf hadn’t managed to rip its head off in three seconds, then I didn’t have much of a chance, either.

  “Are you worried?” Phoenix enquired in a polite tone a few minutes later.

  “No. Yes. Maybe a little. If we don’t get this thing tonight, somebody else might die tomorrow. And whoever is going around killing shifters is still out there. Esther’s a shifter. What if she’s next on the hit list?”

  “I brought the witch in to stop this worrying,” he chided.

  “Yeah, well, Bratty the Teenage Witch didn’t do much to ease my nerves. And I’m still going to push for that halfway-house idea, by the way. After all this help I’m giving the Senate instead of working and earning an income like a normal person, it’s the least they can do.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I didn’t think—”

  “It’s fine. The shifters destroyed everything worth anything already. I have to start over. Again. I’m going to have the worst reputation ever as a…” I stopped walking and turned in a slow circle. “Did you hear that?” I whispered.

  Icarus began to growl, and I knew something was near. I hadn’t heard footsteps, though. A shiver ran through me as I reached out with my other senses. The energy close by was a mass of dark, bubbling evil. Whatever had been human about the wendigo was long gone.

  “This way,” I whispered, beckoning Phoenix after me and wondering why Icarus hadn’t tried to attack yet. “Maybe let go of the leash.”

  But Phoenix held on. I raised a hand to stop him and pointed upwards, into the trees. The wendigo was hiding and watching—I wasn’t sure from where exactly. Icarus couldn’t climb trees, as far as I could tell. That made us sitting ducks.

  “Back,” I said, but Phoenix was already moving, pulling a reluctant Icarus along with him.

  “Wait,” Phoenix whispered, and he quietly let go of the leash.

  In a quick burst of noise and movement, Icarus moved at the exact moment the wendigo leapt from the trees and bounded right for me. What the hell is its problem with me?

  I aimed my torch’s beam right in the wendigo’s eye then skipped out of the way and used my dagger to stab at the creature’s back. It recovered quickly then dropped to all fours and ran around me, straight into Phoenix, who whirled his sword in front of him. His weapon sang through the air, but the wendigo barely reacted before dodging quickly out of the way. Icarus howled, and a couple of distant werewolves joined in.

  He grapp
led with the wendigo as Phoenix and I sought out a clean strike at the wendigo’s spine. In the dark, even with the aid of a clear night and torches, visibility was poor. The creature was almost camouflaged as it fought back against Icarus.

  Finally, it found enough space to run, and once it started, it was out of our sight within seconds. We ran, Icarus leading the way. I struggled to keep track of the creature’s energy with my other senses. I picked up some werewolves zoning in on us, but the wendigo was already long gone. Icarus disappeared into the trees without us. The hunt was on.

  After a few minutes of running, Phoenix bade me to stop. “There’s no point exhausting ourselves. We’ll never catch it. It’s like the wind.”

  “The werewolves won’t be able to kill it.”

  “No, but they hunt together as a pack, Ava.”

  “And?”

  “So they’re well versed in rounding up their prey. They’ll find a way to drive it back toward us. There are enough werewolves out here tonight that they’ll be safe. The wendigo will keep running, and the werewolves will keep cutting it off until it has no choice but to run back into our path.”

  Or the path of one of the other teams, I couldn’t help thinking.

  “What now?”

  “We keep looking,” he said. “We can follow the werewolves’ tracks and see if we can figure out what direction they’re heading in. I’ll call Shay and let him know what’s happening. He’s back at base camp, probably worrying.”

  As he made the call, I wandered around, trying to pick up a scent. A couple of drops of blood were scattered here and there, but it was hard to tell who they belonged to. Something had been nicked, but it could easily have been one of the werewolves. As the scents closed in on me, I had trouble identifying any of them.

  “Do you see anything?” Phoenix asked abruptly, making me jump again.

  “Not really. Shay have any news?”

  “Not yet. He wants us to continue on our paths. If the wendigo doesn’t come back this way, it’ll run into another group eventually.”

  “It’s scarily fast, though.”

  “I hope it’s the same one,” Phoenix said.

  “I think it is. It had a mark on its leg in the same place Icarus bit off a chunk. Didn’t slow it down any, but still.”

  For the next hour, we moved on, and the more time that went on, the less confident I felt. I was about to ask Phoenix if he thought the wendigo had gotten away when I heard a shout nearby. I recognised the voice and broke into a run.

  “Ava, wait!” Phoenix cried, but he followed me.

  I thundered into the undergrowth, my heart threatening to burst with worry and fear. I forgot all about being careful or afraid for myself. I lost time and awareness—my only focus was making it to my friends before the wendigo hurt them.

  The smell of blood filled my nostrils, and a werewolf howled close by.

  I burst through the trees, almost tumbling over a root, and into a clearing. Peter was standing over an injured Val with a sword that looked small in front of the wendigo. Its bloody mouth was salivating, and its golden eyes glowed as it circled its prey. I flew over to Peter, getting in front of him to tackle the wendigo myself. He pulled me back and stabbed with the sword as the creature pawed at us, almost playfully. It was playing with its food, and that never failed to piss me off.

  I bent down, grabbed a clod of earth, ran across the clearing, and flung it at the wendigo. Distracted by the movement, it came after me. I braced myself for battle, but a glass kylie spun right in front of me, nipping the creature’s nose. It yelped and spun back, its own blood dripping. Then it froze, and just as Peter moved close enough to stab it through the base of the spine, it ran again. Seconds later, a couple of werewolves ran into the clearing, one of them barrelling right into me and sending me to my knees. Without stopping, they loped after the wendigo. Peter helped me to my feet. Phoenix was already checking over Val with a grim look on his face.

  “She tried to antagonise it to give me a clear shot,” Peter explained. “But it jumped right over her and turned back long enough to take a bite out of her shoulder.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Val grimaced. “It wasn’t deep, but I barely kept it off us until I couldn’t hold my weapon any longer.”

  “Not deep, just plenty painful,” I said. “You can’t stay out here.”

  “Of course she can’t,” Peter said.

  “We don’t have time to wait with them,” Phoenix said.

  Peter glared at him. “What do you want me to do, Ava?”

  “Go back. Protect Val and let Shay know that she’s hurt. You have your medical pack, right?”

  When he nodded, I let out a sigh of relief. “Clean the wound and try to stop the bleeding. If you think the wendigo is coming, shout. Somebody will hear you. There are at least three groups near enough to hear with the whole supernatural hearing going around. You’ll always be close to help.”

  “We have to hurry,” Phoenix said.

  I squeezed Val’s hand then Peter’s. “Thanks,” I whispered. Then I broke into a run after Phoenix.

  “There’s blood all over the path,” I called out as he ran ahead. “I think it’s the wendigo’s.”

  “Good,” he said. “It might slow the thing down.”

  As we ran, the tracks we were following told me the werewolves had split up again. But I was pretty sure we were gaining on the creature. It had gained a deep cut to an already-injured leg. We had to have slowed it down enough to catch it, or at least for a werewolf to delay it until backup arrived. I had never been sure about the plan, but it was working in its own slightly messy way.

  I thought I couldn’t run anymore when we finally found the wendigo again. It was fighting with Icarus, and both were bleeding badly. The other werewolves were nowhere to be seen, and I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. They had to be nearby. They wouldn’t let Icarus fight the wendigo by himself. So where the hell are they?

  Phoenix and I circled the fighting creatures, both of us panting. For the millionth time, I mentally thanked whoever had decided to keep some werewolves alive all of those years ago.

  The fight was deadly, but neither party seemed ready to lose. Every time I thought I had a clean shot at the wendigo, the pair would roll over, and I would barely avoid stabbing Icarus instead.

  Phoenix almost managed to strike the wendigo, but it rolled out of Icarus’s grasp and ran off, limping.

  “Ever feel like we’re the ones being driven somewhere?” I shouted at Phoenix as we made the chase with Icarus.

  He grinned at me and wiped sweat off his forehead. “Enjoy the hunt instead of worrying so much!”

  But a few minutes later, I almost tripped over a werewolf’s body. “Oh, my God!” I cried. “Phoenix!”

  He joined me with Icarus, who sniffed his packmate’s body and let out a howl of rage. He dashed off, ignoring his own injuries.

  “Wait,” Phoenix said. “He’s not hurt. There’s no blood.” He made a sound of surprise as he felt for a heartbeat. “There’s this, though.” He pulled at something and held it into the air. It was very familiar.

  “A tranquilising dart?” I said. “What the hell is going on?”

  He rose to his feet and flung the dart away in disgust. “Somebody doesn’t want us to catch the wendigo, Ava.”

  “Then we had better hurry up and piss them off properly,” I snapped, irritated beyond measure. A mindless wendigo that couldn’t bear its own hunger was one thing; to actually want the creature to feast on innocent people was another.

  “Be careful,” Phoenix said as we hurried after Icarus. “If they’re so desperate, we could be next to be hit.”

  “We broadcasted this plan,” I said. “This wendigo’s master had to have known we were being here. Whoever it is might just be hunting us, Phoenix.”

  His expression hardened. “We’re not so easy to kill.”

  We passed yet another sleeping werewolf, soon followed by another.

  “There might
be more than one wendigo out here,” I said. “We could be led right into their den.”

  “We’ll just have to kill them all,” he said coldly, and he was no longer Phoenix the kindly fae prince and Senate member. He was a fae hunter, a seeker of justice. I had watched him mete out that justice on his own mother without pity. I could only imagine what was going through his mind after finding out that we were being played.

  For some reason, the anger rejuvenated me. I had been exhausted, but I hunted with fresh vigour. If we found the wendigo, we might actually find who had put the werewolves to sleep instead of helping us catch the real monster.

  “We should have gotten the witch to make the bloody werewolves invisible,” I grumbled after a few minutes.

  “Too hard, according to Ari. Maybe we’ll find somebody to teach her for next time.”

  “‘Next time,’ he says,” I called out with an exaggerated groan.

  Phoenix looked back at me with a beautiful smile, and my heart sang a little.

  We soon found the wendigo again—or perhaps it found us. We came upon it shortly before Icarus did. We tried to corner it, but it kept trying to jump over our heads. When Phoenix managed to slice its undercarriage with his sword during one jump, the wendigo stopped trying. With blood seeping from the wound, the wendigo grew desperate to escape, but Icarus was furious. He moved sharply, catching the wendigo whenever it tried to run. The wendigo avoided the fight, but it was clear we had to be the aggressors.

  I moved out of its line of sight, hoping to catch the creature off guard, but on high alert, it refused to keep its back turned to any of us for long. Phoenix impatiently dove in and tripped the creature with his sword, barely avoiding getting sliced open again. As though encouraged, Icarus flung himself at the wendigo, and the pair fought again. From the viciousness of the bites, I could tell it was a fight to the death.

  Still, we couldn’t get a clean strike at the creature’s spine. To avoid the claws, Icarus kept trying to pin the wendigo by holding on to the back of its neck. When he pinned the creature, he used his weight to hold the animal down, leaving us with no room to make the killing strike.