by Dan Thompson
“You need to stitch the edges of his skin together.” Harry cleared his throat. “Ah, no worse than mending a sock.”
“Like you’ve ever mended a sock. Good grief—like I have. Can’t I just wrap it up tightly?” Lizzie cringed at the thought of shoving a needle in John’s skin. She wasn’t sure why, considering everything else she’d done. But…ick.
Marin came back on the line. “You need to sew it. His natural, accelerated healing is more likely to knit the wound if the edges are touching. And he won’t sleep easy tonight. He’d certainly tear a bandage off. He might even rip open your stitches, but they’re more likely to survive through the night. It’s not so bad once you start.”
“I’m holding you to that.” Lizzie picked up the small emergency sewing kit she’d dug out of the bottom of her bag. “Double thread, then?”
When the wound was finally closed up, it looked like an eight-year-old’s first sewing effort. But it was done. Lizzie’s body protested its exhaustion, but she couldn’t sleep. She was terrified she’d wake up and find John even more ill—maybe worse. So nerves and nausea kept her company until midnight. That was when he stopped thrashing and she no longer felt the need to hover over him to keep him from falling off the sofa. And then caffeine kept her going until around four in the morning, when John’s grey skin warmed and grew pinker. She dozed next to the sofa until six, when John woke her and asked if he was allowed to sleep in a bed.
She almost cried. If she hadn’t been so damned tired, she probably would have.
Chapter 4
“Mmm, bacon.” Lizzie rolled over and inhaled, eyes still closed. She had a sense of déjà vu, but in the very best of ways. She must have slept late. But then an odd feeling crept up on her—as if she’d forgotten something, maybe something important. That sense of unease was quickly followed by a wash of panic. She sat up in bed, her heart racing. Then she remembered. “John!”
John popped his head into their bedroom. “I’m fine. Five more minutes and I’ll even have breakfast.”
Lizzie scowled at him.
“With bacon,” he added, a hint of apology in his tone.
Lizzie fell back into bed, pulled the pillow over her head, and screamed.
Several seconds of silence passed, and then she heard a muffled “Feel better?” from the general direction of the kitchen.
Lifting the pillow off her face, she contemplated chucking it across the room, but finally opted against. “Yes, thank you.”
She rolled out of bed, but then immediately sank back down. “Ow.”
Her feet hurt. Her arms hurt. Her knees hurt. Her back hurt. Hell—everything hurt. She rubbed her itchy eyes, but the gritty feel just made the itch worse. Shower. She desperately needed a shower.
Twenty minutes later, she emerged into the kitchen feeling almost human again. Glancing at the clock, she did a double take. One p.m.? What about the truck? And this was their last day; they had to check out tomorrow by noon. Not to mention their still-at-large vicious rat-bastard Krampus attacker. Lizzie covered her face with both hands. Their one shot at a vacation, and this, all of this, happened.
John hugged her from behind. “It’s all going to be fine, and I’m okay.”
Lizzie tipped her head back against his shoulder. “I just can’t believe this is our vacation. And we’re not speaking about last night. Blood is one thing. But your blood… And poison? And then you couldn’t shift.” A shiver ran down her spine.
He hugged her tighter.
Lizzie ran her hand across his healed forearm.
“I changed this morning,” John whispered in her ear.
“Thank goodness. Wait a second.” She turned and backed up a step. “You cruised the condo community as a wolf, didn’t you?” She laughed at his unrepentant expression. “You’re terrible. We’re never going to be able to come back here again.”
“I’ll give the HOA a nice thank-you gift. It’s fine. By the way, the truck’s back. And not a single comment about us missing the pickup time, I might add. Nothing wrong that they can find beyond the tires, which are now replaced. And I’ve got a ride for us across the river.”
Lizzie chewed on the corner of her lip and tried not stamp her foot like the recalcitrant five-year-old she was currently channeling. “Yeah. I guess we have to do that. Can we please figure out some way to not get bitten? I’m pretty sure it would send me to the hospital, and Lord knows what they’d think about Krampus venom.”
“About that.” John crossed his arms and rested a hip against the kitchen counter. “I called your buddy Harry to say thanks, and he gave me a little more information on Krampuses. His buddy Marin didn’t know much, but she has run into them before—in Germany.”
Lizzie’s nose lifted a little as she caught the smell of bacon again.
John grinned at her. “We can talk and eat.”
“Sweet.” Lizzie made a beeline for the kitchen table. After she’d plopped down in her chair and shoved almost an entire piece of bacon in her mouth, she covered her mouth and mumbled around the bacon bits, “And?”
John poured them both cups of coffee. “And not a good plan to pick one of them up. She implied I got what I deserved, shame on me. And maybe I should learn to use my words.”
Lizzie suffered a coughing fit for several seconds before she took a drink of water. “Ohmygosh, I have to meet this woman. I can’t believe she said that to you.”
“Yeah. Hilarious. Point is, they can definitely speak. They may not speak English—a small segregated community that emigrated from Germany—but hopefully someone in the group can speak English and will be willing to talk.”
Lizzie chewed on her biscuit, considering the possibilities for reaching out. This time, she actually swallowed before she spoke. “I just don’t see how we can make any type of diplomatic overture if they run away every time we approach them, and bite with their nasty razor-venom teeth if we—you—try to catch them.”
“That is the dilemma.” John picked up the gravy and passed it to Lizzie. “So, I still say we approach them. Maybe just a little more cautiously this time. Don’t you speak a little German? If we get in a bind, you can shout something about peace, love, and understanding.”
“Yeah—my German’s not that good. Definitely not gonna function under pressure.” The images from last night were so vivid and disturbing in her memory, but they were difficult to reconcile with the vibrant man sitting at the kitchen table now. Lizzie wrinkled her nose up. “Hell. We have to go.”
Two hours, one boat ride, and three miles of hiking later, John had declared: “We’re close.”
Lizzie took that to mean he thought they were close. They’d definitely hit the spot Earl had described, and John had discovered something he called layered scent—when someone travelled the same path repeatedly, putting more and more scent on the track each time.
Close or not, Lizzie was ready for a margarita or five. Or maybe a hot whiskey—not her usual thing, but the damp was sinking into her many layers, her waterproof boots were leaking and making her feet feel like frozen stubs, and she didn’t actually want to meet the tiny little bastards who were making her life miserable. But duty, responsibility, blah, blah… She blew a stray clump of hair out of her face. She really needed to reconsider her priorities.
“This way.” John pointed to a small side path that looked more like a deer track than an actual path. “Have you been casting sensing wards for magic the last few minutes?”
“Um, oops. It’s cold.” Lizzie rubbed her numb, dripping nose, maybe with just a touch of resentment. Her vacation. Their holiday. She was allowed a little resentment. When John waited on the path without moving forward, she nodded. “Doing that now.”
Once she agreed, he moved forward but slowly. They didn’t go far before he stopped again, and she almost ran into him as she was casting the ward. She stopped with her hand touching his back and looked around. “Oh.”
“Yeah—that sensing ward might have been helpful.” John stood ta
ll, alert but relaxed.
It was a creepy skill: maintaining a state of complete readiness while presenting a calm façade. It reminded her more of a cat than a wolf. She wrinkled her nose. A really, really big cat.
“Oh, hell,” she said when she realized why he’d gone all creepy. They were surrounded. She and John had walked right into the Krampuses’ camp. And it was a camp: a village of portable tents, small economy cars, and unattached trailers.
“Don’t touch anyone,” John reminded her. “They’re not aggressive—except in large numbers, when cornered, or captured.”
Lizzie backed up to John so that they could have a 360-degree view of the rapidly swarming horned beasties. “Riiight. Uh, bad news: we have large numbers.”
“You’ve been practicing that defensive shield ward, right?” John reached behind him to touch her, to see how far she was from his back.
The group was only growing larger as more Krampuses appeared from various hidey-holes around the camp. Lizzie’s heart thudded. Cold only moments before, now she was sweating. She could almost taste her pulse, the thud was so strong in her neck. “Shit. John. There are a lot of them.”
They’d approached in zigzagging patterns initially, but some braver souls had come to almost touching distance. Lizzie remembered the sliced flesh of John’s arm. They were small, but those teeth were like razors. What had she and John been thinking?
She must have asked the question aloud, because John said, “We had no way to know there were this many.”
Suddenly the circle around them closed and began to tighten. A small female touched the edge of the thick scarf Lizzie had wrapped around her neck. Lizzie couldn’t help but flinch. The female Krampus lurched back in response. It caused a wave of movement in the crowd.
“John,” Lizzie whispered through clenched teeth.
“Who is your leader?” John asked in an even tone that carried.
Lizzie had to choke back a hysterical giggle. The inappropriate urge to laugh faded quickly. John’s question had a surprising result. Tiny whispery voices spoke all at once, on top of each other, creating an indecipherable murmur. It was an eerie sound and it made Lizzie’s scalp crawl. She took a step back and bumped into John.
A mistake. As she retreated, the Krampuses nearest stepped forward. She had the fleeting thought: was this what it felt like to be targeted by a mob? Your fate hanging on the whim of the unthinking crowd?
She grabbed for her magic and began to cast a ward. The chatter grew and the mass of bodies, of horns and fangs, undulated. Could they sense her magic? She wasn’t stopping. And she was going to do her damnedest to get John under the protective umbrella with her.
“Your leader? Who is your chief?” John asked again, but his question was drowned out by the competing crowd noise. “Silence! Your chief—now!”
The roar of John’s voice was unrecognizable and bone-chilling.
But it was him. She knew it was him. She lifted her chin, and stood up taller. Dammit. Her concentration blown, she’d forgotten the shield. Once her eyes began to focus on the details in front of her again, she saw a stillness she could never have imagined with such a large crowd. Again she started to cast the ward. She had no idea which way the mass would swing. She found that brilliant, shining place that always waited inside her. Envisioning the components of the shield that would completely encapsulate her and John, she created an image in her mind. Then, panicked by the continued silence, she shoved her magic at that image. She willed it into being. Maybe with a little more force than necessary.
John stumbled back, bumping her back with some force.
“Sorry,” she said softly.
“No, good choice. Keep it up.”
Well, shit. If John was worried… Before Lizzie could let that thought come to its natural conclusion, a figure in the back lifted a wooden stick high.
“I am chief.” The voice wasn’t particularly loud, but the accented tones of the chief carried through the crowd.
A path opened up within the mass of Krampuses, and it didn’t take long before a Krampus—much like the others, with the exception of a dense, greying beard—approached. He carried a stout walking stick, but he certainly wasn’t leaning on it.
Lizzie grabbed at John’s hand and pulled. He got the message and pivoted to stand next to her. Backs now exposed, Lizzie felt compelled to reinforce the invisible barrier between them and the mass of horns and fangs surrounding them.
Why had they thought this would be a good idea? Right—not aggressive. Her nostrils flared as she looked at the tightly packed bodies in front of her. She sure as heck hoped Marin and Harrington knew what they were talking about, because right now she was having serious doubts.
Ohmygod. The fangs on the chief were huge. Nothing like their prankster’s.
It was crystal clear to Lizzie that the Krampus they’d been dealing with—the one who peered through their window, got caught by John, and sliced John’s arm—was a juvenile. Maybe an adolescent. Because the tiny fangs their culprit had displayed were immature stubs compared to the chief’s.
The chief who was now standing less than four feet away. Yeah, she had serious doubts about the supposed non-aggressive nature of the Krampuses.
The chief planted his stick in the ground and watched them. He didn’t move or speak. Lizzie certainly wasn’t going to break the silence. She tried to sneak a glance at John out of the corner of her eye; John usually had a plan. And he was great at reading body language. But the moment her eyes moved, the chief’s intent gaze fixed on her.
Shit, shit, shit.
Minutes ticked by. Lizzie was sure of it. Even with the cold, she could feel herself sweat. The silence felt heavy and awkward. Scary. Why didn’t one of them speak?
The chief lifted his stick, and Lizzie thought her muscles would cramp from the effort not to flinch. But he merely shifted the stick from his right hand to his left.
Then he extended his right hand. Lizzie blinked at the thick claws.
“Lizzie.” John poked her hard enough in the ribs that her eyes watered.
Oops. She must have missed the first nudge…or three. She immediately lowered the shield separating them from the chief…and his fangs and his claws.
John and the chief shook hands. John with that same alertness combined with deceptive relaxation that he’d assumed when they first entered the clearing. The chief with a small smile tugging at his lips. Lizzie thought he might just be laughing at her.
That was good, right? Laughing and smiling were usually good. But she had no time to consider the existence or not of the chief’s sense of humor, because suddenly everyone was moving again. This time, however, the crowd dispersed.
Lizzie hadn’t realized how rigid her shoulders and neck had been till now. She could suddenly feel a deep ache in the middle of her back and the point where her shoulders and neck met.
As she pulled her gaze away from the bobbing horns of the retreating crowd, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
John was perched on a much-too-small stump, and the chief sat on an upturned bucket. They were deep in conversation. There appeared to be a lot of hand motions—but also plenty of words. So John was in the midst of a negotiation and she was tasked with the job of enforcer, the Pack equivalent of a bodyguard. She grimaced. Not how she’d expected the day to end. And she was terrible at the job. John had wondered off with the head honcho, and she hadn’t even noticed.
She loosened the scarf around her now very warm neck and kept her eyes peeled.
Only a few minutes went by before the chief stood and motioned to a small trailer on the edge of the camp. He gave a short, sharp whistle—how did he do that with those fangs?—and one of his minions appeared from a nearby tent.
As they consulted, Lizzie caught a few words in German and a few in English: boy, wolf, forgiveness, now, punish. She only heard snippets, but it sounded like they were speaking in a mishmash of both languages.
The minion left, and the chief retur
ned to speak with John using the same animated, gesture-filled method she’d seen earlier.
A twinge of guilt poked at her. She really shouldn’t think of them as minions. This camp was a community of people. People with horns and fangs and claws—but people. If Earl could have seen that, maybe he’d have thought twice before picking up his gun.
Dangit. Minion was such a perfect word.
Less than a minute had passed when the chief’s minion-assistant returned with a small Krampus. Lizzie’s eyes narrowed. That was the rat bastard.
“Lizzie.” John motioned her closer, but he gave her a warning look.
Lizzie approached the group. She couldn’t help but be wary. Even now, the chief’s minion—assistant—had a firm grip of the punk’s upper arm, and he squirmed in defiance.
Lizzie edged closer to John, widening the gap between her and hell-spawn kid.
The chief poked the boy with his stick. “Ernst, say it.”
The boy named Ernst squirmed and refused to look at them, but he said, “Sorry.”
Lizzie’s heart hammered a frantic beat in her chest. She wanted to beat the little shit to a pulp. But she wasn’t really a violent person. She wasn’t. So she’d go with suffocating him. That ward had worked pretty well last time she’d used it.
“Give us a minute?” John directed the question to the chief, but he didn’t wait for a response before he tugged on her arm.
Lizzie ignored him until he was practically lifting her. She followed him, but she shot nasty looks at the vile shit as she went.
John stopped several feet away.
“He almost killed you,” Lizzie said, finally turning to look at him. All that blood, all over her hands, caked into the corners of her nails. She’d scrubbed and cried and worried he wouldn’t wake up. Lizzie could hear the small growl building in her throat, and she swallowed. “I’m not accepting an apology from that little shit. Especially when he’s obviously not sorry.”