by M. J. Caan
“I’m a grey muzzle,” Rob replied. “A wolf.”
“Yeah, I always take him for a big old teddy bear, personally,” laughed Nate as he playfully ruffled Rob’s hair, then danced away before the faux punches Rob tossed at his midsection could land. “But yeah, he’s a grizzled old wolf. One of my first friends I ever made when I came out as Otherkin. He was one of the first in our community.”
I marveled at the respect the two obviously had for one another.
“So, you can make me whole?” Rob said expectantly.
“I hope so. You know what I am asking in return, right?”
“I do. And trust me, I have no problem paying in full if I can experience what Nate has. Even if it’s just once.”
“The spell will be permanent. You’ll be able too shift whenever you want to” I said. “I just hope you’re ready. And, I hate to throw you into the fire, but time is of the essence here. I need your help, Nate.” I felt Cody bristle, but ignored it.
“What can I…we, do for you?”
“We need to leave soon. We’re going to track a hellhound.”
13
Breakfast was quickly whipped up. Giant platters of bacon, eggs and biscuits with an assortment of jams and marmalades were placed out buffet style. Gar really had thought this through. He had stockpiled not only the main fridge, but the second one in the basement as well. Our guests certainly weren’t going to go hungry anytime soon.
He had rallied the troops sleeping in the mystically expanded attic, set up the table, and cooked breakfast, all so our aunts could sleep in. Plus, I’m pretty sure he wanted to show them that he could to the heavy lifting when it came to hosting a bunch of Otherkin that he had invited for a sleepover. Personally, I was happy he was so invested in making sure everything was to everyones’ liking. It made it that much easier when I told him that he couldn’t follow Cody and I. He had protested, of course, but I told him that I needed him to take the Otherkind to the shifter encampment to not only introduce them, but to let them practice their new powers as well. Kendra would be able to run them through their paces and help to make sure that they were ready when the time came.
Cody agreed with the plan, knowing how important it was for me to keep my family safe, but also realizing that if we were going to have a shot at winning this, we would need the totems to be as comfortable with their powers as possible. Ideally, I would have sent Nate and Rob along with them…but at the same time if we ran into that hellhound, a saber-toothed tiger might come in handy.
It had taxed me further than I would have liked to admit to turn Rob. His Kintype was stubborn and didn’t want to come out at first. But I coaxed gently, didn’t run roughshod over him. It reminded me of the time our aunts had brought a puppy home for Gar and I after we first lost our mother. The poor thing had been transported in a small pet carrier and had cried continuously. Gar and I wanted to reach into the crate and pull it out immediately, but Aunt Lena cautioned us against doing that.
“No, no…let him come to you,” she said. “He was just dragged away from his mother and put into a crate and shipped halfway across the country. He is alone and scared, and right now the only safe space he knows is that carrier.”
She then set the carrier in the garage, opened the door, and asked us to sit in front of the crate. We did as she told us, offering soothing words of encouragement to the little fella, letting him know with reassuring whispers that we weren’t a threat. I’ll never forget when his little black and white head finally emerged, and he took those first tentative steps into the light and into our lives. Thinking about him made my eyes tear up. He was a great, beloved member of our family and it was rough when old age finally claimed him. Gar had cried for weeks when he passed, and so had I.
And just like we were rewarded with a lifetime of loyalty from our gigantic husky/shepherd mix, so too I was hoping for equal loyalty from Rob’s wolf. Like the man himself, the wolf appeared old and grizzled, but very powerful. A gray and black coat covered a body larger even than Cody’s wolf. Unlike the other totem shifters that often took on unnatural hues, Rob retained his same blue eyes. They were surprisingly human, and there was no mistaking the cunning and intelligence behind them.
Rob was our only canine shifter, and my hope was that between he and Nate, we would be able to get a fix on where Elion had gone and what may have happened to him. And if we managed to find him? Hopefully, that was where Nate and Cody would come into play. The power of wolf shifters was impressive and hopefully intimidating to vampires.
There was absolutely nothing to be found on hellhounds in any of the tomes my aunts had in their considerable library. A quick search of the internet turned up nothing of use either. There were a lot of vague references to them on a supernatural television show that Gar and I liked to watch together, but nothing concrete.
Nothing that told me how to kill one.
Admittedly, I did feel a little bad for not having gone after Elion right away. He had saved my life, after all. But I needed rest and food. I wouldn’t be of much use to anyone if I keeled over from exhaustion.
We headed out as soon as Gar was able to get everyone into their vehicles, and headed over to the shifter encampment. I gave Kendra a heads up as to what was going on. Of course she wanted to come with us, but I told her I needed her to work with the totem shifters and get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses.
We drove in silence back towards Dr. Garner's house in Nate’s surprisingly comfortable jeep.
“So, a hellhound huh?” said Rob. “Is that a different kind of shifter as well?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “There are no records of what exactly it is. I don’t get the feeling it’s a shifter, however. More like…a creature in and of itself. Something from the dark dimension that Mallis was somehow able to pull through.”
“Whatever it is, it is very, very big,” said Cody. “And did you see the way the fire around it burned?” He turned to me with concern in his eyes.
“Yes. It scorched the ground where it walked, but seemingly in a controlled pattern.”
“So when—or if—we find this thing, what do we do?” asked Nate.
“We fight,” said Cody.
“Okay, well first let’s just concentrate on finding Elion,” I said. “Then we’ll worry about hellhounds. It’s daylight, so that means Elion would have gone to ground.”
“You’re assuming he’s still alive,” said Cody. “Or that the hound didn’t drag him off and present him as a gift to Mallis.”
That was something I hadn't thought about. I certainly didn’t want to think of Elion as being dead, but it had never even occurred that he might be a prisoner somewhere. I prayed that wasn’t the case. Cody and I had been there and done that; it wasn’t something I wished on anyone.
We arrived at the house and made our way up to the ruins. It looked like what it was: the remnants of a battle scene. The stone pillars that had been standing were mostly smashed to rubble, and the area around the house was now as charred as the foundation. My fire had reduced much of the tall grass to patches of smoldering blackness. Streaks of red blotted large swaths of the landscape. But despite the considerable gore, there was one thing missing.
“Where are the bodies?” asked Cody, echoing my thoughts.
We had killed a lot of wolves last night, yet there was no sign of them anywhere. I walked to a corner of the ruins and surveyed a huge section that was covered in dried blood. This was where Esmee had gone all Cuisinart on a few of them, and blood was streaking the brick fireplace.
But again, no bodies or even parts of bodies. I did a quick magical scan of the area to make sure what we were seeing was real. Yep, no sign of dead wolves anywhere.
“Would they have retrieved their dead?” asked Rob. “I mean, you said they were an army. Isn’t that what armies do? I wouldn’t leave the fallen body of a comrade.”
“I guess that’s possible,” I said. “I have to stop thinking of them as animals.”
My cheeks burned as I turned to him. “No, that’s not what I meant. I meant in the heat of the moment last night…they were so…”
“So were we, Allie. You do what you have to.” He turned and headed off towards the opening in the tree line where the hellhound had first appeared. I ignored Nate's furrowed brow and motioned for them to follow.
“What’s your magic tell you about these burns?” said Cody. He was crouched where the hound had been standing.
The ground around us was mostly intact with green grass, and even some of the drier weeds that crackled underfoot were undisturbed. The only oddity was a repeating pattern of equally spaced areas of discoloration roughly a foot in diameter every four to five feet. They led back into the woods. Every few yards there was a patch of undergrowth that was singed away in a manner that created a set of rounded patterns on the ground.
“This was where it walked,” said Cody. “It came out of the woods and then stood here.” He pointed to the earth that was seared down to the red clay dirt.
I stooped down and placed my hand on one of the burned areas, closed my eyes, and concentrated. Instantly, I could feel the pain the earth had experienced when the hound had stepped on it. The ground itself was cold to the touch, the opposite of what I was expecting. But it was more than just cold. It felt barren—like it had been salted. I knew that nothing would ever again grow where this monster had walked.
Pushing aside the feelings of revulsion at what had been done to the earth, I tried to dive deeper. Past the pain and into the creature. My magic flowed, grasping, clawing at any leftover mystical signatures that may have been left behind. I could feel the cold that this beast generated. Soul-numbing, unlike anything I had ever felt before. But other than the general anemic feel I was getting from the surroundings, there was nothing else concrete for my magic to latch onto.
“Nothing,” I said. “I can feel how every living thing around it recoils from this beast’s touch, but I can’t get a bead on the hound itself. It’s like…it’s shielded from my magic for some reason.”
“Over here,” said Rob. He had moved about fifty feet to the left. The forest was in completely different shape there. The undergrowth was flattened, and the earth had been gouged out in places with rough clumps of rock and debris scattered everywhere. “This is where they fought.”
I could see it now. “Elion leapt at the beast and was met in mid-air by the hound. They landed here and battled,” continued Rob. He moved slowly further to his left, concentrating on the ground around him. There were trees here that were bent and snapped, along with still more burned-out areas. “Whoever your friend is, he gave as good as he got.” He pointed at a place that was saturated with red.
“Is that Elion’s blood, or that of the hounds?” wondered Nate.
“That’s vampire blood,” said Cody, wrinkling his nose. “There is no mistaking that scent. Both of you might want to memorize it.”
Unlike Cody, the totem shifters could not access their Kintype abilities or senses while in human form. They both shifted fully to their totems and began to sniff at the ground. I could hear Cody’s sharply-drawn breath at the sight of them; this was his first glimpse of Nate’s totem and I could tell he was impressed with the sheer size of the saber-tooth.
Rob was equally as impressive. Though not as big as Nate, he was formidable nonetheless. The two of them prowled the area, learning to isolate the smell they were tracking from those that permeated the forest. I noticed their bodies stiffen as they looked off simultaneously in the same direction.
“Yes!” said Cody. “That’s it!”
Together, the two totems bounded off into the deeper woods behind the remains of the house. Nate came to a sudden halt, then bounded back to where I stood with Cody. He turned his head to the side and stared at me, a low, warm rumble emanating from his chest. I understood instantly what he wanted and vaulted onto his back, wrapping my hands in a handful of velvety hair to keep my balance.
The landscape began to blur as we headed across the open field, racing at a dizzying speed to catch up to Rob. I looked over my shoulder at Cody, who, despite his smaller wolf form, was keeping pace with the much larger totem shifters.
His eyes were narrowed and focused, but they avoided my own. I turned my attention back to the forest floor that the large, powerful cat beneath me was devouring—but then he stopped suddenly, and I had to tighten my grip to keep from flying off. Rob and Cody circled in front of us and sniffed the ground. Instantly, Cody shifted back to human form and looked up at me.
“The trail stops here. It’s like the vampire just…disappeared.”
I dismounted and Nate and Rob shifted back to human form as well.
“Can he do that?” asked Rob. “Disappear, I mean. In the movies some of them can fly. Maybe he just flew away.”
“No. I don’t think he can fly,” I said. Focusing my magic, I closed my eyes and hummed a spell of clarity. When I opened them, the area shifted into a spectrum that only I could perceive. I could see Elion’s presence. My magic allowed me to see that his pain was palpable as a red mist crept across the forest floor. I followed it until we came to a small glen with a dried-up creek bed.
I had no idea how long it had been since water had flown here, but the red mist now crept over the exposed river rock and made its way towards an embankment of tangled roots curving from the trees above into the ground below. They created a natural barrier that concealed dark openings that burrowed into the high banks along the dead creek.
Either Elion was in there, or something hellish had killed him and dragged his body into one of the sheltered openings.
“Something smells dead,” said Cody, wrinkling his nose and turning away from the opening.
I called up a magical shield and used it to push the roots aside and widen the hole. The earth around the opening appeared to have been clawed open, creating a small cavern in the sand and rock hillside. The smell of rotten flesh hit us again. Whatever was in there was not going to be pleasant.
I lit a ball of blue light in my hand and looked back at Cody. The opening was not big enough for an adult to enter. At least, not an adult male…so guess what? It was my lucky day. I took a deep breath and pushed through the murk in the damp space.
14
I made sure to breathe through my mouth as I crawled into the tunnel. Still, the smell clawed its way into my throat and threatened to make me retch.
“Allie, what do you see?” Cody called out from behind me.
“Nothing. It’s nearly pitch black in here even with my magic.” I had only managed to crawl about six feet into the hole, but I might as well have been in one of the underground caverns at Singing Falls. No ambient light crept into the space, and the wet, mildewy earth surrounding me made me feel claustrophobic. For some reason, the closeness, the smell, and the soft, mushy wetness all around me made me think that this was what it would feel like to be swallowed alive.
I shuddered and put that mental image out of my mind. My hand landed in something slick and pulpy that felt like it was covered in…fur.
“Oh, fuck this,” I muttered to myself, and conjured a small ball of light that I commanded to float in front of me, illuminating the ground and immediate space.
I regretted the light almost immediately. I could finally see what I had put my hand into, and stifled a small scream. It was an opossum…or what was left of one. It looked like it had been turned inside out, guts and entrails where its skin should have been, a row of sharp, jagged teeth splintered and busted outward in all directions. It looked like the poor thing had bit down with all its strength on a metal pipe, and as a result had shattered its teeth. And exploded from the inside.
My hand was covered in the creature’s remnants, and cursing my luck I wiped it on my jeans. Willing my light closer to the ground, I examined my surroundings closer before I tried to crawl further. The opossum wasn’t alone. Suddenly I could see that the
flooring around me was littered with carcasses of small woodland creatures. Moles, rats, squirrels…and something bigger that looked like a newborn fawn. All of them were in the same state: savaged and ripped apart. Before I could think about pushing further into the tight space, I heard a rustling to my right.
Throwing myself against the far side of the space to my left, I cast my light in the direction of the sound.
Someone—or something—was pressed against the far wall opposite me. It was camouflaged perfectly against the black earth. Roots that grew through the ground stretched downward in front of it, looking like nature’s prison bars.
“Leave. Now!” came a hoarse voice. “I don’t know if I can control myself.”
Realization struck me like a physical blow. “Elion? Oh my God, is that you?”
The vampire only hissed in return. He turned his head away from my light but I could still make out his huddled, emaciated form. Every inch of his skin was black, and when he hissed at me again I could see that even his teeth were charred. He looked for all the world like a living skeleton that had been dipped in tar and left to harden.
“Jesus, what happened to you?” I reached out a hand tentatively in his direction.
He snarled suddenly, snapping his black teeth at my hand. I drew back, shrieking involuntarily.
“Allie!” It was Cody, screaming at me from the entrance. “What happened? I’m coming in!” I could hear him shift into his wolf form and begin to gouge hunks of earth away from the opening, trying to enlarge it enough that his massive body would fit through.
“Cody, no!” I screamed, sending a wave of magic his way that shielded the entrance, keeping him from being able to enter. “Stay where you are! Please. I’m okay.”
I then turned my attention back to Elion and held up my hand in front of him. The blue glow of magic that emanated from me let him know that while I was not here to hurt him, I wouldn’t be afraid to torch his ass either if I had to.