Split Feather

by Deborah A. Wolf

  Only… that wasn’t quite true, and all three of us knew it.

  Charlie-the-man lifted his head, and Charlie’s demon peered at me through his eyes. It hissed.

  “Now, come on,” I coaxed. Slowly. Softly. I sat down with my back to the chain-link fence and set the heavy bag on the thin brown grass between us. “Is that any way to greet a friend who’s brought you lunch?”

  Charlie’s demon hissed again, but Charlie sniffed the air. Like a dog, again. A starved, neglected dog whose foster parents didn’t care whether she lived or died, so long as they got to cash that check.

  Yeah, okay, so I still have issues. Whatever.

  “Go ahead,” I assured him, “it’s for you.”

  A hand shot out, long-fingered and fine. An artist’s hands, or a surgeon’s. I wondered what this man had been—no, who he had been—before the demon got hold of his soul. It pissed me off.

  What was left of Charlie the human became fully immersed in the food I’d brought. He laid it out neatly atop the flattened bag, arranging the silly plastic utensils just so, peeling back the foil just so, taking a dainty bite and then just soaking up the taste and smell of food. My own stomach cramped in sympathy.

  Been there, dude. Done that. His demon still watched me warily from beneath his thick brows.

  “You and I,” I said, addressing the demon, “need to have a little talk.”

  Charlie grunted through a mouthful of food.

  “No, not you,” I told him, and I stared hard at the demon. I see you, you little fucker. “I’m talking to you. It’s time for you to go. Leave this man alone.”

  Why this man, out of all the demon-ridden? Why this lone and lonely soul, living on the edge of the edge?

  Why was I born in this time, on this planet? Why anything? Fucked if I know. Hutlani. My mouth is too small to speak of such big things. All I knew was that if I didn’t help him, nobody would.

  Been there, too.

  Charlie swallowed, and the demon bared his ass-nasty teeth at me. Clack-clack, it went, clack-clack, and yeah, I hesitated. If those teeth had clamped down on my hand, probably my arm would have fallen off before I could call for help. But this demon was no Puyuk, it wasn’t the Giyeg. It wasn’t even as big or as nasty as the thing that had taken over Monday. It was just your ordinary everyday garden-variety demon, and I was Siggy John Aleksov, Daughter of the Midnight Sun. I was a hero, dammit, and I was done taking crap from anyone…

  Especially shitty parasitic demons like this asshole.

  Yeah, I still had a potty mouth, too. I was a work in progress.

  I drew the Giyeg’s opaline knife from my grandpa’s leather sheath at my hip, let the sunlight catch on its faceted blade, let the demon take a good long look at it. Charlie’s eyes went wide, wide, wide. His mouth stretched so wide I thought it might pop loose, like a snake’s, big enough to swallow me whole. A sound came from his face—not just his mouth, but his whole face—and a black steam rose from him.

  It poured from his eyes like tears, it poured from his skin like sweat, it poured from his mouth like a wicked prayer, and hovered between us, roiling and boiling and mad as hell.

  “You think you can take me?” I asked it. Then I held my breath.

  The black mist-thing coiled in on itself, pulsing and throbbing with… with some kind of un-light, that’s the only thing I could think to call it then… and stretched out a finger-wide tentacle toward me. I could feel its cold heart, the hunger, and pain. Pain a thousand years old, a thousand times a thousand, and despair, and grief so old it had turned to fury and then to madness. It wanted to go home… but it couldn’t go home, and so it would take me, instead.

  “Ah-ah,” I told it, and flash went the Giyeg’s knife. “Not today.”

  It shrieked, a soundless sound that scraped the inside of my head. Shit that hurt. Then it turned back to Charlie.

  Bear Sister had had enough of my screwing around. She leapt from my heart into the cold world, and she ate that demon up in two bites, snicker-snack. Just like that. Then, for the first time, she turned her great face to me, and regarded me with eyes like stars—ancient, and cold.

  You will learn, she said.

  Then she went back to sleep.

  Charlie was weeping, great heaving sobs, like a lost child. A really big, really stinky lost child who needed his mama and a toothbrush, only maybe not in that order.

  Asshole, I scolded myself. He’s a human being, Siggy. Like you.

  Hollowed out, lost, lost. A little too much like me, maybe.

  “Hey, Charlie,” I said. I put my whole heart into it, and looked into his eyes. They were brown, darker than mine, bloodshot and glazed and utterly, terribly human. “Here. Let me help.” I picked up one of the little paper napkins, tried to wash his face with it.

  “Khali,” he told me.

  “Yes, Charlie,” I agreed. Did he have a family? Would they take him in? Who would care for him, now that I’d killed his demon?

  Holy shi… cow, I’d killed a demon. That was kind of badass.

  “No,” he rasped. It was hard to make out the words. His jaw didn’t seem to move right. “Khali. Khali.” He grabbed at me, and I resisted the urge to pull away from him. From the smell, the sight, the filth that was humanity. I looked into his eyes. They were…

  Khali, he told me, soul-to-soul. Khali. Empty.

  So cold, so empty. Alone for so long he’d forgotten the feel of sun on his face, the touch of a human hand, the warmth of a smile. Lost and afraid in the dark.

  “I’m here,” I told him. I closed my hands over his, smiled at him, and I imagined that life poured from my soul into his. All the warmth of the long, long day, all the light of the midnight sun. “I’m here.”

  “Fereshteh,” he cried out, flinching back as if I’d hurt him. “Fereshteh!”

  “Siggy,” I corrected him. “I’m Siggy.”

  “Siggy,” he repeated. He blinked, and for a moment I saw a whole man looking out at me. He blinked again, a little bit lost… but better than he had been. “Siggy. I… I am.” His chin quivered, and I could feel my own throat closing up. Had I done this man any good at all? Or had I just brought him more pain?

  “I… I… Sorush. I am Sorush.” He smiled, a horrible smile, rotten teeth and bleeding gums and bits of taco. “I am Sorush!”

  “Sorush,” I agreed, and squeezed his hands. “Pleased to meet you. Wanna go get a cup of coffee?”

  42

  It was good to be home.

  I sat across the little table in my borrowed trailer and looked out the window, enjoying the dark green peace of my own tiny piece of wilderness. The land here spoke to me, too, but these trees weren’t as old or pushy as the ones in Tsone. They minded their own business, for the most part, and hoped we two-leggeds would just leave them alone.

  There were a few crows hanging about but no ravens. No bears. I’d found the tracks of some big cat out back by the footprint of my old woodshed, but now that I’d returned she’d probably take off. The air was rank, but I’d get used to that again, and I had a job waiting for me on Monday.

  Honey had hired me to be her bouncer, and we’d had a good laugh about that over a glass of cherry mead. I’d even have a real house before too long, ’cause the fire had been declared accidental, and insurance money would be just enough to build one of those tiny homes I’d wanted, like, forever. I hadn’t seen my demon in so long I’d begun to hope she was gone forever. Life was good, better than good. It was quiet.

  Or would be, if Bane would shut the… heck… up.

  “So you’re saying you don’t have to kill me anymore,” I said, cutting him off mid-monologue. “Because of my hair.”

  “It’s not because of your hair, darling. Though that is fabulous.” Bane reached out to give my braid a tug…

  I was getting goddamn tired of people doing that.

  “It’s what your hair signifies.” He grinned a wide, feral grin at me, all pointy-toothed audacity, because he knew it’d aggr
avate the fu… the heck out of me.

  “That I’m no longer human.”

  “Not entirely human, no. You’re at least half darnamchara, so the Consilium can’t allow you to be assassinated without breaking their own laws. It’s all very complicated, I’m sure, and will take at least a hundred years to straighten out, but for now you’ve been granted a stay of execution.”

  I blinked. It was a lot to take in, and there were a shit-ton of questions here that I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask. “So… I’m safe?”

  “Oh, darling, no.” Bane threw back a rainbow-maned head and lauuuuughed. “Oh, honey, you’re in worse danger than ever. It just means that I won’t have to kill you. It also means I can pledge to protect you, if I choose, and I do, so I have.” He sipped his overly sweet tea and waited for me to catch up.

  “Well, if you’re my bodyguard, I’m absofuckinglutely sure nothing will get me.” I grinned back. That’s when it happened.

  A sudden gust of wind shook the trailer, hard enough that I sloshed hot coffee over my hands, and a howl as deep and deafening as church bells in Hell rose from the woods all round. Bane jumped to his feet, drawing his wicked knife, and I stumbled up, fumbling for my demonblade with scalded fingers. The trailer door shook as something was thrown against it, once…

  Twice…

  Third time’s always the charm, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The latch flew off and pinged against the opposite wall, and a giant fell into my kitchen.

  “SIGGY!” he bellowed. “Thank Odin, I found you!” His voice cracked, and as he stood to his full height I realized three things.

  This wispy-bearded blond giant was scarcely more than a child.

  He was really freaking huge.

  He knew my name.

  I held the demonblade in front of me, wishing I’d grabbed my shotgun instead and wondering what other dangerous creatures were going to stop by for a visit today.

  “Who are you?” I asked, jabbing the blade in his direction. It certainly seemed to frighten demons, and I figured it would work just as well on any other monster. I was wrong. He looked down at the little blade with a bemused expression, and then gave me the most heart-melty puppy-dog look I’ve never fallen for.

  “Siggy, it’s me! I’m Leif.” He held both hands out to me, open and begging. “I’m your brother.”

  “YOU,” Bane roared, before I could even think to react. He pushed past me, almost knocking me to the floor, and his face was a mask of fury. “WHERE IS MY SISTER?”

  The howling outside grew to a shriek, and the world fell silent…

  Things got weird.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to give a nod of thanks to…

  My rockstar agent, Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media.

  My Dark Editorial Overlord, Steve Saffel of Titan Books.

  Nick Landau, Vivian Cheung, Paul Gill, Miranda Jewess, Ella Chappell, Hayley Shepherd, Lydia Gittins, and Katharine Carroll of Titan Books, for believing in my work.

  And most especially the late Catherine Attla, of the Nolcheena Clan of the Koyukon Athabascan nation, whose storytelling abilities I could never hope to match.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Deborah A. Wolf was born in a barn and raised on wildlife refuges, which explains a lot. As a child, whether she was wandering down the beach of an otherwise deserted island or exploring the hidden secrets of bush Alaska with her faithful dog Sitka, she always had a book at hand. She opened the forbidden door, and set foot upon the tangled path, and never looked back.

  She attended any college that couldn’t outrun her and has accumulated a handful of degrees, the most recent of which is a Master of Science in Information Systems Management from Ferris State University. Among other gigs, she has worked as an underwater photographer, Arabic linguist, and grumbling wage slave. Throughout it all, Deborah has held onto one true and passionate love: the love of storytelling.

  Deborah currently lives in Northern Michigan with her kids (some of whom are grown and all of whom are exceptional), an assortment of dogs and horses, and one cat whom she suspects is possessed by a demon.

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