Hotblood

by Juliann Whicker

  Ethel said I looked like a wild animal when I came in, windblown from climbing trees or swimming in the lake. Days ran into weeks, my hair growing longer. Every morning I put on a dress richly imbued with color that I’d never seen before. When I asked, Ethel told me they were old clothes from the trunks in the attic and did I want to go collect eggs and that was that. It was a slight disappointment that they came from somewhere instead of springing up magically. Everything felt like magic, the colors so impossibly beautiful they couldn’t belong to anything called ordinary. As I grew accustomed to the intensity of emotion and sensations that barraged me every once in awhile, I’d be caught up all over again by something, a butterfly, the texture of moss under my feet, and I’d feel astonished all over again. My dad’s world was beautiful. I began to wonder why he’d left it to live in Sanders in the first place.

  One night, I dreamed I stood with a grown-up Devlin on the edge of a cliff, watching the world crumble around us. I turned to him, but his face changed, shifted until it was the face of the young man with warm eyes. Lewis. He turned away, and I followed his gaze to the thick darkness that waited behind us. He took a step into the darkness. Even as I reached for him he was gone. The ground beneath my feet dissolved into mist and I was left falling into a darkness that felt alive, swallowing me whole. The Nether’s scream beat through my head filling me with more terror than my mind could cope with. I struggled to escape, but there was nowhere to go; I couldn’t hide from the scream that went on and on and on.

  I sat up in my bed and tried to push away the scream that still echoed in my mind. My dad stood by the window staring out into the night. I took a deep breath, holding my hand to my chest. That dream was worse than spirit walking. I’d felt so much anxiety; even now I couldn’t stop my heart from pounding. I tried to slow my breathing down but another scream made me flinch, then I was out of my bed to stand beside my father. I couldn’t see anything but darkness before he shut the window and drew the curtains. He gently led me back to my bed.

  “Is that real? Is it out there?” I sat on my bed and pulled my knees against my body shivering uncontrollably.

  “Yes, it’s real. Are you going to be all right by yourself?”

  I looked up at my dad. “By myself?”

  “I’m going to meet it.” He was going to go out and say hello while he left me here alone?

  “No. Are you crazy? You can’t go by yourself to face that monster. Something bad will happen. It scares you, and if something happened to you and it was my fault I’d never be able to live with that. I have enough to live with!”

  He held up his hand and I realized how loud I’d gotten. “I won’t be alone. I have friendly neighbors.”

  “If it’s here for me, what can you do?” My heart pounded double time, but I gave him my strongest glare.

  He gave me a smile that showed a lot of teeth that looked slightly silver in the moonlight. It must have been the moonlight. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

  “Dad, you can’t leave me here alone.”

  He squeezed my hand. “You’re going to be safe. Everything will turn out…”

  I shook my head feeling desperate to make him understand something I could hardly understand myself. “You said we are the choices that we make, right? Well, I choose to face my monsters and if someone’s going to pay for my having a soul, it’s going to be me.” It didn’t make sense, but I felt protective of my father. It was impossible to think of him leaving me safely tucked in bed while he faced my nightmares.

  He gave me a long look then narrowed his eyes. I was sure he would argue my fears away, but instead he just nodded slowly. “Very well, but you must not speak to it or do anything at all unless I instruct you to. Is that clear?”

  “All right. I’ll be there to make sure you don’t pay for my crimes.”

  He laughed and put his hand on my head to ruffle my hair. It was such a natural movement, one he’d done hundreds of times when I was a little girl, one that reminded me how much things had changed.

  In a few moments, we were in the dark hall. “Don’t we need a light?” I asked.

  “No. Keep close to me.”

  I nodded but he couldn’t see me in the dark. I kept a hand on his shirt, mostly to remind myself not to bolt back to my room. I felt very small and delicate creeping down the stairs holding onto my father’s shirt tails. Walking out into the dark woods was my choice. What was wrong with me?

  Ethel waited at the front door; her low greeting reminding me that he’d said he had neighbors. Once outside we moved quickly down the gravel road. I was out of breath by the time we reached the barrier that surrounded my dad’s compound. The road was the only way in and out. Under the dim light of the moon, I could make out more people joining us as we jogged farther away from the house. I felt alarmed as more and more dark figures joined us. If something went terribly wrong and someone got hurt, I would be responsible. I bit my lip trying to concentrate. I couldn’t let things go wrong.

  I stumbled as we left the road and climbed over the bank on the left then slid through the moonless woods. I tripped occasionally, but I held tight to my dad’s shirt and kept on my feet. I should have felt tired but as we got closer, I thought I could sense darkness thicker than the woods ahead of me, a darkness that made me forget my exhaustion. I tripped less when I focused on the darkness that called to me. My father stopped abruptly and someone lit a torch. In a moment the forest was ablaze. I looked around me and saw a multitude of cloaked figures with torches above their shadowy faces. I wondered what kind of neighbors my dad had but there was a scream and the darkness moved towards us. The thick shadow encroached on the torchlight, dimming it as it came closer.

  The darkness had taken on the shape I remembered from my dream but the horse creature was looking more catlike the way it was crouched. It lifted a hoof…no, my dad was right, those were definitely claws. It pulled back its lips and screamed. Its red eyes met mine and it knew me. I could see the awareness in those eyes as it stared through me. I was shaking so hard my legs collapsed, and I knelt there in the woods, trying to hold onto myself. Those eyes would have been unnerving enough but what really undid me was the scent of the Nether above it. I’d never smelled anything like that. It was a combination of darkness and death; it was everything that had pulled me into the hunt, only multiplied a million times. It called, so sweet to me, that scent. I dug my hands into the loose debris on the forest floor, trying to smell something, anything, besides the Nether. I took a deep breath and the smell of dirt, of rotting leaves somehow only enhanced his smell. He was Autumn; he was death.

  I felt something next to me and turned my head. I gasped as the enormous dog that didn’t belong to this world turned its head and looked back at me. The glowing ruby red eyes returned to the other creature as though I wasn’t of much interest to the hound. I looked around and saw that there were others like it, only smaller and darker than the hound next to me whose coat was the color of mottled silver. My father’s warning about his bloodhounds hadn’t been nearly strong enough. I would have to be sure not to skewer myself on a stick or something. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. This time the smell of the hound dampened the effect the Nether’s scent had on me.

  The figure cloaked in darkness spoke and his voice was like everything beautiful I’d ever known. It hurt me to hear it. I looked up as the sounds penetrated my cloudy brain. The words meant nothing to me, but by the tone, he found something about all of us darkly amusing. For a moment I thought he would laugh. I stared at him, the figure taking on a more definite shape as my father walked up to it. I felt my heart beat in my throat as they got closer together. My father’s hair shimmered in the torchlight as he addressed the Nether in a language I couldn’t understand. My father seemed to fill more space as he gestured and spoke, the sound of his voice like a stream, soothing, compelling.

  When the Nether laughed the blood in my veins caught on fire. I stared at him needing to see past the darkness. I was h
alfway standing when I found my view of the Nether blocked by the Hound. It was very tall. I gazed into its ruby eyes then sank back down to the ground. I closed my eyes and realized my head was resting on the warm and silky hide of the creature. I didn’t have any room for terror; that would come later. At that moment I pressed my face against the coat, grateful for the strong scent of it. I heard the voices of my dad and the Nether, but I blocked it out and listened with rapt attention to the beating heart of my father’s hound.

  It could have been minutes or hours, but at one point, I felt his gaze on me as piercing as my dad’s had ever been and then he was gone. I blinked and sat up feeling like a spell had been broken. The hound gazed at me while one by one the torches went out, but the hound’s eyes still glowed ruby red.

  “Dariana, come on.” My dad helped me to my feet and supported most of my weight as we walked over the rough ground. My mind wasn’t functioning. I moved, but I couldn’t really feel the end of my limbs or the top of my head.

  “Dad, you have some very weird neighbors.”

  He chuckled low. “It goes with the neighborhood. That went fairly well, all things considered.”

  I blinked. “Oh, did you think so?”

  “It wasn’t my idea to bring you, but his curiosity is satisfied and he’ll move on now.”

  “Oh.” I felt something then, a lurch in my stomach at the idea of my nightmare leaving without so much as saying hello to me. I shook my head but only felt dizzier. It was real, it could talk, but it hadn’t taken me. Had it really even noticed me, cowering behind my father? I thought I felt his gaze but how could I be sure? I shook my head again and stumbled over a branch, losing my grip on my dad as I fell to my knees. My dad helped me to my feet and walked even slower with me towards the road. It was a relief to step out onto the white gravel.

  I couldn’t get over it. He was real. Was he really going away? I looked up to ask my dad but hesitated. Maybe I didn’t want to hear the answer to that. When we got back to the house, only my dad and I were left of the neighborhood ‘walk-around-in-the-dark-with-cloaks-and-torches’ group. When we were inside, I saw a light coming from the kitchen. I walked in and was glad to see food on the table. I ate while my dad sat beside me, looking into the darkness.

  “Dad, are you going to talk about it? I didn’t know it was a different language. Your hounds are a little intimidating.” My voice was breathless, but I forced myself to focus on my father’s face. This would be good for me.

  “Yes, it’s a lovely language if you like that kind of thing. Most of it was formality. Greetings between Nether are always interesting. He treated me like a full Nether. I’m not sure if that’s good. After he finished complimenting me on my pets, he spoke of you, and I am nearly certain he almost admitted to having something to do with your having a soul.”

  I stared at him and blinked. “You sound like a lawyer.”

  He sighed. “Well, he’s worse than I am. Have you ever seen an animal like that? I’ve never seen one up close.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, it was like something out of a nightmare.” I grinned at him and realized I was getting a little bit loopy. I was tired and my self-control was completely hammered.

  “You did very well. I shouldn’t have worried about you.”

  I shrugged. “It was more your hound than anything else. I’ve never seen creatures like that either.”

  “No, they’re not exactly domesticated. Drink this,” he held out a bottle and I downed it, chasing it with the autumn. It didn’t taste as brilliant to me, not now that I knew what death really smelled like. For a moment I almost wondered what he tasted like, but then I was limp as my father carried me up the stairs to bed.

  When I woke up I stared at the ceiling. The night before I had wanted so badly to run to the Nether, to taste his darkness or whatever his substance was. It terrified me that I could be filled with so much desire for something so wrong. He wasn’t anything like my father who gave up meat so he could avoid killing and enjoying death. Of course, I had no idea what he was really like. I hadn’t been able to talk to him; I’d been too paralyzed to even think at the time, much less talk. It seemed like a pity I had come so close to my own nightmare without managing to say so much as a word.

  Why would my brother, someone who loved me, take my soul? And why would a creature of night give one back to me? It didn’t make any sense. How could I know what was good or evil when the best person in the world could do the worst thing? Had Devlin known about the blood lust? Had he known what kind of a monster I’d grow into? Is that why he’d taken my soul— because there was something essentially wrong with me? No. However bad I was, it wasn’t right to do that to someone, not even the monsters.

  That morning, Ethel was even quieter than usual.

  “So does that happen often?” I asked. When she gave me a blank look I shrugged. “You know, mysterious horsemen and a neighborhood walkabout?”

  I could have sworn I almost saw her smile before she frowned at me. “Certainly not, young lady. We do not approve of any kind of after midnight callers. I hope you’ll have learned some decent manners before you go back to that Sanders place.” She sniffed and gave her knitting her full attention.

  “Sanders, right. Do I really have to go back there? After everything that’s happened I don’t think it’s a very good idea.”

  “You are going back to that world, Dariana. Your mother has shown remarkable restraint allowing you an entire summer away.”

  “A summer isn’t long enough for me to be prepared to go back to that world. You don’t know what it’s like, Ethel. There’s no color or life there. My mother is cold, as cold as her house. It’s like living in a mausoleum. I don’t understand why she really wants me back. She hardly looks at me when I am there.”

  “Things change,” she said briskly. “Your mother is not going to be the same woman you remember. She has great need of you.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure she does. It’s not just my mother; it’s all of them; Snowy, Osmond, and… everyone. I am not the same person. How am I supposed to act normal, to not get angry and do some damage? I don’t want them to see me like that. I don’t want him…” I clenched my teeth and bent over my knitting with renewed concentration.

  “The boy you dream?” She asked with the sensitivity of a baseball bat. “The only other thing you dream is Nether. What are the chances of him being normal? It’s likely that he’ll be as dangerous as you, in different ways. It won’t matter much though. Your mother’s not about to let some strange boy associate with her daughter.”

  “My mother won’t let?” I stared at Ethel until she snorted and really did smile.

  “Looks as if you’re up to the challenge, whatever it is. If you’re not afraid of facing your mother, then your destiny probably belongs as much to yourself as anyone’s does.”

  She tucked her knitting in her woven basket and started chopping vegetables. I hated that I had to go back to my mother when school was over, but she had custody. Strange that something like legalities should have any weight in this crazy world where souls could be taken, stolen, where there were things like Netherkind.

  That evening my dad took me hunting and he explained that we would go outside the borders to hunt in the woods where we’d met with the Netherkind. It was twilight, the light of the day faded while I followed him into the trees. We stopped for a moment while my dad listened for something. I looked at him, so at ease in the woods, and couldn’t help the sigh.

  “I’m sorry, dad.”

  He looked at me. “Sorry? What do you have to be sorry for?”

  “You’re a vegetarian. You don’t like killing things. I’ve really messed up your whole summer.”

  “I know I seem like someone so different from you that I couldn’t possibly understand what you’re going through, but there are times when I’ve lost control, when I’ve smelled blood and lost myself in the hunt. Remember, it’s from my side of the family that you inherited blood lust.”

  I l
ooked at him thoughtfully. “You like blood?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “I used to. I still do or would if I let myself. I came to a point where I decided I wanted, no, needed to overcome that part of me. I’m not certain if that was the right decision. Sometimes I wonder if it’s going to build inside of me and come out in uncontrollable ways.”

  I stared at him for a moment then broke out laughing. “Oh, come on, dad, that’s sweet of you to say, but really, I can’t see you ever losing it.”

  He gave me a slight smile. “I’ve lost control more times than I’d like to remember. You should have seen me when I met your mother.” His smile faded, and I turned away. I still didn’t understand how two people so different could ever get together.

  He grinned suddenly, and I saw the silver glow of his eyes before he turned and ran. I followed. At first I struggled to keep up, but after awhile I picked up the scent; something wild that made me forget trying to keep up with my dad. Instead I simply moved with him. We flew through the trees as the scent grew stronger, then as we neared it, there was a different scent: fear. My mouth watered as we chased it. A shadow flickered in front of us, and the smell carried me along beside my father. There was a ravine that we followed. We raced along the top of it, dodging branches as we neared the heart that beat so rapidly. I could feel the shift in my father, the way he moved away from me through the woods, slightly angled as we gained on the terrified animal. I grinned and pushed down harder against the ground, the feeling like flying as I ran. I got my first clear glimpse of the hide, dark in the shadows.