Feast

by Merrie Destefano

  But apparently, right now, the character alone was enough.

  Tucker got to the last page of pencil drawings and flipped it over, as if disappointed when there weren’t more. He frowned. Looked up at me.

  “Is this your next story?” he asked.

  I nodded, still not sure, waiting to hear what he thought.

  “This guy’s wicked! He’s better than Batman or Wolverine or Hellboy.”

  I grinned.

  “How soon are you gonna be done with it? This is better than your last one—”

  I was laughing now. Better than my last graphic novel that won an Eisner Award and was currently in production over at Universal Pictures.

  “You seriously need to let me read this. Will this one have words?” he asked, referring to a series I did two years ago with no dialogue—just sound effects and a small amount of narration. That one was being considered as a mini-series on HBO. I was hoping they could get somebody like Zachary Quinto for the lead.

  “Yeah, it’ll have words.” I watched as Tucker flipped back through the pages. He studied each of them and then finally ended on the beginning splash panel.

  A dramatic woodland scene covered the page, thick stands of ponderosa pine, a knot of hedge nettle and thimbleberry and mossy shadows, and there between the trees—half running, half flying—was a dark, dangerous creature, sweat glistening on leathery wings, eyes watching from the tangled wilderness.

  Every time I looked at it, my heart raced and I remembered that thing back in the woods, the familiar look in its eyes. I felt the way the air had shimmered and how the sky darkened, almost as if time had stood still just long enough for it to escape. One hand had stretched out toward me, palm open.

  Something had sparkled in the air.

  I had to go back. Tomorrow. I had to see if it was still there, somewhere.

  Tucker yawned again, settled back against his pillow. I took his paperback book, set it on the nightstand, then turned the light to a lower setting. He had nightmares if I turned off all the lights.

  Fortunately, tonight both he and the dog were asleep before I even left the room.

  Sketchbook in hand.

  Chapter 17

  Lulled into Slumber

  Maddie:

  Weariness rolled over me. Without meaning to, my head slipped back and rested on the sofa cushion. I stared at my sketchbook for a moment—at that splash-panel creature—until the picture faded, until the pencil lines began to move and change. Everything changed. I tried to keep my eyes open, but everything started to fade.

  I fell asleep, the transition between the two worlds simple. The real world intertwined with that of my imagination, and a surreal landscape suddenly unfolded around me.

  I was in my car, staring out the window, trying to focus on the undulating switchbacks, vistas that alternated between primeval forest and rocky cliff. We were heading up into the mountains for a long deserved vacation. Tucker was asleep in the backseat, PlayStation clutched possessively in one hand.

  Don’t fall asleep. Not now.

  But in the end, I knew it didn’t matter whether I stayed awake or not. I fell prey to the faltering light that sifted through the branches, allowed myself to be lulled into slumber, let the dream wash over me, a serenade of beauty. Just like I had allowed myself to fall in love.

  Wake up.

  I glanced across the car, saw a surreal landscape sweeping past, purple trees, green sky. The colors were wrong, but they often are in dreams. My younger sister was driving, much too fast, but then it wasn’t my sister after all. The face was blank, all features erased except for a pair of silver eyes. You were in love, my sister asked. I nodded, we were all in love once, a long time ago. I held a box of photos in my lap, black-and-white pictures of my life. The images melted, turned garish and gritty, like cheap tabloids sold on street corners.

  The dog is barking. Something must be wrong.

  The box of pictures spilled onto my lap, fell across the floor, took root and blossomed, became a garden of images: a picture of that corner office where I had been able to see the sticky glitter of Hollywood; a photo of that delirious holiday we had spent in Cancun; a snapshot of Tucker’s last birthday, back before my world had exploded in tabloid headlines.

  GET UP!

  A picture of a man who smiled too easily at all the wrong people, most of them women.

  My eyes flickered open.

  Wake up, wake up, wake up!

  I had a crick in my neck and my mouth hung open, slack.

  But I wasn’t awake. I couldn’t be.

  Because a shadowy monster blurred across the living room and the dog was barking, growling, snapping. Samwise was pushing Tucker’s bedroom door open, he was pummeling across wood floors, legs spinning, mouth open, teeth bared, running toward that dark hole in the universe, that leathery thing that was sucking all the light out of the room.

  I sat up and swallowed, blinked away one nightmare for another.

  “Sam?” It was the only word I could get out, my mouth filled with the glue of sleep.

  Growling. Snarling. Leaping through the air toward the Beast.

  Wings spread wide, darker than night, a shadowy creature filled the room like a great, monstrous crow, blacker than black and heavier than a nightmare. It pressed me down and I couldn’t move, couldn’t even feel my heart beating anymore. The dog was frozen in the air, leaping in a broad vengeful arc, jaws open and ready to rip that nightwing beast to shreds. He had a piece of it in his mouth, dark blood spraying.

  A woman was screaming.

  And then suddenly there were two of them. Wings spread, blanketing the room in a black-ink hell and whispering cold.

  Chapter 18

  The Edge of Twilight

  Ash:

  We sat poised on the edge of twilight, eating—this houseful of monsters who barely tolerated one another. Plates passed from hand to hand, moving around the circle like the shadow on a sundial. Driscoll glanced at me from time to time, a glimmer of fear in his gaze. I merely nodded, a king in my court granting reluctant permission to my subject’s each and every move. The two of us were connected in a silent, secret way, the ancient curse shackling us with invisible chains.

  Driscoll always preferred to see me dressed in human skin.

  So, of course, I rarely appeared to him that way.

  Tonight we all sat in full Darkling attire, revealing ourselves as the beasts we truly were. We dined on baked apples and sugared rose petals and pastries with thick raspberry icing. We drank blackberry wine and munched on champagne grapes and fresh strawberries. Through it all, I was the only one at the table allowed to use both knife and fork. Even Driscoll had to gnaw on his chicken and potatoes with bare hands.

  It isn’t truly a curse unless you find some way to drive them mad, inch by inch, moment by moment. And madness always was the goal. I could have lived anywhere, like my wild brothers and sisters, those without homes or humans of their own, those who prowled the edges of Ticonderoga Falls like scavengers. But from the beginning, I chose to be civilized.

  I took one family, and just one, to haunt. Forever.

  The Driscolls of Ticonderoga Falls.

  So right now, I pretended to pay attention to the pointless chatter about the Hunt. It looked like I was listening, I was sure of it.

  Because in truth, I was.

  I was listening to the Legend as it whispered overhead and throughout the village. Somewhere, someone was telling the tale about my fall from grace, leaning over a back fence or pausing on a street corner, one neighbor was reminding another about what had happened right here, nearly a hundred years past. And as the words were spoken it was like they had ripped off yet another pound of flesh. Sparks glimmered and I held a hand against my old wound, covering it anew with a fresh Veil.

  Just then I heard something else. I tilted my head.

  Yes, there, a silver crackle, the sound made when a Darkling unfurls his wings, when he folds reality.

  But the pi
tch was off.

  I glanced around the table again. My daughter, Elspeth, had slipped away a few moments earlier, said her shoulders ached from the journey, had even shown me the bruised flesh where wing met bone on her back. But bruises can be faked.

  I stood, inadvertently kicking my chair to the floor, an act that silenced all their conversation. Driscoll cowered as I swept past, the others merely stared at me with a curious expression. In a heartbeat, I was on the porch, head lifted, smelling dark sky, searching for my daughter’s scent.

  My human flesh dissolved, blew away on the chill autumn wind. Wings spread, I hovered in the air, listening, searching.

  “What is it?” Sage appeared on the porch behind me.

  “Hush!” I ordered.

  That was when I heard it. A scream. Coming from Madeline’s cottage.

  Elspeth. Screaming.

  I cast a Veil, strong and bright, one that would slow everything and everyone down. It froze a corner of Ticonderoga Falls like insects in bits of amber. Like my people, my powers come from human dreams. Anything they can dream, I can do.

  Then I soared over field and forest, following the scream that wouldn’t end. In an instant I stood before an open window and saw Elspeth inside. A dog soared through the air toward her, teeth bared. The creature already had my daughter’s arm clamped in its jaws.

  Foolish child!

  I flew into the room and grabbed the dog, then pulled it away from Elspeth. “Sleep,” I whisper-sang in its ear, a song meant to calm a faithful beast that tried to protect someone it loved. I gently closed its jaws, wincing when I saw my daughter’s blood in its mouth, tried to wipe it away with my hand. Then I placed the animal on the floor, carefully, in a position that would look natural.

  When I lifted my head I realized that she was watching me.

  Maddie was awake.

  All she would see was a blur. Still, she shouldn’t be seeing even this much. I glanced down at a sketchbook on her lap.

  She had been drawing a picture of a Darkling in the forest. Me.

  But I couldn’t stop to act on it. Life and limb, they were what mattered. Harm no human, no beast, during harvest. Rules had to be followed, or the harvest would turn bitter and foul in the mouth. Would bring famine. Pestilence. Plague.

  I spun around, faced my child, grown now and lovely as the moon herself. Disobedient and foolish and bleeding—she was too much like her father. Because of her human blood, she too had been captured by my Veil. I ripped off my shirt, wrapped it around her wound and folded reality so that we could both fit through the open window.

  Then I flew away, with Elspeth in my arms.

  Chapter 19

  Shimmering and Silver

  Maddie:

  One moment I crouched on the sofa, unable to move. My dog hung frozen in the air, biting a black-winged beast that filled the room. Then there were two beasts and an unbearable cold frosted my skin. For a brief flash of time, I recognized an unmistakable odor. But it didn’t make sense.

  It was the forest, a fresh mash of green leaves and moss, sunlight and wind. The fragrance filled the room, made time stand still.

  Then, suddenly I could move again. I blinked and let the wet fragrance of the wood fill my lungs. The darkness and the wings that had blocked out the light were gone now. Samwise was no longer growling.

  In an instant, nothing was the same as before.

  Now the dog was sleeping on the floor beside me, curled up, tail tucked to his nose.

  The window hung open, shimmering and silver, as if a great heat had just passed through the room. But all was still. I stood on shaky legs. Then I walked through the house to make sure no intruder was inside, made sure Tucker was safe and asleep. I tested and closed and locked every window and door.

  And then finally, I stopped and knelt beside Samwise, so deeply asleep that I couldn’t rouse him, even when I called his name. That was when I saw it—the only proof that what had just happened hadn’t been my imagination.

  A few flecks of blood colored the dog’s muzzle.

  Chapter 20

  Silver-Gray Skin

  Ash:

  My wings pummeled the air. I flew through mist and shadow, between white fir and lodgepole pine; I followed a mountain pass, deeper and deeper through evergreen vein toward the village, all the while wishing that I could go faster. The clouds of midnight shadowed the vale, threatened snow, spoke promises of brittle cold. The only warmth was my daughter, a crescent of flesh that nestled too still in my arms, eyes closed.

  She was caught in her Darkling skin—eyes the color of the moon, skin like a stormy sky, hair like the blue-black raven.

  Eyes that wouldn’t open, flesh growing colder.

  Was she asleep? Why hadn’t Sage told me about this?

  I soared low through moonlit skies toward the center of Ticonderoga Falls, toward the one human I trusted.

  Wake, human! I cried through vellum wind, calling my friend to rise from slumber, to be ready. Get out your precious silver instruments and bandages. Have all the medicines ready.

  The village came into view then, tiny houses tucked amidst the trees, streets that followed the curve of the mountain like ribs. Bits of fog shrouded buildings, erased alleys, wrapped me in wet frost as I descended, wings flapping, reality folding like a black cloak around me. As soon as I landed I took the shape of a human, a long cape draped over my shoulder that shielded my daughter, still trapped in her Darkling skin. A small whitewashed building emerged from the fog, placard creaking in the wind, sign hanging in the front window.

  CLOSED, OPEN AT 9 A.M.

  I beat a fist against the door. Once. Twice. Just about slammed it down again, when the door swung open. I almost hit my friend in the face.

  “Hey.” Dr. Ross Madera stepped back, hair messed, glasses perched crooked on his nose. “Could you please try a cell phone next time? That dream telepathy thing of yours is awful—”

  I pushed my way inside the door, past the doctor, toward one of the inner rooms. I wrinkled my nose at the horrid stench of antiseptic and detergent. Human medicine was primitive at best. I gently placed my daughter on a long stainless-steel table.

  “You know I’m not really qualified for this,” Ross said as he followed a step behind. “I’m a veterinarian, not an M.D. I’m not supposed to treat people.”

  I lifted the cloak to reveal my daughter’s Darkling features: silver-gray skin, dark hair, gray-black wings, slender pointed ears, webbed fingers. “She’s only half human,” I said. “And I can’t take her to a doctor. Not when she’s wearing this skin. It’s Elspeth.”

  Ross nodded with understanding. There were few secrets between us. He stared at my daughter, looked at the shirt that bound her wound, the blood soaking through. “What happened?”

  “A dog bit her.”

  Within a few minutes, Ross had gathered everything he needed into a neat pile. He started cleaning and dressing her wound, sweat beading his forehead. Then he paused and glanced up at me. “She’s going to need stitches,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “I can give her a topical anesthetic, but I don’t think I should take a chance on anything stronger. I don’t know enough about your anatomy. I can’t have her jump while I’m sewing her up—”

  “I can keep her under until you’re done.”

  Then I sang a soft enchantment and the room sparkled with dots of light.

  Ross bent over her again, then began the slow, delicate process of stitching her flesh together. “Do you know if the dog has its shots?” he asked.

  “Shots?” I gave him a blank stare.

  “Rabies shots. Where did this happen?”

  “In one of the cottages Driscoll rents.”

  “Then the dog’s owners must have filled out some paperwork when they registered. Ask Driscoll. I need to know if that dog has its current rabies vaccination.”

  “I’ll go get the dog.”

  Ross sighed as he stood up. The stitches were finished and Elspeth
’s arm was now wrapped in layers of white gauze. “You don’t think that might look a bit suspicious?”

  “I can make it look like the dog ran away.”

  “Check the paperwork first, would you? If you show up here in the morning with a dog—”

  Just then Elspeth moaned and her eyes fluttered open. She tried to sit up, grabbed for her injured arm, then saw that it was wrapped in a bandage.

  “Lie still for a few minutes,” Ross said. “I’ll go see if I can find some more topical anesthetic for the pain.” He walked out the door and I could hear him rummaging through drawers in the next room.

  “What did he do to me?” she asked me when we were alone. “My arm burns.”

  “Who taught you to hunt?”

  She grimaced, then lay back down and closed her eyes. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You didn’t mask your scent. You walked into that house smelling like a human. If I hadn’t gotten there when I did, that dog might have killed you—”

  “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “No. You need a father.”

  “Really? Well, I wonder where I might find one of those. Maybe Aunt Sage will take me shopping in the morning, I hear humans buy and sell almost everything—”

  “It’s my fault.”

  “What?” She sat halfway up again and stared at me. I never apologized, never said I was wrong. It caught me by surprise too.

  “I should have taught you to hunt, myself,” I said, wishing I could take back the years I had ignored her. But I never thought she would get hurt, thought that the Elders back home would have done a better job than I could. Apparently I had been wrong about that. “I didn’t realize that you would be so—so—”

  “Human?”

  “No. Stubborn, like me.”

  She grinned and threw both arms around me, then let out a little yelp when she accidentally pulled her stitches. She laid her head against my chest and I ran my hand over her hair. For the first time, I realized that this whole father-daughter thing was going to be a lot more difficult than I expected.