Feast

by Merrie Destefano

  Then the werebeast dropped its head below the treetops, catching me in its silver gaze. It lunged closer, swiped at my head. I dodged to the left, almost dropped the woman.

  It growled again, sniffed the woman, tested the air with its tongue.

  It was after the woman.

  “Nay, beast, you cannot have her,” I growled.

  As soon as I spoke, the hairy beast roared and shook the ground with a stamp of its rear paw. I almost fell, but forced myself to cling to her. I crouched low, ready to fly.

  At that very moment, the dog’s front paws morphed into nightmarish ape hands, giant and misshapen. It swung and caught me, wrapped massive fingers about my torso, pressed the air from my lungs, wrinkled and tore my wings. I would have cried out, but it had squeezed the air from my lungs. With its other ape hand, the beast grabbed my arm, twisting until my bone broke and my flesh shredded, forcing me to drop the woman.

  I finally pulled in a full lung of air and I screamed, a wail that echoed from valley deep to mountain peak.

  Then—while River lay dazed and bleeding on the ground, while Cousin Sage hid behind a thick oak—the werebeast lifted me high above its head. It pitched me into the sky, sent me tumbling, end over end, back toward the valley, until I was so far away from them that I was surrounded by heavy fog.

  Still flying, out of control, I was just barely clearing the treetops.

  Rage filled my veins, turned my blood hot. At last, I managed to right myself; I spun around and headed back.

  I would not lose this battle. Not today.

  Chapter 34

  Fog and Shadow

  Maddie:

  The forest rushed past, a wildwood trail of briar and bramble. All the birds and woodland creatures scampered away as soon we approached. It was a dream, it had to be, a dream larger than the world. Some creature taller than the trees held me against its furry chest; it was a misshapen beast, all fur and claws and teeth, like a cross between a wolf and a dragon, and it galloped on two legs through stands of towering pine. Green branches danced beside us, the creek glistened between the trees.

  Finally, the beast that carried me slowed down. It carefully lowered me to the ground; it licked me on the face, as if trying to wake me.

  Then the cocoon of sleep that had surrounded me faded away. I felt gritty earth and twigs beneath me, saw a flicker of blue sky above, saw the movement of gray fog drifting between me and heaven. And I heard a dog barking, frantic, as it circled around me; it stopped to lick me on the face, then barked and ran around me again.

  It was Samwise, but then again, it wasn’t.

  “Stop barking,” I mumbled.

  A heavy dream was shattering, all around me the forest began to poke through, and then, a faint, familiar voice called in the distance. Mom, someone was calling me, Mom.

  Tucker.

  I sat up, blinked my eyes open, tried to make sense of where I was and how I had gotten here, but couldn’t. Beside me, Samwise yipped and stopped running, he poked a wet nose against my cheek, licked me over and over, nudged his nose against my shoulder and tried to get me to move, to get up.

  “Mom!” Tucker called. I heard him running, closer now, feet pounding dirt. Then he fell to his knees beside me. “Mom, what happened? Are you hurt? Did you fall?”

  I stood up awkwardly, wincing. The wind had been driven out of my chest, and my legs hurt, as if they had been pinned beneath me for a long time. “I’m okay,” I said. But the ground seemed to tilt to the left and my thoughts scattered.

  Then, as my lungs filled with clear mountain air, my thoughts cleared.

  And suddenly, I remembered what I had seen in the woods, the dead body and the shadowy creatures that had tried to hold me. Something foul and dreadful had been loosed in the wood this afternoon. We had to get out of here, quickly. I grabbed my son by the hand.

  “Run, Tucker!” I said. “Back to the cabin.”

  He frowned, puzzled.

  “Hurry, we have to get out of here!”

  Then all three of us were running down the trail back toward the cottage, Samwise leading the way. The dog continually turned around to make sure we were behind him, as we reached the clearing. Then he stood at the edge of the wood, guarding the exit, until we were safe inside the house.

  Chapter 35

  Bending Reality

  Ash:

  A loud thunderclap shook the sky, followed by a meaty roar. The ground trembled and in the near distance, something uprooted trees, cracked their trunks like kindling. At the same moment, the Veil shattered and the true landscape was revealed—the wood was once again shrouded in milky fog. The stench of toadstools and cobwebs filled the copse and I knew that someone had just flown overhead. Thane. We each have our own masked scent, unique as a human fingerprint, and this was the scent my cousin wore. I squinted. I could see him now through the haze, a leathery silhouette, soaring above the trees. Something about his flight path, crooked and careening, said that he had been recently wounded.

  But who had he been fighting?

  I bristled. Wings spread wide, I thumped above the tree line. There, I saw Sage tumble into the distant treetops, her face bruised, her body bleeding. River crouched at her side, fists studded with bone, hands clasped together and ready to swing again.

  And now, just a wingspan away from my sister, was the beast that is my cousin, Thane, ready and eager to join the fight.

  I swooped through mist and shadow, wings spread, mouth open wide, long fangs and claws bared. I latched onto Thane with iron fists, stopped his flight, and then swung him around until he slammed against a sixty-foot pine. He snarled and spit, gnawed at my hands. Then together, we rolled and tumbled through the branches and trunks, smashed against an oak and then a white fir, shattering the trees and breaking branches, until needles fell from nearby trees in a dark green rain.

  Finally, I grabbed Thane by the throat and tossed him into the creek, a good seventy feet below us.

  Sage hovered above the tree line, one side of her beautiful face swollen and bleeding. It was evidence enough for me, though it wouldn’t hold up in court. Fortunately, I knew exactly what would.

  My cousins had broken the rules, sure enough.

  “I warned you, cousins,” I growled. “My invitation stated the rules, plain and clear—”

  “We didn’t take a thing,” River cried when I approached, his country accent bleeding through. For all his pretending he was nothing but a scavenger and a pauper. “We never harmed any of your humans.”

  “You were both trying to harvest before the Hunt, I heard you—”

  Then Thane flew up to meet us. He coughed and spit, water soaking his clothes and hair. “He tells the truth, cousin. I swear it.”

  Meanwhile, a foul stench rose from the forest floor, somewhere beneath us.

  “On top of that, you dared to strike my sister?” I asked, my voice like thunder now. I kneed River in the gut, then slammed my fist across his brow.

  “She called your werebeast down upon us with a spell,” River gasped. “We couldn’t defend ourselves—”

  “I told you it wasn’t my beast!” Sage growled.

  “Then how do you explain its silver eyes? Only your clan has that distinction and you know it—”

  “We have no claims on that beast,” I said.

  “Conjured up by one of your own enchantments, sure enough,” Thane said. He narrowed his eyes.

  I spun and slammed a fist in his side to quiet him. My cousin had always been a troublemaker back home, most likely this was all his idea. The blow fell close to Thane’s left arm, causing him to curl over with a moan. At that same moment my sister lashed out at River, sliced talons, left ribbons of blood on his chest. River howled in pain and shrank away.

  Sage and River parted, then hung in the air, panting, glaring at each other.

  Again, closer now, the wind swept through branches, shimmered leaves, stirred an unclean stench of decaying human flesh. Somewhere nearby.

  “You
have broken the rules, I know it. The human woman you attacked may well have escaped, but there was another,” I said. “I can smell a carcass somewhere below us.”

  I grabbed Thane’s left arm, surprised to discover a strange throbbing mash of broken bone and flesh in the midst of healing. When my hold tightened, he wailed and struggled to get away. In retaliation he swung a wild blow with his other arm.

  He dug a fist into the hole in my side—into the wound that would never heal.

  I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I bellowed, hot searing torment twisting through my gut. Still, I tightened my grip on him, forced him to withdraw his fist. I had to pretend that this blow had not injured me, couldn’t let either of them know that Thane had accidentally discovered my one weakness.

  He watched me, a low hiss escaping from gritted teeth as he slowly pulled his knuckled hand away.

  “I’ll endure no more of this! The Hunt is off! Take your party and leave Ticonderoga Falls.” I gripped Thane about the throat, threatened to press the life from him. “Immediately.”

  “Nay. We will not leave,” he choked out. “You cannot make us—”

  “You will leave, cousin. You and your clan,” I said as I tossed him into a lattice of evergreen boughs. “Or by Darkling law, you will be banished. You’ll never hunt again.”

  “You wouldn’t do that,” River said, trembling. His gaze darted toward Thane, then back to me again.

  “Aye, we would.” Sage flew closer until she hovered beside me. “Two votes is all it takes to have you and your entire clan banished from this earth. By court law, we cannot touch you until a full hour passes. But you must be gone by then, or I myself will sign the warrant against you.”

  Thane met her stare evenly. “So be it, then.”

  “You have one hour, no more. Find Sienna and take her with you,” I said, my brow lowered, my words ending in a low growl.

  Thane gave me a brusque nod of assent. Then with a huff, both he and River threw their shoulders back, cast their wings wide and set off through fog-veiled skies. They flew in the flight pattern of the hunt, less than a handspan apart as they headed back toward the Driscoll mansion, not bothering to conceal themselves. Sienna would be waiting for them there, then together the three of them could go anywhere.

  As long as it wasn’t here.

  Once my cousins were out of sight, I glanced down. There it was, just beneath us. The stench of death rising from the forest floor, strong and dangerous. Human flesh, rotting. I saw the body then, plain and clear, legs sticking out from a haphazard pile of leaves, barely concealed from any human that might happen to wander down the trail.

  This alone was enough to call attention to us, to bring the humans after us, just like Ross had warned. It was enough to make us the hunted instead of the hunters.

  Part 3

  The best way to make your dreams

  come true is to wake up.

  —Paul Valery

  Chapter 36

  A Great Hairy Beast

  Maddie:

  A few lamps cast light about the small living room, though not enough to quench the darkness that seeped in every window. I leaned against the cabin door, my heart hammering. A scratching noise sounded outside, followed by a whimper. I held up my hand, motioning for Tucker to hold still. Then I cracked the door open. Samwise bounded in, a blur of black-and-tan fur, sometimes dog, sometimes something else.

  I locked the door, then slid to the ground.

  A dead body still lay back in the woods. Despite everything that had just happened, I had to let the authorities know.

  One hand instinctively reached to my pocket and pulled out my iPhone. I couldn’t even remember putting it back, thought I must have dropped it somewhere back in the woods, when I’d been fighting—

  What the hell had I been fighting?

  I shuddered, felt something crawling around inside my skin, in my mind. Something oily and dark and rancid was trying to figure out where I was.

  That beast is inside me.

  I dropped the phone with a clatter and pulled up my jacket sleeve. A six-inch ragged scrape ran down the inside of my left forearm. Blood and bits of torn flesh and something like speckles of silver. That monster had marked me with a rough swipe of its long tongue.

  “No!”

  My jacket fell to the floor and I ripped off my shirt as I ran to the bathroom.

  “Mom, what is it? What’s wrong?” Tucker jogged after me, the dog at his side.

  I glanced back at the two of them. Didn’t he see it? Couldn’t my son see that Samwise wasn’t a dog anymore? Even now I saw the hackles on the dog grow as his back hunched up and his chest widened. It looked like he was preparing to go into battle.

  With a twist of my wrist, I turned on the hot water, let it run in the sink, grabbed the soap and started scrubbing my arm, wincing when the water got too hot.

  “Tucker, look in the medicine cabinet. Quick! See if we brought any disinfectant or rubbing alcohol or anything—”

  He climbed on the toilet, awkwardly reached over me, rummaged through the few items in the cabinet that we had brought with us. He pulled them out one by one. I lifted my arm out of the water, doused it with mouthwash, then hydrogen peroxide. My arm was bleeding, the peroxide foaming up, turning a sickly shade of green.

  Tucker ran into the other room and left me alone with the dog.

  We stared at each other. His tail wagging, his mouth opened in a grin.

  A memory came back: a nightmarish monster that had pawed through my every hope and dream. A great hairy beast had come lumbering through the forest, taller than the sky; it had swept the shadow monsters away. Then it had taken me in one hand and carried me back up the trail—

  Samwise.

  “It was you, boy. Wasn’t it?” I asked, kneeling down. He padded closer, nuzzled my free hand, pushed it open and licked it. I pulled his big head next to my face, then kissed him on the nose. “Good boy,” I whispered.

  He licked me on the mouth and I laughed.

  Tucker ran back into the room then, his hands full. He poured his loot on the bathroom counter: aloe vera and Neosporin and gauze bandages. And my iPhone.

  “Someone’s talking,” he said as I spread a thick layer of Neosporin over the scratch.

  I pressed my ear against the phone while he held it up. I didn’t remember dialing any numbers but I must have.

  “This is nine-one-one. What is your emergency—”

  The patrol car arrived sooner than I expected. San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Lights flashing outside. Someone pounding on my door. When I opened it, I found myself face-to-face with 250 pounds of backwoodsman-in-khaki.

  “Evening, ma’am.” He touched his hat with a hand. “I’m Sheriff Brandon Kyle.”

  Was it evening? I peered around him, wondered how long I had been down in the woods. The fog had settled in the lowlands and it had started snowing. Still, I could see patches of dusky blue sky and a full moon that cast the Driscoll mansion in an eerie silhouette. A group of trick-or-treaters shuffled along the main road, clutching paper sacks that would soon be filled with candy.

  “You reported a dead body in the woods?” He shuffled from one foot to the other, as if eager to get down to business.

  “Yes. I did. It’s on the Ponderosa Trail.” I pointed toward the gap between the trees, where a wood-chip tongue and a throaty trail led down into a dangerous black chasm—like a hungry mouth. A shiver worked its way up my arms to my neck, but I fought it. Gauze bandages laced my arm, covering the wound that I had scrubbed until raw and bleeding. It tingled now at the thought of what might be down in the forest, waiting for me.

  Were those creatures still down there?

  “What happened?” The officer gestured toward my arm.

  “I—uh—I must have scraped my arm in the bushes. I don’t remember. Think I panicked when I saw that body.” Oh, yeah, and by the way, there are monsters down there.

  His stare said he didn’t believ
e me.

  I shrugged. “I’m clumsy.”

  “She is.” Tucker joined me at the door, nodding. “Really. She tripped and fell down the stairs back home last year—”

  “Okay, sweetheart.” I put an arm around my son. “They don’t need to know what a klutz I am.”

  “I’m going to need you to show me where you saw the body, Mrs. MacFaddin—”

  “Miss, not Mrs. Miss MacFaddin.”

  He glanced down at his clipboard. “Right. Sorry. My deputy can stay with your boy.” A woman in uniform, almost as tall and broad as Mr. Backwoodsman himself, appeared on the porch.

  “Deputy Rodriguez,” she introduced herself. “Think your dog will mind if I come in?”

  I glanced down at Samwise, standing beside Tucker. Well, Rodriguez wasn’t a mailman, so it should be all right. I knelt beside the dog, “Stay with Tucker. Stay.” The dog stared at me with inquisitive brown eyes, tilted his head to the side as if trying to read between the lines. Don’t follow me and don’t even think about turning into a werewolf while I’m gone. I had no idea if he could read my mind, but it was worth a try.

  Then I cautiously opened the screen door, watching the dog to see how he acted. With a wag of the tail and a lick on the hand, he proved that he could be good.

  If he had to.

  Chapter 37

  A Haze of Flies

  Maddie:

  The moon slid behind the tree line. A breeze followed the creek, over mossy banks, past a swinging bridge. A light snow drifted down and mixed with the fog, settling in clumps between tree trunks, drifting and stretching, now a vaporous cobweb. Wet, damp, cold. It filled my lungs as I led Sheriff Kyle down into the mazelike wilderness. We carried hefty flashlights and brandished them like weapons against the thick, steamy darkness.

  I wasn’t used to being so far away from the neon-city glare, from the white noise that speaks even at night. Here, the sky was so black it didn’t seem real. The moon was full tonight, but at the edge of this wood-chip trail the darkness sang, heavy and deep. It whispered and sighed, told stories I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear.