“What did the Wendigo do then?” I asked to keep him talking.
“It came at me with its mouth open like it was going to eat me right there. My rifle was over by my pack, but even if I’d been holding it, I don’t think I could have fired it. My body had locked up. I’d never seen anything so horrible in my life. The thing stopped and sniffed me over. Then it took off from the cavern. When I saw what was left of Connor, I panicked. We camped here a lot. If they found his remains … I don’t know. I got it into my head that people would think I’d killed him. So I gathered up what was left of him and scattered the remains near a deer stand. Somewhere I knew they’d be found.”
“Did you do that with the other victims?” I asked, remembering the smell in his truck bed.
He nodded. “For the last couple months, I’ve been hunting the Wendigo, trying to kill it. But I can’t seem to get close. And it keeps grabbing people, taking them here, I guess. Thing is, I don’t find the victims till they’re dead. The Wendigo leaves some of their remains in the circle where we did the ceremony.” He pointed to the arrangement of stones. “And yeah, I do the same thing with them, take what’s left and dump them in places I know they’ll be found.”
“To support the bear story?” Takara asked.
“’Cause it seemed like the right thing to do,” he shot back. “Didn’t want their families left wondering.”
“Is that why you came tonight?” I asked. “To see if the Wendigo had killed again?”
“I came to end the damned thing. There was nothing in my mom’s notes on how to do that, but she’d written down the name of the man who’d given her the info—a Cree name—and where he lived. If he knew how to call a Wendigo up, I figured he’d also know how to kill it.
“So a couple days ago, I drove out there. I remembered my mom telling me he’d been really old when she’d interviewed him, but I thought maybe he had family, someone he’d passed his knowledge down to. I don’t know what the place was like when my mom went out there, but it’s a shithole now. Old trailers, mangy dogs, trash blowing everywhere. I asked around, and come to find out, this dude is still alive. I found him in a trailer on the edge of the res. The door was busted and kicking back and forth. Past it, I could see the old man sitting in a recliner, like he was waiting for me. He was practically a skeleton. Arms and legs thin as sticks, a few wisps of hair left on his head. His body was shaking all over, like an idling motor. And the place smelled freaking awful, like death. I almost took off right there, but he smiled with these rotten gums and called me the ‘Wendigo Caller.’ He knew why I’d come.”
“And he told you how to stop it,” I said, bracing against the hope rising inside me.
“At first he wanted me to describe the ceremony. Then he had me tell him about the Wendigo’s victims. I swear to God, his eyes were shining the whole time, like he was getting off on what I was saying.”
I remembered the old man’s parting words to Austin’s mother. This was what he’d wanted.
“When I finished, he just looked at me for a long time,” Austin continued. “It freaked the hell out of me. ‘Now you want to know how to put a stop to it,’ he finally said. I nodded. He grinned like he was thinking about it, then he shrugged and said something about the debt being repaid. He asked if I knew why the Wendigo left parts of its victims behind. Told him I didn’t have a fucking clue. They’re offerings, he told me, to the man whose flesh had given it life. He said the Wendigo avoided me because it ‘feared and revered me’—those were his words. As its creator, I was the only one who could discreate it. And the Wendigo knew that.”
I had never heard of a being leaving offerings to a mortal, but it made a certain sense. “The offerings were its way of appeasing you,” I said.
“I guess. The old man said Wendigo summonings were almost always done from a place of greed. Someone murdered someone else and ate their flesh. But because I offered my own flesh, that gave me power over it.”
“How do we destroy it?” Takara asked impatiently.
“The old man had me fetch this from a closet.” Austin held up the totem stick. “He chanted over it for several minutes. When he finished, he handed it back, said I needed to meet the Wendigo in the same sacred space where I’d called it and touch this end to its stomach.”
“And that will destroy it?” Takara pressed.
“According to the old man, yeah. Send it back to the stars.”
My nostrils flared. Beneath the tar-like smell, I could just make out the sharp scent of bloody meat in Austin’s pack. “So your plan was to cover yourself in that sap so the Wendigo wouldn’t smell you, then bait the circle with—what is that, hog meat?—hoping to attract it.”
“Yeah, hog meat sprinkled with this.” He reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out an old Nalgene bottle. Something dark shifted inside, but it wasn’t a liquid. “The old man gave it to me. Some sort of ash. It’s supposed to make the hog meat smell like human flesh.” His face turned grim as he glanced at the circle.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m the only one who can kill it.” He looked back at us. “Which means if it kills me, there’ll be no way to stop it.”
“Then we need to keep that from happening,” I said.
I looked over at Takara to make sure we were on the same page.
“Do you have any more of that sap?” she asked Austin.
Reeking of tar, Takara and I took up positions in recesses along the cavern wall opposite the casting circle. Austin had already dumped the hog meat from his pack into the circle, and now he sprinkled the ashes over it. The scent hit me in a potent wave. When Austin finished, he peered over with a look that said this is it and clicked off his flashlight. Needing to be in range of the Wendigo when it entered the circle, he moved back several paces and crouched with the totem stick.
Kid’s got balls, I’ll give him that, I thought.
Takara kept vigil on the entrance while I did the same on the lake. There was no telling where the Wendigo would appear from. With full tanks on our flamethrowers, all we could do now was wait.
We were approaching the one-hour mark, when Takara got my attention with a hand motion. She pointed. Something was filling the cavern entrance. I hadn’t heard the massive creature arrive, but it was here.
Hunger warped the air around the Wendigo as it straightened to its full height. When it tilted its horned head, I imagined its nostrils pulling in the scent of ash-enhanced meat. I checked again to ensure our own scents were covered. We’d slathered the Ikwe sap on thick and applied another layer to Austin. It was going to take a week to scrub the smell off us, but we were concealed.
With hungry noises, the Wendigo made a dash for the meat.
That’s right, I thought, watching it close the distance to the circle. Go feed your face.
But when it reached the circle’s edge, the Wendigo stopped suddenly. Its ribs heaved as it leaned forward and sniffed again. Drool fell from its deadly mouth. It paced around the circle, knuckles scraping the ground. I flicked my gaze over to Austin, who hunkered twenty feet away. With his flashlight off, he was blind. His cue to move in would be the sound of the Wendigo feeding. But the Wendigo wasn’t stepping over the damned stones.
Did it sense a trap? Did it know it would be vulnerable inside the circle?
When Takara waved at me, I realized I was panting. I clamped my muzzle shut, but my wolf nature was responding to the mind-rending strain of the Wendigo’s urge to feed—life’s most basic need. The Wendigo paced around the circle again and released a horrid shriek. It wasn’t the circle the creature was wary of, I realized, but the meal. Taking it down would only grow its appetite, making its hunger that much more agonizing.
In that moment, in that cry, I grasped the curse of the Wendigo.
Blood bubbled from the meat as it continued to react with the ash. The Wendigo could no longer resist. It plunged into the circle and fed greedily. We all moved—Takara between the creature and the cavern entrance, me b
etween it and the lake. Austin stole forward, the wet sounds of the Wendigo’s feeding his guide.
When he was feet away, he snapped his flashlight on. The beam hit the hunched-over creature in the low back where thick vertebrae stood out like tombstones. With his totem stick extended, Austin ran the final few steps.
The Wendigo cocked its head suddenly and twisted around. Even as Austin lunged for the creature’s exposed stomach, I saw he wasn’t going to make it.
The Wendigo slashed a taloned hand around, knocking the stick from Austin’s grasp and Austin through the air. The young man landed hard, blood already leaking through his shredded hunting jacket. The Wendigo released an ungodly shriek that sounded like one part fury, two parts betrayal.
It rushed Austin, but I was there to meet it with a blazing jet of napalm. The Wendigo staggered back, the fire that engulfed it reflecting brilliantly over the lake. I kept the trigger depressed and moved forward until I was between the creature and Austin. I noticed the totem stick off to my right. I was tempted to grab it, but according to the Shaking Man, the Wendigo’s creator had to wield the stick for it to work. And Austin was still down.
With another shriek, the Wendigo turned from me and fled toward the cavern exit. Takara’s flamethrower burst to life, hitting the Wendigo square in the chest. The creature spun from the surprising assault.
“Austin!” I called, trying to stir him.
The young man jerked and pawed a hand around as if attempting to recover the stick, but his head had hit hard when he landed, and he was semi-conscious at best. When the Wendigo doubled back toward me, I met it with more napalm. Together, Takara and I steered it toward the circle.
“Austin!” I tried again.
With a furious sound, the Wendigo lowered its head and ran straight at Takara’s stream of fire. Takara set her legs, but the creature wasn’t slowing. Flames broke around its massive horns.
At the last moment, Takara threw her flamethrower aside. With a pair of sharp scrapes, blades popped from the forearms of her suit. She drove the right one into the Wendigo’s gut, skewering it. When the creature doubled over, she brought the other blade through its neck. Fluid and tissue flew from the savage strike before twisting into black smoke.
The Wendigo should have been decapitated. Instead, it reared its head back and released an ear-splitting cry.
I hit it with more napalm from my side, but the hunger that enveloped it was squelching the flames as fast as they were lighting it up. Takara grunted into her next attack: three slashes intended to drive the creature into the circle.
The Wendigo swung back this time, and Takara narrowly leapt out of the path of its descending fist. Sensing an opening, the creature stretched past her, toward the exit. I pursued.
Within strides, the Wendigo was pulling away.
No, goddammit. We had you. We fucking had you.
The Wendigo disappeared through the corridor leading out. I anticipated another chase through the snow, one the Wendigo would win. But a moment later, it was stumbling back into view, forearms to its face.
What the…?
Shards of light were exploding into the creature, blowing chunks of sinewy flesh from its body.
The Cree warriors! I realized.
Their portal had yet to close, and they were still patrolling their lands for intruders. They’d sure as hell found one. The warriors climbed through the entrance after the Wendigo, their painted faces bold and unafraid.
Though the creature was regenerating from the attack, it seemed to understand it would find no shelter in our world. With another shriek, it turned and sprinted toward the lake—its lair.
Takara, who had been swapping out the tank on her flamethrower, was too late getting the fresh one installed before the Wendigo was past her. I was out of position as well, but I launched into a run to head it off.
With a ripple, the lake peeled back from the shore, revealing the steps we had descended a short time ago. If the Wendigo reached them, it would be in its own domain. From there it could continue to the Cree realm. The Wendigo would come back eventually—its inexorable need to feed dictated that—but how many more victims would it claim before we’d have this kind of chance again? If we’d even get another chance. Because there was no way Beam and Centurion were sending us back up here without a profit motive.
It was now or never.
With arrows lancing off the creature’s back, I clamped my MP88 to my suit, charged in low, and took out the Wendigo’s legs. The massive creature fell, its emaciated limbs lashing around as its momentum threw it into a roll. It was still headed in the direction of the lake, though. As the Wendigo scrambled to get up, I landed on its back. Thigh’s squeezing its ribs, I began hammering the back of the creature’s head with my fists.
Just need to subdue the damned thing long enough for Austin to recover.
I could hear Takara beside the young man, trying to revive him.
The Wendigo reached around and seized me in one hand. With fingers almost long enough to encompass my thick torso, it jerked me to its front and brought its other hand around me. Pain speared my sternum as it bore down with both thumbs. The preternaturally sharp talons cracked my chest plates and threatened to pierce my vest and suit.
But the pressure alone…
Teeth gritting, I lashed with my free hand. My claws severed the bundle of tendons on its right forearm. Before the tissue could regenerate, the hand spasmed. I did the same to the left.
Its grip slackened and I thrashed free. When the Wendigo lunged its horned head toward me, I drove my fist into the twin septum where a nose would have been. The blow opened a crack that ran up between its eyes before fusing again. The Wendigo flinched, but now the pits of its eyes were twisting. In the next instant, a dull fog enveloped my mind.
Trying to steal my will, my consciousness, I realized, like it did Nadie’s.
I forced my gaze away, but everything was already a blur.
I felt my knees thud to the ground.
26
A shriek brought me back, but it hadn’t come from the Wendigo.
I blinked my eyes open. The entire cavern appeared to be crackling with fire, and there was a creature overhead, brilliant red-orange flames ripping and rippling around its feathered form.
I squinted from the heat. “Takara?” I rasped.
I hadn’t seen her dragon form since El Rosario. As I took in the massive winged creature, I remembered how majestic she looked—and yet how utterly terrifying. Her beaked mouth opened and released what sounded like a war cry. The Wendigo, who had snapped its head around, tried to shrink away. Takara swooped down and seized it around the waist with a pair of clawed feet. Her head tilted toward me, malevolent eyes wreathed in flames.
“Get back,” she warned.
With a searing flap of her wings, she rose into the air, the Wendigo thrashing in her grip. At the high dome of the cavern, flames spewed from Takara’s dragon form and blazed in the lake’s reflection. The Wendigo screamed and slashed at her, but its blows only passed through fire.
Soon, the Wendigo became lost in the roaring storm.
The Cree warriors stopped shooting. They wandered forward, bows at their sides, staring at the spectacle. About twenty meters from me, firelight glistened from Austin’s face. But though he was peering up, he was still lying on the ground, one side of his jacket soaked with blood.
“Your stick!” I called to him, jabbing a finger toward it.
I sensed Takara’s plan—to exhaust the Wendigo so that when we got it back into the circle, the creature would be too weak to fend off Austin’s next attempt. But Austin only looked over at the totem stick, then back at me, too rattled to comprehend the situation.
Breaking into a sprint, I recovered the stick and moved toward Austin. Above, Takara’s dragon form swelled as her assault grew more intense. Black smoke billowed from where the Wendigo continued to shriek. My ears ached with the pressure of a building energy that seemed to be coming from Takar
a.
When the pressure spiked, I threw myself over Austin. The energy detonated like a bomb. Fire ripped throughout the cavern and raked across my back. I used my body to shield Austin, grinding my teeth against the scorching pain. When the heat relented, I chanced a look.
Takara’s dragon form cruised through curtains of steam rising from the lake. In her clutches was the Wendigo—or what remained of it. The giant creature was arced back, its mouth gaping wide, arms and legs stiff and still, like a charred corpse’s.
I knew better. Already, wisps of black smoke were snaking back toward the Wendigo. Whether it took seconds or minutes, the creature would reconstitute itself. So what in the hell was Takara doing? Her dragon form swooped around the high cavern again, as if taking a victory lap.
“The circle!” I shouted. “Get it into the circle!”
The dragon angled her head and dove toward me. She released the Wendigo, and the creature crash-landed into the circle of stones.
“C’mon,” I said to Austin, lifting him by the back of his jacket and pressing the totem stick against his chest. “Let’s move.” Austin was still in bad shape, but if it took holding the stick in his hand while I carried him to the Wendigo, so be it. We wouldn’t get a better shot.
In a gust of fire, the dragon landed between us and the circle.
“Takara,” I said, shielding Austin from her heat. “The Wendigo.”
But the dragon only stared down at me. A minute earlier, I could see a hint of Takara in those eyes. Now they were furnaces of malevolence. The terrible creature loomed over me.
“How dare you give me orders,” she said in a piercing voice.
I tried to move around her, but she cut in front of me. Fire crackled from her wings.
“I could incinerate you right here,” she said.
“Listen to me, Takara—”
“I am not Takara.”
Takara had never opened up about her dragon nature, so I’d never understood what it was exactly. But like with the Blue Wolf—or even the Wendigo—it seemed to be another being entirely. Challenge shone in her hawk-like eyes. I could feel the weight of my MP88 where I’d clipped it to my back, could feel the wolf in me wanting to meet her challenge with force.
Blue Howl (Blue Wolf Book 3) Page 21