Wild Sign

by Briggs, Patricia

  Leah stumbled as they came to the amphitheater. She recovered quickly and took up the pace again, but her running had lost the easy rhythm she’d had before the stumble.

  “Leah,” asked Tag, “would you let me carry you?”

  “No,” she said. “Twisted my ankle. It will heal in a minute. Keep—”

  There was a rumble, louder and longer than any of the thunder they’d been hearing, though it was the same kind of sound.

  “Earthquake,” said Tag.

  “It’s him,” Leah said, despair and fatigue in her voice. “We were too slow.”

  “Look,” Charles said.

  The ground that formed the amphitheater lost solidity, dropping down like ground zero of an underground nuclear detonation. Dirt flowed downward like a waterfall, punctuated with the boulders and stumps that had been the pews in the Singer’s open-air house of worship.

  C H A P T E R

  13

  Nothing emerged from the pit. After a moment, they all—well, they didn’t relax, that was for damned sure. But they regrouped.

  “Should we leave?” Tag asked. “Come back with more firepower?”

  “It has the witches,” Anna said. “And all the power they can muster from hell’s own assisted living facility. Are we sure we want to give them time to get here?”

  Charles didn’t say anything, just tested the ground with his feet as if making sure it wasn’t likely to open up into a pit anytime soon. Anna didn’t find that reassuring.

  Instead of waiting for an answer from Charles, Tag nodded, as if Anna’s comment had been enough. He started stripping out of his clothing in preparation for shifting to wolf.

  “We have no choice,” said Leah hollowly. “He won’t let us leave. He can’t afford to.”

  “Do you have any insights about what we’ll be facing?” Charles asked Leah.

  She looked like she hadn’t heard him. Anna gave her a few seconds and then told Charles what she knew.

  “It messes with your memories.” Everyone already knew that, but Anna had very recent personal experience. “The first time it attacked me, it took me back to one of the most traumatic times in my life and removed all of my memories from that time until this. I felt like it replaced who I am now with that earlier version of me. It was very disconcerting. I don’t know how you can guard yourself against that.”

  “He tried to do that to me as we left the cave,” Leah said unexpectedly. “But he had trouble with the wolf in me. I think that might mean that the hunting song may shield us—at least a little.”

  The hunting song was an effect of the pack bonds, connecting all of the wolves who had a common goal into a tighter team, allowing them to share knowledge, power, and strategy in real time until the object of the hunt was achieved.

  Anna glanced at Charles. “It can mess with your short-term memory, too. I lost about fifteen minutes the first time we drove to our hotel.”

  “You didn’t tell me,” he said softly, and she knew she’d hurt him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It felt like just a glitch. Over and done.” She looked at Tag and Leah, because they didn’t have time to waste with her guilt. “It might cause you to falter. Maybe if you know it’s coming, you can push through it.”

  “Did you see the Singer? What does it look like?” Charles asked. “Best-case scenario, we bring this down to a physical fight, because that is where our weapons lie.”

  Anna looked at Leah, who was resolutely not looking at Anna or Charles.

  “Uh,” Anna said. “I never saw it. But from what I overheard … and I know this sounds really stupid out here—but I think that it is some kind of cave squid. Or cave octopus.”

  Tag froze. “Cthulhu? We’re fighting Cthulhu? Up in these mountains?”

  His incredulity forced Leah to speak. “I saw him,” she told them in a low voice. “Before I found Anna in the caves. I couldn’t be sure of his size because it was dark and some of his body was underwater—and at the time I needed him not to be aware of me. She’s right about the tentacles. I also think he’s huge.”

  “Cthulhu,” said Tag happily, discarding the last of his clothes. Apparently his incredulity had not signified reluctance. His eyes were wolf eyes and slightly unfocused in a way that, under other circumstances, would have made Anna nervous.

  Charles turned to look at the pit. His head tilted and Brother Wolf said intently, “Listen.”

  Leah frowned and then drew in a breath. “The pit is filling with water. Smells like salt water. Ocean water.”

  No one asked aloud where the salt water was coming from, but Anna figured that they were all thinking about it—and what that said about the thing they were facing.

  “Cthulhu,” chortled Tag as a popping sound signaled the start of his change. “I get to fight Cthulhu. Asil is going to be so jealous.” His smile, like his eyes, looked a little wild.

  “Cthulhu,” Anna murmured, because that was an interesting observation.

  “It’s not Cthulhu,” Charles said dryly. “That’s a character from a book.”

  Well, yes. Anna thought that actually might be the point.

  “Leah?” Anna asked. “Did it have tentacles when you were here? Before?”

  “I don’t remember,” Leah said. Then she held up a hand, asking them to wait. She turned her face into the rain for a moment, closing her eyes. When she opened her eyes, she said, “No. The Singer looked like one of us—human, I mean. He was”—she shook her head—“he looked like someone you could trust. I don’t know where the tentacles came from.”

  “I think I do,” said Anna grimly. “Do you remember when Zander said the people who settled Wild Sign gave it form?”

  “Yes,” Leah said.

  Charles’s eyes became suddenly intent. “That bookshelf,” he said.

  “The big yurt in Wild Sign has a bookshelf of Lovecraft-themed books,” Anna told the others. “Not just cheap paperbacks or that all-in-one leather-bound collection you can buy for twenty bucks around Christmas. Original editions of Lovecraft and Chambers. Nineteen-thirties editions of Weird Tales. I think one of the first Wild Sign people was a Lovecraft fan. And that’s why we have a cave squid. Or possibly a cave octopus.”

  “Not Cthulhu,” said Charles slowly, “but inspired by those tales.”

  There was a short, appalled silence punctuated by the sounds of Tag’s ongoing change.

  “It could be worse,” Anna said. “At least it’s not the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.”

  Charles grinned suddenly. “A pop culture reference I know.” He looked at Leah, his smile lingering around the edges of his mouth and eyes. “Anything you can add?”

  “If he could sing, we would be in a lot more trouble,” she said. “But Sherwood ripped out his tongue.” There was satisfaction in her voice, but Anna felt a sudden stab of concern. Leah looked tired and cold—and about fifteen pounds underweight. Running from Montana had burned calories.

  “Zander implied that the Singer had not healed from that,” Leah continued. “I don’t know if that means he can’t still attack us with music, but he can’t sing.”

  She scuffed her bare foot in the dirt and gave them a grim smile. “And that’s all well and good. But what I don’t know is how to kill him so that he stays dead. I don’t know that he is something that can be killed.”

  “Asil told me that the only way to kill something immortal is to remind it what death is,” Charles said. “Da is bringing the sword that killed Jonesy—an immortal fae. The Dark Smith’s weapons carry the memories of the deaths that they have brought.”

  Leah rubbed her bloodshot eyes. “Good. All we have to do is stay alive until he gets here. I wonder what’s taking the Singer so long.” She frowned thoughtfully—as if, Anna thought, she might have a clue about what that was. But instead of telling them, she looked toward the pit, where the sound of rushing water had quieted now that the water was deeper. “Don’t let him pull you into the water.”

  Werewolves couldn’t s
wim.

  Tag stood up on four legs—huge, even for a werewolf, his thick, shaggy coat a shade more orange than his hair. Leah stretched her neck and began her change, and only then did Anna realize she’d been waiting for Tag.

  Charles saw her look. “When there are so few of us, and there is opportunity, we try not to have all of the wolves shift at the same time. That way no one can attack us when all of us are hampered with the change.”

  They waited, Anna tucked against Charles’s side, as rain poured over their heads and lightning cracked in a brilliant show that would have rivaled a Fourth of July display. When Anna counted the distance between lightning and thunder, she could only count to two. She hoped nothing caught fire—because one thing she could think of that would make this fight even harder would be if they were trying to do it in the middle of a freaking forest fire.

  Eventually Leah, like Tag, stood on all four feet. The rain had already drenched her gold-and-silver coat, darkening it to gray. The combination of weight loss and wet fur made Leah look small, an effect not helped by the hunch of her shoulders.

  Anna let go of Charles and untied her boots, because Leah’s shift was finished. The pit was now a dark pool filled to the brim, its surface rippling with the driving rain.

  CHARLES KEPT AN eye on the newly formed lake as he waited for Anna to change. The water was inky black, even when the lightning struck, briefly illuminating the whole forest as if it were daytime. It might have been an effect of the night sky or the turbidity caused by the rapid fill of water. Or something else.

  There was so much magic in the ground under his feet that he felt blinded. A thousand forest spirits could be tugging at his hands and he would not know it because his senses were already overwhelmed.

  It was a testament to the power of the creature they faced. Charles did not find it reassuring.

  Sherwood had not been able to kill the Singer, and Charles did not think that the four of them were as formidable an opponent as Sherwood had been all by himself, not against something like the Singer. Perhaps in a purely physical fight, it would have been different. But if the Singer was—to steal Anna’s term—a creepy primordial god, he did not think that a physical fight was how it would die.

  He hoped Da got here soon, but found himself doubtful he would be in time to help. Time was running out—Brother Wolf could sense the nearness of battle. Without his da, without the sword, Charles did not think they were going to win this fight. Pessimism was not going to be useful, however, so Charles gave his worries to Brother Wolf, who was adept at keeping their secrets away from the pack, even in the throes of the hunting song.

  As if in response to Brother Wolf’s assessment of the nearing conflict, Charles felt the pack bonds shift. Between one breath and the next his senses expanded, and he, Anna, Leah, and Tag were caught up in the mad exhilaration of the opening moments of the hunt. Anna was not quite finished with her change when the song took them, so their combined magic pushed into her, rushing the last moments painfully fast. Charles changed. And when his change was complete, he was in charge of the hunt.

  He had not been sure it would be him. Leah had more experience—and more involvement with the Singer. As his father’s mate, she outranked him in the pack. His da thought that leadership went to the wolf the majority of the participants wanted in charge. Charles wasn’t sure that was true. He often felt that pack magic—and, by extension, the hunting song—had its own intelligence.

  His body still, he processed the information flooding into him, knowing that once the fight started, instinct would guide them more than thought. But for now, he assessed his pack.

  Tag’s eagerness for battle overlaid the song. They all felt the addict-level strength of his need to give in to his berserker. Charles lent Tag some of Anna’s Omega-born quiet and felt him settle.

  Charles considered the method of the Singer’s attacks and how Anna explained it had affected her. Tag, he thought, would be least affected among them. The berserker was difficult to distract.

  Tag’s amused agreement sang through the hunting bonds, because the flow of information went both ways.

  Leah … Charles had probably been in a thousand hunts with Leah, though none so dire and none with so few wolves. He was in the habit of keeping as far from her as he could, both physically and in the bonds themselves. Given his success in avoiding her, he suspected Leah did the same. He’d never been in a hunt with her in which he took the lead position.

  And still he had expectations based on his previous experience. Through the pack bonds, Leah had always felt like a lethal, whip-quick weapon—cold, controlled, and deadly. He had expected that this time, too—but if he had not known better, he would have thought she was a different person entirely.

  Leah’s surface displayed only ripples of her wide, deep, and violent emotions, but the hunting song gave Charles deeper insight; he knew the power of her rage. She would do anything to see the Singer dead. It was a craving so deep it felt like obsession.

  But Charles also knew that she had used most of her reserves getting from Montana to here. Any other werewolf of his acquaintance would have been down for the count already. She needed a day’s rest and a lot of food before she would be back up to reasonable fighting trim. Food and rest she wouldn’t get.

  He had no doubt that Leah would keep going until she dropped—but he was afraid she was close to her limit. Exhaustion would slow her. What he knew, the hunting song knew. The pack understood Leah’s current limitations, understood they made her vulnerable.

  He would keep her at the edges of the battle when he could, if he could. It was impossible to really determine tactics before the Singer emerged. They knew something of its magic—though the power still rising from the ground worried Charles. And they had only a vague idea of the Singer’s physical being—as he thought that, Leah’s glimpse of it filtered through their bonds.

  Anna’s bright presence lit the hunting song with purpose and calm. It wasn’t like her usual Omega effect—Anna was still embarrassed about the time that a hunt had ended not in a kill but in all of the wolves lying in a meadow, basking in the sun. She had a lot more control now, but that didn’t mean she had the predatory need to kill that the rest of them did. Not normally. But, like Leah, Anna’s presence felt different. She felt …

  Deadly, said Brother Wolf.

  Charles could feel the surprised agreement of the others. Like Charles, they weren’t used to seeing Anna in a killing mood.

  She felt like Da. Implacable will directed toward the death of the Singer. In her own way, Anna’s drive was as deep as Leah’s.

  She is very unhappy about the people of Wild Sign, Brother Wolf whispered to him, so the others could not hear.

  Brother Wolf was the only one who knew that Charles didn’t think they would live through this. Charles did his best to keep it that way. He would not hurt his pack’s morale going into this arena. Instead, he let Leah’s and Anna’s determination and Tag’s fierce joy in the fight ring through the bonds and set the stage for their battle.

  And still they waited.

  Leah, Charles understood, thought she knew why they waited. But when he asked, she did not tell him. He had to trust her. They both were surprised to find that he did.

  They were patient, his pack, as hunters need to be. They waited unmoving, a dozen feet from the edge of the saltwater lake, coats settling against skin under the pouring rain. The lightning storm came and went, but the unrelenting precipitation never decreased. Charles utilized all four sets of eyes as they watched the surface of the water for something more than the disturbance of the weather.

  Tag saw the edge of a solid body breaking the surface, a quiet announcement that the star of their battle was here. Charles never did figure out how the Singer knew where they were—he never caught a glimpse of an eye or any other organ of perception.

  But there was no question that it saw them somehow.

  The tentacle that broke the surface was as big around as a Vo
lkswagen bug, and it stretched a distance of nearly twenty-five feet to slam down on the ground where Leah had been standing. Unsuccessful, it did not pause. Moving with vicious speed, it disappeared back beneath the roiling waters as quickly as it had come, leaving long strands of mucus to mark where it had been.

  The whole attack had been incredibly quick. Charles assimilated the observations of the pack.

  The skin on the tentacle had been a light-pink-tinged gray, mottled and darker on the upper surface than on the lower. The underside of the tentacle, which only Tag had seen, had round ridges similar to—if not exactly like—a squid’s, suction cups that would allow the Singer to attach itself to the underwater edges of the pit, giving it stability in the water.

  A second tentacle struck at Tag, landing with a hollow boom that echoed like a rumble of thunder. Charles leapt on top of it. He had to dig his claws through the thick slime to give himself traction. Bearing in mind the speed the last tentacle had shown, he wasted no time biting down, burying his fangs into the tough flesh—and releasing the flesh instantly. He jumped off the moving tentacle and landed on the ground not two feet from the steep edge of the lake.

  He ran, coughing up slime that seemed to grow inside his mouth. When he was a reasonable distance away, he rubbed his face in the wet grass. The slime tasted vaguely familiar—and unpleasantly fishy.

  Hagfish, supplied Brother Wolf, who never forgot anything they had tasted. To the others, Brother Wolf suggested, Use your claws.

  He was right, though that effectively lost them half of their attack capability. But that loss didn’t bother Charles now. His earlier grim assessments forgotten, fierce excitement lit his veins as his focus, and his pack’s focus, narrowed to the here and now. Charles was always most alive when he and Brother Wolf fought a worthy enemy.