by S. M. Beiko
“It’s dangerous for you to be here — in more ways than you imagine.” I thought of the Owls then, and wondered what they would do to not only me, but the Allens, if they found out I was here. “There’s nothing you can do now. You should go.” His warning was tender but firm.
“Please!” I found myself blurting, making up my case as I went along. “All I want to do is see him. I know I’m a total amateur and that giving me up for dead is the best solution to all of your problems, but . . .” I looked at Sil. “There might be a way to save him. And to stop all of this. But I need Barton’s help for that.”
Rebecca looked up from her husband’s arms, eyes glistening. David Allen had the identical expression. His mouth twitched into what could’ve been a smile, but his face was too tired to hold onto it.
“Someone else came to our door, once, when Barton was small. And she said something similar.” He let Rebecca go but squeezed her shoulder. “Maybe we should have listened to her then.”
I glanced around me, expecting the ghost of my mother to appear at my side or be reflected somehow in my shadow. In my mind, she stood taller, more solid than I ever could, with a backbone made of fire-tested iron and a resolve that was unbreakable. All I could muster was a slouched refusal to leave. Hopefully, that was enough to honour the woman I hardly knew.
After several moments’ hesitation, David Allen tilted his head towards the open door. “Get in, then.”
I scanned the street like a fugitive and went up the steps, Sil at my side. The Allens momentarily forgot me as they watched her, and she watched them back. They were wary of my bristling sidekick, and they ought to be.
Barton’s room was at the back of the house, and we reached it so quickly that I hadn’t had any time to steel myself. I stopped at the threshold and stared at the reduced Barton in his bed, my throat suddenly thick. His flesh was bruised with infection, skin turning purple with patches of black. His shirt had been removed, leaving only a blood-black compress to cover the wound in his chest. Rebecca hurried over to remove it and check the gash, but she inhaled with a hiss, and that was telling enough. With shaking hands she got a fresh compress and applied it, even though I could tell it was pointless. Barton looked ready to die, despite how his white eyes rolled around in his skull and his limbs writhed under his sheets.
What really made my heart tighten was how he was tied, stump and wrist, to the bed frame, probably to keep him from spasming onto the floor, and when I looked down, I saw that three concentric circles had been smeared into the carpet around him. Summoning circles. Looking at Mr. Allen, I recognized his exhaustion because I remembered feeling it myself. Had Mr. Allen begged the spirit world for his son’s life only to come back empty-handed? If he couldn’t do it, then how could I?
Rebecca was dabbing her son’s rolling head, murmuring motherly comforts through her tears. I was sure he couldn’t hear them.
“What . . . I don’t . . .” I managed to squeak.
“He’s becoming one of them,” David said in a tone that had already divorced itself from the situation. “It won’t be long now. He can hear the river calling him. If we let him go, he’d slither under the ice and go right to his new mother.”
Barton seemed to blacken to charcoal the longer I stared at him. His skin, once deep brown, had gone greyish and was turning burnt in patches. Would his eyes migrate to the side of his head soon, his mouth splitting his face open in a slavering gash? I needed to get out of here, but Sil entered the room, and all I could do was tread behind her. She jumped onto the bed, onto Barton’s chest, and flicked the compress off his wound with her snout.
“Don’t!” Rebecca cried, but David held her back.
Sil favoured her with a glance. “If I was going to hurt him, it wouldn’t do him any worse,” Sil croaked, digging her face into the poisonous cut in the flesh. I wanted to look away, but I just slapped a hand to my mouth and kept my eyes and face forward. Sil seemed to be looking for something, like a dog nosing in the dirt for a bone, and when her head snapped back up, she had something black and oozing and alive in her teeth.
She crunched down and the thing screamed, then burst in her face. The black burned away as it touched her, though, and for a blessed minute, Barton was still.
“What the hell was that?” I cried, unable to control myself.
Sil continued nosing at the wound, the heat coming from her maw cauterizing the gash. But I could see it was only a temporary solution: The blisters still moved from beneath, ready to open afresh. “The infection is more of an infestation. It is alive inside of him. Let’s just say I killed the infection’s queen. The drones will be scattered, and the infection will slow. But soon they will rise again. I’ve bought him some time before his spirit putrefies.”
Rebecca seemed all out of tears as she stroked Barton’s clammy forehead. David was pretty much the only one present now. “So you bought him some time,” he said. “What good is that?”
Sil just sat there on Barton’s chest, considering him, until she said, “We will go to the Deer. They will know what to do.”
I whipped my head towards her. The Deer? I had barely seen a Deer Denizen in the city, to the point where I’d forgotten all about them. David seemed just as dubious.
“The Deer have resigned themselves to pacifistic solitude for decades. They won’t come out of that to help any of us. All the grace of the healers has been slowly fading as generation after generation rejects their human forms. There aren’t any left.”
When Sil looked up at him, the amber fire in her eyes and fur seemed faded, her hide slightly tighter than it had been only minutes ago. What was happening to her?
But Sil smiled anyway. “Roan will persuade them. She’s very good at it.”
Yeah, that’s what got Barton here in the first place . . . I was also pretty unimpressed to be volunteered for yet another mission I had no idea how to accomplish. But when I saw the Allens’ looks of feverish desperation, I swallowed and nodded. “I’ll find a way to make them come.” The words fell out of my mouth, almost meaningless in my ears. I hesitated, but I placed my hand on Barton’s limp one. “I promise.”
Sil jumped to the floor, tongue hanging free of her jaw in a silent pant. “I believe there’s still a contingent of active Deer in the Assiniboine Forest, near Charleswood. We’ll start there.”
David helped steady Rebecca as she stared at her catatonic son. “And if they don’t come?” he murmured.
“They will,” I said, surprising myself. Even though I had no way of keeping my promise. I put a hand on David’s forearm, tried to smile, and followed Sil out.
We tread in silence down Wolseley Avenue towards the dip at Omand’s Creek Park. The creek bled out into the river, but it was as quiet as we were. I kept glancing at Sil to see if she was okay, or if she was going to reveal any reasons for her sudden fatigue. For now she kept pace with me, eyes and ears forward.
“Well?” I finally asked. “Will they come?”
Sil snorted, lips curling back over her teeth. “The Deer will do anything to stay out of this conflict. All we can dare hope is that one listens to us without spooking. Your friend has very little time.”
I dug my hands into my pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold in my less-than-ideal winter jacket. The cold stung, but all I kept seeing was Barton, ruined body prostrate in his parents’ arms, unreachable. Anger bubbled up inside me — equal parts anger at myself for failing everyone just because I was alive, and anger at the creatures intent on destroying innocent people to get to me. As the rage grew to fill my entire chest, I felt much warmer, and relaxed.
We reached the top of the hill and the path that descended into Omand’s Creek, the brook beneath the Sharpie-vandalized bridge, and the river it led to, frozen and still. But Sil and I both stiffened at this crest, unable to press onward. Her ears pressed against her head.
“Do you feel that?
” she snarled.
The air grew prickly, and I was all too aware of the tang of river mud, a smell that had been tattooed inside my nostrils only hours ago. I couldn’t see them yet, but they were here.
The warmth inside me kept growing to the point where I could feel tiny beads of sweat pushing through the pores on my forehead. Everything was heightened, from the feeling of each hair on my neck rising, to the sharpened view my spirit eye now afforded me. Everything was clear. I felt a drumbeat far off, or maybe it was inside of me, trying to turn up the volume. A battle beat. The creekbed was alive with bodies drawing themselves out of ice crevices, seeping through the snow, slick as oil, jelly-boned and hungry. I whipped my bag forward, drew out the new-and-improved garnet sword, and threw the bag aside. I felt so calm and single-minded in what I had to do, even as I watched the river hunters multiply to dozens, chattering their mocking throat-laughter and eyeing us, claws and teeth prepared. My skin felt drum-tight over my bones as I gripped the black hilt of the blade and the heat inside me rose.
“Roan? Are you ready for this?” I heard Sil ask, but her voice seemed far away. I didn’t wait for her as I moved through the gap in the bike path’s gate. The onslaught of hunters watched and grinned, their muscles rippling under their tarry flesh. I raised the blade. They swelled as one, and I hurtled down the hill.
How did I suddenly know how to swing the heavy blade, cutting bodies in half like they were made of wet clay? When had I learned the steps of a murderous dance that made me pivot and duck and slice as though it was an art form? All I knew was that they had to die. All of them. And as I hacked away, I was safe in my warm bubble, enrobed by a comforting, powerful heat that drowned out everything else, even Sil barking at me as she fought by my side. Even my humanity.
The snow at my feet evaporated as I wove and cut down my enemies, these soulless monsters, and I swore I could hear them begging, in their keening way, for mercy. For help from their mother lying dormant beneath the ice just nearby. But no one was going to help them, and if they did, I would tear them apart, too. This was all I knew. I gave them no quarter because they deserved none. They had ripped apart an innocent girl, had torn into the very soul of my friend, and they would not stop. So neither would I. Their flesh and blood covered me with every stroke, but when it touched me, it burned away. I can’t remember when I dropped the blade and started ripping them apart with my hands, with my teeth, but it didn’t matter. They would all die.
And finally, in a rush of sound and fury, my warm bubble burst, and all I could hear echoing in my bones was “ROAN!”
I jerked forward and stumbled, hands and body shaking as I clenched a tree for support. The air was rancid with death, but it was silent again. There was something large and wet in my mouth, like a piece of meat. I spat out the gore and when I realized what it was, I threw up. I tried to catch my breath as the wintry air invaded my ears, perforating my skin. The warmth inside me was gone, leaving only a very human feeling of empty cold. I shivered, trying and failing to stand up straight as I looked around.
The creek was blackened, and the tarry remains seeped back into the ice from whence they had come. What had happened here? No, I knew. But it had felt like the agency of some other character in this terrifying story, someone acting on my behalf, or some terrible version of myself that only existed in a bizarro world. I had felt such rage, and I let it take over. I rubbed my mouth on my sleeve until it was raw.
Sil stood before me, ignoring the massacre around us, her fur thick with tar, burning away. “You have seen the power you are capable of,” she murmured, “but you accessed it with anger, and the power took over. You may have conquered here, but at the cost of yourself.”
I inhaled, finally feeling like I had control of my lungs again. I closed my eyes. “Well it worked, didn’t it? What does it matter how I access it?” I had let fear get a hold of me when the river hunters had attacked the first time, and I lost. If I could slaughter them all in a matter of seconds just from being righteously pissed, then their mother didn’t stand a chance.
“A towering inferno is powerful, but it consumes everything it touches. Don’t think you can be protected from yourself if you let your fire get out of control.”
My fire. I clutched my chest. I had felt it there, felt it coming out of my skin and burning everything around me. I felt like I’d become part of a greater flame. Most of all, I hadn’t felt vulnerable. I felt alive.
I wanted to get into more firefox Yoda talk, but my phone went off in my pocket. I was surprised it was still in one piece given what had just happened. I answered automatically.
“Roan?”
My voice came out in a croak. “Phae?”
“Look, I know you’re angry with me, I get it. You wanted my support for whatever is going on with you and I backed away. But when you just start running off during school without saying anything after a girl dies, and the last conversation we had was you telling me about a bunch of weird things that sound like they’re straight out of a sci-fi movie, and then you avoid me for days when all I want to know is if you’re all right —”
“Phae, look, just stop for a sec, okay? I’ll explain everything. We can talk. Does your offer for a ride still stand?”
*
I sank into the front seat of Phae’s dad’s Honda, totally conscious of my best friend’s stare as I did the seat belt up and Sil readjusted herself in my lap. I held her to keep her balanced, but she shivered under my touch, the lustre of her coat turning almost brown. I knew I needed to ask her what was wrong, but I didn’t know if I should risk chatting it up with her in front of Phae . . . who still hadn’t put the car into gear.
“That’s a fox,” she pointed out.
“Yes,” I said.
“Why do you have a fox?”
Sil and I looked at each other. “I’m pretty sure I mentioned her before.”
Phae tried to keep cool. “Yes, but I didn’t think —”
Sil sniffed in Phae’s direction. “You’re sure she can be trusted?”
I sprang forward, pulling Sil back into my lap. Phae had no visible signs of recognition on her face, so I don’t think she could hear Sil, just like Barton couldn’t see the hunters.
Then Phae became pragmatic. “Roan, you can’t just go around adopting wild animals, especially if you’re doing so to make me believe what you said last week. What if it attacks us while I’m driving? What if it has rabies?”
I sighed, because they were all valid questions, but we didn’t have the time. “Phae, it’s fine. Sil won’t do anything . . .” Don’t say “unless provoked.” “Just don’t worry about her, okay? We need to go to Assiniboine Forest, like ten minutes ago.”
“What?” Phae quirked an eyebrow, knuckles tight on the steering wheel. “Why?”
I tried to gather my patience. “Look, I know I’ve been acting super weird lately. But someone is in trouble, and I have to help him. And the only way to do that is for Sil and me to get to Assiniboine Forest. And I asked you to take us because I want you to come with me. I want to actually show you that I’m not clinically insane.”
I don’t think my little speech inspired much trust. Yes, I sounded extremely delusional, but the first step to cracking the veneer of Phae’s logical world was that there was a fox in my lap, and I hadn’t bothered to hide my ridiculous garnet sword in the back seat, either.
She turned her eyes forward, putting us into drive and (I hoped) taking us on the right course. We had met her out on Wellington Crescent, now thankfully devoid of Arnas’s SUV (and with my bike hidden in the trees to reclaim later). With the river on our right as we cruised towards Charleswood, I bit my lip. The river had claimed my parents and sent its minions after me. Even dormant, it was dangerous.
“Who’s in trouble?” Phae asked after a while. We were turning onto Corydon.
I gnawed the inside of my cheek; my mouth still tasted
like tar and blood but I tried not to gag. “Um. You remember that guy outside of English this morning? The one in the wheelchair?” God, had it really been this morning? It seemed weeks ago.
“You mean the new transfer student?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Yeah, why?”
Sil had her nose pressed to the glass, panting and watching the world go by through the fog of her breath. I let my hand rest heavily on her back, suddenly afraid she was going to disappear. “He’s dying,” I managed. Though what he was going through was much worse.
Phae shook her head, still not taking her eyes off the road. “He seemed fine this morning, though. Was he attacked, like that girl?”
Why sugar-coat it? “Yeah.”
“Is he at the hospital? What did the doctors say?”
I dropped my head back against the seat. “Phae, it’s a bit more complicated than that.”
She scoffed. “Well, you can’t seriously be taking responsibility for this guy. If he’s in a doctor’s care then there’s nothing else you can do but trust they will treat him as best as they can.”
“He doesn’t need a doctor, Phae. He needs a healer.”
“Roan, this isn’t World of Warcraft . . .”
I felt very ready to tear my hair out.
Sil gave me some serious side-eye. “It’s useless. She’ll see for herself soon enough, or else her ignorance will prevent her from doing so. She’s the same as any other human. Save your breath.”
“She’s not ignorant, she just hasn’t had to deal with any of this yet,” I blurted.
“Are you talking to me?” Phae glanced worriedly at Sil and me as she came to the stoplights at Shaftesbury and Grant.
“No, I . . .” No, my talking fox and I were just shooting the breeze, s’all good. “Anyway. I know it all sounds insane, and trust me when I say that, yeah, everything I’m telling you is pretty out there, but it’s real. All of it. From the giant river serpent that’s got it out for this city to the five animal-spirit-family-things that want to hand me over to it. I’ve had a crash course in ancient mythological superbeings over the last few days, and I thought I was losing my mind, but that’d be way too easy.” I inhaled sharply, trying to keep myself from exploding. “And it’s somehow all tied up with my parents, and how I’ve got to finish what they started before they died. I don’t think their deaths were accidental, Phae, or suicide like some people say. So it all sounds wacko, but it’s important to me, and it’s been hell, so if I had your support, I’d appreciate it.”