Rebels and Realms: A Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Heather Marie Adkins

  Tyler shifted the takeout bags into one hand and caught the wrapped stone. He turned it over curiously.

  “What does it do?” he asked with something akin to suspicion in his raw voice.

  “Protection against evil spirits. Dunno if wendigo counts as evil spirits, but —” Elias broke off with a shrug.

  As they ate, Tyler recapped his meeting with the OPP. There wasn’t much that wasn’t in the files, but they did manage to get all the provincial parks shut down. Elias and Tyler could scope the campgrounds in the morning.

  “We should sleep early,” Tyler said. “Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

  Elias nodded. Spending all day combing through wooded campsites wasn’t exactly his thing, but someone had to do it. If they were lucky, they would find the wendigo’s lair and be done with this case in one day.

  Right. Because they ever got that lucky.

  “Before we call it a night, I need you to help me with that thing you help me

  with,” Elias said, making his way to the bathroom.

  He nodded for Tyler to follow. His travel bag was still sitting on the sink where he’d left it.

  It was a familiar routine by now. When Elias was at home, he would get his husband, Jackson, to help him stick a needle full of hormones in his ass. When he was on the road, it was Tyler’s job. Really, he could have done it himself, but for a guy with so many tattoos, he really hated needles.

  Tyler dipped the syringe into the small vial containing Elias’ testosterone and filled it to the right line while Elias leaned forward and pushed down his sweats and briefs. With his eyes closed, he could only hear Tyler flick the plastic to get all the air bubbles out. He breathed deeply through his nose. It would have been easy to fall asleep right here. If he kept breathing in and out, and in and out... No, he couldn’t fall asleep yet, not until after Tyler stabbed hin in the ass. It had stopped being awkward a long time ago, and Elias didn’t so much as flinch when Tyler rested a hand on his bare skin and touched the centre of the X he’d gotten tattooed as a joke.

  “Relax,” Tyler said, and the buzzing over his words made Elias grimace. “Siren mojo,” he warned.

  Tyler’s apology didn’t do much to shadow the needle breaking Elias’ skin. It was more itchy than anything and after a moment, the needle withdrew. They fist-bumped like the adults they were and retired for the night.

  3

  The thing Elias loved about being out in the middle of nowhere was the quiet. Not the physical silence of no traffic or people, but the lack of electronics. The constant buzz of electricity faded down to a quiet hum running through the streetlights as they took the ramp onto Highway 11. The further they got from the city, the quieter it got. As quiet as his home city could be, it wasn’t as quiet as Huntsville, and it certainly wasn’t as quiet as the highway.

  He always forgot how loud it got, being connected to so many electronics. It was like every strand of magic was a song and the more strands there were, the more songs were playing at the same time. He was better at tuning them out now than he had been, but it still got overwhelming sometimes. It was the reason he lived out in the outskirts of town. Well, one of the reasons. It also gave his werewolf husband more space during the full moon, Elias could keep horses in the barn on the property over that they also owned, and it was way cheaper than living in the city.

  Elias watched the city fade away over the guide rail, watched the highway signs flicker past. Speed limit, directions, upcoming exits. He rested his elbow on the door and his chin on his knuckles. The drive was only seven minutes long according to their GPS, but he was already bored and dreading whatever they were going to find at Arrowhead. The pictures he’d been studying last night were burned onto the backs of his eyelids, and he didn’t want to see anything like that in real life. It might have been the worst thing he’d seen yet. If he didn’t focus on something else, he’d end up getting stuck in his own head. He turned his attention back to the signs, rolling the window down to get a better look. The wind mused his braided hair and made him glad he’d worn a pair of studs in his ears instead of something that dangled.

  “Think these signs are mounted high enough?” he asked.

  “What?” Tyler didn’t look at him, more interested in the red Fowler Construction truck passing them.

  “The highway signs. They look a little low to me.” “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Think I should call MTO?”

  Again, Tyler’s only response was a clipped, “What?”

  “Ministry of Transportation. Think I should call them about the signs looking low? Seems like the sort of thing they should know.”

  Spirit of cooperation, etc... They were all government, after all, weren’t they? “Don’t— Don’t call MTO. The rail is fine.”

  “Signs,” Elias corrected.

  “Signs, the signs are fine.”

  The clicking of the blinker indicated an approaching off-ramp, and they drifted onto a turning lane. Through the open window was the scent of trees and some other nature crap. It was a scent Elias wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with, with his house backing onto the woods, but it wasn’t quite the same, either. Different trees, different wildlife, who knew.

  One Park Ranger Leblanc met them outside the office. She towered over both of them, stiff even for a government employee, and the scent of tree sap clung to her in a way that Elias didn’t think was merely an occupational hazard. The obvious guess was nymph but if she wasn’t human, she was glamoured up well.

  “Officers,” she greeted in a gruff, sandpapered voice.

  Elias and Tyler nodded and returned her greeting with, “Ranger.” It felt wrong not to say it in a bad suthurn accent, but Elias could at least manage that level of professionalism.

  “As much as we appreciate the RCMP looking into these disappearances, we would be like to reopen as soon as possible. You understand, this is a big tourist spot. We’ve had to cancel all our reservations.” Leblanc’s French accent sounded almost fake, that was how thick it was. She didn’t sound particularly upset about the cancellations. “Do you know when we can reopen?”

  Tyler nudged Elias for his attention and moved his hands.

  “If we’re lucky, we’ll have this problem solved tonight,” Elias said.

  Leblanc raised an eyebrow. “And if you’re not?”

  Elias shrugged. If they weren’t lucky, they might have bigger problems than a

  closed provincial park.

  4

  “Do we have everything we need?” Tyler asked, looking down into the truck of their car.

  Elias looked over the contents. Flamethrower, shock blankets, first aid kit, water, fire extinguisher... It looked like they were set. He dropped his bow and a quiver full of arrows next to the case of water bottles.“Really, Elias? Bow and arrows?”

  “Hey, man. Never had a bow jam on me. Trust me.”

  “Not in this lifetime.”

  There was that teasing edge of a smile on Tyler’s lips. Elias nudged him, grinning, and closed the trunk. It was pushing 9PM, and the sun was already setting. Huntsville wasn’t quite north enough to be considered north, but it definitely got dark earlier than down south. By the time they reached Arrowhead, it would be dark enough for their nocturnal wendigo to come out.

  The plan was insane. Certifiable. The sort of thing that would have gotten him thrown out of Callahan’s office if Elias had brought it up to his boss.

  “Tell me when you have a good plan,” Callahan was always saying.

  Well, this was not a good plan. It was the sort of plan that could absolutely get them killed, but that was how they knew it was the right one. It was also their only plan, so there was that. Use themselves as bait to lure out the wendigo, then flamethrower that bitch. Problem solved.

  As they veered off the park’s trails, Ranger Leblanc shaking her head at them from the relative safety of her cabin, Elias was once again struck by the feeling that something was wrong. Something other than the obvious
.

  Twenty bodies in one summer? That was unheard of. Even the wendigo in Thunder Bay that his grandfather had killed had only taken five or six. Could be there was more prey down here, more opportunity.

  That made sense, didn’t it? More sense than what they were doing out here.

  “I can’t believe you brought a bow,” Tyler said for the millionth time as Elias nocked an arrow.

  “And I can’t believe you brought a mini-flamethrower. What’s your point?” “You’re the one who said we need fire.”

  Elias held his bow up in an I-did-nothing-wrong motion. “I said hairspray and a lighter. You’re the one who got them to give you a flamethrower.”

  Lucky bastard. Elias wished the RCMP trusted him enough to give him a

  flamethrower. But that would mean curbing his attitude and not doing stupid shit like using himself as bait. Not worth it. Improvising was half the fun, anyway.

  “Just stay focused, Harper. We don’t want this thing getting the jump on us.”

  “Don’t want this thing getting a taste for siren, either,” Elias said with a humourless grin.

  He wasn’t forgetting how easy it would be to become wendigo-dinner. This was their predator’s territory, and to say that Elias was out of his element would be a bit of an understatement. Sure, he would venture into the woods behind his house when one of the dogs wandered off, but this was a whole other animal. Well, not an animal, but—

  Where the hell was Tyler?

  Elias whirled around, searching in the dark for his partner. He pushed energy into his left hand, the one holding the grip of the bow. A pale green light illuminated his immediate surroundings. How did he not notice the light from Tyler’s flashlight disappear? Everything looked the same to him and after a few circles, he wasn’t even sure which direction he’d come from.

  “Send the technosorcerer on a mission in the middle of the woods, why don’t you... Tyler? Tyler, where the hell are you?” he shouted.

  No answer.

  Elias did a run through of the spells inked onto his skin, trying to find something, anything that would be helpful. Why hadn’t he thought to get a GPS spell done? If he got out of here, the first thing he was going to do was find one and get Kal to tattoo it on. This was not good.

  “Okay, Elias, focus. He couldn’t have gotten too far,” he told him self. “Tyler!”

  He wished he had one of his dogs here, or at least Jackson and his keen werewolf senses. Keeping the arrow brandished, he walked back in what he

  hoped was the direction he came. Not that any of these trees looked any different from the rest of them. If he didn’t feel like bait before, he certainly did now.

  “El...i...as...”

  Elias froze at the sound of his name floating through the trees. The voice was raspy and forced, definitely not Tyler’s voice. The hairs on his neck and arms stood on end, and he suddenly understood why animals growled. He cut the flow of energy to his hand and pitched himself into total darkness, save for what was reflecting off the moon. The wendigo could probably still see him, but he felt a little better pretending it couldn’t. Not to mention he needed to save his energy in case he needed to run. Because he could absolutely outrun a wendigo.

  “El...i...as...”

  The voice came through again and Elias tried to turn towards the sound. It seemed to be coming from everywhere, floating in from no single direction.

  He needed to keep his head straight, keep focused. Now was not the time to panic. But as the sound of crunching twigs made it through the blood rushing through his ears, he felt like it was getting pretty fucking close.

  “El...i...as... El...i...as... El—”

  “Elias! Elias, where are you? Can you hear me?”

  That was Tyler. Elias didn't think he'd ever been so relieved to hear that voice.

  “I'm over here!” Elias shouted.

  The flash of Tyler’s light swept over him. Elias squinted, turning his head away from it. Some tension in his shoulders eased up when Tyler emerged from between two trees, but not enough to lower his bow.

  ‘Wendigo can’t shapeshift, can they?’

  As Tyler approached, letting himself right into Elias’ personal space, the dark scales along his neck became visible. His pupils were blown so wide in the dark, the pale ring of blue around them was barely visible. He was terrifying and Elias loved it.

  “Oh, I could kiss you, you beautiful bastard.”

  “Later.”

  Professional as always. That was the other reason they worked so well together. They balanced each other out.

  Now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. He had bigger priorities. “H-elp meee...” came that forced, warbling voice again.

  “Do you hear that?” Tyler asked, stepping toward the sound. “Don’t!”

  “What? You hear that too, don't you?”

  The distorted cries for help made Elias feel sick. He’d heard once that hyenas imitated human voices to try to lure people away from their camps. The thought had freaked the hell out of him for years before it had occurred to him to look it up. Turned out hyenas couldn’t imitate voices, they just had that unnatural laugh that sounded like it belonged in a cartoon. This sort of reminded him of that. It gave him the same uneasy chill he got too often, of something that was trying to be human but... wasn’t.

  “That’s what wendigo do,” Elias said. At least, according to his grandfather’s notes. “It’s trying to get us alone. Makes us easier to take down. Stay close!”

  Elias thought of those minutes where they’d been separated and shuddered. He wasn’t sure even he realized just how close he’d come to being dinner.

  “Okay, Harper. This is your operation. What do we do?”

  Was that panic in Tyler’s voice? If Tyler panicked, then Elias was going to panic, and that would be a mess. One of them had to keep it together. At least this thing didn’t know his birth certificate name. Names were a powerful thing in their world.

  “Can you see it?” Elias asked.

  “No. I’m not sure. I see something, but it could be a moose.”

  Moose, right. Elias wished.

  They stood back to back, Tyler with the flamethrower and Elias with his bow and arrow. As soon as this thing showed whatever it had for a face, they would get it.

  The wailing continued. If Elias hadn’t been semi-prepared for what to expect, he’d be high-tailing it out of here. As it was, he was still tempted to bolt.

  “Keep watching for it,” Elias said.

  Something in the shadows moved, and Elias shifted the aim of his arrow.

  That broken wailing continued, calling their names and pleading for help. It was trying to wear them down, and it was working.

  Elias didn’t know how long they stood there for, but it was long enough that his legs started to cramp and the back of his shirt became soaked in sweat. Most of his face and neck were covered in mosquito bites. It would have almost been better to have the wendigo eat him and be done with it.

  The wendigo was good. It kept throwing its voice, keeping them from identifying where it was. It was more clever, or at least more capable, than Elias expected it to be.

  “Cover me,” he said, inching away from Tyler.

  This thing wanted to separate them? Fine. Elias could do that.

  He walked away from his partner, one slow step at a time, his eyes darting between the trees for any sign of the wendigo. According to his grandfather’s notes, they got big. It couldn’t be that hard to miss.

  “Elias,” Tyler warned.

  “Cover me,” Elias repeated.

  How many times had Elias said that since he had finished his training? How many times was he going to say that before Tyler couldn’t cover him? This was not the time for that train of thought. Not in the middle of a mission. Later, when he was in the safety of the hotel and shaking from exertion to begin with, he could panic. Not now.

  Leaves rustled around him, but not from the direction he'd been expecting. Elias whirled ar
ound. For a moment, he couldn't see anything, his brain rejecting what was right in front of him. His eyes adjusted to the change in light and he saw it.

  The wendigo.

  The thing that had given him nightmares as a kid. The thing that was going to give him nightmares for the rest of his life.

  It towered over Tyler, some seven feet tall at least, misshapen antlers twisting from its deformed skull. The pale green light from Elias’ hands made its skin look ashy as it clung to its bones, and the pitch black eyes that bulged from their sockets must have been the size of his fists. There was a disconnect between the skeletal thinness of the thing and its massive belly, a nauseating exaggeration of that bloating disorder starving kids got. From where Elias stood, its stomach certainly looked large enough to hold a fully grown human; or a fully grown siren.

  Oh, yeah. He was definitely going to have nightmares again.

  The wendigo’s blood-cracked lips pulled back over what must have been at least two rows of broken-glass teeth. It raised its long, clawed hands over Tyler’s head. Those hands were large enough to break bones, even siren bones. It was going to tear Tyler to pieces right here, right in the middle of the woods.

  Movement returned to Elias’ body.

  “Get down!” he shouted, aiming for the thing’s throat.

  Tyler didn't need to be told twice. Elias took a sharp breath and released the arrow. He'd never been much for religion or anything but right now, he was really hoping Brigit would come through with this fire spell. The wendigo moved, and the arrow hit it square in the shoulder. It screamed and flailed as the rag around the arrow shaft ignited. A familiar gasoline smell filled the air, then the stench of burning flesh. More fire engulfed the wendigo as Tyler got the flamethrower working, starting at its feet to hobble it.

  Two more arrows sunk into the wendigo’s skin, two more points of origin for the fire. Anything to speed this up, to stop that fucking screaming. Elias pressed his nose to his shoulder and breathed through his mouth. He could taste the burning decay at the back of his throat. It was nothing short of a miracle that the entire woods didn't light up as Tyler continued to spray fire, but before long, the wendigo was nothing but a shuddering pile of ash on the forest floor.