Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters: Witch Moon

by D. C. McGannon

  “I want to help,” said Aisling, keeping up with their pace. “Listen, I know about the monsters here, and I have a feeling you don’t.”

  “I know enough.”

  “Just let me come with you. You’re going to need more than just the three of you to get back to the others.”

  Charlie glanced at her out of the corner of one bloody-red eye. “Thanks.”

  Their legs grew tired as the ground sucked at their feet, but they did not stop until they reached the trees.

  “This is where it gets dangerous,” said Aisling. “These woods stretch and twist all the way down close to our house. The Blind Boy is just one of the legends said to inhabit them.”

  “I’m not afraid of ghost stories,” said Charlie. “I’m afraid more of my friends will die.”

  “More?” Aisling asked.

  Charlie glanced at her before moving on.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot, one of you…fighting the Dark Prince.”

  “It was before we ever fought with the Dark Prince…but yeah, it was the Dark Prince’s Exsecrifer that cursed him to die. I could have saved him, if I had only paid attention. His name was Liev. He was Lisa’s brother.”

  Aisling followed Charlie into the woods, immediately feeling the chill in the air.

  “Why did she run off? Was she upset?”

  “She thinks he’s still alive. And close by.”

  “But…I thought he—”

  “He did. But the last time we saw him, the Alpha Wolf had bitten his shoulder. She believes that when the wolves appeared here in Ireland, that Liev came with them.”

  “She hopes to save him.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you?” she asked, leaning forward. She was shocked to see the tears stream down his face.

  Charlie thought about all the guilt he had lived with the past few weeks.

  “Yeah. I hope she’s right.”

  A heavy pressure forced Charlie to his knees. He reached up to cradle his head as Aisling sucked at the air, leaning against a tree. Dräng ran in front of them, not as affected but still afraid.

  I’m sorry, said the Blind Boy as he materialized before them. My presence brings you pain, so I will be quick. I think you’re following the black haired girl. Is that right?

  Just slightly, Charlie’s head cleared, the pain dimming enough for him to look up at the spirit. “Yes,” he gasped.

  She goes straight through the woods, heading west. Hurry to her. She will need your help to survive the wolves. I will try to create a trail for you to follow.

  “Thank you,” Charlie whispered as the Blind Boy shrunk and stretched to a single black tendril that hung in the air. It began to flow through the woods, disappearing at a slow but constant rate.

  Charlie looked at Dräng, who nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  “What do you mean he’s gone?” cried Priest.

  Darcy smiled as nicely as she could manage. She hardly ever got yelled at by adults.

  “He left camp. He went to go find Lisa.”

  “And where the blasted green frog’s tail is she?”

  “She left, too. I don’t really know where she went…”

  Darcy shifted her feet with discomfort. She didn’t know for sure where Lisa was going, but she understood why. One glance at Nash told Darcy that he agreed.

  “Idiotic children,” Priest said a bit harshly as he stuffed his pack back together. The truth was, he felt responsible for them. He was angry at them for endangering themselves with, and for all he knew without, cause.

  “Which way did they go?”

  Darcy pointed to the tree line. Priest’s face darkened more.

  “Priest, I know you’re upset and worried, but—”

  “Upset is an understatement.”

  “—you should just trust them.”

  Priest’s eyebrows shot up. “Trust them? To what, come back, or to get themselves killed? Tell me exactly what I should trust them to do.”

  “Charlie will come back,” said Nash. “And he’ll bring Lisa and Aisling with him. If he says we should keep on going, we should keep on going.”

  Priest opened his mouth wide to speak, a thick vein appearing at his temple, but Darcy interrupted him before he even began.

  “They have their reasons, okay? They’re doing this for a reason.”

  “It had better be a damn good reason, lass.”

  “I don’t know if it’s a good one or not,” said Nash. An uncharacteristic look of sadness appeared on his face. “But it’s something that has tortured both Charlie and Lisa now since…well, since we stopped the Dark Prince. I can’t say that I believe they’ll find what they’re looking for. But I hope I’m wrong. I really do.”

  “As much as I hate leaving my granddaughter,” said Maurie, reaching up to grip Priest’s shoulder with a firm hand, “Drakauragh is running out of time. Those two are stronger than they look, and although Aisling lacks experience, she knows how to take care of herself. This is not a good situation for either party, but we must finish our job at any cost and pray that they are able to return and do the same.”

  She patted him on the shoulder, an awkward movement for their difference in height, and turned for the road, with Derrick right behind her. Darcy and Nash looked back once and, sharing a determined look between them, turned their backs to the west.

  But Priest kept looking at the woods.

  “Have faith,” said Chen. “They are capable young people.”

  “Faith,” muttered Priest. “Faith is once what I considered my Gift. I fought like a monster myself, because I had faith. I survived the worst of journeys and battles, because I had faith. And when the Dark Prince took all of us Hunters hostage, I still had faith that we would break free and overcome him. But all of those Hunters died. We were the only ones who survived, and for what, displaced as we are? What is there to have faith in now?”

  Chen did not frown nor did he smile reassuringly. “Sometimes it is not faith that fails us, rather it is our own hope. It is torn by great pain and loss. No one escapes this. We do not live in a perfect world. But can you hold a grudge against a friend’s one failure, when they have given you one hundred chances before?”

  “I don’t understand your riddles, Chen.”

  “Do you not feel as if they will come back alive?”

  Priest shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m just not sure of anything anymore.”

  In a crooked house built of wood not easily found on earth, a woman sat on her knees, surrounded by incense and bowls filled with dirt, salt, water, and blood. She held a black candle over a bowl of water.

  “Mother?”

  Carman glanced over her shoulder, quickly returning to her work. “What is it, Dian? I’m busy.”

  “Mother, the Sagemistress approves.”

  “Oh?”

  “She said to send it into the forest whenever you’re ready.”

  “Then do so.”

  As her son left, Carman smiled, gazing at the flickering image in her scrying bowl: of Lisa jogging through the trees. Dragging her fingers through the air, Carman placed her attention on the Blind Boy as he followed the young Huntress.

  The Sagemistress had quite the trouble seeing in these woods. Although not nearly as powerful as she, the Blind Boy was just clever enough to keep the old witch’s eyes out of his territory.

  Carman, on the other hand, knew the loopholes in the Blind Boy’s pesky protection. She also knew how to deal with him, when needed; something that she failed to mention to the Sagemistress altogether.

  She tilted the black candle in her hand, one drop of black wax dripping into the water. From the resulting ripple, the water turned a murky red.

  “Take a rest, boy. Let the humans get through the forest without your help. If they can.”

&n
bsp; Lisa stopped to catch her breath. She was tempted to drop her pack and keep going without it, but knew such an action could only do more harm than good. These trees were definitely not a place where she wanted to spend any more time than necessary. She’d seen kelpie, faerie hounds, and a few creatures lingering in the trees which she would have rather not noticed. Monsters here lived like it was the Otherworld, and she did not feel welcome in it. It would only be a matter of time before they took an unhealthy interest in her.

  She took off again, adjusting her steps to keep well away from a large pond fed by a stream. The hairy old spirit inside made no effort to hide itself, reaching out of the water with a huge white arm for her. She didn’t look behind her, knowing it would not stray far from its puddle.

  Deer and birds and a small red fox watched her from places that were not hidden, with eyes too intelligent to be simple animals. She had left the others before the sun had come up, but it already threatened her, beginning its dip towards the horizon and nighttime. Spending a night inside these woods was not an option.

  She worried for a moment that the Blind Boy had granted her passage into an enchanted forest, and that there was no way out. But she remembered the way his anger died as she compared him to her brother. The Blind Boy didn’t know her brother, but he could empathize. He wouldn’t have told her where the wolves’ den was if she couldn’t reach it.

  Suddenly, the forest was too quiet. The sound of her muddy shoes crunching the leaves sounded like a warning cry. A fox—perhaps the same she had seen earlier—jumped in front of her, staring meaningfully at her before disappearing into the brush. Feeling as if she’d just been given a warning, Lisa stopped. She sensed the monsters and life around her disappear.

  What were they running from?

  A coarse laugh was her first answer. She dove out of the way as something metal and wicked sliced through the air and cut into her forearm. Not enough to disable the arm, but more than enough to hurt. She stood, whimpering, as she drew her dagger, her own blood running down to drip from the point. In her left hand, a black tendril grew, writhing and snapping of its own accord.

  She looked at her opponent, a tall, gangly mess of filthy flesh and hodgepodge armor. It held a halberd of carved wood, its pointed ax something that might have been salvaged from a human junkyard or a condemned building. The black-red piece of cloth tied around its head covered one eye socket, damp from the blood it was dyed with.

  Her encyclopedic mind quickly recognized it, pulling notes and useful knowledge from different sources to build the beast in front of her. It was a powrie, a strong and unbelievably fast goblin. The most malevolent type of goblin. A powrie was less concerned with playing tricks and more concerned with killing. The red cloth on the top of its head was its life source—life derived from the repetitious act of murdering and soaking in the victim’s blood.

  Worst of all, she remembered, iron and silver wouldn’t harm this monster any more than a regular blade would. Unlike most other monsters, powries felt no pain from iron or silver or, if they did, they didn’t care.

  In an instant, Lisa knew what she was facing, but facing it by herself was something totally new to her—and not in a good way. Of all the monsters she would have to fight, she had gotten stuck with this one by herself?

  The powrie struck again, and Lisa just barely guarded herself with her dagger, the halberd still forcing its way to tear into her side. She grunted with pain, realizing it had meant not to kill her with its first attack. It enjoyed battle.

  The powrie watched her gleefully with a rusty brown eye. It smiled, showing teeth that were sharp and jagged from eating meat directly from its victims.

  “Alright,” said Lisa, coiling her energy. “I can be mean, too.”

  The powrie moved to swing, aiming for her midsection. Lisa fell flat, barely jumping back up in enough time to avoid the powrie’s running stomp. The hooked metal sabaton covering its foot would have easily crushed her head against the ground.

  Lisa sliced with her dagger as she stood. It raked across the armor on the powrie’s thigh, but dug in from the hip and made a nasty cut through the abdomen. With her energy, she whipped the powrie across the face, leaving a mottled purple burn from his neck to his nose. The powrie roared from the pain.

  Lisa smiled. She managed to actually hurt the thing. Maybe surviving wasn’t so far-fetched after all.

  A metallic backhand across her face removed that thought, as well as any other thought, from her mind, replacing it with a bright white light followed by darkness. Disoriented, she wondered how far she had flown back, only knowing she’d hit a tree and some rough ground.

  Get up, a fading voice in her mind said. Concussion. Powrie. Get to Liev. Get up!

  In front of them, the Blind Boy’s vaporous trail flickered on and off.

  “What’s wrong?” Aisling wondered.

  “Bad, methinks,” said Dräng, looking over both shoulders as he walked.

  Something caught Charlie’s attention. He pointed to the right of the path above the Blind Boy. “Look!”

  A blue light shone from the treetops. There was a chipper, musical quality to its presence, much more pleasant than that of the Blind Boy. Aisling narrowed her eyes at it as it bobbed in the air.

  “I think…I think it could help us,” he continued. “I think it wants to lead us to Lisa.” He took a few steps toward it as it veered off to the right, away from the Blind Boy’s location. Dräng whimpered and pulled lightly on Charlie’s pants leg.

  As Charlie took another step, something grabbed his arm, pulling him away by the elbow. Charlie looked down and realized Aisling had hooked her arm through his, leading him away from the spirit. He shook his head, clearing it.

  “For a boy with the Sight, there’s a lot you don’t see, huh?”

  “I’m not…I don’t know what you mean.”

  “That was a will-o-the-wisp. You’re right that it wants to lead you, but not to her. I would have thought your eyes were better,” she said, shifting her arms.

  Charlie wasn’t quite sure why he felt she wasn’t talking about the will-o-the-wisp. “I don’t know why, it just felt like I should follow it.”

  Aisling sighed. “That’s because you were looking at it so hard. Will-o-the-wisps are enchanting creatures, and they cause you to forget what you’re doing long enough to make you follow them. Maybe the Sight makes it worse, but I would’ve thought otherwise.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks for stopping me from being stupid.”

  Aisling smiled, looking a little smug, and realizing she still had his arm, she blushed ever so slightly.

  Charlie didn’t rush to let go himself.

  Dräng raised his hairless eyebrows. He muttered to himself once again, “Human sweeties makes for confusing.”

  In front of them, the black smoke hanging in the air began to falter again. Dräng sensed dark magic at work and spread his arms out to stop the two youngling humans following him. He shoved them back just in time as a bellow resounded through the forest. It was a child’s scream, but impossibly loud and coming from seemingly everywhere.

  The Blind Boy.

  What little part of the Blind Boy’s presence hovered in front of them shivered and then seemed to explode, tendrils of smoke violently shooting off into all directions. The pressure in the air intensified, then disappeared altogether.

  “Where did smoky boy go?” asked Dräng, although he was more concerned with what caused the Blind Boy to go.

  Charlie shook his head, panic rising in his chest. “I don’t know. I can’t see him anywhere.”

  “Relax,” said Aisling. “Maybe it just means we’re close to catching up with her.”

  Dräng shook his head. “Not it,” he said, looking gravely at Aisling. “Something hurt him bad. Don’t know if he’s going to come back to help for a little while.”

  “Dräng, why
don’t you see if you can pick up Lisa’s trail?” Charlie said, tapping his spear against the ground impatiently.

  The little monster nodded hurriedly. He bounded forward, scampering up a tree. A path of falling leaves floated down, which they followed. But before they took five steps, a small sound caught his ear.

  “Did you hear that?” asked Charlie, looking at Aisling with wide eyes.

  “Yes,” replied. “It sounded like someone in pain.”

  Ahead of them, Dräng hung upside down from a tree.

  “I hear her!” he cried, sounding miserable. “Hurry, follow!”

  They both began to run.

  Nash saw the third wolf peering over a hill. He gave it no indication that he saw it. The wolf retreated after a moment, its absence barely noticeable among the tall grass.

  “One more to the north of us,” he said calmly.

  “They’re scouts,” said Maurie. “Ignore them for now. They could take us at any time, but they won’t right now. They’ll wait until we cannot see them coming from so far away.”

  They had finally made it out of the marsh and onto dry land. While that was a good thing, it also meant they would be dealing with rocks, trees, hills, and other obstructions of vision from now on…and that was a problem.

  “The wolves objective is to stop us from getting to Drakauragh,” Maurie continued. “They would prefer to do it by killing us, of course, but they won’t attack when they could be so easily killed at a distance.”

  “I still don’t like being watched like this,” said Darcy. “It creeps me out. Especially without Charlie to spot them.”

  “Hey!” said Nash, sounding offended. “I’ve been spotting them just fine, thank you.”

  “Sure, but who knows how many you’ve missed.”

  “I haven’t missed any.”

  “So you think,” Darcy muttered.

  “You two squabble like hungry birds,” Chen said.

  “So?” they cried at the same time.

  Chen shrugged, content.