by Ramy Vance
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
She knew I knew, and she stamped her foot on the sidewalk and glanced around. “Swear you’ll text me tonight,” she said. “If you don’t come back to the dorm, text me to let me know you’re all right.”
I set a hand on my chest, the other raised in the air. “I swear.”
A minute later, Aimee was walking back toward our dorm, and I stood alone and frigid on the sidewalk. Right up until she’d gone I had felt annoyed by her presence, and now I regretted sending her away.
I was about to do something very, very stupid. And I was about to do it without anyone else’s help. At this point, I didn’t know who to trust, and beyond that, I didn’t want to get anyone hurt if this ended up not working.
“It’ll work,” I whispered as I stepped into the butcher’s shop. I knew birds—it would work, even if these birds were older than the Bible.
Even monsters from antiquity needed to eat.
I beelined for the counter, where meathooks pierced massive slabs of who-knew-what; I tried not to look too closely. “Hello,” I said to the man behind the counter, who was busily cleaving into a hunk of red flesh. His apron looked like he’d killed a cow right in his lap. “I’d like sixty pounds of pig, please.”
He lifted his face and set his massive cutting knife on the board. He didn’t say anything.
“Uh, do you sell pig?” I said.
“I sell pig.”
“I’ll take sixty pounds.”
“I heard you the first time. We sell it in one-pound increments.”
“Well, I’ll take sixty one-pound increments. In one bag, please.”
The dull eyes opened wide. “How will you even carry all that?”
“I’m an Other,” I said, like that explained it all.
“Oh.” And then, without further question, he started preparing my pig. Thirty minutes later, he’d filled a bag of meat so well he could hardly lift it off the ground. He set it on the counter and rang me up. “That’ll be three hundred and twenty dollars. Do you need help getting it to your car?”
“Nope.” I hauled the bag back onto my shoulder and turned toward the door. He didn’t say anything, and I realized then how little most humans actually knew about Others, how much they accepted as gospel just based on someone’s word.
The truth was, being an encantado didn’t give me any extra strength. Lifting barbells at the gym had done that—just like it would for any human.
And my knowledge about birds? Yes, I had spent five hundred years among them in the rainforest. But that was a subset of birds I’d been exposed to; I knew about species around the world because of my interest and the hours I’d spent reading, like anyone else would. Any human, any Other.
But what I was about to do … Well, that might qualify as unique encantado recklessness. We were, after all, prone to acting on impulse.
Chapter 23
When I was immortal, I lived near a small village of humans by the Amazon River. The village had always been slow to develop; until well into the 20th century, it remained small and insular and singularly superstitious.
In this village, encantado were creatures to be feared. And for good reason: we had a tendency to steal away with their young men. For our part, it wasn’t totally conscious or malicious … we just became infatuated.
Deeply, obsessively so.
It wasn’t like human limerence. Our infatuations ran deeper, consumed us so well that if we hadn’t been immortal, we might have combusted from lack of nutrition or sleep or—almost inevitably—broken hearts. We were like the Juliets of Others, except our romances weren’t cut short by poisoning or suicide after three days.
Well, at least not for our part. It was the Romeos who tended to be problematic. But they just kept appearing, and we just kept falling for them.
In the village, the men developed a ritual. As a test of manhood, they ventured into the rainforest in search of our home. My community was a small, matriarchal cluster—encantado are never created male—a kilometer’s walk away. We hadn’t built traditional structures; by and large, we lived under the rain and the sun, swam in the river every day. When we slept, it was on the grass. When we ate, we caught fish from the river and respectfully consumed every part.
No waste. No destruction.
We were among the original environmentalists.
The only true markers of our home were the clothes we hung on branches, what we would change into when we took on our illusions. It was our nature which kept us near the human world, our eternal desire for love and fantasy.
So we didn’t mind the ritual. In fact, we relished it, each of us taking our turns appearing to the villagers who reached our home.
Of course, some men turned back early. Some didn’t find us at all. But those who did had to approach us like the sirens of Greek lore, to resist what they saw and heard and return to the village as men.
Some found us and never returned to the village. Some of those men became mine—for a time.
But only one of those men ever loved me. Really, truly. His name was Marco.
He came to our home in the forest, and I was the first encantado he met. A young, naked woman, brown curls lapping over my shoulder and down my chest. And though I didn’t cover myself, he didn’t take his eyes off mine. We talked and walked and before he left to return to the village, he kissed me on the cheek. I was charmed, but I didn’t expect him to come back.
It was the encantado who chose to follow her Romeo, if she desired. It was the encantado who stole her man of choice from the village.
But the next day, he returned. And because I wasn’t infatuated with him, I didn’t show myself. He met other encantado, but none were me, and he wanted none of them.
He only wanted the first one. Isabella.
He returned the next day, and the next. And though I never showed myself to him, he returned. Unflagging, unflappable Marco, calling my name through the trees.
Then he brought the seed.
On that morning I woke to birdcall, delighted laughter. The sun pierced the trees in wells of light, and in those pockets, the Amazonian birds flitted back and forth with mouthfuls of seed. Big and small, common and rare, the brilliant and the dull-feathered species together.
I had never seen so many birds in one place, never seen them intermingle that way. And all it had taken was birdseed, spread and offered on the ground.
Among them stood Marco, both hands outstretched like Lady Justice, birdseed in the flats of his palms. And that was when I understood the spark versus the slow-burn, the match versus the kindling.
I walked to Marco, took up a handful of seed, and didn’t leave his side for the next forty years.
He taught me important truths: first impressions aren’t always ironclad. Acting on impulse isn’t mutually exclusive with exercising judgment.
And if you ever want to bring all the birds to the yard, don’t forget the grub.
↔
I stepped into the white tree line of Mont Royal, the city slung low behind me and the bag still heavy over my shoulder. In my periphery, the sun demanded attention, willing me to turn my head left for a single, retina-scalding moment.
Above, the branches rose iced and otherwise bare toward the sky. No birds, but also no creatures. Nothing moved around me except what the wind blew into motion, and though I hadn’t entered this forest before, I knew that wasn’t right.
In an hour, darkness would envelop this dormant forest. In an hour, Empusa would be dead. She wouldn’t get another night to kill—not one more human, not one more death.
I crunched through the leaves, trekking deeper. When I had gotten a half-mile in, I heard the first caw before I spotted it.
I cringed, my ears ringing as I lifted my eyes to the high canopy. A single stymphalian bird, cocking its head to gaze black-eyed back at me.
No—not just one. The longer I looked, the more I saw. Two, three, five, eight. Another caw, and all at once the
whole flock was riled to motion, sweeping up into the air in a vortex. My hair blew up around my face, and I knew if I moved at all, I would lose my nerve. I would run.
Half a minute later, they settled into lethargy. It was daytime, after all—well, at least for a little while.
I dropped the bag to the ground, pulled my keys from my pocket and ripped open the top. At once the scent hit me, and it hit them, too. I tried not to retch as they screeched.
“Hey boys.” I ungloved one hand to the frigid air. I reached into the bag and sank my fingers into the bloody mess. I tried not to retch—we encantados were pescatarians, after all—as I pulled out a handful of pig guts. “Dinner’s come early.”
I raised the meat aloft, gesturing up at the cyclone of birds before I threw the whole of it on the ground. All at once, their flight pattern changed; where before they’d circled with purpose, now they descended with distinct—and terrifying—intent.
Birds of prey were birds of prey. I knew they liked man-meat, but it seemed pig meat worked just as well. Before they got too close, I grabbed up the bag and jogged ten feet, plunging my hand in again and again, littering the ground with meat as I went.
As the first swooped down behind me, it let a screech so awful I ducked my head, my whole body freezing. I would probably have permanent tinnitus after this was all over.
Keep going. Keep going, Isabella. I forced myself to straighten, to continue on as I reached into the bag for more meat. I trailed it along the ground, not looking back.
At any moment one could swoop in and end me with its beak or talons, but I knew from Empusa’s file that they had a directive: don’t kill humans. Of course, I didn’t know how well it applied to Others with a human illusion, or how effective it was in the face of an Other whose hands were covered in pig gore.
So far they hadn’t come for me, and I kept moving deeper into the forest with their terrible noises following behind.
After three minutes, I heard a different call. It sounded like terror.
I spun around, my eyes following the uneven flight of one of the stymphalian birds as it careened over the tree line. It called out, dropped a few feet and swerved to miss a few branches before it crashed headlong into the trunk of a tree.
The tree shuddered as its black body dropped straight down the length of the trunk and landed on the ground in a crash of leaves. And for a moment, silence enveloped the forest.
I didn’t move; I couldn’t. The whole scene felt so quiet, so surreal, that I wondered if I had dreamed all of this in the same way I’d dreamed of El Lobizon so many nights afterward. Every time waking up, every time immobile in my bed with my heart hammering.
A rumble started through the forest, growing in volume and intensity. Not the birds, because after a few seconds, they too chimed in, landing on the branches around their dead flockmate to cast their faces skyward and call toward the sky.
A second later, another stymphalian bird dropped, hit the ground with an inelegant thud. The rumble rose from a baritone to an alto, and then to a soprano howling that went on and on.
I turned, my hand still full of pig. There he stood: the hunter. El Lobizon, his canines gleaming in the new moonlight as he howled into the sky not fifty feet from me.
You see, I had expected Empusa. A woman missing maybe a leg, or an arm. Maybe her face would be covered in blood or her eyes wouldn’t close. She would hop or walk toward me, and I would keep spreading the poisoned meat onto the ground because she could not hurt me.
When this moment came, I’d planned to talk myself out of fear. I’d planned to carry on a conversation with myself that would be so casual I would somehow trick my brain and nervous system into believing what was occurring around me shouldn’t incur mortal terror. I wasn’t at risk of death.
But I hadn’t expected El Lobizon.
All at once, I remembered again what the museum placard had said. Empusa is a shapeshifter who plays on your fears, often taking the form of that which frightens you the most.
El Lobizon the hunter, the wolf, frightened me the most.
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t make the words come.
It’s Empusa, not the hunter.
It’s not El Lobizon, Isa. Focus on what you know about Empusa.
It wasn’t in her directive to hurt a woman. And her power was tied in with the birds, which were dropping one by one. But not fast enough—at least forty birds still remained—because the massive wolf before me lowered its face, those golden eyes shifting to me and lips rising into a snarl that I knew meant my death.
I was killing her. When it came to her directive, all bets were off. Empusa would end me if she could.
El Lobizon began stalking toward me, enormous paws setting divots the size of my entire body into the ground. I couldn’t help but look down at those claws, surveying the left forepaw. Five claws—not four. Which meant Empusa didn’t know my secret.
El Lobizon soon set into a run, and still I was stuck to the spot where I stood.
She can hurt you, even if she’s not the real hunter. She can still kill you.
Forty feet.
Move, Isa.
Twenty feet.
Move, move, move!
Ten feet.
Move or die!
As Empusa reached me, I threw myself out of the way, those enormous jaws snapping in my wake. I hit the ground hard, rolling twice before a tree trunk stopped me.
Yes, she could hurt me. She could kill me.
I raised my head; behind us, another bird fell. Not fast enough. The poison I’d concocted had been potent enough to bring down elephants, but apparently stymphalian birds were tougher than that.
So many still remained. And they were now flying toward me, protecting their mistress. What I’d read in that manila folder in Serena Russo’s office had explained so much about the birds’ behavior.
Somehow, the World Army had fractured Empusa’s power and siphoned it into the entire flock of birds, with whom she bore an invisible connection. That meant she could control them like a hive mother.
It also meant their fate was her fate. If they were poisoned, she was poisoned.
I flicked my gaze back to where Empusa had been, but the forest was empty. I pushed myself halfway up, scanning the darkening forest. I caught a glimpse of a tail disappearing behind a tree trunk, but no wolf appeared on the other side.
Instead, a woman emerged. She ran on her hands and feet, faster even than a dog or a wolf—more like the girl from The Ring on uppers.
And she was coming toward me.
Chapter 24
I was alone. Completely, stupidly alone.
Behind me, avian death. Ahead, monster death. Empusa ran at me with a mop of black, matted hair, the mouth of her pale face open wide as her slender arms pulled her through the forest.
I had nowhere to run. And I was going to die covered in pig blood.
I thought of Aimee, back there in our dorm, probably cozy in her checkered pajamas. Of Justin, in the O3 house, practicing his cute-yet-terrifying World Army salute. Both of them wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place, because they were smart. They had common sense.
I was the oldest of the three of us, and I had none, apparently.
And I thought: This was a mistake. This was a terrible plan.
But as Empusa came toward me, someone pulled me to my feet. No—not someone.
Me.
I had pulled me to my feet. I was reaching into my backpack and yanking out El Lobizon’s claw. I had wrapped its edge in leather, gripped the makeshift hilt in my fist and leaned toward Empusa.
For the first time in five hundred years, I understood that you couldn’t always escape using glamour or guise. That sometimes you had to fight. I was no fighter, but I also wasn’t going to go down easy.
“Monte de merda!” I yelled, gesturing with my free hand.
Empusa didn’t stop. She didn’t slow. Instead, she let a violent hiss as she barreled toward me.
Wel
l, that phrase had worked on catcalling assholes back in Brazil.
A stymphalian bird swooped down behind me, and I felt something yank hard on my hair. Damn bird was trying to stop me from running—not that its plan worked. I pulled hard as I kept moving, the roots of my hair tearing away in a patch of red tendrils. It flew another twenty feet before it rose in an arc and nosedived straight into the leaves with a thwump!
I glanced over my shoulder and ducked just in time to avoid two more birds making a pass. Four feathers thwacked! like bulletfire into the tree trunk beside me.
When I turned back, Empusa was in front of me.
She swerved left before she reached me, and I realized she was predicting the direction I’d jumped last time. I tried to dive right, but an iron vise gripped my ankle and dragged me across the leaves and up into the air.
She held me up like she was inspecting a feral, swinging cat. From this view, she looked even uglier. But GoneGodDamn was she strong.
Around us, the forest burst into stymphalian cries, the birds swooping closer, my hair blowing around my head as their wings beat hard.
Her free hand reached out, the fingers tipped with three-inch long claws. Even as I could scent her weakening, it was a measured, confident reach—an assured kill.
Wait for it, Isa. Wait.
The hand came closer, revealed in the moments when my hair wasn’t blown in front of my eyes. She was going for my heart.
Right for the heart.
When she’d come to within two inches, I raised the claw and swiped it across her wrist. A small cut, but El Lobizon’s claws didn’t need to cut deep. It stopped her hand at once. As her black blood seeped from the cut, it began to smoke.
Her magic began seeping out of her wrist like air from a balloon.
She could shapeshift into El Lobizon, but evidently she didn’t know his power: the nullification of magic. Those claws were an Other’s worst nightmare.
She hissed so loudly I dropped the feather. But she didn’t drop me.
Instead, her wounded hand jerked toward me with impossible speed.