Chapter Six
Dapples of sunlight danced along him as the gentle breeze of early autumn rustled the boughs and threaded through the whispering leaves. Some of those leaves fluttered down as trees let go bit by bit. He lay still, raising his right hand to watch as a ladybug meandered along his index finger. Laughter sang out through the yard as his brother and sister frolicked, running around and in their game of tag.
“Clay!”
The ladybug flew away, and he sat up, following the voice of his little sister with his gaze.
“Come play!”
The red-haired boy in his early teens shook his head and the little girl vocalized her disappointment with a dramatic sigh. “Why not?”
“I’m comfortable,” he said, flopping back down onto the yellowing lawn and looking to the bright blue sky as white clouds plodded along in the October breeze.
The children ran over to him and knelt at opposite sides, looking down with scientific curiosity. The little boy with freckles, hair as red as his older brother, and some missing baby teeth prodded him. “We want to play tag.”
Clay cocked his eyebrow. “You’ll just cry when I catch you.”
The little boy furrowed his brow. “Nuh-uh!”
“But,” the flaxen-haired little girl began, “but you already cried, Bryce!”
“Shut up, Eddie!” Bryce shouted, as though her words had dealt great injury to his character and reputation.
“My name is Eden.” The little girl scowled, looking like she’d cry, though her pride wouldn’t allow it. “Eddie is a boy’s name!”
“Says who?” Clay asked, sitting up and tousling her long hair to elicit a giggle from his sister.
“Daddy said that.”
“Yeah,” said Bryce, nodding as if those words were gospel.
Clay rolled his eyes. “That’s dumb.”
“What is?” Bryce and Eden both asked, almost in unison.
“That what someone says can make us like or not like something anymore.”
The young kids blinked, not fully getting what he meant.
She pondered that for a moment. “Which one do you like?”
“Maybe I like both,” Clay told her, laying back down to watch the clouds.
Bryce and Eddie joined him, lying down on each side of him as they watched the clouds together. Tranquillity befell them as they enjoyed each other’s company for a while. They spent the next while pointing out different shapes that reminded them of animals or food they enjoyed.
Clay narrowed his eyes at what he saw next. “Antlers?”
When no reply came, he turned to see Eddie mangled and dead. The small child crumpled into a bleeding heap of limbs.
He cried out and recoiled, scrambling away when his hands touched something warm and wet, the scent of metal overpowering him.
Bryce. Bled out and mutilated.
He whimpered and clambered to his feet, seeing his brother and sister dead as the illusion of a beautiful fall day gave way to a vicious blizzard that darkened everything. The snow and darkness blinded him and yet the outline of antlers moved in the haze. He heard the sounds of gnashing teeth and rending flesh as it devoured his siblings.
Clay bolted upright, sweating and gasping for air as his dark brown eyes were alight with terror while he scanned his surroundings. The fire would soon go out, and the clouds made it hard to tell when dawn would come. He swallowed and grunted, looking around for the Wendigo that had come down from the trees during his nap, inching closer to them. The light wouldn’t keep it away for much longer.
“You were having a nightmare,” she said, breaking the silence, her gaze on the Wendigo, only a short distance away from them now. “I’ve been trying to wake you.”
He grunted and stood up, stretching his arms and rolling his shoulders to limber up.
The girl in the barista uniform watched him with her hazel eyes, shadows of the dying fire dancing along her weary expression of not knowing if they’d live to see morning. He stared back at the short, blonde young woman with a tomboyish, hipster vibe and said nothing.
Hours ago, he wanted her dead. Here and now? He needed her alive if they had any hope of using magic to get out of this mess. It was her magic that brought them out all this way. It wasn’t just that, though. She was weak, and different from the usual witches he went after who were drunk on power and wanted to hurt people.
Her heart held no malice.
“The fire’s almost out,” she said.
They were out of time.
“I know,” said Clay, gruff, as he turned his back to her and pulled down the straps of his overalls. He removed the white t-shirt and tossed it aside before he pulled the overall straps back over his shoulders. “Stay close to it.”
“Are you going to fight it?”
He swallowed hard, refusing to look at her. “Yeah.”
“But,” she trailed off. “Will it kill you? What’s your plan?”
Clay said nothing and stepped out of the light and into the unyielding shadows of the Wendigo’s territory.
“Clay!”
It waited for him
The creature unleashed a vicious screech into the dead of night that sent full-body chills coursing through him, immobilizing him. The burly brute snapped out of it and unleashed a wild cry of his own into the night, his thick trap muscles engaging as veins rose beneath his alabaster skin. Fury, with a little steam and spittle, erupted forth, and he charged.
The Wendigo lunged with its claws outstretched as it moved to slash him. Clay let out a fierce growl. He stepped in to avoid the strike and shifted his weight into a violent haymaker with his left fist. In a deafening crack, as the pain seeped into his knuckles, the Wendigo’s deer skull absorbed the blow and the creature went flying–through the base of a pine tree that shattered into kindling upon impact. The tree groaned as it toppled over into a cacophony of snapping branches.
Hit it hard. That was his plan.
The obsidian-skinned, antlered revenant with its wild mane of black hair scrabbled to its feet from beneath the tree, laughing with cruel mockery. What was once human had now become this vile, undead beast of insatiable hunger.
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Clay shook the cold from his hand while it ached with the chill of the Wendigo’s touch. None of that mattered now. He could die running, or he could die fighting. When given the choice, he’d always choose to fight. In an act of defiance, as he cocked his head to the side and watched it stalk toward him, he spit at the ground. “Well come on, then.”
The Wendigo dashed forward, almost too fast for him to process, and he caught it by the antlers, his hands bleeding from how hard he gripped. They locked in place as Clay strained, pushing with all he had as the muscles in his arms bulged with the exertion. Claws raked at his stomach and sliced through the fabric of his overalls with surgical precision. A chill flared from where they made their shallow cuts. He had pushed back hard enough to not afford the Wendigo the reach it needed to kill him right there. Blood spilled from the incisions, soaking his overalls. The pain fed his strength, and he howled with barbaric fury, turning the creature’s antlers and flipping it down onto its back.
Clay was on top of it, straddling and pinning it, raining down violent blow after violent blow. His fists fell faster and faster as the heat rose from within–unfettered rage in his savage eyes as the radiating heat made the air shimmer. The creature did not show pain, though the onslaught was debilitating and there was nothing it could do but receive the punishment he doled out. He relented, but only long enough to grab the Wendigo to haul him off of the ground and toss him skyward.
The Wendigo howled as it soared up past the treetops and Clay crouched down, his thick and muscled thighs like springs about to uncoil. He jumped up, rising higher and higher in his vicious pursuit, and grabbed the monster by the ankles to pull it close and position it to land head first when they hit the ground again.
As they fell together, Clay latched on and wrapped his legs around the arms and torso to restrict the upper body and squeezed his thick, powerful arms around the waist. The Wendigo thrashed in vain, and they hit the ground together in a thundering crash, hard enough to leave a small crater where they landed, as dirt and pine needles kicked up in all directions. The deer skull it wore shattered while the revenant’s neck snapped as it absorbed the impact of their collision with the ground. Clay pulled himself up, pain searing through his muscles, while beads of sweat dripped from his brow. He panted while growling with raw fury to cope with the pain as it surged through him.
It thrashed with involuntary spasms, paralyzed and desperate, like a wounded animal. He hauled the Wendigo’s legs up over his shoulders and then smashed his boot down onto its exposed, desiccated face with all the force he could muster, a bestial roar to signal his act of cruel dominance. It screeched in its desperation to survive and he stomped down, again, and again, and again until the skull finally gave with a brutal squelch and he crushed it like a grape. Putrid, tar-black sludge spreading underfoot.
Dawn broke over the mountaintops.
The Wendigo convulsed in its last moments, crumbling into ash and dust. Clay staggered back, regaining his senses, grateful for the dawn, and that the fight ended before his bloodlust and battle rage had taken him. The girl would not have survived.
He shook like a leaf and his knees buckled beneath his own weight. Though the rage and murderous impulse ebbed away, so too did all of his strength.
Unable to speak, or check on the girl, he collapsed flat onto his back and looked up at the clouds that were breaking to reveal the stars in the predawn sky, twinkling amidst the bands of dark violet and blue with ribbons of deep orange cutting in.
Darkness gathered at his periphery and swallowed him as he passed out.
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Clay let out a surprised holler as his entire world upended and he was laid out flat on the cold, hardened mud. He grunted on impact, his momentum used against him, the wind knocked out.
The sharp, calculating eyes of Duncan bore into him, disapproving and unmoved, as he stepped back and let Clay pull himself up from the ground.
“You hesitated,” Duncan said evenly, pulling his fists up to defend as he planted his feet into a guarded stance, waiting. “Again.”
“Uncle Jake said I could kill you if I’m not careful.”
Uncle Jake had forbidden sparring he didn’t supervise. They did anyway, at Duncan’s insistence.
“And I told you not to insult me by holding back,” Duncan snarled, cold fury sparkling in his sapphire gaze.
A dumbfounded expression of shock fell on Clay as his jaw dropped, but he didn’t have time to think when Duncan had already shifted his stance to an aggressive form he’d never seen before. Swift and precise blows landed, knocking him backward. No one had ever hit him so hard before.
“Duncan,” Clay begged. “Duncan, stop.”
Duncan would not relent in his flurry of vicious strikes that overwhelmed Clay. He was terrified to hit back, he couldn’t control his strength anymore. If he hit back, he’d kill him.
The unrelenting barrage continued. It hurt. Oh, god. It hurt.
“I said stop!” Clay roared, swinging a powerful right hook that Duncan caught in the palm of his hand. The air shimmered around them as Clay swung a powerful right hook, but Duncan caught it in the palm of his hand, causing the sound of the impact to ring out through the chilly spring air like a discharged rifle.
Clay stood, trembling, his eyes locked on Duncan’s, who flashed a wild grin. “See? You won’t break me.”
Their breaths rose as steam as they stood motionless, their faces inches from one another.
“You’re like me?”
“Since the day we met, something changed,” Duncan confessed. “Slow at first, but my strength is getting harder to control.”
“I–” Clay trailed off, at a loss for words. As he thought back, meeting Duncan was around the time his body changed as well.
“We’ll make each other stronger, Clay. Nothing can stand against us, not even the qliphoth.”
Without thinking, Clay leaned in and their lips brushed against one another. A passionate kiss erupted as if two souls distanced by the vastness of time had reunited after centuries apart.
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Clay woke with a groan and sat up, looking around at the clearing bathed in twilight as his eyes readjusted. He inspected the wounds from the fight with the Wendigo that had already healed during his forced rest. Only dried blood remained. He rose from the ground and stood, shaking from hunger, and feeling like he was fresh off one hell of a bender.
He half expected to find the kid gone, yet what he found surprised him. The girl had cleaned up and salvaged the campsite.
“Hey,” he said, a scratchiness in his throat as he shuffled toward the fireplace and sat near her. “You’re still here.”
“Yeah,” she said, handing him a small pail of raspberries that he began devouring by the handful. “I tried to move you, but you’re heavy, so.”
Clay chuckled between his ravenous bites and swallowed. “Of course, you couldn’t move me. I’m probably over two-eighty.”
Her eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Yup.”
The girl shook her head. “Damn. And you move around like you weigh nothing. I can’t believe what I saw you do with that Wendigo.”
“Yeah, neither can I.” He tilted his neck side to side, working out the stiffness.
“Wait,” the girl spluttered, “you didn’t know if you’d win?”
Clay shook his head, having shovelled the last handful of berries in his mouth. “Nope. Had no idea how that would have gone. My first time fighting something alone. Duncan’s usually with me.”
She sat back, blanching; her gaze far away at the realization death was closer to both than she had realized. “Oh, my god.”
“Hey,” Clay interrupted, looking around. “Where did the corpses go?”
“I buried them,” she said, solemn as she gestured to the fresh graves at the edge of the clearing.
“Huh,” he said in admiration. “That was nice of you.”
“They asked me to do it.”
Clay jolted and stared at her for a moment, incredulous. “Wait, what? You can talk to spirits?”
“Yeah. All the time. Most are pretty nice. They kept me company and showed me where to find the berries,” she explained, pointing out in a general direction to show him where she had foraged. “They wanted me to thank you for killing the Wendigo before they crossed over.”
“Crossed over?” Clay repeated in genuine awe, leaning forward. “Holy shit! They never talk to me. Usually, I have to beat them with iron until they stop trying to kill me, and then repeat some shit from the Bardo Thodol until they cross over. You just ask them nicely?”
“The Tibetan Book of the Dead?” The barista blinked. “Fascinating.”
“So, did they tell you where we are, or?”
She hesitated. “I forgot to ask.”
“God damn it!” He flopped backwards and groaned with exasperation. “What the shit, kid? How do you forget something that important?”
“What about your phone?”
Clay sighed and sat up. “No. The fucker fried when I went through your magic door you can’t control.”
Her eyebrow cocked, and she matched his energy with a little of her own feistiness. “To get away from you when you were trying to kill me. That door?”
There was that little detail. She was a blossoming witch, and he was a hunter. Believing she was a threat, and it was only a matter of time before she’d use her powers to harm others, he hunted her down and tried to kill her.
He scratched his head and gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s right. You told me I was too useless to be a threat. So friends on, I guess?”
Clay flushed with embarrassment. He definitely had been rash about this. If he’d have listened to Duncan, then they wouldn't be in their current predicament. On the other hand, if they didn't have their little misadventure, he probably would still want to kill her. As strange as this had all been, Clay didn't mind talking with the girl even if he now felt too ashamed to admit he forgot to ask for her name. Whether it was pride or poor social skills, neither seemed willing to address that little elephant in the room.
“I only kill bad witches, and you’re not. I’m sorry,” he mumbled, barely audible.
“Sorry,” she began, tilting her head with curiosity as she glared, “I didn’t quite catch that.”
She heard him.
“I said I’m sorry for being a dick and trying to kill you. You're not a bad person,” he grumbled louder, almost sulking. “Happy? Fuck.”
“I guess that will do, especially from a stubborn ass like you.” The girl chuckled and stood up, bidding him to follow. “Now, there’s something else they showed me before they left. I’ve got fishing lines set up at the river. Let’s hope we have dinner tonight.”
Clay perked up at that, his stomach rumbling.
Food first. Plan later.