Making Monsters

Making Monsters

by Nikki McCormack

Published by:

Nikki McCormack

Copyright © 2015

https://nikkimccormack.com/

Written by Nikki McCormack

Cover Design by Victoria Davies

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

Making Monsters

“Jump!”

“No!” Shai’s voice cracked mid-scream. Raw as her throat was from crying and screaming, she was surprised it worked at all.

The three boys stood on the opposite side of the narrow canyon, yelling at her to jump, their fear turning to anger and impatience.

Didn’t they understand? No matter what danger raced up behind her, when she looked down that chasm, its bottom lost in lethal blackness, her limbs turned to lead. They had made it across with no more than a few scrapes and bruises from the rough landing. It would be easier for her to turn and hand herself over to whatever fate Lord Ithar devised for her than take even one step closer to the edge.

“No.” Her voice was weak now, her cheeks burning with shame. Hot tears streamed down them.

Kurth, his dark hair turned pale with dust, narrowed his eyes at her, the need for haste pushing him to rage. “Die here, then. Stupid wench!”

They ran away from the chasm. Away from her. She sank to her knees. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t.”

Shai closed her eyes. A fist of pain clenched down on her throat and aching desolation spread through her chest. They couldn’t abandon her. Opening her eyes again, she saw tear-blurred figures sprinting away.

“No!” She shrieked a last desperate plea.

Her brother stumbled and fell. He looked back and she could see tears running down his cheeks too before Kurth grabbed his arm, dragging him to his feet. They continued running. None of them turned again.

Drumming hooves shook the ground and the baying of hounds grew louder. They would catch her, the men on their horses and, even though she didn’t have the object they wanted, she would suffer Lord Ithar’s wrath. They would let their hounds tear her apart or perhaps they had some grander punishment in mind.

“Wait.” It was little more than a plaintive whisper now.

She could hear the panting of the hounds. Forcing herself up on shaking legs, she turned to face the death rushing at her. To her petrifying fear of heights, this was the better option, though she knew the jump would have been kinder.

There were seven riders. Lord Ithar would never think to need more than that to round up four adolescent thieves, but he would only get one. The riders slowed their mounts. The hounds, however, didn’t slow. Brisk wind whipped her long hair around her face. Through her hair and the tears, her gaze met that of the lead dog.

“To heel,” a rider called, his voice booming across the space between them.

Most of the dogs turned, their hungry eyes showing disappointment as they rounded back to their master, but the lead dog charged on. Her body quaked with a sob of despair. She opened her arms to meet his lunge. The dog barreled into her. Too hard. The power of the dogs attack sent them both flying back toward the chasm. The fate she most hoped to avoid would claim her anyway. Despair and fear slammed to the pit of her stomach. She wrapped her arms around the snarling beast reaching for her throat. Its teeth found purchase there mere seconds before her head struck the opposite edge of the canyon and they tumbled into blackness.

“It would solve everything!” Kurth waved his arms about, impressive in his fervor.

“But Kurth…” Shai cut off when his cold gaze turned on her.

“Quiet! You’re just a girl.”

Inside she fumed, but she bowed her head and held her tongue. There were two other boys in the group. They didn’t look comfortable with the plan either. She would hope for their intervention.

Does the fire inside matter if it never comes out?
Perhaps he was right. She was
just
a girl.

Weak candlelight in the old barn flickered and she held her breath, her heart pounding. Every draft of air could be someone cracking the door, catching them in their hideaway. Her brother, Mar, stood up from the hay bale where he’d been sitting. His weight shifted from one foot to the other and his gaze bored into the ground near Kurth’s feet, his overgrown hair spilling into his face. She knew he didn't like contesting the older boy, but he found courage to do so on occasion. She yearned to be more like him.

“It’s one thing stealing from the marketplace and even raiding shops has been successful thanks to some skilled decoys.” He cast an appreciative look her way. She sat a little straighter, flushed with silly pride. “But this...” Mar shook his head. “Lord Ithar’s manor is remote and well-guarded. We wouldn’t be running from a shopkeeper’s fat son, but from trained warriors and their hounds. It’s too dangerous.”

“Too scary for you?” Kurth sneered, his dark eyes narrowing.

After a moment of awkward silence, his demeanor changed. His stance relaxed and his expression softened to deceptive patience. The speed with which he could change temper frightened her. He was unpredictable.

“I understand your hesitation. Trust me. The danger worries me too. Then I look at the life we’re leading and I think how nice it’d be to have decent food all the time, instead of just when we manage to steal it. How great would it be to sleep on a soft bed every night rather than curling up with the trash in alleys?” She wanted to agree with him and could see the same on the faces of the others. The empty cavern of her stomach growled. They all wanted those things. “You know what I mean. All we have to do is pull off this one job and we can live like kings.”

“What’ll we do with it once we have it,” Jervis inquired, his voice squeaking with nerves.

Kurth grinned. Flickering candlelight twisted the expression into a creepy leer. “That’s more like it. Once we have it.” He paused, scratched his chin as if pondering the thought, then nodded. “We’ll sell it, of course. Not much use to us in the form of a golden mask, is it?”

Jervis chuckled, his smile tentative.

Mar wasn’t ready to go along yet. “Who will buy it from us? Anyone who’d buy that kind of thing would more likely kill us and take it or turn us in for a reward.”

Kurth’s expression darkened for an instant then his smile flashed back. “I have a buyer lined up. Don’t worry about that part.”

Mar looked skeptical. “Really?”

“Of course, really. Let’s get planning.” Kurth clasped his hands together as though greeting himself. His eyes turned greedy.

Shai looked at Jervis and Mar, but they avoided her eyes. They looked nervous still, but they would follow Kurth as they always had, this time to take on Lord Ithar. They hunched together to work out their plan and she joined them.

Mottled darkness spun around Shai. Her stomach turned in response. There was far too much pain for her to be dead, but she couldn’t have survived the fall. When her effort to move failed, she realized that she must not have a body any longer. Perhaps she had the residual memories of one, like they said happened when someone lost a limb only on a larger scale. If that were so, then maybe she could drift away from this agonized casing of remembered flesh. Yes, that would work. She could feel herself starting to float free.

“Now, please.” The woman’s voice snapped Shai back into her body like a released bowstring. “I’ve worked far too hard to keep you here. It would be ungrateful of you to drift off like that.”

Her eyes were adjusting. Dark shapes lit by a dim light flickering somewhere behind her were emerging, a cluttered table, a wooden chair. She struggled to look around, but her body still wouldn’t respond.

I am at this person’s mercy
. Uncooperative flesh trembled at the thought and a dog-like whimper emitted from her throat.

“Don’t fret.” The woman stepped into view and Shai fell silent, staring.

The woman’s hair hung in luxuriant, glossy auburn waves that shimmered in the light and emerald eyes shone bright above her full, painted lips. Her dress was green velvet decorated with fine gold ribbons that matched the ones in her hair. The perfect image of a noble woman. Quite out of place in the dank, dirty cavern.

The woman knelt beside Shai and stroked her head. The sensation was pleasant, like the comforting touch of a mother’s hand.

“The partial paralysis will wear off. It’s a side effect of the healing draught. You got very lucky. The girl’s body broke your fall.”

The girl’s body! What did that mean? What girl?

Another whimper.

The woman’s brows pinched together and she touched her fingers to her lips. “Oh, dear. I suppose that wasn’t the best way to put it, being as that was your body. Please, don’t be alarmed. I will find you a better body, but it might take some time. I had to put you somewhere in the interim and the dog was the best option.” A pleased smile brightened her face. “It’s truly remarkable that you’re even alive. I’ve never moved a human consciousness before.”

Bile rose in Shai’s throat and she swallowed hard. She couldn’t be in a dog’s body. That was impossible. She wouldn’t believe it, even if her attempted objection did come out as a growl.

The woman huffed and rose, walking out of view. “That’s gratitude for you. It isn’t as if I expected the two of you to drop in. I come down here to practice the craft. If I did it anywhere else, I’d be caught and burned as a witch.”

Shai moved her head and was both relieved and dismayed when it responded. For the first time, she managed to focus on the long dark snout sticking out before her eyes.

“I don’t see why only men should be allowed to practice anyhow. It seems foolish.” The woman stepped back into view, looking down at Shai with objective curiosity. “I see you can move some now. There’s still enough dog left in there that moving should come naturally when you’ve recovered more.”

The effects of the draught were wearing off faster now. Shai rolled up to rest on her chest and forelegs and looked around. The chamber wasn’t large, though sizeable enough to contain a few long tables and a number of cages that weren’t close enough to the lantern for her to make out what was in them. More books than Shai could imagine ever having in her possession at one time littered the tables amidst vials, mortars, cooking pots, and other peculiar paraphernalia. This woman was wealthy in more than her attire.

The smells were most distressing. Some were enticing and rich, stirring new senses and drawing a pool of moisture into her mouth. Others were thick and rank, like sweaty unwashed bodies or a dead animal left too long in the sun.

Shai shook her head to rid herself of that second group of smells and long ears batted against the sides of her face. A wave of disorientation made her head spin and she sank into blackness again.

Kurth’s calloused hand touched her cheek. “Don’t be afraid, Little Bird. After we get the mask, we’ll never have to steal again. We’ll be rich beyond our dreams. We can have a home together wherever we want.”

Shai managed a shaky smile, knowing that anything more, or less, might incite his anger. It frightened her that she almost wanted them to fail just to prove him wrong, despite what that would mean for the rest of them.

“How will we get into the manor, and if we do, how will we get out again? I hear Lord Ithar runs that place like a fortress under siege.”

“My little flighty one.” She stiffened when he kissed her forehead. “We are thieves. We will sneak in, steal our fortune, and sneak out again.”

Such a condescending smile he had given her. Shai growled.

Though she still felt shaky, she managed to pull her paws up under her. There was something carnal in this body. An instinctive power, strong and refreshing. She stood a moment, relishing the unfamiliar sensation.

“Wonderful.” The woman clapped her hands in delight. “What determination you must have to be up in under an hour. Come, I’ll sneak you into my chambers. I don’t think you’d be,” her gaze swept the dark cages, “very comfortable out here.”

Shai considered inspecting the mysterious cages, but the stench grew stronger the closer she got to them. Her sensitive nose kept her back. She turned and padded after the woman down a long, upward sloping passage and something, perhaps the direction of travel or the subtle scents, told her they were nearing the very manor she had fled earlier that day with her companions.

Was it still that day?

Some companions they had proven to be. She snarled and the woman started, almost dropping the lantern she carried. She cast a nervous glance over one shoulder.

“Really, you mustn’t do that.” With a forced laugh, she continued on, but cast back frequent glances for the remainder of the walk.

It surprised Shai to see how far this woman traveled to find a secret place. The canyon couldn’t be all that far from the manor or they wouldn’t have been able to run the distance. Still, it was a long walk underground and, by that fact, a testament to how much this woman wanted to practice the craft. Such was the fate of a woman in a society run by men.

It was a small comfort to find that a dog’s sigh sounded much like that of a human.

The passage ended at a wall. The woman moved a flap covering a peephole and peered through. After several seconds, she turned her head, placing her ear to the hole, then turned again and peered through once more. Finally, she slid aside a hidden panel. After wiping her shoes clean with a cloth tucked in an alcove by the door, she stepped into an elegant chamber resplendent with gilded furniture and tapestries depicting fanciful scenes of unicorns and dragons. Grimacing, she knelt to wipe Shai’s paws with the cloth and tossed it back into the recess before shutting the wall behind them.

A bed of ornate worked wood with a canopy of green velvet was the centerpiece of the room. It looked so inviting that Shai trotted up and placed her front paws on it to feel the softness.

“Off!”

Shai’s ears lay back in irritation and she dropped to the floor.

“Allowing a dog to sleep on my carpet is generous enough. Be grateful for that.”

Shai resisted the urge to grab one of the woman’s slender legs with her new, powerful jaws and bite as hard as she could. Grateful indeed! She was supposed to be happy that she was now a dog allowed to sleep on the floor! Then again, this floor was more comfortable than most of the beds she had slept on in her life. The perfume in the room, however, was another story entirely. Her sensitive nose detested it and she sneezed several times before she was able to come to terms with it.

While Shai explored her new environment, the woman changed clothes and tidied her perfect hair. Then she turned to Shai who had settled into a large round of fur below the foot of the bed.

“I must attend dinner. I will try to bring you some scraps. If anyone comes to the room, hide beneath the bed.” She waited for Shai to give her best approximation of a nod then left the room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Shai tried to puzzle out her circumstances for a short time, but she couldn't sit idle. Every thought drowned beneath the overriding need to escape. She would worry about where she was going later.

After an awkward struggle to apply the right amount of pressure to the doors levered handle, she snuck into a hallway. Fancy wood baseboards bordered her path as she sniffed along for smells that might lead to freedom. She came to a door around the edges of which she could smell the fresh air of the outdoors, but this one had a latch that she couldn’t manipulate with her paws. Defeated, she let out a low, despairing whine.

“Hello?”

The deep voice outside the door startled her, and she bunched to run, but the voice was familiar to whatever remained of the dog within the flesh they shared. With few options left to her, she scratched at the base of the door and whined again, forcing herself to wait while her heart pounded in terror.

“Sirak?”

The latch moved. The door swung open. A tall man stood silhouetted by bright afternoon sunlight, a tankard in one hand. His lean face twisted in a clumsy expression of inebriated shock. He was the lead rider of the guards who had pursued them that morning. Panic froze her where she stood.

“Sirak. I saw you fall into the canyon. How can you be here, and in the manor no less?”

Remembering her new body, she relaxed and wagged her tail. She could smell the mead on the dog’s master and knew this was far from his first tankard.

Shai stepped clear of the doorway and he shut it behind her. The dog’s affection for its master surged up through her desire to escape. When he staggered and flopped down on a wooden bench, she trotted over to sit by his leg, the dogs devotion taking control. The man rested his free hand on her head and stroked it, gazing down at her with a drunken grin as Shai fought to regain control.

“I must confess, Sirak, never before have I had a hound so loyal it returned from the grave.” His smile was bit crooked and his eyes glazed. “Tomorrow at dawn we ride out to hunt those foul thieves and you will again lead my pack. It’ll be good to have you there.”

They were going after the others tomorrow. Her brother was in danger. Love for Mar overpowered the dog’s affections. As the man tipped his head back and drank from his tankard, she lunged up and closed her teeth around his exposed throat, crushing his windpipe. The dog’s body was far stronger than her human one had been. The man died fast.

She let go and backed away, trembling with revulsion while she cleaned away the blood around her mouth the only way she could, with her tongue. A sense of loss hung over the dog when she left the dead man and ran in the direction her companions had gone. Four legs stretched long, consuming the ground with intoxicating speed. Her tongue lolled from her mouth and she delighted in the feel of solid muscles and robust lungs working efficiently.

After a few hours, the sun began to set. She grew tired and hungry. With the instinctive silence of a born hunter, she padded through trees and dry brush. The memory of blood in her mouth was repulsive and yet it made her salivate. The dog took over again. A grouse darted from the brush and she lunged, snapping her jaws closed on the bird’s body. Pinning the grouse to the ground with her front paws, she tore at the creature, ripping strips of flesh from its carcass. Then, uncommonly sated, she dozed off to the memory of a rare filling meal she and her companions had stolen.