Chapter Nineteen
Phoenix barely managed to hold on to Icarus’s leash. The werewolf panted as he struggled to move faster. But Phoenix had warned everyone not to let go of the leashes unless faced with the wendigo itself, and apparently, he had listened to his own advice.
“It’s somewhere out here.” He sounded excited. “We’re going to find it tonight.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best plan anyway,” I said. “Don’t you remember what happened last time?”
He patted the sword hanging from his hip in a sheath. “I’m prepared this time. Besides, if we don’t kill it, someone else will. The woods are full of searchers.”
“How sure are you that we’re in the right place?”
He nodded at Icarus, who whimpered. “Very. All of the attacks circled this area. It stands to reason that the creature is nearby. And if not, we’ll keep looking until we find it.”
“I wonder if the demon dies when the wendigo does,” I said. “I don’t think any of the books said.”
“Maybe it returns to the place it originally came from.”
“The thought of demons roaming around, persuading people to turn cannibalistic, doesn’t make me feel safe.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have thought this would worry you so much.”
“You almost died already.
You
. And the werewolves were almost exterminated because of it. What next?”
“It’s just a little bad luck.”
“It’s some run for a little bad luck,” I retorted.
“Besides,” he continued, “the wendigo didn’t cause much real damage to me. The blood loss was the problem, and that was dealt with quickly.”
I rolled my eyes at his idea of real damage. I had been convinced he was going to die on the ground next to me as I watched. I moved closer to Phoenix. Icarus whirled his head around and snarled until I stepped back.
“Icarus, enough,” Phoenix said sharply. “It’s done. No more reminders.”
“I’m sorry, Icarus,” I said. “I can’t change the way I was born.”
Icarus stepped toward me and nosed my palm as if in apology. I kissed the top of his head and laughed when he yelped in alarm. When I looked up, Phoenix was gazing at us both as if he had just seen everything.
Tension lifted, the werewolf strained to move on, and I gripped my dagger to make me feel better. If it did a special kind of damage to vampires and angels, then perhaps it worked well on demons, too. I walked parallel to the others, listening and watching with my other senses.
The search parties were spread out at a good distance, but not so far that a wendigo might get between them and escape. Shay was excellent at the logistics of arranging the teams, and we had to be careful not to go too far ahead, or we would mess up the entire system. In the distance, I heard voices joking and laughing. Others spoke rapidly in worried tones. Phoenix and I maintained an uncomfortable silence.
Every time I heard a twig crack or an extra strong breeze made the tree branches wave noisily, I jumped a little. A part of me was desperate to chase down our prey. Another part said that if the wendigo could take Phoenix down and a werewolf hadn’t managed to rip its head off in three seconds, then I didn’t have much of a chance, either.
“Are you worried?” Phoenix enquired in a polite tone a few minutes later.
“No. Yes. Maybe a little. If we don’t get this thing tonight, somebody else might die tomorrow. And whoever is going around killing shifters is still out there. Esther’s a shifter. What if she’s next on the hit list?”
“I brought the witch in to stop this worrying,” he chided.
“Yeah, well, Bratty the Teenage Witch didn’t do much to ease my nerves. And I’m still going to push for that halfway-house idea, by the way. After all this help I’m giving the Senate instead of working and earning an income like a normal person, it’s the least they can do.”
“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t think—”
“It’s fine. The shifters destroyed everything worth anything already. I have to start over. Again. I’m going to have the worst reputation ever as a…” I stopped walking and turned in a slow circle. “Did you hear that?” I whispered.
Icarus began to growl, and I knew something was near. I hadn’t heard footsteps, though. A shiver ran through me as I reached out with my other senses. The energy close by was a mass of dark, bubbling evil. Whatever had been human about the wendigo was long gone.
“This way,” I whispered, beckoning Phoenix after me and wondering why Icarus hadn’t tried to attack yet. “Maybe let go of the leash.”
But Phoenix held on. I raised a hand to stop him and pointed upwards, into the trees. The wendigo was hiding and watching—I wasn’t sure from where exactly. Icarus couldn’t climb trees, as far as I could tell. That made us sitting ducks.
“Back,” I said, but Phoenix was already moving, pulling a reluctant Icarus along with him.
“Wait,” Phoenix whispered, and he quietly let go of the leash.
In a quick burst of noise and movement, Icarus moved at the exact moment the wendigo leapt from the trees and bounded right for me.
What the hell is its problem with me?
I aimed my torch’s beam right in the wendigo’s eye then skipped out of the way and used my dagger to stab at the creature’s back. It recovered quickly then dropped to all fours and ran around me, straight into Phoenix, who whirled his sword in front of him. His weapon sang through the air, but the wendigo barely reacted before dodging quickly out of the way. Icarus howled, and a couple of distant werewolves joined in.
He grappled with the wendigo as Phoenix and I sought out a clean strike at the wendigo’s spine. In the dark, even with the aid of a clear night and torches, visibility was poor. The creature was almost camouflaged as it fought back against Icarus.
Finally, it found enough space to run, and once it started, it was out of our sight within seconds. We ran, Icarus leading the way. I struggled to keep track of the creature’s energy with my other senses. I picked up some werewolves zoning in on us, but the wendigo was already long gone. Icarus disappeared into the trees without us. The hunt was on.
After a few minutes of running, Phoenix bade me to stop. “There’s no point exhausting ourselves. We’ll never catch it. It’s like the wind.”
“The werewolves won’t be able to kill it.”
“No, but they hunt together as a pack, Ava.”
“And?”
“So they’re well versed in rounding up their prey. They’ll find a way to drive it back toward us. There are enough werewolves out here tonight that they’ll be safe. The wendigo will keep running, and the werewolves will keep cutting it off until it has no choice but to run back into our path.”
Or the path of one of the other teams,
I couldn’t help thinking.
“What now?”
“We keep looking,” he said. “We can follow the werewolves’ tracks and see if we can figure out what direction they’re heading in. I’ll call Shay and let him know what’s happening. He’s back at base camp, probably worrying.”
As he made the call, I wandered around, trying to pick up a scent. A couple of drops of blood were scattered here and there, but it was hard to tell who they belonged to. Something had been nicked, but it could easily have been one of the werewolves. As the scents closed in on me, I had trouble identifying any of them.
“Do you see anything?” Phoenix asked abruptly, making me jump again.
“Not really. Shay have any news?”
“Not yet. He wants us to continue on our paths. If the wendigo doesn’t come back this way, it’ll run into another group eventually.”
“It’s scarily fast, though.”
“I hope it’s the same one,” Phoenix said.
“I think it is. It had a mark on its leg in the same place Icarus bit off a chunk. Didn’t slow it down any, but still.”
For the next hour, we moved on, and the more time that went on, the less confident I felt. I was about to ask Phoenix if he thought the wendigo had gotten away when I heard a shout nearby. I recognised the voice and broke into a run.
“Ava, wait!” Phoenix cried, but he followed me.
I thundered into the undergrowth, my heart threatening to burst with worry and fear. I forgot all about being careful or afraid for myself. I lost time and awareness—my only focus was making it to my friends before the wendigo hurt them.
The smell of blood filled my nostrils, and a werewolf howled close by.
I burst through the trees, almost tumbling over a root, and into a clearing. Peter was standing over an injured Val with a sword that looked small in front of the wendigo. Its bloody mouth was salivating, and its golden eyes glowed as it circled its prey. I flew over to Peter, getting in front of him to tackle the wendigo myself. He pulled me back and stabbed with the sword as the creature pawed at us, almost playfully. It was playing with its food, and that never failed to piss me off.
I bent down, grabbed a clod of earth, ran across the clearing, and flung it at the wendigo. Distracted by the movement, it came after me. I braced myself for battle, but a glass kylie spun right in front of me, nipping the creature’s nose. It yelped and spun back, its own blood dripping. Then it froze, and just as Peter moved close enough to stab it through the base of the spine, it ran again. Seconds later, a couple of werewolves ran into the clearing, one of them barrelling right into me and sending me to my knees. Without stopping, they loped after the wendigo. Peter helped me to my feet. Phoenix was already checking over Val with a grim look on his face.
“She tried to antagonise it to give me a clear shot,” Peter explained. “But it jumped right over her and turned back long enough to take a bite out of her shoulder.”
“I’ll be fine.” Val grimaced. “It wasn’t deep, but I barely kept it off us until I couldn’t hold my weapon any longer.”
“Not deep, just plenty painful,” I said. “You can’t stay out here.”
“Of course she can’t,” Peter said.
“We don’t have time to wait with them,” Phoenix said.
Peter glared at him. “What do you want me to do, Ava?”
“Go back. Protect Val and let Shay know that she’s hurt. You have your medical pack, right?”
When he nodded, I let out a sigh of relief. “Clean the wound and try to stop the bleeding. If you think the wendigo is coming, shout. Somebody will hear you. There are at least three groups near enough to hear with the whole supernatural hearing going around. You’ll always be close to help.”
“We have to hurry,” Phoenix said.
I squeezed Val’s hand then Peter’s. “Thanks,” I whispered. Then I broke into a run after Phoenix.
“There’s blood all over the path,” I called out as he ran ahead. “I think it’s the wendigo’s.”
“Good,” he said. “It might slow the thing down.”
As we ran, the tracks we were following told me the werewolves had split up again. But I was pretty sure we were gaining on the creature. It had gained a deep cut to an already-injured leg. We had to have slowed it down enough to catch it, or at least for a werewolf to delay it until backup arrived. I had never been sure about the plan, but it was working in its own slightly messy way.
I thought I couldn’t run anymore when we finally found the wendigo again. It was fighting with Icarus, and both were bleeding badly. The other werewolves were nowhere to be seen, and I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. They had to be nearby. They wouldn’t let Icarus fight the wendigo by himself.
So where the hell are they?
Phoenix and I circled the fighting creatures, both of us panting. For the millionth time, I mentally thanked whoever had decided to keep some werewolves alive all of those years ago.