Page 40 of The Arcane God

He followed the sounds of their voices to a small clearing. The canopy above was open, allowing the full moon’s light to shine down from the sky above, illuminating the snow that blanketed the forest floor and the people standing in it in an almost ethereal way.

And what a lot of people there were. Standing in a circle were almost two dozen stryx. Men, women, children—far more than he’d assumed would be here. It looked like almost the entire community was here, just standing around, in the dead of night…

Turner paused as an eerie feeling descended over him. What the fuck was going on?

He tucked himself behind a tree, hoping he’d blend into the night and no one would notice him as he watched, because something told him he should not disturb them.

Suddenly, the conversations he’d heard died down, and the stryx began watching in silence as the man they’d met before—Max—held a large stone bowl up to the sky, raising it towards the moon in what looked like a ritualistic gesture.

Was this a ceremony of some kind?

Max turned and walked to the edge of the clearing, where something was hanging from a tree—it was large and covered in fur, and most certainly dead.

An elk carcass.

Turner watched as Max removed a flint knife with a bone handle from his belt and slowly sliced the throat of the elk. Fresh, hot blood spilled from the wound, collecting in the bowl Max held underneath it. As one bowl filled, another was passed to him—again, and again, until the blood stopped flowing.

Turner was starting to get tired of standing in the cold, watching and waiting while they filled the bowls with blood, but he had to know—what were they going to do with them? Was that just for more tea or did they cook something with it?

He knew witches often used blood in ceremonies—for potions or sacrifices in honor of Gaia’s balance—but this seemed different. There were no potions brewing, no herbs added to the bowls. No cooking fires. Just the blood.

Max came to the group once more, which had begun to get restless while they’d waited, and distributed the bowls amongst them. One by one, they took the containers of blood and brought them to their lips, drinking deeply before passing them off to others—even the children.

Turner crinkled his nose in disgust. Were they drinking the blood? Just straight blood? The sight of it made his stomach turn. He couldn’t imagine that it tasted very good. Why would they choose to drink that over preparing the meat from the carcass? They seemed to be doing absolutely nothing with the rest of the kill—just leaving it to hang there, not even beginning to butcher it for drying or curing.

The sight of it made his skin crawl. It seemed so…unnatural. Part of him wanted to leave—not only was it gross, but he didn’t want them to catch him watching lest they rescind their hospitality, or worse—but he couldn’t look away.

When all the bowls had been drained of blood, the stryx discarded them on the ground, then the older members of the group began to remove their clothing, piece by piece, until about a dozen men and women in their thirties and up all stood stark naked in the cold night, while the other younger people just watched.

What in the literal fuck?

Turner was weirded out to say the least, and he thought about going to get Ena right then and there and telling her about this fuckery, when one by one, they began to kneel in the snow.

They all seemed to collectively enter some kind of trance then as an eerie silence fell over the group, until it was broken by a loud grunt of pain.

Max, who had been the first one to drink the blood, doubled over on his hands and knees, tensing his muscles as if something were hurting. He grit his teeth, and his breaths shortened.

Then he yelled.

“Aaarghh!” he exclaimed. But Turner couldn’t visibly see anything wrong with him. Until…his skin started to change. It turned a deadened gray and began to droop—splitting and peeling away from his face and body to reveal a different face underneath.

Turner blinked and rubbed his eyes—was he dreaming?

The sound of snapping bones filled the air as Max’s arms and legs bent and lengthened unnaturally, growing longer as his old skin and hair sloughed off into a bloody, steaming pile at his feet. Max’s grunts of pain turned to growls as his back hunched and his face lengthened and sprouted…fur. White fur. A lot of it. Sharp, lengthened fangs emerged from the black gums in his open mouth, and sharp claws burst from his hands, which had turned into rough, calloused paws.

Turner stood in absolute shock as Max stood—his previous human form replaced entirely by that of a giant, pure-white bear.

He barely had time to process what in the fuck he’d just seen when his eyes were drawn to another naked adult who had begun to cry out in pain as well. She, too, began to shed her pale skin, separating her old face from her body as she began to shrink, her limbs folding in on themselves as her new skin emerged, covered in delicate black feathers.

One by one, the others in the group who had removed their clothing also began to change, and soon the clearing was filled with the sounds of their excruciating grunts and cries of pain, and the stomach-turning sound of skin separating from their bodies. It was unnerving to say the least, and though the others in the group who were not changing seemed unaffected, Turner began to feel extremely unwelcome. Something inside him told him he should not be watching this. If they caught him…would he be in danger here? These people were no longer people…they were others now. Predators.

The overwhelming urge to run surged through him, and he stumbled backwards through the snow. He spun around, sprinting away from the clearing, back towards the shelter where Ena slept.

He threw open the flap, relief surging through him when he saw her prone figure—asleep and unharmed. He sank to his knees before her, shaking her shoulder roughly.

“Ena,” he said, not even trying to be gentle. He was freaking the fuck out. “Ena! Wake up.”

Ena stirred, looking at him through bleary eyes before noting his agitated state and sitting up abruptly. “Turner?” she asked, adrenaline waking her instantly. “What’s going on?”