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Fuck.It was coming, whether I wanted it to or not.
While people liked to claim I never paid attention to lessons, I retain information well on things that might try to eat me. What hunted me now was still unknown, but the howling and the speed of approach argued that it might be the Wendigo. It was unique, a spirit who, according to legend, possessed greedy or cannibalistic humans. It was supposedly drawn to its victims by their vices, but spirits were liars, much like humans. As far as I knew, as the girl had said, it only hunted a few nights a year.
Apparently I was special.
My uncle Ethan told me that spirits loved to blame the victim when they possessed humans, even though there was no proof of that. I think they enjoyed gaslighting humans, to be honest, in revenge for what we’d done to the world with pollution and science. Whatever the human had done, the body the spirit had stolen was often disposable to it, and not at all deserving of what the spirit had done to it.
I stood, readying a silver knife. Knowing that if I tried to run, it would find me, and I would die. And if I tried to fight, it would likely find me, and I would die… but at least this way I had a chance.
Thunder rolled above. I heard cries from the sky, thin and sweet, but I ignored them. I had no idea why the elves called to me specifically, but I couldn’t afford their distraction. The creatures loved to mess with the weather, and I’d heard their voices since my early childhood. Right now, so long as they stayed in the sky, nothing they said mattered as much as whatever the hell was coming for me.
My breath shortened as I waited, adrenaline burning in my blood. Ready for a fight, but not knowing when it’ll come, or if I can handle the spirit heading for me. Even so, I remained in place, waiting. Because what else could I do?
As a spirit, it was as fast as the wind. It never tired, but it could also never be sated. The thought circled around in my mind, along with many others that bothered me more than I wanted to admit to myself. Why did it hunt here and now? Why did it hunt north of here in a pattern? It made no sense to me. It should have ravaged until its vessel, the body it took, was destroyed, then retreated until summoned again by whatever being brought these awful creatures to our world.
Regardless of its reasons, I didn’t feel like becoming its lunch.
Another howl came, this one nearer. Sweat beaded down my back and belly, despite the fog and the cold. It was always easier to fight an opponent without thought than to sit and wait and worry. In answer, power stirred deep in my mind, but I stamped it down. Ethan had told me that the door to my powers needed to stay closed. Opening it could possibly save me now, but the cost was far too high.
Death by this creature would be better.
A short distance away, I watched as trees crashed and shook, falling over with their roots exposed. It was like a storm sweeping through the trees. A tornado or a hurricane, and yet, quieter. Eerie almost. A not-so-subtle reminder that death was coming for me in the form of one angry spirit.
Even though it wasn’t quite close enough to see the creature, it was a warning that it’d be upon me at any moment. I flexed my knees, falling into a high crouch as the wind rushed over me. Even though, strangely, the fog didn’t move… because the chill came from the spirit itself.
A shadow came into focus near the trees. It unfolded to nearly twice my height in a way that was both eerie and disturbing. The spirit was humanoid in appearance, with white eyes blazing in an undefined face. The emaciated body, carried by the wind, closed rapidly upon me, bringing along with it the scent of rotten meat.
My belly rumbled in an unwelcome echo of its ravening hunger. Fear faded, leaving only focus. Its hands were longer than my arms, and long black claws narrowed to knifepoints.
The frigid wind intensified.
“Woman,” the spirit said, its breath leaving no trace. “Yield.”
I wracked my brain. How would Uncle Ethan deal with something like this? He dealt with the elves when he had to, so he’d certainly know how to handle a spirit, and through the years had given me more than a little bit of advice on the topic. Damn it. I hated that it was hard to remember now.
The force of its will beat on me, sending a soul-deep chill through my body. The creature had the power and ability to force panic and fear into its victims. No doubt, it expected me to run screaming away from it, and then be picked off in my flight.
It would not find me to be such an easy opponent.
I shuddered. A branch snapped in the silence, shattering in the cold as the spirit forced a chill onto everything around it, including me. Ice rained down on us. The air grew painful to breathe in, almost sharp in my lungs. It was using everything and anything within it to make me admit defeat.
But it had no idea the hell I’d already been through in my life.
“No.” Nothing left but to die here, but I’d go down fighting.
“I will remember your name to the North Wind.” It circled me, claws twitching.
I pivoted; knife low before me. “Tell it I said hello.”
It lunged. I leaped. An unraveling ribbon of darkness slithered around my leg. It wound up my body. My skin flinched from its touch. Another tendril stuffed itself up my nose and down my throat, as bitter cold as the ice storms that ravaged the northern territories in the winter.
In a convulsive jerk, I drove myself forward, gagging as I slashed, severing the ribbon at my mouth.
I slithered closer, even grappled. In position, I used my legs to drive the knife upwards. I aimed for under the sternum to hit the heart without needing to chop through ribs. The strange flesh parted too easily, the blackness swallowing my hand without the slickness of blood or the resistance of flesh.
The data on the infonet said the body the Wendigo inhabited could only be killed by silver or fire. Silver I had, but the Wendigo I’d read about possessed a human body, not a blob of shadow.
I drew my second dagger with my left hand, my dominant hand, and drove it cross-body upwards into the shadow body, groping to where its heart should be.
