by David Boop
“My name is Abel Drazek. I’m a frequent visitor to your country. My men and I are here to see if the land is fit for a new railroad.”
One of those Old World investors. Cora used to hear the wealthier patrons in her restaurant talk about them. According to what the patrons said, the investors put money in American steam engines and hotels because they were running out of moneymaking opportunities in their own countries. “I’m Cora.” She said her first name and nothing else until he spoke again.
“They tell me you’re lost, Cora.”
She nodded. Inside Drazek’s tent, she almost choked on the stifling air. “I lost my direction home. I don’t like the sound of those wolves out there.”
“They are disturbing,” he agreed. Drazek’s chair scraped the ground when he stood. Almost six and a half feet tall, his head missed the tent ceiling by an inch. “I was told they attack men. That’s why I hired Boone and Roy as field guides.”
Cora watched the light reflect in his eyes where the pupils should be. “The wolves got a man yesterday. Killed him.”
“How ghastly.” Drazek tilted his head, the way Cora saw crows do when they sat on the town signpost and stared at weary people on a hot day. “I find the American wilderness particularly vicious, animal and human inhabitants alike.” He gave a tiny shrug. “Ah, well, the railroad will civilize things.”
A loud crash came from outside.
“Wait here.” Drazek went around the table so fast the candles hardly had time to flicker from the breeze he stirred up. He left her in the tent.
Cora went to the valise on the floor and opened the first book, a volume with a rust-red cover. Its pages smelled of dust and mildew from water damage. Symbols decorated the pages, strange symbols with six and eight sides, the kind she imagined Preacher Hamilton wouldn’t approve of. Her neck tingled while she studied the foreign handwritten words next to the symbols.
She glanced at the tent flap before opening another volume. Black ink smeared along the edges of the pages. She turned to one and saw an illustration that snatched the breath from her lungs.
It showed two male figures, one on the ground and another crouching over him. The man on his back had eyes that bulged in an expression of horror. The second wore a wolf skin over his head and arms. He grinned over the first with long, sharp teeth and a torn object dripping from his mouth. Cora looked closer and realized it was a piece of the other man’s throat.
Footsteps approached the tent. She placed the books in the valise and stood just as Drazek returned. Her heart pounded in the space of time between him entering and presenting her with a smile.
“Apologies. Roy knocked over a supply crate.” His smile never reached his eyes. He stared at her for a moment longer than was considered polite before breaking his gaze. “Boone and Roy will escort you to the main road.”
An invisible weight pressed on her shoulders. She felt like the entire tent would collapse on her at any moment. “Thank you, Mr. Drazek.” She made her way to the front of the tent, where she had to walk by him to get outside. A man his size, one would expect to give off plenty of heat. She sensed only a chill as she slipped past.
The two guides waited. Roy still had his rifle. He appeared to have sobered since she went into Drazek’s tent. He pointed the barrel up in the air. “Can’t be too careful at night,” he said.
Cora walked with them away from the camp. She looked over her shoulder. The light inside Drazek’s tent had gone out.
She counted her steps as she walked in silence. On the thirty-third step, she heard the rough scrape of Roy’s calloused finger as it began to slide towards the trigger. Her fingertips itched before her claws shot through her skin. Cora whipped around and flung the firearm from his grip.
Roy growled. Cora thought he was going to rush at her. Instead, he paused for a brief moment. In the span of seconds, she saw his eyes take on a yellow glow. His jaw, once clean shaven, began to fill with heavy, dense hair, thick like animal fur. His neck widened and became corded with muscle. She heard bones snap and joints crack as his shoulders reshaped within his shirt, stretching the front of the fabric. Buttons snapped off and the collar ripped away to reveal more fur sprouting along his chest. He was changing. Into what, Cora didn’t know, but she couldn’t let him finish.
She raked her own claws across his face, tearing into his elongated snout. He staggered back. She used her strength and the force of his momentum to shove him to the ground. A snap and a sharp crack resounded. He didn’t rise again.
Boone came at her next. In her struggle with Roy, she missed his transformation. He loped toward her on all fours, a man-wolf with tufts of fur sticking out from a contorted frame. Flaps of skin hung from his arm and one side of his head. Cora felt her own teeth lengthen and sharpen in her mouth as he closed in.
Her hand came down in a slashing motion. Her claws penetrated flesh and muscle. Warm liquid splattered her cheek. He fell at her feet.
“I knew you weren’t just a simple woman. Your scent is familiar. I’ve smelled it on another person before.”
At the sound of Drazek’s voice, Cora looked up from Boone’s body and scanned the surroundings. The camp behind her was quiet and still. Tall grass swayed ever so slightly. Air stirred at her back. She turned as iron-hard hands clamped on her arms.
“You went through my books. Did you think I was a simple-minded man, Cora, to believe you were lost?” Drazek spoke low and threatening in her ear.
She twisted in his grip. “You’re not a man. You’re a devil.” She struggled to get free. His strength was beyond hers at that moment. “You killed Jedidiah Hamilton.”
Moonlight revealed fangs in Drazek’s mouth. “The foolish youth came into my camp, uninvited. He saw my men in the middle of their transformation. He thought he would try to pray and cast the devil out of us.” He stopped talking to issue a hard laugh. “We couldn’t allow him to tell anyone what he saw here. His blood renewed us.”
Cora inched her head away from his. “Did you kill my husband in Savannah, too?”
“The one whose scent remains in your clothes? I recall he tried to fight back, told me to stay away from his wife. He was stronger than he looked.” He dug his fingers into her shoulder. She cried out as his sharp nails penetrated her jacket and pierced her skin. Her stomach clenched in fear and disgust as he lowered his mouth to the wound and lapped at the blood with his tongue. He drew his head back and groaned, eyes closed in ungodly ecstasy, a ring of red around his lips. “Now I see why he fought so hard to protect you. I taste the power hidden within you. Generations of it.”
“My husband didn’t know about my power. He protected me because he loved me.”
Drazek opened his eyes again. “But your power made him strong, too, because he was so close to you. Tell me its origins.”
She stared into soulless black pools in a face as waxen as the moon. “No.”
“Aid me, Cora, and I won’t kill you. I’ve been watching your town. All I want is more blood from the people there.”
“Why Apex?”
“When I drank the blood from your husband, and from that boy’s, I was able to face the sun, if only for a few minutes. It’s because of the dark skin they share. I can draw that strength from their blood to sustain me. But your blood is even more powerful. Why are you different?”
Incensed, Cora felt the change beginning in her muscles. Her tongue thinned and lengthened. “I don’t know why I’m different, but I do know you can’t have Apex,” she said before her voice could produce little more than a reptilian hiss.
She succeeded in extricating herself from his hold. Pebbly soil dug into her foot as one of her long, scaled appendages had burst through the toe of her boot.
Fabric seams ripped as her body grew and expanded. Scales erupted on her arms as the clothes tore away. She couldn’t remember the transformation ever being that fast.
She hissed again as her tail dropped to the ground. Now she could see over the few trees in the area. Cora
swung her long neck to view Drazek standing ten feet below her, his monstrous face agape.
She acted swiftly while he remained transfixed. She lashed him with her tail and put the full force of her weight behind it. He slammed face first to the ground. It should’ve killed him, or at least broken most of the bones in his body.
He pushed up using the strength of his arms. He lifted his head, eyes gleaming vengeance while blackish red blood ran down his face in ribbons. He turned and raced for his tent.
Those books he kept in his valise. Was he running to get them? Was there something about those strange words and symbols inside that he could use to harm her?
Resist the devil. Cora remembered the words from the Bible. She couldn’t let this creature who fed on the lifeblood of men continue to feast.
Drazek returned with the red book in hand. She opened her mouth and lowered her head, intending to crush his bones between her teeth. Instead, something hot grew in her belly and boiled its way up her throat. She knew what was coming next. Before, she always held back. This time, she unleashed the flames.
Drazek’s slanted eyes became round. As the candlelight in his tent once made light show in his eyes, the fire from Cora’s throat now filled their black spaces. He screamed once as his head and body became engulfed.
Cora backed away as he did a staggered run toward the camp. He fell against a stack of crates. His body, bathed in flames, set them alight. Drazek ceased to move shortly thereafter.
The flames rolled over him and begin their climb along the tents. Cora watched the camp burn to the ground. Her body slowly changed back into a woman.
Never let them know who you are. Cora learned from her mama that they’d descended from a tribe that once lived near the Gambia River in West Africa. Until she discovered her own abilities, she thought tales of her people’s shapeshifting powers were just stories to entertain children. Some ancestors had the ability. Some did not. Her ancestors called her transformation the Ninki Nanka, a river dragon.
Folks in this land would call her a devil.
She watched the flames crawl in her direction. She gazed at them in disbelief. Mama was right. Nobody should know what she could turn herself into. They weren’t ready. She vowed to protect the people of Apex, but continue to keep her secret.
With trembling hands, she removed the clothes from Roy’s body and put them on. She turned east in the direction for home.
* * *
The next morning, Cora went into the restaurant to work as usual. Patrons came in for breakfast. She heard them whisper about Jedidiah’s upcoming funeral service. She kept her head down and helped Mrs. Jenkins cook and serve the food.
A short while later, in the afternoon, Sheriff Grisham came in. He approached the counter and ordered a plate of potatoes and chicken. Cora set the food down in front of him. He still smelled like sweat, but there was less fear mixed with it today.
“I came to see you. Thought you should know about something,” he mumbled, while shoving a forkful of potato in his mouth.
She poured him a cup of water and waited for him to finish chewing.
“I saw smoke on the horizon this morning. My deputy and me rode out to find where it was coming from. We saw the surveyor camp, or what was left of it.” He speared a chunk of chicken. “It looked like a man died there. We found a couple dead wolves, too. Their bones were all twisted up and bent out of shape. Fire probably did that.”
Cora said nothing.
“Anyway, we now know it was the wolves that got Jedidiah because they tried to go after the man in the camp, too.”
“What do you think caused the man’s death, Sheriff?”
“Looks like he was trying to run away from the wolves. There were some busted crates around him, so he must have fallen over them. We found broken glass from a kerosene lamp. He must have dropped it when he ran and started the fire.”
She nodded along. “That makes sense.”
The sheriff stopped chewing and gave her a patriarchal frown. “Of course it makes sense. I told you it was just some ornery wolves roaming the hills.”
“Well, I’m glad they won’t be bothering anyone else.”
Sheriff Grisham finished the rest of his food. “Poor Jedidiah. It’s sad, but there ain’t nothing we can do about it now. Just like we can’t go back and do anything about your husband. Try to move on, Cora.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I believe you will. You got that spitfire in you. A bit too much of it, sometimes.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve before he stood. He reached into his back pocket and put some coins on the table. “Good afternoon, Miss Cora.”
“Good day, Sheriff.” She masked a smile as he turned to leave. Once he departed, she set to wiping the crumbs away from where he ate at the counter.
She was relieved to finally solve the mystery surrounding her husband’s death, and grateful to be able to protect the citizens of Apex from a predator. But there could be more people out there like Drazek, bloodthirsty devil-men who wanted to prey upon the innocent.
Well, if they were out there, she had plenty more fire deep within her belly to give them a very warm welcome to hell.
Junior & Me
HARRY TURTLEDOVE
Listen, you yellow-bellied son of a green-yolked egg, this is how it happened. And if you don’t like it, well, we can just step outside where Junior and me’ll chew your snout off for you.
This here was down in the Red River bottoms, sixteen—no, seventeen—years ago now. I was down on my luck. I guess you could say so. The dancing girl in Dodge City I’d got sweet on, she laughed in my face. She was after somebody who’d keep her in a style she wanted to get used to. She had somebody in mind, too, and it weren’t me.
I could have killed him. Not, I wanted to kill him. I could have killed him, easy as you please. He was fresh out of the shell, practically—a kid from the East who kept books at the bank and for the grocery store. He didn’t know what she was, any more’n he knew about knives and eight-shooters. All he knew was, he liked the curve of her haunches.
If I did kill him, I might’ve done him a favor. Caught up in her web, he’d have had a demon of a time biting free. He wouldn’t be the same afterwards, neither. You never are.
But Sssue—that was her name, Sssue—wouldn’t’ve given me a tumble even with him gone, not the way I was then. I had trouble buying my own firewater, let alone anything a dancing girl with big dreams might want. If he got dead, Sssue would’ve latched on to the next fella like him she ran across.
I had sense enough to see that, even if it took longer’n it should have. Soon as I did, I got out of Dodge. No, I didn’t know where I was going. North, south, east, west? I didn’t care, long as I got the hells out of there. I headed south on account of…on account of I did.
That’s how I ended up going toward the Red River country. Dumb luck, and I still wonder sometimes if it was good or bad. But I didn’t know about any of that. All I knew was, I needed to get gone.
You’ve seen how, when you get a tenth of a daytenth outside of a town, the air starts smelling sweet again? You get away from the stinks of all the people and critters packed too tight together. You get away from sour smoke and stirred-up dust and everything else. The world starts tasting the way it must have right after the gods hatched it. You get used to the way a town smells, but you don’t hardly ever get to where you like it.
I was free. I told myself I was, anyways. I just about made myself believe it. Whether it was true or not, it made the feathers on my crest come up for a spell.
Of course, lots of times free means free to starve. Yeah, I didn’t owe a soul any silver, much less gold. A good thing, too, ’cause I didn’t have hardly any silver, much less gold. Sssue had it straight when she saw I wasn’t rich and likely never would be.
Little birds hopped in the grass to either side of the trail. They cocked their heads as I ambled past. Some of them flew away, just to stay on the safe side. Things like me
ate things like them when we got the chance. Somewhere down deep in their little birdbrains, they knew it.
I started panting. It was warm and sticky, the way it gets when you’re heading south from Dodge. When I came to a stream, three or four turtles jumped off rocks and into the water. Like the birds, they didn’t trust me. Like the birds, they had their reasons.
Before I crossed, I gave that stream my own once-over. The turtles that splashed away were little, no bigger’n my hand with the claws all spread. But you don’t want to find a snapper with your foot while you’re wading, not if you care to keep that foot in one piece.
“Ahhh!” I hissed in pleasure when I came up on the far bank. The water drying on my scales cooled me off for a little while. It felt mighty fine.
A line of great shadows swept across the plain, sliding straight toward me. One passed plumb over me. I didn’t like that, not even a little, and made a sign with my thumb and first finger to turn aside the dark omen. People say you’re liable to die soon if a huzzard’s shadow catches you. Huzzards eat carrion, so you can see why folks talk that way. I didn’t exactly believe it, but I didn’t exactly not believe it, neither.
One of the huzzards let out that croak they make. Hearing it didn’t make me feel any easier. I scowled after their flight line. On they glided, not caring about me at all. Why should they? A huzzard’s wings are wide as five or six people lying snout to foot. We’re big enough for them to notice, but there’s not enough meat on one of us for a flight to get excited about.
So they soared on, and I kept on. I crossed another creek. This time, I kept a closer eye on the turtles. But they kept an eye on me, too. I didn’t get to grab one. Pretty soon, I’d start feeling the empty in my belly. Thinking about that made me imagine I felt it before I really did.
I was panting hard when it got to midday. The sun was hot, and my shadow puddled under me like it was trying to hide. I wouldn’t’ve minded lying up for a spell, but I couldn’t find anywhere to do it.
