by TA Moore
And the soldiers lined up for the slaughter, faces open and eager as their blood sizzled on the fire.
The Sannock laughed—a wispy sound that carried on the breath of the wolves’ screams.
“Too late, too late,” they rhymed mockingly. “Everything is too late tonight. Wolves, prophets, and the gods who never came when we called. Too late, we’ll say.”
They surged forward on fast, stolen paws and tore through the prophets and soldiers both. Blood doused the fire, killed the flames, and Gregor and Jack—human and wolf—stood back and watched in silence.
Strange, after everything they’d gone through to get here, but this particular butchery wasn’t for them. That was still to come.
Chapter Twenty-Four—Nick
THE BIRD could feel Nick’s agitation in the back of its brain—a mix of guilt and anger. It hadn’t told him what the price would be, not until the eye had slipped wet and slippery down their throat.
It had been the Sannocks’ gelt—the blood debt the wolves owed—and not to be bartered down. The bird would admit it hadn’t savored the bite, but its role had been set with the price to be paid… as had this visceral moment, with blood on concrete and the stink of smoke and charred meat in the air.
Nick would have to wait. It was safer. The bird twisted around to strop its beak against its shoulder to clean off the blood. They weren’t done yet.
The Sannock pulled the prophets apart—rags of dry hide pulled away in a shower of scabs and brittle hair and raw flesh peeled away from muscle and bone. They paid for it, but it wasn’t in their pain or their blood. Not this time.
As the prophets fell, fought, or tried to flee, what was left of the soldiers realized this wasn’t the murder they’d agreed to and tried to rally. The man who’d lusted wetly after Nick in the hospital bed, a pair of broken glasses perched on his nose and mangled arm left to dangle by strings of tendon and skin, threw himself between Ailsa and a Sannock wolf.
It ended as such things always did.
The Sannock wolf took him to the ground and ripped his stomach open. It buried its muzzle in his guts, gray fur stained red as ochre, and tore out handfuls of them. The bird blinked, a sliver of other flicked over its eyes so it could see, and it watched the thread-thin snakes milked from Loki’s sores spill out of the man along with his stomach. They writhed, translucent and soft, between chunks of half-chewed bread in sticky puddles of bile.
His shredded lungs flapped like ribbons as he tried to inhale to scream, but death took him before he could force the sound out.
The bird boosted itself off its perch and strained its wings to gain some height in the cold, still air. It could feel the press of the ground overhead, the earth’s displeasure at the upending of the way of things. Birds didn’t fly underground, so it was lucky that it was only almost a bird and flew where it liked.
In the past—someplace so far away that the bird could only remember that it remembered them—there had been other things that came for the dead. Battlefields had been glutted, every death a feeding frenzy as they jockeyed for the heady prize.
Not now. Not yet.
Nick shuddered at the correction. The bird ignored him. There was a dead man caught in the air, still tethered to his corpse by a rope of what he’d been and seen and wanted. It wouldn’t last long. The snakes had worked their venom in to soften it and peel off shreds, but long enough.
The crow shot through the dead man. Slivers of him caught in fight-ragged feathers—the taste of coffee, a sunrise, the feel of Nick’s thigh under his hand—and the bird pinched folds of what was left in its beak.
Murder and suicide were what it concerned itself with, and the soldier who’d show his throat to the prophets before the Sannock tore it out was both. What death had wanted to take, the bird spat back into the corpse.
Even the Wild had rules. Even the gods. To walk in mortal skin, you needed a mortal soul. To die, you needed something that knew death… and the Sannock had neither soul nor mortality.
It tasted Nick’s horror for a moment, the flutter of resentment as he realized the Sannock’s game, but it was already done. On the ground, the wolf opened its crimson maw and retched the Sannock, a thing half-formed from memory and mist, into the gore. It squirmed down into the raw meat, pulled the folds of liver and intestine over itself, and opened the corpse’s eyes. Whatever color they’d been before, now they were cobweb gray with silver-steel pupils.
The wolf staggered away. Greasy drool hung from her lips, and she nearly collapsed as she put her weight on a dislocated back leg. A dry, panicked whine filtered down her nose as the Sannock folded its guts back into its stomach and stood up. Flesh melted, sealed, and reshaped itself into something taller, stranger, and paler. Horns, new-budded and still soft with velvet, tore through the skin of its temples, and it rose up onto its toes as its bones cracked and stretched. Dense, short fur the color of beech bark sprouted on its legs and across its cheekbones. The smell of pine and thick musk sweated out of its skin as he looked around.
He smiled, and it was terrible. Ailsa snarled her defiance in her stolen skin and went for him. The Sannock caught her by the throat. His fingers dug down and the loose skin split under his nails. He ignored the great rents she tore in his chest with her claws. Then he leaned down and opened his mouth as though he were about to whisper into her ragged ear. Instead a stag’s guttural bell rang out, a hoarse, deep sound that was full of something essentially awful.
Ailsa convulsed. Her eyes bulged, and her throat worked around the pinch of the Sannock’s fingers. He shook her twice and then tore the wolf off her back. The hide tore off her skin with a wet, ripping sound, stitches torn out in long, dripping runs, and she was left pink, greasy, and naked. The Sannock broke her neck, tossed her aside, and belled again. The sound echoed off the walls, cracked the gray paint in flakes and strips, and drove the prophets still on their feet to their knees. Blood seeped out of their ears and matted in dead wolf’s fur as they tried to rise under the weight of throat-closing terror.
The Sannock mobbed them before they could recover. Some of the prophets struggled to their feet, grabbed the ridden wolves by the scruff, and threw them aside. Others went down under the mass of the Pack.
The bird spun away on the point of a wing to catch another dead man in its beak. Another Sannock rose and then another, and the prophets fell.
WOLVES SPRAWLED on the stained concrete and leaned against the walls. They panted, tongues torn to raw ribbons, and their sides heaved under dull, staring coats. It was no light thing to be ridden by the dead.
Not—the bird tucked its head down to tidy the feathers on its wings—for the living at least.
“Nick.”
The bird stretched both its wings out as far as they would go, the muscles tight under its feathers, and then snapped them back into its sides. It folded itself down, tucked into a ball of soft darkness inside itself, and let Nick pull his skin back on.
Nick staggered as being human again caught him by surprise and his body felt long, strange, and naked. Gregor caught his elbow before he could trip over his own feet and steadied him until Nick could do it himself.
“Did you know what they were going to do?” Gregor asked harshly. When Nick didn’t answer, Gregor squeezed his shoulder hard enough to hurt to get his attention. “Nick. What did they do?”
“The wolves took what belonged to us, belonged to us in a way nothing else could. Our skins, our magic, our meat,” the horned Sannock answered for Nick. Something horrid lurked under his voice, pinned down by the shape of words. It made Nick shiver with an atavistic dread of the things in the shadows that he’d spent most of his life trying to convince himself were his own imagination. “So we took what the wolves had offered the gods. Empty vessels, empty enough.”
“And now?” Gregor asked. He pulled Nick back a step to put him behind Gregor’s shoulder. “Or did you really expect us to believe this made us even? Our people slaughtered yours, wiped them off the face of the
island. I wouldn’t rest till the heather grew through our bones.”
The horned Sannock showed blunt white teeth. They were meant for an herbivore’s mouth, but shreds of skin were caught between them. “You played a shell game with the gods, wolf. They threw themselves at a door your prophets opened and had it slammed in their face. Your death is only when you start to pay us back.”
In the back of Nick’s head, he could feel the bird’s disquiet as it clacked its beak on the sour taste of that warning. The gods would not, it knew, look any kinder on them than the wolves. If anything, the opposite would be true, but it was too late for second thoughts.
Or, Nick supposed dryly, first thoughts. The bird’s black humor sparked in acknowledgment, but they both admitted there hadn’t been much choice in the moment. There hadn’t been any choice ever, even if the wolves would never accept him now.
Not that he thought there had been much chance of that to start with. Nick could live with that, as long as it turned out to be worth it. He nudged Gregor.
“The gods can wait,” he said and then looked at the Sannock. It was odd to see them so solid and anchored. “The baby can’t. Where’s my grandmother?”
The Sannock stared at him pensively. “What is that to us? We walk again.” He stamped his foot—almost hoof—and the rest of the Sannock in their stolen bodies whistled or laughed as they joined in. They sounded almost drunk, heady on the solidity of it all. “Why should we risk that for you? Why should we court her vengeance when once and twice you’ve failed to end her?”
It was Nick’s turn to tighten his grip on Gregor’s shoulder before Gregor could say anything.
“You think she’ll let this go?” he asked. The Sannock rolled its eyes. Nick stepped forward. On some level he was aware he was naked, his vulnerable parts bare to the elements. He put that to the back of his head to freak about later. “Rose, my gran, she’s never forgiven, forgotten, or let anything rest. If she can’t control you, then she’ll destroy you whether you help us or not.”
The Sannock turned its back. Another—only its gray pebble eyes and bark fingers transformed from its human form—shook its head.
“We don’t fear her,” it fluted, three voices woven into one. It ignored the horned man’s snarl as it bowed its head. “Death has been on our tongue for centuries. But imagine, little carrion crow, what terrible thing we might actually fear. Then fear it too. Your grandmother treads dark water.”
Gregor pulled away from Nick. “You killed all the prophets, and you’re wearing her human followers like coats. So you’re going to tell us. She has my child.”
The Sannock looked at Gregor with dead, pebble eyes and shrugged. It had no sympathy and no real understanding of the need. “Breed another, steal another. Babies are birthed every day. Even in the Winter. Surrender this one to the dark water, for the dark water will win the fight.”
Gregor grabbed the Sannock by the torn Kevlar vest that was a remnant of the person it used to be. He hauled it toward him while the rest of the Sannock bridled in anger.
“I will, when….”
The scrape of toenails on concrete and the harsh, ragged pant of a run-out animal interrupted Gregor’s threat before he could finish it. Nick turned as the big, gray dog skidded into the door frame, bounced off, and staggered into the room. Its ribs pressed against its sides in sharp relief as it panted heavily, clouds of steam around its jaws, and sweat knotted coarse, gray fur. The side of its face was a bloody, swollen mess, one eye swelled shut and a few too many teeth visible through the torn edges of the wound.
It stood there for a second, legs trembling, and then Danny crawled out from the dog’s skin. He sprawled awkwardly on the ground, elbows braced under him and his head hung so dark curls obscured his face.
“I know what Rose wants the baby for,” Danny said, voice thick and clumsy in his mangled mouth. He pressed the back of his hand to his cheek, over the gash, as he looked up. “The same thing she took Nick for. To put something else in, only something bigger than a carrion crow.”
“Danny,” Jack gasped as he shed his wolf. He bolted over to crouch next to Danny, his hand cautious as he touched the bloody cheek. “Danny-dog. What happened? Who did this?”
“Don’t call me that,” Danny grumbled on autopilot, no real heat behind the words. His eyes flickered over Jack’s face, and he winced in sympathy. The brush of his hand mirrored Jack’s, light and cautious as it skimmed over Jack’s bruised cheekbone. “And I could ask you the same thing.”
Jack leaned into the touch as though he were a cat, not a wolf. “It’ll heal,” he said. “What happened to you, Danny?”
One of the wheezing wolves painfully shed their fur. The woman sprawled back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of her and eyes still wild. Spit crusted in the corner of her mouth as she spat, “You sell us to the prophets, abandon James’s boy to the Wild, but what happened to some dog is who you care for?” she asked, contempt in her voice. “Maybe we should have made Gregor Numitor instead. Even gelded, he’s more of a wolf.”
Ellie propped herself up on shaking legs to aim a disciplinary snap at the woman. Other wolves backed her. Most of them, even, but there was a hesitation before they picked their side.
“What do you mean, the same as me?” Nick asked as he decided to ignore the dispute. He thought Gregor would be a better wolf king than his brother, but that was because he loved Gregor and it didn’t really matter right now. He waved a hand at the Sannock. “She gutted these men to make room for the gods or the Sannock, why would she need a baby?”
“She needed Bron’s baby. She needed a wolf pup,” Danny corrected. He tried to get up, but only managed to leverage himself into a crouch. His legs trembled under him as he put his weight on them, the muscles taut under the skin. “I caught up with Lachlan in the storm, but he’d already handed the baby on to Rose. He told me what she was going to do, although I don’t think he really understands it. She did this for the same reason she took Nick as a baby. The same reason she took your sister, Jack.”
Nick glanced askance at Gregor, his head tilted curiously, but Gregor looked as confused as him. It was the wolves, a few of them, who put their eyes down and put their noses guiltily between their paws.
“How do you even know about that?” the wolf in her human skin asked. “None of us would have told you. Told anyone, never mind a dog.”
Danny’s lower lip trembled for a moment until he made himself swallow hard. “Kath did,” he said. “My mam told me about it, about the Numitor’s little girl who came out a dog and how Rose drowned her in the lake.”
“Da let that bitch kill my sister?” Gregor asked after a stunned second.
“He wouldn’t,” Jack protested. “Da backed you when you wouldn’t let the prophets take your little girl before she died. He told them to fuck off when they wanted her body after she died. Dog or not, he’d never give his pup to the prophets.”
“He didn’t,” Danny said. He rubbed the back of his hands over his eyes as he tried to focus. “Rose took her, and I think that’s when she got the idea—with the baby, and the loch, and the monster that lived there. It didn’t work, but that’s why she took Nick. That’s why she took Bron’s baby. Humans? Even once they’re hollowed out by the prophets’ potion, only have room for little gods and dead things. They’re not made for it. Wolves are. Rose took Bron’s baby because of the potential, because of the room.”
Gregor inhaled sharply and then breathed out a word. “Fenrir,” he said, as close to reverent as Nick had ever heard him. It didn’t seem like the moment to ask for details. Nick knew the name, but not the details behind it. Gregor didn’t notice his confusion as he shook his head in frustration. “That’s what Ewan meant, Nick, who he meant. If Rose has him on a collar and lead, then the wolves will follow her no matter what a raddled old monster she is. Odin fuck us all. Fenrir will lead the wolves into the Winter, and he’ll be trained to walk at that bitch’s heel.”
Silence greete
d his announcement. The only sound in the room was the wheeze of the wolves breathing and the drip of blood as it oozed from gutted bodies. The Sannock stood in still silence, not accustomed enough to their new bodies to fidget or move.
“Where is she?” Jack asked. He gripped Danny’s shoulder in one hand and squeezed to catch Danny’s attention. “Danny, did Lachlan say where Rose was going?”
There was a pause, and then Danny gingerly shook his head. The motion made him flinch. “I couldn’t beat him in a fight. If I didn’t run, he’d have skinned me for Rose. I didn’t expect everyone to be dead already.”
“Dead or fucking unhelpful,” Gregor said as he gave the Sannock a bitter look. “I always thought you were cowards, hidden in a hole waiting for the slaughter. It looks like I was right.”
The horned Sannock opened its mouth and let loose that terrible, hollow bell of noise that reverberated in Nick’s bones. Gregor staggered, caught himself, and screamed back, the wolf’s howl caught in his throat shrill enough to undercut the Sannock’s roar. The horned Sannock snapped his jaw shut and snorted as he grimly lowered his head. The horns on his brow were thicker now, branched in two short nubs.
“I have killed wolves in my first skin. Do you beg to be the first in my second?” he said. “Let the world freeze and end. We will end with it and rest.”
The other Sannock sighed and repeated the word. It murmured around the room, passed from mouth to mouth like a prayer. It was the first time that Nick hadn’t heard them sound bitter or angry.
“No,” Nick said. “You won’t.”
The bird stirred uneasily as it caught the edges of his idea. It dug its claws into him with a quick prick of pain to warn him, but wicked humor made it cluck approvingly as well.
“The little spirit of carrion and battlefields rides you,” the Sannock said. He narrowed eyes that were too black, the rim of white eaten by the liquid spill. “The past, spent days and breath, are your preserve. You have no oversight on the future.”
