by Waters, Carl
“But I beat her in the sprint because I’m stronger and faster. Because I’m better,” Alison argued, an ugly smirk upon her face.
“Grow up, little Sister,” Adela snapped. “It’s not about being better. It’s about being best suited. The hood will need a partner who can use its abilities, and think through situations before she acts. It will need a partner who will listen to it when it has something to say, not someone who’s more concerned with her appearance than the mission at hand. Don’t you see that?”
Alison flew at Adela again, her hands raised and fingers outstretched, but Angeline stepped smartly between the two, her own hands rising effortlessly to block Alison. After a short scuffle, her younger daughter backed down, cheeks flushed with anger.
“Stop it, Alison,” Angeline snapped. “Your temper is getting the best of you, and that is not an attribute of the Red Hood. You are stronger, yes, but you must learn to think as your sister does, or you will find yourself dead before you’ve even donned the hood. You will face enemies who are far stronger than you, and some that are cleverer. All of them will seek to kill you. The hood will protect you up to a point, but you must learn to be still and listen to it. Can you do that? I confess that I’m beginning to have my doubts.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Angeline saw Adela grow still, her ears perking at this new information. But Alison merely spat at her and turned away, too piqued even to listen to good advice. It was no use trying to talk to the girl, she realized, for there would be no hearing. And she would never get through the walls Alison had put up.
“Weapons,” she said bluntly. “You will show me what you’ve learned with the bow, the staff, and the sword, and demonstrate your flexibility with each.”
“Will we be fighting each other?” Adela muttered. “Because you know I’ll win. Every time.”
“No,” Angeline said with a smirk. “You’ll be fighting me.”
Alison whirled around to stare at her with wide eyes. Adela, however, simply nodded. By the look on her face, Angeline thought that the girl was most likely already running through possible scenarios, her strengths and weaknesses, and what she knew of her mother’s fighting style.
Yes, she thought. Both girls might make fine Red Hoods. But one of them had the mind, while the other had the body. How would she ever decide which was more important?
* * *
Angeline walked back toward the cottage behind the girls, her mind reeling. An entire morning of training and challenging the girls herself, and she was no closer to a decision. She’d sparred with each of the girls after their weapons practice, and the battles had been nothing surprising—Adela had nearly outwitted her a couple times while Alison had tried to beat her smaller mother with pure brute power. Each time, the hood had lent Angeline its power, and she’d found a way to twist, duck, or battle her way out of the situation. Neither girl was a true challenge.
Really, it had only served to confuse her further. The girls had made their own talents more obvious, and gone out of their way to demonstrate what they could do. And they were both gifted, well-trained fighters. But could either of them take on a fully grown werewolf? Fight a coven of witches? Protect themselves against a master vampire who sought to tear their throats out?
After an entire morning of trying to find an answer, Angeline still didn’t know.
6
Angeline breathed deeply, taking in the scent of herbs, vegetables, and the most delectable broth with a hint of the rich rabbit it was made of. It was one of Adela’s specialties, this stew, and Angeline never tired of it. The girl had a knack in the kitchen, and there was no mistake: Give her a random assortment of goods, and she would come up with a meal the likes of which you’d never seen. When she had time to prepare … well.
It had been no difficult decision to make the girl the household cook and give Alison the other, more mundane chores around the cottage.
Of course that, too, had caused friction—as everything seemed to do these days. Alison had complained unendingly about having to clean and dust, though she could see very well—Angeline assumed—that Adela worked twice as hard in the kitchen, preparing the meals and making certain that they ate well. Adela had also taken on the hunting duties and did whatever she must to keep meat on the table. Truly, the girl was a marvel.
“Mother. Mother.”
Suddenly Angeline realized that Adela had been talking to her for some time—the tone of voice betrayed it. She only hoped she hadn’t missed anything important.
“Yes, dear?” she asked, dazed.
“I asked whether you wanted me to add ginger root to the stew, to ease the aches in your joints,” Adela said pointedly. “I know that we have pushed you hard today. And you will need your strength in the coming weeks.” She added this last phrase with a meaningful tilt of one eyebrow, and Angeline’s breath caught in her throat.
Yes, it seemed that the girl had heard far more of her conversation with Merlin than she should have. Still, it was kind of her to think of her mother and plan for such eventualities.
“Yes, dear, if you don’t think it will unsettle the flavor,” she answered, smiling. After all, if Adela was going to plan ahead, to help ease Angeline’s coming battles …
“Darling,” Angeline said suddenly, “what if there were no coming battles? What if … what if this sort of life ended, and we began to live a normal life, as the people around us live?”
Adela turned back to the stew, her shoulders tense, and was quiet for a long moment. Then finally: “What do you mean, Mother?”
“I just wonder whether this is the best choice for you. For Alison. For any of us. There are other ways to live, you know. We would be able to support ourselves quite nicely here in the woods, with peace and quiet. If I were … if I were to give up the hood, and raise you two as normal girls—”
“Then we would be nothing but normal girls,” Alison cut in snidely, suddenly entering the room. “And we are anything but. What can you be thinking of, Mother?”
Angeline narrowed her eyes at that. She’d sought to have a conversation with the older girl, not the younger. Adela might have had some insight on this idea that had been stewing in her mind, while Alison would offer nothing but the most shallow and self-serving of answers.
“I’m thinking of you, and your safety,” she snapped. “Neither of you is safe while I wear the Red Hood, and one of you will find even more danger if she becomes the Hood herself. As a mother, it is my job to consider such things. I had thought I had a choice to make—to choose one of you as Red Hood. But I’ve just realized today that there is a third choice. If I will but reach out and take it.”
“And then neither of us will wear the hood, and someone else will get it!” Alison screeched, furious. “Someone else will get the glory of it all, Mother! How could you even consider such a thing? How could you think to do such a thing to us?”
Angeline drew a deep breath, trying to control her temper at this irrational reaction, but before she could say anything, Adela was at her side, laying a hand on her arm.
“And who would do the hood justice, Mother?” she asked quietly. “You wore the hood while each of us was in your womb. You know it better than anyone. Would you turn it over to someone else? Let go of the bond, curse the hood itself to learning a new ally? More than that, you’ve raised us to take the mantle. The hood knows us, and though it has not bonded to either of us as yet, it expects one of us to be its new partner. Would you take that away from yourself? From us? From the hood?”
This was not something Angeline had considered, of course, and at Adela’s words she subsided. Yes, Adela was right. There was a way of doing things within the realm of the Hoods, and this was not it. The hoods themselves had feelings and powers—hadn’t this hood already indicated that it was bonding with Adela?—and she couldn’t take that away. More than that … no, she wouldn’t trust anyone else with the hood. Her conscience wouldn’t let her.
“You’re right,” she sighed. “I
just—”
A knock sounded at the door, interrupting her. Alison hurried to the door, opened it, and let two young men into the room. The first was Louis—a local woodcutter—and the second was Geoffrey, the son of Piers, the senior woodcutter in the forest. Both were little older than sixteen. Angeline gave them her most welcoming smile and gestured toward the table.
“Gentlemen! Just in time to join us for lunch, if you will. Adela has made her wonderful rabbit stew.”
Louis shook his head quickly. “No, Madam Angeline, we cannot.”
Angeline gave him the look that brooked no nonsense—one she’d perfected over the years—and gestured again toward the table. “I insist. Adela has made plenty, as usual, and there’s far more than we’ll be able to eat on our own. It will just go to waste.”
Beyond that, though she didn’t say it, she knew that Piers and Geoffrey—and Louis, for that matter—rarely ate well. Although Piers and Geoffrey had been on their own for some time, and knew very well how to cook for themselves, the lack of a woman in that particular household meant that they ate dried venison and drank water more often than they had warm meals. Geoffrey was a growing boy, and needed good nutrition. She’d had them over to her hearth more often than not, attempting to replace Piers’ wife, who’d died some years earlier in a tragic accident.
Louis, on the other hand, came from a broken home. Angeline had met his mother and didn’t think she took very good care of her only child.
Neither of the boys, however, seemed inclined to sit down. In fact, if Angeline wasn’t mistaken they seemed rather … rushed. Distressed.
“Yes, do stay,” Adela said suddenly.
Angeline looked up to see the girl moving quickly toward the table, two additional bowls of stew already in her hands. The girl had a heart of gold, she thought, and would do well at caring for whoever came to her hearth. Just as Angeline always had.
Alison, on the other hand, was preening as though she were preparing for a ball, dragging her fingers through her hair and attempting to put some order to her clothing. She still wore her muddy training garments, as they’d just come in from the outdoors, and Angeline could see that this was mortifying the girl beyond comprehension.
Angeline turned her eyes back to Louis and Geoffrey, wondering which of the two Alison had set her eyes on. It was surprising, honestly; she’d always assumed that the girl thought herself too good for a woodcutter. Perhaps she should find this revelation refreshing. Somehow, though, the idea that Alison preened when young men entered the room rubbed her the wrong way, and she narrowed her eyes.
“There’s more than enough to go around,” Adela said, echoing her mother’s statement and giving her sister a sharp look of reprisal. “Besides—” She flashed a quick grin. “—You two rarely eat enough, and I suspect you can use all the energy you can get your hands on.” She indicated the door with a quick nod, and Angeline looked up to see that both Louis and Geoffrey had come with their axes. The tools now leaned up against the wall just inside the door.
One of the blades was clearly marked with blood.
“Louis,” she said quietly, addressing the older and more adventurous of the two boys. “What’s going on? I’ve never known you to use your axe as a weapon before, and that does not look like tree sap.”
The boy took a deep, shuddering breath, and Angeline could see now that they’d come for more than just a wood delivery. “A dead man in the woods, Madam Angeline,” he said quickly. “And animals feeding on him. Animals that didn’t look like proper animals. We came upon the scene and turned, seeking to get away. They attacked us before we could.”
“We used the axes to beat them off and ran for your cottage,” Geoffrey added. “But they saw where we went. I suspect they’ll be here at any moment.”
“Merde,” Angeline breathed. Suddenly she was on her feet, and moving toward the weapons closet. “Girls, your weapons. Quickly. If these animals are what I think they are, we will not have much time to prepare.”
She did not add what she suspected: Werewolves had found them. And had very nearly taken them by surprise.
7
Angeline tore through the forest, her feet moving nearly as quickly as her mind as she sprinted past the trees and through the underbrush, heading for the spot the boys had told her about. A mysterious body in the wood, and animals at it. Once the boys had settled down, they’d been able to tell her that the animals were, in fact, wolves rather than the strange, mysterious beings they’d originally spoken of.
“Came after us when we got too close to their meal, Madam. I took a swing and hit one, and then we turned and ran. But they were after us, I’m sure of it,” Louis had told her.
Wolves, she thought. Surely they were just wolves. But as Red Hood, she didn’t have the luxury of taking it casually. A dead body always meant trouble in these woods, and wolves … well, they came in different forms, didn’t they? Common gray wolves would have scattered at the sight of humans. Werewolves in wolf form, on the other hand, would have seen fresh prey. And if they were here, they were far too close to her house. Far too close to her daughters, who could not yet defend themselves against such supernatural creatures.
She increased her speed at the thought, praying that she wouldn’t be too late, and the trees flew by her in a blur as she ducked and dodged their branches, knowing in advance where they would be. The hood had ever been her friend and ally in a time like this, notifying her of what was ahead, telling her when she had an obstacle in her path. It would also allow her to sense when a dangerous supernatural creature was around, and feed its strength into her.
So why wasn’t it telling her anything now?
A branch snapped across her face, startling her, and she cried out in pain and surprise. The hood, however, was silent. As if it were listening for something. Or had already heard something it didn’t like.
Suddenly she came upon a larger cleaning than the others, and slid to a stumbling halt. On the other side of the clearing lay a bundle of rags, tossed and turned, covered in blood. Angeline crept closer, her nose wrinkling at the smell of fresh blood and wolf flesh. Common wolf flesh though, she realized; this was not the reek of a werewolf. It lacked the musty note that indicated true trouble.
At that, her heart relaxed for a beat.
“Not werewolves after all,” she breathed. The tension in her shoulders melted for the first time in the last hour, and she forced herself to draw another breath. “Not werewolves at all. Just hungry wolves, at their meal. And boys who drew too close before they realized what they were about.”
Then she drew close enough to the body to see who it was.
“Rowan,” she gasped, falling to her knees. The local tavern keeper, who was in the habit of coming to her house for spices and vegetables that could only be found in the forest. He’d been in love with Adela’s special mix of stew spices, and had paid good money for it.
And beyond that, he’d been a friend.
She slid forward on her knees, getting closer to what was left of him, and took stock of the situation. His body had been mauled by the wolves, true enough, but the boys must have appeared on the scene before they could do too much damage, for he was still mostly whole. His arms and legs were intact, and she saw that he’d gone down fighting, his dagger in his hands. The blade had done him little good, however, for it looked as though he’d been taken down before he could use it.
She glanced up to his face and neck, wondering what it was that had attacked him—and gasped. His neck had several fang marks in it, on both sides.
“Vampires,” she mouthed, hardly daring to put voice to the word. She hadn’t seen them in these woods for many years.
And Rowan had been accosted by many of them. She moved up toward his head, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder, as if she could take away the pain he’d experienced. Several different sets of fang marks marred the skin under his jaw, and she fingered them thoughtfully. The sizes of the holes and the spaces between them were differe
nt. Three to four different sets of fangs, if she guessed correctly.
Three or four different vampires had drunk from him. Draining his blood until he was too weak to fight, most like. Terrified him and confused him, sweeping in from the dark to attack him and then disappearing again. And suddenly she was wrapped up in a picture of it—a memory of the one time she’d seen a human attacked by vampires. The creatures did not believe in a fair, even fight. Though one vampire was more than strong enough to kill a human on his own, they still came in multiples, and snuck up on their prey. They rarely showed their faces. They flew toward a man or woman, using superhuman speed, ripped into their necks to drain their blood, and then fled again, to be followed by another, and then another …
Rowan had died confused and frightened, and no doubt, in great pain, and the thought made Angeline sob out in dismay. How could his have happened so close to her own home, and without her knowledge? The hood would often find a way to warn her of any and all dangerous supernatural creatures in the area, and most certainly of any murders. But it had been silent—why?
Further, who were these vampires that had attacked her friend? They would have known that the Red Hood lived in these woods, and must have come here anyhow. They’d attacked her friend—an innocent man who had been walking through woods he believed to be safe, and protected by the Red Hood—and then left the body for her to discover. Normally, vampires would have burned the body, or destroyed it when they were finished with it. They might even have taken Rowan, with hopes that he’d survive the bite and be reborn as one of them. But instead, they’d left him here. For her to discover.
