“We could ask the ducks. They seem pretty chill.”
Ingrid threw the duffel bag over her shoulder. “Fine. Let’s just go. I need some tea and a hot shower.”
“That sounds great.”
“You can use your own shower.”
“It has shitty pressure. Yours looks—”
She glared at him. “Have you been staking out my shower?”
“You’ve got a great bathroom,” he said. “Is dreaming a crime?”
“No. But it’s profoundly unsettling.”
They walked past the gazebo, whose peeling gray floor was outlined by the park lights. The nearby wastebasket was overflowing with cigarette butts. In the distance, Ingrid could hear the occasional car as it crossed the Albert Street bridge, with its stern façade of Queen Victoria looking down on motorists. A wind was blowing the sulfur smell of Wascana Lake toward them, and it burned her throat. Who knew what was living down there, in the radioactive depths of the constructed underdark? This whole place had once been a windswept ossuary. Human and buffalo bones together, asleep beneath the surface. Ingrid imagined them in their silence, turning to yellow glass over the course of nearly two centuries.
In the 1930s, the government had hired workers to dam the lake. They would have been desperate for any kind of job. Did they realize that someday the resulting park would be a green shadow within Regina, a strange mirror image of a royal wood? Aside from the occasional coyote, there wasn’t a great deal of wildlife. Rollerbladers had replaced the fauna. The grasslands of Saskatchewan were gradually being parceled off to developers, with little thought for how this might impact provincial ecology. Paul had told her once that the grasslands were some of the quietest places on earth. He liked to go bird watching, although his teammates ribbed him about it, mercilessly. Sometimes they’d steal his Audubon guides and replace them with Maxim.
Ingrid was happy to see her dented gray car waiting for her across the parking lot. She wasn’t sure how Sam was getting home. Maybe she’d call a cab. She thought about leaving some kind of note for her—Text me when you get back, and I’ll pick you up—but Sam’s duffel bag was back in the clearing. She didn’t have the strength to turn around. The comfort of the couch was too close. She could already smell the vanilla air freshener in her hallway, and lingering over that, an echo of whatever Paul had cooked for dinner. There would be leftovers wrapped in neat tinfoil packets. If she was quiet enough, she could make herself a plate in the semidarkness of the kitchen, without waking them up.
Neil could sleep through anything. She’d brushed his teeth while he was unconscious, and he’d simply sighed, trembling beneath some rich dream. But Paul was a light sleeper. Often he heard her struggling with the screen door. He’d come stumbling down the hallway in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes and asking if she wanted him to throw something in the microwave. Her sweet brother, who could fix any problem with the correct seasoning.
Ingrid herself was a survivalist cook. She ate what was required to avoid fainting, but she’d never moved past the one-pot meal. Paul made his own pasta and seemed genuinely happy when he was deboning a chicken. It hardly mattered if his fingers were slick with blood or bread crumbs. His natural state was to be covered in something. Ingrid wasn’t sure where he’d learned to cook—certainly not from their parents—but she was grateful. If not for him, she would have subsisted on hash browns, guacamole, and tofu crumbled up into a bowl of instant noodles.
“It’s not too late,” Carl said. “Would anyone else vote for waffles at Humpty’s?”
“It’s two thirty in the morning,” Shelby clarified. “Do you really want to deal with the clientele at this hour?”
“Drunks can be funny. They have such bad reflexes.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Ingrid? Can I interest you in a vinyl booth?”
She laughed. “That has to be the strangest proposition I’ve ever received.”
“I call it brunch after midnight. I think it’s going to catch on with the academic set.”
Ingrid turned to him. “Carl, why don’t you want to go home?”
His crooked smile faded. Then his eyes clouded, and he shrugged, in the way that you do when you’re holding something back. “I live on the second floor. My apartment is like a toaster oven, and the sex shop below me is open all night. It’s hard to sleep when there’s a dildo-related dispute going on right outside your window.”
“The clubs are still open. Why not go out?”
“I’m not in the mood for rejection tonight.”
“Oh, come on. You must clean up.”
“He has a weakness for the unattainable,” Shelby said, putting an arm around his shoulder. “That’s a taste that we both share, I’m afraid.”
“I’m better with a wingman. Or wing-lady.” He frowned. “Scratch that. Wing-lady sounds like a demented superhero. Let’s just go with copilot.”
“Tell you what,” Shelby said. “Come back to my place, and I’ll have one drink with you. It’s going to be a gin and Coke, because that’s all I’ve got.”
He brightened. “You’re on.”
“Just one. I’m tired, and I don’t want you dragging me anywhere.”
“I swear it, on my honor as a grad student.”
“That oath is worth nothing.”
“Well, it’s all we’ve got.”
Shelby turned to Ingrid. “You could get in on this action, if you wanted. I’ve also got some pretty flat cream soda in the fridge.”
For a moment, her laconic expression changed to one that was hopeful. Ingrid knew what she was really asking. Her stomach did a bit of a flip. It was late. She already felt bad for leaving Paul and Neil. Part of her wanted nothing more than to sink into clean sheets, to forget entirely about the basilissa and what she might do to them. It wouldn’t take long. The hot shower would speed her toward a sweet oblivion. But at the same time, she wanted to know what just one drink would lead to, after Carl went home. The possibilities multiplied within her mind. It had been a long time. Maybe she’d forgotten it all. She would need to consult an instructional website before getting into bed with another human being.
“I’m not sure,” Ingrid hedged. “Hard alcohol does a number on my stomach. It’s been years since I had tequila, and I still remember—”
Shelby was staring at her. At first, Ingrid thought that she was trying to look disapproving. But her eyes were too wide for that. She seemed horrified.
“Okay, I know my gastro issues aren’t exactly the classiest topic of conversation, but Carl once threatened to put his—”
Then she realized that Shelby wasn’t looking at her. Instead, she was looking at something over her shoulder. Ingrid didn’t want to turn. She really didn’t. A part of her knew, already, what Shelby had seen. There was no sense in denying it. The hairs on the back of her neck and arms were already standing at attention. But for a moment, she clung to the bliss of ignorance, as if it were a blanket that she could pull over her face. Let me keep dreaming, she almost said. Don’t force me to wake up. It was no use. Time to open her eyes, and face the horror.
Ingrid turned. Shelby stood very still beside her, saying nothing. Carl had moved into an odd position, sort of adjacent to the two of them. It was as if he wanted to step forward, to interpose himself between them and whatever was coming, but his body refused to cooperate. He stood at a curious angle, fused to the pavement. More statue than savior. Ingrid could feel the adrenaline setting fire to her heart and lungs. Her hands trembled. We’re rabbits, she thought. This is how a small thing feels, before the teeth, before everything goes dark.
A silenus was making her way across the parking lot. At first Ingrid thought that she carried a spear. But then she realized that the wood was grayish and peeling. She must have torn it from the floor of the gazebo. Not that she needed a weapon. The contours of muscle were visible, even beneath he
r dark pelt. She could pull off their limbs, one by one, as a bored child might pluck daisies. Her eyes reminded Ingrid of the park lights, sodium-yellow and flickering with excited vapor. She moved with slow assurance. Her hooves lifted sparks from the uneven pavement, as if buried power lines were somehow responding. It wasn’t the clip-clop of a prancing horse. It was a hammer, breaking through stone. Ingrid half expected to see glowing hoofprints, like something out of a Washington Irving tale, but there were only spiral cracks in the ground. The world was her windshield, and she was a collision, a nightmare of velocity and hunger that would kill them in a moment of exquisite calculus.
Ingrid could feel an older part of her brain, something prehistoric, slowly taking control. This was a mammoth, and she was a bug caught in its shadow. Running wasn’t an option—they were in the middle of an empty parking lot. It might as well be a concrete safari. The silenus would overtake them in a moment. She needed a weapon. All she had in her pockets was a phone, a ring of keys, and some loose change. In the old Celtic stories, magical things were afraid of iron. She could pummel the creature with toonies. But this wasn’t a storybook monster. This was Grendel’s mother, a homicidal satyr with nothing to lose. Nothing short of a grenade would slow her down.
Then Ingrid realized that she did have a weapon.
“Everyone in the car!”
Instinctively, she grabbed their hands. For a moment, it felt like she was running through the park with Neil. We are stars, Mummy, he would squeal in delight. Look at mine feet—they aren’t even touching the ground! But they weren’t sailing over puddles, or letting the tall grass whip against their bare ankles. They were stumbling across a deserted parking lot. The silenus didn’t break into a run. She kept her pace indifferent. After all, there was nowhere for them to go. She could close the distance between them in a moment.
Ingrid reached the car. She pulled out the keys, but her hands were shaking. The key ring dropped to the ground.
She sank to her knees. In that moment, she was every final girl in a horror film, losing her keys, pounding on the wrong door, hurtling down a sinister alley. Maybe Fortuna was shouting at her from the sky. Not that way, idiot! What are you thinking? She reached for the fob, but her body was electric with fear. She couldn’t get her fingers to work.
You are not going to die on your knees in Wascana Park. You are a miles. The parking lot is your Hippodrome. The pavement is nothing but sand. Pick up the bloody keys.
Ingrid grabbed the key ring. She unlocked the doors.
“Get in!”
Carl slid into the backseat, slamming the door behind him. Shelby sat beside her. Ingrid started the engine and checked the rearview mirror. The silenus was about twenty feet away. Or were monsters in the mirror closer than they appeared? It didn’t matter. She slammed the car into reverse and stepped on the gas. The tires squealed. Her little car slammed into the silenus. They collided at an angle. Carl, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, lurched forward with the impact. Shelby braced her hands against the dashboard.
Ingrid felt the collision rattle through her body, like a sudden current. She shifted into first. Suddenly, she could hear Paul’s voice, shouting at her—clutch, fucking clutch, you’re going to kill the transmission—but she ignored the startled cry of the engine. As the car began to tremble, she finally shifted into second, turning in a wide arc that left an acrid trail of rubber on the pavement. She could smell it. Beneath that, she could smell her own sweat. There was bile in her mouth. Heroes weren’t supposed to throw up during a car chase, but she was certain that she might. The silenus was standing in the middle of the parking lot. She didn’t even look winded. Her eyes were two amber slits.
“How strong are they?” Carl demanded from the backseat.
“I’m not sure,” Shelby replied.
“You should know—you’ve killed two of them.”
“That was Morgan, not me! And I had a bow.”
“Dear Fortuna,” Carl began. “Bless this hatchback—”
“What is she even doing here?” Ingrid stared at the hunter, immobile as a lamp in the middle of the pavement. “They can’t cross the boundary.”
“Remember those coyote sightings, from a while back?” Shelby’s voice was low. “I guess we were right. They weren’t coyotes.”
“Since when can they cross over?”
“It’s a brave new fucking world, who cares? Just step on the gas!”
Ingrid hesitated. “I don’t want to kill her.”
“You’d need a tank.”
“There’s a human under that fur . . . right?”
“I—” Shelby looked at her helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Ingrid gripped the steering wheel. She closed her eyes and slammed her foot against the gas pedal. The silenus didn’t move. For a second, Ingrid thought that she might swerve, that she couldn’t hit a living thing head-on. Surely not a living thing with intelligent eyes, regarding her as if she were a suicidal prairie dog. But she didn’t swerve.
The impact tore through her. Every nerve caught fire, and she felt it in her teeth, behind her eyes, in the soles of her feet. The hood crumpled. She heard shearing metal. The glass of the windshield cratered, spiraling out in long, clawlike patterns. The silenus flew backward. She rolled across the ground, struck a concrete divider, and then was still.
Smoke was pouring from the hood. Ingrid could smell something chemical, something that she knew was dangerous. The superheated metal of the car made a tick-tick-tick sound. The headlights cast a mosaic of broken yellow, illuminating the ground in pieces. Nobody spoke. She could hear Shelby’s ragged breathing. Carl was staring out the back window, like a kid trapped on a nightmarish road trip, hands pressed against the glass.
The silenus didn’t move.
“Is she dead?” Shelby whispered.
Ingrid couldn’t let go of the wheel. “I don’t know.” She looked in the rearview mirror. The silenus was completely still. A light wind played with her fur. If you squinted, it might have been a deer. She didn’t see any blood. Why wasn’t there any blood?
“We should go,” Shelby said. “Right? Before she wakes up?”
“What if she doesn’t wake up?” Ingrid asked.
“Look—” Carl began. “I’m all for silenus equal rights. Satyr pride, you can’t judge a monster by its hooves, and all that. I get it. But this isn’t Mr. Fucking Tumnus, okay? Shelby’s right. We have to go, before that thing eviscerates us.”
“She’s human.” Ingrid closed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t know how she crossed over in this form. I didn’t even think that was possible. But it’s happened before. The coyote attacks—you said it yourself. They’re all human. Part of the time.”
“You have no proof of that,” Carl said. “They’re a wild gens. We don’t even know if they were human to begin with, or if they’ve always lived on the other side.”
Ingrid turned to look at him. “Maybe you’re right. But what if the sun rises and that monster turns into someone like us? She must have internal injuries—I mean, God, I hit her twice with a car. She could be dying.”
“She wants to eat us!”
“I don’t think they actually eat their prey.”
“Oh, right. They just carve out our hearts and sacrifice us to their crazy forest god. That’s so much more humane.”
“I don’t see how their forest god is any less—”
Shelby grabbed her shoulder. “Ingrid. Look.”
She craned her neck to see through the rear window. The body of the silenus was gone. There was only a smooth patch of concrete. Not a drop of blood.
Her heart was pounding. She could taste acid. She wanted to run, but she was strapped into the seat. Ingrid tried to look through the cracked windshield. Nothing but shadows and dancing lights. Tick tick tick. The wounded groans of the car, whose front end was a wreck. The wind was star
ting to pick up. There was a knife edge of cold to it as it swept across Wascana Lake. A goose approached the car. He seemed quite unafraid. For a moment, that made Ingrid feel better. Then he hissed, eyes flashing in the headlights.
Ingrid checked the rear view. She saw a shadow, then—
“Carl, get down!”
The glass of the rear window exploded. Carl dove forward, just as a wooden plank tore through the opening. Her makeshift spear. It buried itself in the bottom of the car, whose insides gave a shuddering cry. They’d been harpooned, like a white whale. Carl was pressed against the passenger-side window, knees drawn up to his chest. His hair was covered in glass, and he looked more dazed than frightened. Ingrid saw blood on his forehead. She realized, through her own haze of fear, that Shelby was right. The silenus might be human, but not at the moment. She would take apart the vehicle, one bolt at a time if necessary, until there was nowhere left to hide. They were already running out of windows.
Ingrid floored the gas pedal. She felt Carl slam against the back of her seat. The car was making every terrible sound that she’d ever heard before, all at once. Wind sang through the broken window, as chips of safety glass danced around them. But the check engine light hadn’t yet come on. That was oddly reassuring. As long as the light stayed off, it meant that the car wasn’t quite dead. Just mostly dead, in the words of Miracle Max.
They tore down the footpath, which followed the Albert Street bridge. The park lights flared as they passed, making rainbows on the cratered windshield. It was hard to see through all the cracks, but Ingrid had walked this way hundreds of times. It was how she relaxed after long days of studying. She’d breathe in the night air, letting the silence relax her. She remembered every shadow, every curve of the path. This wasn’t so different, save for the fact that they were going a lot faster, and her legs were covered in bits of glass, like snow.
Shelby twisted around in her seat. “Carl, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said weakly. “Although I may need that shower after all. I’ve got a feeling that these pants have been compromised.”
Path of Smoke Page 15
