Garret’s spirits fell to dust.
“Garret, what’s wrong?” Molly asked sharply.
Garret didn’t know what to say. The fucking thing won’t die. Which meant he and Molly and Sarn would. Maybe he could keep them alive for days, maybe weeks, but eventually it would find them. It would kill them. It would be slow, and horrible. He’d already seen the creature’s promise of it.
Molly had a hand on Garret’s bare shoulder, and even Sarn was leaning in. “Garret, what did you hear?”
For the first time in his life, hope failed him. In the past, no matter how angry he became, or how dark the world seemed, he pushed ahead because he believed there was hope, no matter how small, of a better life than the one he was living. Sometimes his hope shrank to a small spark, but it was always there, a distant lighthouse across stormy seas, or a candle on a winter’s night. Even when his hope was too small to be warm, its light reassured and steadied him. At the sound of the creature’s inhalation, his hope faded away, and the darkness surrounding him leeched into his heart.
There’s no choice now. The creature would not die, and that meant there was only one way out, just as They had told him. They had cornered him, as he always feared they would.
“Sarn,” Garret said, “I need you to get Molly back to town.” He pointed towards the unbroken end of the trestle.
“But—“
Garret held up a hand, silencing them both. “Take her back, Sarn, do it fast. Go to the shop and build me a good forging fire. I need a coal bed long and narrow enough for a big knife blade. And find that silver dollar I found in the mud the other day. I think Pa left some more silver somewhere in the shop, too.”
“Where will you be, brother?” Sarn asked unsteadily.
Garret looked down. Even if he knew how to answer, he would have been too ashamed to do so. Molly hugged him tight and kissed him on the lips, needful and afraid. Sarn squashed the air from Garret’s lungs with a hug, and Garret gave him another kiss on the forehead.
“Stay safe,” Garret said, and then, before he lost the will to do it, he shifted to a wolf, sprinted the last few steps to the broken end of the trestle, and flung himself towards the mountain side. He landed safely, but alone in the dark. He turned and watched Sarn support Molly with his strong arms. Together, they made haste to the far end of the trestle. When they stepped off, they turned to the northeast, Sarn’s internal compass pointing them towards town. Sarn had always had a better sense of direction than Garret. Garret never knew where he was going.
Garret was emotionally overwhelmed, mentally and physically drained; together, those three things conspired together to blind him at that moment. The right question occurred to him, but he was unable to answer it. It was the critical juncture.
If the creature wanted to kill Molly and Sarn, why did it derail the train?
He didn’t know. His mind couldn’t process. If he’d had just a little rest and a little food, or if he hadn’t been quite so sad and sickened by what he had to do next, he might have realized the truth, and that would have made all the difference.
He watched Molly and Sarn until the night and the trees hid their movements from his wolf eyes and ears. He watched for a few moments longer, pretending he could still make out a faint sound from their passing. At last, he turned along the edge of the gorge and found the narrow, dangerous path that would lead him to the bottom.
The descent into darkness took little time. As a wolf, Garret was fleet as the deer which had cut the trail, and even better balanced. The fog swallowed him halfway down, but he pressed on, arriving soon in a world of hulking boulders, standing and lying still in the mist. He padded across the uneven ground, which was stones of all sizes and shapes, rounded by the river’s passing. As he slunk between the stones, some of them standing tall above him, others lying on their sides as if dead, he was impressed by the inevitability of their wear. All of them, despite how sharp they appeared against the white mist, were rounded by the river’s old currents. Apparently all things eventually gave way to the pressure placed on them.
Garret smelled his Pa before he saw him. Garret rounded the last stone and hung his head. Pa’s body was destroyed, broken and crushed and distended by the unforgiving rocks beneath him. His fur was matted and soaked, in fact his entire form seemed dark and as wet as the rocks on which he lay. Garret swallowed hard, a human action, with his wolf’s throat. His Pa was still and silent, beyond the reach of all the pain that plagued him for so many years. A human tear rolled to the end of Garret’s muzzle. It smelled strongly of salt when it dropped from his nose. Maybe in a way, Pa was healed now. Maybe Ma was, too.
Maybe they’re together, somewhere.
Who knew. Perhaps they could finally even love each other.
Or maybe they were farther apart than they had ever been. Somewhere in his heart, Garret knew that if he were to die as a wolf, his body would return to human form in the same way that his muscles would relax for the last time. His Pa’s body had not.
Garret stepped to his father’s broken wolf body as it lay, stretched across cruel stones, and touched his nose to Pa’s forehead. He inhaled his father’s scent, which was going cold.
“I’m sorry, Pa,” he choked. “I love you.”
Garret turned and slipped away. He had not intended to find the creature. Even in its injured state, he knew he could not kill it. His teeth would no more penetrate its hide now than they had before, and he knew from its stirrings in the mist that it was waking. He needed time, not another failed attempt to end the thing for which he was no match. At least, not yet.
As chance would have it, he ran across the creature anyway. He was only following his instincts, trusting they would lead him to the place he needed to go. And they would, but they led him to the creature first. It sprawled across a pile of rocks, their razor sharp edges indicating they had been recently broken. They were fragments of a boulder. The stone had shattered when the creature landed on it.
It made depressing sense that Pa’s body would give in, where the creature’s had not. The thought was only a sad muse, flitting through his mind and gone, but Garret felt lower than a worm simply because it had occurred to him. I’m sorry, Pa.
The creature was lying on its back, sprawled on the pile. As Garret watched, it took a long deep breath, filling its ribcage with life-giving air, stretching the thick cords of muscle that wrapped its ribs. Garret wondered drearily if he could somehow drag it to the river, flop it face down, and sit on its head until it drowned. As he contemplated the absurdity of the plan, the creature flexed its forearm, the broken one, and Garret watched the bones pop back into place, disappearing through the skin. The flesh closed behind them like a zipper. It took another breath, opened and closed its hand. The long fingers could crush his skull without waking.
Garret noticed the black tar leaching from the ground. It looked similar to the creature’s own blood, but it was thicker and more mobile. It oozed from between the stones and crawled its way across the creature’s body, sending out little tendrils like an insect’s antennae, feeling here and there through the creature’s fur like a thousand probing fingers. Everywhere it found a break, tear, or nick, it flowed into the wound, pulling it closed behind itself like a trapdoor.
Garret could feel the creature’s mind, even though it was not seeking his at the moment. Charity was buried somewhere inside it, unconscious. The creature itself was in complete control now, and it was calling to the darkness, summoning its own healing out of hell.
Garret turned and padded away. There was only one way remaining. But he already knew that. He walked down the length of the gorge, giving no thought to his direction or purpose. He knew it was watching—the creature’s master, and his. He knew it would sense what was in his heart, and it would make a way for him to come to it.
Following his instincts again, Garret wandered away from the creature, choosing a narrow ravine to lead him up and out of the gorge. He didn’t recall this ravine being here before,
though he’d walked through the gorge on many a hunt with Babe. What a long time ago that seemed. Another lifetime. When I was still a person.
The ravine was narrow and steep, leading him up over the rim of the gorge, then back down, down, down, until he could have sworn he was farther down than the bottom. When the ravine opened, he found himself in a yellow wood. Even in the middle of the night, the poplar trees glowed with the brightness of their fall foliage. The other hardwoods had lost their leaves weeks ago, but this stand was thickly yellow, both in the tree crowns and the leaf carpet under his paws.
This wood should not have been here. Garret did not know exactly where he was, but he knew how far he had walked, so he knew he should be on the side of a mountain covered with hemlock. Instead, he was on level ground, deep at the bottom of the forest, walking through a poplar stand. Presently, he came to a wide dirt road, which he followed. It could have taken minutes, or it could have taken days, time didn’t seem relevant, but eventually he arrived at a fork in the road. He stood there, looking from one to the other. There was no visual difference between the two roads, each appearing as narrow and worn as the other, each running away, turning here or there, but always growing farther apart until each became lost in the night.
Garret didn’t know what do to. He sensed that each way would be hard. Very difficult, and that both would require him to do something even harder than he had yet done. Both roads would require great strength, and so the difference between strength and weakness, the thing on which he had so long relied, could not help him choose.
Someone else was there beside him, pressing against the air as if it was a curtain. It was not the creature’s master, nor Garret’s, but it was there, and he knew it would answer if he asked a question, so he did.
Which way should I go?
It knelt beside him, sighting down the paths too. That depends on what your heart wants.
Garret was immediate and emphatic. I want to save Molly and Sarn and kill the monster. I have to be strong enough to destroy it, once and for all.
The figure beside him seemed to regret Garret’s words. There is only one path which can grant you the strength to destroy the hellheart. It motioned with a near-invisible hand to the left path. But destroying it does not mean you will save your brother or your mate.
Garret flinched. What?
The figure was quiet for a long while. When it spoke, it was heavy with regret.
Garret, if you become what is needed to save them from the creature, who then will save them from you?
Chapter 22
Garret’s heart chilled with the words, or more accurately, with what he felt from the words. But if I go the other way, if I don’t go to him, will I have what I need to save them?
Little one, the figure said. They are not given to you to keep. Be it by the teeth of darkness or the slow hands of time, they will be taken from you, and you from them. This world is not meant to last forever, nor the things in it to be held so tightly.
The figure gestured to the yellow leaves all around. The world is like this wood, a passing season, meant to be enjoyed and loved, as you do, but then released when the time has come. It is not for me to know or to say when the time is expired. You must look ahead to the unending harvest, in which love is made real, and in which you and your loved ones can be together, forever.
Garret didn’t understand what the figure was talking about, but it sent terror to the bottoms of his feet. I can’t lose them. I won’t, you can’t ask me to let them die!
They are not yours in this world, little one, it replied gently. Fear is blinding you. You must see past it. Look deeper into the reaches of your soul and know the true world is not this one.
Garret panicked. They won’t die. They won’t!
Then you may, it replied sadly. And your death will be of a far worse kind than theirs.
Garret took off, fleeing from the figure at the fork in the road. He ran down the left path, and though he did not look back, he knew the figure watched him all the way, still kneeling where he had left it. Much as he had watched Molly and Sarn vanish from the trestle.
The road took him quickly into a darker part of the forest. He slowed, straining even with his wolf eyes to see what lay ahead. Within a few steps, he lost sight of what was at his feet. Then the world around him went pitch black. He had chosen to walk into darkness, and so it had come to greet him.
The smells around him changed, not as if being traded for others, but as if centuries of decay took place around him in a matter of seconds. Soon, only the smell of dust was left.
Dust, and the sound of a beating heart. His own.
Another being was there with him in the dark, and its Presence was like frost on his fur. The feel of its gaze was like worms, wiggling over his skin. It spoke. Not to his mind, this time, but in a quiet baritone that split the silence like an old iron bell.
“Why have you come to us tonight?”
It knew why, but it wanted Garret to say it aloud. He found himself standing upright. He’d let go of the wolf form. The wolfstrap hung around his torso. He removed it and held it in his left hand.
“I have to kill the creature. It’s the only way to save Molly and Sarn.”
After getting used to the initial discomfort of the Presence, he was able to localize it to his left side, a little ways from him. Suddenly it switched to his right, and moved a few feet closer.
The baritone came again, dark, and so strong that it made his skin crawl. The power in it was reassuring in a way that probably should have made Garret rethink his decision. It didn’t make him feel safe, but it felt even stronger than the creature’s presence. It was, Garret knew, the master of which the creature had spoken. The Presence, however, seemed unconcerned about its servant, the creature, for it simply said, “I can give you what you ask.”
Garret waited. The Presence moved again to his left. A few feet closer. Garret stared hard, but it was like trying to look out of the center of the earth. There was no light. There was nothing. So the Presence could give him what he had asked for, but it also seemed to be waiting for something. Was Garret supposed to say something?
“Will you give it to me, then?” he asked.
“Will you receive it?” the Presence responded, a few feet closer, back to his right.
It was a simple question, and should have been easy to answer, but it brought a flood of dread through Garret. He became uncertain, suddenly more afraid of the question than of dying.
The Presence waited, though it was now within arm’s length, to his left.
Garret could have reached out and touched it. He wondered what it would feel like. It was close enough he could sense its posture. It had crossed its arms before it, and wore a cloak of some kind. He could touch its arm if he wanted. Would it be cool and slick, like an arachnid’s exoskeleton? Would it be corded and moving, like the creature’s body?
Seconds ticked by and Garret became so agitated and so nervous that he started to think his head was on backwards. Or maybe sideways. Maybe there was no right way to think, or to be. The picture of Molly flashed through his head again, pinned down, shrieking as the creature peeled pieces of her flesh from her.
“I’ll do it!” Garret blurted, as much to rid himself of the image as anything. He found himself on the ground, seated, head between his knees, breathing fast.
“I will provide for you, Garret,” it said.
The darkness began to open around him, two small orbs of orange fire at a time. First, two opened to his left, twenty feet away. They were black and glassy, but lit from deep within by hellfire. Two more opened out in front of him, peering around the trunk of one of the poplars. More opened to his left and right, in front, behind. Dozens of pairs of eyes like the creature’s. Garret was surrounded. He had wandered into the middle of them unawares. They had lain in slumber among the trees, waiting for him to arrive. His promise had awakened them. They stood, pressed closer, prowling uneasily around. Watching him.
Th
e Presence was still to his left, but though he could make out the dim shapes of the trees in the glow of the eyes, he could not distinctly see the Presence, though it was very near to him. It seemed immune to light.
“Come with me,” it said and retreated before him, further down the road. He followed. He knew he should have been terrified, unable to walk or even stand with fear. But he wasn’t. He’d been here before, long ago, on the first night his mother began to abuse him. With this, he was familiar. With death, he had struck a bargain. It did not matter whom he had been trying to save. He had done it, and it was done. So instead of fear, he was sick with despair.
Garret moved behind the Presence, and the dozens of burning eyes followed him, slipping through the trees to his right and left, feigning nervously across the path in front and behind. Looking at him sometimes, keeping track of his steps, and never, ever blinking.
As they slipped past each other, he could catch glimpses of their forms, but he didn’t need to see them to know what they were. Canines recognize one another, even when they are not of the same world. They were hounds, great and gaunt, moving as silently and swiftly as the shadow and wisp from which they were made.
As they darted and stalked, the tattered shadows of their bodies would stretch and crawl, sometimes thickening, sometimes thinning until translucent. Within them was more wisp and shadow, wound tightly into sinews of dark speed and strength. In the center of each of their voluminous chests burned a heart of orange fire, beating slow and steady. It was the only sound they made: the quiet thumping of their flaming hearts.
The Presence had stopped walking and turned to face Garret. Between he and it, in the middle of the road, lay something dark and wispy. Garret approached and knelt. It was one of the hellhounds, sprawled on the dirt road in the dark. Its chest was cold and dark, its eyes the same. The wisps and shadows from which it was made floated this way and that, as if in a gentle breeze, though the air was still. The other hellhounds circled closer, watching Garret and their fallen companion with unblinking orange and black eyes.
Brimstone Page 44
