by Connie Hall
In one swift thrust he knocked the basket off the table.
Their meal crashed to the floor.
He pushed her back onto the top.
Summer felt as if someone else had entered her body—a vixen. She couldn’t keep her hands from touching him. This was Reese. She thought she’d never be close to him again. She ripped open the front of his shirt, running her hands over the hard ridges of his chest. It was like they were those two mad teenagers again, lust burning them up.
He jerked up her dress and began fumbling with her tights. In seconds he had them off.
She opened his zipper and he was hard and ready for her.
Heat built in her like a bonfire, and then he was pushing her dress up, setting her on the table, opening her thighs and thrusting into her.
Summer wrapped her hips around his and hung on and she was back in high school, making out in his daddy’s pickup truck. She remembered the ache when he’d taken her virginity. Holding on to him, crying from the pain, but urging him not to stop.
She held on to his neck, feeling him thrusting so hard he touched her womb. He was taking them both back in time, where their yearning burned away everything, and it was only the two of them in the whole world.
Then it was over. Summer gasped and clung to him.
They looked into each other’s eyes. Reality set in and the wild sexual magic between them suddenly dissolved
He pulled back and said, “Trust me, Summer. Why do you want the poster?”
She had hoped for something like, “I still love you, Summer.” What she got was a huge dose of in-your-face realism.
When she didn’t speak right away, he pulled out of her and zipped up his jeans. She quickly jerked down her shift and went in search of her panties and tights. Could she trust him? What choice did she have? Meikoda or Fala could erase his memory, anyway. Memories of their coupling would be erased. Did she want that? Hadn’t he done it just to get the truth out of her? Oh, God!
Pressure built behind her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. No, she wouldn’t let it happen. She decided to tell him.
She told him everything in a calm, even voice—about her powers, how and why the attacks happened the first time. How she didn’t know why they were happening now. About the female symbol the wendigo had made her draw. He looked mystified when she explained about her powers, but didn’t question her and let her talk.
Afterward, he asked, “What about my father? His body, where do you think this thing took it?”
“I don’t know.” His brows drew together in a suspicious frown. He didn’t believe her.
“I’m telling the truth. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” he said dismissively. “Come on, we’ll look for the poster.”
She followed him down the hall into his old bedroom. When she stepped inside, she gasped. Pictures of wendigos covered one whole wall near his desk. Printed copies of stories from the internet were taped next to them. Books written about wendigos were stacked on his desk. He’d been researching them, and it looked as if he’d made them his pastime. She saw the King Charles Gazette’s obituary column and the picture of Harland McMurray.
Pressure built in her throat and she couldn’t bear to look at it. Inadvertently, she had caused his death. She hadn’t known that she would become the Color Weaver, that an entity from the underworld would try to control her to steal her powers. She hadn’t known not to draw the one thing that would tie her to the wendigo and cause it to have a hold over her. Or that the wendigo would come back. But she had drawn it just the same. Did Reese blame her? Of course he did. That’s why he abandoned her in high school and would have nothing to do with her. And he would do it again. Moments ago meant nothing to him. A walk in the park. Just two people sharing pent-up lust. In the end she had drawn the wendigo into existence and he had lost his father because of it. He’d never let that go.
Tears burned behind her eyes and she had to blink them away.
“It’s over here.” He opened the closet and pulled out stacks of boxes. Research information on the occult, wendigos, witches, black magic was written in blue marker on the sides. This wasn’t just a pastime; it was an obsession.
Box number three held the jackpot. He found the copy of her poster, wrapped in newspapers. It was regular poster size: eighteen by twenty-four. Surrounded by the same cheap pine frame her mother had bought for it so long ago.
“Somewhere we can burn this?” she asked, gazing at it in rapt horror. It looked innocuous enough, but she knew it was the gate to her own hell.
“The stove.”
She followed him to the kitchen and watched as he ripped it from the frame, turned on the gas range and set it on fire. He threw it in the sink and they both watched in silence as it turned to ash. With each plume of smoke, she felt his aloofness settling in, an estranged distance separating them again. Her chest ached as she remembered him touching her, his mouth on her. She closed her eyes, told herself she was being maudlin and stupid.
“Now, I want to see this symbol the wendigo made you draw. Let’s go to your studio.”
“You shouldn’t come near my house. The wendigo could be close by.”
“I’m not running scared from this monster. It killed my father. One of us is going down.”
She wanted to say, “I don’t want you hurt,” but she knew he wouldn’t relent. He probably didn’t want her to say it, anyway. As he grabbed his gun and holster from a rack near the kitchen door and threaded it through his belt, his eyes gleamed with a quarterback’s determination and something close to hatred. She followed him out, wishing now she could keep him safe.
Chapter 5
Even before Reese pulled into Summer’s drive, he felt that tingling sixth sense of danger shift across his shoulders and the back of his neck. The thing was nearby. He could sense it.
He deliberately drove so the headlights illuminated the whole yard and house. He saw nothing yet.
“Stay here,” he commanded, then he bounded out of the car.
“Reese, it wants me. Let me go.”
He shut the door on her protests. He was already running to his trunk and pulling out an automatic assault rifle, standard-issue trunk equipment in his department.
He swept his way toward the cottage, using the light scope on the gun. That’s when he saw the studio door, open. The brute of a dog was down on all fours, ears tucked, whining, wanting to greet him but afraid to move from the doorway.
“What is it, boy?”
He whimpered at Reese, picked up his head and glanced at something behind him.
Fear crawled along Reese’s spine as he smelled the stench of rotting flesh. He remembered that scent from the last encounter, a wendigo’s scent. He wheeled around.
Where was it?
He shined his light up into a tree and found the beast perched on a limb. His scope light speared the wendigo’s chest. He could see a dark swirling mass of energy holding the bones of its body together. Its black soul.
The wendigo’s protruding jaw slit in a lopsided grin, exposing vicious huge fangs.
Reese sprayed the tree with bullets. Lead sailed through the tree, gouging and tearing bits of wood from branches, but not affecting the wendigo.
In fact, it still looked amused, as if it were toying with him. It opened its arms, leaped from the branch and sailed into the air. Then it just seemed to melt into the black sky. Legend stated that a wendigo could pick up its victims and fly off with them. Reese knew that for a fact. He’d seen the thing bite his father in the back of the neck in a way to paralyze him, and just carry him off.
Now Summer screamed behind him, “Reese, oh, my God! Reese!”
She flung herself at him. “I was so afraid for you.”
He had to admit it felt good to have her fretting over him, even if he didn’t want her to. He regretted losing his head and having sex with her. They would never work. But God, she was beautiful, and having her arms around him was making him want her again.
&nbs
p; “I’m okay,” he assured her, keeping his weapon away from her and putting some distance between them.
She frowned and said, “What am I going to do? It will never go away. I thought once the connection was destroyed, I’d be rid of it. It’s still hanging around. I don’t know why.”
“Let’s have a look at that symbol you drew.” He didn’t know if she was jerking his chain or not. Was the whole poster thing another lie, or was she telling the truth? Either way, he had to destroy the wendigo and get away from her.
“I need something hot to get my blood flowing again before we look at the drawing. How about you?” Summer asked Reese as she headed for the coffeepot. She still felt shaky all over from her fear for Reese.
“Thanks.”
Reese set down the M17 on the kitchen table and leaned against the counter. He crossed his arms and ankles; his eyes never left her. He watched her with wary concentration. The walls of the kitchen seemed to shrink with him in it.
Thankfully, the animals were around her. Binky and Jinx picked at their dry food on the counter, while Rathbone wove around her ankles, his way of saying, “Pet me! Pet me!” Sampson had flopped out on the kitchen linoleum, taking up most of the floor.
She bent to pet Rathbone, a tuxedo cat with a funny white bow on the end of his mouth. He looked as if he had a permanent Cheshire smile. But no matter how distracted the animals made her, she still felt Reese’s presence burning up the air. His remoteness and reserve was like a powerful cloud in the room.
She gulped, stood and poured the coffee. She recalled he took cream and sugar, so she fixed it the way he liked it and handed it to him.
“You remembered.” His brows drew together in annoyance.
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
He didn’t answer her for a long moment, then he said dismissively, “Let’s look at that drawing.”
Summer led the way to her studio and the sketch pad.
Reese stared at the symbol as he sipped the coffee. “Doesn’t look familiar. What is it?”
“The symbol for female in our tribe.”
“So this thing must have some intelligence if it knows your tribe’s language.”
“It’s an ancient language, steeped in white magic. It must have gained knowledge of it somehow. I think it’s trying to communicate with me. I just don’t know what it wants.” Summer wrapped her fingers around the hot cup, warming her suddenly frigid fingers. “I fear it’s not leaving until I find out. I just pray it doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
“Okay, so symbol for woman. If I was this thing, what could I mean by it?”
“The symbol is one of power among my people. We are a matriarchal society. Women have always ruled the tribe.”
“It could mean it wants more power, or…” Reese’s words trailed off. He stared down at Summer for a long uncomfortable moment, a light burning behind his eyes. For a second she saw pure carnal desire there, then it disappeared as he said, “It could be literal. Maybe this thing is lonely.”
“Oh, my gosh! I hadn’t considered that.”
“Next we have to ask ourselves, why can’t this thing get its own mate?”
“Far as I know, wendigos are male demons. Maybe this one is lonely and he wants my help.”
“Why kill people and leave their clothes at your house?”
“I don’t know what goes through a wendigo’s mind. In the underworld a sacrifice is usually required to gain the favor of a powerful demon. Maybe it thinks I want this gift.” Summer grimaced at her own reflection in the coffee cup.
“That whole thing about you bringing to life what you draw is real?” He shot her a dubious frown.
“Of course,” she said, offended that he didn’t believe her. “This menagerie here…” She motioned to the cats and dog. “They came about when I first learned I was the Color Weaver. The SPCA asked me to paint a picture for their new building in Richmond. These guys popped up after I finished it.”
“I don’t know.” His expression still remained skeptical.
“I can see you’ll need a demonstration. Wait, I’ll show you.”
She found her pastels and sat down at the sketch pad. She began drawing a can of soup. Chicken noodle soup. She worked from memory. It took her twenty minutes, but when she was done, there was a hissing sound. A small portal of light opened and the can fell out and rolled across the table.
“Wow!” He caught the can before it fell off the table. He looked it over, his sleepy eyes as wide as silver dollars. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it.” He rapped a knuckle on the can. “Can I open it and eat it?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll be damned.” He set the soup down and crossed his long arms over his chest. He studied the soup a moment, then said, “So, if you draw this female wendigo into existence, we’ll have two of these damn things on our hands.”
“I’m hoping it will go back to its own dimension if it gets what it wants—that is, if it actually wants a mate. We could be wrong,” Summer said, an ominous note to her words.
“I don’t really care what it wants, as long as we can use the female wendigo as bait for a trap. At the least, the damn thing will be interested.”
“Probably so.” Her heart actually ached from fear and frustration, fear that Reese could be killed and frustration at wondering if this would work. It was all supposition. What if this wasn’t what it wanted? It was the only hope she had.
He stood, grabbed his M17 and walked to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Just get your sketch pad ready. And don’t leave this house until I get some ammo out of my trunk.” The thrill of the hunt blazed in his eyes as he left.
Fear churned in her gut. What if this went awry and Reese was killed? She had to do this on her own. She couldn’t put him in danger. She grabbed her sketch pad, waited for him to turn his back and walk to the car, then she ran out the door and into the woods.
Chapter 6
Summer ran until she was out of breath. She paused in a glen, where only brambles and small pines surrounded her. She smelled the rotting-flesh scent and felt the wendigo watching her. She whispered, “I hope you can hear and understand me. I’m drawing this for you.”
She used the light of the moon and began to sketch the female wendigo in long fluid strokes. It seemed so easy to draw, effortless, her mind’s eye guiding from some primitive dark place inside her. The wendigo emerged on the paper. Time was her enemy, she knew. Reese would find her soon. Her hand trembled as she drew. She used all her fingers to blend and smear the charcoal. She’d drawn the female with breasts in a flowing shredded robe. Her chin jutted with a fanged jaw and Summer added long lashes to the eyes.
“Done,” she said, throwing aside the stem of charcoal.
Blinding light fractured the atmosphere above her, cracking the night sky like an eggshell. She felt white magic streaming through her body, heating up her blood, making every hair on her skin stand on end. She had never felt the full brunt of her own power, or the birth of something so powerful and evil. She had never willingly drawn anything like this female demon.
Suddenly the female wendigo leaped through the rays, its slender emaciated body and long flowing white hair ghoulish and fascinating all at the same time. It floated in the air, a wispy phantom of energy and demonic spirit.
Their eyes met. Fiend. Creator.
Summer saw the wendigo’s expression change from innocence of genesis to a darker devouring yearning, the fire in the eyes turning a searing bloodred. The wendigo threw back its head, howled like a banshee, then lunged at her.
Summer closed her eyes and saw her life flash before her.
Reese ran frantically through the woods now. Summer’s safety was all he could think about. Why had she disobeyed him? Would the wendigo hurt her? As he plowed through limbs and past trees, he was back in that hellish place in his mind that he tried to forget, the night his father disappeared. He could hear his father�
�s scream echoing in his memories. His father, who had never been afraid of anything, screaming bloody murder, screaming like the fear had crawled right inside his gut and was eating him alive. The stench of the wendigo had gagged Reese. That rotting-flesh smell of death, just like the scent he smelled now in these woods. Reese had watched the demon carry off his two-hundred-and-forty-pound father like he didn’t weigh an ounce. All Reese had been able to do was stand there firing a .20 gauge at it.
An unholy screech brought him back to the present, and the sound crawled down his flesh. He trailed the sound to a clearing. He spotted Summer first. She faced a female wendigo and it was plunging toward her, mouth open. Blinding light still poured from the portal in which it had emerged.
He jammed a clip into the assault rifle, raised the gun…
A dark figure materialized in the air, the male wendigo. It held something large. Three figures fell from its grasp and hit the ground. Reese couldn’t get a clear shot as the male wendigo dived down.
Seconds before the female reached Summer, the male wendigo snatched his mate up in his jaws.
She wailed and snarled and kicked and fought.
The wendigo bit her neck, paralyzing her. Reese watched in amazed horror as the wendigo flew through the portal with a satisfied smile on his face. It closed with a blinding clap of thunder.
Reese ran to Summer, his heart pounding. He found her facedown on the ground. He grabbed her up. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, but I saw something, Reese.”
“I know. I saw it drop something, too.”
“No, no, you don’t understand.” Summer pushed him aside and was on her feet, stumbling through the brush.
Reese grabbed her arm. “Wait.”
“No, I can’t believe it,” she said in a kind of demented hopeful voice. “I have to see for myself.”
“What?”
Moaning stopped them both. They looked at each other, then Summer, driven by excitement, grabbed his hand and pulled him forward. “Over here. They landed over this way.”
