by Charley Case
He waited for the streetlight to turn red and traffic to stop before he walked directly to the huge steel manhole cover that happened to be beside a large SUV with a family inside. A little girl in the back seat stared at him as he approached and gave him a tentative wave.
Finn smiled a huge toothy grin, waving at the little girl before pulling his beard like it was a doorbell rope. He popped his tongue out and crossed his eyes.
The little girl began to laugh, then stuck her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers at him. He retorted by pulling his nose up like a pig and sniffing around with wide eyes. The girl exploded with laughter and, putting her fingers under her eyes, pulled her cheeks down and rolled her eyes up into her head.
Finn laughed and took the opportunity to slip a finger of his prosthetic arm into one of the holes of the manhole cover. Flexing his back muscles, he easily lifted and slid the cover to the side. He was standing up again just as the little girl let go of her face and unrolled her eyes, giggling.
She looked at him expectantly but was confused when he pointed down at the road beside the car. Then he waved goodbye to her and stepped into the hole, dropping out of sight. Catching the ladder attached to the wall before falling too far, he reached up and slid the cover back into place before letting go of the ladder and dropping the twelve or so feet to the bottom.
He hit the ground in a solid-footed stance, but not before his feet passed through a literal river of shit that came up to his calves.
Finn gagged and almost threw up the breakfast tacos he had gotten from a street vendor thirty minutes ago before he got his guts under control. He took a couple of steadying breaths.
The unfortunate truth he was far too familiar with was that you could and would get used to any smell given enough time. He dreaded how bad he was going to stink when he got home.
After a few minutes, his dark vision was in full swing, and he could at least ignore most of the smells around him. He glanced both ways down the concrete tunnel that had a good eight-foot diameter and saw that there was a T junction about twenty feet behind him. The other way seemed to go on for quite a while, with only small inlets dotting the walls. As he watched a blast of water and other things shot out of one of the inlets.
“I’ll go this way, I think,” he said to himself, hiking a thumb over his shoulder in the opposite direction of the discharge.
Finn didn't know how his ability to find treasures worked. No dwarves did, but they knew it did work. No one could find a treasure like a dwarf who was actively looking for it. So, while choosing a direction to go in the sewer had more to do with not wanting to be sprayed with shit-water than it did with some mystical sense, he had to admit that the choice felt right.
Reaching the T junction, Finn looked left, then right. He didn't see a difference, so he went left.
“Man, I really wish I was sitting on the couch with Mila watching a movie,” the dwarf grumbled as he sidestepped a particularly dense patch of human waste. “Must be nice just sitting around without a care in the world.”
“Yeah, treasure hunting sounds like way more fun than this,” Danica agreed.
“Chi,” Penny said, pointing into the clearing.
Mila squinted and saw a red-haired woman in jeans and a long black duster coming out of the sawmill.
“We’ll need to hurry back to the bike,” Mila started but stopped when she saw the woman turn away from the Jeep and head toward the woods. “Or not. Where the hell is she going?”
“One way to find out,” Danica suggested.
Mila chuckled. “I suppose there is.”
“Shir chi,” Penny said, taking off.
“Good call. We’ll follow as close as we can. If you see us get lost, let us know which way to go.”
Penny gave her a thumbs-up before shooting off into the woods, circling around to where the woman was heading.
“Let’s go,” Mila said, pointing in the direction Penny had flown off. “You lead the way, Miss Wood Elf.”
“Oh, I was going to.” Danica gave her a severe look. “You make more sound walking through the woods than Finn trying to meditate.”
Mila chuckled. “Nothing is that loud.”
Chapter Nine
Mila thought they had lost the trail, but Danica spotted the black-cloaked figure heading in a new direction just as Penny swooped down from the treetops and pointed her out before taking off once again.
Following in Danica’s preternaturally quiet steps, Mila focused on her foot placement and left the following to Danica and Penny. She was surprised when Danica put a hand out to stop her. She looked up to see that they were at the edge of a ravine.
Danica pointed down into the ravine, which was a little over twenty feet wide at the base but ran off in either direction for several hundred feet like a gash in the forest floor. Mila looked over the edge and saw the woman walking down a path that had been carved into the granite walls. She was twenty feet from the bottom and just reaching the halfway mark on the path, putting the floor of the ravine at a good forty or more feet deep.
A quick scan of the opposite edge of the ravine and Mila spotted Penny hunkered down in some underbrush. They made eye contact and Penny pointed straight down, drawing Mila's attention to the wall below the dragon’s hiding place.
It took a second for her to realize she was looking at a cave, not just an overhang of rock blocking what little sunlight that made its way through the tree canopy. This was confirmed when the woman walked across the ravine bottom and through the opening, quickly swallowed by darkness.
“Okay, this officially just got creepy,” Danica said quietly.
“Because she went into a cave?” Mila raised an eyebrow.
Danica nodded. “Name one good thing that’s happened in a cave?”
“Yeah, good call.” Mila bit her lip in consideration. “We need to see what’s going on in there. Heather might still be alive and just being held captive. I don't like how the Sisterhood is just giving her up for dead.”
“I understand that, but don't you guys, like, just get reborn?” Danica asked as Penny flew across the ravine and landed on Mila's shoulder.
“Not you too.” Mila threw her hands up. “Yes, we get reborn, but the person we were is dead. If I die, yeah, I’ll come back in twenty years or so, but I won’t be Mila. I’ll be some rando you’ve never met. We don't wake up until we're in our teens. Do you have any idea how much the first fifteen years of your life determines your personality? Victoria said Valkyries don't settle into a consistent personality until they hit their ninth or tenth life.”
“Oh, I hadn't thought of that,” Danica said with a frown. “So, what you’re saying is that in your next life, you might have some style sense?”
Mila snorted a laugh, slapping Danica's shoulder. “Don’t be an asshole. That’s Penny’s job.”
Penny’s jaw dropped. “Chi?”
“Oh, don't give me that. We all know you’re the asshole of the group.” Mila pursed her lips, daring Penny to deny it.
A smoke ring from her nostril was all the answer Mila was going to get.
“Shir shee squee,” Penny said, getting back down to business.
“Okay.” Mila nodded, and Penny jumped off her shoulder and glided to the ravine floor. “She’s going to see if the coast is clear for us to come down. Can you get a teleport spell ready in case we need to get out of here quickly?”
Danica nodded.
They watched Penny dart into the cave on foot, moving as quickly as a cat. After a few seconds, she came back out and waved her arms over her head.
“That’s it. Let’s go.”
Mila, not worried about being heard, quickly ran to where the path cut into the wall started and carefully made her way down. She glanced back when she reached the halfway point and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Danica less than a foot behind her.
“Holy shit, you’re so fucking quiet. You make ten times this much noise in the condo.”
“I�
�m a wood elf. This is my natural environment.”
Mila looked Danica up and down, noting the designer black turtleneck and dark-orange leggings. She even had a gold necklace on, and knee-high boots.
“Yeah. Totally fit in here.” Mila laughed. “You look like you just got out of yoga class.”
“I’ll have you know that orange and black blend with a forest surprisingly well. Hurry up, we’re totally exposed on this wall.” She shooed Mila on.
They reached the entrance of the cave, and Penny hopped onto Mila's shoulder. “Chi chi. Shir.”
“She said the tunnel makes a few turns as it goes deeper. We need to be quiet. She heard talking and movement farther in,” Mila translated, pulling out her Ivar and taking the lead.
The smell of wet dog and too many bodies mixed with the tangy smell of fresh-cut rock assailed Mila's senses as soon as she entered the large tunnel. The dark stone didn't reflect much of the light from outside, but Mila had noticed her vision in the dark was getting better—something that happened to Valkyries as they matured, according to Victoria. Mila still needed to hold a hand out in front of her to be sure she didn't walk into a wall, but she could see the basic shape of the tunnel as it quickly turned to the right.
She moved carefully, being sure not to kick any of the loose rocks that littered the floor down the passage. Danica’s hand was on her back as she followed close behind, with Penny riding her shoulder.
The farther they went, Mila began to hear an almost girlish female voice speaking at a slightly raised volume as if speaking to a crowd. Light spilled around the next bend in the cave, and the smell of wet dog grew stronger.
The farther down the tunnel they went, the more magical heaviness there was in the air. Mila had felt that heaviness before when fighting the Dark Star; it was dark magic or something close to it.
“Do you feel that?” Mila asked quietly. “Is that magic?”
“Yeah, I feel it,” Danica said with a shiver. “It feels like dark magic to me, but for it to be this thick?” She shivered again, shaking her head for emphasis.
“Squee shir. Chi chi, shir,” Penny said.
“Infernal magic? Are you sure?” Mila asked, not liking the sound of “infernal.”
“Are you kidding?” Danica whisper-shouted. “That’s not possible. There are no infernal beings on Earth.”
“Are you positive?” Mila asked.
Penny nodded.
“Shit.”
Moving to the wall for cover, Mila inched her way up to the bend in the tunnel and peeked around it.
Her eyes widened and she gasped quietly.
“What is it?” Danica whispered, leaning forward.
Mila made room for her, and the elf took in the scene in the large chamber.
There were lights strung across the rough-cut ceiling, illuminating a crowd of half-man, half-wolf creatures standing in a tight pack at the center of the cavern. Mila counted at least thirty of the eight-foot-tall furry creatures, their wolf-like faces calm but still frightening in their monstrosity. They were facing away from where Mila and Danica watched, their attention on the woman in the long black coat.
The woman was standing on something so she was above the gathered wolfmen and giving them a heartfelt speech.
“The Lord is waking and requires more sacrifice. We have a treat for him, but he must become more powerful to take it in. You are his children, like me before you, but the Lord has chosen me to be his hands and mouth in this new world. He came to me again in my dreams last night. It is time for speed. This Valkyrie was only the first of many to come to stop us.” She pointed to the side, and Mila followed her finger to a figure secured to the wall with thick black chains.
Mila's hand went to her mouth. “Oh, my God. That’s Heather.”
“She’s in a pretty bad state. These animals haven't been kind,” Danica said harshly.
“Chi.” Penny pointed to the back of the pack.
Mila saw what had caught Penny's attention. The wolfman closest to them was sniffing the air as if it was looking for something. The one beside it began to do the same thing. They bared their teeth and began to growl. The cave was suddenly filled with growls as the rest of the pack picked up on their fellows’ warning.
The woman stopped speaking, sensing the shift in her wolfmen’s attention.
“What do you smell, my darlings?” she asked in that creepy girlish voice.
The two wolfmen at the back of the crowd suddenly turned toward Mila and Danica, but Danica was quick and pulled Mila back out of sight.
“We need to get out of here,” Danica said, holding her hands out and beginning to focus her magic.
“Heather is in there. We need to get her out,” Mila argued.
“Shir shee,” Penny said with a tight-lipped stare.
Mila nodded. “You’re right. There are too many of them. Maybe I can get some help from Victoria.”
The sound of scrambling feet told them that the wolfmen were heading their way. “Get us out of here, Danica.”
A bubble formed around them as Mila saw a hairy snout come around the corner, but they were gone an instant later.
The next breath, they were crouching on the floor of their condo.
“Fuck. I think it saw us.”
Chapter Ten
“What the hell was that?” Mila shouted, fishing her sisterhood-issued phone out of her pocket. “How on earth were so many werewolves in one place, and no one noticed?”
“Those weren’t werewolves,” Danica said, breathing fast. “They were only half-transformed. That’s really painful for a werewolf, and they only do it if it gives them an advantage in battle. I think those were Rougarou.”
Mila lowered the phone and raised an eyebrow at Danica. “What’s a Rougarou?”
She blew a stray blonde hair out of her face as she headed for the fridge. “It’s a thing that’s halfway between a man and a wolf.”
“No shit.” Mila rolled her eyes and climbed onto one of the stools at the counter.
Danica pulled a couple bottled waters from the fridge and tossed one to Mila. Penny jumped off the elf’s shoulder into the fridge to get herself a snack, so Danica left the door open and bent at the waist to lean her elbows on the counter. She cracked open the water and took a sip before continuing.
“They’re not men who turn into a wolf or a wolf that turns into a man. They’re an animal that is half-wolf and half-man or elf or whatever the victim used to be before it was changed.”
“So, they’re animals that used to be people?” Mila asked, horrified.
Danica nodded. “Yeah, and they’re just about as smart as a wolf, which is pretty smart by the way, but they also have a geas placed upon them that compels them to follow their master’s wishes to the best of their abilities. It’s a terrible spell that will kill anyone who defies it. Honestly, it’s the hardest part of creating a Rougarou. Changing someone’s physical form isn’t particularly hard unless something goes wrong and the person gets stuck, but only an idiot would let that happen.”
“Can we save those people who have been turned into wolfmen?”
“Shir shee,” Penny said, flying out of the fridge with a stack of deli meat and cheese in her arms. She kicked the door to close it and flew over to the island, landing between the two women.
Danica tore off a paper towel and put it at Penny's feet. Penny smiled at her and dropped the meat and cheese on the towel before stuffing a slice of turkey into her mouth.
“Why can't we change them back?” Mila frowned. “They were changed into animals, so they should be able to be turned back.”
“Because their souls have been taken,” Danica said with an apologetic shrug. “We could change them back, but they would already be dead. Well, to be honest, they wouldn’t be dead, they would be more like zombies. The person for all intents and purposes is dead, even if the body is still alive.”
Mila bit her lip while considering what to do. “We need to put them down, then. If we t
ake out this woman and the Rougarou are free, they’ll scatter and start attacking people at random. I’m giving Victoria a call. We need to get back there and save Heather before it’s too late. Give me a minute.”
Sliding off the stool, Mila paced across the room while she pulled up Victoria’s contact info and hit send.
The phone picked up after two rings. “Mila, good to hear from you so soon. I take it the mission was quick?”
“Actually, we’re in the middle of it still.” Mila took a breath before plowing forward. “Look, I know you don't think it’s that big of a deal, but Heather is still alive and being held captive. I know where she is, but I couldn't get her out. There’s some crazy lady who has like thirty Rougarou under her control hiding out in some cave in the woods. Not to mention my friend Penny was sure she could feel infernal magic all throughout the place. I think something really big is going down.”
Victoria was quiet on the other line for long enough that Mila checked to be sure the call was still connected. “Are you there?”
“Yes, dear.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “I know you are new to this life, but in that time, you have seen more than most. However, what you are saying has some issues to it.”
“How so?” Mila asked cautiously.
“First, there is no way your friend felt infernal magic. There is no being on Earth that can produce Infernal magic. The last one was dealt with by the sisterhood; I landed the final blow myself. We are always on the lookout for infernals, but we haven't found anything in thousands of years.
“Second, while Rougarou are a thing, and they do come about from time to time, there is no way there are thirty of them under one woman’s control. At most, a practitioner of dark magic could have five Rougarou under their control. What you saw were more than likely werewolves in their middle state.
“I’m sorry, dear, but what you’re proposing is ludicrous.”
Mila bit her cheek to keep from telling Victoria off. She knew what she had seen. “What about Heather? I know where she is. We can go and save her.”
