Hounded By The Gods

by ST Branton

  “I hate this town,” Amber said quietly, “but I don’t want it to die.”

  My heart squeezed a little. I reached over and laid a hand on her arm. “It won’t. I’ll make sure of it. But you’re going to have to keep quiet about this. If you don’t, no one will believe you, and it will just get more people hurt in the end.” I glanced toward the east, too. “Trust me. I’ve been to Mormouth recently. It’s…” Unwilling to describe the scene in any detail, I trailed off. Fortunately, Amber got the picture. She was pale, and a slight shiver ran through her, but she nodded.

  “I know. Most of the time, no one here will believe anything unless they think they came up with it themselves. I’d get laughed out of town if I even said the word ‘werewolf’ where anyone could hear me.” She scowled. “Not that they’ve ever put much stock in me to begin with. Just the dumb girl, remember?”

  “Yeah.” I stretched my arms above my head, pleased to feel that some of the minor bruising was already clearing up. “And that makes it hard for me to say this, because I’ve been where you are, and I know how much it sucks balls. But I need you to go back home now. And stay there, every night. It’s way, way too dangerous for you to be out here on your own while those things are running around.”

  “I should have known,” Amber muttered into the torn knees of her jeans. “I thought you were cool for letting me come out here with you. I figured that meant you understood where I was coming from.”

  I pursed my lips. “I am cool, and I do understand. And now you need to understand where I’m coming from, kid. Do you have any idea how much danger I put you in tonight? It’s nothing personal, but bringing you along was a mistake I’m not about to make again.” The words felt shitty coming out of my mouth because I knew—and I could see—how they made her feel. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt Amber’s feelings. She was a good kid.

  I just wanted her to be safer than me.

  “How can you say that?” she demanded, her voice raw with barely restrained emotion. “I pulled my weight tonight, Vic. You can’t say I didn’t. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead right now.” She glared daggers of hurt into me. “I saved your life.”

  “Yeah, you did.” I gave her a sad smile and a gentle punch on the arm. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you came through. But now the tables have turned, and it’s my turn to save you, by sending your ass home.”

  Her steely resolve faltered a little. I almost had her. Then she dug in. “What, and I’m supposed to leave you here by yourself? You’re vulnerable. What if it comes back and finds you here?”

  The girl has a point, Victoria.

  Marcus was right about Amber this time, but he would sacrifice anything if it meant saving earth from the gods...and when I put it that way, I almost agreed with him. But putting a kid in harm’s way wasn’t on my to-do list.

  “You shot him like three times,” I said. “I took a chunk out of his shoulder. I’d bet money he’s off somewhere licking his wounds and meditating on the kind of vengeance he wants to wreak once he’s at full strength again.” In order to signal that the conversation was over, I pushed off the sidewalk and slowly regained my feet under my own power. “I promise I’ve got this under control. Go home, get some rest, and keep your eyes peeled. I don’t think it’s safe here anymore.”

  Amber searched for something to counter me and finally came up blank. She also stood up, reluctantly turning in the direction of the smithy. “Where are you going to go? Not home, I’m assuming.”

  “Hell, no.” I gave her a strained laugh. “Your grandpa’s probably waiting up for you, and if he sees us both come in together and me looking like this, he’ll totally lose his shit.” Nodding down the street toward the only lit up establishment, I took my first tentative step. “I’m going to the one place that might help me make some damn sense of everything I saw tonight.”

  She followed my gaze. “The bar?”

  “The bar.” I glanced back at her. “Go straight home, Amber. Don’t look for trouble. This is the kind that’ll find you the second you let your guard down.”

  For an instant, she looked like she was going to say something sassy and defiant, but her shoulders slumped. “OK. But if you need help, you ask me, OK? I don’t know what it takes to kill a god, but I’m betting you can’t do it alone.”

  She turned, and I watched her until she made it to the edge of town before I moved toward the bar.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I did the right thing, didn’t I, Marcus?”

  Sending the child away? Of course, you did. She is much too young to be so intricately involved in these problems. The girl is smart, but she has much to learn. He paused. Like you, when I first arrived.

  “I learned pretty fast,” I said.

  You had an excellent teacher. But she’s not wrong, you know.

  “About what?”

  Needing allies.

  I nodded. “Well if you can find me some non-teenage warriors, let me know. I’ll gladly sign them up to the cause.”

  The walk to the bar wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. The more I moved, the more my body settled, and by the time I got up to the front of the bar, the pain had faded to a manageable backbeat in my mind. As an afterthought, I glanced down and buttoned my jacket over the red stains bleeding through the dressing on my ribs. The fewer questions I got, the better. I was only there to sort out my thoughts and have a beer.

  It was pleasantly noisy inside, the kind of loudness that covers up your own pesky brain-noise like a blanket. A few heads turned as I made my way up to the bar, but it wasn’t like that morning at the diner. Everyone was too drunk or otherwise preoccupied to care, which was all well and good. Some alone time sounded nice right about then.

  I set myself down at the end of the bar and scanned the menu tacked up above the shelf piled high with liquor bottles. A beefy dude in a dirty apron tied over a white tank was tending; he tipped his head in my direction. When he came over, I asked for a pint of ale. He looked at me, then simply said, “You got it,” and went to pour.

  If only the world was full of bartenders. No questions, just drinks and silent judgment.

  “So, let’s talk about what happened in the forest,” I said to Marcus, making sure to speak under my breath and not make eye contact with anyone. “Who the shit was that, and what’s he up to?”

  That was the god known as Lupres. Of all the Forgotten, he took to Carcerum the worst, at least outwardly. Violence is all he knows, and Kronin’s peace was, to him, a punishment as cruel as any.

  “Great. And now he’s brought his violence to Smalltown, USA. What’s his play? I still don’t get what the sleepy people of Mormouth or Silver Banks have to do with that thing.”

  On that front, my knowledge is less than helpful. I know very little about Lupres from the time before Kronin’s rule, only that the legends were not kind. Many of the gods developed cult followings among the humans that served them. But there are no songs about Lupres. No holy days or buried statues in his honor. He was constantly on the move, from one land to the next. And the legends are clear that everywhere he went, death and destruction were all that remained behind.

  “Shit.” I looked around the bar and pictured it painted in blood. “Well he was definitely in Mormouth, right? That at least fits the legend.”

  I am inclined to agree. Humans are violent, but only a Forgotten could have that kind of effect.

  “And we know that he is recruiting followers somehow. Those two Weres that I fought were like a crude caricature of him, but they were definitely his. So the question is, how is he making them, and can they be stopped? If we can figure out the pattern, maybe we can beat him to his next move.”

  My ale arrived. I thanked the bartender and sipped the froth off the top. Its crisp coldness was a much-needed shot of clarity to my head. “Ahh, that’s better.”

  That is the question indeed. The gods’ methods are as diverse as the gods themselves. I suggest that you stay the course. Track
down one of his minions and make it talk. By whatever means necessary.

  “Yeah.” I stared at my drink for a while, but I couldn’t get the freckled face of the woman I killed out of my head.

  You don’t agree?

  “It makes sense, it’s just that...any werewolf I kill, there will be a person inside. That girl, the guy I cut across the shoulder. All of them.” I sipped my beer, hoping it would give me some solace. “Isn’t there any way to make the transformation go away?”

  They are aligned with the Forgotten. It’s not a choice you can go back on.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  You did not have these same qualms about the vampires, Marcus pointed out.

  “Because the vampires were all mobsters, dude. Yeah, they were people, but not good people. I know what the mob is like on the inside, and I refuse to feel bad about cleaning it out. That’s not the case here. I mean, what if…” I let silence hang on the air for a second before reaching my conclusion. “What if these people aren’t choosing the gods? What if Lupres forced his will upon them? He could do that right? He’s strong enough.”

  It’s not how Lorcan and Lysiani operated, but yes, there is nothing about the gods that makes me think consent is a necessary requirement to service.

  “Well if that’s true, then these Weres could be the victims. It makes it a lot harder for me to justify cutting them down.”

  They may be victims, but that doesn’t preclude them from being killers as well. Even if the beasts you fought were turned against their will, even if they protested, they still tore that village apart. And they will do it here, unless you stop them. The reality of our situation is that you cannot afford to choose mercy in the heat of the battle. These beasts will not reciprocate your gracious intentions.

  I frowned stubbornly. “We don’t know that yet. I’m willing to accept that Lupres is a huge asshole and should be dispatched immediately, but you can’t just convince me to slaughter people, no matter what they look like. Not without trying another way first.”

  Your romantic ideals are getting the better of your warrior’s judgment.

  “Yeah, well maybe a thousand years of soldiering has altered yours.”

  He was quiet for a second, but when his voice returned it was tender.

  This life we lead, the life you have been chosen for, it is not easy. Like it or not, we are at war, and war means casualties. This is your quest. At the end of the day, you must choose how to carry it out. I cannot do that for you. But in my considerably long experience, the longer a war drags on, the more innocents will die along the way. It may seem callous, but I believe the swiftest end to this fight is the most kind. Even if it means killing what once was human.

  I let his words sink in as I downed my beer and ordered another. It seemed the only appropriate way to deal with the moral dilemma before me. Thankfully, Marcus knew when to keep quiet, and he let me drink in peace.

  Eventually, I reached my conclusion and opened my mouth to reply, but the sound of the door banging open cut me off. A tide of obnoxiously loud laughter poured in from the street. I cringed. There was no mistaking that brash, hyper-masculine guffaw. “Looks like the party’s just arrived,” I muttered. “Great.”

  Wade Stevens had his peanut gallery with him, and the group was more boisterous than ever. They all bellied up to the bar a few seats away from me, demanding all kinds of strong drink. The bartender even uncorked a bottle of something that I swore was straight moonshine, judging by the smell.

  Wade raised his voice, to no one’s surprise. “We’re celebrating tonight, boys! I told you we’d be dragging that son of a bitch through the streets at dawn!” He raised his glass and let out a whoop that rattled the windows.

  I felt a killer headache coming on, but I was interested in the possibility that Amber had been right in her assessment of Wade’s hunting skills after all. Could it be that Wade Stevens was the one who’d hunted down and killed the psychotic Were-god running loose in the Pacific Northwest? A sour taste spread over the back of my tongue. If this lout had somehow beaten me at my own game, I was gonna be royally pissed.

  But Wade himself solved that mystery in the next five seconds. “You want to know what it was?” he was asking no one in particular. “I’ll tell you what it was. Biggest bear I’ve ever seen, and we took it down in one shot. Right between its damn eyes. Didn’t we, boys?”

  His friends hollered their assent. I squeezed my eyes shut against the cacophony.

  “Woo, yeah!” Wade added. “Gonna have this one stuffed and mounted!”

  I have never seen a human being be so incredibly wrong. Marcus spoke with the muted sense of wonder normally reserved for genuine phenomena.

  I just wanted to crawl inside myself and disappear. And I should have found a way to achieve that goal somehow because in the next minute, Wade had noticed my presence and turned on me. Clearly he wasn’t finished hunting.

  “Well, if it isn’t Diner Girl!” he exclaimed, still talking at a level way above necessary. I didn’t dignify him with a response, but he didn’t seem to need one. “What’d I tell you, little lady? Your friendly neighborhood bear-killer has come to the rescue.” At this point, he noticed I was worse for the wear, and a cruel little grin touched his lips. “What happened out there, princess? You get tangled up in that rope you bought? Mess up your fancy new clothes?”

  His pathetic crowd of buddies snickered. I bit my tongue, but I couldn’t resist answering. “It’s none of your business,” I snapped at him.

  He nodded as if that was all he needed to hear. “Yeah, you look about like I thought you would. Just give up, girl. Save yourself the embarrassment. If we wanted a show, there’s plenty of titty bars out here in the boondocks. We’ll just hit one of those so you don’t have to work so hard.”

  I shoved down the flush of rage that threatened to creep up my neck into my cheeks. Wade would have loved to get a rise out of me, and I refused to let him win at that game. Instead, I stared straight ahead and took a pull from my beer. “Get lost, dickface, and take your gang of idiots with you.”

  Wade was silent while his brain processed the insult. Then he spat, “You worthless bitch,” and turned away, pretending I hadn’t just totally won our little pissing contest.

  Now I was the one smiling to myself as I sipped the last of my beer. The smile grew when someone I actually liked showed up at the stool beside me.

  “This seat taken?” Maya asked. She smiled, but the tension never left her face. Her dark eyes were stormy and nervous.

  “Be my guest,” I said. “But be warned, Wade and his harem are in rare form tonight.”

  “Yeah?” She cast a furtive glance at his group. “That’s nothing new. I’m convinced all they do is get hammered when they’re not working or dehumanizing women.”

  “They killed a bear,” I explained. “Wade thinks that’s what mauled the body in the river.”

  “Ha.” Maya ordered her drink and sat back on the stool, fretting the thin edge of a napkin in her fingers. “As usual, Wade is dead wrong.” The corners of her lips tugged downward. “It wasn’t a bear; not even close. Frankly, I’ve been working on it all night, and I still have no idea what it could have been. The claw wounds are too large and distinct. They don’t share enough qualities with any other mauling wound I’ve ever seen.” A small shudder ran through her. “Kind of freaks me out. Like, what the hell was it? I just want to know for sure, even if I don’t like the answer.”

  I kept my mouth shut. As with Amber, I felt a little bad about withholding information, but I also knew Maya wouldn’t stand for any of my werewolf crap. “Beats me,” I said. “I didn’t get a good look when I got attacked, either.”

  “At least you survived.” Maya had ordered a shot, which she took like a champion within ten seconds of it showing up in front of her. She shook her head vigorously after it went down. “Oh man, I needed that. I feel like I’m going insane.”

  I could relate all too well, but again, I said nothing a
bout it. I’d already narrowly avoided sucking Amber into the black hole that was my entanglement with the gods. Maya needed that shit even less. She had a lot of things going for her, vet school debt notwithstanding. A promising career, a good current gig.

  She was, however, a little wiser and a lot less easily fooled than Amber. It was amazing what five or six years can do to the human brain in terms of development. I could feel her watching me as I turned my full attention to my now almost-empty beer.

  “Can I ask you something, Vic?” Her words weren’t accusatory yet, but they were pointed.

  “Shoot.” I signaled the bartender to bring me another drink, which I felt I might need after Maya was done with me. The wheels in her head were turning faster and faster.

  “How big was the coyote that attacked you?” She definitely knew something was up, and now she was trying to catch me in a lie, or at least, a significant factual inaccuracy. It was a tactic I recognized from my days of prying information from the bloated jaws of mobsters. A game I knew how to play.

  “I don’t know,” I said simply. “I didn’t get a real good look at it. Everything happened insanely fast.”

  “Right. I guess it ran away right after it got you?”

  “I think all my furious yelling scared it off.” The barkeep brought my third beer; I took refuge in it. Hard to say stupid shit when your mouth is full of delicious alcohol. Then, for good measure, I added, “Maybe it was looking for food. I don’t know. I might have had something in my backpack.”

  Maya gestured to my torso. “How’s it feel? You’re holding up okay?”

  “I got here, didn’t I?” Smiling to ease her nerves, I said, “It feels fine. You did a great job.” This would have been entirely true were it not for the encounter with Lupres. And I was not about to let her in on that. “All that vet school totally paid off from my perspective.”

  Her laugh was tinged with a bit of unmistakable sadness. “I’m glad you think so.” She sighed. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my job. There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. But more and more lately, I wonder if I know where the hell I’m going in life. Like, do I just set up a practice somewhere and stay put? Do I want that?”