Special Features: A Deacon Chalk Short Story Collection (Deacon Chalk Occult Bounty Hunter)

by James R Tuck

  A ripple rolled across the surface.

 

 

 

  The inside of her head filled with pressure, the barometric of an approaching storm, pushing at the sutures of her skull. Throbby pain dug into her brow, behind the orbital bone.

  Silence.

  It drew closer, filling, pressing further against the inside of her cranial, threatening to separate the bones, to push them apart.

  It was awake.

  She couldn't hide from It, not inside her head. It was coming.

  Inevitable.

  Unrelenting.

  Using the blackness to center herself she dropped inside her own mind, putting imagery to Mindspace. She had to protect her thoughts, her memories, her . . . identity.

  Hurry.

  Rushing to finish, she crafted a barren wasteland. The ground appeared beneath her feet orange and hard, sun-blasted rock covered in silica sand that whipped and swirled in currents of abrasion. Calling on the burning in her joints, in her skin, in her blood she sparked to life a sun of her own construction to beat down on her, a hammer on an anvil, pulsing against her skin.

  Anything but the moon.

  She stood and gathered herself. Her body fell away, becoming merely a vessel, only what she traveled inside not who she was.

  The Ravenous One approached and she was alone in the wasteland she'd made of her mind.

  His footsteps shook the foundation of her Mindspace, vibrating through the small bones of her feet.

  She rolled her head, loosening her spine.

  He was almost upon her.

  The horizon broke around him, splitting on each side as he grew from the edge of this world.

  The Devourer.

  The Eater of Worlds.

  The Hollow Wolf.

  Fenrir.

  He saw her and did not pause his stride, pacing forward on four legs, hackles shifting like mountain ranges as he loped with the sure knowledge that the girl in front of him couldn’t get away if she tried. A massive tongue the color of raw underflesh lolled between fangs the size of her arm. It dripped, each gobbet sizzling on the sand in a stinking trail of spittle. His face had been carved from basalt, sharp angles and edges pulled back from a long snout, a spear for driving into the soft underbelly of his prey, for rooting around in the guts.

  Her stomach hurt. She worked to not shift her weight one foot to the other.

  Keep it together Fluffenstuff.

  Hard lessons learned at the hands of those not as powerful as Fenrir, but just as cruel, held her still. There is a point where it doesn't matter how outmatched you are.

  They can only kill you so much.

  She studied the Hollow Wolf. Hair slicked over his long frame, wire needles of fur running from black nose to tail tip in alternating greasy slicks and hard crusts of dried blood and other trophy fluids from prey taken. He rose, transitioning from a four-legged lope to a two-legged stride as he drew near. His shadow fell upon her, the sun eclipsed by his mass. Red eyes pulsed as they studied her, measuring her mouthful by mouthful. He knew exactly how many bites it would take to swallow her where she stood.

 

  The fine hairs on the back of her neck ruffled, making the arm-thick, white-blonde braid lying over her shoulder and against her small breast slip off, falling away to swing freely behind her. She didn't keep the snarl off her lips. “I hate that word.”

  He moved, lowering himself into a crouch, Not submissive, not the Eater of Worlds. It was a movement that lowered his snout to the level of her head, bunching cables of muscle beneath fur, laden with explosive violent potential. This close he could be on her before she had a chance to blink. His breath pressed hot on her face, moist with the stink of old blood and flesh stuck between fangs for too long.

  Her stomach rumbled.

 

  Black lips curled over yellow teeth.

 

  Her tiny fist lashed out, smashing beneath his black nose, driving deep into the weak spot all canines have.

  The Eater of Worlds jerked back, stumbling and sneezing violently enough to tumble him across the hard-baked ground of her Mindspace.

  “My name is Phoebe!” she growled.

  Fenrir came to his feet roaring, shaking the air like a mirage. Diamond hard claws tore at the ground rippling splinters of pain through her head.

  Her anger dashed like cold water across her spine.

  Oh crap.

  Turning, body already shifting, she ran.

  Her joints loosened, twisting into new shapes, the small bones of her feet fusing and lengthening, femurs curving to accommodate a new position, quadriceps thickening as muscle fibers split and repaired, split and repaired, split and repaired into more mass. She dropped to four paws, not full canine but no longer human, the best of both forms. There was no pain this time. This was all in her head. For a sliver of a second she gloried in the Change without the agony.

  Then the ground shook beneath her paws.

  Get it in gear, Fluffenstuff!

  She tossed a look over her shoulder. Fenrir thundered toward her. Her eyes were different, seeing more spectrum of light and energy than they did as a human. The Great Beast radiated spikes of heat and hunger in brilliant reds and angry purple. She turned, put her head down, and ran.

  Orange clay flew beneath her.

  Long, white-blonde fur streamed from her body, fwipping in the non-existant airstream as she flew.

  She cast her eyes side to side, looking for somewhere to hide, to get away.

  The horizon hung a million miles away at the edge of flat, endless, hard-packed clay.

  C'mon, give me something!

  A hole opened to her left.

  It yawned, a cave, just big enough for her to fit.

  Leaning changed her direction, altering her trajectory.

  She felt the change in pressure, air streaming around her hit something solid right behind her and pushed back on itself.

  She didn't look around. He was there. She knew he was there. Almost on her.

  The cave loomed, black as night, closer with each second.

  Fenrir's breath rolled hot over her back.

  Almost.

  Nearly.

  Pain shot across her haunches as Fenrir caught a mouthful of tail and fur.

  She screamed and leapt with all the strength in her legs.

  The cave closed around her.

  She tumbled beneath the surface of Mindspace, rolling through a black void of thought thick as syrup. Pain tore across her back as a long section of fur ripped free. It jerked her short, spinning her around as she fell slowly in inky blackness. Above her Fenrir's face jutted through a tear in the dark, the hole her mind made in itself for her to hide. His muzzle snapped and snarled, angry foam raining down on her. One massive paw hooked the edge of the tear, dagger-claws pulling it down, widening it. The gigantic wolf lunged, his shoulders and chest pushing in after her.

  Fear turned her heart into a chunk of ice.

  He stopped pushing, panting with effort. His head swiveled left, then right, lambent red eyes studying the void of her subconscious around them. His dreadful gaze fell on her.

 

  Laughter rolled like thunder, shaking against her skin.

 

  “I didn't choose this.”

  Blast you, Kahsondra.

 

  Fur stood along her arms and across her shoulders, hackles rising. “I may not have chosen this, but I am not going to let you free.”

  Laughter pounded through the dark she hung in, thunder beneath an ocean.r />
 

  His tongue, meaty and moist, slid obscenely across yellow fangs.

 

  The fear in her stomach curled on itself, knotting tight as it combusted into anger. The ball of it sat heavy behind her hips, pulsing fury out into her bloodstream. Her lip curled, revealing her own sharp teeth.

  “I said . . .”

  Wrath sparked across her lycanthropy, feeding like a flashfire from her chest, across her shoulder, down her arm and into her hand. It spilled out, forming a hard blade of cold steel half as long as her body. The metal twisted, thickening like molten ore until it formed a sword. It was an ancient hacking weapon, discolored from hundreds of gallons of blood spilled across its edges. The crosshilt curved like claws, tipped with points of sharpened wolf teeth, the pommel was carved into the face of Fenrir himself. Her hand tightened on the silk ribbon-wrapped handle, lifting the sword over her head.

  “. . . my name is PHOEBE!”

  The sword crashed into the face of the great wolf. Sparks shot into the dark and blood flew in streams, spiraling around Phoebe's lunging form.

  Blow upon blow she drove Fenrir back, back, back as he clawed to free himself from the tear. Blinded by rage she climbed through, chasing him into the wasteland in her mind.

  Her foot stepped onto the orange sand.

  Droplets of water began to fall as stormclouds boiled into the sky. Fenrir crouched, clawed hands around his snout. Blood dripped, washing down his fur in the growing rain.

 

  “It was given to me by a Volva named Kahsondra to keep you in line.”

 

  “You've got a real problem with women, buster. She's the one who bound your sorry butt. You should show some respect.”

  Even if she did hang me out to dry here.

  Glowing red eyes narrowed.

  Black, wolf lips pulled into a slavering sneer behind clawed hands.

  Fenrir leapt faster than she could see, on top of her before she could do more than flinch.

  Air rushed from her lungs as she slammed to the wet ground, mud smearing across her fur. Anger dashed to fear and the rain turned hard and icy, pelting down on them like sleet. Fenrir's claws dug in, pinning her arms to the soft earth of her Mindspace. She felt the stab of them inside her head and the ache of her bones being crushed.

  Fenrir loomed over her, his body trapping her against the ground.

 

  He leaned in close.

 

  “I won't let you.”

  He laughed at her.

  It was like being punched.

 

  Fenrir ground against her, shoving hips into hers, ramming his lycanthropy into her. She felt the magick jolt as they hit. For a second it was a rush of strength, then it cracked, splintering into pain as his lycanthropy crashed into hers. Then Fenrir was inside, making her stomach lurch, wadding like a fist as raw hunger filled her, a hunger so strong it could never be slaked. He pushed harder, invading her, devouring her, taking everything that was her and making it his.

  The clouds overhead parted, rolling back to reveal a low-hanging, yellow moon.

  A hunters moon.

  Fenrir's moon.

 

  Her mind rolled, a broken ship on stormy seas. The sword Wulfang fell from her hand.

  And blinked out of existence.

 

  Fenrir pushed magickally, stretching her skin from the inside. Red hunger tore through her, filling her. It was hot, so hot it burned away her ability to think, to do more than starve and want and hunger for destruction and raining blood.

 

  Phoebe looked at the moon from beneath him.

  A cold circle of anger formed on the front of her mind.

  No.

 

  “No!” she screamed.

  The moon turned into a ring of silver. It burned the sky in her lycanthropic mind.

  How did that happen?

  Knowledge rushed in. This was her Mindspace. Not his.

  She was the merciless goddess of this particular universe.

  She ruled everything here.

  She quit fighting,

  Her arms rose toward the sky. They elongated, morphing and stretching toward the moon, drawing it down to her clawed fingers. It shrank as it slipped into her grasp, becoming a ring of cold metal that scorched her skin. Touching it was fuel to the flame of anger inside her.

  Fenrir looked up, feeling the Change wash back where they had merged.

 

  She smashed the circle of silver that was once the moon into his basalt skull.

  Dark blood leapt over her hands as wire-like fur parted and the skin beneath it split. Fenrir fell sideways, away from her. His lycanthropy pulled from hers with a violent yank, ripping out from the roots, and leaving her empty of the hunger.

  But not empty of her anger.

  She pushed him off, rolling to her knees above his fallen form. He stretched on the sands of her mind, red eyes sunk into black sockets.

  Her voice was quiet. "Don't ever try that again. This is my head and my body."

  The eye she could see fluttered, then rolled down to look at her.

 

  "But I'm in charge and you darn well better remember that."

 

  She stood.

  "I'm not a wolf, I'm a Pomeranian. Keep it straight." The silver ring fell as her hand morphed back into human, luxurious white fur slipping into pale skin, sharp claws flattening and pulling back into fingernails. "I want nothing to do with wolves."

 

  "Yeah, but who's isn't?"

  She closed her eyes and shut away Mindspace, leaving Fenrir to lie in a pool of his own blood.

  * * *

  The pain at the back of her skull pulled, hair tearing free as the cloth was removed from her eyes. The light hurt as she blinked into it.

  A gun pressed against her forehead.

  The man holding it was a shadow. He looked small after facing Fenrir. He wasn't, her perspective had adjusted, but even if he were miniscule it wouldn't change the fact that he had a loaded semi-automatic pistol pressed to her head and she was still chained to a chair.

  He spoke from behind the gun, Southern drawl buried behind the words. "You better now?"

  Her voice caught in her throat, stuck on the dryness there. Swallowing hard loosened it. "Yeah, I'm fine."

  The gun didn't move.

  He didn't believe her.

  Untrusting mother trucker.

  "Really. I'm fine. He's dormant now."

  The gun didn't move. "You almost changed."

  "I'm a Were, we do that under stress sometimes."

  "Your fur came in black."

  .

  .

  .

  "Oh."

  The gun lifted off her head. The round spot where the barrel had pressed felt sore, almost bruised. The man stepped forward, a pair of medical shears in his hand. Leaning over her he did something that tugged her arms until the manacles fell away, thunking on the concrete floor. He snipped the rope and wire from her wrists. Her arms fell, shoulder sockets grinding back into place. The burning eased immediately, still there as an ache, but not a fire. She hauled her arms onto her lap and began pulling the wire from her skin with numb fingers. It had begun to embed.

  "Sorry about that." he said.

  She shrugged. "It'll heal up."

  Burns like a mo-nucker until it does though.

  "Father Mulcahy will have some salve for
that in the first aid kit."

  She nodded, blowing a lock of white-blonde hair out of her face.

  He stopped before they reached the doorway to the room. "I know you didn't ask her to put him in your head."

  "You were there. You know there wasn't a choice, it was the only way to stop him."

  "Maybe." He shrugged, leather shoulder holsters creaking. "Either way, you're stuck with that damn thing. He's going to fight you constantly, waiting for even a split second of weakness he can exploit."

  "I can handle it."

  "You have to. If he beats you he'll take you over. If he kills you then he'll be free to find another form." He put his hand out to her. "There's two things you need know."

  Exhaustion dragged on her. "What are they?"

  "You should know that I like you, Phoebe. I really do. I know what you went through with that fucked up pack you came from. I know what you did to survive and I admire it. You're tough as hell and I can't think of anyone better for this job. You should remember that from now on."

  "I don't . . . thank you, Deacon. That means a lot."

  He pulled her up from the chair, helping her stand with an arm around her back.

  "The other thing you should know is that if I ever think you're about to crack and let that thing loose . . . I'll take a silver bullet and blow your fucking head off."

  She looked up at him.

  A smile crossed her delicate face.

  "If that day comes I'll load the gun myself."

  A Christmas tale for you. Some Yuletide slaughter of a weird, seldom used monster that I then took some wide liberties with. Originally posted at the Vampire Book Club blog this is still a story I enjoy having written. It's like cool man. I enjoy the way I portrayed the main man himself, and the monster was pretty spiffy too.

  T'WAS THE FRIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

  THERE WERE STILL TWO OATMEAL COOKIES LEFT but my glass was out of milk.

  Dammit.

  I'd just swallowed the last gulp when what looked like a jolly fat man wearing a red suit slithered out of the fireplace. He tumbled out feet first, knocking into the tree. Tinsel swayed around ornaments, tossing multi-colored reflections from the twinkling lights into the darkened room. Snow fell off the treads of what looked like black boots, slushing onto brightly wrapped presents scattered beneath evergreen boughs.