“I think Harper has this,” Callahan said. "Harper, you know the drill. Whatever resources you need. I want this taken care of now. I want this taken care of yesterday.”
Elias nodded, as if yesterday was totally within the realm of his abilities. Who wouldn’t want this taken care of fast? Arrowhead Provincial Park was in Muskoka District cottage country, and it was the middle of summer. This was the worst time for a rampant wendigo. Not that there was ever a good time for a rampant wendigo, but this was an especially bad one.
Keith Snake, Elias’ Ojibwe healer grandfather, once told Elias about his encounter with a wendigo. Summer of 1974, Elias thought in the croaky old man's voice he'd often used when imitating his grandfather. It had been farther north, near Thunder Bay, a dinky-ass city with a gorgeous view and not much else, plunged into perpetual winter. That was more or less how Snake had described it, but it must have been an exaggeration. Not that Elias would know, he’d never been. Never wanted to. Who the hell would want to visit Thunder Bay? The place had a wendigo problem.
The story had given him nightmares at the time, back when he was seven or eight. It was his own fault for pestering his grandfather about the scars along his chest and side. Elias had been expecting — hoping for — a story about his grandfather winning a fight against a bear or a wolf, not almost losing one to a cannibalistic, face-eating monster. Keith Snake had never been the type to sugar- coat his stories to be more kid-friendly. Since Elias’ parents had died young, there hadn’t been anyone around to remind Snake that his stories weren’t necessarily appropriate for someone Elias’ age. By the time Elias had been old enough for those stories, Snake had died of liver cancer and Elias had gone to live with an Irish step-aunt and her dumbass boyfriend, so it was just as well that Snake had shared those stories when he had, even if Elias hadn’t necessarily appreciated it at the time.
Elias was glad he had that story at the back of his mind, and that he didn’t need to consult his notes to figure out what he needed for this assignment.
“I’m going to need a can of hairspray and a lighter.”
Tyler coughed, but Elias still heard the end of the laugh it covered. As far as Elias’ eccentric requests went, this was one of the tamer ones. Last assignment, he’d needed a rusty nail, three-quarters of a pound of bismuth, and a suicide palm flower from Madagascar, which lived for about 50 years, flowered once, then died. How else were they supposed to stop an afrit? By asking politely? Not in this lifetime.
“Why do you need hairspray and a lighter?” Callahan’s voice was full of warranted suspicion, his sparkly blue eyes narrowed into narrow slits.
Elias nodded his head towards Tyler. “He always says no when I ask for a flamethrower. Figured you would too.”
Which, to be fair, was... fair. Elias was a big fan of flamethrowers. They were the practical solution to a lot of problems. Not the afreet problem, but a lot of other problems.
Plus, they were bad-ass.
Callahan seemed to have something stuck in his throat today. He coughed and sputtered, his face turning bright red. A selkie at the front of the debriefing room stepped towards him, and he waved her off.
“On second thought,” he choked out, “maybe you should take King with you.”
Tyler had worked with Elias more than long enough to know he took speed limits as more of a suggestion than a rule and made the executive decision to drive. Elias was more than fine with that. His protest was mostly for show. When Tyler wouldn’t relent, he sat in the passenger’s seat with his legs propped up on the dashboard, a habit Tyler had long since stopped trying to break him of.
Classic rock sang through the speakers, only barely loud enough to be audible. It was a compromise between the heavy metal Elias wanted and the ‘pleasant silence’ Tyler preferred. Who the hell preferred silence?
“What do we know about wendigo?” Tyler asked as they merged onto the 400, his voice rough from disuse.
It was the first thing he’d said since he’d slammed the driver door shut with a hard, “You can drive when you learn how to use the breaks, you lunatic,” that Elias almost thought was serious.
According to Google Maps, the drive to Arrowhead Park was two-and-a-half hours without traffic, but this was Toronto. If there were two universal truths about Toronto, Ontario, it was that downtown looked like a surreal mush of Ye Olde T’ronno and modern art, and that Highway 400 was always packed to hell and back. It was going to take more than two-and-a-half hours. Seemed like as good a time as any to hash out what they knew about the case.
Tyler didn’t like to talk around most people. Most of the sirens Elias knew didn’t mind as much, but maybe working in law enforcement made Tyler hyperconscious about accidentally using his siren-mojo on people. Instead, he relied on sign language while Elias interpreted. Loosely interpreted, most of the time. His voice didn’t make Elias tense up even though he was well aware of what Tyler was capable of. There was no way Elias could have trusted Tyler to have his back if he couldn’t trust Tyler not to try to siren-mojo him. Plus, the tattoos covering a good chunk of his body were infused with siren blood, courtesy of his ex-boyfriend, and gave him some level of immunity.
Tyler was the one who had recruited Elias three years ago. At the time, Elias didn’t know that was what was happening. All he’d known at the time was that somebody had bugged his computer repair shop. So he’d done the only reasonable thing and bolted. Tyler had tracked him down and convinced him to give these lunatics a shot. It had all seemed so balsy, but after actually working with the RCMP, he realized they were that stupid.
There may or may not have also been the promise of a horse. Sure, RCMP horses were largely ceremonial. If Elias were a mere technosorcerer, he might not have been valuable enough to bother humouring. Tech witches and technosorcerers weren't exactly your garden variety witches, but they weren't go-out-of-your-way-for, either. But when that technosorcerer was also a hex witch? That was worth pulling some strings for.
Elias opened his laptop and waved a hand over it. The sigil carved an inch below the keyboard glowed as it sensed his magic signature and logged him into his account. Passwords were overrated.
He had scanned his grandfather’s journal detailing all his early day monster hunting onto his computer. The paper copy, which was starting to fall apart, was hiding under his mattress in the house he owned with his husband on the outskirts of the dump that was Kitchener-Waterloo.
For most of his life, Elias had believed Snake’s stories were just stories, the kind that somehow managed to survive the residential schools and were metaphors for White Man’s Fuckery. Magic and monsters weren't real. But, well, shit happened, and that was most certainly proven wrong. Now, Elias believed every faded word scrawled in Ojibwe on yellowed paper. He opened the folder labelled ‘Wendigo.’ Not that he didn’t know this story by heart by now.
“Story differs depending on who tells it,” Elias said as he skimmed the folder, “but way I heard it, way back when White Man first came over, they weren't prepared for Canadian winters. They lost a lot of supplies on the way over, and they weren't big on accepting help from a bunch of ‘savages.’”
The last word came out in a bitter sneer. Sure, his father's side of the family was Irish. Elias’s auburn hair thrown into a messy bun was the only indication of that. He'd grown up on an Ojibwe reservation a little further north than Muskoka District, lived there with his grandfather until he died when Elias was thirteen. Elias had never felt very Irish, not even after his step-aunt Delaney had taken him in. That said, he didn’t feel so much like he was looking in at his Irish heritage through a window anymore.
Besides, didn't White Man hate the Irish, too?
Tyler gave a sympathetic twist of his lips as he passed a truck pulling a camper, and Elias continued.
“Winters up north or on the east coast ain't like what we get down here. Think mandatory snow tires. Well, even winter down south will fuck you up if you aren't prepared. These colonists, they aren't prepar
ed. Shitty shelters, if any, no food, can't hunt for shit. Buddy One dies of starvation or exposure or both. So what do you do?” Elias may not have had his grandfather’s knack for story telling, but he thought he picked a good place for a dramatic pause. “Cannibalism.”
“Yeah, I know that part,” Tyler said.
Elias stared. Yeah, so it wasn't the most obscure story he'd ever told. Wendigos weren't the most obscure thing they've ever dealt with. That didn’t mean Tyler had to ruin the story, the dick.
“Come on, man. You asked.”
Tyler’s smile turned apologetic.
“I meant what do we know about hunting them,” he said.
Elias didn't mind the assumption that he was a wendigo expert, not when it came from Tyler. He was more or less the expert on everything. His grandfather, an Ojibwe healer, may have spent the bulk of his youth in a residential school, but he still remembered the old language and the old stories, and he'd taught Elias everything he could. When he'd died, every clock on the reservation had stopped as Elias’s powers emerged.
His step-aunt and uncle, a banshee and a kitchen witch respectively, had no idea what the hell he was. The technosorcery was obvious, but the rest? Curses, charms, some odd mix of European and Native witchcraft they didn't have a name for. Hex witchery was the closest thing they had. They were general practitioners of the magic world. Between his aunt and uncle, they got him volumes and volumes of magic books, everything they could get their hands on for him. Apparently, being experts in everything was hex witches’ thing. Lucky for them, no matter how much Elias hated school, he still liked learning. So yeah. He knew a couple things about a couple things. Including how to hunt a wendigo.
“Well,” he said, taking the elastic out of his hair and shaking his head, “wendigo are generally nocturnal. General consensus is that they like to hide out underground or in caves. I think our best bet is to lure it out.”
“Use ourselves as bait,” Tyler said, disbelief coating his lead-singer-of-a-post- grunge-band voice.
He sort of looked like the lead singer of a post-grunge band, too, only more radio friendly. Like if the singer of Three Days Grace had pursued a job in government instead of becoming the singer of Three Days Grace.
“Wouldn't be the first time,” Elias pointed out.
If they were keeping track, it was at least the fifth or sixth.
Tyler sighed and shook his head, not quite the same way Elias had moments earlier. He was probably wondering, not for the first time Elias was sure, why he'd ever begged this maniac to join the RCMP and be his partner.
“Is there any way to make them human again?” he asked.
Elias combed his fingers through his hair, balancing his laptop on his thunder thighs. He'd long since memorized the notes and his grandfather’s stories.
“If we’d caught it early, there'd be a chance. Some people say you can reverse the changes if you catch it soon enough. Problem is, you usually don't.”
“How soon is soon enough? I don't want to kill anyone we don't have to.” Duh.
Elias sighed and began braiding his hair. It took more effort than the bun, but his hair was long and the bun got heavy. His hair caught on one of the silver hoops in his ears. Long hair and earrings had never seemed girly to him until he'd started attending a city high school. For years, he'd kept his hair cropped and left the holes in his ears empty to distance himself from being seen as a girl. Even though he'd looked like one back before the testosterone, he wasn't and never had been. It had taken some time before he became comfortable with this borderline-androgynous presentation, and he wasn't going to let some government tell him he couldn't keep his hair long. It wasn’t trashy, it was traditional. He busied his fingers with untangling his hair from his earring without ripping it out as he spoke. He should have taken the damn things out first.
“Thing is, brain chemistry changes pretty much right away. It's like eating Chinese food. Makes you want more. Except you can't just not eat it for a while and the craving will go away. It stays. Eventually, you break.” Elias paused. “Or so I been told. I don't know from experience. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Tyler said dryly.
Elias elbowed him lightly. His finger tapped the Wi-Fi symbol tattooed behind his ear. Warmth raced through him. The feeling of having Pop Rocks beneath his skin still made him inhale sharply. He was always glad it only lasted a moment. His eyes glowed green in the reflection of his laptop screen before fading back to their natural brown, and a small notification popped up telling him that he had connected to the secure network Harper’s Bad Ass Brain.
Callahan had forwarded the file the OPP had sent to him, including some of the grizzliest mauling pictures Elias had ever seen. He moved a hand without realizing it to cover one of the tattoo-covered scars on his stomach. The early days of his relationship with his werewolf husband had been hazardous to his health, but he couldn't imagine what something like this would feel like. Jackson’s attacks had always been out of panicked rage, meant only to stop Elias from being a threat. This was... not that.
“Thing that did this isn't something we can change back,” Elias said quietly. “Thing like this is— There's not human—” He motioned to Tyler. “— and there's not human.”
Tyler nodded in understanding. There were some things they couldn’t deal with any other way. Wendigo weren’t like bears who would kill the odd human stupid enough to wander into their territory. Killing a bear for that was pointless stupid. What was the point of that? Sending a message to the other bears? Come on.
The difference seemed flimsy. It wasn’t like any other wendigo would get the message, either. But in Elias’s eyes, the bear didn’t do anything wrong. The wendigo...
Elias had grown up on an out-of-the-way Ojibwa reserve. He remembered what it was like when winter struck and resources were scarce. Some places had it even worse, but he still remembered the year his grandfather had taught him to hunt because the roads were closed and there was no other way to get anything in. He could understand that when push came to shove, survival trumped anything. So on paper, the human that became the wendigo didn’t do anything wrong. But when that human became a wendigo...
They weren’t like bears or werewolves. They were hunger. Hunger and claws. You couldn’t throw a wendigo in jail, and you couldn’t simply relocate it somewhere out of the way. Not even Thunder Bay was out of the way enough to keep people safe from a wendigo.
“I take it it’s safe to assume we can kill it with fire?” Tyler asked.
“I think it’s safe to assume we can kill just about anything with fire.”
Tyler pointed a finger at him. “Not phoenixes.”
“Can you even kill a phoenix with anything?” Elias asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Elias whistled through his teeth. Lucky bastards.
“So our plan is to use ourselves as bait to lure a wendigo out of hiding and set it on fire,” Tyler said.
Elias clicked his tongue and wrapped hair elastics around the ends of his braids. “Exactly.”
2
Huntsville, Ontario was a gorgeous city with a single street that spanned from one end of it to the other. The drive from Toronto had taken them a little over three hours — most of which Elias had spent sleeping off the wifi spell — and the drive through Huntsville took them all of twenty minutes. Tim nearly missed the entire downtown, and they had to turn around in the Tim Horton’s parking lot up the road. There was a Tim Horton’s in every city — they’d passed three driving through what was apparently downtown — and Google said Huntsville had great food. What tourist trap didn’t? They picked one of a handful of restaurants, The Mill on Main on, spoiler alert, Main Street. As if there were so many other Mills in town they could confuse it for. Elias made a note to stop at the fancy soap place next door to get something for Jackson. He always reeked like a bar. Hazard of being a bouncer, Elias figured, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use some fancy soap now and then.
/> There weren’t many people here, and there wasn’t any problem when Tyler had signed for a quiet table. The waitress, a blonde in a pair of painful-looking, clicky heels who introduced herself as Stephanie, sat them at a corner table on a landing off the main dining room, wedged between a half-wall and a pizza oven.
“Can I get you guys anything to drink?” she asked.
Elias appreciated that she looked at Tyler, too. As soon as people saw him signing, they tended to assume he was deaf and deferred all conversation to Elias. Even if Tyler had been deaf, it was rude as hell. Elias liked her for knowing better. She was definitely getting a good tip.
Tyler held up three fingers in an ASL letter W and tapped his index to his chin.
“Two waters,” Elias said, flashing her a bright smile, “and a chai. Black, please, no sugar or milk or anything.”
He liked water to even out the caffeine. It was important to keep hydrated while upping his blood pressure. Plus, he needed something to drink while the tea cooled to a drinkable temperature. It wasn’t as weird as Tyler's expression suggested it was.
“No coffee?” Elias asked as Stephanie left them with the menus.
I’M TRYING TO CUT BACK. TOO MUCH CAFFEINE ISN’T GOOD FOR YOU. YOU SHOULD CUT BACK TOO, Tyler said with his hands.
“Hey, I went with tea. That’s cutting back.”
Tyler raised an eyebrow.
THREE COFFEES AND A CHAI IS CUTTING BACK? I’M HORRIFIED FOR THE CONDITION OF YOUR HEART.
How could sign language be sarcastic?
Stephanie brought them their water and tea and took their orders. Chicken fingers and potato wedges for Elias, garden salad for Tyler.
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