Windigo Thrall

by Cate Culpepper

  Elena nodded, then lifted the hood of her jacket over her hair, a pragmatic substitute for a mantilla, and rested her hands on Jo’s shoulders. “Okay. I’m going to go check in again with my friend, upstairs. I would appreciate quiet while we begin, and each of you pray for protection, if you follow any god.”

  Elena closed her eyes, and her lips moved silently. Often her prayer was the entirety of the ceremony. Grady didn’t count on that, in this case. She had never seen Elena take on an enemy this strong. The others closed their eyes too, either praying themselves or simply respecting those who were. Grady slipped her arm through Maggie’s again, because she knew Maggie was scared.

  You’re still Someone I speak to through Elena. Grady stared at the flames and followed her own awkward process for prayer. And right now, I know she’s asking You to help Jo, and the rest of us, fight this Windigo. God, Gaia, Whoever You are. Protect Elena. This is the same prayer I always offer, the only one that matters to me. Protect Elena. I’m so afraid this girl You and I love is in more trouble than she knows.

  Grady let the words burble silently out of her. For a long time, the dark room held only the crackling fire and the softly scented smoke.

  She felt the first faint vibrations through the pores of her cold face, and then the cabin seemed to tremble. Grady stepped closer to Elena, her Northwest roots warning her of an earthquake. But an earthquake would be normal on Mt. Rainier. What she was hearing was the abrupt onslaught of the wind rising again, howling against the walls.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Pat flexed her knees instinctively to duck a sudden threat that seemed directly overhead. It went from dead silence to deafening wind in a heartbeat, all but shaking the large house on its foundation. She saw the others blanch at the noise, and Jo half-lifted herself on her elbows. The Makah mask on her chest shifted, but stayed in place.

  Elena may have cracked an eye open briefly as the howling filled their dark space, but otherwise her only reaction was to pray aloud, chanting in Spanish.

  “I think our time-out is over.” Maggie’s voice shook.

  “Fuck it,” Becca said calmly, but her eyes were fierce. “Bring it on.” She was still kneeling next to Jo, and Pat knew there was something right about that that was wrong with the rest of the room. She tried to grasp that thought, but it swam away.

  “What the hell?” Pat touched the holster at her side, hearing a distant buzzing even over the wind, a faint but sinister high note threading through the dark air. She traced it to a side window, the one Maggie had pitched a rock through the night before. Even as Pat watched, a large, lumbering insect with scarlet wings buzzed through the jagged hole and into the cabin.

  Grady noticed it too. “Jesus Christ. Elena, are you seeing this?”

  Elena glanced up at the insect, which was hovering high in the eaves, then ignored it. She closed her eyes again and continued her prayer.

  “What is that thing, Grady?” Pat turned to keep it in sight, yelling to be heard over the wind. The damn bug was the size of a small bird, and she’d never seen anything like it on the mountain.

  “Yeah, it’s deep winter,” Maggie said. “What’s a bee doing—”

  “It’s not a bee. It’s a pepsis wasp.” Grady’s tone was sharp, and she pulled Maggie with her, closer to Elena, out from under the large wasp. “And no, it shouldn’t be out in deep winter; it shouldn’t be out of the damned desert. Elena?”

  Pat figured her pistol was a little useless, and she looked around for a magazine to roll.

  Three more huge wasps flew out of the night and into the room, long-legged, their red wings thrumming discordantly.

  “Oh good, a party.” Maggie emitted a laugh that sounded half-hysterical.

  “Pat, be careful!” Grady snapped. “Pepsis wasps have the most painful sting known to humans. Do not fuck with these things.”

  Pat backed away cautiously, joining the others clustered around Jo.

  “Go back to your places, please.” Elena’s voice, controlled but firm.

  “Not likely,” Pat murmured, having no wish to put any of them closer to the most agonizing sting on the planet. The wasps hovered in a formation of four at the top of the firelit circle.

  “No. Do what Elena says.” Grady took Maggie’s arm again. “Pat, step back.”

  Pat cursed beneath her breath but complied, and Jo eased back down into Elena’s lap. Elena’s prayer continued, but the wind’s roar smothered her words.

  Pat felt naked and exposed here under the jittering wasps and was half-tempted to draw her piece again. Jesus, these were ugly things. Then she got a closeup view of the spider-like insect because one flew directly for her face.

  Pat threw up an arm and heard Maggie cry out her name. The wasp’s scarlet wings buzzed an inch from her eyes, an alien creature with prehensile legs. Then it snapped back abruptly, even angrily, and flew on.

  “Elena!” Grady called, and Pat turned in time to see Elena make a quick, decisive gesture with one hand. The white smoke from the small copper pot swelled and flowed over the hearth, then began to fill the living room with its light scent.

  “Maggie, watch it!” Becca hissed, and another wasp was bound right for her. Pat began to lunge toward Maggie to shield her, but the insect floated over her white face and then deserted her, darting off at an angle.

  What happened next happened so quickly Pat could hardly track it. The four wasps seemed to find their targets just as the gushing white smoke from the pot filled their space, and Elena’s voice rose above the wind on one commanding cry.

  The wasps dived for Elena, for Becca and Jo and Grady.

  They flew into the white smoke just as Elena’s call cracked the air, and all four insects fell to the floor. Dead in less time than it took Pat to believe it.

  And the wind faded. It didn’t die entirely, Pat could still hear it out there, but she could think again. They could hear each other again.

  “Blech.” Becca stared at the dead wasp an inch from her knee. “I honestly can’t think of anything else to say at this time.”

  Pat tried to draw an even breath. “No one was stung, right?”

  “Oh, you’d know if one of us were stung.” Grady used the side of her boot to nudge the wasp that had come for her, then kicked it beneath the sofa.

  “Was it the smoke?” Maggie asked. They were drifting closer again, gathering around Jo. “Did you poison them or something, Elena? I can hardly even smell it.”

  Pat couldn’t either. What had been a sudden, heavy fog of white smoke had never irritated her eyes or her sinuses, and its lingering remnants were fading. The air was clearing, leaving only a pleasing hint of sage behind.

  “They’re also called tarantula hawks, these wasps.” Elena was a little breathless. She slid back the hood of her jacket and drew her hands through her hair. “Their larvae feed on tarantulas.”

  “I don’t know what you could have said about these guys to make me like them any better.” Becca was obviously still shaken, and she kept brushing Jo’s shoulders off as if making sure she was waspless. “So how did bugs that eat desert tarantulas get all the way out here to attack us?”

  They didn’t attack all of us, Pat remembered, and she heard the words in her grandmother’s voice.

  “The pepsis wasp is the New Mexico state insect.” Elena continued her bizarre nature tutorial. She looked at the floor, and then leaned over and picked up a dead wasp, tweezing its red-tissued wings in her fingers.

  Grady hissed a warning. “Careful, babe.”

  “It’s all right.” Elena smiled at the dead insect, a disquieting sight. She leaned back and tossed its body over the rim of the fireguard. It bounced against a log and hissed into flame, curling blackly. “It makes sense to me that this demon would send a threat designed specifically for its enemy.”

  “Huh?” Maggie said.

  “I find that ‘makes sense’ is kind of a relative term in these matters.” Grady put her arm around Maggie’s shoulders, where Pat’
s arm wanted very much to be. “But I think Elena is saying these wasps were used to target her personally.”

  “Well, does this mean we won, then?” Maggie raised her eyebrows hopefully. “Elena four, wasps zero? Can we get out of here now?” She looked at Pat as if she could lead them all out into a sunny and triumphant morning.

  “Perhaps we could go as far as getting me off this floor, at least?” Jo said querulously. “I’m finally getting cold down here.”

  “I believe these wasps were intended to drive us outside,” Elena said. “From what Maggie told us, this Windigo draws its victims out into the night to kill. At least we have shown it that it’s not playing with fools.”

  Pat figured the satisfaction in Elena’s voice was warranted, but the night was still black as pitch outside those windows. The gusting wind had slowed, but it hadn’t stilled entirely. And she had not one clue in the universe what to do now.

  “Jo, you’re shaking like a damn leaf.” Becca frowned. “Pat, come on. She’s freezing down here. She needs to get up, and these wrist ties have to come off.”

  “And what in bloody hell is that, anyway?”

  Pat tensed again, but Maggie sounded more irritated than frightened. She was pointing at one of the side windows, which pulsed with a mild orange glow.

  “That light is back.” Maggie stepped over Jo’s long legs and went to it. “I saw it a while ago, and it’s driving me nuts.”

  Pat experienced mild déjà vu, watching Maggie stand by that window. She remembered seeing Elena earlier in the same place, tracing a shape on the pane of glass with one finger.

  “What is it, honey?” Becca sounded worried, and Maggie’s hands slowly closed into fists.

  Maggie’s eyes were locked on the orange light glowing through the window. She took a step back.

  *

  “Um, it’s the face.” Maggie swallowed past the cotton in her throat. “It’s her.”

  Pat was walking closer, always a good thing. “You see a face?”

  The light was growing brighter. Curving lines were marked clearly in the frost sheeting the pane, an oval shape. It was the image of the Makah mask, the Cannibal Woman. The same wild hair, angry, slanted eyes, the same snarl. She heard Pat’s swift indrawn breath beside her.

  “That’s impossible,” Pat whispered. “Any marks would have faded hours ago. Elena? Do you remember drawing this?”

  “What are you talking about?” Elena sounded annoyed.

  Grady’s voice. “What is it, Pat?”

  Maggie was thoroughly creeped out, and she reached for Pat’s hand as naturally as a child seeking comfort from a mother. The moment their fingers touched, the light flashed brighter. The Cannibal Woman stood out in stark relief across the window, outlined by an orange glare that haloed Pat and Maggie.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  It was Jo and there was terror in her voice, and Maggie was jarred from the window. Pat was already running back toward the others by the hearth, and Maggie followed her quickly.

  Jo was thrashing on the floor, and Becca was struggling to hold her still.

  “Get it off me!” Jo bellowed, and she was staring pop-eyed at her chest.

  The Makah mask was freezing into her jacket. Ice crystals were forming around it like snow around a lake, and the frost was spreading across Jo’s breasts.

  “Jo, lie still!” Grady threw herself across Jo’s kicking legs, her glasses knocked askew across her face, and Elena joined her.

  Pat knelt beside Jo, and Becca gripped the Makah mask. She cried out and released it, and Maggie could actually hear the mask freeze deeply into Jo’s chest with a malign crackling sound.

  “Easy, honey.” Becca shook out her reddened fingers. “We’re going to help you, just—”

  “Get it off!” Jo screamed, bucking.

  Pat whipped back her long coat and drew her knife from her belt. “Jo, don’t move!” She barked. “Becca, I don’t want to cut her.”

  Pat inserted the tip of the long knife beneath the edge of the mask, and Maggie drew in a hitching breath. Jo was obviously trying to lie still, but she was wracked with convulsive shudders.

  Pat yanked—hard—and the mask ripped free of Jo’s jacket with a tearing rasp.

  It flipped into the air, and then it kept flipping. The frosted mask rose higher in a slow, lazy spin and hung in the space above them. A wave of dizziness swept Maggie and she locked her knees to keep from falling.

  Orange light, the same disturbing shade of orange that had outlined the window, began to glow around the small mask. And it grew, right before Maggie’s terrified eyes. Its sides spread to the size and shape of a human head, and the disembodied Cannibal Woman glared down at them.

  “What the f-fu—” Jo’s teeth were chattering so hard she couldn’t speak.

  “Jo, we’ve got this.” Becca was behind Maggie so she couldn’t see her face, but she took some courage from the strength in her voice. “Just lie still.”

  After a tense moment of silence, Maggie couldn’t stand it anymore. “Is it going to do something?” she whispered.

  The woman’s primitive features regarded them impassively, and the large room was quiet.

  “Jo?” Grady’s voice. “You all right?”

  “Yes. G-getting there.”

  Maggie pressed her hand to her hammering heart, willing it to slow the fuck down. To her great relief, Elena came up beside her, and addressed the cruel face with the ferocity of a street fighter.

  “You’re not welcome here, abuela.” Elena stood protectively close to Maggie. “You were not invited. Now get out of this house and leave these good women in peace.”

  The woman’s gleaming visage was motionless. And then it wasn’t. The slanting slits that served as her eyes shifted and turned toward the fireplace.

  Maggie touched Pat’s hand again.

  The hearth exploded in flames.

  “Becca!” Pat cried, and Becca was already pulling Jo back from the roaring column of fire.

  It was fiercely bright but contained, a solid pole of twisting flame that shot up the chimney, flooding their circle in light. Not one spark made it through the cracked glass of the fireguard to the stone lip of the hearth, and Maggie clung to that comfort.

  “Elena?” Grady was outlined in the gold light as she pointed to the painting mounted above the hearth. Maggie heard Elena gasp just as she saw it too. The trough.

  The painting Delores Daka had painted twenty-five years ago had shifted again, drawn back. The mountain, their cabin, were small now in the distance, but still visible against the dark, cloud-choked sky. Half of the rusted trough now sat prominently in the snowy foreground. Instead of snow, the trough was filled with steaming water that appeared to be boiling.

  Maggie was clenching Pat’s hand bloodlessly. She glanced over her shoulder at the floating face, which still stared implacably at the painting.

  “What’s it trying to tell us?” Maggie whispered. “What’s so damn important about a trough?”

  “I don’t think she’s looking at the trough,” Pat said. In the glare of unnatural firelight, her expression was filled with wonder. She patted Maggie’s hand, then released it, and walked slowly over to the hearth.

  “Pat, Grady, we need to get her up.” Becca was struggling to help Jo rise, and Grady went to them quickly. Pat, however, rested her hands on the mantel and stared at the photographs sitting on it. Maggie hurried to snatch up the blanket that had snarled beneath Jo’s legs, and Grady and Becca pulled her to her feet.

  “What is this?” Becca hissed, scratching at the ice crystals that still formed a circle on Jo’s jacket. The shape of the mask was a dark oval inside it. “Jo, you’re shtill shaking like you’re freezhing to death.”

  Maggie kept glancing at the high corner of the room to make sure that terrible face hadn’t decided to open its maw to swallow them, and then the whiskey fumes hit her. She stared at Becca and realized how badly she was slurring her words. Her cheeks were flushed and she was
blinking rapidly, bleary-eyed. Becca was, quite abruptly, drunk as a lord.

  Maggie whipped around toward the hearth. “Uh, Pat? We need you over here.”

  *

  The Mexican girl is right, kid, Pat’s grandmother said to her. When you open doors, you never know who will come through.

  The small photograph of her grandmother, Jo, and Pat had changed. Her own laughing face, and Jo’s, were the same. But her grandmother’s toothless grin was gone. She no longer laughed into the camera. Her head had turned, and now her stern eyes were pinned on Pat’s. Her lips didn’t move with her speech, but it was unmistakably Delores’s voice.

  It’s not okay with me that this monster fucks with my family. So listen, Patricia. All of these girls have part of your answer.

  And then it was Elena’s voice issuing out of the photograph, clear as a bell in Pat’s ears. We must meet this demon on its own ground.

  Becca Healy’s voice, vibrant and ringing. Fuck it. Bring it on.

  Then Grady’s. I have a feeling Jo’s not alone in all this.

  *

  “Pat!” Maggie called again. Why the hell was she still ogling that damn picture?

  “What were you thinking, Becca, putting that thing on my chest?” Jo’s eyes were steely, and then they went blank in shock. “Becca. Are you drunk?”

  “Of coursh not. Of course not, Jo.” Becca released Jo’s elbow and rubbed her face hard. “How could I be?”

  “There’s no liquor in the house,” Grady protested, and Maggie shared her bewilderment. “We heard Pat tell us…uh, Pat, could you join us? Jo, Becca’s telling the truth.”

  “This is a private conversation, Dr. Wrenn.” Jo’s voice went dangerously quiet. “Becca doesn’t need you to come to her defense.”

  “Look,” Maggie said testily. “Is anybody even a little bit concerned about the pillar of fucking fire that’s shooting up the chim—”