by Meg Collett
I shot another glance over my shoulder just to be sure. Nothing. Hex and the others had gone deeper into the woods and weren’t expected back until noon tomorrow. They’d sent me back, alone, as a test. I’d spent enough time around them in the last couple weeks to practically smell Tully’s worry when Hex doled out my little pass-or-fail tasks.
I knew Tully, Squeak, and A.J pretty well by now, but not the rest of his pack, whose names I’d never learned because they rarely talked to me, even though they helped train me every day. I might not know their names, but I knew their mannerisms and special quirks, and they almost felt like friends.
I hadn’t expected that part. I hadn’t been prepared for the aswangs to feel so real. It would be easy to say they acted like real humans, but that wasn’t right, and I knew, in my heart, to say it would be a disservice to them. They weren’t human, not in the slightest. They were other and they were real.
The line between my father and I had also blurred. I no longer saw a black and white divide, with my mother and me on one side and Hex on the other. I’d lost sight of it somewhere between the daytime training and Tully’s worry for me and Squeak’s comments and the nighttime prowls with a pack of powerful, supernatural creatures at my side, protecting me and teaching me and showing me the right way to hunt the rogues.
I tried to tell myself that my mother had left him and hidden for a reason, but those words became mere whispers in an overlooked back corner of my mind.
The coldness I used to keep him at a distance melted with each tiny nod of approval and glimpse of pride I caught in his eyes. Sometimes I caught him looking stunned, like he couldn’t believe I was actually here and alive.
The echoing feeling in my chest terrified me.
I had a father—real and alive and in front of me.
Maybe my mother had left him because she’d wanted to keep Hex safe by not leading the university straight to him. Protecting him explained many of her actions up until her death. It made sense if I moved the pieces around just so.
Just like it made sense he’d waited to get me from Max if I moved the pieces around just so.
I scanned the buildings absentmindedly. Since the Manananggal had moved into the area, we hadn’t run across many rogue aswangs, similar to when a large shark swims into an area of the ocean and all the smaller, lesser predators scuttle away. On top of everything else, more snow was expected within the week, which would make hunting at night harder.
Fear University’s winter break was almost over. In a week, the second semester would resume, kicking off with Killian’s trial. I had no clue what that meant for me or how I felt about it.
Instead of thinking through it, I wiggled my fingers in my pocket to relieve the cool bite of the silver knuckles against my skin. In my other hand, my whip was neatly coiled, the handle pressed into my palm and the length cradled in my fingers, just like Hex had taught me.
I wove through the buildings, closer to the warehouse. I passed the rusted skeleton of the playground where Hex and I had first talked, which felt like a lifetime ago. A few streets over, Luke, Sunny, and Hatter had fought the rogue pack, and somewhere up ahead was my mother’s house, my true north.
I was so surprised at the surge of emotions I felt toward her home—and her—that I almost didn’t hear it.
But the sound came again, just as quickly, and I caught it fully then: a scuffle of feet scraping against concrete, followed by a whimpering cry, so soft it could have been the breeze if not for the steady rhythm of it. Scuffle, cry. Scuffle, cry. Then a hitched sob. And another sound.
The beat of wings.
I stopped walking, an icy finger brushing down my spine, sending electric shocks throughout my body. I could hardly hear anything over the roar of wild adrenaline in my blood.
The Manananggal was here.
I strained to pick the sound up again, but the dense press of heavy snow clouds hanging low in the sky caused all the noises to reverberate through the buildings. The cold front sent sounds scattering in tight spirals away from their true source. She could be anywhere.
I turned into the breeze and lifted my face. On instinct, or maybe from watching Hex’s every move lately, I inhaled deeply, pulling the air slowly through my nose and down the back of my throat to taste it as it passed over my tongue. I pulled in a few more breaths, and on each one I caught her scent: rot and the sticky reek of sour meat. She was closer than I’d thought and purposefully staying downwind from the warehouse.
I had no clue why she was this close. Why she’d taken the risk tonight and not on any other night.
Moving as quietly as possible, I followed the breeze, adjusting as the scent grew stronger. I crept over a few blocks to the burnt-out husk of the building. There her smell was so strong, I had to hold my breath against it.
I was so preoccupied with thinking about where she might be hiding that I almost stepped on her wing.
She was crouched right inside the doorway, her back curled over something on the floor. Her wings beat softly behind her, their lengths swishing across the floor, stirring dust into the air.
I jumped back right as her head swiveled around to look at me. This close, I noticed that a slick tar-like substance filled her eye sockets and mouth. She had a smear of fresh red blood across her face.
Another crying sound drew my attention to what she’d been crouched over. Laid out underneath her, his shirt cut open and blood spilling from the slice that went from the bottom of his throat to the top of his bellybutton, tearing his belly wide open, was Ghost.
He was crying, the heels of his boots weakly scraping against the floor like he was trying to run away. He blinked up at me, a sob hiccupping in his throat, and I nearly didn’t move in time.
Her wings slashed out like blades whipping toward me. I jumped back and dropped my whip’s coil. It snapped, popping through the air at her wing right as she stood.
Anticipate where you opponent will be, Hex’s voice echoed in my head. Aim there. Not where they are.
The barbed tip dug in deep. She screamed. I jerked on my end of the whip, setting the barb in even deeper until it tore through the membrane of her wing. Her scream choked off.
I had to keep her on the ground and inside the building. She wasn’t getting away this time. Moving away from the wing I’d successfully tethered, I leaped over a charred bit of debris and skidded across the ground as she sliced her free wing at me. I got close enough to see the razor-like bits of bone that stabbed out along the top, ready to tear through skin like a chainsaw.
She missed me, and as she tried to readjust herself in the air beneath the sagging, burnt ceiling, I yanked the whip again. Her wing tugged across her body and knocked her off balance, sending her dipping back toward the floor, her free wing thrashing. Trusting that I’d set my barb well enough, I moved in. Her side was open, her bony ribs and crumbling flesh waiting. I hit the diamond on my knuckles and sent that beautifully wicked blade hissing out. Coming in low, I slashed, moving just fast enough to connect, and stabbed the blade straight up between her ribs. I should’ve hit her lung, but black tar oozed out as if she were empty inside.
She screeched as I slid behind her, retracting my blade and slamming the knuckles straight into what should have been a kidney. The silver and diamonds tore through her skin and blackness coated my hand. Where her polluted blood touched, my skin started to warm in a warning flare, but I didn’t slow down long enough to examine it.
Though all of this had only lasted a few seconds, my whip was around her chest, above her free wing, and around her back. She spun around in the air and came for me as I heaved myself back to tighten the whip’s length. Her wings beat out and I used the whip’s handle to counteract my weight as I careened around her.
I was tying her up and trapping her wings.
I ducked under the wing attached to my barb and lashed out with my blade. Cutting through the membrane of her wing felt like ripping dried-up leather that was tough and thick and ancient. I hacked a
slit big enough to do some damage, and then I was moving again.
I’d caught her off guard. Striking first and fast had bought me a few seconds and a few more hits—like Hex had said it would—but my grace period ended and I’d pissed her the hell off by damaging her wing.
She came for me as hard and fast as I’d come for her.
I was too close. Wrapping my whip around her had messed up her balance and kept her grounded, but now we were close enough that I could smell Ghost’s blood on her breath and see row upon row of tiny piranha-like teeth in her gaping mouth. I jumped sideways right as she snapped those teeth at my neck, her long tongue lashing at the air between us.
My knuckles hit her jaw with all the force I could muster into one swing. I had a mean right hook, but she barely reacted, even though I’d clearly broken her jaw. It hung sideways on the lower half of her face, skin torn along her cheek, and when she turned to look at me, the entire lower half of her face shifted to the side.
She screamed, and I saw a flash of bone through the hole in her cheek.
The punch had cost me, and she rammed me before I could recover. We hit the charred wall behind us and went straight through it in a rain of ash and soot. There wasn’t a floor on the other side to catch us.
Her hands clawed down my arms as we fell, grabbing at me before I could get my knuckles up again. But I did. And I slammed the blade straight into her throat.
We hit the next level down and my back collided hard with the floor, my head cracking off it and sending stars across my vision. The momentum slammed her straight into me, and she sank her upper, unbroken jaw into the flesh of my neck, right where it met my shoulder.
She probably would have torn through my throat if her jaw hadn’t been broken and if she’d bitten just a little farther up my neck.
The burnt boards folded beneath our weight and we fell again.
My stomach tried to bang up through my throat at the free fall, but I tightened my fist around the knuckles and pressed the blade until it hit her spine. Behind her, her wings snapped out, nearly ripping my whip from my other hand. I managed to hold on as the leather tore through my skin and wet my grip with blood. I yanked the blade free from the side of her neck.
Her blood squirted across me just as her wings caught us. Our momentum jerked to a stop, and I clung to her as she struggled to stay aloft. I wrapped my arm around her and stabbed the blade into her back, right between her wings.
She was so thin, only rotted flesh and bones, that she felt slight against me, but even with my weight hanging off her, she spun upward, bursting through the floor we’d just fallen through and sending splinters of wood flying. She bit down on my shoulder and arm with her top row of teeth over and over and screeched in my ear as she tried to get me to fall.
I had no account of the damage she was inflicting on me beyond the warm slick dripping down my body and the heat flaring through my insides. My warning system was on high alert, but I couldn’t heed it. I focused on holding on, but as she dove through another wall, slamming my back through the wood, I began to slip.
We crashed through to the other side, and she dipped and swerved, my weight affecting hers. She flew higher through the building, trying to take us to the very top and maybe burst outside, where she could drop me to the ground. I couldn’t let that happen.
Below me, through the darkness of the building, I could just make out the burnt-out, broken ledge of the main floor. If I could just make it to the ledge, I would be on solid ground and closer to Ghost.
I pulled my blade free and fell. My bloodied hold on the whip’s handle was the only thing keeping me from plummeting straight down into the subterranean levels. I hit the end of the length with a jolt that nearly flung us straight into the wall. She screeched above me, her normal screams turning into a mixture of pain and rage.
The momentum swung me toward the floor’s ledge, and I kicked to swing myself closer. Above me, she dipped and swerved. My chest hit the floor’s edge, my body crumpling into the charred wood that crumbled beneath my hands as I grappled to hold on and haul myself up. I tasted soot as I dug my fingernails into the wood and pulled.
Without my added weight, she rose quickly. My whip’s barb was still lodged in her wing, and as she flew back up, my whip went with her, snapping my arm up and back in its socket. But it gave me just enough leverage to lift myself over the edge, right as the wood broke apart. Across the floor, I could just make out Ghost lying on the ground, not moving. His eyes were open and staring at the ceiling, but he couldn’t be dead. Not yet.
In the open air behind me, the Manananggal batted her wings and screamed. She was strong, but her slight weight put her at a distinct disadvantage as I sat back on my heels and pulled. I inched back toward a metal beam behind me, the only solid structures still holding the place up. If I could just wrap my whip around it, I could hold her down and get help for Ghost.
The warning flares in my neck and shoulder were getting worse, like a fire blazing beneath my skin, but I hauled myself backward, one step at a time, with both hands on the whip and a gritted stream of swear words pouring from my mouth.
I was almost to the beam when the coil went slack.
I fell onto my back.
A second later, the wall splintered apart and she barreled at me, her face a broken, stretched-apart scream, her broken jaw swinging. Her eye sockets were wider than my fists.
She hit me hard enough to knock the air out of me and make my body flash cold.
Her hands, like talons, tore into my shoulders, and she hefted me off the ground. We flew out of the building through the door I’d originally entered from, into the cool night air. With a screech, she flung me across the ragged lot.
I sailed through the air, legs kicking and arms pinwheeling.
My back connected with an old telephone pole, and I crunched to the ground in a heap.
Above me, she dipped and bobbed in the air, her wings flapping in a disjointed, frantic manner. I’d done some damage to her, and it showed in her rage. But my whip was still in my hand, my knuckles were locked over my fist, and she hadn’t killed me.
I spat out the blood in my mouth and sneered up at her.
“Fuck you, bitch,” I growled, half breathless.
She could finish me off. She could fly back inside the building and rip open Ghost’s throat. But her wings were unsteady, her jaw was a loose hinge, and her neck was torn wide enough that her head wobbled atop her spine. With one last scream, she turned and half flew, half fell over the buildings and away into the darkness, toward the state park on the outskirts of Anchorage.
I watched her go for only a second, and then I shoved myself to my feet and pushed into a hobbling run, my grip slick on the whip’s handle.
“Ghost!” I shouted, but my voice was just a raw rasp.
I retracted the blade and shoved the knuckles into my jeans pocket as I went. I didn’t bother neatly coiling my whip before I stuffed it into the back of my pants. It felt wrong to put my weapons away, but if she came back, we were all dead, including her. I needed both hands for Ghost.
I tumbled into the building and went straight for him. My fingers slid around his neck, searching frantically for a pulse. Just beneath the hollow of his jaw, I felt a tiny tremor.
“It’s okay,” I said, words fumbling over each other. “You’re okay. I’m going to get you help.”
His body was a mess, his stomach and chest a raw crater. The blood flow had slowed, which wasn’t a good sign; he hardly had any blood left. Not knowing what else to do, I tore off my mother’s red jacket and shoved it into his stomach. His eyes reared open and his back arched off the ground as he made an awful, fish-out-of-water gulping sound.
“Stay with me, Ghost,” I said. “I’m here. I’m here.”
I lifted him into my arms, his tiny, mutilated body folding against me, and ran like hell.
F I F T E E N
Sunny
A knock sounded on the door.
Running a
hand over my hair, I called out, “Come in.”
Hatter eased the door open and slipped inside. He looked like walking death with exhausted, dark bags under his eyes and his hair at wild, disheveled angles. “You get any sleep?”
“Hatter,” I sighed. “You don’t have to knock. This is your room too.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Did you?”
I thought about the picture and everything Luke and I had done while Hatter slowly came back to himself, and while Ollie built up this image of Irena in her head—a warrior, a soldier, a mother—and while so much else went on.
I blinked up at Hatter, who’d shrugged out of his coat and toed off his boots. He was still waiting for an answer.
“Sure. Yeah. I slept.”
“And I believe that.” He shot me a look that said he very much did not believe it.
“Have you slept any?”
He screwed up his face, mangling his scar beyond mention. “Not with that thing still out there.”
I picked at a piece of dirt beneath my fingernail. “You don’t have to hunt with them now, you know.”
“I know?” He crossed his arms. “I know my brother is out there hunting that bitch every night and I should be too.”
Since Hatter had come out of his manic state, he and Luke had joined the halflings in hunting the Manananggal. They’d been at it for nearly half a week, and it showed on their faces.
“Okay,” I said slowly, “but what if you get bit again?”
“Then I get bit again.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“It actually is.”
“Hatter . . .” I paused, not sure how to approach this. “You weren’t okay last time. You . . .”
“I know.”
“It was ten days before you snapped out of it. Has it ever lasted that long?”
“I know how long it was.”
