“Come on, girl. Let’s go home.”
Levi climbed up into the buggy and stowed the flying staff. Then he grabbed the reins. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He found a crumpled handkerchief lying beneath the seat and stuffed the ends of it into his bleeding nostrils.
He couldn’t fight Nodens alone. There were things he needed. Items he had no access to. He needed help. Help from one of the people indirectly responsible for this mess.
It was time to prepare.
Tonight, he would begin fasting, so that he might be cleansed for the task ahead.
Tomorrow, he would pay a visit to Adam Senft.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The wind promised blood.
The coyote’s stomach growled in anticipation when she smelled it.
The coyote wanted nothing more than to return to her den before the sun came up, but she had a long way to travel before she could sleep.
The blood called to her. She intended to answer.
It had been a long, weary, and demoralizing night. At dusk, she’d risen from her den to hunt and forage. First she encountered a small dog that had strayed far from home. The coyote gave chase, but the dog was faster. It escaped. She decided not to pursue it. Panting, she drank cold water from a creek and looked for the darting, silver forms of fish. The stream was empty. She flipped a rock over with her paw and found a tiny crayfish. She snapped at it, dancing around to avoid the angrily waving pincers. The coyote devoured the crayfish in one bite, but the small morsel simply fueled her hunger.
Her wanderings had then brought her to the edge of the forest. The coyote sneaked through the backyard of a nearby farm house. She was careful. Cautious. The sounds of humans came from inside the home. The coyote stayed alert, listening for any sign that they were aware of her presence. After deciding it was safe, she crept undetected to the front porch. A fat, yellow cat lay on a lawn chair, licking its paws. The coyote’s muscles coiled. She tensed, preparing to charge, but the feline spotted her and leapt from the porch. The coyote dashed after her fleeing prey, across the yard and down a one-lane dirt road. Trees lined both sides of the driveway, but the terrified cat ran straight. The chase ended when the cat ran out into the main road and was crushed beneath the wheels of a tractor-trailer. The truck didn’t stop. The coyote watched from the bushes along the side. Twitching, the cat let out a pitiful, gurgling mewl. Then it stiffened and lay still. Steam rose from the body. The coyote stepped forward, drooling at the sight and scent of the fresh innards splattered all over the pavement— the rich liver, the tender intestines, an eyeball, warm blood. Before she could feast, another car came along. Then another. Their wheels thumped over the carcass, further spreading the gore. The coyote darted out into the road and snagged a shred of intestine, but oncoming headlights chased her back into the bushes again. Not wishing to suffer the same fate as her prey, the coyote left the area.
She came across a deserted campground and knocked over the garbage cans, snorting through their spilled contents with her snout. She found a few scraps—French fries, a pizza crust, and half of a hot dog—but not nearly food enough to sate her hunger.
The coyote felt sad—a lingering shame that couldn’t be cured with sleep or food or water. She was a hunter. Her kind were predators, unmatched by any other animal in these woods except for the black bear. And yet here she was now, nothing more than a scavenger. No better than a raccoon or a possum, stealing from trash cans, eating humanity’s refuse just to survive. Every year, the humans came farther into the woods, chasing away the other wildlife, and reducing her kind to this.
She missed her mate. She’d met him during her second winter, when the moon was full and yellow and new-fallen snow covered the ground. The scent of her heat had called him to her. He was strong and lean and large, standing over the other males that answered her call. She remembered his pelage colors: gray washed with streaks of black, with beautiful tan and reddish markings running down his legs. His ears had been erect and his tail full.
They’d rutted on the frozen ground, their body heat melting the snow around them. The coyote howled her passion to the full moon when her mate’s teeth nipped the back of her neck, holding her in place. Four months later, safe in their den beneath an overturned tree, she gave birth to a litter of seven pups. Her mate had gone hunting while she nursed and cleaned their young. He’d paused along the stream bank, looking back at them once over his shoulder. He had seemed so proud.
Then, while she waited for him, the human thunder that was different from sky thunder echoed across the forest. She knew what that thunder brought with it.
Her mate never returned. She waited four days, but he never came back.
She’d raised the pups on her own, as best she could, teaching them how to hunt and track, where to shelter and when to sleep, what was good to eat and what would make them sick. Most important, she taught them about man.
So, when men arrived a few months later, and shot her with something that made her sleepy, the mother coyote’s last thought before losing consciousness was that her cubs would escape. They’d know to run. To flee from man, just as she’d taught them.
When she awoke, there was a small metal clamp in her ear, and her young were gone. She sniffed around the forest floor. Their scent was mixed with the stench of humans. She cried out for them but there was no answer. The coyote waited but her cubs didn’t return. They had vanished. Just like her mate.
She missed their yips, barks, and howls. Missed their warmth. The way they crawled all over her when they were playing. How they tugged at her ears with their sharp little teeth or snuggled against her when it rained. Their individual scents.
Scent…
The coyote’s memories faded as she caught the scent of blood again. It was stronger this time. Perhaps an injured deer or a wounded dog. It was too heavy, too thick, to be from anything smaller. Whatever the source, it was near.
But so was something else. Something without a scent. Something…dangerous.
She just didn’t know what.
Parting the field grass, she peered into the woods. The coyote’s nocturnal prowling had brought her here, to the edge of a bad place. She had never been here before, had never strayed so far from her usual area. But after the failed cat hunt, she’d smelled the blood and followed it. Now she felt alarmed. This place was wrong. Menacing. She knew it instinctively, as did the rest of the animals in the area. The trees were different. The air was different. It was dangerous to proceed.
And yet, the blood-smell called to her, promising a feast if only she would enter.
Whimpering, the coyote stepped out of the field and into the shadow of the trees. She sniffed the air, cautious. Now she caught a new scent in addition to the blood: burning leaves. She paused, but sensed no signs of fire. Her ears twitched, alert for the slightest sign of activity. The forest was quiet. No birdsongs or insect conversations. The ground vibrated slightly beneath her paws, as if something deep inside the earth was turning. It felt unnatural. Not of man, but not of nature either. This was something else, something that was neither. The coyote wanted to run. Instinct and common sense told her to flee, but her stomach rumbled. She took another tentative step forward, and raised her snout. The woods smelled like humans. There had been many of them here recently. Signs of their presence were everywhere: downed trees, gasoline and sweat, urine, footprints, threads from clothing snagged on branches. She considered this new information. The humans had been here, and nothing bad had befallen them. Perhaps the danger was overstated.