Page 2 of Witchbane
A stark bit of fear rolled through me. What if I was stuck here, dreaming, until someone came? What if Liam couldn’t get in? What if Robin never returned from wherever he went?
None of this felt like a dream. The rain on my skin, a bit too real, fear nearly bursting my heart, and body strained beyond capacity. If it was a dream, it was a lethal one.
The hill I was running up suddenly ended in a sheer cliff and I tried to stop; sliding, limbs flailing. But the mud and rain weren’t having it. I slipped to the edge and over, nothing to grab at or even hook my tiny claws into.
Then I was falling. I somewhat expected it to last a while, like a lot of times in dreams, or do that abrupt wake-up jolt that happened sometimes when the world dropped out from under me in a dream. Only neither of those things happened.
First it was fast. One second I was falling, the next I was plunged into a river of some kind. Icy water rushed over my head. I tried to suck in air, but sputtered as a strong current pulled me down. The world spun, sort of as I imagined a washer might—swish-swash, swirl, roll— until I was unsure which way was up or down and was bursting with a need for air.
Black sparkles dotted my consciousness. Not my vision because I wasn’t even sure if my eyes were open. The surrounding water made it too hard to tell if it was real darkness or the back of my eyelids. Was that possible in a dream? To pass out while dreaming? Did that mean falling into another dream? Or something worse?
The rolling spin lifted me for half a second and I broke the surface, gasping for air, flailing like a mad thing, and was dragged back down by the current.
Twice more it happened, spun and dragged beneath the waves until bursting with a need for air, lifted briefly breaking the surface, and then I was slammed onto the bank. Walloped into a fallen tree with enough force to feel like it cracked a rib or two. The water rose again, not enough to pull me under, not as I gripped the tree, digging my claws in and clinging like my life depended on it.
It hurt to breathe, ribs aching, lungs stinging from being without air after running hard. It took me a few minutes to crawl up the side of the giant trunk, out of the water. Having never gotten this far in the dream before, I marveled at how incredibly real it felt. My fur was soaked with the icy dredges of the river; I couldn’t help but shiver.
A steep embankment beside the fallen tree appeared to be the only way out of the riverbed. At least I couldn’t hear the ghouls anymore and the rain had eased to a drizzle. I climbed up the narrow rock edge. Slick with water and mud, I slipped down the side of it twice before finding enough traction to pull myself to the top, where I lay panting, exhausted, wishing for sleep.
Was that possible in a dream? Odd that I hadn’t woken up yet. The strength of the smells. The sensation of cold and water on my skin. The pounding of my heart and strain of my lungs; all intensely real.
The area I rested on seemed to be a ledge of some kind. Part of the mountains perhaps? The river churned in a dizzying whirl below, overfilled from the constant rain, and deadly. I glanced back wondering how I’d survived it at all. But being stuck on a ledge wasn’t ideal either. I did not have the knife sharp claws of a werewolf and could not climb the side of a mountain like the comic book characterWolverine.
After a few minutes of rest and feeling weirdly like I had almost fallen asleep again, I forced myself to my feet and began to examine the ledge. There was a narrow path that led upward a bit. It was wide enough that it could have been some sort of animal trail. Near the end of the trail there was an open area in the side of the rock wall, like a narrow cave opening, but more a shield from the rain.
I paused for a moment, catching the whiff of death again. Had the ghouls caught up?
But it wasn’t the ghouls. A scattering of bones littered the ground around the opening, mostly animal—deer, rabbit, a bird or two. Something’s den maybe?
I tried to scent around the rain again. Was there a bear? I couldn’t sense any sort of movement. Bears could be pretty still, but the alcove didn’t seem large enough for one. And the only odor I caught was of death, not even a recent death, more the musty smell of rot.
Nudging forward carefully, I pawed at the mud-loosened mess near the alcove trying to find footing. A tumble of bones rolled toward me forcing me to jump back. A moment ofoh grossand an internal horror movie scream flashed through my head as it clattered to a stop at my feet. For a second the rain pounded at the muddy heap, washing away the dirt; then there were fangs.
My heart flipped over in terror. An echo of a memory rolled through me, and the fox wanted to run again, though we had nowhere to go. Part of a skull stared back at me. Some bits of fur and flesh were still attached, keeping it in one piece, but not attached to a body at all. I remembered the fangs, though those nightmares had faded a little. The skull was almost as large as my entire fox form. Not a werewolf. AHuntwolf.
I tried to remember back to that day. As far as I could recall, their remains had been burned to ash. At least the ones we’d found. What would one be doing here? Most of them had gone through a portal I had opened to Underhill. IncludingApa.
The thought made me pause. A horrific idea, that maybe this wasApa,curled around me. Only he hadn’t been completely transformed. The other wolves had been converted by the magic of the fae into something monstrous. Not quite like the demon thingApacould turn into. His demon seemed more like a giant bat, or emaciated vampire. While huge, black, more dog-like, and leaving ice trails in their wake, theWild Huntand my kitsune form had some similarities. Another unsettling thought.
I sucked in a deep breath, inhaling the smell of the creature’s rot. NotApa. The scent underneath the bite of cold and bitter death was someone unfamiliar. NotApa. A seed of hope awakened in my gut. Maybe he was still alive somewhere.
I crawled closer to the alcove, the sensation of ants creeping over my skin so abrupt, I leapt up and back trying to shake them off. But there were no ants. Only a faint ripple in the dark confines of the space along the cave wall. Not even a consistent one. Like some special effect from a sci-fi movie, it would wiggle and shift in one spot, then smooth over before finding another place; throughout the entire space of the alcove.
Those ants meant one thing—an open portal.
Did that meanApahad come back through? Or that this portal was tethered to the land here? Were the otherHuntwolves back? Was I even dreaming anymore? I took a step toward the portal, wondering what would happen if I tried to cross. In a dream, would it drag me through for real?
Don’t even try it,I heard Liam’s voice loud and clear in my head.Not without me.
I’m dreaming,I told him, as if to explain I wasn’t really leaving him behind, just going where the dream led me.
No.He disagreed.Not a dream.
And I felt him closer now, as if he was physically crossing distance to get to me, our bond tightening. But I’d been dreaming, in the trailer, safe from everything, even surrounded by pack guards. Was I really outside now? How and when had that happened?
Light appeared overhead, the sloshing rain still making it hard to see. But a single flashlight appeared, then several more, and I could make out Liam leaning over the top of the cliff face, careful, but searching, until his gaze fell on me.
My heart flipped over as all the flashlights were suddenly aimed in my direction. Not a dream.
