I know the berserker. In fact, I’d had a confrontation with him earlier right before dropping Down Under. Berserkers are a nasty bunch, but this one is wicked cruel and gets off on the pain of others.
He’d approached me several times, trying to work out a business deal for the human bodies I double up on. Evidently, sex with a human pays very well among the otherworld creatures, especially if the human is less … breakable. I’d told him several times I wanted no part of it, and then he started following me. Every time I go Down Under he shows up and gives me a sales pitch, like he did earlier topside.
I’d pushed him off with a threat to bring the matter before the doppelganger elders. He’d laughed, right before telling me half the board was on his books. Then he sauntered down a manmade street above the sewer, taunting, “You’ll come around.”
But tonight he walks into Purgatory, barely acknowledges me and quickly turns away—probably interested in the fight, but still, so not like him to use a good audience to make a point. With Mom beside me, it’s even weirder. She’s one of the board members on his books. She even encourages me to take him up on his offers, said it would build relationships Down Under. I still refuse, mainly because I double up. I don’t kill my hosts. Don’t want to pimp out their doubles, either. It doesn’t seem right.
The black wolf breaks my train of thought as it leaps into the cage and whips around all savage snarls, glaring eyes, and pinned back ears. Vicen hands off his sword, but his eyes never leave the cage as the wolf lowers his front quarter and waits.
Vicen heads for the cage. The bar becomes so quiet I can hear water dripping outside the door to Purgatory. Even the vamps are sitting on the edge of their chairs—four chugging blood from heated mugs, two looking sated after returning from the back rooms.
The bartender, in full púca-fairy regalia, is covered in the dark, matted fur of a sloth. Its movements are incredibly slow as it climbs onto the bar beside us.
The opponent’s faceoff as one of the bouncers, the ogre, stands ready to close the metal door when the sloth announces the start of the contest. They are waiting for Vicen to climb into the cage.
As Vicen moves forward, every creature that needs oxygen to survive sucks in a breath and holds it for what seems like forever.
Three things happen at once: The sloth slurs, “Begin.” The front door of Purgatory opens; it’s as loud as a prayer book slapping the floor in the middle of a church service, and Vicen—one leg in the cage, one following—freezes mid-step.
Mouth open, I grip the barstool under me. The fight that was about to begin is forgotten, as everyone stares fear at the creature that enters. It’s a wendigo. Seeing the demon in a southern state is unheard of, and a main reason for otherworld creatures to gravitate south. Wendigo are the most intimidating creatures Down Under, large alien-like canine beasts, malevolent and cannibalistic by nature. It eats what it kills.
It struts in on two hind legs, hair billowing behind like white fire. Its skeletal body is all bone, muscle, and sinew. Long sharp claws on hands and feet are lethal weapons, as are sharp, poisonous teeth. A bizarre, wolf-like face wears a set of manic eyes and a protruding jaw. Teeth don’t quite fit into the wendigo’s mouth and drip the musky smelling saliva that renders its prey a painful, slow death. The saliva sizzles as it hits the concrete.
I have never seen a wendigo, and below CeCe’s skin, I’m vibrating with adrenaline pumping curiosity. I’ve heard my species is the only creature Down Under not affected by its poison. Probably because we’re nothing but a dream until we walk in another’s body.
The spell in the room turns from awe to fear the minute the wendigo speaks. “Vicen,” it hisses, “we had an arrangement. Yet here you are breaking it, mere hours after making it.”
Vicen turns white under his blond hair. “Hey, gi’me a break! Like I’m supposed to know when she—”
“Before you utter another syllable—” The wendigo’s burly, human voice ricochets off everything in the room like a pinball in a colorful machine game. “—think about what you’re doing, because if you dare to disobey me further, I will surely devour your flesh until nothing is left but bone, teeth and fingernails.” The wendigo rocks back on springy hind legs. “And I detest fingernails.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what you—” Vicen starts, but before he can say more, the sharp teeth of the wendigo are buried in the berserker’s throat, and everyone in Purgatory looks like taxidermy art along the walls of the bar.
I don’t even see the wendigo move. One minute the creature is standing on thin long hind legs, the next on all fours over Vicen, teeth embedded in his throat.
As I try to wrap my head around what had just happened, the wendigo rears back with the berserker in its maw. Vicen is pain seasoned screams, arms and legs swinging.