The wendigo was clawing at the back of his left shoulder as if madly trying to scratch an itch. He roared in rage and pain. Sam heard a metallic click, and the wendigo straightened up, one arm wrapped across his chest to hold the opposite shoulder. "Over here, furface."
With the ringing in his ears, Sam thought he did well to recognize the voice as female.
The wendigo turned to face the newcomer's voice. Sam could see blood leaking from beneath the blackskinned hand. Even through the scratches that the wendigo's own talons had made were closing as Sam watched, the monster still bled from the weapon wound.
"You too. I should have known."
"Payback time, furface."
The wendigo dodged to one side and a whirring metal disk rushed through the space he had occupied. The weapon buried itself in the wall over Sam's head. He looked up. It was a spoked wheel with a series of wickedly sharp curved blades along its perimeter. It was a signature design, a shuriken in the shape of a Katherine's wheel.
"Hart," Sam croaked.
He could just catch glimpses of her beyond the bulk of the wendigo. She was a wraith in black leather, night to the day of the wendigo's white fur. Her right hand was cocked back, another of the shurikens ready to throw. In her left she carried a heavy pistol. Having watched the fruitless attacks of Willie's drones, Sam knew the gun would do little harm to the wendigo. The wendigo himself seemed contemptuous of it as well; his attention focused on the hand that held the throwing weapon. It must be the metal. Some awakened beings had allergic reactions to certain metals.
For long moments the two opponents feinted. Each seemed unwilling to commit to a move that might open an attack line for the other. Hart's hand blurred forward suddenly, unleashing a glittering star toward the wendigo. He shifted to his right fast enough that the shuriken whizzed past. He had anticipated her throw, but had not foreseen the diving roll to her right that she made as soon as the throwing weapon left her hand. He checked his charge and started to turn to her new location. Hart fired from the floor and the wendigo's right hand vanished in an explosion of blood and shattered bone fragments.
The wendigo's howl nearly deafened Sam. The sound, which should have been full of pain, carried nothing but outrage. He thought he heard the scream re-echo through the residence as the monster recovered from his surprise and charged Hart.
Trying to stand, Hart missed with her next two shots. The bullets blew craters in the wall. As Sam had done, she tried to duck under the sweep of the wendigo's arms. Also like Sam, she wasn't fast enough. One arm caught her in the hip and sent her spinning into a bookshelf. Covered in blood, she collapsed in a pile of books, artifacts, and simsense cartridges.
In two steps the wendigo reached her, but instead of going for her, he grabbed the top of the bookcase with his remaining hand and tugged. The heavy wooden shelves creaked as they leaned out from the walls, the anchor bolts squealing as they pulled free from their moorings. The shelves crashed down just as Hart scrambled out of their way on her hands and knees.
"Do something, dogboy!" she shouted at Sam.
"Throw a spell! Call a spirit! Do something!"
What could he do? He had called a spirit already and the wendigo had corrupted it and turned it back against him with contemptuous ease. What could he do against such powerful magic? He was just a Dog shaman.
He was\a151
He was in a forest glade in the middle of a city, sitting on the grass. A mongrel sat by his side.
"Dog!" Sam exclaimed.
"Man," Dog said, mimicking Sam's intonation. "I was wondering when you'd get to me."
"I thought you were always with me?"
"I am. You're just not always with me. " "I don't know what to do, Dog. Tell me," Sam pleaded.
"Tell you? You're the one out in the world, man. You've got to make your own decisions. You wanna be a pup all your life, that's okay. 7 can live with it, but you can't, 'cause it ain't gonna be a long life if you don't wake up and smell the world like it is. "The world smells like death." "That's the wendigo talking. I thought you were a man." "lam."
"So show me," Dog yelped. "The men I know don't give up so easily. Fight it, man." "I don't know how," Sam complained. "If you don't despair, you do." Somewhere else, the wendigo advanced on Hart. She drew a dagger from her belt. The orichalcum symbols inlaid in the blade's side glowed slightly, the power of that most magic of metals would enable the blade's kiss to wound the wendigo. But it was only a dagger; he had talons and fangs, and was more than twice her mass.
"He'll kill her," Sam said to Dog. "Yup," Dog agreed jauntily. "Then you. Then lots more people. You gonna stop him?" "What can I do?"
"Where's your faith? Us dog types believe in you men types."
Somewhere else, the wendigo smashed the dagger out of Hart's hand. The disarming move cost him a deep gash in his forearm, but he seemed content with the trade. His return strike was an open slap that caught Hart on her right temple. She tried to roll with the blow but the force was too much. She went down.
"She's got no hope, Dog."
"She's got you. Show some spirit, man." Sam felt utterly stupid. Dog had been telling him what he had to do all along, and he was just being dense. The wendigo had turned the building's spirit because it was primarily the spirit of the place; and places, no matter how pure they had been, could be corrupted. Places were just things made to be used. But people were more than things. Certainly they were physical bodies, but they were more as well, hearts and souls. Hearts could be corrupted too, but the soul's purest essence was not so easily swayed. Confused, tricked, and misled for a while, perhaps; but not forever, as long as there was hope and faith and belief in the ultimate goodness of life.
The wendigo had embraced death and despair, but even his creed was tainted with hope. Though the wendigo called Blight his totem and walked a toxic path, he still saw a hopeful end. He used his corrupt tools in his warped fight to rid the earth of what he considered a plague. His was a terrible path, but ultimately a misguided one. For the shaman, Sam suddenly felt pity. For the wendigo nature of the being he felt no such pity. The being it had been deserved the pity, but that being had long since died inside the great furred body.
Sam opened himself to the spirit world. Brighton Centrum was full of people, full of life. He avoided the dark corners and sought the light. In a rundown squat of a shack cobbled together in the mall space of a section scheduled for reconstruction, he found what he wanted. Nurtured by the love and hope of a family who had taken all the drek that life had thrown at them and stayed a family, a spirit dwelled here. It was a little grungy around the edges, but it had never known despair.
Sam sang the song Dog had taught him, wooing the spirit. At first it seemed deaf to his pleas, but at last it heard the song and stirred. Sam coaxed it from its place with flattery and fed it his strength. The spirit drifted through the distanceless space and joined him. Sam rejoiced. He spoke to it of the urgency of his need. Its aura pulsed, flaring in indignation and rage as he told it of the wendigo. The spirit allowed him to sculpt its raw purity into a concentrated crystal of diamond clarity and adamantine strength. All the while, Dog sang counterpoint. As Sam returned his consciousness to the mundane world, the wendigo pinned Hart beneath his foot. He leaned forward, putting his weight onto her chest. Sam heard her ribs crack. He feared for her life, but he was not distracted from the song. If he gave in to the fear, all hope would truly be lost.