“Ah, ow,” I said. Almost hurts. “Salt in eye.”
“Not a wraith,” Tiff muttered to herself, already digging through pockets
I could make out Green Eyes swiping her claws at the thing. Touching only air.
“Astral,” I said. Actually breathing wasn’t hard, my voice didn’t wheeze, but my words were affected as my throat was damaged. But-
More wood cracked.
-But I remained very invested in keeping my neck intact.
Evan was fluttering into activity, but his focus was on evading the thing. The thing swiped for the bird twice, and Evan dodged both times. The fact it was now only using one hand for me was definitely slowing the damage it did to me.
“Go-” I started.
The thing caught Evan, lurching to one side, so its arms were fully extended to either side. Bird in one hand, me in the other.
“Damn it!” Evan said.
He slipped free of the grip, veered closer to me, only to get caught again.
“Don’t,” I said. “Just go!”
Evan slipped free again, as if he were wet soap in hand, and flew back out of reach.
This is so stupid, I thought.
Was there a trick to it?”
Astral, astral, astral. Um. Shit!” Tiff said, more agitated. “Astral workings are harder to protect against. Um. You need stuff prepared in advance, ideally.”
“Hurry,” I said. I couldn’t move from where I stood, with the thing holding me. I couldn’t touch it.
“Nightmare? No. Um. Doom. Curse made manifest? Roxanne, when you looted the bag, did you collect anything that looked like a dreamcatcher? A necklace, pendant, rosaries?”
“Why the fuck would I?”
More wood cracked.
I was pretty sure the thing had fingers wrapped around my spine and the remaining threads and splinters of wood.
.”Damn it,” I muttered. “They keep coming for me.”
“I would,” Peter said, helpfully. “If I were against us, I’d go after you first, easy.”
I heard the croaking of crows, the shrill cry of a turkey vulture.
Movement through the woods.
“Okay, wait,” Tiff said. “Don’t move.”
“Not moving,” I said. “Might want to hurry.”
She was already pulling off a glove, fishing in a pocket. Her hand shook.
“Um, was hoping for a bigger coin,” she said.
In the time that it took her to extend her hand toward my shoulder, Peter reached into his pocket and retrieved another, larger, coin. A toonie.
“Great,” Tiff said. She dropped the quarter she was holding and placed the toonie on my shoulder.I felt my neck strain. Bone cracking.
I liked my spine. It was mine. Or the upper part was. Borrowing one from a corpse just wasn’t the same. I suspected that if I lost my spine, I might be a goner.
“Heads, I compel-” Tiff started.
The sound of cawing crows increased in volume.
A small object collided with me. A crow.
The coin fell into the snow.
“Shit!” Tiff said, again.
The small crow unfolded into a larger man.
Corvidae. Our crow spirit, wearing a worn suit with a long jacket and tattered scarf.
He unfurled into his full human form between me and the strangler. He pushed out, and drove the spirit back.
A proper spirit to battle the astral thing.
The fight was brief, as Corvidae slipped past Roxanne, reached into her jacket with an almost casual ease to grab the knife, and stabbed at the projection, succeeding where none of the rest of us had been able to.
He sliced at it, and it dissipated into a thick cold fog, fading into the air.I stared at Corvidae.
He handed the blade back to Roxanne. In an instant, it was all quiet.
“There you are,” Tiff said.
“Here I am,” Corvidae said. “Tasks completed. I was to return to you at dawn, or when I failed, but you weren’t where I expected. I’ve found you.”
“You’ve found us,” I said, terse.
He smiled at me, gaze level.
“One more body on our side,” Peter said, rubbing his hands together for warmth. “Great. And it’s someone that can fight off things like that? Better yet. Don’t want to get strangled.”
I reached out to the nearest tree branch to collect some wood, touching it to my throat. Before I could reach a second time, Green Eyes was proffering a broken branch from the ground. I smiled at her. She smiled back, slightly lopsided. Half of her face was still covered.
“Cold,” Peter said.
I nodded.
Without speaking, I led the way, giving Corvidae only a moment’s glance. “Thanks.”
“I live to serve,” Corvidae said.
“Yeah?” I said, having already turned my back on him. “That sounds like it sucks.”
Navigation proved hard, as we moved deeper into the woods. Where it wasn’t slow going, it felt like the path was too winding. Too easy to get turned aside. The cold was wearing on our mortals, and we were losing precious time on the nuisance of simply having to get from A to B.
But the same was true for travel by air.
A part of the reason I wasn’t too vocal was that I was trying to keep my thoughts focused on the location of the hut. We’d scouted, we’d been unable to press forward, and the air seemed to be protected.
But there was more concerning me, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. The Abyss had given me the information I’d needed, thus far. The visions I’d glimpsed had been awfully helpful.
And in the vision I’d had of the meeting, back when Rose rejected the truce the others were discussing, I could remember Corvidae’s conspiratorial smile with Mara.
Mara, it just so happened, who we were about to face down.
“Mara, was it?” Roxanne asked. “You called her a crone?”
“Mara, yeah,” Tiff said.
I glanced back, and I took it as a chance to look at what Corvidae was doing. He was at the very rear of the group, trailing behind. Ostensibly watching our backs.
“I like that you’re asking,” Peter encouraged Roxanne.
Roxanne shrugged. “Don’t know what to ask, though. Um. Important things first. She can be stabbed?”
“Think so,” Tiff said. “Like any of us. Except maybe that thing.”
“She’s sort of human, right?” Peter asked.
“More or less,” Tiff said. “Crone Mara was human a long time ago, according to Dramatis Personae.”
“I can deal with more or less human. Can’t say that about damn dragons,” Peter said. “What could someone like Roxanne or me do against a dragon?”
“I’d think twice before deciding there’s something you can do about the crone,” I said.
“If you’re going to think twice, you’d better do it fast,” the maenad said.
We collectively turned to the side.
Mara.
She wasn’t old. She was young. Thirteen or so, not far off from Roxanne’s age.
The young crone’s breath fogged in the air. She didn’t watch us, but fiddled with a branch, snapping off a twig, casting it aside.
“A comb?” the satyr asked.
“No,” the maenad responded. “Don’t think so.”
“Huh?” Roxanne asked.
“Terminology,” the satyr murmured.
Tiff explained, her eyes focused on Mara, voice just as low. “Means an item charged with power. Drop a stone, it becomes a hill. Drop a comb, it becomes a river. Innocuous items, spent for a single use.”