Carefully, she cupped her hands under his arms and lifted him up off the hook, amazed at her own strength, but at the same time already knowing she had it. She could feel every ability of the creature just waiting for her to use it.
Gently she laid Noah on the bed. The creature had stripped all the skin off his chest, but Noah’s back and face luckily suffered only superficial cuts. Blood seeped into the linens as he lay back on the sheets.
Tenderly she moved each strip of skin back to its original place while Noah cried out and shuddered in agony.
“Just lie there,” she told him when she was done, “and you’ll heal.” She kissed him on the lips. “Just like always.”
Before her eyes, the skin began to knit back together over the muscle beneath. She sat down next to him on the bed, holding his hand. In an hour, though the cuts were still deep and evident, the skin had completely reattached itself. In another hour, the cuts were only deep red lines in his skin. Wolves began to sing in the darkened forest beyond.
In the third hour, he reached up and curled his hand behind her head, pulling her down to kiss him.
Noah and Madeline dragged the creature’s body out to the middle of a meadow and dug a deep hole, working through the small hours of the night. They dumped him inside it, still full of metallic spears, and threw dirt over him. Then they rolled several large stones on top of the location to mark it in case they ever needed to go back.
But both of them hoped they’d never have to.
Then they climbed into George’s car and drove back down to West Glacier, talking excitedly and holding hands the entire way. Noah didn’t know what to do with his life now. He was free, and so giddy about it that a few times his bouncing in the passenger seat almost made Madeline drive off the road.
She felt the world differently now; new abilities within her waited to be explored, and she looked back on the experience in the cabin with a mind full of wonder.
At the gas station in West Glacier, they found George sitting miffed on the hood of Madeline’s Rabbit.
It was 4 a.m.
“There weren’t any vacancies in any hotels around here, you know,” he snarled, but only after he hugged her so tightly she thought her ribs would break for the second time that night.
Noah and George shook hands, and she convinced Noah to return to Mothershead with them.
“Why not?” he said, throwing his arms around her and kissing her. “We can do anything we want!”
They climbed back into the Toyota, George driving this time. As she got into the passenger seat, George looked over at her and said, “You seem different.”
She smiled. Her eyes flashed red in the dark, and George jerked in alarm. “If you thought I was a freak before,” she said, “wait till you see me now.” Seeing his surprise, she clasped her friend’s shoulder, reassuring him.
Hesitantly, he turned and started up the car. “Now that you’ve beaten me up twice and stolen my car and returned with a mystery boyfriend and glowing red eyes, you sure as hell need to give me a better explanation on the way home.”
Noah leaned forward and clasped their shoulders from the backseat. “Do you want to hear it from the beginning? ’Cause that might take a while.”
“Even longer than you think,” she said to him over her shoulder, thinking of the ancient Sumerian city and the black, encompassing void.
George looked at his watch. “We’ve got five hours,” he said, “not including stops for snacks.”
“Snacks!” Madeline cried. “Oh, yes. Please. I’m starved for some good, old-fashioned junk food.”
“I hope that’s the only kind of food you’ve got an appetite for,” Noah said, arching one eyebrow.
She turned to face him. “So far,” she said, running her tongue over teeth gone sharp.
Alice Henderson
Alice Henderson has long been enchanted by Glacier National Park, the setting of Voracious. She holds a master’s degree in folklore and mythology, and revels in tales of supernatural creatures and mysterious places. She lives in San Francisco, where she is at work on her next novel. Please visit her at www.alicehenderson.com.
