Page 27 of Blacktail

Dad seemed blind to everything but the blood.

There was blood everywhere: splatters on the wall, arterial spray on the ceiling, black pools on the floor beginning to crust over at the edges. Here and there a few flies buzzed about, hardly able to contain their glee.

The bodies themselves were gone—well, mostly gone—but that was scant mercy. The scents of this place were alive with memories, fresh and terrible. Rex and Cephus sat awash in them, their gifted noses reading the stories of the night. Here was a whiff of a child’s adrenaline, spiking the terror of monsters into his veins. There was the first salty tear from a mother’s eye. Here was the shame-scented urine of a man who died a coward.

The scents were bad enough. But unlike Dad, Rex and Cephus were not blind to the magic of the Old Kitty Mother. They stood with their tails between their legs, whining and trembling at the sight of her work.

Neither spoke. What could they say?

The little dead boy crawled along the length of the wall like a spider, about halfway between floor and ceiling, his severed leg trailing the wet wake of his life behind. The blood fanned out behind him as he moved. Like the boy, it seemed no longer subject to the pull of the earth. It dribbled both upward and downward as it spread.

“Mommy!” the ghost of the little boy screamed. “You let it kill me! Why did you let the monster kill me?”

His mommy did not immediately answer, and a moment later Rex saw why. Her head was gone. She staggered past the arch at the end of the hall, probing with the stump of an arm to find her way.

She looks like Dad when he walks through a dark room, Rex thought. “God on His mountain…” he said softly. It was the beginning of a prayer his mother had taught him.

Cephus chimed in. “Protect us from…” He trailed off, glanced at Rex. “I don’t remember the rest.”

Rex seemed not to hear him. His tail dipped, either from piety or terror or both. “What happened here?”

“From the look of things, I’d say they irritated the Old Kitty Mother,” came a voice from above. “Best you two not make the same mistake.”

Rex and Cephus jerked around as one. There, on the windowsill, sat a chubby gray cat with a stink-and-jingle collar. He, at least, was not a ghost. As they watched, he examined one of his paws and gave it a light licking, in the way a cat will when he wants to let you know that you’re not too high in his estimation.

“But they…they’re dead,” Cephus said.

“Clearly,” the cat said, his tone flat and patronizing as only a cat’s can be. “Figured that out yourself, did you?”

“Then how can this be?”

“That is the question, isn’t it? I myself am not a wizard—I never found that way of seeing the world—but when I was younger, I apprenticed in a coven for a time. I still remember a little. See that pee spot on the wall there? See how it spikes outward from the center? I saw the same thing once, in a charm of hurting.”

Rex and Cephus exchanged a bewildered glance. On the ceiling, the child moaned. His path had carried him over one of his severed hands. Rex thought at first that the child would try to…reattach it somehow. But of course he can’t, Cephus realized. What would he pick it up with?

The dead boy began to weep.

With some effort, Rex stifled a whine. He forced himself to look away. He focused instead on the cat, trying to make himself blind to the things that slithered and flopped at the periphery of his vision. With a great effort of will, he managed to bark out a single word. “Why?”

“Why?” the cat answered. “Isn’t it obvious? The Old Kitty Mother seeks to please the one you hunt. All this is in his honor.”

“She did this…,” Cephus said, then lost the strength to continue.

Rex finished for him. “…to please him?”

“Oh yes. His rage did not end with their deaths. After, he ripped the bodies until…well. You see. He might have gone on, but…there really wasn’t much left that was big enough to rip. The Old Kitty Mother saw this. She would honor the hunter, so she carried on what he started. What he killed, she has in turn damned.”

“But…why?”

“You know, I was wondering about that myself. I think it’s safe to say that this wolf has caught her full attention, but as to her reasons…” He swished his tail in dismissal. “Your guess is as good as mine. This wolf is no wizard, but he is something special, that’s certain.”

Rex heard something move behind him. A moment later the sound was closer. He did not want to look. But it might touch you, he thought. His tail curled up between his legs until it brushed his scrotum. If it gets close enough, it might touch you. He moaned. He swallowed hard, then turned.

The dead male lurched down the floor of the hall, pushing himself along as best he could. Ghost or no, he certainly seemed physical enough. His one good foot clunked on the floor with each step. The wounds in his side left a trail where he leaned against the walls. His breath stirred dust motes in the air.

“Where is it—he—trying to go?” Rex asked, his voice soft and halting. Cephus could only whine.

“I’m not sure,” the cat said. “Perhaps he’s looking for his other arm and leg? Oh, wait, I understand. He’s not going toward anything,” the cat said. “He’s trying to run away. Do you see?”