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Grip a tightened vise, August shook. The force flung me off my feet. A violent, wrenching pain tore through my body. My arm slapped into the ash, broken and dislocated. The wolf stood over me.
The stench of spoiled intestines filled the air.
My pulse climbed into my throat. Cold air seeped into the atmosphere, a glacial toxin.
A pair of brown, burned paws shuffled into view behind August’s legs.
Winnie sprang upon the Louisiana sheriff’s back. With a vicious snarl, August spun to bite the annoyance. The sound ceased the moment he latched onto her. Flinging his undead girlfriend into the dirt, he sprinted for the zoo keeper's tunnel and disappeared into the dark.
Winnie pursued him to the shaded entrance before stopping. Beside her, a smaller, childlike wolfboy reclined on his skinny haunches to scratch a maggot out of his ear.
I sat up, grabbing my shoulder. A hot rush flooded my arm from several deep punctures. Even a featherlight touch against the dirty blood brought me to tears. I could feel the distorted separation and immediate swell. The bones were fractured and broken in multiple places. I turned my head to side-eye the damage near my clavicle. The mess of blood and bone made me throw up, the motion of which induced further agony.
Leaning over, trying to figure out if I should stay with Cal or try exiting through the tunnel to find help, I spotted something small and blackish brown weaving through the exhibit rocks. A weasel, I guessed, or an otter.
Winnie and her companion followed its progress, allowed the slight creature to walk within range of their claws.
As it approached, I got a better look. While its tail and body were long and low-slung, its posture seemed feline, along the lines of an overgrown housecat. It carried itself with the grace of one, though it was far more primitive than Samson or Igor. It padded across the grey landscape, set its paws on the stone ring and peered at me through eyes the essence of a moonlit rainforest, eyes unmistakable in the lightening sky.
The edge of its tail swished across the ashes.
Welcome back, a voice rasped, an echo that resounded in my skull, breached the virgin safety of my mind.
The animal bowed forward cautiously, head bobbing, stubby ears perked. Tentative, it peered into my eyes, daring to set its paw lightly against my toes.
I flicked his paw away. With the scars, my arm and Cal’s urgent needs, sustaining a train of thought longer than ‘shit’ was a challenge. “Zakar?” I asked; I didn’t have anything else to call him.
Look at you, bright-eyed and not bushy-tailed. Stiff whiskers brushed my side.
“Have I died?”
His tongue lapped at the blood of my forearm. Interesting.
I winced. It hurt, but his touch brought a frightful seduction of my nerves, a guilty pleasure in my anemic state of mind. “You,” I hissed, unable to lift my hand and strike him. “You—”
As if sensing my budding anxiety, the cat backed off with a steady purr. Wendigo, shaman, the Second Head. I am them and a thousand other souls connected to a thousand other titles. He licked his paw, intense green eyes half-lidded and pleased. I'm something of a collector, you see.
“A collector of what?”
He dragged his claws against my knee, a soft swipe that didn't register in my agonized nerves. Pricks of red beaded my skin. He licked them one by one.
I shivered. “What have you done?”
Saved your life from my disappointment of a servant. The cat wound his way around me, bumping his cheek against my spine. Venom dripped from the glare he offered the crumpled body of his host. He moved to the corpse’s head, and in a minute or so returned to my side, proudly depositing the jade and feathered earring of the Second Head, still attached to the ear. The fool let you get bitten. He nipped my finger. I jerked away to instant regret. Fire burned through my arm. I warned him. Save the talk for after you kill her. If you’ve got to spout off something, lie. But noooo, he starts a conversation.
I tried to limit my reactions. “What are you?”
He flashed a thin smile, flicked his ash-covered tail across my thigh. Didn't you feel it back in my shop? he purred, kneading my lap. Can't you feel it now? The electricity? The raw, animal magnetism of overwhelming desire?
My skin crawled at the memory. “What are you?” I repeated, knocking him back.
He lifted his chin, tail straightening into an exclamation point. Why, your humble familiar, of course.
“Bullshit.”
Every good witch needs one.
“I'm not a witch.”
