Page 7 of Shadowed Summer Sun
Retrieving the boline from my pack, I sliced through my healed palm. A few drops of my blood landed on the top of the fallen door. Then I took the horehound and chili pepper from my pack, crushing and mingling them with my spilled blood.
“I will end it. I will come for him when I’ve retrieved my power.” Smoke stung my eyes, choking my words as tears rained down my cheeks.
“It is done.”
Blinding heat seared through my hand, and Sarah passed her fire into me, consuming me with flames. Then, all at once, the rising heat died. The air stilled around me, and the house was at rest, waiting for my promise to be carried out.
I coughed, sputtering for breath as the invisible smoke that choked me receded into the Shadows. Somehow I still stood, and it was as the flow of my blood returned to normal that everything spun. I retched onto the broken door, black ichor clouding the small bout of bile that landed on the wood. But the sky cleared, and the Sun’s rays landed on my skin, bolstering me.
Badb landed at my feet carrying a long strip of fabric. I wrapped it around my hand and held my arm out for her.
“Thank you, friend.” She perched on my forearm, and I absently stroked her black feathers, concentrating on the slow decline of my heart rate.
The prick of her talons grounded me, and I met her eyes. The wells of inky black imparted a sense of concern and care. Lowering my head to hers, I breathed in the scent of midnight that clung to her wings.
“I’m all right. A promise was made, however. Do not let me forget it.”
Badb crowed assuringly.
“To the east then. To Bluestack Jack.”
I shivered as my nerve righted themselves, and Badb hopped further up my arm to rub her beak against my cheek. I smoothed her feathers and left The Crying House behind me.
The way to the Ol’ Willowies took me around Cottlewick Lake and past the old Ironwing Mine. Ironwing had been up and abandoned long ago. The people’s hunt for gold and treasures stopped mid-excavation. Equipment and rusty supplies sat lifeless and unused around the entrance, which gave off a foul, sulfuric smell. An all-too-familiar heat licked out of the open cave.
Miners tasked to work in Ironwing often got sick, coughing themselves to death or losing their grip on reality. Old Betty warned of the Hungries who burrowed in the cold tunnels scaring off the miners. They were responsible for halting the work done to fetch more material goods from the Earth’s bosom. According to her, the forever-starving creatures would attack anything if given a chance but preferred careless travelers.
I’d heard the townsfolk talk of the mine as well when they were carousing at the local tavern and well into the cups. Though my trips into town were rare, I enjoyed stealing away on occasion and finding a hole in the wall where so I could keep abreast of the local whisperings while enjoying a drink.
The folk there detailed the history of the mine in vague stories passed down the generations. Rilled up in a drunken stupor, they would warn that the mine was another gateway to Hell. The devil was responsible for all the sickness and death. And in the end, he’d sent one of his demons from the Pit through a doorway into the deepest tunnel of the mine, driving the miners from their God-given work.
Mineshaft airwasnotoriously bad for one’s health. Still, the addled minds that accompanied those who got sick or worked deep in Ironwing Mine for a long while encouraged the townsfolk to look past the obvious medical issues and instead focus on the demonic. Though, as Old Betty liked to point out, the two weren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
Passing the front of Ironwing, I kept my eyes forward and down, looking for traps in my path. Sulfur and the odd burn of explosive chemicals clung to the air all around the mine, and a faint chittering sound tumbled out from the Darkness.
Laying haphazardly in the center of the gravel road that still cut through this outer edge of the forest was some kind of blackened lump.Shit.
I took my boline in hand and readied a conjuration in the other. I’d only seen one of the corpse husks that began to crop up throughout the area. The Crones had decided to keep all younger members of the Coven away while we all prepared to face whatever was causing them. The animal found by Cerri had been depleted that it was impossible to tell what it was. Betty had quickly moved to guide me away from it, ensuring me that I had no need to see the thing, and I had only stolen a quick glance.
So when this dried-up, crumpled-paper-bag of a creature appeared to have fur and bones, my heart jumped into my throat.
A strange, foul stench, too acidic to be rot, seeped out of the husk like an oil spill. Its fur and skin were a matted, black mass, and the color didn’t seem to have an identifiable source. There was no kicked-up dirt or apparent signs of char. It had justturned black.
It was truly a husk, too. Emaciated and hollow, with every bit of blood and moisture gone, like it had been instantly mummified. Whatever it had been in life was smaller but larger than a cat or rabbit. Its eyes and teeth were missing, but that’s when I noticed its horns.
“A goat.”
Badb screeched behind me, and as I spun to face Ironwing, I was knocked to my back, gnashing pointed teeth aiming for my face.
Chapter Three
Do Not Follow Strange Lights Into the Woods.
Painricochetedupmyspine and neck as I hit the gravel. It blurred my vision, so it took a good few moments before I could see what attacked me. The smell, however, was plenty enough to go by.
Sulfur and decay seeped off the thrashing creature that pinned me to the ground as it bit the air, hoping to catch some of my flesh between its cracking teeth.
A Hungry.
