Chapter 11: Scrambling on the Water
My pierced hands were sealing shut, and the salt knife was suddenly broken in two, the hand unmarked on both sides. I looked to my right hand, expecting something of the same – and was confused to see the cross and the open locket in my fingers, my silver-wound healing more gradually.
Why had I grabbed it?
Because he had wanted it. He had still reached for it, while in the tunnel of light that is the beginning of death. And I could feel Jean-Claude still reaching for his trinkets, looking through my eyes, trying to use my hands.
I thought of letting the lanyard go, letting it fall to the river and wash away as the hunter should have done. Instead I watched myself switch the lanyard with its holy symbols into my left hand, which stung a little, as the healing in my empty right hand now accelerated. I watched myself do this with frustrated amusement. The silver tent peg finally broke in two pieces, and my hand was whole again.
The new blood rushing in my ears had taken hearing away from me – it started to come back now. I was still standing a little downstream from the bridge, and the Catholic mob was still hissing and cursing at me. The dogs still bared their teeth, and two other figures up there were stony – the middle-aged man with his water bottles and the old crone, the dormitory guardian who had released me into this world.
They will not strike again tonight, a mental voice said, a thought that was not my own.
I tried to turn and face him, which was silly.
Our magic … fair play. Always seemed strange to me …
I thought again about letting Jean-Claude’s trinkets fall to the river. Instead I pocketed them, after testing to see that my torn jeans still had an intact left pocket. I felt them in there, like a hot coal.
Return … them … home
“Fine,” I muttered. If I was immortal, I could make promises like that. “Just don’t make too much noise in there.” It was time for me to get moving. The solid black of the night was corrupted by the faintest trickle of grey in the east, and I was still many kilometers from Nanabush’s lake, from safety and darkness.
Errant wails and the baying of hounds rang out when I sprinted under the bridge, but the mob’s reaction was disorganized, their feet not moving in one direction. The dogs kept running, of course – let them try and keep up. I didn’t look back,
The delirious rush of new energy from my first human kill was mixing with the delayed taking from Deer Woman’s scalp, and I sent all the power I had into my feet, now feeling nothing but refreshing coolness when I touched the water. I jumped high, over the trees more than once, eying the east carefully and staying in the river’s centre. Small islands of gravel and stunted grass passed, but when dawn was only an hour away I had still not found darkness in the boundary between guardian realms that I could use to finally end this hell of a night with rest.
I ran, and ran, hunting for that lake, or an island with a dark hollow, anything. The lightening grey to the east started to burn through the trunks of the trees.
There were no other bridges, only one more set of power lines humming overhead, and no roads following the river on either side. Once a trail briefly followed on the Catholic side, and I could certainly have given an early-morning jogger a fright, maybe even a picture for a good creepypasta.
In still pools of water I could not see my reflection, but by feel I supposed that it grinned and stretched and had wide, Marty Feldman eyes. My hair had come back more from the sundog attack but it was still partial, thicker at my ears than over the top of my head. My lips were full and bright pink, my tongue wanting to hang out as I panted, and between the lips my teeth were horribly sharp, and with my wild hair and torn clothes that imaginary creepypasta with my photograph could have easily been about a werewolf instead of a vampire. My nearly-featureless skin now looked grossly unnatural, like fishbelly. Maybe I would end up pale after all once I had a few more human meals under my belt, though I’d do everything in my power not to sparkle.
Too hard. I’d overexerted myself in the rush of power after my victory and my meal, feeling invincible, and now I was practically falling with each step. I realized quite suddenly that I had a shadow, that the dawn had come and it was strong enough through the trees to make me wither. Soon, I had no doubt, I would smoke.
Ahead … what was that?
Another small island, too small … no, I would have to use it anyway. There were three trees, some boulders, a bush, it looked so small.
I collapsed on the island’s shore, now walking on my knees with my eyes watering, the sunlight strengthening to the east. Soon, so soon. I could get a few minutes more of shade with that rock but there was soil. That would do, I thought, each thought coming slower, tattered and uneven.
Dig in soil, hide in soil, cover with torn shirt, dig and dig and pull a rock over myself …
There were dreams of mud, of soil up my nose, of a burning in the soles of my feet. Hounds baying to the east, and why would animals obey the boundaries?
My flying head flew like a drunken, half-dead fly, noticing the animals closing in under daylight. I seemed to nearly crash into the biggest bitch who was forging through the waters fearlessly, taking my scent directly, while the other hounds stuck to the east side. The shadows pointed east now in the late afternoon, but the dogs still had plenty of light on their side. The day was mostly overcast, thankfully for my feet, which were it seemed barely covered on the island where I had imitated a groundhog and passed out while still swimming through dirt for greater darkness.
The bitch halted, growling up in the air.
“Is there a dog spirit to talk to?” I asked, wondering how I was asking, who I was asking.
She stopped growling, and waded through the shallows to the next rise of granite, shaking herself dry and peering northeast.
Then, as the Devil so often does in stories, a manitou did speak through the dog.
“Not for you to talk to.”
There were no more words, and soon no more visions. Looking up, but with more awareness than any dog has a right to have, the bitch fixated in one direction, looking upon me, and gave a long howl which became an irresistible wind, chasing me away, casting my flying head back under the soil and my improvised darkness.
Chapter 12: Dunking My Head in the Lore
Image credits: Judicieux, Fralambert, Mario Hains