Untethering Dark

Chapter Thirteen

The witch and her hag mother waited outside the gate, watching his approach between the trees. It was a bit early in the day for one of his visits, but he caught the latter’s scent as her sleigh team crossed his territory. Given recent, strange happenings, it was time they met, especially if these were early portents of an unprecedented threat.

“Altes Geweih.” The elder Hexe inclined her head.

Gudarīks dipped his head, returning the respect. “Frau Perchta.”

“Can’t say I ever expected to meet you face-to-face, but your time with my youngest warrants an introduction, I think.”

“I mean no ill will.” He swore to it with a clawed hand over his heart. Humans liked that sort of thing, and while Perchta hadn’t been human for more than one thousand years, it was a gesture he thought she might appreciate.

“Good.” Perchta smiled pleasantly, her voice light even as she said, “There’s no corner of this forest I’d leave unburned should you dare lay a false hand on her.”

“Mutter,” Astrid chided, casting a worried glance in his direction.

The threat to the forest should’ve made him bristle, but he respected a mother’s protective instincts, and that retribution was her due for a child harmed.

“I wouldn’t blame you.”

Astrid looked to him, her lips parting in surprise, and he held her gaze when he said, “Any who seek to cause you harm that aren’t felled by your own hand first will meet the fury of my teeth and claws.” Her cheeks flushed pink, accompanied by an interesting uptick in her heartbeat. It wasn’t fear that put it there. “We must protect our own,” he continued, bowing his head, but only so that he could get a better, hopefully subtle sniff. What was this emotion coming off her? Warm notes like excitement or thrill. “And this forest that we love.”

The surprise faded, replaced by sincerity. “You’ll have the same of me.”

An alliance or the beginnings of friendship. Which, he wasn’t sure. But the monotony of his day-to-day was overdue a shakeup.

“And I.” Perchta wore a sly, knowing grin. Had he missed something? They were just three forest monsters banding together.

Astrid interrupted his thoughts. “Mutter and I examined the evidence.”

“What did you find?”

Perchta answered, “It’s a haunt, most likely aggravated by the blood the poachers spilt.”

He searched the elder Hexe’s features for signs of withheld truths, but no, she truly believed her theory. And yet, it was far too mundane. Very few things unnerved him as much as what he sensed at the campsite. “Ghosts have roamed this forest for as long as there’ve been people, but they’re quiet, drifting specters. They do not sing or chant or leave footprints in the snow or a stench in the air.”

“Ordinary ones, no,” Perchta agreed. “But Poltergeists can manifest and leave their mark on the world in such ways.”

“They’re quite rare,” Astrid added, brow pinched in thought. “I’ve only heard of them troubling households.”

“I don’t deny that it’s odd...”

“The haunt began before we found the wolf’s blood,” he interjected gently. “Both times it ended as soon as I arrived.”

“You were here with me when the chanting began,” Astrid murmured. “We followed it north toward the pond.”

Perchta’s lambent eyes snapped to his, their focus sharpening. “Those are all details I didn’t know before.”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” Perchta said slowly, holding his gaze a moment before flicking to her daughter’s. “Tochter, perhaps you were right to be suspicious that this is something more. These pieces don’t add up, and I shouldn’t have discounted it so quickly. Altes Geweih, Poltergeists escalate a haunt in the presence of an audience, not end it, and something in my gut tells me it’s not for fear of you that they stop.”

His claws curled at his sides, overcome by the longing to slash. “Someone is taunting me.”