Untethering Dark

Chapter Thirty-Three

Grogginess settled in after the latest dose of hag potion, Astrid’s leaden limbs as good as glued to Mutter Perchta’s rocking chair. Overall, it had gotten easier, but today’s hit hard. All the training, organizing, and spending late nights with Gudarīks were finally catching up.

“Come, Tochter,” Perchta tutted, gently taking the tin cup from her hands. “You need fresh air. Why don’t you join me on my next patrol? A nice ride through the mountains.”

Giddy nostalgia livened Astrid’s mood. Sleigh rides with the alpine goddess during the winter season were a staple of her childhood. Not so much now that they lived apart, and she missed them.

“Help me?” She reached out, and Perchta gave a hearty yank, launching her to her feet.

“Bundle up, my dear. You’re not resistant to the cold enough yet.”

The mountains were quiet—no echoes of chattering, laughing tourists on the trails—just the smooth glide of Perchta’s sleigh cutting across the snowscape, punctuated by the steady hoofbeats of her eight carnivorous mountain goats.

Cold’s icy needles stung Astrid’s cheeks in a thousand pinpricks. She rewrapped her scarf around her face—leaving just a sliver open for her eyes—and pulled the blanket she gifted Perchta across their laps and feet. Though cold still leached through the extra layer, it staved off the worst of the bite.

Oskar was curled up on a heating pad between them, a corner of Mutter’s cloak draped over his furry body, his face pressed into her side.

Astrid hummed contentedly to herself, far more awake and alert now. It had been too long since the three of them were together like this.

They swept along the perimeter Perchta made, periodically stopping to check the integrity of the spell work. Under Mutter’s instruction, Astrid practiced testing and bolstering the wards.

After their fourth one, as they were speeding around a bend of trees, Perchta quickly drew in the reins, hissing. They lurched to a stop.

Ahead, in the center of their path, a wolf snarled and snapped its jaws, its poor front paw caught in a trap, broken and bloody. And behind stood a familiar, wiry man holding a blood-encrusted dagger overhead. Sandy hair hung in limp, greasy strands, his beard longer, scragglier. Same high quality, understated hiking gear, but he smelled like he hadn’t washed in several days.

The poacher who’d followed her back to her cottage, broke into her home, and left cigarettes everywhere like filthy, taunting breadcrumbs.

Head bent, he didn’t acknowledge their approach, mutterings of an old language on his lips. Either he was too focused on the gruesome task at hand to take notice, or he didn’t care that they were there.

But he would.

Clearing her throat, Perchta waggled her clawed, gnarled fingers in greeting.

The poacher’s attention snapped to them, blue eyes cold and hard. Though dark circles underlined his eyes, his gaze was no less keen as it zeroed in on Astrid’s, narrow and squinty. “Fancy seeing you again, Blondie.” Holding out a hand in surrender, he slowly lowered the dagger into the sheath at his hip. “As much as I’d love to catch up, I can’t stick around.”

Lightning fast, his raised hand shot down, and with the flick of one wrist, then the other, knives zinged through the air, coming their way. Astrid threw up her hands, conjuring an icy shield—and no sooner than she did, a knife hit it with a crunch. A blink later, and she stared at the steel knifepoint from where it had penetrated her spell, stopped just centimeters from her right eye. A lethal throw.

Glancing left, Perchta had her hand raised, the second knife turning to ice as it was absorbed into her palm. How in the... “You have to teach me how to do that.”

Perchta arched a stern brow at Astrid’s sorry excuse for a shield. “One thing at a time, Tochter.”

Astrid dropped the shield and the knife stuck inside.

While they were busy deflecting, Cigarette Man had sprinted hard for the trees.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Perchta shot to her feet, ice springing from the palm of her hand to pelt the backs of the poacher’s knees. Crying out, his legs buckled beneath him, the impact sending him careening into the frozen ground. But Perchta’s sudden movement also dumped Oskar onto the sleigh floor, the fox crying out with a startled yelp. “Sorry, dear,” she said to him. “Are you all right?”

Shaking out his orange fur as he found his feet, Oskar mumbled a little grumpily, “I’ll live.”

Perchta cooed and gave his ears a conciliatory scritch, which perked him up. “There’s an injured wolf.”

Oskar sniffed the air, then nodded. “I’ll let him know we’re here to help. Go on and get that smelly fucker before he gets away.”

Vicious glee sparkled in Perchta’s eyes and softened the deep creases of her face. Nothing like a jolly murderous glow to shave the centuries off. She hopped down from the sleigh with more cheer than one would expect in a several-thousand-year-old witch.

Astrid followed.

Grabbing the poacher’s ankle and yanking hard as he tried to scramble away, Perchta tutted, “Uh-uh-uh. I think not. We need to have a little chat.”

To put it politely.

The man stopped wriggling, but not in compliance. Rather, he shivered something fierce as frost crusted over and locked his limbs. Within seconds, Perchta rendered him immobile.

Pulling the flip phone from her winter coat pocket, Astrid clumsily texted Johanna, her thumbs unused to the activity. It was going to take her far longer than she’d like to admit to type a message out.

While Astrid struggled with what was not even close to being the latest in phone technology, Perchta dragged the poacher she caught by the scruff of his winter coat and dumped him in the back of the sleigh. Though his limbs were frozen, his seething fury was not. The glares aimed their way were just as sharp as his knives.

“We’re going to need to free and mend that paw if he’s to live.” Perchta nodded toward the wolf. “Oskar, can you translate that?”

An exchange of yips and resigned snuffles later, and the wolf settled, allowing Perchta to approach with nary a snap or growl.

Astrid glanced up periodically to check her progress, but the Hexe’s dulcet tones and swift hands relaxed the frightened creature, and she made short work of mending bone, ligament, muscle, and skin.

By the time Astrid finally got out, Meet me at my place. We caught one of the poachers, the wolf was already disappearing into the woods with a minor limp. Cig man.

Johanna’s response came immediately.

On my way. Keep him alive if you can.