Chapter 2 #2
I’ve always worried about how they’ll react if they ever find out I’m one of the most terrifying creatures on the supernatural roster.
I run back down the steps, but instead of fleeing toward the water, I turn and race inland, past the barns and toward the woods.
There’s a strip of trees between the front pasture and the back pasture, ostensibly a windbreak, but really it’s an emergency path for me so I can get out of the open if a transformation is imminent.
The front pasture is mostly native grasses, while the back one has better grass for grazing.
None of the horses are out in the meadows at this time of night, but Edwina doesn’t like being confined to a stall, so she’s in the fenced yard right in front of the main stable.
She whinnies, plunges, and tosses her head as I run past at a speed worthy of an Olympic sprinter.
Somehow horses always know that I’m one of them. It’s why even the wildest rescues tend to warm up to me faster than they do with any other human.
I’m gasping as I reach the windbreak. I tear off my T-shirt and bra, then stumble and hop out of my shorts and panties.
I stuff them into the familiar hollow of a tree trunk.
My face is stretching, teeth like knives extending from my gums. My arms and legs lengthen, jerking and contorting as joints switch places and bones lock into new positions.
There’s always a momentary blur of my brain when the change completes, like the black screen when a TV program switches to ads.
And then I’m galloping, free and wild, neck arched and mane streaming. I race through the shadow of the windbreak and forge into the woods beyond.
In this form I am magic, malice, and madness. I can think, but rational thought isn’t the guide of my actions. Instinct, rage, hunger, grief, and lust drive me when I’m in the skin of the kelpie, the dark water horse of ancient legend. Every negative emotion is heightened, celebrated, and indulged.
I head deeper into the forest, following routes I created years ago. I haven’t transformed in over a year.
The last time it happened, I was able to control myself…
mostly. I stayed in Fuller’s Pond, swimming around and around, terrorizing the catfish and gobbling up a few woodland creatures that got too close.
Maybe I can do that again. I need to kill something, eat something, but maybe if I stay far away from humans, I won’t murder anyone.
I’m insanely fast as a kelpie, faster than a thoroughbred at a full gallop, rapid as a racecar.
The trees blur around me, and where their sharp twigs might snag the hide or mane of a normal horse, they have no effect on me.
It’s as if the trees shrink from me, instinctively recognizing a predator of the Old World.
Bounding out of the forest, hooves thumping on the mossy bank, I leap into Fuller’s Pond with a splash worthy of a comet crashing into the ocean.
The pond is wide and deep—deep as the earth’s bones.
It’s far enough inland to be freshwater rather than salt, which my spirit prefers.
My ancestors roamed the northern reaches of Scotland, Ireland, and England, lurking in lakes, lochs, and rivers.
We prefer our water cold and fresh. But my branch of the family also carries a love for the ocean.
After all, our kind swam the Atlantic centuries ago to reach the New World.
It makes sense that we’d develop an affinity for the sea.
Local legends say that Fuller’s Pond has no bottom.
In its chilly waters, catfish and sturgeon grow to monstrous size.
I sink down into its depths, my eyes glowing bluish-white, shining like lamps, bright enough to pierce the darkness.
I can see the giant fish swirling through the murky water, but they give me and my daggerlike teeth a wide berth.
I stay under for a long time, using the hidden gills along my ribs to breathe. When I climb out of the pond, the gills will disappear, leaving my glossy black hide smooth again.
Floating in the depths mutes my emotions, turning them into a distant gargle in my head. The hunger remains, though, fueled by my anger, my grief, and my loss of control over an important aspect of my life and routine. Something has to pay for disrupting my existence. Something must bleed.
I stay suspended, almost as still as death, until an enormous sturgeon, big enough to start rumors of Nessie, drifts upward from the pitch-black depths of Fuller’s Pond.
He’s a great-great-great-grandfather fish.
Alerted by the others, he has come to investigate my presence.
I’ve seen him before. Last time, I let him live.
Silently I wait, perfectly motionless, my mane unfurling in a black cloud, legs arched and poised in the water, tail ribboning away into the dark. My eyes are unholy beams, slicing through the murk, illuminating the immense sturgeon’s pointy, primeval snout.
Tonight I am raging at the passage of time, at beings who grow old and die without warning.
I am angry at Lou for leaving me, and I want someone to feel my pain.
But even if I kill the great sturgeon, his descendants won’t care.
Fish have no emotions behind curiosity, caution, and hunger. They cluster, but they do not connect.
I need a more meaningful sacrifice.
Far above me, something plops into the surface of the water. The impact resonates through me like a summons. I look up sharply, and the abrupt movement startles the sturgeon. He plunges back down into the shadows.
But I no longer care about him. My instincts have identified the possibility of better prey.
As a kelpie, I not only have glowing eyes and impossible speed; I have a kind of sonar, similar to that of whales. I let out a low cry, and the sound waves return to me. They reveal a line, a hook, and a chunk of bait.
Someone is night-fishing in Fuller’s Pond.
A hideous hunger roars through my blood, blotting out every softer emotion, muting all rational thought.
I dim the glow of my eyes and swim upward slowly, heading for the surface.