Chapter 14 Kursk
KURSK
The scent of caramelized sugar hits me before I even reach the tents, sweet and thick like nectar gone decadent.
It coats the air with the kind of stickiness that begs to be licked from fingers and teeth.
Olivia calls it autumn magic—the way the town lights up for this human harvest rite.
She says it’s just a fair, just a gathering.
But I know a war mask when I see one.
These people dress their fear in fairy lights and candied apples, pretend that laughter can drown out the dead. But the wind carries whispers only hunters hear. I smell it in the air—the sour stink of rot buried beneath powdered cinnamon and popcorn oil.
Still, I smile. Or at least, I try.
Olivia’s illusion spell makes it easier.
In this form, I am “Kurt.” A foreign exchange student.
She said it was distant enough to explain away my accent, close enough that no one would ask too many questions.
My tusks are hidden, my green skin faded to a warm bronze, my ears human-shaped.
Even my hands—callused and scarred from a thousand fights—look soft.
But I still walk like a killer. That, she couldn’t fix.
She meets me by the main entrance, wearing a soft gray sweater that clings to her curves like it's made to worship them. Her hair is loose tonight, wild red curls bouncing with each step. Her cheeks are already flushed—not with fear, not with danger, but with the cold.
Or maybe with me.
“You clean up nice,” she says, eyes scanning me from boots to brow.
I tug at the collar of my borrowed leather jacket. “I feel… contained.”
“You look hot.”
I frown. “Am I overheating?”
She laughs, low and warm, like it’s our secret. “It means you look good.”
“I always look good,” I say, deadpan.
She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Conan. Try not to terrify anyone until the actual monster shows up.”
The town green has been transformed. Strings of colored lights drip from the trees like enchanted vines.
Paper lanterns bob in the air, glowing orange and gold, casting shadows that sway like spirits dancing.
Booths line the walkways—syrup-drenched waffles, caramel apples dipped in crushed peanuts, grilled meats glistening on iron grates.
The air is loud with laughter, music, and the squeal of children high on sugar and chaos.
But I can’t stop scanning. Every shadow. Every flicker. Every shape too still or too fast.
I spot Burnout near the gazebo. He waves me over, juggling glowsticks like they’re sacred relics. “Dude! Kurt! You made it!”
“I did,” I reply.
Booger pops up behind him, holding a giant funnel cake and a cheese-stained smile. “Where’s your hot librarian handler?”
“She’s setting up the music booth,” I tell them. “You know the plan?”
Booger gives me a thumbs up with syrup-glazed fingers. “See the thing, blast the blues.”
Burnout nods, all serious now. “We got it queued. ‘Hellhound Stomp’ and ‘Murder Whiskey Shuffle.’ Loud enough to make Satan flinch.”
“Good.” I clap him on the shoulder. “Stick to the plan.”
I leave them with their snack pile and make my way toward the AV booth near the dance floor, where Olivia is cursing under her breath while plugging cables into a tangle of archaic boxes.
“Need assistance?”
She looks up, brow furrowed, then smiles. “Only if you can explain why every speaker in this town was built by a warlock with a grudge.”
I kneel beside her, hands steady. The illusion magic hums around me like an itch beneath the skin, but I push it down. There’s no time to drop the veil.
“Do you hear anything strange yet?” she asks.
I close my eyes.
Beneath the music and laughter, the wind still whispers. But nothing screams.
“Not yet.”
She nods and stands, brushing her hands on her jeans. “Alright. Then we do this like it’s an actual date. A normal, cozy, small-town American date.”
I arch an eyebrow. “This is how you court your mates? Carnival games and fried sugar?”
“Yes.”
“Your people are very strange.”
She grins. “Come on. Let’s win me something ridiculous.”
We start at the ring toss. A muscular man in a clown-painted hoodie guards the booth like a troll with a chip on his shoulder. Olivia hands him a ten and gets five rings.
I eye the plastic bottles. “These are not worthy foes.”
“They're plastic, Conan. You're not beheading them.”
“Shame.”
I let her try first. She gets one ring around the edge of a bottle and squeals like she just won a war. The sound sends something sharp and warm through my chest.
She hands me a ring. “Let’s see if your battle reflexes work on stationary objects.”
I flick it.
Dead center.
The man grunts. “Winner.”
I choose the largest prize—a horrendous, soft, purple thing with googly eyes and horns.
She stares at it. “You… picked the kobold?”
“It has the eyes of our shaman Vurgor. I am compelled.”
She laughs until her eyes glisten. “You’re ridiculous.”
I lean close. “You like ridiculous.”
She doesn’t deny it.
We wander past the corn maze, the hayride queue, the cider stand. She buys two candied apples and hands me one. I bite into it. The caramel sticks to my teeth like glue and sugar and sin. I nearly choke.
Olivia tries not to laugh. “You good?”
“This fruit has been cursed,” I growl, trying to chew.
“It’s supposed to taste like that.”
“Why would you do this to an apple?”
“Because humans hate themselves a little, and this is how we cope.”
She licks her apple slowly, and I watch her tongue trail the red glaze, and it’s not the cursed sugar that makes my blood rise this time.
“I like it better plain,” I say.
She eyes me over the apple. “Noted.”
Eventually, we end up at the edge of the dance floor, where a live band is playing something twangy and rhythmic. People sway beneath the lanterns, spinning in pairs. Olivia fidgets, watching them.
“Do your people dance?”
“Not like this,” I say. “We have the Blood Thunder Ritual.”
“That sounds… wet.”
“It is.”
She snorts. “Come on. You don’t have to be good. Just follow my lead.”
“I may step on you.”
“I’ve been stepped on by worse.”
She pulls me by the hand. I follow.
We move clumsily at first. My feet are too large, my instincts too battle-trained. But her hand in mine is a map, and her body sways like it was made to be in sync with mine. Our chests brush. Her hair brushes my jaw. She’s warm. Real. Her heart beats fast.
“Hey,” she says, low. “You’re not half-bad.”
“I learn fast.”
She spins. I catch her.
For a moment, it’s just the music. Just her.
And I forget the spear. The monster. The other world.
I almost feel… human.
Then the shadows twist.
And I smell death again. At first, I think it's just the wind again.
A chill cuts through the warmth of the music and the laughter, slicing along my spine like a whispered warning. My blood knows before my eyes do. The joy around me—manufactured and fragile—wavers like a candle in a foul wind.
Then I see him.
Old. Bent. Wobbling in the knees and hunched in the spine. A man who doesn’t fit the tempo of the world around him. His face is lined with time but not weathered by life—his skin looks too smooth, like stretched leather left out in the sun. His eyes, though…
His eyes are wrong.
Clouded, but not blind. They shimmer faintly. Not the shimmer of reflection, but of something alive beneath the surface. Something hungry. He moves among the dancers, not with joy, not with rhythm—but with intention.
Predator’s intention.
I step toward him.
That’s when the music shifts.
Booger’s voice crackles through the speakers like a battle cry. “KICK IT!”
And then the blues hits.
It starts slow—a dirty, crawling riff thick with distortion and swampy rhythm. A rhythm from the bones of this world. And the moment it hits, the old man screams.
No. It screams.
The disguise shreds itself with a sound like tearing meat and snapping bone. Flesh sloughs off in blackened strips. The human skin splits like a burst sausage, and what was once a frail frame becomes a rising pillar of rot and rage.
It grows.
Tall. Twisting. Wrong.
The twin faces writhe as if they’ve been sleeping, and now woken by the music, they shriek in stereo. One sobs in reverse. The other cackles in a voice made of knives. Limbs extend, crackling like dead branches bending against a storm.
The Vorfaluka is here.
And it’s hungry.
Screams erupt around us like thunderclaps.
The crowd turns into chaos. Children cry.
Adults trip over hay bales and vendor carts, fleeing in all directions.
Someone drops a tray of cider, the mugs shattering like bones.
A mother screams for her son. A man pisses himself and doesn’t even stop running.
The creature lifts a hand—five too-long fingers tipped in claws like rebar—and swings.
A hayride cart flips. Metal screeches. Someone screams.
Enough.
I tear off the illusion.
The spell burns off me in a flash of heat and light.
My skin darkens, thickens. My shoulders swell.
My jaw cracks into its rightful shape, tusks bared and glistening.
My chest plate slams into place from the ether, summoned by blood and will.
My boots split as my feet return to form, claws gouging the dirt.
Someone screams louder at the sight of me.
But I’m not here for them.
I am the storm now.
“GET DOWN!” I bellow, voice like a warhorn.
The Vorfaluka’s heads snap toward me. Recognition lights its grotesque features. Its lower mouth—if it can be called that—spits bile onto the ground, which sizzles and smokes as it hits the grass.
Olivia’s voice crackles through the speakers. “METAL. NOW!”
The blues fades. The distortion thickens.
And then—metal.
Heavy. Relentless. A 12-bar rhythm born of violence and bad decisions.
The beast recoils, shrieking again, but not retreating. Not yet. It’s learned. It’s adapting.
“Come on, ugly,” I growl. “Let’s dance.”