CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
As she realized what it was, bile rose up her throat; she clamped a hand over her mouth to keep it down. “Fuck,” she murmured under her hand.
“What is it?” Sabina demanded, voice wavering.
“Meat,” replied Perrine.
It was then Anya noticed a bit of cloth sticking out of the mess, what looked like a piece of someone’s sleeve. Heart pounding, Anya grabbed a stick. “I thought you said the others went back.”
“Most of them did,” Sabina said wanly.
“There were other hunters from Preule, as well,” Perrine provided.
Anya shifted through the viscera with her stick. She found more scraps of cloth, but not a velvet coin purse or a golden pen. Not a gilded earring with leaves of carnelian.
“What’s that?” Perrine said, crouching low and pointing.
Anya saw it, on the ground outside the wet mess – shiny and black, glistening blue and green in the sunlight. A beetle’s wing.
Perrine’s voice was small. “Buzzard beetles.”
Grimly, Anya nodded, and Perrine’s face went white.
“What?” Sabina said, looking between them. “What is a buzzard beetle?”
Anya answered. “Carnivorous, and they only eat mammals. Something about the warmth of the blood.” She grimaced. “They’re harmless enough alone. But when they’re hungry, they swarm, eat the skin and the bones, and regurgitate the rest.” Anya pointed. “There’s the rest.”
“Seven skies,” Sabina whispered, blanching.
With a jolt, Anya felt a sickening buzzing under her skin, reverberating in the hollows of her bones. “Do you hear that?”
Perrine turned her ear to the wind. “I hear nothing.” The falcon on her shoulder suddenly cocked her head, let out a chirp, and flew into the air. “Shit. She does.”
“The beetles,” Anya said. She rose, throwing the bloody stick aside. “A swarm. It’s coming this way. Quickly, you must run. Head for the river.”
Perrine paused when she saw Anya did not move to go with her. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll head north for the valley, lead them away. Go, you must go!”
“No. You could die,” Perrine protested.
The buzzing grew stronger. “They’re coming. If they catch us, we’ll all die.”
Adamant, Perrine shook her head. “I’m not going without you.”
“I hear them now,” said Sabina, her voice tight.
Throat burning, Anya gripped Perrine’s hands. “I’m already dying, Perrine.” Her friend’s face crumpled. “Please. Go.” Anya smiled tearfully, squeezing her hands tight. “When you open your restaurant, name something sweet for me.”
Sabina, who had been watching Anya carefully, grabbed Perrine by the elbow. “Come.”
“Fuck,” Perrine gasped, squeezing Anya’s hands back. With one last look and a clipped sob, Perrine relented, heading east as quick as she could without losing Sabina.
Anya stood where she was, waiting. She needed to ensure the swarm followed her, and not them. Moments passed. She could hear them, now, the buzzing in her ears joining the buzzing under her skin. Then, she saw it – a glistening black cloud, the size of a man.
And it saw her, abruptly shifting in her direction, forming in the shape of a giant horn.
Without stopping to think or orient herself, she took off at a sprint. She must lead the swarm away – away from the river, away from the others. She didn’t have time to question where she went. She ran the way her feet carried her, trusting them.
The swarm grew closer.
Her path took her through a small clearing in the thick pines.
The sudden brightness of the sun nearly blinded her.
For a few moments, she could stand it, but soon tears were streaming down her face and her eyes began to burn.
Wincing, she threw her arms over her face.
As she did, her foot caught in a tangle of mountain rose and she tripped.
When she landed, she was overwhelmed by the cloying scent of flowers and the prick of tiny thorns against her exposed wrists, by the buzzing behind her, cacophonous, disorienting.
She rose to her knees. They were almost upon her. There was nowhere to run.
She ducked her head into her hands and braced for death. The swarm engulfed her.
She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. She felt them crawling over every inch of her body, under all her clothes, in her ears, up her nose, trying to slip past her sealed lips. Microscopic tongues tasted every inch of her skin. She waited for the biting. Waited.
Waited.
All at once, almost as suddenly as they had subsumed her, they clambered off her and flew away. The glistening black cloud vanished into the trees.
For several panting minutes, she frantically scanned the direction they had flown, waiting for them to return. Gradually, the sound of the buzzing faded. Her heart leapt for joy. But it didn’t make any sense. Did something she wore mask her human scent?
She felt the swarm’s buzzing long after the sound had faded. It took her a moment to remember that, while her senses were sharp, this was not a sense she had ever possessed.
And then she remembered, like a punch to the gut.
Buzzard beetles only ate mammals.
Her leaping heart sank as the only logical conclusion swallowed her like sickly sleep.
She had become more insect than human.