4
Ness
The skies beganto cloud over. I felt bad for anyone who’d been preparing for a sunny summer day, because the moment I shifted, the storms started rolling in. I needed to be in this form in order to help Addie.
We’d packed the box of dresses into the car and followed whatever arcane thread connected Addie to the dead. We arrived near a field a few miles outside of the city. Addie and I shared a look. She drummed her fingers along the steering wheel. I could tell that she was still nervous.
I nudged her with my snout in a show of solidarity. She inhaled sharply, like I’d startled her. Her gaze focused and she issued a soft apology.
I couldn’t tell her that this would be alright. I couldn’t even tell her that I could do this on my own, because I couldn’t. I would have never gotten this far without Addie’s help. If she didn’t get me closer, my nose would never be able to pick up the scent I needed to find.
We got out of the car and went around to the trunk. Addie opened the box so I could root around with my nose and pick up the last of the lingering scents. They were faint, but still there, nonetheless. I wasn’t sure how I would be able to catch these with all the other smells around me.
Fear of failure gripped me tight. The clouds above rumbled with thunder. Addie bumped me with her thigh, the same reassuring touch I’d given her earlier.
“Let’s do this,” she said under her breath.
She knelt and put a collar around my neck. A pair of tags dangled from it. Though they would chime like bells for any predator to hear, we didn’t expect to run into any real danger here. The collar would put humans at ease. They wouldn’t see me and think that I was a wild creature or a stray.
Addie had brought a leash, too, but I wasn’t about to let her put that on me. She’d argued that it might come in handy because there were leash laws, but I’d drawn the line.
Together, we stepped off the shoulder of the road and into the field. Small birds and mice skittered away from us as we pushed through the tall grass. The trees ahead were bunched close together and left the world beneath them shrouded in darkness.
A shiver ran down my spine before we plunged into that shadow. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darker world. Branches and dead trees stuck out at odd angles, reminding me of skeletons. I didn’t want to know what we were going to find.
The scents around me didn’t give anything away. I caught hints of frogs and moss among the heady aromas of the earth. I braced myself for the reek of death and rot, but it didn’t hit right away. Addie and I made our way deeper into the woods, past fallen logs and sleeping creatures.
After what felt like an hour or more, I heard the sound of a creek ahead. I glanced up at Addie. Her face had gone white. She stiffened, her head tilted like she could hear something that I couldn’t. I nudged her again, but it did nothing. She remained trapped in whatever held her.
I lifted my head and sniffed the air. Here, something else reached towards me, past the smells of earth and fresh water. This was something far more sinister. It burned my nose and made me sneeze at first.
The sound of my sneeze broke Addie from her daze. Her attention fell to me as I rubbed at my snout with my paw.
“It’s here,” she said.
I wanted to warn her. Something was wrong. Before I could do anything, the temperature dropped. The sound of the creek drowned out the earth breaking open. I felt it, though. The ground shuddered under my paws.
Addie whimpered. She shook her head and stumbled back. Her feet tangled and nearly tripped her. I grabbed the leash in her hands and tugged to keep her upright. It gave her time to straighten, but the look of fear never left her face.
I looked back to the small chasm in the earth. A spindly hand rose above the broken ground. My stomach flipped. Desiccated flesh peeled away from the bones. The hand came down and tensed as the rest of the body pulled itself out of the ground.
I positioned myself between the undead thing and Addie. The air between the two was impossibly cold. It was as if I’d stepped out into a winter night. My breath frosted in the air. The wind pulled me towards the undead creature as if everything in the area was being pulled into it. I watched the foliage around it turn brown and crumble.
The undead creature began to look less and less dead. That’s when I realized that Addie was doing this. This was what she feared. Her arcana was capable of things no one should have to witness.
I reached up and bit Addie’s hand. I didn’t bite hard enough to break the skin, but the pain was enough to snap her out of it. She leapt into motion, spinning on her heel. I watched her dive back into the woods and race back to the car we left by the road.
When I turned to inspect the undead creature rising out of its grave, the thing had gone motionless. Without Addie present, it’d stopped. The life that the undead creature had sucked in had vanished, leaving it limp and lifeless.
Well, at least I knew where the body was now. This wasn’t a public trail. Hell, it was likely part of Alvin’s property. His scent wasn’t anywhere to be found, though the acrid smell from earlier left me uncertain.
I couldn’t leave Addie alone, though. She was a skilled hiker, but she’d come this way with no maps to guide her. After committing this creek to memory, I turned and ran after Addie. It was easy to pick up her scent in the woods, much easier than finding a dead body.
She’d gotten turned off course. I caught up to her and leapt ahead of her to push her in the right direction, but I startled her. She stumbled back, crashed into a tree, and lurched away from me. She didn’t slow or stop to see what had jumped in front of her. I let out a soft bark to get her attention.
She didn’t seem to hear me at all.
Shit. What had I done? I didn’t want to keep leading my friends into dangerous situations. Any time I asked Vi for help, she struggled with her demonic blood. Asking Addie for help seemed just as bad. If only I could have done this by myself. Then I wouldn’t have had to involve anyone.