"The Iku…" Wyatt whispered. He did his best to keep emotion out of his voice, but somewhere inside of him, down in his marrow, crouched behind his soul, the Iku heard its name and stirred.
Wyatt looked up, defiantly and asked. "What about the mask?"
"Oh don't bullshit me. The mask is power. You know what it is. What it can do. You wore it. I saw you the other day. Watched you through old Walter's eyes, running bare assed through the forest like some pagan god. Strong, unstoppable, untouchable. It should be me and it will be."
Wyatt's temper flared. "It would snap you like kindling, old man. Break you apart and leave you in a heap. It killed better men than you, better women too. What makes you think that you could even begin to control it?"
That cold smile, the cold, mad gray eyes, "I controlled you didn't I? Walked you up here like a poodle on a leash. Turned Walter into a monster making more monsters. Woke that ugly little fucker under the orchard. Pushed that little girl's gift into an inferno. Whispered into the Monroe woman's ear that she should call out to you. Worked your ass off once I got you here and then brought you up here without the mask. The one thing that would have gotten you out of here with your skin."
"All that because you wanted the mask?" Wyatt's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "You could have just called and asked."
The statement took Sam by surprise. "And what would you have done then?"
Wyatt was ready. "Told you to go fuck yourself."
He crouched and let the Whisper come raging to the surface, but as it did, he saw the old man slam his walking stick into the ground and it felt like a bomb going off in his head.
Wyatt died instantly, his soul ripped out of his body before it had a chance to hit the ground.
He had enough time to think, "He doused me…" before everything began to go to black and then…
Nothing.
Something in what happened triggered an instant reaction in Katie and she bolted into the forest, leaping over and ducking under downed trees, boulders and plants that were too solid to just plow through.
Sam Winter spat again, rattled a chain of bones that hung from his waist and hissed. "Get her…"
The seven apparitions that streaked from his side were fast, of varying sizes, but moved like dogs and as they ran into the forest after Katie they began to bay and howl.
Sam leaned heavy on his stick and began to limp his way over to where Wyatt lay, face down on the rounded rocks that edged the stream. A trickle of blood snaked out from beneath him where he had broken his nose or something when he had fallen.
There was no heartbeat to pump the blood and so the rain quickly washed the stains away.
It took him a minute of struggling, but he managed to get himself down onto one knee and he began to search through Wyatt's bags and pockets, taking everything he came across.
"Stupid fuck…" He said a couple of times, seeing what Wyatt had brought to the mountain with him. Most of it made Sam feel insulted. The idea that the boy thought he could be dealt with so easily was pathetic.
Before he stood up, he wrenched the hat from Wyatt's head, straightened the brim and pushed it down over his own ears to keep off the rain and the last thing he did was pocket Wyatt's pipe. "Too nice to go to waste." , he thought.
He struggled to his feet and listened to the dogs course after their prey.
The spirit hounds were relentless, they could not see Katie ahead of them but they were able to follow her trail easily enough. She left a shimmering and almost fiery wake with her passing.
The dogs ran in an order, the most aggressive in the lead and the smaller dogs bringing up the rear, but when Katie dove in from the right side and slammed into the lead dog, shearing her teeth through its flickering form, it sent the others tumbling and stumbling off into the weeds.
One of the bones that hung from Sam's belt crumbled and fell from the chain and into the mud. He snorted. "Bitch is going to put up a fight, is she? Good."
One by one she tore the half formed lives out of them. She was too smart and too powerful for them and she hit them from every place but where they expected her.
As the bones crumbled and fell from the chain, some part of Sam's instinct began to worry. After the fourth, he turned and began to walk toward where his old Bronco was parked on a logging road a mile upstream.
As he walked, his hand slid into the pocket of his jacket and felt the comforting weight of the .357 snub nose revolver. He didn't need magic to kill a dog. He'd killed a lot of them with a lot less.
Katie was hunting them now. Stalking them as they spun, fearful and confused after each one before them was torn apart. Some deep part of their wild instinct commanded them to run, to flee, but the spell held them to their task and one by one, the huge silver dog tore them apart.
The last two were fast. Smaller than the others they streaked through the forest, being chased by something that even now was closing in on them. They ducked under logs and doubled back as they ran but in the end they both fell to Katie's jaws.
The man. Katie held the image of the old man who had hurt Wyatt in her head. She could smell him, he would be easy to track, she ran back for the clearing and when she reached it, she turned her nose upstream and followed.
2023 Lance Cheuvront
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