Spirit (6 page)

Slowly, I pushed
myself up to sit, holding my ribs with my left hand, feeling the slow burn of
the injury that made me take shallow breaths. I took in my surroundings. I was
in a forest, seemingly in the middle of winter based on the lack of foliage and
animal noises. The moon was small in the sky, making the shadows of the trees
short and narrow. But no stars were in the sky above me, even though there was
no other light to leach them out of the sky. The lack of stars convinced me I
wasn’t in my version of heaven. I could imagine a forest at night being my
place of ultimate rest, but my heaven would have millions and millions of stars,
not some dark, empty sky.

But if I wasn’t
in heaven and I wasn’t outside of Anthony’s apartment building, then where was
I?

Carefully, I got
to my feet and walked over to a group of trees casting a thicker, single
shadow. Standing in the shadow, I closed my eyes and concentrated on pulling it
around me with Anthony’s apartment in mind as my destination. Nothing happened;
the shadows did not take me.

Maybe because Steven banished me
, I thought,
careful not to speak since I didn’t know what was around me in the dark. I
closed my eyes again and concentrated on my own house, knowing full well that I
was welcome to come and go there. The shadows remained unmoved. I tried
thinking of Jodi’s house, of Steven’s house, of The Oak, Ash and Thorn, of my
high school, anywhere in town I was familiar with, and still nothing. The
shadows here would not move me. I was no longer in Steven and Jodi’s reality.

“Which is
probably why I can feel,” I whispered. I was definitely not in any kind of
heaven if I could feel pain, and I wasn’t on Earth if I could feel anything at
all. It didn’t seem like the Underworld, or Hell, since I imagined that would
be quite crowded with demons, damned souls, and the like.

“Oh, please,” I
moaned, dropping my head and bracing myself against a tree that had been
stripped of bark. “Please, please tell me I’m not in Purgatory.”

My knees went
liquid, and I slid down the trunk of the tree until I landed on my butt, my
knees bent, and dropped my head to rest my forehead there. The tears that had
sprung to my eyes in joy came now in a chest-constricting intensity. My throat
swelled and my nose ran as the pain lanced through my lungs. My cracked rib
protested at being stretched with each wracking sob and my back ached. I
realized I could feel the wounds of my wings being ripped away because here I
wasn’t just some wandering, lost wraith; here I was a fallen angel, cast out of
Paradise.

“Damn it,
Steven,” I cursed through gritted teeth, giving voice to my anger. I hoped some
vocal release would lessen my sobs. The pain I had enjoyed moments ago was becoming
too much to handle.

“How could you
banish me? After everything you said to Jodi about wanting to find me, and now
you banished me?” I was yelling by the end. The sobbing had stopped, and now my
tears were angry drops eking out of my eyes slowly rather torrentially. I
balled my hands into fists and pounded them against the ground. Dust puffed up
in gray clouds, making me cough and no longer seeming magical and wonderful.

Unable to help
myself, I screamed loud and long, until my throat felt raw. When I stopped, I
was out of breath and my ribs felt as though they were on fire, but at least I
had stopped crying. I took slow, steady breaths to calm down. In the distance,
I heard something echoing my screams. I had a moment of panic and looked right
and left, but the monstrous cries stopped. I held my breath to listen, not even
daring to move. In the sudden quiet, the snuffling breath and breaking twigs
behind me sounded like gunfire.

I was no longer
alone.

My mouth was dry,
and my hands were suddenly shaking. I dared not breathe for fear of giving
myself away before I knew what the noisy thing was. Whatever it was, it was too
close to be whatever had roared in the distance. Great, two things to worry
about. Slowly, I inched around the tree, bracing myself with one hand, to try
to see what was creeping up on me. I kept my face pressed against the smooth
trunk, trying to keep myself as small as possible. Dead leaves crunched and
twigs snapped as the thing made its way through the dark forest. It finally
came around another group of trees, and by the weak moonlight, I made it out.

For one heart
stopping moment, I thought it was the Hell Hound Ian had set on me so long ago,
but this thing had thick, coarse fur, so white it nearly glowed. Its paws were
as big as both my hands put together, shoulders as high as mine, and its tail
swished back and forth, back and forth as it snuffled against the ground,
looking for a scent to follow. I might’ve thought it was beautiful until he picked
up his head and swung his face in my direction. It reminded me of a snow
leopard after a bloody battle.

His black lips
stretched wide over a mouth full of razor-like teeth, each one as long as my
finger, and saliva foamed and dripped from the corners of his mouth. His eyes
were black and beady, nearly lost in the ruff of fur around his squashed nose. His
ears were flattened against his head as he
galumphed through the trees, snuffling the ground. He got ever closer to
me, and I knew my chances of escaping dwindled as I stood frozen in place. I
chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to think of what to do. Yes, I could run,
sure, but to where? The trees seemed to go on and on, and I had no idea where I
was. I would’ve climbed a tree, but all of the branches were too high for me to
reach, and the trunks were smooth in the winter hibernation.

Laying the flat of my hand against the tree, I tried to make
contact with it, asking it to open up and take me in, to hide me from the
monster. But the tree remained quiet and firm against my hand. I had hoped the
pain returning meant I had some of my powers back, but if I couldn’t get a tree
to hear me, then I definitely had no Earth powers here. I cursed silently
before edging to stand up, keeping my body pressed tightly against the tree.

Risking another glance around the trunk, I saw the creature
turn left, away from me, sniffling and snuffling as it went like a pig looking
for truffles. Just as I was about to turn and sneak away, my foot slipped on
some loose dirt, and the toe of my boot scraped against a root. In the quiet,
it sounded absurdly loud, but not so loud as the beast’s surprised snort. Its
ears shot straight up and turned toward the sound, toward me.

Our eyes met, mine
round and unblinking, its narrowed and angry. It craned its head back, its neck
lengthening as it did, and howled so long and loud that I cringed away. Before
it dropped its head, I spun on the spot and ran.

I pushed my feet
against the earth as hard as I could, pumped my legs as fast as I could, but as
if in a nightmare, I felt as if I was running through sand, too slow and clumsy
to ever hope to get away. I could hear the thundering of its paws as it chased
me. I dodged around clumps of trees and over loose patches of dirt. My lungs were
constricted and kept me from drawing a full breath, and the cracked rib stabbed
me like a sword on fire.

Just as I feared,
the forest was never ending; the trees went on and on as I ran, a black blur at
the edges of my sight. The ground never dipped or rose. I ran right and left
and still it remained constant. I could almost feel the ground trembling under
me as the beast thundered on. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw it was much
closer to me than I thought. Milky globs of saliva trailed from its mouth, and its
eyes were red and angry and hungry. The massive claws on his paws cut deep into
the earth, propelling it faster and faster until I felt its hot breath against
my neck.

I sensed it
preparing to lunge for me, its muscles coiling in upon each other, holding its
breath, gauging the distance between us. Just when it let out another howl, I
stopped short, skidding on the dirt, falling to one knee as I spun around. The
beast leapt from the ground, its claws outstretched for me, but I turned and
ran the way I had come. The beast flew over my head, landing in a heap of
tangled limbs and fur on the ground, just where I had been moments before. I
scrambled for my footing momentarily, but in my panic, I burst forward, putting
distance between me and the beast. It rolled clumsily to its feet, shaking its
shaggy head, stunned after landing so hard and wrong.

I clamped my
mouth shut to quiet my breathing and darted around a clump of closely growing
trees. Their trunks twisted around one another, splitting this way and that. I
reached up and hooked my hand into the V of two of the trees and, bracing my
feet on the twisting trunks, I heaved myself up and began to climb. The heat of
pain from my broken rib intensified with every stilted movement. My feet slid
and my hands protested against my weight as I wedged them into the places where
the trees split away from each other. In a few moments, I was high enough to
avoid the beast’s claws when it caught up with me and began to swipe at the
air, trying to reach me.

I climbed as
high as I could, clinging to the tree, and watched the cat monster try to reach
me. Its claws dug into the tree, snapping off chunks of wood as it tried to
climb, only to break through the trunk and fall. I moved carefully from one
tree to the next, trying in vain to put more distance between it and me. It
followed my progress, stalking around the group of twined trees, its eyes never
leaving me.

My arms shook
with the effort of holding myself up, so I extended my legs until I could brace
my feet against the next tree, slowly turning my body over so my back was
against the tree I held. With my legs taking my weight, I could let my arms
drop to my side to rest.

“Well, this is
just wonderful,” I mumbled, rubbing the tingles out of my arms. Staring down at
the beast, I wondered just how the hell I was going to get out of this one.
Without magic, I was no match for the thing. After a few dizzying circles
around the base of the trees, the beast threw back its head again, its neck
stretching twice its normal length, and let out another howl. This one was long
and low, almost musical. I nearly fell out of the tree when I heard the
answering call of not one, not two, but three other howls in the distance.

“You can’t be
serious!” I cried. Trying to look in all directions at once, I twisted my head
back and forth, watching for movement in the trees. All too soon, I heard the
thudding patter of the beasts coming closer. Through the shadows, three
white-furred beasts creeped up to join the first. Even from this angle, I could
see they weren’t quite as large as the one that had treed me. They circled and
snuffled at each other. Two opened their great, bloody mouths and snapped at
each other. One caught the other’s ear, biting down until it cried out in
mercy.

As one, the four
beasts craned their necks and looked up at me. Eight black and beady eyes
glared at me. One let its thick black tongue loll out before circling around
the stretched black lips, making a stomach-turning
squelch
. I suddenly felt like I should be sitting on a plate
surrounded by roasted vegetables.

One of the
smaller beasts put his front paws against the tree trunk, his claws flexing before
piercing the wood, making it splinter. He shook his hindquarters before pushing
off the ground and hanging from the tree. I cursed when the wood held and he
didn’t fall like the first. My heart was like a caged rabbit in my chest. I
swallowed against the panic rising inside of me, trying to ignore the terrified
tears burning as I watched the cat monster’s progress. Slowly, methodically,
paw over paw, he climbed the tree, his dark eyes never leaving me.

Looking around
frantically for an escape, I missed the first bird that flew out of the
darkness, but I saw the flock that followed. They flew like arrows,
dive-bombing the cat monsters, their beaks ripping out chunks of fur and flesh
before they swerved right, left, and up again. The birds weren’t very big, not
much larger than a crow, but their feathers were red, shot through with white
highlights. Their serrated beaks were a dirty yellow and matched the talons
jutting from their feet.

I flattened
myself against the tree trunk, turning my face to the side, trying desperately
to blend into the tree as they whizzed by. Three of the birds dove for the
beast stalking me. He swatted at them with one great paw, slashing madly until
he lost his balance and fell, followed by the sounds of splintering wood. He
landed on his back with a sickening crack and a strangled whimper of pain
before his body went still.

With a shrill
caw of triumph, the flock of birds swooped down on the fallen beast, snatching
bloody, stringy bites. With the carnivorous birds preoccupied, the three
remaining cat monsters turned and ran, disappearing into the shadows and trees.

Eventually I
remembered how to breathe, and I let my body slide a few inches down the tree
to let my knees bend, taking some of the strain out of my legs. My heart still
hammered in my chest, but I knew I needed to get out of this tree and start
moving. I didn’t know where I was, but clearly this particular spot wasn’t the
safest place for me to linger.

I crept down the
tree as cautiously as possible, but unable to be completely silent. Every time
my foot scraped against one of the trees or a piece of the splintered wood from
where the beast broke away and fell, I froze, waiting for the birds to rise up
and attack me. But the birds never turned their nightmare beaks in my
direction; they were totally engrossed with the bloody bounty they had taken
down.