CHAPTER 91

Once ignited, her Heartfire was difficult to stop. The air in her lungs was superheated, unable to simply cool on its own. The Wendigo was a melted lump of flesh and stone now, so she turned her head toward the sky and bellowed fire into the night, chasing away the shadows. Several minutes passed before she could swallow it away, and her body cooled. She stood now in a patch of scorched earth, surrounded by slushy banks of snow. Her head pounded from the internal pressure of her breath attack, and she slumped down.

Groaning in pain, she turned to check on the Wendigo. Small tendrils of flesh looked like they were trying to form into a network of veins, but one swat of her tail knocked it over and it ceased to move. A dark mist formed above the corpse, then dissipated into the night.

The forest was burning all around her. She picked up the Wendigo and tossed its body into the nearby flames before limping toward the cabin.

"Abella!" Mike cried out as he ran back outside. The Wendigo had just knocked her away, so he opened fire on it, hoping to pull its attention back. His body flooded with a chill and he threw himself to the ground as a spear shot through the air.

Right. The Nirumbi were still a threat. He tried to reload the rifle, but his fingers were wet from the snow. His vision filled with red fur as Yuki leapt in front of him and sent a swirling mass of snow toward their attackers.

"Get up!" she cried, then hurled even more ice outward.

"We have to help Abella," he commanded, then got to his feet. He turned toward the Wendigo and saw that Velvet was already over there, attacking it with a gun.

"Go back inside!" Yuki yelled at him, but he didn't listen. He started running toward Abella, but slid to a stop when he saw Velvet get tossed away. She crashed through the woods and disappeared.

"Shit." He could hear the Nirumbi hooting where Velvet had gone. Indecision flooded him, and when Abella collided with the Wendigo, he realized that there was very little he could do to help her. It was a clash between titans, and his one trick would disable her.

But Velvet could help, and right now, he could help her. He sprinted through the woods, dodging errant arrows as he went. Behind him, Yuki yelled his name as she followed, but all he could think about was Velvet. Was she hurt? Had the Nirumbi gotten her? His heartbeat roared in his ears as he leapt through the trees and landed in a small clearing, his rifle pointed toward the sky.

The Nirumbi were in a circle around Velvet, their spears held ready. The ground was littered with their bodies, and Velvet stood in the middle, her upper body covered in brown, spiky armor. She turned her head at his arrival, and he slid to a stop, stunned by the sight.

Velvet pinwheeled through them, dodging blows and impaling them on the thick spikes protruding from her body. She moved like the wind, kicking out with her legs and smashing the Nirumbi through the trees.

A small cluster of Nirumbi readied their arrows. Mike charged them, using the rifle as a club. They were so intent on Velvet that they didn't see him coming.

The stock cracked when he slammed it into the head of the first Nirumbi. The creature's eyes went wide before it fell to the ground. Its compatriots dropped their bows and drew knives, and Mike held up what was left of his rifle.

There was a flash of metal, and now Dana was there. She growled, a feral sound that made him back away. She carved her way through the Nirumbi, taking hits from them that she didn't seem to notice.

"Abella needs help," he told her. "Back, by the cabin!"

Dana said nothing, just looked at him with red-rimmed eyes, then sprinted back the way he came, passing Yuki in the process. The kitsune threw a tarot card in the air that summoned a handful of razor-sharp blades that tore through the remaining Nirumbi.

"I'm almost out of cards," she yelled, then sent out a blast of frost that knocked nearby Nirumbi away. "We need to get back to the cabin!"

"We need to get to Abella!" He looked over at Velvet, who was in the middle of breaking a Nirumbi's spine.

His mind blanked from the carnage. Though his home had survived many attacks, it had never been this brutal or visceral. He could see the panic in the eyes of the Nirumbi as they were killed, watch them stare in disbelief and wonder as their brethren died. This was death, up close and personal. The last time he had seen such a thing was...

"Mike!" His mother reached toward him, the flames igniting her skin.

"Mike!" Yuki tackled him, an arrow whizzing through the air where he had stood. Velvet dodged a few arrows of her own, then used a couple of nearby Nirumbi as shields. "We need to go, they have reinforcements!"

"I..." He looked at his feet and saw the blank stare of a Nirumbi, its eyes focused on eternity. The flames were suddenly real again, his mother's screams for help filling his ears.

He stumbled around, suddenly lost. There was too much movement, and the forest was filled with noises that overwhelmed him. He fell, then got back up and staggered backward when he saw that he had blood on his hands.

"Move!" Yuki grabbed him and pulled. He blindly followed, his gaze sweeping across the woods. Velvet was behind them now, blocking the rear with one of the swords that Yuki had summoned.

Disoriented, he stumbled over a log and fell to the ground. Yuki turned around to help him up, and between her splayed tails, he saw a Nirumbi step through the brush and aim its bow at her back.

The moment the bow twanged, he yanked Yuki toward himself and spun around. His gut was flooded with ice-water, but he held strong as the arrow struck him in the back. He cried out in agony and the world fell out from beneath him.

Yuki and Velvet both screamed his name, but everything was going dim. He felt hot, as if he was being cooked from the inside. Gasping through the pain, he pressed his face into the snow and let out a sigh that became a rattle.