Mason's leading drew us up the next mountain-peak in a mere two minutes. He was quick-footed and honed in on our surroundings, careful to take us through brush just thick enough to keep us hidden but sparse enough to make good passage through. Soon enough, the crashing began again.
"How is it tracking us without scent?" he called over, his voice low and anxious, "We should have lost it long ago."
I couldn't answer. I wasn't certain.
The question forced the fear-frozen cogs in my brain back to motion, however. Good hearing, perhaps? Maybe we'd need to get low and hide until dawn at the very least. Or run alongside a quick-moving river to disguise the sound of our passage. Perhaps we'd need to face and defeat it. Unlike Mason, I couldn't run forever.
Our trail tracked along a sharp canyon between a shorn peak. Mason kept pace beside it, then jerked his head across the gap. I nodded once in acknowledgment as he pulled away from the gap for a little start. He circled back, pushing off so strongly that a few boulders cracked loose and tumbled down into the ravine between. For a second, he careened through the empty space before landing into a roll on the other side. He stood, braced with arms out for me. A howling roar bellowed from almost directly behind me.
Despite a jitter, I kept my nerve and bounded up to the edge. With a powerful leap, I found myself whistling through empty-air and my already-aching stomach dropped.
Then, I careened straight into Mason's steady, waiting arms. Unfortunately, my legs gave out in a wobbly mess of panic. Where in the blazes was my battle composure? What was this mess in my head? Taking in a deep breath, I managed to regain my footing. Mason patiently but quickly helped to prop me up.
"We won't move as quickly if I'm carrying you," he stated, voice fast and low, "It already has no trouble catching up to us like this."
"Then we make a stand."
My voice was a squeak.
"What do you suggest?"
"An instant-kill spell. I can only use one with the moon as it is and my options are limited, so I'll need to make it count. I'll have to hope that the spell captures its weakness."
"'Captures its weakness'?"
"It's useless to poison a vampire with wolfsblight."
Mason spared a short nod, "And if that doesn't work, do we at least know how it's tracking us?"
"It's hard to tell."
"Here it comes," Mason growled.
I stood forward, legs shaking. Taking a deep breath, I gathered my wits about me.
"Luna volente," I began, my voice breathless and shaky.
The magic circles engraved on the skin of my arms beneath my jacket responded to my insecurity. They hovered and flickered above the fabric, not quite becoming substantial.
Don't fail. Don't fail again. Don't let him die like you let the others-! A panicked voice in my mind pleaded.
"If you can't do it, we'll keep running!"
But I froze in horror as it smashed through the brush at full-tilt. With a ear-shattering crack, it shoved off the far cliff-side without breaking stride and landed squarely before us. The cliff's edge shuttered and crackled as the entirety of its weight settled onto the rock edge. Just a few steps from us, towering at a full two meters at least, it regarded us with lamp-like, wolfish eyes.
Its face was contorted, the jaw jutted in an exaggerated underbite with long lower canines. But then, there were dual upper canines protruding from the top jaw too. Werewolf and vampire features?
Not to mention the wrongness about its skin, like the flesh had been turned inside-out, patched back together, and now draped improperly on the frame. The face was fringed by clumps of matted hair along the head. The arms, looked... hackneyed, like someone had taken two pairs and simply cobbled them together to create the elongated limbs that now steadied it where it crouched to regard us.
It was entirely naked, a body with both sagging and rotted breasts over a muscular chest and a limp, blackened penis almost as if the parts had been sewn on and promptly forgotten about.
It made a step forward, causing the fragile cliff-shelf to shudder. The glittering, luminescent-blue eyes looked like they belonged to some cave-creature. And ringed around the middle pupil of each was a bright-red halo that dilated as it inspected us.
There was something cognizant about its ability to process, even if Mason claimed that the thing hadn't a proper train of thought. It was then, as it tilted its face down at us, that I noticed the small, scarred loops carved into the skin of its forehead.
The symbol Margret had drawn.
A blur in the corner of my eye startled me. A heavy, ear-splitting crack shredded the air. Mason crouched at the ground in front of me, fists hovering where a gigantic crack in the rock face had exploded into existence under his blow. The creature dropped a few centimeters, then plummeted entirely from view as the edge broke and toppled away into the depths between cliff-faces. Mason grabbed me by the elbow, pulling me away from the very near and jagged drop.
"It'll be back on us soon enough-"
"Wait," I demanded, snapping back to reality and whirling on Mason.
I pushed at his shoulder, spinning him around to grab at the backpack. Fingers fumbling at the zippers, I managed to extract my wallet and rifle through the various cards and change. Finally, I pinched the little lavender business card between two fingers. Tossing the wallet back, I left Mason to rezip as I examined the card Carmen had given me. Sure enough, one of her little symbols - like an insignia or logo - was printed above the pair of names. A different one as compared to the others symbols I'd seen: a different spell. How stupid had I been not to think twice about that?
"Can you memorize this symbol?" I asked.
Mason nodded, pinching the cardstock and inspecting with narrowed eyes as I stared down the ravine. He tapped my shoulder with the cardstock a few moments later, making me jump.
"You think this is how we were tracked?"
"Yes. But we'll run alongside a river to cover our sound."
[Flamma]
Between my two fingers, the card burst into a bout of silver flames. I dropped the ignited paper, but it disintegrated in a flicker of smoke before hitting the ground.
"Let's go."
I held tightly to Mason's hand as he led the way down into the next valley, following my instructions to track close to the river. We ran through into the late evening, our pace moving us at about a little over a kilometer-a-minute now that we were on flat ground. For tens of kilometers, there had been no sight, sound, or smell of the creature.
Mason's pace slowed. He drew me in naturally, possessively, before sweeping my legs from beneath me. I didn't protest as he lifted me into his arms, content to be protected for the moment.
"She'll know that I know," I panted, managing just barely to be heard over the growl of my stomach. Mason paused, about to set me down, but I held tight to his neck. "I can wait to eat. I want to go home."
"Your home?"
"N-no, I don't want to be alone."
He nodded, then began to jog at somewhat human speeds.
"I take it that you've never seen something like that?"
"That thing makes the top ten worst."
My arms tightened their loop around him.
"What was it?"
"That's a new one, even for me," I murmured, shaking my head, "It takes aesthetic inspiration, at the very least, both from Frankenstein and the old, Oracadaian myth of the Nuckelavee."
"The Nuckelavee?"
"A hybrid creature of horse and rider with black blood that pounds through veins coursing along the outside of its skin. Or rather, the skin has been turned inside out. The problem here is that the Nuckelavee's weaknesses are freshwater and the Mither o' the Sea."
"Clearly this creature was undeterred by fresh water," Mason laughed dryly, "And I don't know where to find the second... thing?"
"It's creator or minder," I said as we emerged from the forest path into an unfamiliar gravel lot, "But that's why I say that there's merely an inspiration at play here."
Mason set me down and I hesitated, staring anxiously at the visitor's center. It was dark, well-past closing, but the adjacent ranger's station still seeped golden light through the navy, deep-evening shadows.
"We should tell the rangers."
"What do we tell them?"
"The bear is still out."
"Where should we tell them we saw it? We traveled a multi-day journey in an evening."
"Try to pick the most feasible, but longest trail that you know of. We have to give them a fighting chance at least."
"The whole park has been on guard for the past few months. It's made national news; the point of due diligence has passed. I'm willing to do my utmost for innocents, but for idiots I-"
"Mason," I plead sharply, rounding on him with wide-eyes, "We have to try. Use compulsion to reduce their suspicion of us and increase their alertness to the danger."
His lips pressed together, but he nodded his assent, "Can you call Kira? She'll come by to pick us up."
"Sure."
The moment she picked up, however -
"Hi, Sara, I'm on my way!"
"O-oh?"
"I saw that I'd be driving Mason home," she explained shortly, "And that he'd be seriously disturbed. I'm glad you're alright; at first I thought you'd gotten hurt or... well, it's good to hear from you."
"Are you traveling with someone?" I interrupted.
"Yes, Samuel is with me, why?"
"Everyone in your family should travel in pairs while out and about. We encountered the entity that's been killing people and..."
I shuddered.
"We'll be there within fifteen minutes."
With us on the complete other side of the Peninsula, she must've seen Mason's fate a few hours back.
She bid me goodbye. Mason rejoined me at the moment my stomach let out a guttural snarl. Despite himself, he smiled.
"We have some snacks," he offered, about to slip the backpack from his shoulder when I refused again.
"Wait until we're in the car."
"You're that nervous?" he probed.
I nodded and my body began to tremble like an autumn leaf. He cuffed my shoulders with his hands as if trying to hold me together, but it was no use. Fatigue and shock were setting in. How easily my body had succumbed to them; had my century of training amounted to nothing?
"You're worrying."
I scowled, "You're not?"
"I am," he backtracked, relinquishing my shoulders, "But you're not worrying about the creature anymore."
I bit my lower lip in little, agitated nips.
"I'm not," I admitted, the words slowly and painfully leaving my lips, "I'm worried that I'm out of practice. Moreover, I thought you couldn't read my thoughts."
"I can't. I'm simply getting better at reading you."
"Eugh, frightening."
His mouth tilted in a frown as his brows arched. He looked away last-second, but I caught the expression and sighed.
"There's still secrets I want to keep. That's all."
I extended my shaky hand to him. He tilted his head in a begrudging concession and took the offering, intertwining his fingers with mine. We stood shoulder to shoulder, listening to the chatter within the center as rangers bustled around.
"A few campers overheard that thing's passage," Mason gathered from the muted talk, his eyes shivering in the semi-darkness, "I didn't realize we passed so close to human sites."
"I should be getting to know this mountain range better," I chastised myself, lips pursing on the sound of my stomach gurgling like an emptying drain, "We ought to have exit plans that don't risk human life."
"This one was on me-"
"Both of us. I've been slacking."
His eyes tightened as he opened his mouth to argue further, but a pair of headlights rounded the bend in the road. Kira's electric car crunched over the gravel and slid to a halt in front of the pair of us. Mason quickly opened the door for me; a good thing too as I tripped forward and simply collapsed onto the seat.
Kira began driving off again before Mason fully closed the door.
"Are you alright, Sara?" Samuel asked from the passenger's seat, inclining his head to stare worriedly.
"Y-yes, why?"
"Your heartbeat is weaker than usual. Also, I don't smell you. Either of you."
Mason didn't say a word, but un-clipped the backpack to rummage through.
"I'm just hungry."
I reached out to Mason to reclaim the glyph. The spiced-mint scent of him entered the car as he pressed a bag of almonds into my shaking palm.
"You lose your scent when you're hungry-?" Kira started, but Mason cut her off.
"Let's not get into that," Samuel said quickly, watching my actions before frowning, "Sara, if you could, please refrain from bringing back your scent until we're out of the car."
"Yes, I can do that," I muttered, putting an almond on my tongue.
Despite the guttural sounds of my gut, I could only manage to chew one slowly at a time.
"Should we pick up a meal from in-town?"
I shook my head wordlessly, beginning to feel fuzzy again.
"A sub should be fine," Mason muttered, sensing my lapsing presence.
He shuffled into the middle of the backseat to sit flush to my side.
"On it."
The hours-long drive became white-noise to my ears as I melted against Mason and became listless. Each of my fingers felt like a leaden weight, each breath a struggle to breathe, and even my eyelids were unmotivated to blink. Mason's nervous, but smooth strokes of my hair kept me somewhat grounded. Though not as grounded as I'd originally thought, because when I next blinked, I found myself in the Warde house upon their white living room sectional.
Mason's ministrations to warm my hands had awoken me from my stupor, but the attempts were in vain. His skin was too chilly. Anne tossed him a blanket with a snaked cord tucked into the folds. In the blink of an eye, it was around me and Mason had plugged the heated blanket into the nearby outlet.
I slowly took in my surroundings, but I soon realized that all Wardes were present.
"Paul-" Mason started, but his father-figure was already moving toward me.
"Do you mind if I check your vitals, Sara?" he inquired, approaching cautiously.
I shook my head and nonsensically offered a wrist for him to feel my pulse.
"Your scent is missing," he noted, taking the limb with gentle confusion.
He settled on the edge of the couch beside me.
"I'll bring it back," I muttered, immediately resorbing the glyph into my skin as I spoke the words.
Tangy, frightened fear-scent intermingled with my body's natural smell.
"How are you feeling?"
"Faint."
"Mason has a sandwich for you and -"
"A glass of water," Claire supplemented, setting a crystal cup upon a coaster.
She retreated to her spot in the archway to the dining room, watching over the group.
"C'mon now, I thought you were a hunter," Leo suddenly piped up from the opposite couch.
"Leo," Mason warned, his voice nearly a growl.
"No," I sighed shakily, sitting up to reach for the glass. Mason's movement escaped my notice but the glass was suddenly in my hand, his fingers supporting mine until I'd adjusted. "He's right. We need to review the incident."
"What was it?" Samuel muttered, standing behind the couch at which Kira, Leo, and Anne all sat.
"A fake-hybrid," I said after a few sips. Suddenly, the dryness of my mouth was all-consuming and I paused to inhale the glass down in a few greedy gulps. The others waited still as statues. "It's an amalgamation of multiple species through the sole use of black magic as opposed to selective genetics."
"Something that is both vampire and werewolf," Anne surmised, "Based on how the victims have been killed."
I nodded once, finally eying the sub-sandwich on the coffee table. Mason anticipated me.
"What did it look like?"
"I'll draw it - "
"I can," Mason offered as he stood, "You eat."
He disappeared for a half-second and returned, sketchpad in hand.
"It appeared more werewolf than vampire," I decided after swallowing a large bite, "It was both male and female too. The eyes were wolfish with the red-tinge around the pupil. Some of its upper fangs were like a vampire's but the under-bite was full-werewolf."
"How does someone go about creating something like that?" Claire asked, and I looked over to catch her suppressing a shudder.
"Black magic deals heavily in the taboo. The more taboo, the stronger the resulting magic. But most magics rely on natural cycles, regardless of their sect. Something of this caliber likely requires a strong cycle, an astronomical event, for a conduit."
"What other types of magic...?" Kira began, her brown eyes flitting to me.
"Kira," Mason warned, "Let's focus on this... cycle instead."
"Magic is bound by patterns, just as all life is; this is the first law of magic. In order to practice, you must adhere your practice to a natural cycle, a repeated ritual, or reoccurring natural phenomenon to use it. The second law, the law of rarity is simple: the rarer something is, the more magical power it can have or can be drawn from it. And, lastly, the law of imperfection: there is no such thing as flawless or all-powerful magic."
"That last rule," Samuel started, eyebrows raising, "This thing you've seen has weaknesses, then."
"And we have a pretty good idea of what they could be."
"We thought that it wouldn't be able to touch freshwater, but it could," Mason whispered and I turned to watch him sketching away into the notebook. His hand flashed across the page, a blur, as the gray likeness materialized beneath it. "What weaknesses could that thing possibly have?"
"The freshwater theory was from when I thought it was Carmen in an alternate form. This is a somewhat separate entity."
"Then, as a vampire-werewolf creature it may share weaknesses with us?" Samuel surmised.
"Precisely," I nodded, "True hybrids are tricky to make on-purpose. But if successful they have one less weakness than the strongest of the sum of their parts."
"Uh..." Leo hesitated, his eyes narrowed as he processed.
"Think of all the ways you can die," I prompted.
"Oh," his confusion resolved, "Stake to the heart, decapitation, heart removal, lamalis overdose..."
"Sunlight and fire," Samuel added.
"And severe desiccation or starvation," Paul finished.
"You're missing one," I prompted, polishing off my sandwich, "Werewolf bite. You have eight total lethal weaknesses."
"We'll need to research the werewolves," Claire fretted.
"Or ask the encyclopedia," Leo scoffed, waving at me.
"No, no, I want to take a crack at it," Kira rebutted, "I've been doing my research."
Leo rolled his eyes. Samuel flicked at the back of Kira's head good-naturedly. She caught the hand before he got her and turned to give it a little peck on the knuckles. I swallowed and looked away, glancing instead over at Mason with my crumpled sandwich wrapper clutched in my hands.
"Almost done," he murmured.
"Let's see," Kira began, setting her hands on her knees, businesslike, "Silver, obviously. The moon, perhaps. Decapitation seems reasonable."
"Wolfsblight," Mason piped up.
"Oh?" Kira wondered, cocking her head, "I didn't know it affected werewolves. I have some growing on my window-sill."
"Silver, decapitation, and wolfsblight are correct," I confirmed, "Though silver acts much in the same way a wooden stake does for a vampire; it needs administration to the heart to be fatal."
"How many more weaknesses?" Kira pressed, undeterred.
"You're missing two."
"If it's like a vampire - if its heart is a weak-point - I imagine removal of the organ would cause death," Paul posited, though his tone was distasteful.
"Yes."
"One more," Leo grumbled, narrowing his eyes.
"Vampires and werewolves are natural enemies," I hinted.
"Vampire venom?" Kira suggested and I nodded.
"Five lethal-weaknesses," Mason muttered,
He tossed his sketchbook carelessly toward the coffee table. It didn't land. Anne's hand snapped out to catch it in an instant. The four on the couch leaned in curiously. Samuel's face set with grim determination as Leo let out a low whistle. Anne quickly relinquished the sketch to Kira who examined it intently.
"Damn," Leo muttered, "It's got that symbol the ghost drew on its forehead."
"So this fake hybrid has four weaknesses?" Kira confirmed, "One less than the strongest of its components."
I nodded.
"It was strong and fast," Mason explained, watching Kira's inspection distantly, "It could speak, but it didn't think coherently. The language was Goedelic in origin, but I'm not familiar with it beyond a few words. Not enough to determine whether its speech made logical sense."
"It's a Frankenstein of two formerly intelligent creatures," I whispered with a grimace, "No matter what I think of vampires and werewolves, can you imagine the torment of being trapped in a body like that? With someone else you may or may not have known? It makes sense that it can't think properly."
Mason cringed, "It did have coincident feminine and masculine tones, but it didn't seem to think much beyond what it saw in front of itself."
"Could you read the intent?" Samuel asked.
Mason shrugged, "It... might've been hungry? Curious? It was hard to say."
"Who cares what it thinks about," Leo sighed impatiently, his leg bouncing, "We hunt it. It chased two of our own and has been messing with our town. I'm not going to stand for that."
"How?" Kira asked, still entrenched in Mason's drawing.
"Any overlapping weaknesses between a hybrid's origin species are automatically weaknesses of the hybrid. That gives us heart removal and decapitation."
"With something that heinous, I think decapitation would be easiest."
"Heart removal is easier for someone as small as I am," Kira noted lightly, "Not everyone has your strength, Leo."
"Forget our strength for a moment," Mason interjected, "This thing was incredibly fast and strong. If it weren't lacking in intelligence and coordination, we'd have been done for."
"That strength is the nature of hybrids," I murmured, "Optimization of supernaturals while remaining within the bounds of magical law. It's... tricky which is why this forced-hybrid still lacks in certain areas."
"But why?" Mason prompted, shaking his head, "Why would she need one?"
"If this is Carmen's creation," Paul pointed out, "All our evidence connecting her to the hybrid is technically circumstantial."
I affixed him with a stare, "We're past the point of 'if's. When I burned the business-card I received directly from her, the creature was no longer able to track us. That's damning."
He bowed his head.
"And witches are bullied," I answered Mason, "She wants something to protect herself. She has plenty of reason, even if her solution is unacceptable and sacrifices human life."
"Then I guess the better question is; why is she here?" Samuel posited.
I frowned and narrowed my eyes in thought, "She told me she was collecting ingredients."
"Humans? The dead and missing people?"
"No. That was likely to keep their creature fed. There's a wide variety of reasons; anything from just collecting lamalis to a search for a ritual site. Places that have a high volume of supernaturals have higher magical energy than places without. With both you and the Lawatscoh on this peninsula, it makes for a magical hotspot. Whatever her reason is, I'll find it."
The room went silent for a few moments. Tension built as the stiffened vampires refused to emit any human tics. Not so much as a rustle. Only my own breaths echoed about the room. My stomach quavered.
"I don't want my family involved in this."
I blinked, glancing toward Paul. His caramel-colored head bowed, fingers interlaced in front of him like a man in-prayer.
"We can't sit idly by," Mason argued, his shoulders suddenly stiff, "The oncoming winter may drive it closer to townships. Then, it won't matter if the humans are being cautious; innocents will be killed."
"We've never fought, we've only ever lived peacefully," Paul said, his voice even and disarming in the face of Mason's indignation, "We exist for each other and we make the best of this second life that was given to us."
"I could do with a little excitement," Leo boasted, leaning back on the couch and wrapping an arm 'round Anne.
"No. We live like this, like humans, to coexist."
"We can't reject what we are, Paul," Mason said, voice low and persuasive but stale. There was an air of defeat to the tone, like he'd participated and lost these debates countlessly, "We have to consider what inherent responsibilities our occult might entail."
"Responsibility?" Paul echoed.
"Yes, you lost me at that," Anne grumbled, flicking her hair over her shoulder, "I don't care what this creature does so long as it doesn't threaten my people. But it nearly crossed a line today.
"Our course of action is determined by what we think we should do for our best interest. If hunting it would bring us entertainment, I see no issue in that. I also am not opposed to relocation if we so choose."
"I want to fight it," Leo piped up, grinning.
"My responsibility is to my family," Claire stated, her crossed arms tightening, "I will support you in what you choose to do, but do not ask me to watch you throw your lives away for entertainment's sake."
"We're not throwing our lives away, we're solving a mystery," Kira enthused, "There are five of us, three of us gifted, and a... well, we have Sara. We have the numbers to take on two witches and a monster, I expect."
"Yes, these are decent odds," I seconded, tilting my head back and forth, "But we need to know more about the enemy before moving forward. How is Carmen controlling that thing? We can likely figure that out by elucidating the meaning of its forehead symbol. How large is the witch coven they're a part of? What other spells or rituals can they perform? I know Carmen has means of healing herself, but I don't know what magic she's using to accomplish that - "
"I've been thinking," Samuel interrupted suddenly, watching me very closely, "You're very practiced in this supernatural detective work. The way in which you tackle these problems, the past cases you've spoken of, your reference to a vast knowledge-base; this is not only your life's work but something passed down through generations, isn't it?"
I pursed my lips, then nodded, "What of it?"
"It's something we need to consider," Samuel said simply, his gaze finally flicking over to Paul.
The patriarch bowed his head in a solemn nod. Mason's eyes tightened, but he said nothing.
"Let's tackle the present issue," Kira piped up, "Do we stay and fight or do we flee? It should be a vote: all those in favor of staying?"
Leo raised an enthusiastic hand, followed by Anne who'd been watching him. Mason raised his as well, glancing sideways at me out of the corner of his eye. Kira's hand was up in a flash and she wriggled it high above her head.
"Sara?" Claire asked softly.
"Regardless of whether you all chose to flee or fight, I have to fight this thing. It's as Samuel said."
"That's majority," Mason noted, voice solemn.
Paul bowed his head, eyes closed, but didn't object further.