Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 106
106
The question hung between them like the mist of their breath, lingering for a moment before being snatched away by the wind.
I couldn't have heard him right. There's no way.
The grip around his chin tightened and now he could feel the tips of those claws beginning to dig into the soft meat beneath his jawline.
"I'll ask again, Fox," it said, speaking very slowly. "Why do you smell like my Valery?"
And that's when he realized. The missing eye. The leather eyepatch. The limp.
This was the same Wolf that had nearly killed his uncle James.
"No..." he whimpered. He didn't want to cry, but he was powerless to stop the tears. "No..."
"She touched you, didn't she? Right here..." It licked his cheek, working its tongue against the grain of his fur to get at the skin.
"Please don't do that!" Jonah cried out, much more loudly than he intended. Feeling that slick piece of meat sliding across his face made him feel... _tainted_somehow. Like he was coming in contact with the worst possible filth in the world, like he was being bathed in it. He felt violated.
The Wolf licked its cracked, bleeding lips. "What did she do, Fox? Did she kiss you? Did she hug you? What is she to you, and what are you to her? Tell me. Tell me everything."
Jonah shook his head.
"Oh?" The Wolf leaned closer, so that their noses were actually touching. "I am trying to be patient with you, Fox. I am trying to be nice. I am trying very, _very_hard not to lose my temper. But sometimes... sometimes I have difficulty with that. You don't want to end up like your little friends, do you?"
No. Jonah did not want that. He did not want his blood to get mixed with the vile amalgamation coating this monster's tongue. He shook his head, feeling those claws scrape against his throat.
"No? Then you'll be a good little Foxy and tell me how you know Valery."
"Sh- She..." Jonah swallowed. It felt wrong to speak. Sinful, almost. But what else could he do? "She's my cousin." The Wolf frowned, and Jonah hurriedly went on to explain: "She's my father's brother's daughter."
The Wolf still frowned and cocked its head, apparently deep in thought, and then broke into a monstrous smile that showed off every single one of those deadly teeth. "Is your father named 'Jon' by any chance?"
Jonah could not answer that. Hearing his own father's name pass between this monster's lips was beyond bizarre. He felt like a bug trapped in a spiderweb, completely helpless, defenceless, exposed. This creature knew him. It knew his family. It probably knew more about them than they knew about it.
Do you really think a single Wolf - a Wolf who's probably dead, I might add - is a greater threat than a thousand of them put together?
I do.
He understood now. Gods help him, but he understood what Luke was talking about.
Just a few hours ago this was merely a creature out of a fairy tale, whispered in hushed tones by an uncle who could barely string two words together. Yes, Jonah had seen the damage first-hand. Yes, he had believed every word of it. Yes, he had been scared. Or at least, he thought he had been. He knew what real fear was now. But back then, sitting by the fireplace, safe at home behind a locked door, folding paper animals with his cousins, it had all seemed far away. Over and done with. It was a terrible tragedy, but everyone had gotten away okay. His family was still alive and the evil that had threatened them was surely dead, lying frozen in a ditch somewhere. And they all lived happily ever after, because that's how a story is supposed to end. You sit by the fire and you let out a sigh of relief because you're happy that all your favourite characters made it out by the time the story teller said 'the end' and you warm up a nice cup of milk and you crawl into bed and you have pleasant dreams till morning. That was his role in this whole messy affair. He was the listener. He was the one who nodded his head and gasped in surprise and nibbled on his nails. He was the one who hugged his cousins close and gave them a shoulder to cry on if they needed it. He was the one who gave up his bed to his littlest cousin and rolled out three bedrolls for himself and her brothers. He was the one who made everything as normal for them as possible, because they had been through a terrible ordeal and he hadn't. He wasn't supposed to be a part of the story. He never had anything to do with anything. It didn't touch him in any way.
Except now it really was touching him, touching him with a hand that could easily rip his head off.
This was no story. This was never a story. This was real.
"You're Banno." It wasn't a question. It wasn't a statement. It was an accusation.
Banno smiled and ran his tongue across his teeth, back and forth, licking up the blood. "Where is she, Foxy? Where is Valery?"
Jonah shook his head and pursed his lips.
"You'd better tell me, Foxy, and you'd better tell me right now."
He shook his head again, even more vehemently than before. The Wolf's smile faltered and the grip around his neck suddenly tightened. He could feel those massive claws pressing against his throat, not yet hard enough to puncture, but getting close.
"All right, Foxy. You're scared right now, and that can make it hard to think. I understand that. So I'm going to make this very simple for you, okay? All you have to do is answer 'yes' or 'no'. Can you do that for me?"
The pressure was building. Five points were digging into his neck. One of them suddenly went beyond the boundary of his skin with a sharp stab of pain, and Jonah realized this thing was slowly pushing the tip of its thumb claw into his throat like a giant darning needle.
"Y- Yes! Yes!" Jonah said, and the claw stopped. He could still feel it, though. Hard as metal, moving slightly every time he swallowed or took an involuntary gasp for air. He could feel a single drop of blood welling around the wound.
"Good." The Wolf's smile was back in all its glory. "Tell me, Fox, you love your darling little cousin, right?"
"Yes."
"Of course you do. She's family, and family is very important, isn't it?"
"Yes."
What am I going to do? How am I going to get out of this?
"Tell me, Fox, you love your darling little cousin, right?"
"Y- Yes?"
Wait, didn't he already ask that question? Or am I going crazy?
"Of course you do. And it's because you love her so much that you want the best for her, right? You want her to be happy. You want her to be as happy as she can possibly be in this world, because she deserves no less."
"Yes." Jonah didn't know what the hell was going on or why this abomination was talking about his little cousin in such a way, but now that he was up close like this and the initial shock of having pure death look you in the eye was wearing off, he was beginning to notice some things beyond its horrific appearance. There was puss leaking from its ears, for one thing. There was even more dribbling from behind the leather eyepatch, mixing with the blood. Many of its wounds were well on their way to developing nasty infections, certainly far nastier than his uncle's. One of them in particular, peeking through a gash in its buckskin pants, had turned into a festering, pustule riddled sore, weeping puss and blood. That rotten stench emanating from Banno's breath wasn't some mystical by-product of his evil or all the Foxes and Wolves he had murdered, it was him! He was the one giving off that putrid odour! Even the hand he was pressing against Jonah's throat was burning hot, lousy with fever. He was practically rotting where he stood.
This monster was dying by inches, and somehow it didn't even know it.
"That's good!" Banno said, smiling that broken smile. "See, we have something in common now! I want her to be happy, too! I want her to be the happiest little girl in the whole wide world. Can you help me do that, Foxy? Hmm? Can you help me do that?"
Tell him what he wants to hear, but be very careful. Any slip up and that claw will carve you a brand new mouth."Yes."
"Gooood!! You know she's special, right? She's different from your kind. Even you should be able to tell."
Keep it simple. Single word answers, just like it asked of you. "Yes."
"Then you should be able to see the problem. Do you see the problem?"
"I... er... no?"
The pressure around his neck increased and the claw slid a little deeper into his throat. Jonah gasped as something warm began to flow down his neck in a solid line.
"Then I shall explain it to you, Foxy," Banno said through clenched teeth. "Valery is a special one. Just like me, but also different from me. She is real, only the second real thing I've ever found in this hollow world. That's a momentous occasion, wouldn't you agree?"
Jonah nodded like his head was attached to a spring. "Yes, yes."
"Now, you might not see it, because this world is just as fake as you are. You're part of the same thing. You belong here. You're just another pebble that makes up the mountain. But for a girl as special as Valery, this world is nothing more than shadow. It's an empty, flavourless place devoid of happiness, a place where everyone is just a mindless piece of meat going about their pointless days according to the rules assigned to them. Does that sound like a fun place to live?"
"N- No."
"Does that sound like hell?"
"Yes."
"Damn right it does. Valery and I live in the same world. Day after day we're forced to breathe the same, stale air, eat the same, bland food, and talk to the same, fake people and pretend to actually care about what they're saying back. But I can fix that, little Foxy. I can make her life better, fuller, more real. It's the only way to make her truly happy."
"How?" The question simply slipped out before Jonah could stop himself. At first he regretted it because it wasn't a simple 'yes' or 'no' and he was afraid for his life, but later he regretted it because of the answer the Wolf gave.
It smiled and ran its tongue over its lips, parting the gaping wound at the corner of its mouth and sliding it along the bloody shreds of meat lining its gums. "By taking her out of this fake world and putting her into me, of course. I shall taste her death, and she will become a part of me forever."
The spit dried up in Jonah's mouth and an icy finger ran along his back.
"Within me, she can finally have eternal life. Isn't that beautiful, Foxy?"
He didn't know how he managed to pull it off, but he slowly nodded and said: "Yes. It is."
"Aaah, good... good..." Sickly puss was clotting around the lower edge of its eyepatch, forming a disgusting yellow crust in its fur. "Now that we understand each other, tell me... Where is she?"
Jonah could not answer. The fact that Banno would most likely kill him afterwards was secondary. The reason he could not speak, the reason he could not give this perverted creature what it wanted was because he kept seeing Valery's face. He kept seeing the way she so meticulously folded those scraps of paper, biting down on her tongue in concentration and then frowning in puzzlement when her swan ended up looking more like a goat. He kept seeing the tears standing out in the corners of her eyes as she pulled him down to her level so she could hug him and kiss him goodbye.
This Wolf, this monster called Banno, had asked him if he loved his cousin, and he had said yes. That was no lie. He did love Valery. She was family, and he would be damned if he gave up his own family to the likes of some demented bastard who wouldn't know love if it came up and bit the rest of its ugly face off.
"I'm losing my temper, Foxy," Banno growled. "Tell me where she is."
"No."
"Tell me!"
"No!"
Banno suddenly lifted him off his feet and ran, holding him up by his head. Jonah grabbed hold of its arms and held on for dear life, feeling that thumb claw slide in and out of his neck with every lurching step. It carried him over the wooden planks that had been Ander's trap, through the blood soaked massacre of corpses that had once been Wolves, and slammed him against the mountainside with a roar. Blood came pouring down his neck in a steady stream. He could feel the hot, sticky wetness of it flowing down his chest and across his stomach, sticking his clothes together.
He screamed as Banno lifted him higher and higher, scraping his back against the cold, hard stone, tearing through his clothes and slicing into his bare flesh.
"You just don't get it, do you, Foxy?" Banno thundered, grinding his face right up against Jonah's. "You have no idea how lucky, how blessed you are this day! On any other you're just a flavourless piece of meat! A bag of fur and bones and flesh and blood, walking around pretending to be alive! But today, today you've been touched by someone real, not once but twice! Do you still not understand? Today, and only today, you're not just a fake piece of meat, Foxy! You're also a message! Sent to me by her hand! That's why she touched you! That's why she hugged you. That's why she kissed you! That's why she covered you in her scent! It was for me, don't you get it!? It was all for me! She knew I would be here, and she knew you would be here, so she used you to let me know she was still alive in the way that counts! It's her way of asking me to come for her! To save her before it's too late! And you're ruining it! You're ruining everything she's worked so hard for! You said you love her, but that's a lie! If you really loved her, loved her like I do, then you wouldn't be trying to keep us apart! But you... you don't understand, you can never understand what we have together. She wants it! She needs it! She needs me! It's her only desire in life! She wants to give her life to me because she loves me! Why is that so hard for you to understand!? She wants it why can't you just understand it's what she wants it's what she wants IT'S WHAT SHE WANTS!!"
Jonah looked at this creature, blowing its rotten breath into his face in plumes of mist that smelled of death and decay, and simply said: "You're crazy. You're completely and totally insane."
It smiled. It was the darkest, most furious smile Jonah had ever seen, dripping with madness as well as blood. "I suppose it would look that way to one of you, wouldn't it? Well... if you're not going to help her, then there's no reason for me to keep you alive. Goodbye, Foxy. You tasted better than the others, at the very least."
Jonah closed his eyes, but knew better than to pray for a quick death. If his life were to end by the hands of this demon, it would not be quick and it would not be painless. All he could hope for was that Banno would expire before he reached his hellish goal, that he would finally succumb and collapse to the ground in a shivering pile of misery and disease. Because if he didn't... if he reached Valery...
A faint click emerged from the shadows of the pass, almost completely obscured by the howling wind and driving snow, and Jonah suddenly felt his body being flipped around and jerked violently to the right, away from the wall and directly into the gale. He screamed and tried to break free, but Banno still had a firm grip on the back of his neck.
"Smart meat would have run!"
Jonah had no idea what was going on, but a voice out of the darkness soon cleared that up.
"Well then, I guess that makes us stupid meat, doesn't it?"
A gust of wind blew into Jonah's face, strong enough to make him sway in Banno's grip, making the claws saw in and out of his flesh. He ground his teeth together and tried not to cry, feeling like some pathetic pup being dragged through the house by the scruff of the neck, but at least now he could see where that voice had come from. Whether he was optimistic enough to be happy about it, however, was a different story.
Bartholomew (or was that Nicholas?) was standing about half a dozen strides away. He had Mateo's big crossbow braced against his shoulder, loaded and ready to fire, and was looking down the sight with one eye squinted shut. There were still small clumps of frost stuck to the bottom of the stock, and coupled with all the shallow holes potmarking the area around Peter's body, Jonah understood why it had taken them so long to make their move. It was a miracle they had found it at all in this big white mess.
His brother was standing a bit further back and to the side, trying his very best to support Mateo, but the poor guy didn't look so good. None of them did, to be honest, but Mat was barely conscious. There were streams of blood still flowing from his head and congealing all over his face, dripping from his nose and mouth and staining his clothes a dark brown. He kept opening his eyes and closing them, then opening them again, like a kid trying to stay up way past his bedtime.
It didn't surprise Jonah that he kept thinking of himself and his friends in terms of children. Because, compared to the monster holding him up with just one arm, what else could they possibly be?
"You gonna try and shoot me, Foxy?" Banno said, jerking Jonah to the left and right, making his lower body swing like a pendulum. The pain and the nausea made him want to throw up. He probably would have, had he not already emptied his stomach the first time he looked into the face of a dead Wolf, its mouth and nose filled with snow.
"That's the idea." Nicholas (or was that Bart?) ran his fingers along the curve of the tickler.
"That didn't work so well for your little friends."
The other twin looked to the pass and all the red that had bloomed there over the course of just a few minutes. Bright and wet in the centre, fading to pink and finally to white at the edges, they were like red clouds that had fallen from a broken sky.
"This isn't a bow, Wolf," Nicholas said (yes, he was almost positive that one was Nicholas), "this is a crossbow. Up close, it's not just gonna make a tiny little hole. It's gonna blow your head wide open."
"Oh my, then you'd better be careful not to hit my new friend here. We've been having the most interesting conversation. Isn't that right, friend?"
Jonah was now looking at death from two different angles. At his back, a deranged Wolf who wanted to 'become one' with his cousin, and in front, the jittering tip of a crossbow bolt held by the hands of a Fox who had never fired a crossbow in his life.
It's gonna blow your head wide open...
That was no exaggeration. Jonah saw Mat practicing with that thing once. The target: an overripe watermelon covered in flies and midges, balanced on top of a hay bale. The bolt hadn't just stuck halfway through like a regular arrow. Because it was so thick and heavy, it had actually pushed the watermelon open from the inside, cracking the shell and sending chunks of red flesh flying through the air in a spray of juice.
If Nick messes up, that'll be my head.
Nicholas licked his lips and folded his fingers across the tickler, but couldn't bring himself to squeeze. His breath plumed in front of his nose as he kept readjusting his aim, trying to find the perfect mark, but Banno kept perfect pace, moving Jonah's head in front of the projected point of impact, blocking him off at every second.
Maybe a bolt in the face'll be a better way to go, Jonah thought. It sure as hell beats getting torn apart. Yeah... quick and clean.
Unless he gets me in the lung or something...
Nope. No matter how Jonah tried to spin it in his head, no outcome looked very good.
"What's the matter, Fox?" Banno said. "Your little toy getting too heavy?"
"Shut up!"
"Nicky..." Bartholomew was looking concerned. No doubt he was going through all the possibilities himself and coming to the same conclusions as Jonah, that out of all the possible outcomes, only a direct-hit instant kill would spare their lives. Anything less and they were all as good as dead. "Are you sure you can -"
"Dammit, I got this! Just be quiet for one godsdamn second!"
Nicholas's slight tremble had progressed into a full-blown case of the shakes. The entire crossbow was jittering up and down, making the bolt click and rattle inside the groove.
In stark contrast to this, Banno was as cool as a kumquat. Jonah could tell. He had a crossbow pointed straight at his head, and his arm wasn't even shaking, not even from the cold. "How about we make a deal, hmm?" Banno said, as calm as can be. "If you tell me where this one lives..." He gave Jonah a little shake. "I'll let all four of you go. Right now. No tricks. Swear on my honour. What do you say?"
"I say you must think we're all a bunch of morons."
"Whaaat? Me? Think the Foxes digging up their fallen enemies in the middle of a battle, trading certain victory for warm fuzzies in their tummies at the risk of getting themselves killed, are morons? Now you're just putting words in my mouth."
"There's no way you're getting out of this alive, Wolf. The best you can hope for is a quick death, so put Jonah down and take your medicine."
"Put him down? What if I don't want to? What if I've grown attached to my little friend here? What if I'd rather do something like this?"
Banno took a quick step forward and Nicholas staggered back, very nearly squeezing the tickler in his panic. If he had, Jonah would very likely be dead right now, followed closely by everyone else. The younger twin breathed hard and heavy, trying to still his hands and the frantic beating of his heart.
Jonah didn't want to, but his head simply turned all on its own. He looked back over his shoulder, and what he saw finally convinced him.
Banno wasn't just smiling, he was laughing. It was a low chuckle, the naughty kind of laugh that always seemed to fall over you at the most inappropriate of times, the kind of laugh you could never stifle fully.
He did that on purpose just now,_Jonah thought. _He wanted Nicholas to fire. He doesn't even care where the bolt could have gone. This is all just a game to him.
By the gods, did this thing have no concept of mortality?
"My offer still stands, Foxy," Banno said gleefully. "Just tell me where my little friend lives and I'll let all of you go. Just a general direction will be good enough for -"
"Shoot him, Nick!" Jonah shouted, taking even himself by surprise. "Don't worry about me, shoot through me if you have to, just make sure you kill this thing! Kill it dead!"
"Jonah?"
"Just shoot the damn thing! What are you waiting for! Just do it! Kill it!"
Banno wasn't even trying to hold back his laughter anymore. It bubbled out of him in waves. "Yes, Nick-Sai, master of archery!" he cackled. "Go on and shoot me! Shoot me right in the head! Save your friend and become a hero!" The laughter suddenly stopped and he became dead serious again. It was as abrupt and jarring as a candle dying in the wind. "But you do realise what will happen if you miss, don't you? That's the end. There's no way you can load a second shot before I pull your intestines out through your mouth."
"You won't be alive to do any such thing, monster!" Nicholas braced the crossbow against his shoulder and looked down the sight. The tip of the bolt rose and fell slightly as he drew breath.
Jonah bent his knees and folded his arms across his chest, trying to make himself as small as possible.
Thirty-six.
The number echoed through his mind. Thirty-two adults and four children. That was the number at last count. How far had that number risen in the last few minutes? Dean, Eric, Peter, Devin, Samuels, Flyn, Will, Henry, Gordon, Rufio. Ten Foxes. Ten. Add to that all the Wolves this monster had killed to protect itself from the cold, add to that all the Wolves still trapped in the snow, surely dead by now, all because this crazy bastard decided to go on a rampage. How many deaths was it responsible for? How many more would it kill if they failed to stop it now?
It had to die. There was simply no other option.
Banno held him like a living shield, moving him in unpredictable patterns, left and right, up and down, clock- and counterclock, all the while chuckling like a loon, certain of his victory.
Nicholas took deep, steady breaths that issued from his open mouth and washed over the bolt in plumes of misty vapour. His fingers caressed the tickler, and began to squeeze. Jonah saw the curved piece of metal moving towards the stock, saw the catch begin to lower. He even heard the tiny groan of the string, all that power stored inside a twisted piece of whipcord barely longer than his arm, just screaming to be released.
I promised Valery I'd make it back safe, didn't I?
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