Fated in Stone, page 14
The hissing noise the goo made when it came into contact with the damp dirt made him glad he’d led the beast away from Elle.
When she came out from behind the tree and started walking toward him, he pointed at the goo with his sword. “Stay back. I’m pretty sure this stuff is not safe.”
She froze in her tracks, staring at the flattened monster body and the goo bubbling out of it. “I’m not sure I’ve ever smelled anything that bad before in my entire life,” she said, backing closer to the pine tree again. “Except for maybe last night.”
“Are you going to throw up?” He made a move toward her but she waved him away.
“No. But only because I’m over here. I’m not going to be able to get closer.”
“I don’t want you closer. I’ll take care of cleaning this up.”
He glanced around at all the wet wood. Actually, burning the creature was going to take some effort. But he had to ensure the body burned thoroughly so no unsuspecting human or other animal came across the remains and hurt themselves.
“You still have those matches?” he asked.
“Of course.” She pulled them out of her thigh pocket. “I’m not this good a shot, though. If I throw them to you, they’re going to end up in the mud.” She looked around. “I can help gather good wood for a fire.” She faced him again. “I assume that’s what you’re going to do? Burn the remains.”
He had to force himself not to smile because this wasn’t a smiling moment, but the fact that she understood all this without explanation and was so willing to help was… He wasn’t sure.
Amazing was the closest word he had. And it made him feel more hopeful for the future than he could ever remember feeling.
So long as he could keep her.
Ben carefully skirted the flattened carcass and the bubbling goo as he headed toward Elle, eager to put a little distance between him and the monster’s stench. “Stay where you are, I’ll come to you for the matches. I do need to burn everything. Can’t have random animals finding this since I don’t know what this black stuff does.”
He frowned, considering the monster’s death. There hadn’t been any internal organs inside it. Just the goo. The goo seemed to be the stuff that animated it.
Most of Ne’s monsters, the ones he’d originally created and the ones that evolved from those first creatures, had some internal biology similar to other animals. Not the same. But there was usually a heart and blood and a digestive system of some kind. Nothing was necessarily in a place one might expect, but all the various bits were there. Depending on the species there could be lungs or gills, but still something that allowed for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. There were even a few species that made that exchange like a plant, through stomata-like pores, and had chlorophyl bodies inside their cells for turning sunlight into energy—energy the monster used to hunt and kill humans. While all of it was strange and unique to the monsters, it all followed a sort of biological sense.
Ben had never encountered a monster whose entire body was filled with nothing but a gelatinous mass. No blood or digestive track or anything. Just the goo. Like the monsters at the house yesterday, only more…put together.
Was this what the scientists were doing? Not just creating new monsters, not just forcing the evolution of older monsters, but making an entirely new kind of monster?
If so, that had serious repercussions. Not least was that the Families wouldn’t have any idea what they were up against going forward.
That was how the hunters ended up dead.
“You okay?”
The sound of Elle’s voice so close made him look up. He hadn’t realized he’d reached her already, and that was a sure sign of how distracted he’d been. Because now that he noticed she was right in front of him, her scent wrapped around him and drew him even closer. He resisted the pull, because he hadn’t cleaned up after the fight, hadn’t ensured he didn’t have any of that goo anywhere, and he didn’t want to risk getting any on her.
But the desire to wrap her up in his arms and see if that scent flavored her kiss kept all his muscles tight when he reached for the matches she offered.
“I was thinking of the fact that the monster doesn’t have any internal organs,” he said, “just that goo.”
“Not normal?”
“Not typical, no. Never encountered a monster like this before.”
“That sounds bad. Since it’s your…your job, right?”
“My job.” He nodded. “My duty. My Family’s duty. And we’ve catalogued all the monsters that exist or have existed for the last sixteen thousand years. This kind of change is…”
“Scary and dangerous.”
He nodded. “Very.”
She swallowed and glanced past him. “It is dead, right? I mean, since it’s new…”
He followed her gaze to the flattened carcass, then toward the head where it remained lodged in the mud near the fast-moving river. “It’s dead. Removing the head kills all monsters. It’s the only way to kill them.”
She was frowning at the carcass when he faced her again. “But, if this is new, if you don’t know how these monsters work, doesn’t that mean killing them might be different, too?” She blinked at him. “There are other monsters involved. That thing with the tentacles. And a geneticist was kidnapped to work on all this. Isn’t it possible, if they created a whole new kind of monster, they’d also changed the way they’re killed?”
Ben hadn’t thought the knot in his gut could get any tighter. He glanced back at the flattened creature again. Nothing around the body moved except the still bubbling goo. The head remained where it was. The tentacles he’d severed didn’t spontaneously start flailing.
But she was right. If the scientists were creating monsters the Families couldn’t predict, creating brand new things, there was no reason they couldn’t also be changing the way the things died.
Or what happened after they died.
Suddenly that bubbling goo felt like a threat.
“We need dry wood. Now.”
Elle didn’t hesitate. She hurried back into the trees behind them while he stared at the monster’s remains, at the head, hoping this new fear clutching his chest was unfounded. Most things died when you removed their heads. Even vampires and faeries and other beings considered immortal. Removing the head and burning the body to ash ensured death in…everything. Nothing survived that.
But the burning to ash part of the process had never felt more important. And not just because some unsuspecting animal might come across dangerous remains. He couldn’t even risk saving some of the monster for his sister Judith to analyze. Everything had to burn.
He heard Elle’s returning footsteps before she spoke. The quiet sounds of her breathing more settling than he would have expected.
“I got enough to get a fire started.” She nudged him with her shoulder then handed him an armful of sticks when he looked down at her. “I’ll get more while you get things going. We need to burn it completely, don’t we?”
“Yes.”
By the time she returned with more sticks, he had a fire burning over the top of the carcass. The black goo crackled and popped as the fire caught it, ratcheting up the stench so much it made his stomach turn. And he’d smelled some truly horrific things over the years.
“I might throw up,” Elle said, from a good twenty yards away.
“Wouldn’t blame you,” he muttered, flexing his nostrils in an attempt to keep them closed. The wolf spirit that lived inside him shifted restlessly at the stench. That sign of discomfort with the smell just confirmed how horrendous it was. “It’s burning,” he said. “That’s good at least.”
“I’m leaving the wood here. I’ll go get more. Thoroughly burned, right?” she repeated, as if assuring herself that was the goal.
“Down to ash.”
She dropped the kindling and hurried back into the trees, no doubt trying to escape the smell. He wouldn’t have minded going with her. But he had to make sure the body burned.
Once he was certain the fire wouldn’t go out, he skewered the head with the sword and carefully carried it to the fire. More of the goo dripped down the sword from the head so he held it away from him. Then he skewered each of the severed tentacles and added those to the fire. After he’d tossed everything in, he used the flames to clean the sword. He didn’t dare just wipe the goo off. He didn’t want to get his skin that close to it.
He collected the second pile of sticks Elle had left—once again all dry wood that would burn rather than smoke—and fed them into the fire. Then he searched the area around where the head had been, where the tentacles had fallen, and the paths he’d walked bringing everything back to the fire, hunting for drips of the goo. Anything he found with the substance on it, any leaf or stick or rock, went into the flames, too.
By the time Elle returned with a third, larger haul of kindling, Ben was confident he’d cleaned the entire area. The only goo he’d missed was anything that had sunk into the soil and was no longer visible. That possibility nagged at him, worried him, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He couldn’t burn the entire area—damp as it was, he could start a forest fire and this area was entirely too close to the town. They’d risked that danger last night because they’d had to. And the downpour, whether that was luck or had a more supernatural explanation, had stopped the fire spreading. He couldn’t count on that kind of luck—or intervention—today.
When he joined Elle to get the last of the wood, she was studying the small fire he had going, one hand covering her nose and mouth to block the smell. Around that, she said, “This is working?”
“Seems to be.”
“You can clean the sword in the fire.”
He couldn’t help his quick, brief smile. “Yes. Already done, but I’ll give it another few minutes in the flames to make sure I got everything.”
She gave him a sideways glance. “Sorry. I should have assumed you’d know that.”
“It’s fine. You don’t know me very well.” Yet. “But for the record, I know my way around weapons.”
“Since you fight monsters, that makes sense.”
“I also make a lot of our weapons. I’m a blacksmith.”
And he had just a little magic tied in with that skill. Most of the Families didn’t have traditional magic. There were some individual members with some magical skills, though, in almost every generation. At least one member of every Family with a skill like his turned up. The ability to make certain weapons was imperative to fighting the monsters. In his Family, that ability, and responsibility, fell to him.
She faced him, her eyes wide. “You make the weapons? Like swords and stuff?”
“And stuff,” he said. “I have a collection of weaponry in my gear. I’ll show it to you when I get it.”
“I’d love that.”
Why did he want to preen at her pleasure?
But her pleasure banked a moment later and something clouded her eyes. She glanced away before he could analyze those clouds. When she spoke, she still sounded happy. “That’s a really cool skill. You don’t meet a lot of blacksmiths nowadays.” She shrugged. “At least I haven’t.”
“Met a few, though?” he asked, half-joking.
“One or two.” She spoke quietly, and the lightness in her tone dimmed.
There was a story there. One he wanted to dig into that very moment. But they didn’t have the time. Would she even trust him with her stories yet? Maybe not. He’d have to earn those.
And he intended on doing just that. Soon.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ben fed the rest of the wood Elle had collected into the flames, watching the remains of the monster burn. The river bubbled loudly over rocks a few feet away, but even the circling pines and clean water couldn’t hide the stench of the creature. He was glad Elle was keeping well away. His eyes were watering from the smell.
As the creature burned, he hunted the surrounding area again, looking for any of the goo that might have escaped his attention. A nagging sense of unease had settled in his chest, about that stuff making up the monster’s insides, animating it. He knew some of it could have sunk into the earth beyond reach, but he didn’t want to risk any on the surface.
He also needed to call Eric soon and tell him about all this so he could pass the word to the others.
“Find anything else?” Elle called from her place near a pine tree twenty yards away. She still had a hand covering her mouth and nose, so her voice was muffled. But he’d have been able to hear her even if she hadn’t been shouting.
“Nothing on the surface anymore,” he said.
“And nothing to be done about any that might have soaked into the ground,” she said.
Confirming once again that she picked up on all this without him having to explain. She had only learned the Seven Families existed that morning. She had only learned monsters existed last night. Her ability to adapt to his world was nothing short of a miracle. She was a miracle.
“Ben,” she called again, her voice sounding strained. “Look at the fire. What’s happening? I’m too far away to see it clearly.”
He scowled, walking slowly back, his gut tightening. He held his newly cleaned sword out in front of himself, angled down, at the ready. Why he felt the need, he wasn’t sure. Instincts.
Even before he got close to the fire, he spotted what Elle had seen. Near the base in the wood, something dark seemed to be popping up into the white-orange flames. The closer he got, the clearer those shadows became.
“Fucking hell.” One curse wasn’t enough, so he cursed a few more times.
“What’s wrong? What is it?”
Inside the flames, little…things—monsters, miniature versions of the thing he’d just killed—were jumping out of the black goo as it burned, then catching fire and burning up themselves. A bubble in the boiling goo burst while he watched and another one of the little monsters popped out. It caught fire instantly, but still tried to make a run for the edge of the flames. It burned to ash before it made the side of the pit, sinking back into the wood and growing pile of ash inside the fire. But even as it did, another bubble burst and another monster popped out.
Ben frantically hunted the surroundings, looking for any of those miniature monsters that might have actually escaped the fire, any little running sparks of flame.
“What is it?” Elle called again, her voice growing more frantic.
Her panic forced his own back under control so he could reassure her. “The fire is destroying them,” he said, then winced when he heard her squeak.
“Them? Them what?”
The little monsters looked a bit like misshapen spiders as they rose out of the goo bubbles and caught fire. There wasn’t much goo left, thankfully. It burned to ash as he watched, but he didn’t dare move away again until all of it burned. He kept one eye on the fire and continued to scan the area for any escaped flames, any new fires starting where they shouldn’t.
Things just kept getting fucking worse. How was all this happening right when he met his Nam-tar? No time to even get her last name. No time to do any of the normal courtship rituals like ask her on a date and ask all those questions he had about her and her life. Just right into the deep end of his deadly world with no pause.
“I’m going to start nagging you if you don’t tell me what’s happening. Soon.”
She sounded annoyed as hell, but he wanted to chuckle at her threat—who considered nagging as a worse threat than any other possible retribution? “What’s happening is that little monsters, miniatures of the original, are popping out of the goo bubbles. They’re burning up instantly. None seemed to have escaped. But the fact that monsters are spontaneously arising from the goo is bad.”
“Ya think?”
He could practically hear her snarl, even without looking up at her. The remaining goo turned gray as it burned. Some of the bubbles hardened. Little monsters stopped bursting free. He poked at the hardened bubbles with the tip of his sword, ensuring no monsters survived inside. He didn’t turn away from the fire until he was sure that everything inside was ash.
He blinked when he heard a crunch of pine needles and the squelch of damp soil close, raising his sword as well as his gaze. To find Elle standing there with more dry kindling. She got close enough to the fire to lean forward, stretching to feed the wood into the flames while still staying as far from the fire pit as she could manage. She didn’t toss the wood in from a distance, which might have risked sparks and sending things inside the fire scattering. She just feed in each stick with one hand from as far away as she could manage the task.
She had her face all screwed up as she tried not to breathe in the stench, though that was finally easing as most of the remains finished immolating. But she wasn’t running in the opposite direction. She was helping ensure everything burned.
Ben felt that strange, disorienting tightening in his chest again. How had he only known her for less than twenty-four hours? It felt like they’d always worked together, like she’d always been beside him on hunts, helping him destroy the monsters. His memory even wanted to insert her into places she obviously hadn’t been. Was this what having a Nam-tar was? This feeling that they had always been together, just hadn’t met yet? It must be. There was no other reason he should feel so in sync with her.
This was what destiny felt like.
Swallowing down all the things he wanted to say for fear he’d scare her away, he acknowledged her help instead. “Thanks.”
She waved a hand with a stick in it before gently feeding the stick into the fire. “They need to burn, they’re going to burn. No escapees on my watch.”
His lips twitched. How could she keep making him want to smile in the middle of this mess?
The flames rose hotter and higher for a little longer, churning through the added fuel Elle had added. They watched the fire until it ate through all the new wood, until it started to bank again. They watched the ashes of monster remains closely, the dried flakes of glowing gray at the bottom of the pit shifting in the air currents inside the ebbing flames. Ben didn’t rush to put the fire out. Elle didn’t rush him to put it out. They both waited, watching, until the fire died and flickered out all on its own.
