Page 46 of Witchblood

Stupid.The fox seemed to think.What else would we be?the fox snarled at me, trying to rip the control back. I held tight and hushed it.

I tried to will myself to change, only it wouldn’t come. Where was my human half? Where was I, at all?

Trees and plants grew in tall stalks of green and brown, larger than anything I’d seen in my life. Just the leaves from one bush was bigger than I was. A sound in the distance, movement through the grass had my ears perking up. As my human brain settled back into place, so did the terror from the prior memory. We zipped, the fox and I, across an expansive distance of foliage to find a tiny den of wood and brush. Too small for bigger predators, and barely big enough for me, I curled in, nose to tail, making myself as small as possible. The fox in agreement with me. Our heart pounded in tandem, racing with the chase and fear.

Safety came first. Battling for control and shifting back could wait.

Nothing moved for a while. I didn’t dare put my nose close enough to the opening of my den to attract attention, but I couldfeelit. A very subtle presence. Danger. Something moved through the underbrush close enough to silence the bugs and birds to a stillness.

We struggled to breathe, the fox and I. Would it hear us? Could it hear our heart beat? Was it the monster? The darkness that eats everything? Or something else?

We trembled with the fear. But no one can stay vigilant forever. Our tummy was full and we were in our den. Safety, as much as it could be found, was what we had. My eyelids grew heavy. Though I wasn’t sure how they could in a dream, but they did. Finally, they didn’t open again, neither of us really noticing.

* * *

Awarm rumbling against my back eased me awake. I should have been alarmed, only I was warm and feeling safe. A large furred body had shoved itself into the den with me, taking up every spare inch. It wasn’t a wolf. That much I knew from the striped tail flicking slowly by my nose. It didn’t smell like a wolf, yet something familiar tugged at my senses…

The face that appeared in my sight a second later was that of a round cat with small ears and a somewhat angry looking face. He licked my head, purring a comforting rumble. The fox was a jumble of images, scattered bits of emotion tied to small clips of life. We’d seen the cat before. Slept in the same bed, shared food, and even an occasional hunt. It took my human brain a long while to click into place since labels weren’t a fox thing.

Robin.

I blinked away the sleepiness. Was this still a dream? My body ached, a little sore from running, if I read the muscles right. My brain felt vaguely detached, and foggy. I wiggled out from Robin’s warm cuddle and the den. Outside the world was filled with the normal noise of a forest, only it looked more like a jungle than a forest. Trees towering into the sky, leaves and foliage a hundred times larger than I’d ever seen in my life. I couldn’t recall any of these plants being native to anywhere in the USA, but my brain wasn’t working all that great either.

Where the hell was I? What had happened? I couldn’t still be dreaming, could I?

I stretched my fox form out and tried to tug at the human shift again. Nothing happened. Instantly I began to panic, sending my heart racing. I sat down and forced myself to breathe. A panic attack would not help the situation. Robin appeared behind me, pressed his nose to my back and kneaded my side, purring. I knew he was trying to comfort me, but I suddenly felt claustrophobic and couldn’t bear to be touched.

With a quick roll away, I bounced to my feet and darted into the undergrowth. The sound of Robin’s low growling meows chased after me even as his chittering faded into the distance.

That last memory of seeingApachange into something when he tried to protect me from Felix replaying in my head. The darkness so vast and yet impossible to fathom. No shape, or perhaps too horrific a shape for a human brain to grasp. The terror it set into my bones felt just as raw right that second as it had years ago when I’d first experienced it.

How deeply had I buried that memory to forget so much? The power I’d used that day was so much more than I had even now. Where had the fire come from? How was that possible? Had my terror over meetingApa’smonster face-to-face awakened something only to suppress it when I escaped?

I ran like the devil was hot on my trail, no thought to the path, just feeling the need for distance. Even Robin’s small sounds vanished into the greenery. Something had arisen inside me and it needed out. It was bigger than me or the fox. It rose like the anxiety always did, twisting my body with tension and fear. I felt like I was going to come out of my skin if I didn’t keep running.

The forest, or jungle, or wherever the hell I was, had no rhyme or reason. One moment I’d be following a stream, only to have it vanish off a cliff into a vast ocean and turn around to find I was on the top of a mountain with snow pouring down on me. I backtracked a dozen times, the landscape shifting around me like a living thing, until I could find my way back to the forest-like place in which I began.

I ran until I could barely breathe and my ribs ached with the strain. For a while I felt like I was running in circles. Finally, I had to drop down into a lush pile of grass and just catch a break. Either this was some really vivid dream, or I was lost in Underhill. Underhill, the world of the fae. Human rules didn’t apply here. Hell, I was pretty sure wolf rules didn’t either. It was the place of nightmares. I’d read some of the original fairy tales and knew enough about the fae to know the originals were probably much more gruesome than the writer had recorded. And yet here I was, trapped in Underhill. The mere idea of it terrified me.

How had I gotten here? I vaguely recalled a fight with Felix. Everything after that was a little hazy. And when I tried harder to think through the maze that made up a jumble of images, my head began to pound with a throbbing pressure that made even my eyes hurt. Then the feeling would rise again. That monster inside me. Cold fire. Fear. Pain. A need to let something free. Had what I’d seen come fromApaattached itself to me somehow?

For a moment I was completely lost in terror again. Overwhelmed just trying to breathe. Out in the open like this wasn’t safe. Even in a normal forest it wouldn’t have been entirely safe. If I really was in Underhill, it was likely there would be a giant troll or something to happen along with a taste for fox shifters. I’d heard rumors once that the fae findwitchbloodto be a delicacy. But I needed a minute.

A stream glowed with vibrant red leaves pooled across the top and trees straining to reach the sky. I sat transfixed for a while, lost in the kaleidoscope of color. The wind echoed a trilling sound. Shuffling of feet. Something big coming toward me. My gut clenched in terror, senses screaming to run, again. The sky had changed. Darkening a little. How long had I stood there captivated by a magical earthen landscape? Long enough to become the worm on a hook for some mythical monster.

Shuffle, shuffle, whoosh, whoosh. Snap!

Nearby a tree seemed to splinter without anything touching it. I let out a yip and ran. There was a snarl as something gave chase. A wolf? It sounded bigger, clumsier than any wolf I’d ever heard before.Apa’sbeast perhaps? Not his wolf, but the other thing that lived inside him.

The scent of blood wafted through the air, bitter, copper, and old. Again that spoilt meat stench that stirred a memory of a room decorated with child-sized furniture and happy animal stickers on the wall. I cowered with the memory of fear and pain, not sure which way to run as the sounds surrounded me now. The smell overwhelmed my senses, blocking out everything else. Like something large, but imperceivable, leaned over, basting me in its foul breath.

The explosion happened within. A blast of light and heat, followed by searing cold. I suddenly felt larger, towering over the trees and meadow, and looking down on something my eyes couldn’t focus on. Some sort of bug? Multiple legs and body segments glistened in the sun, giving away a reflective and almost chameleon-like coating. The vision lasted only a few seconds before the light and cold overrode my senses.

The monster howled a sound that hurt my ears as the brightness that illuminated and nearly destroyed my vision expanded, devouring the creature. Then it was over. The meadow silent, monster gone. I was small again and so tired.

Another small shuffle echoed in the distance. It was the fox that said run and made my body respond. My human brain just couldn’t fathom the last few minutes of my life. At least the fox was fast on the uptake. We dashed through more woolen looking trees, feeling like things were reaching out to capture us.

Danger! My fox kept telling me as our body protested with the strain. I struggled to breathe as we sped so fast it felt a bit like flying. The scenery didn’t matter so much as the fox seemed to know where it was going. I hoped he didn’t guide us off a cliff or something.