Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

Nelson considered what he had heard. ‘It’s saying a word,’ he concluded.

‘Yeah? It’s not in my dictionary,’ Tombstone replied.

‘ “Wen-dig,” ’ Nelson repeated.

‘The last syllable is “oh”,’ Church said.

Tombstone consulted his BlackBerry, ‘Okay, Google. Wendigo. “A traditional belief of various Algonquian-speaking tribes, particularly the Ojibwa/Saulteaux, the Cree, and the Innu/Naskapi/Montagnais”.’ He struggled over the pronunciations. ‘ “A malevolent spirit that can possess humans or take on a life of its own. A ravenous beast with a hunger for human flesh that can never be sated. It consumes the victims down to the last bone and drop of blood. It carries a feeling of winter famine with it. Icy blizzards rise up around it, trees crack, water freezes, snow clouds form.” ’

‘So our killer thinks he’s a mythical beast,’ Nelson said.

Church knew the truth but kept it to himself.

Tombstone glanced towards the station entrance. ‘Sounded like it came from inside.’

They raced through the columned entrance to the stairs that swept down into the cavernous main concourse. The four-faced clock above the information booth ticked away the seconds. Overhead the ceiling was painted with an astronomical design, but all the constellations were backwards: a reflection of reality.

‘Is it me or is it cold in here?’ Tombstone said.

A cleaner trundled a yellow trolley across the floor. After he had passed, Church registered some quality in the sly glance the cleaner had given him — it reminded him of the detective who had warned Oakes at the precinct. He hurried down the steps, but the cleaner was nowhere to be seen.

The Wendigo cry drifted over the empty concourse.

‘Shit. I wish he’d stop doing that,’ Tombstone growled.

The sound of running feet made them all whirl. A shout followed. Jack, Mahalia and Crowther ran through one of the platform entrances, to the annoyance of a rail employee who was now barking into his radio and running after them. Tombstone, Nelson and Church sprinted in pursuit, through the entrance, down steps and into a brightly lit tunnel.

The temperature dropped drastically as they ran. Frost glistened on the walls. Small drifts of snow appeared here and there.

Rounding a corner, they nearly fell over another dismembered body. The railway employee was missing his upper half. Blood formed a garish crescent across the frozen floor ending in a Jackson Pollock spray up both walls.

‘ Weeen-dee-gooh!’ The sound of hungry birds over Arctic wastes, loud, nearby.

Tombstone backed against Nelson, gun raised. Church saw in their eyes that they were beginning to grasp the truth.

At the end of the corridor, he glimpsed Jack. He’d barely run a few paces towards him when the raging sound of wings heralded the arrival of the ravens flooding into the corridor. Church threw himself onto his back to avoid them. They swirled to block his path.

When they finally retreated, the corridor reverberated with the rumble of the first train of the day entering the station.

Tombstone dragged Church to his feet. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he yelled with anger born of incomprehension.

Church looked along the corridor to where he had glimpsed the Jack that he now realised was not Jack, and from where the Morvren had emerged. ‘I’m starting to get an idea,’ he replied.

Screams drew them onto the platform. Snow encrusted the roof of the newly arrived train and the windows were covered with an impenetrable hoar-frost, apart from the driver’s cab which was splattered on the inside with blood. Crashing and rending boomed within as a terrible force tore through the carriages.

Further down the platform, Jack, Mahalia and Crowther were rooted with fear. This time Church knew they were real.

As Church ran towards them, a door exploded out from a carriage halfway between Church and the detectives. From the frozen interior emerged something that had the form of a man but moved with the loping gait of a beast. Wild, black hair framed a skull-like face, the bottom half of which was smeared red with blood. It was larger than any man, with powerful, sinewy limbs that ended in broken, red-stained nails. As it moved, it appeared to alter shape briefly, becoming all beast with thick, grey fur and yellow-green eyes, before reverting back to its original form.

Shot after shot from the detectives’ guns crashed into the Wendigo. It roared with annoyance at Nelson and Tombstone before continuing to prowl towards Church and the others.

‘Why won’t it die?’ Jack said.

Nelson and Tombstone reloaded and continued to fire.

Church could smell it now, meat and wet fur and a heavy animal musk. The cold grew more intense the nearer it came.

‘Oh, God,’ Crowther whispered.

Just as the Wendigo was about to leap, Church turned his back on it and shouted, ‘Stop this now! I’m not going to play the game any more! See, I’m walking away!’

The Wendigo’s breath rasped on the back of his neck, but it didn’t attack. Church walked past Mahalia, Jack and Crowther towards the end of the platform.

Ahead of him the air shimmered and two shadowy shapes appeared as if emerging from a heat-haze. They launched themselves at each other, rolling and punching and clawing as they fought fiercely. The indistinct figures became a raven and a coyote, both trying to rip out each other’s eyes, and then two young men: one had jet-black hair, yellow eyes and pointed features, the other long brown hair and green eyes with a broader, flatter nose. They continued to roll around the platform like brawling children, snapping and snarling.

Church got between them and threw them apart. ‘Stop fighting!’

The two men crouched on opposite sides of the platform, glaring at each other.

‘You cheated!’ the one with brown hair said. ‘There was to be no involvement in the game.’

‘You cheated!’ the other one said furiously.

‘Game?’ Church interjected angrily. ‘People have died.’

‘Well, they’re only human,’ the brown-haired one said slyly.

‘Who are you?’ Church asked.

The brown-haired one bowed. ‘Your people like to call me Coyote or Akba-Atatdia, or First Scolder. I am the cleverest and the trickiest and no one can ever beat me.’

‘Except me.’ The other bowed, too. ‘Your people like to call me Raven. Or KwekWaxa’we. Or Chulyen, Hemaskas, or a score of other names. And I am the cleverest and the trickiest.’ He sighed. ‘Though it is always he who plays tricks on me.’

‘So you set loose the Wendigo-’

‘He did that,’ Raven pointed at Coyote.

‘-and all those people were slaughtered for some kind of stupid competition?’

Raven looked sheepish. ‘But that is why I chose you, Brother of Dragons, to prevent the mayhem this fool unleashed. And because I was selected as your totem, and you already have the Morvren at your disposal. I helped you every step of the way, and he hindered you.’

Church looked from one to the other with contempt. ‘Some day humans are going to move up the ladder, and then we’re going to put all you gods out of business.’

‘Surely not,’ Coyote said. ‘Then what will you do for fun?’

Drained, Church turned to walk back up the platform. The Wendigo was gone. But so were Jack, Mahalia and Crowther. Nelson and Tombstone stood in a trance, guns hanging limply.

Coyote and Raven leaped alongside Church. ‘The boy is gone. That was always the end of our competition,’ Raven said.

‘He is too dangerous to exist in our Great Dominion,’ Coyote added. ‘He will always attract trouble.’

‘Where is he?’

Coyote and Raven both pointed up.