Charles de Lint - Forests of the Heart

The Glasduine tightened its grip, but not quickly enough to stop the hawk Bettina had become from rising up, panicked, frantically beating the air with her wings. She might have escaped then, but she was too unfamiliar with this new form, floundering where her father would have easily risen up into the sky. The Glasduine’s other fist whipped around and struck her a glancing blow that sent her tumbling head over heels through the air, down into the dirt. Barely conscious, stunned as much from her own transformation as from the blow, she could only lie there and watch the Glasduine move towards her.

But her wolf was quicker.

He had transformed, too, from a handsome wolf of a man into a true wolf, though unlike Bettina’s change, his was of his own will, practiced and smooth. He darted ahead of the Glasduine and snatched her up with a bite that was firm enough to hold her, but didn’t break the skin. The Glasduine roared as el lobo took off, racing down the canyon with his small feathered burden. No fool, he. One look at the creature was all he’d needed to know that they couldn’t possibly stand up to it. Their only hope was to flee.

He ran as only an felsos could run, blindingly swift, like wind, like lightning, weaving around boulders and other obstructions when he couldn’t simply clear them with a bound.

But the Glasduine was as quick, perhaps quicker. It kept up easily. Too easily. Glancing back over his shoulder, el lobo despaired. That first burst of distance he’d managed to put between them and the Glasduine was steadily being eaten away and the damned thing was almost on his heels.

Ellie wasn’t as quick to recover as Aunt Nancy, but she still managed to get to the top of the rocks where Hunter had collapsed in time to see Bettina and her companion’s transformations, the Glasduine’s attack, the fleeing wolf with the hawk in its mouth, the monster hot on its trail. She put a palm against her temple, pressing hard in a futile attempt to relieve some of the pain that had lodged behind her brow.

“That’s what we’re supposed to be stopping?” she said to Aunt Nancy, staring at where the Glasduine had disappeared around a bend in the canyon. “Are you completely insane?”

“There’s no one else,” Aunt Nancy said.

“Like hell there isn’t. There must be something stronger than us that can try to deal with it.”

Aunt Nancy gave her one of those discomforting grins that did nothing to put Ellie at her ease.

“You have no idea how strong we are, girl,” she said.

“That’s right,” Ellie told her. “I have no idea about anything that’s been going on since I was first stupid enough to show up at Kellygnow.” She took another look at the now-empty canyon. “I guess Bettina and her friend were playing out of their league, too.”

“I think I misjudged their intentions.”

“What? You saw them call up the Glasduine.”

Aunt Nancy nodded. “Except it seems to me that they summoned it for the same reason we’ve been chasing it.”

Well, that was one small comfort, Ellie thought. She’d hated the awful feeling that she’d so misjudged her new friend. Although even if Bettina was trying to stop the Glasduine, what was she doing in the company of one of the Gentry? For all the things Ellie didn’t know she was at least sure of this: the hard men weren’t their friends.

“Now come,” Aunt Nancy said. “We have no time to lose.”

“What about Hunter?” Ellie said, turning to where he lay.

He didn’t seem to be physically hurt. He’d saved himself from cracking his head on the rocks by falling forward onto his own arms, but he lay there, immobile and pale.

“We’ll have to come back for him,” Aunt Nancy said.

Ellie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“You don’t get it, do you?” she said. “If we try going up against that thing we just saw, we’re not coming back at all.”

“Then Hunter will be on his own.”

Ellie shook her head. “No, this is way too far off the map of anything I can deal with.”

“You said you would help.”

“Yeah, but help with what? Killing ourselves?”

Aunt Nancy sucked in a breath between her teeth. Before Ellie knew what she was doing, the older woman grabbed her by the arm and slung her over a bony shoulder. Ellie had to put her arms around Aunt Nancy’s neck to keep from falling back down the slope behind them. Once she had her balance, she tried to slip off Aunt Nancy’s back, but then the body under her changed.

The transformation was as sudden as that of Bettina’s companion, but rather than man to wolf, it was woman to spider. A gibbering panic began to howl in the pit of Ellie’s stomach. The change was impossible enough—never mind how she’d just seen Bettina and her companion shift their shapes—but to add to Ellie’s terror, the spider Aunt Nancy had become stood as tall as a horse. It was as if she had become that enormous shadow Ellie had seen looming behind Aunt Nancy. A fantastically oversized wolf spider, and here she was, clinging to its back.

She started to loosen her grip—she no longer cared how far she fell down the slope behind them—but the spider suddenly launched itself forward, leaping over the rocks and scuttling down the far side with a blinding speed.

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!” Ellie cried.

But she had no choice but to tighten her grip around the spider’s neck, her own torso and legs splayed out along the breadth of its thick-furred back. It was that or fall off and crack her skull. Her skin shrank in on itself, she was so repulsed at the contact, so frightened by the terrible speed as those eight, many-jointed legs carried them down the canyon.

Quiet, a voice she recognized as Aunt Nancy’s said in her head. The god you call upon won’t answer you here, but if you call loud enough, something else may. And trust me, girl. You wouldn’t like what that might be. Not everyone you meet here is as nice as I am.

Please, let me be dreaming, Ellie prayed. Just let me wake up.

Gather your courage. It was Aunt Nancy’s voice, ringing in her head again.

Trembling, Ellie could only tighten her grip.

“I’m too scared to be brave,” she mumbled into the thick fur under her face.

It was softer than she might have expected, like a cat’s rather than a boar’s. Here in manidò-akì our medicines are strong, Aunt Nancy told her. Trust in it. Trust in yourself. We may not be as strong as that panàbe, so we will have to be that much more clever.

“You’ve got a plan?”

I am working on one.

Ellie went back to her prayers.

Hunter regained consciousness just in time to see what he thought was a giant spider scuttling off down the canyon—with Ellie clinging to its back. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. The apparition was gone. Just some leftover weirdness from whatever it was that had knocked him out, he decided.

He didn’t feel as bad as he thought he should after having passed out. The only other time he’d fainted like that was one night when he’d accidentally taken too many prescription painkillers. He remembered standing at the sink one moment, the next he was coming out of some strange dream to a whirligig of faces that spun around above him for a long moment until they’d finally settled into Ria’s features. He’d been so weak he’d barely been able to stand, and when Ria finally got him to his feet, he’d wished she hadn’t, because it only made him feel sicker.

Right now he only had the fading residue of a headache and felt a little weak-kneed. That was about it.