Hunted [Wild Hunt Series: 1]

Interlude II: Heck in the Hall

Nolee Wilson had three hours to check-in. Her flight was due to depart the John F. Kennedy International Airport early this morning and cruise nonstop to Heathrow. Weather forecast: lousy here and there. Traffic: not horrific at 2AM in the morning. Soon she'd be in the old woods, navigating the ancient stony path that led the way to a dead man's land, if you knew the right steps to take.

For now, the woman stood in the grey haze of a floor length window overlooking the city her daughter had dreamed about. Clouds and fog curled over the lights of New York City; the orange lettering that marked Citi Field had all been but swallowed up in the wind-driven mists. For a moment her dark brown eyes watched for thunderous steeds in the night clouds, and then she turned away. Crowded crates and glass-trapped skeletons loomed larger than life itself in the long museum office. She felt small and very distinctly mortal pacing by row after row of inanimate species. Cabinet after cabinet of claws, teeth and skulls.

It had to be bones, Nolee thought, had to be a room of osteological specimens. Something about skeletons made life seem so sinister. The nicest child, the kindest dog, the gentlest kitten...Once reduced to their base structure even those sweet creatures grew baleful and foreboding.

It was because they were gone. The insides. The spark. The soul. Most folks aren't used to looking at each other without that.

The woman paused before the immaculate glass of Canis lupus arctos. Assembled yellowed bones smiled at the city in benign contention. The shadows in the wolf's hollowed eyes gleamed in a reflected flash of lightning. Nolee flashed her light on its informational placard. This specimen had been killed in the 1930s. Donated to the museum for its imposing size and curiously elongated jaw. Her stomach knotted with hatred for the beast even though this wasn't what had taken her daughter.

She wished it was. She wished those carnassial molars had closed around Tay's throat and ended her life. It would have been better. She wouldn't have suffered long. Both the wild wolves of the high arctic and the blasted, infernal beasts of hell were more humane than what Tay had to endure, what she'd let Tay endure.

She should never have left her alone. She should've told her. She should've—

"Oh, God," moaned a man wedged into a corner underneath a broad oak desk. He lifted red fingertips off his leg, round face awash with horror. "Oh, God! I'm dying!"

Nolee groaned back at him. "Buck up," she snapped. "It went straight through the meaty bit of calf." She didn't like to talk technical to people like museum affairs director Alan Phon. Medical terminology always sounded so big and important. And it made men like Alan Phon think their injuries were a lot bigger and more important, too.

Nolee swung her flashlight toward the man. His face was a sweaty grey sheet against the stormy windows. Rain shadowed his tears. "It hurts."

"I promise you, I'll phone the ambulance in just a few moments," she said with a sweet smile. If he'd just be quiet and let her focus on finding the perfect piece, she'd already be gone. Gifts and offerings, she told herself, pacing the crowded room. Gifts and offerings. You can't get in without gifts and offerings. She leaned back on her heel to look over the mocking wolf. There were other offerings, little lizards with proto wings and stubby knobs where they'd been broken off, all believed by scientists to be older than they were.  Even nature, it seemed, wanted to cover up the profane creatures that slipped across the boundary between this world and a hidden kingdom.

She'd come to this museum of natural history and biological curiosities to find something from the Mid. It was easier to get there when you had something that knew the way. Nolee wandered to the lizards cased in sandstone, then back to the wolf. If she was going to do this, if she was going to go there, she really preferred something with teeth. And a strong nose. But a lizard was so much easier to—

"Oh, oh you've gotta help me. I pulled the bandage even though you told me not to because something felt too tight and, and that's it. I'm definitely... I'm bleeding out!"

Nolee spun around in an angry whirl of damp jeans and a long overcoat. "Jiminy Cricket on a broken pogo stick!"she exclaimed, marching back toward him with a sharp swing of the light.

The man's sniffle drew to a surprised close. In the quiet it was possible to hear thunder rumbling far over the distant ocean. "What'd you just say?"

"I'm a mom," she huffed, shining the light into the director's hovel. "Spent almost twenty years trying not to swear in front of my angel lest she grow up with her father's foul tongue. It's a hard habit to break."

"No, it isn't."

"I like saying stupid crap, okay?" She crouched beside the huddled man. "More than I like dealing with stupid people. Now show me what you've done."

A shaking leg stuck out with a whiny gasp. The wound had been cleaned and bandaged within minutes of being shot. He'd be fine. He'd be even better if he'd just give her a minute to think. Nolee had just wanted to make this theft a quick in and out, when the director bumped into her during his own late night mischief and threatened to shoot.

What he didn't realize was that Nolee had come prepared. She'd shot him first. Very kindly in the leg.

After assuring him yet again he wasn't dying, she put the squeeze on the leg (not too hard, but you could've blown on the wound and he'd be screaming) and got the location of the keys. As the director panted and wheezed and stared down at his leg, she fished the appropriate set from his draw and unlocked the wolf's case. She'd been planning to smash anything in her way to get a bit of bone, but since Mr. Phon was here, this seemed more polite.

'I'm not a bad person," she called to the director, running her hand over perfectly aligned vertebrae. There wasn't time to cook down the bones and carefully extract a tooth. She took the last bone from its tail and dropped it into her purse. The phone came next, her fingers ready to dial emergency services. "I'm doing this for my daughter. Someone took her from me. There's a list of things I need to do to get her back."

The office door banged open. A man stumbled through the doorway. "Nolee!" he cried, and slid down the wall, knocking exhibits to the floor. Glass shattered. Bones scattered. And in the center of it all, a bleeding stain on the stark white wall, was her husband.

"Ajax!" she said. Glass tinkled over her rushing footsteps. She kicked it aside and knelt beside him, dropping the flashlight.

"I finally found you..." he murmured hoarsely. His chin hung close to his chest. She lifted his face in her hands. His face, too, had taken on a deep grey shade in the dim room. His pupils were dilated, rimmed in sickly pinks and yellows. And there was such an odor about him, unclean, rotten.

His hand rose weakly. Nolee glanced down in time to see moldy fingernails launch themselves at her eyes. She sprang back, feeling the rush of dead air and a flutter of hot wetness against her cheek.

"Oh heck, oh shit!" she said, scrambling across the floor.

Ajax rose in jerky, inhuman movements. The flashlight made her blood look like black shadows smeared across the tile, ending only where she found her shaking legs and stood. Her gaze drifted back toward the director beneath the desk, and then the thing that was her husband lurched forward. She kicked him in the knee. The joint popped, he staggered. His fingers caught the edge of her coat, pulling her down, dragging her towards a decayed smile, and then she yanked free and fled down the hall.

"Nolee," she heard him—It—call. "Your daughter's dead, Nolee...But I'm not."

One more Interlude to go and then Hounded begins! <3

Chiro believes I saved the best for last. Wonder why. 😉

💖💖💖💖Congratulations to my little sister, Allie, who graduates from college on Sunday! She's a certified athletic trainer with a blindingly bright future ahead! I'm so proud and honored to call her my sister!💖💖💖💖