Chapter 25

Chapter 25
At that, he reached out, grabbed the collar of my shirt and yanked me to him, kissing me hard and deep and sweet. I stared into his eyes and realized that there was something else there that he wasn’t admitting – pleasure at what he was about to do. Fighting was in his nature, and keeping those instincts quiet for so long had started to wear him down. No matter what he said or did, underneath it all, the spirit of a wolf burned hot behind Erik’s eyes.

When he watched my face, gaze smoldering, hands hot on my skin, and his taste lingering on my lips, I realized exactly why I fell in love with him in the first place.

“What was that for?” I asked, through a soft, surprised gasp. “Not that

I’m complaining, but...”

“In case something happens. I don’t think it will, but you never know. Strong old bears are strong old bears. And I’m sure he’s got a little bit of his instinctual fight left in him, even if his fingers are falling off.” I squeezed his hand.

The figure ambled closer.

“Hnnng?”

“What is it? Atlas?” a voice I didn’t recognize shouted from the distance, near where I assumed the witchdoctor’s house was. The voice was jangly and rambling. The words came out in a pattern as stumbling as the figure’s footsteps. “Atlas? Is something the matter? Is someone here?” “Woods.” The word came in a sudden boom of sound. “Someone.

Woods.”

“Well take care of it! We’ve got to get to the bank quickly if what that awful old Mary said about telling Leon is true. Someone will expect this!

We’ve got to go soon, so take care of whatever it is.”

Atlas. I looked over at Erik, whose taut muscles had him trembling. All the cords on his neck stood out in ridges.

“Stay back,” he said, cracking his knuckles again. “I don’t want you hurt if it comes to a fight.”

Almost before he finished speaking, something burst through the woods and slammed into Erik’s side. He let out a terrible grunt and crashed into a bank of leaves, then bounced off a tree trunk and went to his knees, spraying a cascade of stagnant swamp water all around.

Atlas took a deep breath, and groaned. Every muscle in the ancient and apparently half-reconstructed body visibly flexed under his skin. The bones creaked as he watched Erik hold his ribs and stand back up.

A thin tendril of blood ran from Erik’s nose. He wiped it with a quick pass of his hand, and smiled a grin so eager it was a little shocking.

“I’ve wanted something like this for a long, long time,” Erik growled. He ran his tongue around his parted teeth as his shoulders tensed.

In the brief burst of excitement, I’d not noticed that the crooked witchdoctor had wandered up to the edge of the swampy area. I could make out his form on the other side of the tree-line. What struck my memory was his hunched, crooked shoulder. I remembered seeing him once and thinking how painful it must be.

“Atlas! Come back here! Where’ve you gone off to?” Jenga’s rambly, stumbling voice that rattled through the forest. “If they’re that far away you don’t need to chase them. Oh, goodness, he’s probably out after a squirrel again,” Jenga said with a sigh.

The two combatants stood, staring each other down, although one of

Atlas’s eyes seemed to like to wander. That’s when I noticed his legs – they were very obviously not his own. The fur on them was a different color completely from the light dusting of hair that covered the bear’s stomach and chest.

“I’ve got your zombie, Jenga!” Erik shouted. “We know what you were planning. Come down here and do something about him before you get yourself in real trouble.”

In the exact same moment, the rickety old witchdoctor pushed through the undergrowth, and Atlas lowered his shoulder and charged straight at Erik.

“Don’t do it too soon though,” Erik said with a grin.

The giant closed the fifteen feet between them in the blink of an eye, only this time, Erik rolled at just the right moment, parrying the blow and shoving Atlas head first into a tree trunk. A sickeningly heavy thud of flesh and bone hit my ears.

As Erik approached the prone body his arms swelled and silver hairs sprouted from his neck.

Turning away – I never could watch him transform... it just looked too painful – I caught a glimpse of Jenga as his mouth fell open and his beard started jingling with all the metal and bits of bone and twigs braided in the tangled mass of hair.

“Atlas!” he shouted, looking at me. His jaws waggled and his bottom lip seemed to move on its own. “Why are you fighting Erik? Although I have to admit, I didn’t know I’d remade you quite so well. Impressive, isn’t it?

So long dead and look how well he moves.”

I shook my head and turned back to the fight just in time to see Erik catch a huge fist in the jaw. His lupine head whipped around with a force that probably matched being hit by a car. The giant monster stumbled slightly when his foot tangled in a root and in those few moments, Erik managed to lift a knee hard into Atlas’s gut and then drive an elbow into his face, sending a tooth flying.

“It doesn’t bother him,” Jenga said under his breath, with awe in his voice. “None of the pain is bothering him... I, I finally did it! I made the perfect golem! Isn’t it amazing?” He grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around to face him.

The man’s yellow teeth and rotten-sweet breath almost turned my stomach. Of course, what I took for breath might well have been the aroma of all the things dangling from his beard.

“I’m guessing,” I said, “he’ll still come apart.”

“Wh... what? What are you talking about? Look! He’s so strong!”

Erik slammed his knee square into Atlas’s face and then slashed his chest with a claw. Anyone else – man, wolf or otherwise – would have been in agony, but Atlas just stood there, a dispassionate look on his face, his eyes glazed over.

I was thinking on my feet, talking from my toes. I wanted to panic the old witchdoctor and somehow make him call off his monster. Then I remembered something Erik said on the way here: that a lot of times, the witches and warlocks and even this old witchdoctor, had golems or zombies, and they were their only friends.

“Even if it doesn’t hurt him,” I continued, “what if Erik tears him apart?

You don’t want that, do you?”

Almost on cue, as my gaze darted back and forth from the aged, crooked witchdoctor, and the crazed bear-on-wolf violence in the other direction, Erik took a chunk out of Atlas. A wild swipe from Atlas went wide. Erik ducked and smashed his fist into the underside of the bear’s arm.

Any normal arm would have shattered, but to my amazement, instead of a crunch of bone, I heard cloth tear, and then the arm sailed free of Atlas’s body. The whole thing surprised Erik enough that he stumbled and sat down hard in a murky puddle.

The arm flew end over end, in a slow, rainbow-like arc, and then landed with a thump about ten paces from where Jenga and I stood, both of us with our mouths wide open.

“Didn’t know I could hit that hard, huh? Hey! Hey! Ah!”