2: Dakota

Blood stained Mom's white parka and the cardigan underneath. The fabric was stiff rather than glistening as she sank onto the bottom step and reached for me. Couldn't have been hers; even if it was, she'd clearly addressed the injury. So she was okay. Mom was okay.

That small relief disappeared as her head fell heavy against my shoulder. She'd been a licensed paramedic going on near twenty years, had experienced more than her fair share of rough days, both the kind that made her grab a beer outta the fridge without a so much as a 'hello'  and the ones that saw her carrying the whole six pack outinto the greenhouse.

"Ajax alright?" I asked tentatively. He wasn't my dad, but he'd raised me. Mom had divorced my real father early on. To my knowledge, he'd taken a job out on an oil rig and never bothered asking after me, not once. Apparently, I'd been an unwelcome accident.

"Yes. No." She squeezed my hand, gasped. "God, your hands are freezing! Where are your gloves?"

My fingers were still white with fear. "Forgot," I said. Gloves could wait. The Smiling Dark would wait. "What's happened?"

She didn't respond.

"Mom?"

"He's alright, hunny. He fell, but he's okay. Just, just seeing him disappear over the edge like that . . . It took only seconds, but God, I swear an hour passed between the time I realized he was going over and when I heard him hit the rocks."

My hand brushed the crusted buttons of her cardigan. "Looks a lot worse than alright."

Shaking off my hand, she zipped the parka. "It isn't entirely his blood. We were making an emergency rescue. Mav's daughter didn't come home last night."

"Which daughter?"

Mom sighed. "Dakota.  Now, I know you two fought like a couple of rabid opossums, but-"

"She slept with Noah."

"Heartbreak is heartbreak. Nineteen years old and moving to Manhattan; you weren't marrying him, Tay. No, don't you dare open your mouth to argue. If that tongue of yours holds any more foul words toward Dakota I suggest you swallow hard. It's a curse to speak ill of the dead." At once her brown eyes widened. She pushed my hair back against my cheek, ruddy fingertips skirting my dumbfounded expression. "Oh, sugar. That's not at all how I wanted to tell you. I'm sorry. I'm hungover and crying for Mav and Ajax and if my daughter is the one to spit on the dead before they're buried . . . "

"She's really dead?"

"Please, Tay. She died a horrible death. I shouldn't have to tell you, but don't kill her again."

I leaned away from her. There was something so tragic in the depths of her brown eyes that my own started tearing. "You think I'd do that?"

"I know what she did to you growing up, how so many people started calling you a freak for sculpting demons and vampires and those things in the basement we all imagine when we're alone on stormy nights- and I didn't raise you to be shy about speaking your mind. I love you, but your level of tact is...Well, teenage."

"Be twenty next Tuesday," I reminded her. "There will be no spitting or dancing on her grave at the funeral, which I won't even be here for. I'll never forgive her for taking Noah on that fishing trip, but I wouldn't ever wish her dead.  A bad haircut or stubbed toe maybe, but nothing worse. I'm moving to New York and moving on from here. The second I board that flight, my chapter with Dakota closes." I'd never admit it, but Dakota was partly reason I'd jumped on that internship offer. No Dakota meant no reputation preceding me. How nice it'd be, meeting people who didn't think I was a freak or weirdo for liking what I liked.

Mom couldn't bring herself to a full smile, but her lips managed a thin upturn. "Good."

"What happened?" I continued. "What do you mean by horrible?"

"Mav called 'bout an hour after Dakota's curfew asking if we'd take him out to look for her. She'd gone out with that new boy he'd hired to help with the dogs this winter. He's boarding in the spare above their garage. They had took Mav's truck when they couldn't manage to jump that old beater of Dakota's. Mav remembered them talking about stargazing down at Porcupine Point. We found—" Mom pulled herself onto her feet. Her round cheeks, full lips and the pleasant slope of her eyes were never far from warmth, but she was grim as she cracked her knuckles and counted quietly to herself. She pulled a hair elastic off my wrist and used it to pull her frizzy hair into a ponytail. "Get the first aid kit. I've radioed the police."

"What'd you find, Mom?"Anticipation pooled in my stomach. I was CPR certified and had helped her on some cases before; for a lot of our neighbors, Mom was closer and cheaper than a flight or three hour drive to the hospital. Why wouldn't she say? Was it because of Dakota? I'd seen dead bodies before. There was that survivalist who'd stood on the wrong side of the tree he'd been cutting, and Mrs. Parker had us all sobbing three years ago after suffering an aneurysm while out checking traps with her six year old daughter. Poor girl got out of the woods alive and managed to lead us to her mother's body, which by then had been partially consumed by the wolverine she'd been about to shoot.

Mom shook my shoulder, didn't even step inside to change her shirt. "Hurry, Tay. And don't forget your gloves! Snow's in the forecast."

Less than two minutes later, with our medical bag bouncing on my lap, Mom backed down the driveway like a Nascar professional. The side mirror vibrated as pines and shrubs rushed past, nondescript scenery broken by a crouched shadow. The Smiling Dark's tongue tasted the air. I clutched the bag straps tight in my hand as we rumbled towards the monster.

I shrieked at my mother to stop, tapping frantically on the rearview mirror. "There it is, there it is!"

She hit the brakes so hard if it weren't for the bag and her arm thrown across my chest, my head would've slammed the dash. "Where?"

We rolled slowly past the hole in the brush it's snout had appeared. I pressed my nose against the glass, staring into still woods. Not a single leaf aflutter to mark the creature's passage.

"You're sure?"

"Hundred percent."

Mom cracked her window and sniffed. as the wheels hit the ruts of the old main road. "We can't go after it right now."

"I know. That's why I haven't told you what happened yet."

She tilted her head.

"I said 'yet.' I was gonna tell you. I actually think you saved my life."

She swatted the back of my head. "And you waited until now to tell me?"

"You're covered in blood. Yeah, I waited.  I was grabbing the shovel to clean the calving stall when the Smiling Dark trotted out of the field. Mom, it's not—" I pictured those tarry jaws closing around my throat and shuddered. "Not a grizzly. More of a wolf. I know how bad this sounds considering they aren't real and we've had the grounds blessed by like six different religions just in case, but I think it's a hellhound."

"What makes you say that?"

"It's drooling lava."

"Lava?" Mom was real good at making my statements sound like wrong answers.

"Or magma. I don't remember the difference, not even sure the proper definition applies to hellhounds anyway."

"Sure it hadn't just eaten? Fresh blood is bright."

"Maybe while it was down dogging around the ring of fire."

She settled into the drive, though not without another stern glance. "Suppose we're running out of scientific explanations, aren't we?"

"If there's any scientific trial to follow, it ends at the earthquake or eruption that freed this thing."

Her brow furrowed. "Does it bleed?"

"Didn't get the chance to find out."

"Uh-huh." She made a sharp turn toward the park. "I've seen it five times. Your father once. How many times you seen it now?"

"Three times this week. Before that, not sure. Shadows were smiling way before tracks appeared. I'm beginning to think it's me."

She sensed the words caught in my throat and patted my lap.

"Go on. I believe you."

I tightened then loosened the bag straps. "Not a single cow gone missing. Creature that size should've roasted the whole herd by now.  It's circling closer and closer. I think it's my fault. I think I've crossed a line without realizing it, drew something or carved or copied a line of Latin capable of summoning the things that live inside hellfire. We've gotta burn all my artwork and smash the sculptures."

"Tay, hun. Your itty bitty hell kitties have perched on our mantle going on nine years now. I'm not destroying your childhood over what you believe is a self-imposed curse."

"We're probably safe with younger and friendly art- elves and stags and such. It's just the demonic, especially more recently with the risen dead angle I've been working on. Plus, my portfolio was already approved or I wouldn't have gotten the internship. By the time it's complete, I'll have fresh content and solid connections when I apply for a studio position."

"I won't do it. And you won't be here to stop me."

"I won't be anywhere if that thing follows me to New York."

Taking a minute to steer with her knees, Mom pulled a pink camo holster off her hip. "Attach that to your belt."

"Mom?" I asked, cradling the firearm, knowing a bullet was chambered. Living out in what was often called the frontier, where both yours and predators' dinners grazed what some days seemed an endless backyard, you become a good shot. Spend one night walking endless, intersecting game trails in search of a lost cow, and you'll want to be.

She ruffled my hair. "Happy early birthday, sweetie. If it makes the mistake of closing in on you again, it's your turn to smile."

*

Lucas' cruiser was parked at the side of the road where a narrow trail led to Porcupine Point,. Mom veered into the weeds beside the flashing lights, snatched the medical bag and jumped out. She was already running as she slung it over her shoulder.

Porcupine Point was a lesser known vista recently made popular by some instagram hikers. Locally, it was known as the lovers' scratching post, where amorous teens and adults, including myself, ventured at one time or other to carve our love into yellowed wood and make out against a beautiful backdrop. A series of dead trees, damaged in the late sixties by an invasive beetle, had created sweeping views  between their falling branches (including one from a ridge opposite the area; which combined with the cliffslide gave the landscape the impression of a giant porcupine).

Spindly emerald pines and shrub brush grew alongside the dirt trail to the most prominent outlook, where Dakota had apparently fallen.

Lucas stood at trail's end, head turned to regard us as Mom shouted a greeting. Only three years older than me, the state trooper usually made for a welcome sight with his blue eyes and dimpled smile, but today he was somber and frowning. His hand rested on the blanketed shoulder of Mav's newest hire, some scrawny fellow too weak in the upper body to spend a winter chopping firewood and caring for kenneled sled dogs.

"Where's Ajax?" I asked Lucas. Behind him, a section of ground was taped off. I could make out several distinct, large hoofprints.

"Not now, Tay," he said. "Give me a couple minutes to finish taking Javi's statement. I'll take you to him."

Mom fished through the medical bag on a thoroughly wood-pecked stump. At her nod of direction, I walked nearer edge, not entirely sure I was ready or wanted to, even if Ajax were somewhere below. High grey clouds rolled through air peppered with the first flakes of snow. I took a chilled breath, pulling on my gloves to give Mom one less thing to worry about, and caught a whiff of burnt matches and spoiled eggs. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I turned back toward the forest, scanning the decomposing landscape. There was something dark in a distant copse of living trees, still and low as if crouched. I started climbing onto a small boulder to try for a better look.

Lucas grabbed my arm, pulling gently. "I said give me a couple, Tay. This ledge is unstable. Mav and Ajax already fell. We can't rescue you, too."

"I'm wasn't planning on looking without you."

He looked puzzled. "Then what were you doing?"

I pointed toward the unmoving darkness, suddenly unsure. It could easily have been a bunch of rocks or inanimate, shaded foliage. "Thought I saw something."

Very carefully, he climbed up the rock and looked per my instruction. There was, per a brief assessment with binoculars, nothing of interest, but he promised he'd have investigators sweep the area once they'd arrived.

He tugged the brim of his hat as he reached solid ground, led me a short distance away from the main overlook, where boulders and trees blocked the view. "There's a longer trail to where Ajax and Mav are waiting for rescue. I can't let you down there but you can address him safely from here if you sit and shout."

"I can't even see him from here."

"I won't risk you going closer."

"I'm not yours to risk, Lucas."

He flushed beneath his fading summer tan. "It isn't like that, Tay. It's a crime scene. Dakota isn't covered. I'm not sure you should see her. I wish I hadn't."

"How long's the recovery going to take?"

"Couple hours until your dad comes up, hopefully no longer since the weather's turning. We're taking Mav first; pretty sure he's got spinal damage."

"I have to see my dad," I told Lucas. "My flight leaves tonight. I can't go without seeing him."

"Have you read the reports, Tay? Your flight stands a good chance of being cancelled."

"I have to see him."

With a resigned sigh Lucas pointed to a gap in the trees. One hand in his, the other on the mossy branch for support, I eased to the edge.

Mav lay on a pile of rubble, streaks of tears disappearing into a long seam of split skin and cheek bone. Ajax sat beside him, right arm held against his chest, profile washed in blood and bruises. Snow peppered his black hair.

"Dad!" I called in a burst of excited relief.

Both men turned their heads. For a second Mav's eyebrows lifted and his mouth opened in sheer surprise, then his face shut down so quickly I realized the truth of it. He thought his daughter was calling out. He burst into a fresh round of sobs and dragged himself, using only his arms, closer to the broken china that was Dakota.

"Turn away, Tay," Ajax called, his normally deep voice thin and reedy. He sounded a hundred years old.  "Please, turn away."

I looked away too late. My brain had made sense of the smashed pieces.

Dakota lay feet from Mav's outstretched fingertips, partially buried underneath stone and dirt. Her golden hair twisted like a billowing curtain across the crushed remains of her face. Blood and matter stained the rocks beneath her head.

Snow spiraled through the air. Ajax was arguing with Mav, grabbing one leg with his good hand and dragging him away from Dakota. He was arguing, and then with a sickening crash several rocks around them exploded down the rest of the slope. If it weren't for Ajax's grip, Mav would've been crushed like his daughter.

The wind was quieter than the wail rising up  from the rocks, and underneath it all somewhere in the wilderness came the low baying of a hound.

I leaned back shaking. God, what had I been thinking? What a heartless monster I was.

"You're right, Luc," I mumbled, dazed and dumb until he took me by the shoulder and walked me all the way back to his patrol car. Wails and sirens filled the air as officers and paramedics crashed past us through the trail.

"Want me to check your flight number?" he asked.

"Yeah. Thanks."

He popped the passenger door. "There a reason you told me you were leaving next weekend?" At my silence he shook his head  and walked around to his side. He was angry, and he had every right to be. I just, lately I was numb to it.

Soon as he put the key in the ignition, I spoke. "Mom said you're looking at murder."

"We're exploring all possibilities."

"Said the kennel keeper was chased by men on horseback and a big black dog."

"You aren't supposed to know that."

"There's a reason she told me."

"Oh?"

"Someone's hunting us."

He fiddled with the radio. "What do you mean, 'us'?"

Under Mom's supervision, paramedics walked Javi into the ambulance. Snow closed over the trailhead. "I mean humans."