Winter Prey

Chapter 36

Chapter 36

"You could have at least left the damn dog at home," Caleb muttered angrily as he paced in front of the fire he'd started in the fireplace at Kymbria's cabin. He'd been waiting there for her, as though he knew she would come here first rather than to where the beast had last been. "There was no reason to bring her into this situation again."

"You're probably right," she agreed calmly. She'd worked hard at recalling and practicing the tranquility lessons Adam had taught her during the drive from Duluth, fearing that Caleb would be emotional enough for both of them by the time she got there. He was - probably torn between waiting here for her and wishing he were with the tribal search parties. "But she can sense the windigo even before I can."

"I suppose you feel she's safe, since this beast only eats human flesh!"

Rather than flinch at his attempt to shock and anger her, Kymbria said, "I'm sure that doesn't mean it won't kill another animal. But I don't intend to - " She closed her mouth, sorry that she'd said too much.

He whirled on her, his green eyes flashing. "Don't intend to what? You've got something planned, don't you? If you think by any stretch of your imagination that I'll let you go after this beast, forget it. I'll hogtie you and leave you trussed up here on your bed until this thing hibernates again before I'll stand for that. I don't give a damn how many people it eats before then!"

Kymbria sighed. "Caleb, that thing knew what it was doing when it took Nodinens. I tried to work that part of this out in my mind while I drove back up here. I still haven't figured it all out, but that's one thing I'm sure of. It wanted me back here."

"You're giving that thing cognitive powers again. It's an animal. A flesh-eating beast."

"It was once human, Caleb. You're forgetting that. I know that for a fact now. And maybe - "

"Go on," he gritted.

"O.K. Maybe you don't want to face that part of it. That something once human could do such horrible deeds. You forget, we have serial killers in our own society. Psychopaths who are born without the conscience that most people have. They feel absolutely no sorrow or guilt for their horrible acts."

"All your psycho-babble isn't going to make me even one bit sympathetic towards this beast, if that's what you're after."

"It's not," she denied. "However, dismiss my training all you want. It's part of me. And, I believe, of some use here. Maybe that's why no one's been able to defeat a windigo in all these years. People don't give it credit for what it is now versus who it once was. Credit for its emotions, including deductive powers. You hunt it as though it were an...an animal, like a bear or moose. Something that thrives on inborn instinct alone. But our people believe that some animals have human feelings. We honor that in them, understand it."

"Your people haven't been able to stop this one in three hundred years."

"That's possibly part of the problem, too." She didn't add, the same problem that you have. She wasn't afraid of him. However, his entire body language bespoke how close to the edge of losing it he was. Rightfully so. Just after the wreck, he'd come face-to-face with the windigo; confronted the entity that had torn his life apart. Woke up this morning to find that it had taken another person right from under his nose, someone he'd begun to care about. She needed to tread carefully around him right now. He could possibly be going through his own form of PTSD, and people didn't act rationally during such episodes. She should know.

When he continued to glower at her, as though he knew she had more to say, she went on, carefully choosing her words. "Maybe it's just too much for some people to wrap their minds around what the windigo does."