Page 81 of An Invocation of Monsters

“Have you ever spoken to it?” I asked, stroking one of Drazan’s tentacles.

Toth hesitated. “Not… not as we speak. Things have changed since your arrival in the Void, Elle. This—” He gestured at Kiraxis. “This is unusual.”

“Unusual in what way?” I asked, frowning.

“It has never tried to murder us outright before. Until now, the Hunter has always sought to capture us alive.”

My frown deepened. “It’s never hurt any of you before? But when I first met you, you were bleeding. In the circle.”

Although Toth didn’t have eyebrows, he somehow managed to raise them all the same.

“I was trapped in the circle and bleeding,” he said patiently. “I was still quite alive.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing emerged. He was right.

He was still very much alive when I first found him. His wings were tattered, to ensure he couldn’t fly. He bled because the circle was meant to weaken him.

But of course those injuries didn’t compare to the spears of bone that had pierced through Kiraxis.

“So the Hunter has wanted you alive,” I said, feeling a little dim. “Until… now.”

Toth merely nodded.

“Because of me?” I asked, my voice rising. “Why would talking to me be a problem?”

But my monsters just shook their heads.

“We do not yet know.” Toth studied the knotted scar on Kiraxis’s side. “But consider this. Perhaps… the Hunter considers our mate bonds to be an impurity. If a hunter of animals caught a sick deer, would he eat it? Or would he throw it away, knowing the meat to be tainted?”

I was breathless, struggling with the concept. My monsters were not impure. They were not tainted.

Having sex with me didn’t make them sick.

“You said the Hunter lives in the Lodge,” I finally said, latching onto something more concrete that I could work with. “There are only six human beings living there. That narrows down the pool quite a bit.”

“The problem lies in the fact that we avoid the Hunter. When we see it coming, we flee.” Just talking about his mysterious nemesis seemed to make Toth nervous. He was constantly scanning the woods as he spoke. “Unlike the anomaly, the Hunter understands us, and is all the more dangerous for it. I have never spoken to it, nor seen its face. I have smelled it, but it disguises its scent under incense and oils. If I were to come into that house, on this very night, I would not be able to pick the Hunter from the humans on senses alone. It is a clever creature, and it knows how we operate.”

“How have you never seen its face if you’ve seen it coming?”

Toth twitched a little at my question. “It wears a deer skull as a mask. Its face has always been hidden from us.”

I thought of the deer skull in the Deepwater history, disquiet running through me in a discordant thread.

“I’ve only seen six humans,” I said slowly. “What if there’s… another? One they’ve been hiding?”

There was one member of the Wendigo Society who had been involved from the beginning. One who knew about the Void, and the Ones Beyond.

One who had disappeared, and no one seemed interested in telling me exactly what had happened to her.

I wondered if Tasha Vintner was the Hunter… and still living in the Lodge.

Toth lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I believe these humans to be capable of many things. They have spent years breaching the Void, using dark and vicious magics to open new doors, using rituals to tear their way into this world. What is hiding one human compared to that?”

“Not much at all,” I said, feeling grim.

Toth sighed, taking my hand. “I apologize, Elle. There is too much danger and too little information. I wish I could be of more help to you.”

I looked up at him, surprised. “If it weren’t for you, Kiraxis would be dead. You’ve helped far more than I have.”

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