Page 55 of An Invocation of Monsters

“I’m sorry. Where did you come from, Kase?” I asked, trying to make it sound casually curious. “How old were you and Willow when you were inducted into the Society?”

Kase slowed, his face already returning to its usual happy expression. He was easy to please. “I was thirteen. Willow was twelve.”

The poor kid. Offer him kindness, and he opened up again like a flower in the sun. I wondered if that was how Joseph got his claws into them in the first place.

But my stomach churned as he spoke.

“My mom died when I was a kid, so I know how it feels.” He offered me a sympathetic smile. “My dad was… well, he wasn’t great. A lot of time for booze, not a lot of time for me. After my second stay in Juvie, Joseph found me. He saved my life. He brought me here as part of a program to get my shit together, and that’s how he found out that I was one of the bloodline. When I first saw the door… that’s when I realized I had more to live for. And Willow, she was in the same boat. We owe a lot to Joseph, because without him, we never would’ve found our calling.”

I suppressed a groan by grunting with effort instead. My calves were on fire.

So they had been vulnerable, and that’s how he’d targeted them. It wasn’t lost on me that while Kase, a headstrong teen boy, was slowly crushed under Joseph’s heel until he was willing to bark like a dog for a drop of affection, Willow was treated like a princess.

He’d isolated the exact elements required to keep them under his thumb, so desperate to reach the doors to the Void and please their new mentor.

As we struggled up the last portion of the ridge, I mulled it over. I had a bad feeling about why Joseph might want to build up Willow’s self-esteem as being a super special pure-blood princess.

There was no way to draw them out. I was no psychologist, and didn’t have the skills to fully understand or undermine Joseph; Kase and Willow, although they still looked like children to me, were both legally adults.

I had no way of fighting him, especially on his home turf. This was Joseph’s playground, and if I didn’t play by his rules, I’d be forced out.

When we reached the top of the ridge, the wheels churning in my mind ground to a halt. I’d been so focused on Kase I hadn’t realized how far we’d climbed.

The lake shimmered below, a black mirror set in the forest. A hint of vertigo touched me, making my stomach flip, and Kase took my hand.

“Stay away from the edge,” he told me. “That’s a long way to fall.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I muttered, putting a solid ten-foot boundary between myself and that drop.

We followed the trail along the cliff, and when I saw a light through the trees, I wanted to sigh with relief.

The trees finally opened on a bonfire, and I suppressed a gasp.

Mary, Joseph, and Willow were waiting for us, their scarlet-streaked faces illuminated by flames. The heat of the fire conflicted with the brilliance of the silver moon overhead; with their pale clothes and bloody-looking faces, it was like walking into a pagan ritual.

But it was the stone plate they all stood on, etched with alien runes, that made me gasp.

It was a mirror of the ruins in the Void.

17

Elle

“Welcome, Elle.” Joseph rose, holding out his arms. The fire flickered off his painted face, making him look far more sinister than usual. “Join us.”

I stepped forward onto the stone circle, hyper-aware of the sheer drop off a cliff only a few feet away.

From this vantage point, I could see the lights of the Lodge across the lake, several hundred feet below us. I’d been so caught up in what Kase was saying that I hadn't realized how far we’d walked.

“Tonight we begin the process of initiation.” He raised a hand, indicating the full moon. “Now you will learn of the history, and soon, you will be brought fully into the fold.”

I imitated Mary, sitting cross-legged on the stone across the fire from her. She smiled at me, her lips dripping red paint like blood.

Kase settled next to Willow, who stared into the flames as though mesmerized by them. His eyes flicked between me and Joseph, but he said nothing.

“You must understand these things,” Mary told me, as Joseph settled next to her. We were all spaced evenly around the flames; if lines were drawn between us, we would all have formed a perfect pentagram. “The Wendigo Society has a long and rich history behind it, a history that took much sacrifice to make real. Sacrifice of the mind, body, and soul.”

Joseph cleared his throat. “The story of the Society begins three hundred years ago. All of this—” He held out a hand, encompassing the lake and the forest. “This was the wilderness. True wilderness. It took men and women of unsurpassed courage to cut their way through these forests and build their homes here. And when they had tamed their little slice of the wilds, they called it Deepwater for the lake they had settled near.”

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