Page 34 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

I reached out with my mind again, pushing calm into every part of the bear’s mind that wasn’t taken over by dark magic. I approached its massive bound form. Even without its legs under it, the thing was nearly as tall as I was. I knelt by its head, and its white eyes stared sightlessly up at me.

A small dagger made of flint was embedded in the middle of the bear’s forehead. Its handle was carved bone, etched with the same runes that covered the bear’s skin.

“I’ll make this as quick as I can,” I told the bear as Evangeline came over to stand behind me, still holding the bonds in place.

I gripped the dagger’s hilt, and a shock of dark magic ran up my arm. I had to work quickly. Yanking hard, I pulled it free with a sickly squelch. The bear let out a muffled bellow of pain, thrashing against the golden ropes holding it down. The dark magic was fizzing up to my shoulder now, and I tossed the small dagger to the ground.

“Don’t let it get into the river,” Evangeline said. “We’ll need to contain it. There are evidence bags in my left inner pocket—they’ll keep the magic sealed off. You’ll have to grab it yourself if you want me to keep this thing still. Quickly,” she added sharply.

I sprang to my feet and reached into Evangeline’s jacket. It felt shockingly intimate. I’d almost forgotten that when clothes were on a warm human body, they took on that body heat. I found the pocket after what seemed like an excruciatingly long time of fumbling, and got out one of the bags. The back of my hand brushed the curve of her breast as I pulled away.

The bear had stopped struggling, now limp and panting on the ground. I bagged the knife, and as soon as I sealed the evidence bag shut, the dark magic dissipated. The runes on the bear’s skin faded to scars, and its eyes cleared. Evangeline let some of the restraints drop, keeping its ankles and jaws bound, but freeing up one of her own hands. She pulled a small blue glass bottle from a pocket and tossed it to me.

“Three drops of that on the knife wound,” she said.

I knelt again, projecting a steady stream of ‘safe, friendly, calm, free’ to the bear. The liquid in the bottle was pungent and oddly gritty, but I squeezed three drops out onto the raw injury. The skin closed up immediately, and the bear’s now-brown eyes shut for a moment. I could feel its relief.

“You can drop the binding,” I said.

“You want me to release a bear right in front of us?” Evangeline asked, incredulous.

“It won’t hurt us.”

“Fuck it,” she muttered and dropped the spell.

The bear blinked up at us, then shakily got to its feet.

“The knife must have been the only thing keeping it going for so long,” Evangeline said softly. “It looks starved.”

“It’s very weak, but it should be able to make it.”

The bear staggered over to the water and began to drink desperately. A few fish darted through the water just upstream, and I planted the idea in their heads that they should swim over to the bear and jump out of the water and onto the riverbank. Soon, the bear was feasting happily.

“You’re going to have to explain a couple of the things you just did,” Evangeline said.

“After we make camp,” I said. “It’s my understanding that, when on an outing like this, stories about monsters should be told around the campfire.”

Evangeline muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “drama queen”. We started to leave, but the bear huffed out a breath and clambered to its feet. It padded over to us, already looking much steadier, and lowered its head, pressing its face into my chest. I ran my fingers through its wiry fur while Evangeline stared at me, wide-eyed. The bear gave a happy snort and pressed its head against Evangeline, who let out a startled little laugh.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just saying goodbye. You can pet it.”

“Sure,” she said, flustered. “Why not?” She scratched it gently behind one of its little round ears. It let out a pleased rumble, then turned and went back to its fish.

“That bear must have been pretty strong,” Evangeline said as we kept following the path. “I’ve seen those cursed daggers before, and they’re nasty. Looked like the big guy managed to fight it off for a long time.”

“It was in a lot of pain,” I said. “I don’t think it would have been able to hang on for much longer.”

“I’m glad it found us,” Evangeline said. “And I’m glad you decided to help it. I probably wouldn’t have risked it on my own.”

“I might not have, either,” I admitted. “But what’s one measly giant cursed bear against a vampire and a powerful witch?”

We decided to camp under the canopy of a copse of large pines. A thick layer of springy moss speckled with fallen pine needles covered the ground. We’d followed the river far enough uphill that we could see the sprawling vista of the forest below us and the shape of the city in the distance, where lights were starting to turn on.

Evangeline and I began pulling our supplies out of the horrible blue bag I’d carried.

“You didn’t get your tent from the same place you got your bag, did you?” she asked.

“I did, as a matter of fact,” I said glumly. Given what she’d told me about the bag, I was no longer quite as optimistic about what had been sold to me as a high-end tent. I found it and set the bundle on the ground for her to inspect. “Will it also explode?”

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