Page 4 of Mistletoe

Planet Nexus

Somewhere Outside

Hal wokein the snow with no idea of place or time. Outside. He was outside.

And cold. He should have taken supplies with him, but the monster inside him was impatient and wanted to leave the castle.Now. It did what it wanted.

He sat up slowly, stiff, and his head throbbing. Carefully, he touched the back of his head, where the pain radiated. His fingers came away sticky with blood. Red on green.

Green.

Hal turned over his hands, examining them in the bright sunlight. He knew his appearance was different. He could see it in the way his captor had looked at him, but being kept sedated and restrained prevented him from seeinghowdifferent.

Green.

What else? He touched his face, immediately discovering the two tusks jutting out from his lower lip. That he knew. They garbled his words when he attempted to speak and were a source of never-ending frustration.

He didn’t need a mirror. He knew he was a monster. Had always been.

His memories were hazy, but he remembered the shock and horror of the change. Bones broke. Muscles stretched. His thoughts changed, too. He felt different. There was no buffer between desire and impulse. He just did. He craved. He angered. He wanted to be free, but someone had strapped him to a table.

Hal’s hands clenched into fists, ready to strike.

His brother did this to him. Did something to himself, too. The stasis drugs muddled his mind, but Hal had moments of lucidity. The vampire brought him out of sleep, sometimes for a handful of hours, sometimes for days. Draven’s physical appearance had also changed but it made him more himself.

“We are all monsters. We simply do not hide it on the inside,” Draven would say, then subject Hal to needles and scalpels trying to cure him of his monstrosity. No matter how he cut, he could not reverse the mutation.

Hal should have crushed Draven’s skull while he had the chance. He would not make that mistake twice.

Hal stood, his green feet sinking into the snow. The sun was blindingly bright. He was chilled but his monstrous condition tolerated the cold. Still, he didn’t have a stitch of clothing on. Shoes would be nice. His green skin might be thicker and resistant to the cold, but he knew how well a sharp object could slice it open. He did not need his feet cut to ribbons.

He was in the middle of nowhere, an empty plain under a blanket of snow with no buildings and no distinguishing features. There were mountains in the distance. Draven’s mountain.

He listened. There was nothing but the wind. The scent of smoke tickled his nose.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. A year. A decade. Two. He had a new world to explore. First shelter, and then provisions. He’d figure out the rest when he was warm.

For the first time in years, possibly decades, he was himself.

He headed toward the scent of wood smoke.

Emma

West Lands

Mistletoe Farm

The Barn

Something was killing her hens.

The military came through and took everything that wasn’t nailed down, which included conscripting her brother Felix. They slaughtered her sheep and chickens, raided the winter stores, emptied the root cellar, and took every last jar of preserves. They left the goats because, apparently, the military wouldn’t eat goats, and a few hens as a gesture of goodwill. The last thing she needed was a wolver, a grumpy ratite, or some other hungry critter to kill her remaining hens.

And that hungry critter was in the barn.

Emma pushed open the barn door with the barrel end of the shotgun. The latch had been torn away from the door, leaving the useless lock on the snowy ground.

She stood still, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light and listening. She didn’t spy any blood splatter or even scattered feathers. The alarm of a few moments ago seemed to have died down, but she didn’t trust it. Wolvers were vicious, clever little things. They could sit in silence for ages, blending into the shadows, and wait for her to leave before slaughtering every last hen and goat.

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