Wolf's Bane - Nancey Cummings

Chapter 1

Solenne

Boxon Hill

Marechal House - The Kitchen

* * *

“Grab your kit!”

An icy wind swept through the house as Luis carried in the bleeding form of their father, Godwin Marechal. Servants hurriedly opened doors, clearing the way into the warmth of the kitchen. Hastily, the worktable had been cleared just as Luis laid down his burden.

Under the dim overhead lights, Solenne examined her father. Flickering light from the fireplace cast an orange hue over his skin. A gash sliced across his face and left eye. Blood matted in his hair and soaked through the layers of his coat and tunic.

“Was he wearing any armor at all?” Solenne hissed. Godwin’s abdomen had been viciously slashed in an unmistakable pattern. Claws.

“The material failed,” Luis said.

Solenne bit her tongue to hold her snarky comeback. Obviously, the armor failed. Useless old relic.

“Hold him down,” she ordered. Her brother placed his hands on Godwin’s shoulders. The elder hissed as silver shears cut through cloth.

“Are they deep?” Luis stood near, barely breathing.

“I need hot water and a paste of honey and onion,” Solenne said. She wouldn’t know the severity of the wounds until she cleaned away the blood. At least the bleeding had slowed. The eye injury concerned her the most. They needed to call the doctor, but none would venture out during the night of the solstice.

“Don’t worry about me,” Godwin hissed. “The beast is out there with my blood on his muzzle, and we’ve hours left before dawn.”

Solenne shared a look with Luis. Their father needed immediate attention, but if the estate was under attack, she could deal with her father while Luis hunted the monster.

“I hit it with my pistol. It’d be mad to come back,” her brother said.

“I loathe that old pistol,” she grumbled. The pistol took forever to pack and only held one shot. Useless.

“Well, that old pistol drove off the beast tonight.” Luis looked exhausted, covered in dirt, blood, and gunpowder. The sleeve of his jacket had been slashed, exposing the matte black material of his armor suit underneath.

“Did it get you too? Did your armor hold?”

“No, and yes. This time.” Luis ran a filthy hand through his hair. “Father shoved me out of the way. He saved me. I shouldn’t have—”

“None of that,” Godwin moaned. Solenne wished she had a sleeping draught on hand to put him to sleep.

“Wash your hands and bring me the bottle of wolfsbane,” Solenne said, pointing to the scullery. “Might as well get the whiskey too.”

The kitchen maid brought a bowl and a pitcher of hot water. Carefully, she removed debris and washed the wounds clean. The cook supplied freshly diced onions and ground them into a mixture with honey under Solenne’s instruction. Luis poured Godwin a generous measure of whiskey and encouraged his father to drink.

Solenne indicated that he should drink half a glass of the wolfsbane tonic. No one in their family had ever suffered the curse of the beast’s bite, but there was no sense in testing fate.

“Hold him down. This will hurt.” Solenne held up a bottle, and Luis nodded, leaning forward to use all his weight to keep Godwin pinned in place.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” she whispered as she uncorked the bottle of eyewash and poured it carefully over her father’s injured eye.

The older man thrashed and cursed enough to turn the air blue. The lights flickered briefly before fading. Godwin, thankfully, had passed out from the pain.

Small favors, perhaps. That seemed to be all the universe doled out to the Marechal family.

“Fucking batteries,” Luis complained. “They won’t hold a charge in the cold.”

“They don’t power properly on cloudy days. We can use a lantern,” Solenne said. At least the lanterns held a charge decently.

By the soft light of the ancient lanterns, Solenne tended to her father. Luis ran down the events of the evening. He and Godwin hadn’t even needed to track the bestial wolf. It waited for them beyond the estate’s gates, which showed a disturbing intelligence, in Solenne’s opinion.

She dreaded the turning of the solstice and equinox, when the nexus energies surged and monsters prowled the night. Everyone knew that. The Marechal family had hunted those monsters for generations, since humans first arrived on the planet. Their ancestors had been granted land near a nexus point, marked by strange stone circles crafted by an unknown intelligence, and a charter to protect the neighboring settlements.

Monster hunting, however, wasn’t lucrative, and equipment—all silver-tipped and plated—had to be replaced frequently. Their estate was marginal land and last year’s drought had been hard