trilogy with Berkley/Ace, Three Musketeers mystery novels, as well as any number of short stories in magazines ranging from
to
. Forthcoming novels include
and more Three Musketeers mystery novels.
Kate Paulk pretends to be a mild- mannered software quality analyst by day and allows her true evil author nature through for the short time between finishing with the day job and falling over. She lives in semi-rural Pennsylvania with her husband, two bossy cats, and her imagination. The last is the hardest to live with. Her latest short story sale, “Night Shifted,” is in DAW’s anthology
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The air had a sharp bite, and Ree could smell snow even deep in the narrow earthen burrow, under the roots of a great oak tree, where he and Jem had taken refuge.
Even though Jem was all human and didn’t have the sharper senses of the rat and cat that had merged with Ree during the Change-circle last winter, he’d got wicked good with a slingshot. With Ree’s animal instincts to lead the hunt, they’d rarely missed a meal. But the last few weeks, it had gotten so cold, and it seemed like all animals were either hibernating or had gone south for the winter. He could see Jem’s bones through his skin. Hells, he could see them through the rags that passed for his clothes. Jem was cold all the time, and the last three days he’d been coughing all the time and wheezing when they walked too fast.
Ree remembered being cold, back before the Change-circle, when he’d acquired thick brown fur, now growing a winter undercoat. He remembered how everything hurt until you couldn’t think, and you thought you’d never be warm. Jem had never been as sturdy as Ree had been, even as a human. Smaller and thinner, not eating enough, he couldn’t fight off this illness.
Ree sighed and wished he knew what to do. They’d kept to the forest-covered highlands and avoided the valleys where villages and farms clustered. Avoiding humans, like Jem. Because Ree wasn’t a human like Jem. He was a hobgoblin, part animal, to be killed on sight. He extended his hand in front of his eyes, in the almost total darkness of the burrow, and looked dispassionately at fur and claws.
If not for that, they could go to a farm and get food and clothes. And if Jem were a hobgoblin, like him, they could live here in the highlands and do okay. There were other hobgoblins here, and they seemed to survive well enough. Of course, most of them were older and looked meaner than Ree. And most of them would probably eat a sick human. Ree wouldn’t.
He put his arm over Jem and felt him stir. Jem’s human, pink hand, covered his. He coughed and asked, “Is it time to get up?”
Ree sighed. If they went on like this, he didn’t think Jem would survive the winter. Ree would, but ... he wouldn’t be him. He’d end up strung up on the walls of some city, a bad hobgoblin who’d killed people and maybe eaten them. Someone who no longer remembered he’d started out human. “We’re going to have to go to a farm,” he said. “We’ve got to steal you some clothes and decent boots. And food, too.”
“What?” Jem said, and half turned around, his blue eyes wide in shock. “Why? They’ll kill you.” His voice sounded like he was on the verge of tears, and Ree thought it showed how sick he was, how low his defenses were to cry so easily.
“Nah,” he said, trying to make his voice sound casual and hiding his fear. “We haven’t seen any soldiers for weeks. I bet we’re so far from anywhere that now that the magic’s gone, no one even comes here. They’ve probably never heard of hobgoblins.” Ree didn’t think that was likely. “The wild ones never go near towns. People might notice clothes and stuff disappearing, but they’ll just think it’s thieves. And no one’s going to brave the forest to find thieves.”
“Why do we have to?” Jem coughed, but he tried to make it silent, so Ree could only tell he was coughing from the shaking of his body and the sound like distant, muffled explosions. “We’re doing okay, Ree, really. We hunt and ... and stuff. We don’t need to go near people. Everyone knows hobgoblins. Everyone has edicts. They’ll kill you.”
“Hush now,” Ree said, enveloping him in his arms and rocking him slightly. “Hush now. They won’t. I can hear better than them. I’ll keep clear.”
Jem shook against his shoulder, and Ree knew he must go, and he must be successful. If he died it wouldn’t matter—Jem would be able to go back to the world of men. But Ree couldn’t go on without Jem. They had escaped Jacona together, and Jem had saved Ree’s life, killing the giant snake thing that would have devoured him. More important than that, Jem, by caring what happened to Ree, by needing him and treating him as if he were fully human, had saved Ree’s human heart.
Ree’s body might survive, but not his heart.
Jem said, “Something’s wrong.” He was almost impossible to understand, he was shaking so hard. They stood atop a hillock sparsely grown with thin pines.
Ree turned to look where Jem pointed. A narrow valley cut deep into the forest. Fences had fallen, and Ree could hear animals making what sounded to him like distressed noises. He could see three cows, one of them with horns, a horse, and possibly a goat. Squawking sounds like chickens suggested the farm had some, somewhere he couldn’t see.
“Maybe it’s been abandoned?” Ree didn’t really believe his own suggestion, but it was an excuse to try raiding the place. Jem had resisted it all the way here, and even now his lips were set in that straight line that was often the only indication of his steely resolve under his compliant exterior. Jem shook his head and didn’t try to speak.
“Come on. I can hide if I have to.” Ree didn’t like the way Jem’s breathing sounded and would have picked the younger boy up and carried him, if he thought Jem would allow it. At least this valley was isolated even from the other farms and villages. No one outside the farm would see them.
Jem leaned on him as they picked through cold mud and patches of burrs that caught in Ree’s fur and hurt his bare feet. Jem gasped the first time he stood on one of the burr patches; then he started coughing and couldn’t stop.
If that wasn’t enough, as soon as the cows saw them, they started bawling and hurried over to them, complaining as loudly as they could. Being sandwiched between the bodies of animals big enough to squash him wasn’t how Ree wanted to die. He held tight to Jem, his heart pounding in his chest while his nose twitched with the smell of
If he fooled the cows, they were dumber than the ugly hobgoblin he and Jem had found in the hills. But the animals didn’t do anything to stop them going to the farmhouse, and they didn’t try to hurt him or Jem. Ree almost cried when he saw the door. Jem was still coughing when Ree hauled the door open and pushed him inside. He slammed the door closed and put his back against it, panting. The cows were complaining outside, loud enough to wake the ...
Ree swallowed. The too-familiar reek of waste and sickness fouled the room. He blinked, and the shape on the floor a few paces ahead resolved into an old man whose face twisted into a grimace of pain but who still found strength to glare. But he wasn’t dead. And that was good. Or perhaps bad, as the grimace of pain became a concentrated look of something like hatred.
The rough wooden door at his back was the only thing that kept Ree’s knees from buckling. He swallowed again. Jem bent over, still coughing, his whole body shaken by those wracking coughs.
