The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist #2)(19)

“Will Henry,” the doctor said, “run back to camp and fetch the hatchet.”

“The hatchet?” Hawk repeated.

“We can’t leave him stuck here like a pig on a stick,” Warthrop replied. “Snap to, Will Henry.”

I returned to find the doctor in that same attitude of quiet regard, pensively stroking his whiskered chin, while Hawk crashed and blundered in the brush on the far side of the clearing, his lamp bobbing between the trees like a massive firefly. I handed the axe to Warthrop, who approached the victim gingerly, as if being careful not to disturb the well-earned rest of a weary traveler. He motioned for me to bring the light closer. At that moment Hawk rejoined us, huffing for breath, twigs and shards of dead leaves clinging to his hair, the color high in his cheeks.

“Nothing,” he said. “Can’t see anything in this blasted dark. We’ll have to wait for daylight . . . but what are you doing?”

“I am removing the victim from this tree,” the doctor replied.

He slammed the sharp blade into the torso. Shards of stringy muscle landed on Hawk’s cheek. The poor man, unaccustomed to the methods of the monstrumologist, gave a dismayed cry and slapped the bit of meat from his face.

“Cut down the tree, God damn it—not him!” he shouted. “What is wrong with you, Warthrop?”

The doctor grunted, reared back, and swung again. The second blow ripped all the way to the wood; the body slid an inch or two, and then, in grotesque, heartrending slowness, the body pulled free and flipped, landing facedown at the base of the hemlock. The sickening thud as it hit the ground sounded very loud in the cold air. Though the body fell nowhere near him, Hawk recoiled.

“Come along, Will Henry,” said the doctor grimly, handing the bloody axe back to me.

I stepped up to the body, holding the light low. Warthrop knelt down, grunted, and observed dispassionately, “The upper dermis has been stripped from the posterior as well,” as if we were not deep in the wilderness but in the bowels of his laboratory on Harrington Lane. “Light closer, please, Will Henry. Some laceration of the underlying tissue. No evidence of serration. Whatever they used, it was very sharp, though here and there there is some indication of tearing.” He pressed his fingertips into the latissimus dorsi. A viscous puddle rose up, the blood closer to black than crimson. “Will Henry, try to hold the light still, will you? You’re throwing shadows everywhere.”

He dropped to his hands and knees and brought his eyes to within an inch of the corpse, moving his head back and forth, up and down, peering, prodding, poking—then sniffing, the tip of his nose practically touching the putrefying flesh.

It was too much for Hawk, who let loose a string of expletives and commenced to stomp in a furious ever widening circle behind us. In the space of a few moments their roles had been reversed. We had passed from the bucolic backcountry of Hawk’s youth into the land of blood and umbrage, the territory of monstrumology.

“What the bloody hell are you doing, Warthrop?” His panicky cry echoed in the indifferent air. “We shouldn’t be out here like this. We don’t know if . . .” He let the thought die unfinished. His voice betrayed how closely he teetered upon the edge. It was as if the world had lost all familiarity; he was the aboriginal man, alone in an alien landscape. “Let’s get him back to camp, and there you can sniff him to your heart’s content!”

The doctor assented to the wisdom of the suggestion. I led the way, the doctor and Hawk bearing our gruesome find behind me. The fire had burned down to a few ash-covered embers in our absence, and I used the hatchet to cut up some more wood. Hawk was dissatisfied with my efforts; he added two more armfuls of fuel, and soon the fire was blazing four feet into the air.

“You’re quite right, Sergeant,” Warthrop said, kneeling beside the corpse, as a penitent before a patron saint. “This is much better.” He cupped the head gently in his hands and pulled the chin back. The empty eye sockets rolled toward the canopy. “Look closely now. Are you quite certain it’s Larose?”

“Yes. It’s him. It’s Larose.” Hawk dug into his rucksack and removed a silver flask, unscrewed the top with shaking fingers, gulped down a few swallows, and shuddered violently. “I recognize the red hair.”

“Hmm. It is quite red, isn’t it? Curious how the face has been left untouched, except for the eyes.”

“Why did they cut out his eyes?”

“I am not certain anyone did.” The doctor brought his face close. “My guess would be carrion, but I can’t make out any marks in this light. We’ll have to wait for morning.”

“All right, but what about the skin? No animal strips off the skin and leaves the rest—and where the hell are his clothes?”

“No, whatever flayed him was no animal,” the doctor said. “At least, not of the four-legged variety. The skin has been sliced off, with something extremely sharp, a hunting knife or . . .” He stopped, hovering over a large hole that yawned in the middle of the man’s chest, the only obvious wound visible other than the spot lower down where he had been impaled, and then hacked free from the hemlock. The monstrumologist laughed under his breath and shook his head ruefully. “Ah, my kingdom for some real light! We could wait, but . . . Will Henry, fetch my instrument case.”

I scooted around our consternated guide and retrieved the doctor’s soft canvas field case. He tugged free the leather ties, flipped it open, and pulled out the desired instrument, holding it up for Hawk to see.