Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5760106.Tori_L_Ridgewood
Excerpt:
Blood and Fire: Book
Two of the Talbot Trilogy
By Tori L. Ridgewood
Crouching
to prod the fire, Grant thought over the options now open to him. It wasn't
safe to go back to Talbot, at least not until he had gained a better
understanding of what had happened to him. He needed more than a measure of
control over this thing. Once he had that, he could go home and set things
right. Destroy de Sade once and for all. After all, was that not the purpose of
werewolves? To be an equal adversary for the undead?
The
next question was not as simple. Just how did a werewolf train himself? Was it
even possible for him to remain cognizant and in control when his body was no
longer human?
A
knot of sap crackled and snapped. He amused himself with the thought that the
fire was speaking to him.
The
thought that he was merely delusional, that being able to magically transform
into a vicious four-footed animal was a hallucination, the product of slow
starvation and exposure, nearly made him laugh aloud.
If
a fire could speak, its language would be visual, he decided. He relaxed his
eyes and let the glowing embers form shapes and letters.
The
wind blew in from the open cabin door, swirling around him and carrying the
clean scents of snow, damp wood and earth, mixed with the rank odour of animal
carcass from his footprints in the snow…and something else.
Grant
held very still.
The
something else was faint, but recognizable. Vaguely comforting. It made him
think of an old wet dog. Or an old man who had not washed in a long time. Some
combination of the two.
A
cluster of coals fell in a rush of sparks. The noise drew Grant’s attention,
even as the strange smell made his nose twitch and his nostrils flare.
The
collapsed, blackened piece of wood strongly resembled the face of a man with
strong, mature features. It was broad in the forehead, with a long nose and
wide, round eyes. A scattering of red embers looked like a bushy beard covering
the mouth and jaw.
It
couldn’t be possible during the day, but it seemed to Grant that he could hear
the borealis sing.
Solomon. The name that belonged to this
face. It was spelled out clearly for him, just for a moment, in the leaping
flames.
A
few more sticks collapsed, changing the image. An a-frame cabin on a lake. A
short, blunt mountain nearby, and a small lake in the shape of a teardrop. The
mountain had sheer sides. Grant thought
he recognized it, had even been rock climbing on it in his youth. Mount
Cheminis, near Dark Lake.
Yes.
Grant understood. He blinked, and the images were gone. Exhaling, he got to his
feet and went to the door. The scent of wolf and man now seemed to clearly mark
a trail through the trees, to the south-east.
Someone
had sent him a message. His gut wanted to tell him that it was Rayvin, though
logically that couldn’t be right. How the hell could she contact him from so
far away? She’d done it before, sent him a mental plea for help, but she’d only
been a few blocks away. And was it at all possible that she knew this
character?
Great,
more questions without answers.
He
may have screwed up on his first battle with the monster, but at least he’d
learned that he wouldn’t be able to fight on his own and win. He needed help.
Wherever this information had come from, it felt right on some level. The
sooner he could find this Solomon guy, the sooner he’d learn how to get
control.
With
control, de Sade and his little army wouldn’t find him as easy a target as
before.
“Welcome
to the family,” the bastard vampire had told him. Yeah, well—think of me as the black wolf in your little flock.
His
mind drifted to the image of the small, red-headed witch who had chosen the
vampire over him. Had she sent him the vision, the way she’d called out for
help before? If she could still do that, what did it mean?
“Wait
until you get a load of me,” Grant whispered aloud, as he turned back into the
cabin.
He
quickly filled the rucksack with a small aluminum travel pot, three more cans
of beans whose dents were less severe than the others, a can opener, some boxes
of pasta and rice that were still intact, and some sticks of dry kindling. He
took the grey blanket, rolled it into a short, fat, sausage, and strapped it to
the bottom of the rucksack in place of a sleeping bag. With the stub of a
pencil he’d found in a drawer, and a scrap of paper, he wrote a quick inventory
of what he’d taken. Once the bastard vampire was taken care of, Grant had
determined that he would go back and try to make some compensation for what he
had 'borrowed’.
Grant
used a cloth to close the door behind him, and then turned his face to the
woods in order to once again find the scent of the unknown wolf.
Speed
was definitely a gift that he could get used to, in this strange new life. He’d
moved faster than Usain Bolt, even, reaching the edge of the small lake below
Mount Cheminis by noon.
Casting
his eyes around the shoreline, Grant fashioned a makeshift cup of birchbark and
filled it with fresh water from the lake. The sun had just passed its zenith in
the sky above, but with the temperature low, he could barely feel its warmth on
his back. He scooped in some of the purification tablet he had crushed on a
rock, trying to measure it proportionally to the amount of water, swished it
around a few times to help it dissolve, and then waited for the iodine and
assorted chemicals to work.
“You
don't need to do that.”
He
started. The little man standing next to him had approached without a sound. He
was no bigger than an eight-year-old child, and he was completely bald, except
for his full beard and his eyebrows. He had a barrel chest, and sinewy forearms
showed where the sleeves of his lined flannel shirt were rolled back. Grant
looked at a pair of child-sized battered work-boots, only a few feet from his
face. He sensed that the man was assessing him just as carefully.
“I
don't want to take any chances,” Grant answered, finally. His breath condensed
in the chill air. He stood, casually, still swirling the cup of water. “You
never know, these days. Decades of mining, acid rain, human presence. There are
bugs in that water we probably don't even know about.”
In
response, the hermit took his hand out of his jeans pocket, brushed it against
his chest, squatted, and leaned over a near dip in the rocky shore. He lowered
his hand into the cold black water, and scooped up a palmful. Lapping it up, he
shook off the remaining drops and wiped his skin dry again. “I drink this every
day, buddy. Do I look sick to you?”
Grant
laughed shortly. “Kudos to your immune system. I think I'll stick with my
iodine.”
His
visitor shrugged, gazing across the lake. “You're a long way from the trails.
Where's your gun?”
“I'm
looking for someone by the name of Solomon. He's supposed to live around here.”
Grant watched his face for a reaction. The other man only continued to squint
against the glare of the sun, a short distance above the horizon. “Have you
heard of him?”
“Maybe.”
He picked up a rock and weighed it in his hand. “Who's asking?”
Grant
wanted to laugh again, but he didn't. He hadn't really known what to expect, or
even that he'd actually find the stubby little mountain in the dream or vision
or whatever he'd had. The A-frame cabin further down the shore was evidently
occupied, given the smoke rising from its chimney. From what he could see,
there were no other cottages in the near area. Logically, then, this man was
Solomon. What reason could a hermit have for concealing his identity? Was this
some kind of epic quest moment, where the hero has to prove that he is pure of
heart in order to receive wisdom from the sage? Grant had always believed in
honesty. Still, he proceeded cautiously. “Do you believe in the supernatural?”
“You're
a cop, ain't you?”
“What
makes you say that?”
The
bald man stood, cracking his back with an audible grunt of relief. “You always
answer a question with another question?”
Grant
shrugged with one shoulder. “No, but since you're obviously being careful, I
should be, too.”
“I'll
tell you what,” the stranger said, slowly. “You show me some balls, toss that
so-called pure water and take a drink from the goodness of Mother Nature; I'll
show you Solomon.”
Grant
regarded him with a half-smile, and deliberately poured out his birchbark cup.
He should have been dead weeks ago, anyway. Maybe his new physiology would
protect him from beaver fever, maybe it wouldn't. Either way, he needed
answers. The other man watched with narrowed eyes as Grant bent down, cupped
his hands, and drank from the lake.
“Okay?”
he asked, wiping his face on a clean part of his bright orange sleeve. “Where's
Solomon?”
The
little man burst into laughter. He opened the snaps on his work-shirt, still
laughing, and pulled his t-shirt over his head. As he stepped forward, his face
elongated and sprouted fangs under a black snout; his eyes yellowed as grey fur
grew out of his skin, and his back snapped, the bones expanding and rearranging
themselves into a canine form. Grant stepped back in horror, holding his hands
out in an instinct to defend himself, backing along the edge of the rocky
outcropping. The stranger’s laughter became a series of yipping howls that
echoed against the trees. The massive wolf shook itself, rippling its fur, and
scratched its impressive nails on the granite as the howls lowered to a growl.
Grant's skin prickled, recognizing the attack posture of the biggest timber
wolf he had ever seen.
Then
it lunged into Grant's outstretched arms.
The
animal hit Grant's chest like a bag of cement, knocking him back and down into
the water.
His
feet left the rocky ledge that formed the shore, but the boots he had taken
from that hunter's cabin stayed where they were. In the seconds that he was
airborne, he felt it all clearly, as though it were taking place in slow
motion: his ears registered the snarls of the animal snapping at his neck and
the ripping of cloth under the wolf's sharp nails, and from his own body's transformation.
His ribcage, expanding and elongating, pushed the threads of the bright orange
fleece past their limits. His pants shredded and tore as his pelvis moved and
sharpened, and a tail burst out of the base of his spine. Grant's shocked cry
became a canine yelp and a whine. Two writhing, growling animals hit the water
at the same time and vanished beneath the surface.
