Unfamiliar Self [Book Three]

Chapter Forty-Eight | The Only Way

There was not a lot going through Shepherd's mind as he pulled himself through damp underbrush, raced across blood stricken grass, and dodged the trees that seemed to leap out at him through the fog. He tried to focus on the pumping muscles in his legs, the steady breathing in and out of his lungs.

This wasn't the first time, he told himself over and over, and it would not be the last.

Not the first time his Master had been in danger. Not the first time he would have to come to save her at the last minute. Not the first time her screams of horror and pain had filled his head.

They had always been a bad match-up. Madame Terrebonne, a bitter woman pretending to be more frightening than she was, and Shepherd, a broken man-beast better fit for the gutter than the loyal pet of a witch. Time and again she had tried to replace him, and time and again fate had kept him the only familiar by her side. Hound's defection with the rest of the third generation had taken its toll. Shepherd had no doubt that his weak-hearted Master had caught feelings for the kind and proper man during the few times they had gotten to know each other. The Madame was weak to kindness during her early years as a free witch.

When word got around that Hound had fathered a son during his time as a familiar, his Master's love for the man turned to obsession for the son. The first time Shepherd met Mutt or, rather, the shell of a boy he was before his transformation, he knew it was another relationship destined for tragedy. The boy was single-minded-pure. Far too pure to really endure the corrupting nature of Knowledge. His personality did a complete 180 from a bottomless sadness to a boundless joy. He flipped the switch too easily. He took to the life too quickly. Shepherd knew he wasn't the only one who was aware of this. His other second gener's and the more seasoned witches could see it too. But, still they let it happen. All to appease Madame Terrebonne and her grief. And look where it got them.

Another tragedy. One more than his Master could take. She had turned her body into that of a monster to save her own life, but nothing could save her mental state when the bad news had to be revealed. Not good enough for the only man who was ever kind to you to keep him from betraying you. Not strong enough to keep his child, the only part of him left in the world, from dying a horrible death. Although his Master no longer spoke to him in much more than grunts and howls, Shepherd figured something like that was constantly going through her head. At least, if there was any part of her that was still human.

The brain was just another physical thing after all. Everything she touched bulged with monstrous terror. If she had found some way to reach her own brain with that Knowledge, perhaps there was no point in saving her.

Even thinking this, Shepherd did not slow in his pursuit. He was not sure if it was something compelled by his Master, but if it was, if something in her animal screams was commanding him to come and save her, perhaps there was a part of her that remained human after all.

...

But this...

Shepherd did stop when he finally reached his Master. He no longer felt the heated pulsing in his legs nor could hear his labored breathing. His senses were taken up by sight and smell. Parts and pieces. Blood and gore. Dogs shredded vertical and horizontal. Monsters that once ached with protruding bone and muscle, beasts that could take down scores of humans, lying steaming with guts spread open and drying in the dying sun. And everywhere red, red, red. As far as he could see painted by it. The acrid, toxic smell of blood, piss, and shit had been hinted for miles and now was invading him, tainting the familiar with its foulness.

He had spotted his Master, the massive mound of blue flesh and yellowed bone, slumped in her own personal pile of monster-dog carcasses. She had her dinner-plate sized claws covering her face as she continued to wail and cry. It was a common thing she did around people, so they could not see her face, but, as Shepherd forced himself to look upon the only other living thing in the bloodied woods, he was pretty sure she wasn't worried about it seeing her.