“He’s back.”

The cowled man who called himself Number Eight looked up from the reports in his lap. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes settling on a man clad in dark blue robes similar to his own.

“Who’s back, Number-ah-Seventy-Six, is it?” he said.

“Costas.” Number Seventy-Six shifted uncomfortably. He was the low man on this particular totem pole, and he was jumping far above his immediate superior’s head. Within the organization known as the Secret Empire, that was tantamount to suicide. But this was important.

“Refresh my memory,” Number Eight said, gesturing.

“Operation: Blackwood,” Number Seventy-Six said. Behind his cowl, Number Eight blinked.

“Ah.” He leaned forward, looking around. They sat and stood, respectively, within the central nerve cluster of the organization’s northernmost bureau of operations. In many respects, it was simply an office like any other. Then, most offices didn’t have armories.

“I assumed he was dead. Devoured, in fact.”

“So did we,” Number Seventy-Six said. “Every few months, we’d get a hit off of his tracking beacon, but never for more than a few hours. Not quite long enough to triangulate.”

“And now?”

“Six hours and counting. It goes in and out, but the signal is steady.”

“So?”

“Steady and moving,” Number Seventy-Six said. “South, before you ask.”

“I wasn’t.” Number Eight leaned back. “Theories?”

Number Seventy-Six paused. “I think the operation was successful. Just not in the way we planned for.” Getting no reaction, he pressed on. “We arranged for those men to be dropped in the wilderness on Number Five’s dime, in order to secure the mutate known as the Wendigo. They were bait, to draw the beast out. But, a confluence of natural events-a blizzard-and a resource redistribution-”

“The Midnight Affair,” Number Eight said.

Number Seventy-Six nodded. “It was a write-off. Or, we thought it was, at the time.”

“So you think he-”

“It’s the only theory that makes sense, yes.”

Number Eight was silent for a moment. Number Seventy-Six held his breath. Then, “Arrange the extraction. Grade Three resources are budgeted.” He made a fist. “I want Costas alive.”

FAITHFUL HERETICS

By Josh Reynolds

He awoke to the sensation of cold. It cut through his limbs, leaving a bone-deep ache in his joints. Phillip Costas rolled onto his back in the snow, expelling a pink mist from his mouth. Trees towered over him, blocking out the sky.

He opened his eyes, but only with difficulty. The blood that coated his face had gummed the lids shut. Sticky redness covered his lean form and his mouth tasted of iron and bile.

The empty eyes of an unlucky deer stared at him from a few feet away, limbs splayed, partially hidden by the stained snow. Costas rose to his feet with a groan, ignoring the accusing gaze of the butchered animal.

“God. God, God, God,” he said. In his head, something as white as the blizzard that had stolen his future coiled and scraped at the shards of his soul.

HUNGER.

“No.” Costas spat something rubbery and slick from his mouth. “No.”

YES. HUNGER. EAT. EAT. EAT EAT EATEATEATEA-

The sound of a safety being switched off snapped Costas out of his daze. He whirled, quick despite the numbness that gripped his limbs.

A man watched him from between the trees, rifle in hand. “Is it close?” he said.

Costas shook his head. “Who-what-”

The rifle rose. “Is it on you again?”

“Henry. He doesn’t know what you’re talking about,” a woman said. Costas turned slightly. “Look at him.”

The woman stepped out of the trees, holding a rifle of her own. She was dark of hair and skin, with a proud, sharp face and eyes like stones. Costas’ eyes widened as he took in the other shapes that hung back. A dozen, at least, if he was any judge.

“I know exactly what he’s talking about,” Costas hissed, shivering. “Wendigo.”

“Wiindigoog,” the woman murmured. “The curse?”

Costas spat red phlegm and grinned bitterly. “What else?”

“What is he talking about?” the man named Henry said. “Rebecca?”

“The curse of the Wiindigoog is that the afflicted knows what they are,” she said, approaching Costas. “To better reflect on their sins when the full moon gives them release.”

Costas tensed as her fingers traced the line of his jaw. Her dark eyes flashed. Her nails dug into his flesh and he squawked, stumbling back, blood dripping down his cheek.

“What-”

“If you know what you are, then you know what that was for.” She stooped and cleaned her fingers in the snow. She looked up at him. “Your name?”

“You witch-” Costas hissed, clutching his cheek. Henry lashed out with his rifle, catching Costas on the side of the head. He fell to his hands and knees, head aching, vision spinning.

“Name,” Rebecca said again, taking hold of his chin.

“Yuh-you first,” Costas said, snatching her wrist and yanking her forward. Before she could do much more than yelp, he had her twisted around with his arm pressed like an iron bar against her throat. She squirmed and he tightened his grip. “Tell them to drop their weapons!” he said. “Now!”

EAT HER! EATEATEATEA-

She raised a hand. The men kept their rifles ready, but stepped back. “I said drop ‘em!” Costas snapped.

“No,” she said. “Kill me if you can, but you will die not long after.”

Costas gave a bitter laugh. “Not likely. Nothing can kill the Wendigo. Believe me, I tried.”

“But you are not Wiindigoog, are you?” she said, softly. “Not right now.”

“I-” Costas looked up, reflexively. The sun had risen. The sky was so blue it hurt. In his head, something flexed eager talons. “No. No. This is wrong. It’s wrong, isn’t it?” he said, voice hoarse. His grip on the woman slackened. “I shouldn’t-”

EAT! EAT NOW!

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, gently pulling his arm away. “You should not exist, except as some dim spark within the recesses of the Wiindigoog’s raw, red soul. Yet here you are-” She slid out of Costas’ grip and stood smoothly, waiting.

“Costas,” he said. “Phillip Costas.”

EAT. HUNGER. EAT.

“Ah,” she said. She held out her hand and he took it. “Come. We will find out what is what, Phillip Costas.”

Amongst the sticky-stained stones, a man crouched. Shirt unbuttoned, displaying a barrel chest, feet bare, gray-haired, he pawed through the remnants of the previous evening’s sacrifice.

Abruptly, he stood. “Haaaa.” He turned, face screwing up in a disgusted grimace. Snow crunched beneath his feet as he walked back towards the truck that had brought him from the town not ten miles distant.

Several others-men and women-waited for him there. One, a bulky man, running to fat, trotted forward.

“Well, Defago?”

“HE came, Lecoq.”

“Then where-”

“Gone. Riding his fleshpony,” the bare-chested man gestured, flinging out a long arm.

“But she’s-”

“Not her.” He grinned, displaying crudely filed teeth. “Someone else. Tracks.” He squatted, pointing to the ground. “Ran south.”

The fat man-Lecoq-shook his head. His family-and, by extension, all of the Children of the Snow-had served the thing known as Kolomaq for centuries and it showed in his face and form. A mark of brute evil stamped on his very genetic code, as it was on the others who had come with him to inspect the site of last night’s failed sacrifice. Some more so than others. He looked at Defago.

“South,” Defago said, clicking his teeth.

Lecoq sighed and ran a heavy paw over his balding pate. Kolomaq had come to Earth many times in the past…most recently several years before, only to be thrown back by the efforts of a superhuman.

And this time…hah. It was getting so that a man couldn’t commune with his god anymore.

He didn’t know what exactly had happened. Those ordered to make the required sacrifice, to honor their god and beg his boon, had been attacked. The survivors had returned to their safehold, frightened out of their wits.

It had been the Hungry Man, they said. The Hungry Man, come south. Further south than their seers had predicted for this time of year.

Lecoq had seen to the execution of those self-same seers this very morning. If they failed at predicting something as simple as the migration of the Hungry Man, then they were no good to the Children of the Snow.

If the sacrifice wasn’t right, if it wasn’t properly prepared…the chance was lost. The barriers between the world of men and the Dark North wouldn’t be thin again for some time after the next few days. Certainly not in Lecoq’s lifetime.

But if they could find the poor bastard who held the godspark now, before the period of thinness was over and done…

Lecoq looked at Defago. Among them, Defago was the closest to the Dark North. He reeked of the external. Defago grinned, his lips curling away, revealing cold-blackened gums.

“South,” Lecoq said. He looked at the others and raised a fist. “South!”

“North, he says.”

Three figures streaked through the cold Canadian air, the sun catching on the raised edges of their high-tech battle armor. One, in green, turned his head slightly to look at another, clad all in blue.

“North. I hate the cold.”

“It’s not like you can feel it,” the one in blue answered. “Stop complaining.”

“Both of you shut up,” the third said. He was clad in gray armor, heavier-built than the others. “We’re close.”

“Close to what? You still ain’t told us what we’ve been scrambled to find, Grasp,” the first said.

Grasp, nominal leader of the triumvirate known collectively as the Seekers, didn’t bother to look at either of his two companions. “Sonic, if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“What about me?” the other one, Chain by name and by game, said.

“Maybe,” Grasp said. “You’re a bit of an idiot.”

“Ouch.”

“A bit?” Sonic said. Grasp laughed.

“We’re after a rogue asset,” he said. “Number Eight wants him brought to heel soonest. We were the closest freelance resource, we got the job.”

“Lucky us. I can feel the cold through my thermal plating,” Sonic said. “Knives. Knives in my skin.”

“Whine bitch moan whine,” Chain said. “What’s the asset?”

“The Wendigo.”

“Never heard of him.”

“What a coincidence. He’s never heard of you,” Grasp said. “He’s the Canucks’ answer to the Hulk, near as I can tell. Either that or Bigfoot.”

“Isn’t Bigfoot a member of the Canadian Avengers?” Sonic said. “I’m sure I saw that on BBC America.”

“Why were you watching BBC America?” Chain said.

“Because shut up, that’s why. I can’t watch BBC America?”

“You’re thinking of Sasquatch. He’s orange. And a member of Alpha Flight. Wendigo is white,” Grasp said. “Bigger too.”

“Meaning he’s easier to find?”

“One can but hope. Now shut up,” Grasp said. He didn’t think it was worth mentioning to the others that Wendigo was also reputed to be a man-eater. At least according to water-cooler gossip.

After their last disastrous outing against superhuman opponents, the Seekers needed a win. There were already rumors to the effect that their budgets were being slashed. Armor was out, genetic mutations were in. If that were true, they’d have to go freelance again. And Grasp was too damn old to be playing mercenary.

One way or another, the Wendigo was coming with them.

The lodge sat high and back from the road, nestled among the trees. Costas, clothed now, sat on a rough-hewn chair, head in his hands. He looked up, throat working.

“I don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us,” Rebecca Sarazin, sitting across from him, said. “By all rights, you shouldn’t be here.”

“Then why-”

“What do you remember? Anything?” she said, leaning forward. Costas shook his head.

“No. And I don’t want to.”

“You don’t seem to be the type of man to shrink from red memories, Mr. Costas.”

He looked up. “You don’t know anything about me, lady.”

“I know that you are the Wendigo. That alone speaks as to your character,” she said. Costas flinched.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“There is always a choice.”

“Not for me!” Costas said, slamming his fists down on the sides of the chair. “Not for me.”

“Especially for you.” Her voice was hard. “We have lived with the Wiindigoog since our ancestors first came across the land bridge, Mr. Costas. We know, better than you, what kind of man becomes the beast. But we also know that the beast does not become the man except when the light of the moon is reflected from the face of the snow. That you are here now-”

Costas yelped and clutched his gut as the thing resting inside him shifted itself.

EATEATEAT!

Seeing the look on his face, the men standing at the corners of the room raised their weapons.

Rebecca raised her hand. “Wait. What is it?”

“It’s-I can-” Costas rocked in his chair. “Why is it doing this?”

EAT! HUNGER! EAT HIM! EAT HER!

Rebecca stood and stepped towards him, hand extended. Costas’ face rippled. He lunged. She made a gesture and a hard breeze curled around the stricken man, forcing him back down into his seat.

“I thank thee, Gaa-biboonikaan,” she murmured, looking down at Costas. Threads of white spread through his dark hair like the year’s first snow fall. “What is it doing?”

“EAT,” Costas snapped, jaws clicking shut.

“Rebecca,” one of the men said. “Maybe we should-”

“Tell Henry to get me Fiddler’s Book from my house,” she said without turning around. “I’ll also need my bag.”

“EAT! EA-” Costas paused and twisted, looking behind him.

“Maybe we should get Twoyoungmen-the Sacree medicine man,” one of the others said, nervously clutching his rifle. “He’s faced this thing before. He could-”

Costas screamed. The chair flipped over as he surged to his feet, clawing at his own chest. Inside his head, something as wide as the whole world reached out and touched Rebecca’s soul.

She stepped back, stomach heaving. “Oh Gods. No. No!”

“YES, CHILD-THING?” Costas said, his voice like stone rolling across ice. “ASK WHAT YOU WILL, AND KOLOMAQ SHALL PROVIDE…”

NEXT: Can Great Beast and Elder Demon share one body? If you think the answer is yes, you should probably stop reading with this issue.