There was a time when my father, Chief Chankoowashtay of the People of the Forest, bore the Second Seal, which contained Azazel the Purros, Horseman of War. My father, like all People, is meek and gentle, harboring no ill will toward any creature and wishing harm to no one. But when he bore the Seal, moments of unchecked rage in battle would unleash the second horseman’s demonic power, transforming my father from the wise, strong chief of the People into a devastating and furious force unmatched on this or any other plane.

In those moments, my father knew no friend or kin, only destruction, and I feared that he might lose himself forever, unable to restrain the horseman again. If my mage friend, Yancy Lazarus, had not taken the Seal into himself to save the People from Achak Kinslayer, the responsibility of bearing it would have passed to me at my father’s death. As heir apparent to both the chieftainship and the Seal, I had trained from my birth to control and contain the rage that provided Azazel a doorway to this world.

But when I heard the creature chuckle as it raised its hand to the lawman’s unconscious body, I felt as if the second horseman of the apocalypse had broken free in my chest. The monster no longer fought to defend itself from the man. It could have fled—the lawman was no longer conscious and could not follow—but it was choosing instead to kill for no reason beyond its own entertainment. It was laughing at what would be the death blow. This was an action without honor, a creature without restraint.

Flowers of red fury bloomed in my vision, and all thoughts of concealing myself fled. I roared as I burst from behind my oak. I charged, slamming my shoulder into the creature’s soft potbelly. The creature cried out in shock. Its overlong limbs slapped against my back as it folded with the impact. I was no tiny human to be swatted away or laughed off.

We skidded across the clearing, tearing up chunks of grass and clods of dirt, and rammed into a dead tree on the opposite side. The trunk shattered. Dry needles and rotted wood rained down upon my fur. The creature clawed at my face, slicing open my jaw. The scent of my own blood curled into my nostrils, feeding the flames of my rage. I wrapped my arms around the creature, heaved it up, and smashed it to the ground. Before it could recover, I leapt onto its body and began raining down punches.

With a strength that should not exist in limbs so thin and long, the creature threw me off. I hit the grass and rolled back to my feet, prepared to face an offensive attack.

But the creature only stared at me. Through the poor attempt at a veil, I saw its head tilt.

“I have no quarrel with the Chiye-tanka princess,” the creature said, its voice the same strange combination of dry rasp and nearly human female as its laugh. “She will step aside and return to her trees.”

I bared my teeth. “I will not! You have murdered once this night, and now you seek to take the life of a creature weaker than yourself.” I drove a fist into the ground. The thud it made shook the leaves and needles in the trees encircling the clearing. “You will answer for this evil!”

“The princess meddles in things she doesn’t understand,” the creature said.

“I understand that you do not belong here,” I growled. “And I will to send you back to the Spirit World.”

I bounded toward her. Rather than stand and fight, she spun on her gangly legs, returned her long arms to the ground, and loped off into the forest. Mind-whispering a request to the lesser trees between us, I sprinted after her. They slipped out of my way, making straight my path to the creature. Through her veil, I saw long black hair whipping behind her head like a raven’s wing. She moved with the speed of a wind spirit, but it seemed she could not speak to the trees as I could—or if she could, they refused to grant her request—for she had to duck around their trunks and under their branches.

When she was within reach, I swung my arm at her too-long, too-thin legs, jerking them out from beneath her. She fell flat on her stomach with a whoomph that scattered pine needles in all directions. I locked my fingers together and raised my connected fists high to crush her head, but she flipped onto her back and kicked me in the stomach.

The kick drove the breath from my lungs and knocked me backward. How could a creature with the limbs of a walking stick be so strong? I grabbed a boulder, ripping it from its home in the loamy earth. She would not be so strong when those stick-limbs were broken.

I flung the heavy stone at her, chasing it down as it flew. I would not give her a moment to recover after the boulder struck. I would reach through her veil while she tried to disentangle her snapped limbs, and then I would rip the head from her unnatural body.

Rather than sidestepping the boulder or turning to run again, the creature bent her legs in the wrong direction—inward and backward—flattening her belly and head to the dirt while her splayed feet remained flat on the ground. My boulder sailed harmlessly over her back and collided with a pine. The tree cracked and crunched as it fell.

Fury at her evasion burned in my chest. I growled as I dove at her. With one hand I palmed her head and with the other her bony shoulder. My muscles flexed as I pulled.

I would never harm a brother or sister buffalo for any reason, but if I were to grab the horn and shoulder of one of the tatanka and pull as I did in that moment, their head would have been wrenched cleanly from their neck.

This creature’s head did not tear away as it should have. Perhaps given several more tugs and better leverage, I could have separated it from her body, but she did not hold still and allow me to try again. Her long arms folded into her belly, and she lashed out with her elbows, striking lightning-fast, razor-sharp blows to my chest and stomach.

Each elbow landed with crushing force, beating me back until I was pinned against the thick double-bole of a grown-together pair of pines.

My swipes and punches seemed to have no effect on the creature. She continued to work my body over, landing so many hits that it felt as if she had grown extra arms. One of my lower ribs cracked under a heavy blow, and I bellowed at the pain. But broken bones and bruising were not the only damage her hits did. Under each blow, I felt muscle and flesh tear, laid open like a shocked mouth gasping in the cold night air. Hot blood rolled down my sides, matting my hair to my skin. She meant to disembowel me or to puncture something vital.

I attempted to kick her away, only to have my leg sliced open as she batted it aside. A desperate headbutt connected with her skull. The crack thundered through the trees. The creature fell back a step. I wove dizzily to one side, thinking I would attack from a flank, limiting her access to my major organs.

But the creature shot forward, grabbing my head by a hank of hair. I pummeled her face with both fists. The punches landed with fleshy smacks, but she ignored them as a mother wolf might ignore the playful bites and barks of a cub. Perhaps the damage she had done to me was even greater than the pain I felt.

“I wouldn’t—have fought—one of the People,” the creature rasped in her two-toned voice, the sentences broken up by my determined blows to her face and neck, “but the princess—refused to—mind her own—business!”

She wrestled me to the ground and planted her feet on my arms, clutching them with the clawed, scaly toes of a bird of prey. I kicked and roared, but she held me down. Her grip was unbreakable.

She jerked my head backward by the hair, forcing the exposure of my neck. I whipped my head, flexed my arms, and kicked my legs, but she held me fast. Her strength was greater than mine.

Her free hand drew back, her long, sharp talons five dark silhouettes against the yellow moon.

In that moment, I envisioned my purple blood on her hands, joining the red of the murdered human’s, another shade and layer to her gruesome skin painting. This creature was too strong, too tough. Fight though I did, I could not break free of her grip. She would tear bloody furrows in my throat. So far away from the medicines and healing herbs of my home, I would die.

She swung. Air whistled across her talons as they sliced toward my exposed throat.

A shrill screech exploded from the creature’s mouth—neither a victorious cry nor a bloodthirsty howl of anticipation—and she stumbled backward off of me as if thrown. She doubled over, screaming again, her voice almost entirely devoid of the rasping overtone.

I clambered unsteadily to my feet, preparing to do battle again.

But the creature gave an agonized wail and clawed at her own face as if she wanted to tear it off. Her body convulsed and contorted. Her taloned hands trembled violently like the limbs of a Green-Charlie eater too long without its favored drug. Hysterical sobs broke free of her body, a pulsing song of horror and pain. Her shoulders and knees twisted inward toward her potbelly as if she would turn inside out. She fell on her hands and knees, retching. A foamy wet splash followed. The scent of liquor-soaked vomit mingled with the creature’s rancid stink, assaulting my nostrils.

My head spun as I took a lurching step toward her.

She shrieked when she saw me coming—a sound now completely unlike the rasping creature—and scrambled through the vomit to her feet. Without a backward glance, she bolted into the forest.

I tried, but could not follow. I had to grab the sturdy trunk of a nearby pine to stabilize myself. I rested my forehead against its stringy, sap-covered bark, silently thanking it for its support. I pressed my nose to it and inhaled, wishing to mask the terrible smell of sickness and undeath lingering in this place. From my head to the soles of my feet, puncture wounds and slashes that felt as numerous as the trees in this valley cried out for my attention, blood steaming in the cool night air.

Slowly the creature’s scent faded. I blinked, took another breath, and her trail was cold.

I shook my head to clear it. The sharp yank of dried blood on my hair made me grimace. Gingerly, I rubbed my hands across my head and torso, trying to unstick my hair from my skin. I must have blacked out standing there. A check of the moon and stars’ positions confirmed that several minutes had passed without my knowledge.

What in the name of the Great Redwood, Nookomis Giizhig, was that creature?

Stronger than me, for one. Her head had been adorned with long black hair, and her body hairless, but covered in talons, claws, and razor-sharp spikes—all of which she used with brutal efficiency. A monster from the Spirit World, one who knew of the People. She had called us by our Lakota name, the Chiye-tanka, and had even known my status as heir apparent, told me to return to my trees and stop meddling in her affairs.

What had stopped her from killing me as she would have that lawman? The reversal from gleefully violent to violently ill had been immediate and seemed to shock her as much as it had me. Her shrieking had been filled with the panicked terror of someone awakening into an inescapable nightmare.

Whatever she was, whatever had stopped her, this creature was evil. A monster who took joy in the murder of those weaker than her. And if I could not best her, then the frail bodies of the Little Brothers and Sisters stood no chance. While she still roamed free, no human in this area would be safe. She had to be stopped.