"My apologies. I only appear like an owl. I do not understand their tongue.""I know," Shilloh said, feeling the energy around the creature and trying to get a better read on it, "but opportunities for jokes like that don't come very often."

  The glowing art deco owl sighed, "You are still very human, aren't you?" it said, the insult clear in its voice.

  "Yup." She leaned back. No new information was coming from her gut. All she knew was powerful, full of knowledge, and not going to attack her. She also didn't like it. But that could be her, or it could be the voice of magical heritage. That was the downside to magical intuition. "Did you have anything relevant to say?"

  "Yes, I suppose I do."

  "But would you?"

  "I would be willing," the owl proclaimed, adjusting its wings as its gently glowing lines pulsed, "to make a deal for assistance and information."

  "Okay then, how many licks does it actually take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?"

  The creature's light flared, and she interrupted as it opened its beak, "Wait! No, that's not my actual question. Sorry, it's just one of those things I promised myself I'd say if I ever met a talking owl."

  "Ma'am, do you actually want to bargain? Because I can leave."

  She noticed that the sage tone, crazy magical voice, and mysterious air had disappeared.

  With a burst of effort, she tried to get her head in the game. Maybe it was the powerful magic around here making her ditzy: she was awfully close to the Croatan.

  "Okay. Do you know what has been claiming the woods?"

  "Yes."

  "The thing leaving patch-works of ownership?"

  "I cannot answer that without giving information away for free," it looked at her with a regal air of wisdom and poise.

  Seeing it composed and pompous made her want to ask if owls spinning their heads around ever made them dizzy. She silently told herself not to let the intrusive thoughts win.

  It blinked, "The enclave you plan on making—"

  And just like that, every bit of rapport they had built disappeared. "No."

  The majestic, mystic creature froze. "No?"

  She nodded her head, "Correct. You cannot have the land. You cannot have our blood, our spit, our tears, our worship, or our tithes. The enclave will stand alone. What other price would you be interested in?"

  "I am a being that will not age like others. Short-term profits mean nothing. But a drop of blood every few years from your people is an investment that means much to me."

  Old rage stirred in her. It felt like flame and chemical fumes. It felt like bindings on her legs and needles in her tongue. "Our blood is our own. No one will ever have rights to it or our bodies. I won't repeat myself. What else would you bargain for."

  She braced for the counterargument, but the creature didn't respond. It stared at her, a strange gravity in its artistically rendered eyes. The gaze pulled at her, tugging at her like the space between stars and the light of a moon soaked in cold water and fresh herbs.

  Then Pops screeched, and she came back to herself.

  Shilloh drew deep of the woods as rage filled her in equal proportions. She took sturdiness from the stones, she took flexibility from the rivers, and a nine milliliter from her hip holster.

  Before she could do anything to the owl creature, her body moved. She had already dove forward and twisted to land on her back before even realizing her instincts were screaming.

  Shoulder blades hit the ground, cushioned by leaves. Even in a blind tumble, her body had automatically landed her so she hit minimal rocks and roots. Minimal was not none though, and she was sure that without the adrenaline that came from firing a whole clip as fast as she could go, that it would have hurt. For now, the distraction afforded by the thunder of her gun kept her focused on other concerns.

  Standing across the way from her was what could only be described as an autocannibalistic troll. The thing was nine feet tall if it was an inch. All of its flesh was funky and oddly flowy (for lack of a better term). But each wound, each scar, and disfigurement dripped down its body like cold maple syrup until it disappeared at the feet, and a new constellation of horrors formed along its face and arms before migrating down in a sloughing wave.

  Humanoid, the thing was tall and narrow with a disturbing muscularity. With too-long arms tipped in hooked talons, the thing stumbled under the wave of bullets. As it stumbled, its arms spastically ripped out the side of a tree and shoved the wood into its gaping maw of a mouth.

  It chewed and swallowed as it stepped forward. The moment the wood disappeared down its throat, bark started growing around its shoulders in a smooth, strong sort of armor. But under the line of encroaching armor, its flesh writhed. It bulged and tore itself apart, and healed, and tore again. The small holes left by her bullets were nothing compared to the brutality of its own flesh. Quickly, the wood armor was broken from below into fiber shards that worked down the thing's body in a slow dripping. It was like a rot and rebirth cycle stuck in a single body.

  By the time the wood gristle and bullet holes reached elephantine feet, the thing had snapped a huge bite of meat out of its own arm. As it ate itself, a massive swell of superhero-sized muscles started at its shoulders and slowly began moving down its body.

  "Why do things keep sneaking up on me from behind!" she screamed as she reloaded and emptied her gun again. All of her bullets hammered into its chest, but the wounds healed, spread, healed again, turned to burns, scared over, and moved down its body like dripping water.

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  The things opened a pink mouth and staggered towards her.

  "Madam," said the evil fucking owl creature, "I believe you might want to make a bargain now. I guarantee you will survive if you agree to be my blood donor."

  "Fuck you! You Hedwig-wannabe, shiny-ass looking pigeon!"

  Shilloh turned her mind to the opalescent roots spreading from her into the forest and drew even more power through them. She rehardened her skin and made her body even more flexible and resilient. But this time, she reached out to the hickory trees living around her. She took a very particular loan from them.

  Hickory trees are strong. She took that concept of strength in a Hickory and poured it into her limbs. She flowed off the ground with effortless power and grace.

  Her skin gained a faint green undertone, her hair straightened, lost its tangles, and came off the forest floor holding small flowers that had not been there before.

  She roared the roar of a forest fire and leaped with supernatural strength. The troll was not fast. Its body was constantly growing, splitting, and its muscles frequently locked up before healing themselves.

  She careened into it, shoving with both hands. Even with its height and musculature, she thought she would send it flying backward. Instead, her hands pulped the two-inch thick layer of dermis and epidermis like lemons under a hammer. Then her palms struck against muscles that were harder than steel; each fiber prominent in a way that made her think of the braided metal cords from ships.

  The troll did not move. It opened its mouth in a soundless scream and flailed.

  "Well, shi—"

  She was backhanded and flew with the force of it. Tree limbs snapped across her magically reinforced back. When she finally came back to the ground, she was moving so fast that her ass hit the dirt and sent her rolling backward.

  "Please," said the owl creature, hopping neatly over to her. "I can rid us of our unwanted guest. Then we could learn such beautiful things together."

  "And all it would take is my blood and the blood of everyone like me," she snarled, coming to her feet.

  "Not everyone," the moonlight owl said. "But both of us need the power in your veins."

  The troll grew a mass of tumors on its shoulders. They slowly migrated down its arms until they collected on a finger that fell off and dissolved before it hit the dirt.

  "The true choice," said the evil bird creature, changing tacks, "is between your life force making that thing devastate more lives, or it could merely help me grow a body."

  Shilloh stumbled to the side, making sure the light of the owl thing lit up the clearing unobstructed and let her see her opponent. She now knew that she could not out-punch the troll. So, she kept talking to keep her light source stationary while she thought.

  "You know, everyone wants our blood. Wizards even want our skins and hair. But only the real fucked up ones remember what someone can do with the rest of a dryad."

  In a quick motion, she wiped the sweat off her forehead, picked up a rock, and threw it with a surge of magic. The sweat sunk in, and the rock seemed to grow more real—more solid. Without waiting, she spit on her hands and dug them into the soil, summoning roots from the ground to rise up and guard her.

  Or, she would have. The troll had grown extra skin that seemed to be encasing its own arms like a straightjacket.

  With shocking speed, it lunged forward, mouth-first, to snap the rock out of the air even as its arms were bound at painful angles. This time, it did stumble back, the small rock hitting like a boulder. But a snapped neck meant nothing. As the beast swallowed the stone, its teeth fell out and were replaced by gravel. In seconds, flaky stone formed on its neck and shoulders before moist pinky worms of flesh grew through the cracks in the stone and shattered them like water freezing and expanding in the winter.

  Sharp ridges of stone pointed out like spears and slowly moved down the beast. It advanced on her, neck snapping back into alignment, ignoring the way its shattered stone carapace cut at its own flesh.

  Each summoned root that she brought up to wrap around it was shredded by its limping passage. The jagged rocks moving down its body actually helped it cut the bindings like chainsaw teeth.

  Shilloh gulped and stepped back.

  She didn't know what else to do. No magical insights appeared, and the one that had told her to enforce the rock had been wrong.

  "Dammit. Dammit. Dammit."

  Leafs and pine needles formed mounds behind her heels as she dragged her feet backwards, trying to think of a way she could win past the impossible healing rate and strength.

  Her blood, maybe? Her people were so saturated in power that every part of them was a serious reagent, but she was still mostly human. Her blood wasn't as powerful as someone's who had decided to become fully dryad.

  A plan started building in her head. She could drop a tree on the thing and flee. But her instincts told her that she could not outrun the beast. Once she was far away, its body would change to suit the circumstances. It would run without her preternatural grace. But even if its superstrength broke its own leg every third step, it would catch up.

  Catch up and leave a bloody smear that it and the owl creature might nibble at as a consolation prize.

  As if summoned by the thought of an owl, she heard the call of Papa. In the dyad way, she knew he was telling her to follow the sound of his voice and flee. He probably saw something from the air that she didn't.

  She made herself even stronger and felt for more plants and natural resources she could draw magic from. Maybe poison, or something acidic or…

  Even as she turned and took her first step to run after Papa's voice, she noticed the blur to her left.

  While Shilloh still had one foot in the air, Fraulein leaped from the underbrush and put herself between her human and the troll.

  The bobcat had grown larger and let out a savage snarl of warning. The moonlight owl watched with tilted head. It was standing on the exact same spot by the two fallen trees where she had been facing the charge of a limb stealer earlier that day. With a fluttering hop, it shifted to perching on the limb stealer's dead body.

  She noticed but didn't care about anything other than Fraulein. It hurt, but she drew even more magic in. Vaguely, she felt something human pushed away to make room for all that she had borrowed from her surroundings.

  The troll hopped forward, leaking a palpable aura of pain and hunger.

  She couldn't think of anything to do.

  One pustule-covered fist swinging towards the bobcat. Towards her bobcat.

  Shilloh drew with suicidal fervor on her magic. But dryads were not meant to be fast in their wrath. Like the woods, they grew to scales that boggled the mind. But, like the woods, they did so slowly.

  Hell, guarding the forest from direct violence wasn't even a dryad's primary role in the cycle. Her people weren't meant for this.

  Luckily, Shilloh Methuselah was more than just a dryad.

  Rage came. Rage so strong and potent that it nearly blotted out her vision. She looked at Fraulein—sweet, regal, sassy, soft, kind—and was immersed in the wrath that allowed parents to lift busses off their children.

  Fraulein was her friend. No one, no man, monster, god, or act of fate was allowed to hurt her friends.

  With a sense of overwhelming congruence, everything in her came to agreement, and the power of her Wild Talent surged.

  She started to scream at the troll. Something along the lines of, "Don't you fucking dare!"

  But her magic moved faster than words, and her wrath made her incoherent anyway. So she contented herself with howling and sprinting behind a wave of cursed power like a battle-mad berserker intent on fighting till their hands broke and then chewing their way forward until there was room to kick, and spit, and stomp on skulls some more.

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