Nest of Tongues

1

Small-­Hearted Creatures

Lily

Forget the light—­we navigate by blood. The scent, the warmth, the coursing movement. We map the shape of life clinging to the bay like crimson constellations below our beating wings, below the moonless sky.

Most people lie sleeping, veins pulsing in soft, steady rhythms. We’re no threat to them. Despite what you may have heard, we don’t slurp fetuses from wombs or pluck babies from their cribs or devour humans in shadow-­soaked alleyways. Despite what you may have heard, we’re not monsters.

At least, we’re not any more monstrous than those who would call us such.

So, I soar southeast. Past the foothills, past the fire trails, and deep into the mountains of the Diablo Range. Caleb is calling for me to slow down—­as usual—­but I ignore him. He needs to learn to keep up.

When I reach our hunting grounds, I catch an updraft, my wings angling until I’m hovering silently above the tree line. I close my eyes, open my arms, and focus. Like dipping fingers into a river, I let the entrails hanging from my severed torso feel the air. I shut out the white noise of breaking waves and midnight highway traffic miles at my back and extend my senses, savoring this rare moment when I am allowed to be—­need to be—­fully myself.

It is a cold, clear autumn night. The air tastes of dried grass and distant wildfires. Leaves rustle. Insects click and trill. In the meadow below and behind me, an owl swoops out of the treetops and plucks a field mouse from the ground.

I’m only beginning to sharpen my focus when Caleb finally catches up.

“Ate,” my brother says between huffing breaths, “didn’t you hear me?”

I shush him and return to listening and smelling and tasting and feeling the evening, seeking familiar patterns in blood. For a long time, it’s nothing but night birds, bats, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and mice.

“A fox!” Caleb says with more excitement than his find warrants, breaking my concentration again. “Along that ravine.”

I sigh, open my eyes, and turn toward him. Like me, my little brother’s a pair of glowing silver eyes in the darkness, his blue-­black skin and wings rendering him otherwise invisible.

I blink. Respond with a simple “No,” then drift away.

I push my senses out farther in search of bigger game because I’m not here for small-­hearted creatures. I crave something fiercer. Something not just enough to survive, but to thrive. Something that will give me enough kulam to return to my true form in any darkness. To sharpen, quicken, strengthen, harden.

The forest rustles. The stars creep across the sky. An occasional airplane roars past far overhead, periodically drowning out my senses and demanding patience. We burn an hour like this. Then another. Then another.

Caleb fidgets. A couple times, I even hear him reach for his phone out of habit, forgetting that it’s in the pocket of the pants his lower body is wearing back at home, guarded by Lola.

I hiss, clench my jaw, and put some more distance between us. In my head, I hear Lola urging me to take it easy on my little brother, to remember that he needs practice. He only started detaching a year ago—­something none of us expected since every other manananggal in our family has been female. But we all know inexperience is not his real problem.

Patience pays off, and I eventually find exactly what I’m looking for at the edge of my sense field. I tie up my hair, beat my wings, and slip away, leaving Caleb calling after me.

Moving as fast as my leathery wings will carry me, I dart through the night sky. My world becomes the shortest path to prey. I descend as I close in, weaving through the treetops. But then I start to hear branches thwacking Caleb as he trails me. Not wanting the noise of his ineptitude to startle the creature, I veer off track and alight in an old-­growth redwood downwind, still some distance away.

When he finally arrives, I hiss at him through clenched teeth. “Could you be any louder, bunso?”

“Sorry, Ate.” He latches onto the massive trunk next to me, claws scrabbling clumsily against the bark. “I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

He nods and hangs his head in that way he does, which makes me feel like I kicked a puppy.

“Stop being so kawawa,” I say, reaching out and grabbing his shoulder to steady him. “But whatever. Can you at least sense it yet?”

He closes his eyes. Stills himself. Flicks out his forked tongue a few times. Then his silver eyes spring open wide. “A mountain lion?”

I grin. “A motherfucking mountain lion.”

“We can’t kill a mountain lion, Ate,” Caleb says.

“Maybe you can’t, but—­”

“No, I mean, Lola says we’re not allowed to.”

I scoff.

All Ta’Li need kulam to survive, but there are as many ways to extract the spiritual essence from the world as there are types of Ta’Li. We—­the manananggal, that is—­draw it from the blood of living animals. The higher up in the food chain an animal sits, the more kulam its blood carries. However, Lola forbids us from feeding on apex predators. According to her, it would bring unwanted attention and disrupt the ecosystem. Instead, she taught us to stick to primary and secondary consumers, gathering only enough kulam to survive from one new moon to the next like rats scavenging crumbs.

“Lola’s overly cautious,” I say. “It can’t hurt every now and then.”

“That’s what you said last month. Besides, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal. Mountain lions are endangered or something. At least I think they are.” He reaches for his phone—­in vain—­again.

“You’re just making shit up because you’re afraid this is going to be like it was with the bear,” I say.

“You said it wouldn’t wake up.”

A small laugh slips from my lips. “It shouldn’t have.”

“Yeah,” he says, following me from one tree to the next, “but it did.”

“Because of your hella clumsy ass.”

“And,” he adds, “you forgot to mention the second bear.”

“It was a cub,” I say, and dart to the next tree. He follows.

“And,” he continues, like some lapdog barking at nothing, “in case you didn’t notice, we’re way past our territory. What if—­”

“Whatever, Lolo Bunso,” I taunt, since he’s going on like an old man in a kid’s body. “You want to lecture me all night, or you want to feed? If it makes you feel safer, I’ll go first and take the fight out of it.”

His exposed stomach rumbles.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I say.

I scuttle down the trunk and slip silently from one tree to another and then another. It’s a slow, plodding approach, but one Caleb shouldn’t have a problem keeping up with. Soon, we reach the canopy above the oblivious creature, which is prowling through the forest on its own hunt.

I gesture for him to go for it.

He shakes his head. Which doesn’t surprise me.

Before Caleb can mess this up, I swoop down and latch onto the back of the mountain lion. It lets out a roaring cry that shatters the silence as my claws clamp into its sides. It tries to shake me off, but it’s too late. I dig my claws in deeper and sink my fangs into its neck. Veins and ligaments and bones crunch and pop, and hot blood pours into my mouth. As I drink it in greedily, the creature thrashes, stumbles, collapses, twitches; grows quiet, still, then silent.

I take in my fill, strength growing as the creature’s powerful kulam surges through my spirit. This is how our kind is meant to feel. This is how we are meant to be. Not just a single night each moon, but every time the sun dips past the horizon.

I draw my mouth away, unlatch my claws, and lock eyes with Caleb. I grin, lips and chin sticky with warm blood, finally sated. “It’s safe for you now, Lolo Bunso.”

Caleb is about to reply when a twig snaps somewhere behind me. I whip my head around, teeth bared. There’s something behind a tree in the distance. A figure. Human-­shaped. But when I blink, it’s gone.

Too late, my brother follows my gaze. “What is it?”

I shush him and focus my senses. Trees rustle and shadows shift. Another plane passes overhead. I don’t feel anyone else around, and I don’t smell any human blood nearby. Except for the lesser creatures, it’s only Caleb and me and this dying mountain lion for miles in any direction.

After I’m sure of this, I turn to Caleb. “You didn’t see anything?”

“Like what?” he asks.

How could any human venture this deep into the mountains, miles away from the nearest road or trail? Even with most of my attention focused on feeding, I would have heard a vehicle approach. And what would they be doing out here alone at this time of night, anyway?