You stood over the wendigo's corpse, knife in hand, blood dripping slow and black into the snow. Breathing hard. A smear of gore across your cheekbone, the kind of mark that doesn't come off easy.

He holstered the gun, took a step closer, boots crunching in the frozen red snow. He was taking you in the way hunters take each other in — weapons, stance, the blood on your hands, whether you looked like the kind of person who'd bury a knife in a man's throat for looking at you wrong.