Remember Me

When nothing is like it was... In the deep forests of the prohibited Isle Royale in the far northern reaches of Lake Superior, Kim Murayama lives quietly with Mick, one of the mysterious Royale “witches” cloned by the Wilmut Corporation. He's at peace except for one thing – Wilmut's genetics have decreed that the Royales will die at 30 years of age. Mick must die. But what if it were possible to disconnect the OFF switch? As Kim works to unravel the secrets of the Royales' manufactured genetics, the myth of the monstrous Wendigo comes alive and it's after the witches of Isle Royale.

We’d been on Isle Royale since late autumn – me, the Shady Lady's skipper Dave Hanson and his First Mate Liam O'Connor – and against all prohibition spent the winter among the witches, cold with snow deep on the ground and heavy on the boughs of their magic forests. I sometimes wonder if I'd have been there at all if it wasn’t for Wilmut, Inc. Frankly, I'd never have paid that God damned outfit any attention if Mick hadn’t fallen into my life while running from them. The night two years ago when she walked into Jack’s Place back in the M, I'd never heard of the company, their clones and the telomerase those manufactured souls produce. I never knew that immortality was for sale over on the East Side. And I didn’t know what a Royale witch genuinely was. Yeah, I’d heard of them, knew they were contraband and knew I shouldn’t have associated with Mick, but I helped her get back home to Isle Royale anyway. After that I left the island, left Mick and pretended all the mystery and magic we'd found wasn't real – pretended the love I found hadn’t been real. That should have been the end of it. But when Dengra Heks and the Night Horse rode our dreams for vengeance, Mick returned to the city for me. I'm glad she did. It was a hell of a run, though – we sank the Grey Witch under the waters, put the Night Horse out to pasture, and I retired Wilmut's CEO Wallace Spahn permanently. Wilmut hadn't been to the island since Dengra Heks went to the bottom of Rock Harbor, and no sign of the Darkness, another malignancy of Wilmut's, a discarnate evil that stalks the witches on the wings of the darkest night. There'd been no sign that the Sovereignty was interested in us, either. As if we were no longer part of that shattered remnant of America, no longer part of that whole world. Surrounded by the frigid waters of northern Lake Superior, it was almost as if we weren't. It was cold that winter, but my heart was warm. I was with friends – I was with Mick the Witch – and I was happy. I would have let things ride that way, but Fate had other ideas.