Gage stopped glowering at his sister to look at the king. “Okay, but one day?”
“One day,” the king promised and squeezed his shoulder.
The queen turned her glare on the king; she was a good foot shorter than him and easily a hundred pounds lighter, but she showed no fear of the man created by the fires of Hell. Not for the first time, I noticed the purity and strength of her soul. Whereas most good humans had a white soul with some other colors mixed in, hers was a brilliant gold color streaked with shades of violet and blue. I’d never seen anything like it before, and I doubted I ever would again.
Gage and Bailey possessed some similarities to her soul, but theirs were whiter with gold encasing the edges. Flecks of violet and blue danced through the white. These were the souls of those descended from the angels.
“Where did the horsemen and angels come from?” Erin asked.
“That’s an excellent question,” Corson said, “and one we can’t answer.”
“We haven’t cleared all of the Wilds,” Wren said, “and there is still enough land for them to hide an army, but there’s no way they moved an army of that size across the secured land without someone noticing them.”
“And if they killed off all witnesses?” Vargas asked.
“Do you think they could find and kill all witnesses?” Wren inquired.
“I didn’t think they could do what they did yesterday,” Vargas replied.
“I don’t see them being capable of hiding that many troops in the Wilds,” Erin said.
“They might not have hidden all those troops in one place,” the king said. “Each horseman could have had a group of troops sequestered in different places until they were ready to move. A smaller number of craetons sequestered somewhere would have been more difficult to detect, but it would have increased their chances of someone stumbling across them.”
“So we have no idea how they managed to keep so many hidden for so long,” Hawk said.
“No,” the king admitted. “I think they’ve found somewhere to hide. Which means your mission is going to be more difficult than before.”
I took a deep breath as I surveyed the crowd below us. They’d decimated our numbers at the wall. We’d also destroyed their army, but so few of us were going to hunt down some of the worst creatures to ever exist. I rubbed the trickle of sweat away from my nape before anyone else could see it. They couldn’t know that a part of me was contemplating crawling into my bed, pulling the covers over my head, and pretending the monsters couldn’t see me like I had as a child.
“Should we also bring Lopan and Calah with us?” Hawk asked.
“They probably won’t leave River,” the king said. “But you can ask them.”
“I’ll ask,” Lix said and strolled across the dais toward the stairs.
“Where are Caim and Raphael?” Hawk asked.
“Caim is following the horsemen from a discreet distance; he’s leaving signs behind in case the rest of you have trouble tracking them. Raphael left to bring word to Shax about what happened,” the king said. “He’ll meet you after.”
“How will he find us?”
“He’ll probably have to come back to the wall and follow your trail from there. Shax and the others will probably be little help to you; it will take them too much time to find you.”
Hawk glanced at me; if he suggested I stay behind, I’d kick him. I didn’t care if it caused a scene or not.
“What happened to the telepathic demon with Magnus?” Hawk asked, and I breathed a sigh of relief when he turned his attention away from me. I gave a subtle tug on my hand, and this time, he released me.
“I haven’t heard from him in a week; I assume he’s dead,” the king said.
“Shit,” Corson said. “I hope the others are okay.”
“I’m sure they’re fine,” the king said. “You know telepathic demons don’t last in the Wilds.”
Hawk chuckled, but they all shifted nervously, and I sensed their unease over this development. “Raphael must have been pissed to learn he was the messenger again,” Hawk said.
“He said something about not being a carrier pigeon and hating Earth before he left. I felt bad for him.” The king’s smile said he felt the exact opposite as Wren, Corson, and Bale laughed.
“We keep losing telepathic demons in the Wilds,” Hawk said to me. “And Raphael has become our go-between when it happens.”
“He hates it,” Wren said, and they all laughed again.
The click of Lix’s feet on the stairs drew my attention back to him, Lopan, and Calah. “What is in Lopan’s black pot?” I asked.
“It’s a caultin,” Gage said. “He can use it to conjure things.”
“He’s a leporcháin,” the queen said. “His kind is where our legends of leprechauns originated.”
“Fascinating,” I murmured.
Lix returned to the stage without the two demons and rejoined us.
“They said they would come with us, but they’d prefer to stay, especially after what happened yesterday,” Lix said.
“I know of a demon who could be an asset, if she survived,” I said. Zanta also volunteered to go into the Wilds this time, and I hoped that, if she was alive, she would still want to leave the wall.
“Take two hours,” the king said. “If you don’t find anyone else, you’ll have to go without them. Don’t forget, you’ll have some hounds with you too, and they’re immune to the horseman’s abilities.”
Chapter Eighteen
Hawk
I followed Aisling as she wound her way expertly through the streets of the town. Clothes and whatever weapons she couldn’t strap to herself weighed down her backpack. The bun she’d pulled her hair into emphasized the contours of her high cheekbones and doe eyes. The set of her jaw was one of determination as she made a right onto another tree-lined street.
Before the war, this town was like any other town in suburbia. Kids rode their bikes in the streets, parents barbecued, and neighbors talked over their fences. Flags lined the streets on the Fourth of July, and people waved when they passed each other.
After the war, they evacuated the survivors and erected the wall dividing this town from the rest of the surviving areas. The government turned the once quaint town into a military base and assigned the houses to those who guarded the wall.
Over the years, the sidewalks cracked, the streets became riddled with potholes, porches sagged, and the paint started chipping from the once pristine homes. It wasn’t that the soldiers didn’t have pride in their homes and town; they didn’t have the time or resources to care for things like they once did.
Leaves crunched beneath our feet as they floated down from trees that had turned the color of a sunset. I knew, from past years, most of those leaves would pile in corners where they would remain until the wind took them away or someone finally cleared them out in the spring.
Stars lit the sky as the quarter moon hung over the wall. The flashing red lights of the wall illuminated the soldiers patrolling the top of it. Some of the backup troops had arrived and were already helping to separate the dead and secure the town.
Aisling made a left toward the medical clinic that was a part of the town before the military took over. After packing her clothes for our upcoming journey, she spoke with a couple of demons and learned her friend, Zanta, hadn’t survived the battle. She’d taken the news with a brisk nod and a thank-you, but I saw the sheen of tears in her eyes when she turned away.
I’d reached for her, but she dodged my hand, gave me a scathing look, and walked away. I knew that look had nothing to do with the loss of her friend and everything to do with the fact she was aware I’d debated not allowing her to join us on this journey.
“I don’t want you going with us,” I said.
“No shit,” she retorted. “I didn’t miss your exchange with Corson. I’m not your little woman. You don’t get to decide what I do with my life. If I decide to go into the Wilds, then I’m going.”
I grabbed her wr
ist to pull her to a stop as I turned her to face me. She looked like she was considering hitting me when she lifted her chin.
“If I believed you weren’t capable of handling the Wilds, then no you would not go. Incompetence only gets you killed out there,” I told her.
“I am not incompetent, and it’s not your decision—”
“Yes, it is. I’ve been in the Wilds; I know the monsters and horror out there, and I know who can’t handle it. Corson and Bale may be Kobal’s seconds-in-command, but I’m also one of the leaders, and I help decide who watches our backs. You are my Chosen, and I would prefer you here, where it’s safer—”
“Did you miss what happened yesterday? It’s not safer here.”
“But it is, or at least it is for now. You have more numbers here, and while there’s a chance the horsemen could come back, it’s unlikely. We slaughtered their troops, and they’re on the run. I don’t want to separate from you, but if I believed you couldn’t handle the Wilds, I would leave you here. However, you’re a good fighter, and I think you can handle it.”
I also preferred her with me, where I could protect her. I didn’t think they’d attack the wall again, but there were other dangers out there, and I had to know she was safe.
Red flickered through her eyes. “I can handle it.”
With that, she tugged her wrist free and started down the street again. I went to stop her but decided it was best to leave her alone. I had a feeling pushing Aisling would only end up with her digging her heels further in and becoming more stubborn. Her anger would ebb eventually—I hoped.
We turned a corner, and the clinic came into view. There were so many tents set up outside the building that they blocked the street. Cots full of the wounded packed the tents; their moans drowned out the beeping equipment and shouts of the medical staff. They didn’t bring any of the injured demons here; they were on the hill in what remained of the tents while their bodies repaired themselves.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“I’m looking for a friend,” she said as she ducked into the first tent.
A pen scratched against a clipboard as the nurse within marked something down while a man slept soundly. The nurse glanced up and stopped writing to stare disapprovingly at us. “You can’t be in here.”
“I’m trying to find my friend, Sandy Mayhew,” Aisling said.
The nurse’s irritated expression faded, and she stepped away from the bed to point at the doors of the clinic. “The list of injured is posted on the door.”
“Thank you.”
Aisling hurried out of the tent; she walked three steps before breaking into a run and racing for the door. I paused for a minute to watch her. She hadn’t seemed frantic, but I sensed her desperation when she dropped her backpack on the ground. She’d lost one friend today, I didn’t want her to lose another, but I had a bad feeling about this.
I trudged over to stand beside her as she ran her finger down the list of names. “This can’t be everyone,” she muttered when she got to the end. “They have to be missing some of them.”
“Aisling—”
She spun toward me. “There’s only fifty names on the list. There has to be more.”
I rested my hand on her shoulder, and though her face remained pinched with annoyance, her tensed muscles relaxed a little.
“The craetons don’t leave survivors behind,” I said.
“But some people might not be able to give their names yet.”
I couldn’t give her false hope, but I couldn’t destroy it either. “True. Let’s go find out if there are more.”
Opening the door, I waited for her to put her backpack on and followed her inside. The stench of blood, death, and excrement assailed me as doctors and nurses rushed back and forth. With the rooms filled, more of the injured packed the hallway, and the sounds of their agony reverberated off the walls.
Aisling inspected their faces as she walked, but then she stopped so suddenly I nearly walked into her. Paler than the sheets draped over those around us, her lips compressed as she gazed at the wounded. “Their souls,” she whispered.
I frowned at her. “What about them?”
She grasped the straps of her backpack and pulled them forward as she whispered. “Some of them are so weak.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
But the look in her eyes said she was staring at death in a way I could never see it. Unable to resist, I rested my hand on her shoulder and drew her closer. She resisted for a minute, and then she placed her head on my chest and wrapped her arms around me. I inhaled her sweet scent as I rubbed her back to ease her sorrow. Then, she bowed her head and stepped away.
“Why don’t you go back outside,” I suggested. “And I’ll ask about your friend.”
“No. I can handle this.”
I suspected her determination to see this through was because of my hesitance to bring her into the Wilds. “This isn’t the same as the Wilds.”
She didn’t look at me as she turned away and marched up to the front desk. The harried-looking woman behind it didn’t look at her.
“Excuse me,” Aisling said. “I’m…”
The woman walked away before Aisling could say anything more. “I deserved that,” Aisling muttered as she turned to survey the stretchers. “I’m going to check the rooms. They’ll probably hate me for it, but I have to know what happened to Sandy.”
I gritted my teeth against pulling her away from this place; I doubted her friend was here, but she would fight me tooth and nail if I tried to get her to leave. I followed her around the desk and down the rest of the hallway as she checked the patients in the hall before moving on to the rooms.
She entered every room but came away paler than before. Finally, she walked out of the building and stood by the doors as she surveyed the tents in the street. “Do you know where they took the dead?” she asked me.
“They’re still on the field.”
Her gaze went to where the smell of smoke still wafted on the night breeze. The houses blocked the fire, if any of it still burned. “How much time do we have before we have to go?”
I glanced at my watch. “An hour.”
* * *
Aisling
I tried not to breathe in the stench of death as we made our way through the bodies laid out on the field. It took all I had not to put my hand over my nose or run out of here vomiting, but I refused to let Hawk see me do either. If I couldn’t handle this, he might think I couldn’t handle the Wilds and leave me behind.
I’d be irate if he left me, but I hated to admit I would understand. I was at the wall because I was a soldier, and soldiers took orders. I listened to commands because it was for the greater good of the entire world. If he decided I couldn’t handle this, and therefore couldn’t handle the Wilds, he would make sure I was ordered to remain. And after being pissed at myself, him, and the world, I would get over it and continue to protect every innocent on the other side of the wall.
“Do you want a mask?” Hawk asked when we passed a station of supplies the workers had established in the middle of the dead. Along with containers of water, the table included masks, gloves, and soap.
“No.”
“You know, being able to handle bad smells isn’t a requirement in the Wilds.”
He stopped to lift a mask from the table and put it on. When he lifted another and dangled it from his finger in front of me, I took it and slipped it on. It didn’t block out the smell, but it helped ease it as I searched the faces of the dead for Sandy.
In a short time, they’d managed to separate a lot of our dead from those of the craetons and laid them out in rows that reminded me of a cornfield. Except in this cornfield, no green leaves would sprout from the ground as life bloomed and there was no sign of the green grass once stretching for acres across the land. I didn’t think it would ever come back.
I had no idea why I was doing this; there was nothing I could do for Sa
ndy, but I had to see her if I could. I just didn’t know where to start. The bodies stretched out in at least twenty-five rows, and there were easily fifty people and demons per row.
Beyond these neat rows of the dead, the field remained cluttered with more dead. The bounce and sway of flashlights lit the night as people and demons picked their way through the bodies in search of more palitons. They would be out here for days, if not weeks.
I was starting down the tenth row when a woman with blonde hair caught my attention. My heart thundered as I rushed to her and knelt at her side. Biting my lip, I tried to keep my hand from trembling as I brushed the hair off her face.
Please. I pleaded as the last of her hair fell away, but through the blood and grime covering the woman, I saw she wasn’t Sandy.
“Ash?”
The sound of my name caused me to turn as two women made their way down the hill with a body between them. I blinked at the woman who spoke as I tried to sort the familiarity of her voice with the blood, dirt, and mask covering her face. Her reddish-brown hair hung in a limp ponytail against her neck as bloodshot, blue eyes blinked at me from over the top of her mask.
It took me a minute to realize her hair wasn’t naturally reddish-brown; blood and grime covered it. The woman lowered the legs of the body and stepped toward me.
“Sandy,” I breathed. Before I knew it, I was running to her, and we were hugging in the middle of one of the rows. “I thought you were dead!”
She sniffled. “I kept expecting to uncover your body.”
I repressed the sob lodged in my throat and ignored the stench of death clinging to her as I hugged her tighter. I didn’t know how much time passed before my grip on her finally eased and I stepped away. She pulled off the mask to reveal a circular section of cleaner skin around her mouth. I removed mine too.
“How did you survive?” she asked.
“I’m just that good,” I said, and she laughed. “What about you?”
“I was on the wall when the attack occurred. We shot a few of those flying assholes, but we were mostly out of the fight.”
Kiss of Death: Hell on Earth Series, Book 3 Page 12