by Jeff Gunhus
“Bella, don’t!” I yelled.
Too late.
The witch reached to grab the Stone. When she pulled it out, the sleeve of her dress was on fire. In a sudden whoosh of flame, the rest of her dress was burning.
It was a horrific sight, made worse by the maniacal laughter coming from the witch. The Talib heads joined in with laughter. She stood in the middle of the room, covered in flames, Jerusalem Stone held above her head in triumph.
Then, inside the fire, I saw the old hag disappear, replaced by the beautiful woman I’d seen the first time we’d been in the cottage. She stopped her insane laugh and looked up at the hole in the roof. A calm came over her as she smiled and grew still. Slowly, she reached toward the sky with her free hand.
“Talib,” she said. “There you are, my son. I’m coming for you. Mother’s coming for you.”
Then she looked at me and I saw that she was not in any pain; covered in flame and yet somehow untouched by it. I was struck again by her beauty, now more than ever because of the look of absolute peace that had settled over her. She nodded to me and held out her hand with the Jerusalem Stone. The Talib heads nodded along.
I hesitated. The Stone glowed red, covered in flame. I didn’t think reaching out to grab it was the best idea in the world.
“Take it,” the witch said. “It’s all right.”
The Talib heads chanted, “Take it, take it, takeittakeittakeit…”
This was the same person who, a minute earlier, had taken out my two friends and tried to kill me, but for some reason I trusted her. I reached out, carefully mind you, and slowly put my hand on the Stone. The second I did, it turned dark blue. I was surprised to find it cool to the touch. I was about to pull it back to me when the witch tugged on it slightly. I thought she was going to fight me for it, but one look at her eyes and I knew all she wanted was another moment of my attention. Somehow I knew that once I pulled the Stone from her, it would be the last time we would ever talk.
“Be careful, Jack,” she said. “Love can make people blind. It can make them justify things, terrible things.”
“Terrible things,” the Talib heads echoed, moaning.
“I’ll be careful.”
She smiled. “Poor, poor Jack. I’m afraid you will find that your trust is misplaced in the end. Once you know the truth, if they let you live long enough for that to happen, it will be a terrible day for you. A terrible day. Be strong. And perhaps you will survive it.”
I flinched. “What are you talking about? The truth about what?”
Without answering, the witch let go. With the Jerusalem Stone in my hand, I stumbled backward. The flames around the witch slowly turned in place, getting faster and faster, until a tiny tornado of fire spun in the middle of the cottage.
“Let’s get out of here!” yelled Will. He was pulling a dazed Eva to her feet.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the swirling vortex of flames. Soon, it was moving so fast around her that I couldn’t see her at all. The Talib heads wailed.
“Jack,” Will yelled again. “Grab Daniel. We’ve gotta go.”
The bottom of the tornado lifted off the floor and rose into the air. It kept rising and rising, moving over to the hole in the roof. Then it gathered speed and soared out of the cottage, into the air, and out of sight.
The second it was gone, the Talib heads went silent. I looked over to see them dissolving in place, like ice in hot water. The magic that had created them was gone. Just like the tragic Bella of the Woods, they simply ceased to exist.
I walked over to Daniel, now in his human form as always happened when he was knocked unconscious, and helped him to his feet. Eva had recovered and shaken away Will’s help. She looked up through the hole in the cottage roof as if making sure the witch wasn’t on her way back down, and then turned to me with a scowl.
“You almost go us all killed,” she said. “You shouldn’t have come here without us.”
She was mad, and I suppose she had a right to be. I’d trusted that the witch would keep her word and I’d been wrong. Even in her final warning, the witch had said my trusting people would cause a problem in the end. I didn’t have a clue what she meant by that, but I knew exactly the person who owed me some answers. It was time Master Aquinas stopped playing games and told me everything she knew.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. I screwed up.”
This seemed to take the wind out of Eva’s sails. She never walked away from a fight, whether physical or verbal, and she seemed disappointed that I wasn’t trying to defend myself.
“Yeah,” she said, coming across more exasperated than angry. “You did screw up. Big time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have told you guys and let you help me come up with a plan.”
Daniel leaned against a table, rubbing his head. “The least you could have done is take the first punch from that crazy old witch.”
Will nodded to the Stone in my hand. “We got what we came for; that’s what’s important. Now let’s get the heck out of here. This place still gives me the creeps.”
Right then, the front door flew open again. The four of us assumed our fighting stances, ready for the worst. But there was no one there. We all exchanged puzzled looks.
Slowly, two heads peered around the edge of the doorframe. T-Rex and Xavier.
Once they saw it was just us, they stepped into the opening. Neither came into the cottage.
“Did we miss it?” T-Rex asked. “Did we miss the fight?”
Chuckling, we walked outside and into the sunlight. I put my arm over T-Rex’s shoulder. “Thanks for coming, buddy,” I said. “You’ll get ’em next time.”
We left the cottage behind and started the long journey to the new encampment where Master Aquinas had taken the young hunters still under her care after the Academy was destroyed. I always looked forward to seeing her, but this time I was going to demand answers.
I just wasn’t sure what I planned to do if she refused to give them to me.
4
I didn’t even ask Daniel this time how he’d found Master Aquinas’s new secret location. He was the best tracker in the Black Guard, and his werewolf blood had only heightened his powers. The danger, of course, was the chance that one of the Creach was just as talented. Each time Daniel was able to locate Aquinas, it proved the spot was vulnerable. While the young hunters always liked to see us, they knew it also meant another move.
It was a shame because the new place was pretty cool. The previous hideout had been in the Spanish Pyrenees, the mountains barricading Spain from the rest of Europe. But it’d been a sprawling farm instead of a fortified structure. Master Aquinas had guessed, incorrectly it turned out, that the Creach would never think to look for them there. When we’d returned from our confrontation with the Lord of the Werewolves in the Black Forest of Germany, we’d found the farm devastated. A Creach attack left no sign of Aquinas or the hunters under her care. We’d since gotten news through the network of hunters that she and her students had barely escaped before the attack, fleeing to a new secret location.
Daniel brought us to a mountain valley deep in the Swiss Alps. He sniffed then pointed upslope. “There.”
Of course, Eva spotted it next. “A castle. How … homey.”
I studied the single box tower that stuck up from the rock. “More like a keep, isn’t it?” , was
Will raised one side of his upper lip. “Looks like a giant’s tooth.”
“Those slits aren’t windows,” Xavier said. “They’re for archers. Same for the battlements on top.”
T-Rex squinted. “Bet it has a few of those openings where rocks or flaming oil can be poured onto attackers below. Waste of good cooking oil.”
I smiled. “Knowing Aquinas, there’ll be more than a few surprises waiting for any Creach who decide to try their luck against the keep’s defenses.”
Xavier looked impressed. “That’s assuming any attack could get through the first line of def
ense. Look at those thick walls surrounding three sides of the keep, combined with a sheer drop on the fourth side. Must be a few thousand feet into the ravine. If any Creach tried to climb that wall from below, the defenders above would have plenty of time to pick them off.”
Shortly, a group of armed hunters met us on the road. Fortunately, they recognized us and escorted us up the mountain pass. Their leader was someone I hadn’t met before. He was older, in his late twenties, and wasn’t part of Master Aquinas’s original group. He gave us his name, Hadar, but wouldn’t say much of anything else. He cast wary glances at Daniel and Eva as we made the journey up the mountain in the back of an old pickup truck
The gate rumbled open, and the truck chugged under the castle wall. Every knock of the engine echoed off the rock. With one last loud ping, the truck stopped inside.
Daniel shook his head. “Some hideout.”
I opened the tailgate. “Not quite as secret as Master Aquinas hoped, I bet”
He shrugged. “Too bad they’ll have to move again. Master Aquinas would like the feel of a mountain stronghold, especially one with limited points of access so she could monitor enemy attacks well in advance. Better than at the Academy.”
In a blur, Eva leaped to the ground. “The Academy stronghold lasted hundreds of years.”
Daniel jumped down. “The problem there was the dense forest. We should have thinned it to prevent even a small force hiding to stage an attack, let alone the thousands of goblins it took to destroy the school.”
As the rest of us piled out, I had to agree. “No such weakness here.” There was nothing but bare rock as far as the eye could see. It was lifeless and cold, but effective for defense.
Then again, limited ways in meant limited ways out. As I looked the area over, I was struck at how easily the castle could be cut off and held under siege. It was something to ask Master Aquinas about. Later. I didn’t want to ruin our reunion.
Now that we were among friends, I spotted several older hunters mixed in with the young hunters I knew from the Academy. Horses neighed from a stable inside the wall, but there were several more trucks parked inside as well. I knew Master Aquinas frowned on technology, so I doubted they were there at her request. I guessed that she and the young hunters were at the keep as guests. At whose invitation?
I reached down and scooped up a handful of rocks from the ground. They were tailings, chunks of stone from a mining operation, and there were piles of them everywhere. I put some into my pocket for Xavier to inspect later. The Black Death hunters were digging into the mountain here and I was curious why.
The young hunters gathered around us, peppering us with questions. They looked to be in good spirits, healthy and well-fed. I noticed they all wore identical uniforms of black pants, shirt and jacket. The same uniform as the older hunters in the keep, the ones who kept their distance and watched us carefully, speaking to each other in hushed voices.
“Have you come to take command of the army?” a young hunter asked me.
I knew the boy from the Academy days, although I barely recognized him at first. Last time I’d seen him, he’d seemed no more than a little kid. Just another eager, brown-haired hunter being trained by Master Aquinas. But now I saw a different look in his eyes. Something hard. Something that told me he was no longer just a kid. I remembered his name because it was something we had in common.
“Jackson McCoy,” I said. “The real McCoy. Are your brother and sister here?”
“Yeah, Garrett and Sydney made it through. And my six cousins,” he said eagerly. “We’re ready to fight for you. We all are.”
The other young hunters murmured their agreement.
“If I recall correctly, Master Aquinas had you on a different track.” I tapped the side of his head. “She was teaching you to use your mind and not your sword. I still remember when you beat Xavier at chess. He complained about it for a week. Beating him is harder than winning a battle with a six-armed weregoblin while being chased by a herd of mug-wumps.”
There were chuckles among the youngsters, but Jackson didn’t smile.
“The Colonel says there’s no time for books and science,” he said. “He says it’s time to fight. That it’s time to wipe out the Creach wherever they are.”
I noticed several of these older hunters nodding toward Eva, their disapproval written all over their faces.
“The Colonel?” I said. “And who’s that?”
Jackson looked confused. “You don’t know? But then why are you–”
“Bless me if it isn’t the wandering heroes themselves,” bellowed a deep voice behind us.
We spun around to see Bocho. While technically in charge of the Ratlings, the class of hunter that supported the fighters by doing things like cooking and setting up camp, he had essentially become Master Aquinas’s right hand. And a great friend to me, Will, and T-Rex. But he really had a soft spot for Eva who he’d cared for since she was a little girl.
“All right,” he said to the hunters crowded around them. “Off with you all. Back to work or you’ll be doing extra workouts this afternoon for sure.”
“He says he doesn’t know who the Colonel is,” Jackson said. “How can that be?”
“Now don’t you worry about it, young Master McCoy,” Bocho said. “Get on there with the others.”
Jackson started to protest, but Bocho’s expression made it clear it would do no good. The other young hunters groaned, but they listened and left us alone. The older hunters didn’t move, some crossing their arms as if making it clear they weren’t about to take orders from the old Ratling. Then one of their own, a tall man with a few day’s growth of a beard, made a hand signal and gave a low whistle. The older hunters reacted immediately and left the area for the far side of the open yard in front of the keep. The tall man caught my eye and gave me a long look before following his men.
“Ms. Eva,” Bocho said, turning to her as if nothing had happened. “You’re looking better than last time I saw you, that’s for sure.”
He wrapped Eva in a bear hug. I saw her tense up – that kind of contact wasn’t her thing since becoming a vampire – but she let him hold her. When he pulled away, the bear of a man wiped a discrete tear from his eye. “Yep, looking almost good as new.”
“Hey, Bocho,” I said, punching him in the shoulder. “Any rabbit up here? Been craving your stew.”
Bocho shook his head. “Not much in the way of fixins up here. The Colonel likes to keep things basic. Porridge at breakfast, tasteless gruel if you ask me. Then meat, potato, and a veggie of some kind for lunch and dinner. I’m to keep it simple, he says. Only salt and pepper for spices. Can you believe that?”
“The little guy mentioned the Colonel too,” Daniel said. “Was that him?” He nodded towards the tall, bearded man.
“Who, him?” Bocho said, looking at the man and wrinkling his nose like there was a smell in the air. “Nah, that’s just Lucas. One of the Colonel’s men. You probably heard of the Colonel before. His name’s Trevor Lockhart.”
The name didn’t mean anything to me, but by the look on Eva, Daniel, and Xavier’s faces, they recognized it well enough.
“What? Who is he?” I asked.
Daniel grabbed his bag from the back of the truck and slung it over his shoulder. “Lockhart splintered from the Black Watch years ago. He was more militant than the other leaders, including Master Aquinas.”
“Militant how?” Will asked. “I mean, we’re all hunters, right?”
“We fight Creach,” Eva said. “His group thought their mission was to eradicate all monsters, no matter where they were. No matter if they were in the fight or not.”
Xavier chimed in. “Lockhart and his men would go into Creach areas where they hadn’t bothered humans in decades and clear them out. Using whatever means necessary. Rumor was that he even worked around Quattuordecim by hiring Creach mercenaries to kill the monsters under the age of fourteen. They used to call themselves monster killers instead of hunters.”
“They call themselves the Black Death now,” Bocho said. “Bunch of bloodthirsty bullies if you ask me.”
T-Rex looked around at the older hunters on the far side of the yard. “If they’re so bad, why did Master Aquinas let them in here?”
“She didn’t,” I said, getting it. “They let her in. This is their fortress.”
Bocho nodded. He leaned in conspiratorially. “Times being what they are, I think we’ve all joined together. We’re all part of their group. Or they’re part of ours. It’s hard to say. Smarter people than me are figuring that out right now.”
“Figuring what out?” Will asked.
“Who’s in charge,” Bocho said. “Not only of this place, but of the army.”
“What army?” I asked.
Bocho looked uncomfortable. “Maybe I’m not the right person to tell you. Master Aquinas, she should be the one to talk to you about it.”
“Jack,” Will said under his breath. “Incoming.”
I turned to see the hunter that Bocho had called Lucas walking back toward us, five of his men in a line behind him.
Without me having to say a word, Daniel, Eva, Will, T-Rex, and Xavier took positions next to me. We’d been in enough scrapes together to know trouble when we saw it coming. Daniel reached for his sword, but I put out my hand and he stopped, although I noticed he left his hand on the hilt.
Lucas and his five men, all in their early twenties by the looks of it, came to a stop five yards in front of us. Normally I wouldn’t have felt threatened by an even fight; something about battling dragons, goblin armies, and hordes of demons makes five punks in black outfits playing soldier not seem so menacing. The only thing I didn’t like was the fact that all five of them now wore a shoulder holster with a gun under one arm. These definitely weren’t Master Aquinas’s type of people. She hated guns. And I hated the idea that they were being worn to intimidate us. At least I hoped that was the only reason they had them.
“Eh, what’s this?” Bocho said.
“Step aside, Ratling,” one of the hunters behind Lucas said. “Go fix some porridge for your kid hunters.”