Hunting Season (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 4)

by Annie Bellet

  My fingers didn’t want to work; my brain was trying to shut down the pain and run screaming into the dark. Numb cold spread from the wound and up into my chest, pushing the pain away, granting me a small space in which to think, to breathe. My hand closed on my own knife and I dragged it free of the sheath. So slow. Still she hung on to me until I weakly shoved her back.

  She fell away, just a step. Enough. My free hand closed on the blade in my belly, locking it into place as she tried to drag it out, holding her in place as she kept her grip on it.

  I jammed my knife up into her sternum, her own scream ringing in my ears as I cut, throwing magic into the blade, going for her heart. I abandoned the knife as she fell backward, following her down to the ground. I knelt over her as she ineffectually tried to pull the buried knife from her chest. Violet claws grew from my fingers and I plunged my hand into her and ripped out her heart.

  Time stopped. The sounds of fighting in the trees died. The air froze and I couldn’t breathe for a moment as my body adjusted. Tess’s heart in my hand was hot, almost burning me, still beating. Her eyes were open, her pupils huge and black, eclipsing her irises. Speckled with stars.

  Her hand, red with my blood—or hers, I couldn’t tell—reached up and gripped my own, her silver bracelet shining with its own light, the cross on it a tiny star. She pressed her heart toward me.

  “Take,” she whispered, the words hardly more than a sigh. “Eat. This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

  I hesitated, then nodded, biting into her heart, putting out the light in her eyes and drawing it into my own. I’d seen most of the game, played it out almost to the end. As Tess died and became a part of me, her cold power sinking into my own inner ocean of magic, I saw the check and mate.

  I’d thought she was lying, that somehow she had managed to deceive Alek, fool his Justice ability. I was wrong, dead fucking wrong.

  Tess’s memories flowed through me and I saw her choices through her eyes. She was willing to do whatever it took to defeat Samir. She was willing to help me, teach me.

  To join her power with mine. Join me.

  Literally.

  Pain flared again, the numbness burning away as time sped back up and the bubble Tess had cast around us died with her. I yanked the knife from my belly before I could think about it too hard and lose my will. Or consciousness.

  I poured raw magic into the wound, visualizing it closing, willing my body to heal. The blood stopped gushing but even getting to my feet was agony. I reached for Tess’s cold magic and numbed myself, letting her memories guide me instinctually. It would take practice to learn to do what she had done, but I could mimic what I’d seen, what I’d felt.

  The wound throbbed but the worst of the pain faded. Tiger-Alek crashed out of the trees and rolled across the clearing, gaining his feet with a snarl. He spared a glance for me as a huge stone catlike beast followed him, rust-colored smoke spilling from cracks along its body. Blood stained tiger-Alek’s white coat, a gash open and oozing along one shoulder.

  Trees crashed and shook in the forest and green light flickered in the twilight between the trunks. I thought I saw two women, both with long flaming hair, dancing out there, swords in hand, fighting the stone snake. The trees and growing darkness made it difficult to tell.

  “Clyde,” I screamed at the woods. I stumbled forward, every step threatening to break the icy magic I had cloaking my wound. I wrapped my hand around my talisman and gritted my teeth. This battle was only half won.

  He appeared, slender and shining with dark power, springing from the trees. Tentacles of inky light slashed toward me.

  “You killed her,” he snarled. “She was mine!”

  I slashed out with purple fire, burning back the tentacles. Greasy smoke hazed the air, the smell something between a wet campfire and a pile of rotting garbage.

  “Come and get her, then,” I said through clenched teeth.

  His magic was the filth that had tainted the unicorn, the same oily black sludge now turned into slick tentacles that rent the air with acidic smoke. At the corner of my vision, I watched as Alek sprang at the stone beast. The cat was nearly as big as he was and they rolled back into the trees, a flash of rusty light and white fur.

  I wanted to go and help him but I forced myself to stay focused on Clyde. I’d told Alek not to interfere with my fight with the sorcerers when they showed up, and he’d made me promise to let him and Brie protect me from the guardians that I was sure Clyde would bring with him.

  I’d wondered if Clyde would bring along the Fomoire hounds as well, but gambled that he would send those at the druid, seeking to keep them occupied so no one could interfere with him and Tess. The Tess in my thoughts whispered that Clyde had likely hoped I would bring her down, or at least drain her low, so he could take her heart for himself. He would harvest mine for Samir, she thought, and in her memories I saw the heart container, a small sliver-threaded bag.

  A bag tied now to Clyde’s belt. The sorcerer wore a long coat, which he stripped off and dropped to the ground as he gathered more power, circling to my right. Tentacles lashed out from his outstretched hands and again I threw a wave of magic fire at them, shoving them back.

  The red-spot tango was back in my vision, the euphoria I’d felt for a moment as I took Tess’s gift to me now drained completely away. I had no time to prepare for the tentacles; he was able to move them independently, sending them at me from both sides. I expended blast after blast of sheer raw power, trying to hang on to reserves, to see a weakness, and a way to reach him. I was too hurt to charge him; even sidestepping was enough to cause panic in my body, enough to threaten my balance as my legs tried to give out.

  He’s so arrogant, mind-Tess whispered to me.

  He wanted my heart. He thought he could win, and maybe he could, but maybe I could out-power him. If I hadn’t already spent this whole damn week draining myself over and over, if I hadn’t been stabbed by Tess, I probably could have. As she’d told me, he was young, inexperienced with doing damage to things that fought back.

  He advanced slowly on me, now wielding three tentacles that struck at me from the top and sides.

  “Fall already,” he snarled at me, his eyes black with his power, filth emanating from him in sickening waves. And I saw my opening.

  So I took it. I fell, dropping to one knee, turning my power from offensive into a shield along my skin, keeping the filth off myself but letting it batter me, drive me to the ground. I used my body to shield my hand from Clyde’s line of sight as I picked up Tess’s knife, still wet with my blood. Then I waited.

  Maybe I really was some kind of Super Saiyan. Glutton for punishment and pain, but rising stronger every time. I almost laughed at the mental image of me with white hair sticking straight up but held it in. That was the delirium talking.

  Triumphant, grinning, Clyde ceased his tentacle attacks and closed on me, his eyes flicking around the clearing to make sure we were alone. A terrible battle raged in the trees but our space was open, only growls and howls and the breaking of branches and shaking of limbs giving any sign that we weren’t wholly alone out here.

  He stepped in close enough, only a tiger’s length away now. I sprang, ignoring the pain in my belly, ignoring the darkness tugging at my vision. I used my magic to shove me forward and flew through the air, slamming into him. We rolled. I stabbed at him, over and over, eyes squeezed shut, mouth closed against the inky putrid magic leaking from him. He panicked and tried to use his hands, his body, losing his grip on his power.

  I sank the knife into him again and again, throwing my own magic along the blade, searing into that darkness, remembering how it had nearly killed the unicorn’s wondrous light. Clyde stopped struggling and his screams died. My knife had found his heart.

  Rolling off him, I lay on the grass. Stars winked down at me. Wolf appeared, her cold nose sliding under my hand as she crouched beside me. My own breathing was labored, heavy.

 
Clyde’s breath gurgled, erratic. He was still alive. I hadn’t taken his heart yet.

  Green light spilled from the forest as a keening note, high and pure, rang through the forest. The stone cat and a huge turtle insect plunged into the clearing. Their hides were marked with scores and leaking rusty smoke. Three women followed the turtle, tiger-Alek at their side. They could have been triplets, each with long curling red hair and eyes full of emerald fire.

  The light followed, first in streamers and then in a tidal wave, swamping us all. The stone beasts fell apart, their carapaces turning to shimmering mist. The three Bries cried out, their voices singing with glory. Behind them, a small, stout man in red ran toward them. Tiger-Alek roared.

  The wave poured over and around me. Faces formed and dissipated before I could make them out. I hadn’t realized how hurt I was until the pain just quit, its sudden absence making me gasp. Then the light changed from green to iridescent, and the song, that pure, clear note, became wild with joy.

  The soul of the wild. I’d touched a piece of it within Lir. It danced and sang around me, awake and free, cleansing the wood of Clyde’s filth, closing Balor’s Eye.

  Tess, built of green smoke and glimmering fire, appeared beside me.

  “Take his heart,” she said, her voice many voices, all languages, as though she spoke in tongues. My ears rang with the power in that voice.

  I crawled to my knees and looked down at Clyde. He watched me with wide, pale eyes as I formed violet claws with magic around my hand. I ripped his heart out with the ease of pulling a half-embedded stone from sand, and held it dripping and beating in my hand.

  He shuddered and his eyes bled to black, but there were no stars reflected in them. I started to raise the heart to my already bloody mouth, but stopped.

  This would be my fourth heart taken. Each of the others now lived on in me in a way, their experiences now mine, their memories, their abilities, their knowledge. Through me, they survived—even the damned serial killer whose memories I had mostly burned away.

  “No,” I said. Clyde’s power was evil, his knowledge was of evil things, twisted life, ruined spirits. I felt nothing but filth and cruelty from him, in his magic.

  I was already killer enough, worried enough that if push came to shove, I’d fall off the cliff of “not quite good” and tumble down into evil in the name of survival.

  Mind-Tess railed at me, but the soul of the forest, still glimmering beside me in Tess’s likeness, nodded as I met its eyes. I pulled the silver bag from Clyde’s belt, ignoring the sweet, familiar feel of Samir’s magic. Then I shoved Clyde’s heart into the bag, and watched his body still and his eyes cloud over as I zipped the bag shut.

  The light took his body, the ground beneath me opening up and sucking him in like shimmering green quicksand. The heart in the bag still beat, but Clyde’s magic was cut off, dormant, his body just a body without it.

  The wild light faded away, but my own magic burned on, my body light from within by purple fire as I knelt over the bare ground and let my tears fall.

  Alek wrapped warm, human arms around me and I opened my eyes. I was no longer glowing and the woods were quite dark. We’d brought flashlights, but they were in a black bag by a tree somewhere.

  “The others?” Alek asked.

  “The Fomoire are gone,” I said, sure of it. “Yosemite finished the ritual.”

  Alek turned his head even as I spoke, listening to something I couldn’t hear. My ears were still ringing from the forest’s voice. Ghostly grey and brown wolves appeared and lined the edge of the clearing. They parted and Harper came through, followed by a small herd of unicorns, Lir at their head. The unicorns’ coats gleamed like moonlight in the growing gloom.

  She limped right up to me as I stood there, my mouth hanging open.

  “We won,” she said, making it both a statement and a question.

  “We won,” I confirmed as I tightened my grip on the silver bag.

  Harper looked past me. “Who’s the kid?”

  I turned and saw Ciaran holding a little girl in his arms. She had thick red hair and a confused look on her face. She was tiny, no more than three or four years old. He was whispering quietly to her, the words too low to make out. There was no sign of Brie or her two doppelgangers. He looked up and nodded to us, then disappeared in a puff of gold smoke, taking the odd child with him.

  “No idea,” I lied. I had a pretty good idea who that girl was, but finding out the truth would have to wait.

  “Anyone hurt?” Alek asked.

  Ezee and Levi limped out of the trees, both in human form and each favoring a leg. Yosemite followed. He seemed more solid to me, standing even taller. I wondered what the soul of the wild had done or said to him. Whatever it had been, I had a feeling he’d leveled up as a druid.

  “We’re good,” Levi called.

  “Is that…?” Harper said, noticing the body crumpled on the ground behind me.

  “Tess,” I said. “We need to take her back.”

  My friends looked at me, then at each other. Wisely, they all just shrugged. I knew I’d have to explain Tess’s betrayal—or rather, her not-betrayal. Explain how I’d known that Balor’s Eye was just a distraction, that Clyde was after me, so I’d baited him and Tess by separating myself from the ritual, guessing correctly that the sorcerers would come after me. They didn’t care if the druid won his fight or not. The deaths of the unicorns had been Clyde playing around, taunting the druid, taunting me. It had helped give away the game, in the end.

  “Jade,” Alek murmured. “She betrayed you.”

  “She needs to be laid to rest in a graveyard, a Christian one,” I said. “She did what she thought was right. I’ll explain later.” Hopefully later I’d have figured it all out myself. There was a lot to think through now.

  Alek frowned at me, but nodded. “I’ll carry her,” he said.

  I’d been mostly healed by the soul of the wild, but it was still a long, slow journey back to the Henhouse. Levi, Ezee, and Harper were all still hurting, but refused Yosemite’s offer to ask the unicorns to carry them home. The forest spirit had healed them enough that they wanted to make the journey. Harper also pointed out that Max would never forgive her if she got to ride a unicorn when he’d been forced to stay behind.

  We ran into Max on the way back. Rosie had realized Tess was missing, and Max was trying to track her. He crumpled when he saw her dead body in Alek’s arms. I didn’t have the heart to tell him she’d betrayed us. It wasn’t wholly true anyway. We wrapped Tess’s body in clean sheets and laid her in the barn.

  All I wanted was a hot shower and a million years of sleep. Tomorrow I would figure out how to break into a graveyard and bury a body. I didn’t know any priests, so I asked Yosemite if he would help bury her. He said he knew many Christian prayers and would see if he could find something right to say. Levi overheard us and mentioned he knew a priest and would make a call.

  “How tired are you?” I asked Alek after we’d taken a chaste shower together. Mostly chaste. There had been a lot of clinging, as neither of us wanted to break the sheer comfort of skin-on-skin contact.

  “What do you need?” he asked, pushing my wet hair back behind my ears as he cupped my face.

  I pointed to the silver bag. “Take that; hide it somewhere far away from here or my shop. Don’t tell me where it is.”

  “You didn’t kill him,” he said.

  “I don’t want his power. I don’t want his filth in me. I know that power is power, magic is magic, that it is all a tool to be used, but this is a tool I don’t want. It’s an atomic bomb, waiting to destroy me.”

  “Why have me hide it?” He tipped his head to one side, looking down at me, his expression unreadable.

  “I think Samir will come for it.” Tess thought he would. I felt her in my head, her memories and thought patterns fresh in my mind. “I think the end game is coming.”

  “You do not seem afraid,” Alek said. “Why not use the heart as bait?” />
  “I’m too fucking tired to be scared,” I said. “But I’ll be scared tomorrow. And honestly? I don’t want the temptation. If things go poorly, I don’t want to have that thing in reach. I don’t want to make that choice.”

  He bent and kissed me softly, his lips warm and slightly chapped. “I will do this for you,” he said. “Go to bed.”

  That was the best suggestion anyone had made all week, so I did exactly as ordered.

  Tess was buried properly; an owl-shifter priest from a church over on the Nez Perce reservation presided. Levi and Ezee had a lot of friends. We still had to sneak into the graveyard, a pioneer cemetery, and borrow a grave, but at least we had a real priest. The ghost of Tess in my head was grateful, her churn of memories stilling and her voice going silent for a while after the prayers were spoken.

  Rain started to fall as my friends turned away from the old grave. It was one of the most ancient here, the stone worn down nearly to nothing, the grave barely tended. Yosemite had re-grown the grass along the seams of sod where we’d had to displace the earth to lay Tess down. Looking down at the grave, I almost couldn’t tell that anyone was buried here at all.

  It wasn’t right. I shook off Alek’s hand as he tried to gently lead me away.

  “Wait,” I said. “There is something I must do.”

  I walked around the grave to the headstone and knelt, ignoring the freezing water that seeped immediately into my jeans. I didn’t know how to do what I wanted, but I believed I could manage it. Belief would have to be enough.

  I called on my magic, thinking of Tess, not as I’d last seen her with blood leaking from her mouth, her chest a gaping wound, her eyes full of the universe. I thought of her smiling, beautiful and delicate, surrounded by my friends. Her memories, what I’d seen of them, told me she had walked a lonely road. While I’d spent my life running from Samir, she had spent hers stalking him, learning what she could while trying to hide in plain sight.

  I closed my eyes and sent my magic into the stone, pressing, sculpting, listening to its rhythm and coaxing it beneath my hands. When I finally looked, the light in my talisman revealed new words, carved delicately into the stone, and filled with silver light that only I could see.