by H. D. Gordon
His forked tongue snaked out over his lips, tasting the blood there, the façade dropping completely as his dark eyes flashed with a look I had seen before, on various people and creatures over the years. It was a look reserved for those who enjoyed killing, who took pleasure in destroying the lives of others. It was the manner that overcame them just before they made their final strike, just before they looked into someone’s eyes for the last time.
“That’s enough out of you, precious,” said the Warlock, and his clawed hand rose into the air.
Just before his sharp claws could reach me, a scream ripped through the air, filling the dank tunnel so completely that my eyes squeezed shut and my jaw clenched as the sound tore over my sensitive ears.
The scream—which had come from Maleia—was as high-pitched, shrill, and gut-wrenching as any sound I’d ever heard, and it would seem I was not alone in the experience, because I realized with a jolt of surprise that the Scarecrow had dropped the spell he’d been holding over me, and I was once again free to move.
I would need to remember to thank the child for her assistance once I got us out of here. For the first time since I’d woken up in this Gods forsaken tunnel, I felt as though that were an accomplishable goal. I just needed to act fast and think faster.
With a renewed strength, I ran up the wall and latched onto the Scarecrow’s back, locking my right arm around the Warlock’s throat and securing its hold with my left hand, cutting off the air flow to his throat, and with it, his ability to mumble his spells.
His claws tore at my back, ripping through the frilly dress I was wearing and digging into the soft flesh at my sides deep enough that I was guaranteed to be scared visibly, as well as emotionally.
With every bit of effort I possessed, I maintained my hold, the garbage-scent of the Scarecrow filling my senses as he bucked underneath me, trying to wrench me free.
Much to my dismay, my energy must have been at an all-time low, because as the Warlock slammed back into the brick wall, crushing me between it and his large body, I lost my grip, and the air whooshed out of me with a pain-filled grunt.
As I slid off his back, I was just barely able to stay on my feet. Without any thought, I tucked my chin and rushed forward, slamming my shoulder into the Scarecrow and sending us both crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
Somehow, I managed to get the position on top, and began slamming my fists down into this face, uncaring that the impact with my right hand was probably doing more damage to me than it was to him.
Warm blood spurted up and splashed across my face, across the tatters of my dress, covering my hands and dripping down my neck as the Warlock thrashed and struggled beneath me.
How many times I slammed my fists down on the Scarecrow, I didn’t know. How much time passed while I beat him to a bloody pulp, there was no way to tell. I knew only that I could not allow him to utter any more spells, that I could not allow him any more chance at regaining control over me. My gut, along with the rest of my aching body, knew that there would be no more second chances.
Eventually, my blows became as weak as love taps, and I rolled off the Warlock and collapsed to the concrete beside him. For several moments, I could do nothing but pant, the air rushing in and out of my lungs as sweat and blood dripped down my brow.
Darkness swam around the edges of my vision, threatening to drag me under and leave me there.
“I want to go home,” said a small voice beside me. My eyes popped open, my head lifting from the ground. I remembered where I was and that I was not in the clear yet, that the child I’d come here to save was not in the clear yet.
With Herculean effort, I managed to roll over onto my stomach and push up onto my knees. I was hurting in places I hadn’t even realized could produce pain. I crawled over to where Maleia was still secured to the metal table, and used the table to pull myself to my feet.
I offered her a smile that probably looked more like a gruesome grimace considering the circumstances, and said, “Let’s get you home, then.”
Her eyes widened with fear as they settled on something behind me.
CHAPTER 44
I didn’t need to turn to know what had provoked the reaction. Instead, I grasped the table and kicked out behind me, my foot landing square on the Scarecrow’s midsection, the force of it sending him backwards several feet.
“Why don’t you stay down?” I gritted out, stalking over to the Warlock, whose jaw was destroyed, hanging agape by what seemed like threads. There was no way he’d be mumbling spells anytime soon.
Gripping him by the dirty collar of his prison grays, I lifted his body partly off the ground and slammed it back down hard enough to make him gasp. He tried to bring his hands up, to summon some kind of magic, but a flood of rage filled me, and I snapped both of his wrists, popping the bones there as though they were nothing more than twigs. The sound of them cracking was followed by a guttural cry of pain.
From his mangled mouth, the Scarecrow said something unintelligible, blood gurgling over his lips and spilling down his chin.
I wasn’t sure when exactly it had happened, but he’d reverted back to his human form, the horns having receded back into his head, his hands now those of a man. It was a trick often pulled by shape-shifting supernaturals when they were in trouble, meant to provoke a sympathy they didn’t deserve.
I kept an eye on the Scarecrow as I ripped off the iron straps securing Maleia to the table, and used them to secure the Warlock, whose dark, swollen eyes stared up at me with hatred.
He mumbled something else that I didn’t catch, spitting blood and saliva at me as I tied him up as tight as I could with my only good hand. “You’ll have to speak up, Warlock,” I said.
“Kill… me…” he said.
I sat back, satisfied with my work, and eyeing the creature that had so long stalked my nightmares. “I’m not like you,” I said. “I don’t kill. I have respect for all living things.”
The Warlock found this hilarious, sputtering a laugh that twisted at my insides. “You’re… a… fool,” he told me, each word an obvious effort. “If you don’t… kill me… I’ll be back… I’ll never stop… coming for you.”
With these words, I found myself at a crossroads. On one side of me, there was a path that I knew, a road that led to a place I was familiar with, a place that aligned with all the things I’d been taught over my short lifetime. On the other side, there was a trail that led into darkness, where the trees hung over the walk and the weeds grew up through the concrete. I knew not where this second path led, only that there was a certain enticement, a certain allure that promised a safety the first path just couldn’t offer.
He was right. He was a bastard, a psychopath, and a murderer of the innocent, but he was right. Some part of me knew that if I didn’t end it here, once and for all, the Scarecrow would come after me again, and he would likely leave a trail of bodies in his wake.
A small hand touched mine, and I looked down to see that Maleia was beside me. She’d retrieved my staff, and held it out to me now as she tucked her small body against my side.
I looked at the weapon in my hand, at the Warlock tied up on the floor before me, and knew that if I crossed the invisible line that had been drawn, there could be no crossing back. I had never taken a life before. In fact, I had made a vow never to do so. Life was precious. It was what I was taught to believe. It was a code I lived by.
And yet…
“Thank God,” said a familiar voice behind me, and it was so out of place that I turned my head to look over my shoulder, sure that I had imagined it all together.
But I had not imagined it. I blinked, trying to process the image of Thomas Reid standing in the tunnel behind me, dressed in all black, a mask covering the bottom half of his face, and a flashlight and a Glock held in his hands.
No words would find me as I absorbed his arrival, wondering how he’d even found us here. Thomas’s hazel hawk eyes took in my state—my mangled right hand, bloodied fa
ce, and the various lacerations to my body. He looked at the child under my arm, at the terror I knew to be on her face.
Then, his eyes went to the Warlock I’d tied up against the tunnel wall.
The realization of what was going to happen next came only a half-breath before it took place. I had time to see the rage boil up in Thomas’s eyes, to hear the shift of his finger on the trigger of his gun.
I heard myself say, “Thomas, don’t—,” but I was not quick enough, and my words were swallowed up before they were complete.
Thomas Reid raised the gun in his hand and squeezed the trigger, and the Warlock known as the Scarecrow was no more.
CHAPTER 45
There was a silencer on the end of the gun, so I could hear the hitch in my heart and the bate of my breath. The smell of gunpowder mingled with the stink of the tunnel, and the world slowed in a curious manner.
Instinctually, my left arm tightened around the child tucked there, my bloody right hand rising to cover her face, to spare her the sight of anything else that would further alter her and the person she would one day become.
I, however, did not turn my head, did not close my eyes. I watched, unblinking, as the aura around the Scarecrow flashed, blinked, then faded altogether, returning to the ether from which it had come, hopefully to return in a more merciful manner.
A silence followed, thicker than any silence I’d ever encountered. I was aware of the child, shuddering and shrinking against me, and all I could do was hold her and stare at the lifeless body of the Warlock.
Someone gripped my shoulders, and I saw that it was Thomas. He’d pulled down the cloth concealing the bottom half of his face and stared at me with piercing hazel eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concern flooding his aura. His handsome face was drawn, as if he hadn’t slept for days.
It occurred to me with a jolt that the act Thomas had just committed would affect him even more than it affected me… and that this was not the first time he’d taken a life. I couldn’t say exactly how I knew this to be true, but I knew.
I realized he was still waiting for me to say something, and was surprised when my voice came out steady. “I’ve been better,” I said, and bent to pick up Maleia, the effort making me sway on my feet.
Thomas holstered his weapon and placed his large hand over mine, shaking his head. He scooped Maleia up into his arm, wrapping the other around me and supporting most of my weight. “Let’s get you out of here,” he said.
And that’s what we did.
***
I shifted, and pain shot through my body, like fire flooding through my veins.
“She’s waking up,” said a familiar voice, and there was shuffling, as if several people were moving close.
With terrible effort, I forced my eyelids to open, blinking the room into focus and groaning at the ache caused by trying to lift my head. Sam’s face came into view first, leaning over me and pushing her black-rimmed glasses up her nose. I didn’t miss the fact that the lenses were foggy, as though she’d recently been crying.
“Sup?” I mumbled, my voice sounding as though there was a frog in my throat.
This earned a short laugh from her. Sam reached up and gently brushed some of the hair from my forehead. “Sup?” she replied, a tear breaking free of her eye and rolling down her cheek.
I lifted my good hand with more effort than I would admit, and brushed the tear away. Pulling myself up on the bed, I did my best not to grimace at the pain that shot through me. “What’s up with the waterworks?” I said, trying to lighten the situation. “We won, didn’t we?”
Sam’s big blue eyes glimmered as she ran a hand under her nose. “Yeah, we won,” she confirmed.
I looked around my apartment, seeing Nick and Matt standing just beyond Sam, both of their eyes locked on me.
“Where’s Maleia?” I asked. “And Thomas?”
Nick approached the bed and sat down beside me. “The child was returned to her mother,” he said, and his face darkened a bit. “And I don’t know where your neighbor is. He brought you here and then left.”
I watched Nick’s aura as he said this, and knew that there was some animosity between my old mentor and my new neighbor, probably because Nick had wanted to come to my rescue, and instead, it was Thomas who had found me. How he’d managed to do so, I still had no clue.
I also tried to ignore the fact that waking up and finding that Thomas wasn’t here hurt me somewhere in my chest, a pain that was not the same as the physical aches from which I was suffering.
Nick turned his head, and I blushed as I saw that he’d been reading my aura.
Sam, bless her heart, picked up on the discomfort and cleared her throat. I hadn’t had time to fill her in on the things that had been going on between Nick and I. Hell, I hadn’t had time to contemplate it myself.
Somehow, though, it all seemed unimportant, my thoughts and soul stuck back in that tunnel, strapped to the table, trapped in my own mind.
“She’s probably hungry, boys,” Sam said, addressing Nick and Matt. “Why don’t you two go find her something to eat?”
To my astonishment, Sam got no argument from Nick. He simply nodded and stood, grabbing his jacket off the counter in my kitchen area.
Matt came over to the bed and bumped my left fist, a slight smile pulling up one side of his mouth. “I knew you’d come out on top,” he said. “You’re a badass, Aria Fae.”
I managed a half smile of my own, because I didn’t trust my voice to speak. For whatever reason, I suddenly felt on the verge of tears.
Much to my relief, Matt and Nick left in search of my food, and once they were gone, Sam wandered back over to the bed and sat down beside me, resting her back against the wall and turning her head to look at me.
There was a moment of silence. Then, Sam said, “You okay?”
This seemed to open the floodgates, and my chest hitched, hot tears building up in my eyes and spilling over as I shook my head. “No,” I answered, hating the way my voice broke, how weak I sounded.
The dam had breached, however, and there was nothing I could do to staunch it. My shoulders slumped and my head dropped, the tears coming faster now, making it hard to breathe.
Sam wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into an embrace that I melted into, sobbing into her shoulder. I felt as though I was broken, body and soul, and Samantha Shy was literally holding me together.
In true Sam fashion, she said the right thing, the only thing there was to say to me in this moment.
“You will be,” she told me, as she held me tight and kissed the top of my head. “You will be.”
CHAPTER 46
I thrashed, finding that my movements were restricted, my head covered with some sort of cloth bag. I shook my head, trying to shake the bag free, but it was ripped from my head a moment later, an agonizingly bright flood of light blinding me.
“You are only making things difficult, child,” said the Broker, in his gray suit, with his pen and clipboard in hand. “Do you know how long you’ve been here?”
I raised my head, shooting him daggers with my eyes, and said nothing.
His gaze stayed leveled on me with pitiless regard. “It’s been two days. If you remain much longer, you’ll die of dehydration. Chances are, you’re already feeling the effects of it.”
“You could just let me go…” I heard myself mumble, but the voice was not mine, did not belong to me. It was far too grave for a girl of only seven.
A sigh from the Broker filled my ears. My eyes had slipped closed again, my willingness to keep them open gone. “I’m afraid that’s not an option,” he said, and my sensitive ears picked up the shift of his suit material as he leaned around me, no doubt looking at the glass jar near my hand, where the Pixie was no longer flitting about, but slumped against the glass and listless.
“You’re… a… monster…” I muttered, and the scent of the Broker filled my nose as he leaned in close. The sharp smell of his aftershave seemed to c
rawl up into my nostrils.
“I’m not the monster, child,” he said. “I’m the one who protects the worlds from the monsters, and I once sat in the very same chair you sit in now, faced with the very same problem.”
My head rolled back on my neck, my body slumping forward as my chin fell down to my chest. My mouth hung open, my heartbeat alarmingly slow and faint in my chest. “And… you… killed… the… Pixie…” I said, every word an agony. It was not a question, but a righteous accusation.
His voice was so close to my face that I forced my eyes back open and found that the Broker was almost near enough to kiss. There was no crease to his brow, no expression in his eyes.
“I got out,” he said, meeting my gaze. Then, he left.
As he did so, a very clear thought pierced through the cloud that had become my mind. I was past the point of being afraid, beyond the stage of shock or terror. The thought consisted of only four words.
I’m going to die.
I began to sink down into oblivion, succumbing to the darkness…
A small sound pulled me back from the edge of the abyss, a tink-tink-tink that had me straining to lift my heavy head.
“If you die,” said the tiniest, faintest of voices, “I die.”
For a moment, I was sure I was imagining things, my depleted body and mind playing tricks on me. The words were spoken so softly that had I been full human, I was sure I would not have heard them at all.
The voice came again. “Wake up, Halfling,” it said. “Time is of the essence. You need to set me free, or I will die in this jar.”
“I… can’t… too… weak.”
There was a tiny sigh, and it dawned on me belatedly that it was the Pixie who was speaking to me, her voice muffled further by the glass of the jar containing her.
“You may not be able to save yourself, Halfling, but that doesn’t mean I need to die,” said the Pixie, her gentle but insistent voice the anchor to which my ship was holding. “Set me free, and at least one of us will live.”