Greta and the Lost Army (Mylena Chronicles Book 3)

by Chloe Jacobs

  She drove as fast as she dared, but it was dark and she was nervous. As a distraction, she asked Isaac again how he’d been able to come after her.

  “The Lamia,” he said.

  “How? Agramon told me that he ate the witch and absorbed her power.”

  “He may have done so, but she wasn’t the only one, and after our previous experience with the demon, I took a chance that there would be at least one more captive left in the dungeons.” He glanced out the window. “After Agramon took you through the portal, the magick he used to reanimate the dead failed, the rest of the faeries were released from the hive, and the battle was over, so I quickly led a group to the dungeons to search for her.”

  “She was there.”

  He nodded. He did not elaborate. Greta didn’t know whether to be relieved to have him with her, or devastated to know that despite everything they’d been through, now he would still be stuck here and would never claim his throne as the goblin king.

  “And she was happy to open the portal for you, just like that?” she prodded. The Lamia were notoriously unfriendly and reclusive. Even Agramon hadn’t been able to negotiate with them. He’d used force to get what he wanted from them.

  “Of course not.” He still did not elaborate.

  “What did you have to trade for their help?” she asked, cold dread crawling down her spine.

  “It doesn’t matter now. I did what was necessary.”

  “You had better not have given up your kingdom or something equally as stupid, just to rescue me,” she snapped, angry.

  “I would have given up anything, and you know it,” he admitted tightly, resting his big hand on her thigh. “But it was not so bad as that.”

  She opened her mouth to demand a straight answer, but a transport truck came around the bend just ahead, bearing down on her like there wasn’t enough room on the road for both of them, its headlights beaming right into her eyes. She clenched the wheel and held her breath until the vehicle had passed…thankfully, without running her off the road into the ditch, although in her nervousness she veered over a little too far, tires skidding in the edge of the gravel shoulder.

  “We are going to have this discussion again later,” she promised in a stern voice, knowing she had to focus on driving. If she got them pulled over, all would be lost.

  By the time they got to her neighborhood a few hours later, it was after midnight, and she was so scared that Agramon had beat them there. The what-if scenarios were like a horror movie playing in her head, but she was betting on the fact that having access to Wyatt’s parents’ car had gained her a little window of time. Agramon would have found it more difficult to find someone to give him a ride, and he had no magick to rely on. Her only fear was that he would hurt someone in the course of finding his way here…but she couldn’t do anything about that now.

  She jumped the curb trying to pull over in front of her parents’ house and forgot to put the car in park in her haste to get inside and make sure they were safe. It started rolling back as she opened the door to jump out, and she forced herself to go back and slow down. It wouldn’t do anyone any good for the car to end up in the neighbor’s living room, or for someone to see her racing up to the house like a crazy person in the middle of the night and call the police. The more humans who came between her and Agramon, the more humans would get hurt.

  “Go around back,” she told Isaac after she’d strapped on the sword, whispering even though the street was deserted. “If he’s here already, he’ll be expecting me, but not you. Let’s keep it that way.”

  He nodded, but when she started up the walk, Isaac held her back. “We will protect your family and take care of Agramon once and for all…but then we must talk.”

  She swallowed and nodded. He stepped away, but she pulled him back this time. “Whatever you did to come through that portal…thank you. When I realized that the only way to beat Agramon was to take him somewhere he couldn’t use his magick, I thought…”

  He gripped her braid and tugged. “You thought I would try to stop you.”

  She shook her head. “I thought you would hate me. For taking the easy way out, instead of staying in Mylena with you.”

  His jaw clenched. “Unfortunately, bounty hunter, you never take the easy way out of anything.”

  She watched him slip away into the shadows, disappearing a moment later as if he’d never been there, and shuddered to think how close she’d come to never seeing him again.

  “Greta, is that you?” As she looked up to see her father standing in the doorway, she winced. He looked drawn, with deep, dark hollows under his eyes. “Jesus, where the hell have you been?”

  She rushed up the front steps and ushered him back. “Get inside,” she said quickly, turning to peer up the street as she closed the door and locked it behind her. Crap. It was just a wooden door. It wouldn’t hold against a demon. “Do you have something we can put here to block the door?”

  The picture window right there in the living room, facing the street. It was massive. And there was another window in the office. Both at ground level, both easy to smash—

  Her father grabbed her by the shoulders and shook. The sudden shooting pain blurred her vision, and she groaned. Her father didn’t notice.

  “Do you even realize what finding that note of yours did to your mother? How could you be so selfish, running away again, after everything we’ve already been through? And to tell us not to bother looking for you…”

  “Look, Dad. I’m sorry, really I am. But we don’t have time for this.” She jerked away and started for the overlarge wing chair in the living room. “Help me get this thing in front of the door.”

  He put his hands on his hips and stalked forward. “I was right, wasn’t I? This is all about drugs. It’s the only explanation for those ridiculous stories of yours and this manic behavior.” He started pacing, like she always did when she got riled up. “It has to stop. We can’t keep playing these games. Your mother and I have a little boy to think about, too. These disruptions have to—”

  Impatient, she pointed to her battered face and lifted the hem of her shirt just high enough to show him the bandages around her torso. “Dad, by the Great Mother, look at me. Do you honestly think I went through all this on a lark?”

  He stopped and stared, finally seeing, and his expression froze for a long moment. Then he let out a pained whistle, as if he felt every one of the scrapes and bruises on her behalf.

  As Greta’s mother came down the stairs, she gasped. “Oh God, who did that to you?” Her dad turned and drew his wife into his arms before she could reach Greta.

  Greta dropped her shirt, embarrassed to have resorted to such theatrics. “Mom, Dad. I’ll be okay, but it’s not safe here. Please, you have to leave before he gets here—”

  “Before who gets here? Was it that boy?” Her mother’s voice rose as her agitation grew. “Did he hurt you?”

  Greta could tell her mother was already thinking about how she’d invited Isaac into her home and let him sleep in her basement only a few feet away from her children.

  “It wasn’t Isaac, Mom,” she said quickly. “I told you guys the truth before, even if you didn’t want to believe it,” she started. Time was running out. She couldn’t afford to explain it all again.

  “So we’re just supposed to accept this story about portals to other worlds and demons trying to destroy the universe?”

  “It’s true,” said a small voice.

  Everyone swung around to see Drew at the top of the stairs.

  Her father frowned. “Come here, big guy,” he said and held out his hands, but when Drew came running down he threw himself at Greta.

  She held him close, relieved that he was finally over his fear of her.

  “Why don’t you go up to your room, and I’ll meet you there after I finish talking to Mom and Dad. I’ll read you a story before bed,” she said, desperate to keep him safe.

  He buried his face in her neck. He was practically sh
aking. “I need to tell the truth, too.”

  “What are you talking about, Drew baby?” her mom asked.

  He turned to look at both of them. His lip quivered. “The demon is real,” he said in a small voice. “I saw him. He wanted to make me bleed, but Greta saved me.”

  “What?” Her mother looked at Greta in horror.

  She stiffened and took Drew’s shoulders. “I didn’t think you remembered any of that.”

  He shuddered. “I had a lot of nightmares, and I thought maybe it was just bad dreams, but when you came back, I started to remember more. I knew it was real and that you saved me,” he repeated.

  She nodded. “But if you knew, why were you so afraid of me?”

  He chewed his lip. “I was scared when you came home, that it meant the bad monster was going to come here, too.”

  She hugged him and murmured into his hair. “Oh Drew, he’s never going to hurt you. I’m going to take care of him.” She looked up over his head into her father’s eyes, silently promising him that every word was truth.

  She stood and drew the sword Isaac had brought for her. Both of them immediately recoiled. Her father clasped her mother’s hand. “What is that? How could you bring something like that into this house?” he said, shaking.

  She lifted her hand to calm them down. “I don’t want to frighten you, but you have to listen to me. Get Drew and get out of here right away. I’m trying to protect you.”

  A knock at the door. No, not a knock. Bang!

  She immediately stepped in front of her family. The next bang put splintery cracks in the door that radiated outward from the point of impact.

  Her mother screeched and pulled Drew against her.

  “Greta, get back,” her father yelled. He reached for her shoulder, but she shook him off just as the final blow came. It broke the lock and sent the door crashing inward.

  Watching Agramon step into her parents’ home chilled her to the bone. If possible, he looked worse than she remembered, but maybe that was only because his horror-movie visage against the backdrop of her parents’ chic, domestic home was so wrong.

  Her head and ribs ached at the very sight of him, but he wasn’t looking so hot himself. Without any magick, he couldn’t slow the decomposition of the body he’d stolen from Queen Minetta, and he couldn’t heal the injuries she’d given him. Unfortunately, that only made him more dangerous, because he was desperate now, and she was his only ticket out of this world.

  Behind her, Drew whimpered. Her mother sobbed. She had brought this evil into their lives. It was up to her—and Isaac, together—to take him out.

  She sensed her father go very still right behind her. “What is that thing?” His voice was thin and disbelieving. “It can’t be human.”

  “No, Dad. It’s not.” There was no disguising it. His oily black blood had dried in globby tracks from a gash in his temple, all the way down his face. The thin layer of skin was more like tissue paper. It was flaking off in places, had been gouged out in others, exposing sinew and bone. But his eyes still glowed red, and his lips pulled back in a macabre expression of evil glee as he immediately fixed on her parents.

  “Mommy, Daddy!” He held his arms open wide like the prodigal son returned home, laughing at the sick joke of it. “So nice to finally meet you both. Your spunky human has told me so much about you…well, maybe told is not quite the word.” He glanced at her and grinned. “How would you describe what’s between us, darling?” He was taunting her. “Perhaps it’s too intimate for words.”

  She shuddered and lifted her sword. “There’s nothing between us, you freak.”

  He shrugged. “If that’s how you want to do this…” He looked back to her mom and dad, and started forward, the gleam in his eyes promising that he was going to have fun hurting them.

  Greta leaped forward, ignoring the painful twinge in her side as she swung her sword in a diagonal arch. Agramon blocked, but she kicked his shin and elbowed him in the gut.

  Her mother screamed again at the sound of glass breaking, but when Greta spun around to look and Isaac came barreling out of the kitchen, she knew he’d just broken a window to get into the house.

  The moment’s distraction gave Agramon the chance to knock her off her feet with a sweeping arm across her chest. She landed on the living room table, and it crumpled beneath her, but a jagged piece of the splintered wood stabbed her in the side.

  Isaac had jumped in front of her parents and now roared with fury as he launched himself at the demon. He didn’t have his moon phase strength, but that didn’t make her goblin king any less intimidating or ferocious as he hit Agramon over and over again.

  Her mom and dad flew to her side. “Help me get this out,” she gritted out, pointing to the table leg poking out of her abdomen.

  Her dad shook his head, his eyes dilated with fear and incredulity. “I can’t. You’ll bleed out. The splinters—”

  Isaac yelled and something crashed. Agramon stood over him, leg raised as if to stomp on an annoying bug.

  She started to push the pointy end back through the wound herself, but couldn’t hold in her scream. “Dad, do it, please! Isaac can’t beat Agramon alone. He needs my help!”

  Isaac was back on his feet, but he took a shot to the face, and Greta heard the crack it made all the way across the room. To hell with it. She struggled to get up and go to Isaac the way she was, but her father pushed her back down. “You’re my daughter, I can’t let you—” he started.

  “Dad, this is who I am!” she cried. “I’m a fighter. I’m a…killer. But I’m not ashamed of it, because I’m also the only thing that stands in the way of this demon destroying your whole world.”

  Her mother put a hand on Greta’s shoulder. She glanced up just as the stake was yanked out from behind, wrenching a surprised shout from between her lips.

  Her mother dropped the bloody piece of wood and stripped the tie off her robe. She quickly wrapped it around Greta’s waist three times before tying a knot right over the wound. “I believe in you,” she whispered, her voice raw. “Go destroy that thing.”

  “Thank you,” she said, clenching her teeth as she got to her feet.

  Her father had her sword. She held out her hand for it. “I can do this,” she promised him. “I won’t let anything hurt the people I love.”

  His gaze was stark and pained, but he gave it to her. She nodded her thanks—for the weapon, for his trust—and spun back around. Agramon had Isaac by the scruff of the neck, and shoved him into the wall, making a dent in the plaster with Isaac’s shoulders. His face was covered in blood. He snarled and shoved his arm up to throw Agramon off, but the demon lifted his hand and drove those razor sharp claws right into Isaac’s chest, like he would carve out his heart.

  “No!” Greta screamed. She raced forward and brought her blade down on Agramon’s arm, separating it from his body. Isaac tumbled to his knees, then toppled over onto his side.

  Greta pushed forward and drove her sword into Agramon’s heart. His mouth opened in a high-pitched screech, a great black maw of fury and pain. His long, spindly arm flailed, but he couldn’t reach her. Instead, he gripped her weapon with both hands and jerked the blade deeper, pulling her closer to him.

  She refused to let go. Nose to nose, he speared her with his gaze. She felt the black cloud reaching for her, calling to her. “You won’t ever be free of me,” he murmured in a sick parody of a lover’s whisper. “I’m a part of you now. You can cut me down, but you’ll spend the rest of your life fearing my return.”

  “No. No, I won’t,” she promised, bearing down hard on the sword until the hilt stopped against his chest. “Because you’re nothing, nothing but a wasted shell of slime that can’t hurt anyone, ever again.”

  She shoved against him, drew the sword from his chest, and lifted it high. He snarled and lunged for her, but she brought it back down with a sharp, unhesitating swing.

  The demon’s head rolled, and when it finally came to rest facing up at her like
a giant magic eight ball, she knew he’d been partly right. That twisted, taunting expression would mock her nightmares forever.

  “Greta.”

  “Isaac!” She stepped back and spun around to go to him, but a wave of dizziness threw her off balance, and she stumbled, dropping the sword and pressing her hand to the hole in her side.

  He was right there, wrapping both arms around her. “You did it,” he murmured. “You saved Mylena. You saved everyone.”

  She blinked but couldn’t quite clear the fuzz from her vision. “We did it.” Her words slurred, and her legs dropped out from beneath her. “You and me, together.”

  The last thing she felt before losing consciousness was the press of his lips on her forehead.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “She suffered a serious concussion…three fractured ribs…punctured lung…”

  Blip. Hum. Squeaky shoes stepping across a tiled floor. A cart wheeling by. People talking, someone crying. Who was that crying? Why?

  “…needs time to heal.” Her father. His words were clipped.

  “There isn’t any time left, not if we are to return.” Isaac!

  It was dark. The kind of foggy dark that left her adrift on a sea of nothingness. Conversations drifted out to her across the sea from afar, but she had no oars to row herself back to shore.

  “Return? What kind of life could you possibly give her there?” Her mother. More sobs. Why was her mother crying? I killed Agramon, Mom. Everything will be fine now. Don’t cry.

  “I am the goblin king. She is destined to be my queen.” Isaac’s voice was firm. She could picture him standing before her parents with his arms crossed, amethyst eyes glinting. She wanted to smile, but it was like she was made of the ether and had no body anymore for physical things.

  “I will do everything in my power to make her happy.”

  “By trapping her as queen of a backward, hostile world that almost got her killed once already? I’ve seen the scars she carries.” Her father’s voice rose, cutting through the fog a little deeper.