Each of them.
The rest of us hesitantly followed as the light increased in intensity, bathing the sparse grass around us in a silvery blue glow. When each of us had reached the center of the ring, wild lighting crackled between two of the stones, connecting them. Then another pair was connected. And another. Until each was connected by a ribbon of crackling, untamed electricity, surrounding us, effectively preventing us from leaving.
“Don’t lose yourself. Welcome to the Trial, Master Temple,” Mallory said, staring at me very intently. Then his face began to change, and I stared, transfixed, unable to ask what he was talking about. The skin of his cheeks and jaw slowly morphed – twitching, stretching, and narrowing – until it almost looked like I was seeing an ancestor of his. A harder, darker, feral version of the man I had come to know. He sliced open his forearm with a sudden slash of a bone dagger I hadn’t seen, and before I could react…
The world exploded with a technicolor splash of light.
The light faded after scant moments, and I grasped my knees, panting. It was nighttime, and we stood beside a massive slab of stone. A different Druidic symbol was glowing on the stone, but the light slowly faded as I watched. When the light was gone, I saw the symbol still there, but painted in blue by a crude hand.
I assessed our surroundings, and my pulse began to race.
Because I was pretty sure I was tripping balls.
Nearby trees glowed with neon light. Three moons hovered in the sky, all in varying phases. One crescent, one half moon, and one full moon – and each was at least twice as large as the moon on earth.
And the moon on earth wasn’t pink, orange, or blue.
We stood in a small clearing that butted up to a horseshoe-shaped line of massive sagging trees, like weeping willows back home, but each leaf glowed a bright blue, and giant pink berries the size of coconuts hung from their thin branches, weighing them down to the ground. Chuffing noises could be heard in the near distance almost like we were surrounded by a troop of monkeys, but no one bothered us. Two choices: the neon forest or the rolling fields in the other direction.
The green grass looked normal, but crunched underfoot, emitting a sharp, savory smell.
The air felt wet and thick, carrying a dozen traces of perfume from the glowing trees. The scents mingled together in harmony, reminding me of a fruit smoothie, but different. Strong, but not overwhelming. The night was warm, here, and I began to regret bringing a jacket.
I glanced over at my friends to see how they were faring, to make sure everyone was healthy and present. That no one had been left behind.
My jaw dropped when I saw a bipedal, black werewolf staring back at me. Ashley. She had on only a heavy pair of boots and strange leather pants – not the jeans and t-shirt we had each been wearing – that were crossed with straps, harnesses, and dozens of pockets. Her belly and chest were coated in a very short, thin layer of fur, revealing the taut muscle beneath – a genuine six pack. Her arms were covered in thicker fur, and she wore a band of colored cloth over each bicep. A bone bracelet adorned each wrist, and they were carved with symbols in a harsh angular script I had never seen before. Her head was obviously that of a wolf, but her eyes were too intelligent, and the fur was much longer than I had ever seen on her. It even sported metal bands that bunched pieces together to form what appeared to be random dreadlocks amidst the ruff of her neck, but doubled to keep it clear of her eyes and snout.
She saw the look on my face and glanced down, frowning. Then she gasped. “Fuck me,” she blurted, patting herself down as if it were a hallucination.
“Don’t say that too loudly,” I heard Sir Muffle Paws say from behind me. “Very literal creatures, here,” he chuckled. Instead of turning to the cat, I saw myself studying Tory with equal astonishment. She remained, more or less, human.
But wore a fur bikini. A furkini. With Gladiator-styled, knee-high, leather sandals.
Her hips sported a wide leather belt lined with primitive-looking daggers, and she wore a long, matted fur cape with the hood drawn up. The hood was actually the gaping maw of a once-living beast that pretty much proved that, at some point, a saber-toothed tiger had boinked a gorilla.
Tory, noticing something in her peripheral vision, yanked back her hood, and then tore off the cape itself, staring at it in stunned disbelief. Her head was shaved on the sides, and a dozen braids were tugged back into a ponytail, reminding me of those Viking warriors. Although her face was still familiar, it looked thinner, harder, as if she had survived on an island by herself for a year. Her skin was pale, and her veins had a luminescent, golden glow, like that one time I had briefly seen her under a revealing spell at the Vaults, a supernatural bank in St. Louis.
The two women huddled close together, talking softly and inspecting the other with approving compliments, like this was the first day of a very twisted summer camp of death. Ashley helped Tory put the cloak back on, nodding in approval.
I glanced down at myself, fearing the worst, and blinked. I…
Hadn’t changed. At all.
Jeans, leather coat, and a t-shirt, still.
“This place sucks,” I complained.
“Maybe you’re scary enough as it is,” Carl said cheerfully. I looked up to see that Carl also hadn’t physically changed, although he did look more relaxed. At peace. I shook my head and turned to Sir Muffle Paws, prepared to begin demanding answers.
And I almost fell on my ass.
A five-foot-tall, reddish-brown werecat stared back at me, wearing a pair of velvet boots, leather chest armor, and a kilt. He gripped a white polearm – like a spear – that was taller than me with a long, slender axe blade on one end. The hair on his face looked freshly cut, making his head more angular and predatory. Fangs as long as my fingers peeked out from his lips, where his fur turned white, resembling a well-groomed beard. His ears were shaggier, longer, and thinner, pointing backwards like horns, and had a few golden rings dangling from each lobe. He hissed at me. His eyes were now silver, mercurial.
And the little bastard had hit the gym, because he was proportionally as stout as Gunnar.
“It’s rude to stare. And rudeness grants death, here, wizard,” Sir Muffle Paws said. “I go by Talon the Devourer in this cursed place. Remember it.” He thumped the base of his spear into the ground aggressively. Carl burst out laughing, and Talon’s neck fur instantly began to stick straight up. We turned to look, only to find Carl laughing loudly as he spun in slow circles, holding his two swords high above his head, not looking at us. His laughter sounded different, too. Unrestrained. Like the first real laugh after a hundred years of silence. He wasn’t laughing at Talon, he was laughing with… joy.
Talon muttered unhappily under his breath, turning back to me. I gave him a respectful nod. I’d never heard of Talon the Devourer, and had assumed I would learn he was the Cheshire Cat, or a Malk, or something obvious. Not… this. Whatever this was.
“This feels like home…” Carl murmured after his laughter died down. He sheathed his blades, and lifted a scaled claw to the air with a nostalgic look on his face. He turned to me, tongue flicking twice before he smiled. “Can you not feel the death? The blood? The primal urges?” He shivered like he had just received a happy ending at a massage parlor. “Like wisps from a distant campfire on a cool night…” I nodded slowly, turning to Mallory.
But he was gone.
I whirled, suddenly tense. The sounds around us quieted, and Sir Muff – well, Talon the Devourer – began to laugh and purr at the same time as if at some great, big joke.
“What the fuck is going on… Talon?” I asked, almost using the wrong name.
He licked his paws absently, wiping back his whiskers and grooming his beard. “He is unable to join us. He can’t very well meet himself, can he?”
I cursed myself for not thinking of it sooner. It made perfect sense. Thinking on Pan, I still wasn’t sure what to make of the revelation that he was also the Goblin King. Or something very close to i
t. But he still should have warned us. Red-hot rage began to roll over my shoulders in euphoric waves. “Well, I don’t know what the fuck we’re doing here, or where we’re supposed to go, and our guide just slipped out faster than a guy hearing the breakfast call after a one-night stand.”
Carl exhaled loudly. “Paint your blades in blood, brothers and sisters. Or as Nate might say, I think we’re about to have a party.”
And the forest erupted with the sound of hooting and breaking branches.
Chapter 16
Whips erupted from my palms – one fire and one ice. Ashley howled, and Tory shouted.
But Carl and Sir… Talon the Devourer?
Those two nutjobs just cackled as they sprinted forward into the oncoming wave of shaggy, four-armed, headless monsters. The creatures did have one huge yellow eye and a double row of stained brown fangs in the center of their chests, though. Just nothing above their shoulders. Their limbs were splashed with bioluminescent paint, like we had accidentally stumbled onto the last stretch of a color run race.
And the racers wanted to eat us.
Rather than taking the time to study our attackers in more detail – because I really didn’t want to get that close – I dove straight into the fray and began my ribbon dance of death routine. Because there were just so many bodies to hit.
At first, I was concerned I might hit a friendly, but as I swung, lashed out, and swiped with my elemental whips, my friends managed to dodge without any real effort. Like a sixth sense. Now, I knew this wasn’t our first rodeo, but something felt different this time.
It wasn’t like a hive mind between us or anything, but… well, I guess it kind of was.
When I swung at a nightmare of tooth and claw, Tory was instantly ducking out of the way, only to dart back in for the kill the moment my whip was out of range of her. Ashley was suddenly airborne, pouncing on a creature trying to tear out my throat as I spun to slaughter a new threat that I shouldn’t have seen creeping up behind me.
Talon the Devourer – I would really need to talk to him about shortening that name – was liberally dripping with blue blood, cackling madly as he swung his great big pole-axe, hamstringing, stabbing, and slicing in one continuous whirlwind of kitty power.
Carl moved like a snake, slipping past attacks with effortless ease as if his body contained no bones, and he bellowed excitedly, as if cheering on his favorite team at a rugby match.
I found myself grinning as I slashed wildly, losing myself in the rhythm, inhaling the blood in the air, and enjoying the dying screams of our enemies. This was how it was supposed to be.
It swept me up.
And I danced.
Releasing all my anger, fears, and concerns. And I felt something wake up inside me with a faint click. I let it come out to play, shutting off my conscious mind.
I cut loose, letting instinct take over.
And it was so… therapeutic.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I realized that no one else moved, and that I was leaning on a knee. My boot rested on a small pile of the dead creatures, and I was panting from the exertion. But it was a satisfied exhaustion. Like sex.
Tory and Ashley skipped around the perimeter, singing, laughing, tallying the number of foes they had taken as they danced past the corpses, and taunting anyone still within earshot in the forest to join the party.
Carl stretched his arms behind his back, letting out a pleased sigh. “Oh, I needed that,” he said, staring at me, eyes dancing with joy.
I nodded back, grinning.
Whispers in the back of my mind kept trying to kill my mood, warning me of something Mallory had said, but I ignored them, shoving them away like a cloud of gnats. Talon was dipping a paw into the gaping wound of a fallen monster, using it as a palette. He withdrew the bloody paw – a viscous, blue substance coating the pads – and began carefully drawing a swirling design on his chest armor.
He reached back to his palette, dipping back into the blood again, and resumed his drawing.
I nodded to myself absently. This felt right.
I began to walk through the mounds of bodies until I found my pack. I reached inside and withdrew a water canteen. I took a big sip, and then poured a little over my head. It tickled my chin rather than washing it clean, which was an odd sensation. I reached my other hand up to wipe it away and was surprised to find a short beard rather than scruff.
I stilled, the whispers in my mind pressing harder, straining to be heard.
I shook my head and took another drink.
“Gather,” I commanded.
Everyone complied. Instantly. Talon nodded at me, a calculating gaze in his eyes, but I had the feeling that he was just like that, like I somehow knew him better, now. Before, he had been a housecat. Then he had let me know he could talk. Then I had seen him act.
And in that last action, I had learned more about him than I had in the last year of cryptic comments. It was like learning a thing from practice rather than text. Reading about it was all well and good, but doing… that was where true mastery lay.
I dipped my head at Talon, then the others in turn. “Well met,” I said in a low, rasping tone, as if I hadn’t just had a drink of water. They nodded, and I turned back to Talon. “What were we doing before the celebration?” I asked him, not remembering.
He watched me for a moment. “Conquering. That way,” he said, pointing. I followed his motion, staring out at the wilderness before us. A world of possibilities waiting for me to take what I would.
I nodded greedily. “Let’s move,” I said. “Gather your things.” I frowned as a whisper seeped out from deep within me. “Do not eat or drink from this place…” I frowned thoughtfully, not sure why that was important. We lived off this land. They each nodded, not catching my inner quarrel, and obeyed me. As they should.
A few minutes later, we were off. I pointed my hand in rapid succession, and my warriors ghosted to their positions. Talon the Devourer, my old friend, acting as guide. Elder Carl bringing up the rear. Beast Master and…
A whispered voice abruptly pressed against my mind, fighting me.
That’s not her name. No, no, NO! Don’t lose—
I finally shoved it back down with a growl, stumbling a step. No one noticed. As I looked back up at my trusted canine companion, her name finally came to me. Wulfra.
Wulfra and Beast Master took either flank. I strode in the center, wondering what pleasures we would discover on our way to… wherever we were going.
I couldn’t remember where that was, exactly.
But I was smiling, excited to conquer it.
Chapter 17
We walked in silence for a few hours, the night never really changing. The moons had shifted slightly in the sky, and the smells had just recently begun to grow sharper, muskier, like home. We had left the light willows behind long ago, and now walked through rolling hills of pleasant, tall grass. I saw the usual bone-bark trees in the distance, but as we travelled, they, too, faded away. No one had dared attack us, but some had tracked us. I had let them follow me like the whipped dogs they were. But they had quickly faded away, apparently deciding to pursue easier game.
My coat was tattered, and as I glanced down at it, I realized I didn’t know where I had picked it up. From a fallen foe? I shrugged absently. It was made from the strange, polished and cured skin of a beast I didn’t remember eating, so I must have taken it as a spoil of battle. It was well-crafted, I just didn’t understand the point of the senseless brass buttons and straps that seemed to have no purpose. I had long ago torn off the strange thin shirt I had been wearing, feeling suffocated by it. I had seen no tactical advantage to the fabric, so had abandoned it. Of course, I had burned it before continuing on. No use leaving a trail.
The warm breeze now caressed my bare chest under the open coat. This was better. I would keep the coat, because it was thick enough to maybe protect my skin from a slicing blade. The strange blue pants I wore held no memory for me, either,
but they were also functional, even if tighter than I would have preferred for battle.
I fingered a pocket, reading out loud. “Levi…”
Then I laughed.
Beast Master arched a brow at me from her position, but didn’t speak before turning back to her scouting. Her question had been plain. We didn’t have to use our voices to communicate. How uncivilized. We were all one family. A Band of warriors with me at their head. We knew each other. To our bones. We had bled together. Still, sometimes it did feel nice to talk.
“Perhaps I can add a new name to my belt,” I answered her out loud, for fun. “The Levi Slayer.” I shook my head, chuckling, as we topped the hill. Talon stood there, his poleaxe propped up beside him, waiting for me. Blue gore dripped from the pale weapon.
A shelled corpse twice his size lay before him, blood saturating the grey dirt. It had horns and antlers, both, but they were only a sword-blade long, so the Rarawk must have only been a fledgling. A full-grown Rarawk would have been much bigger, the horns the size of small trees.
Not that it would have mattered to Talon. He had always loved hunting them when younger.
Talon’s head snapped up at me, silver eyes flashing in the moonlight. He looked… wary. I dipped my head at him, acknowledging his tiny victory in defeating the baby beast. He continued watching me for a time, then nodded, not even glancing down at the carcass. Why would he? It had only been a baby.
“There,” he said, pointing. He licked a few drops of blood from his paw as he waited.
I stared ahead, and my eyes grew feverish. “I desire it as mine.”
The hilltop was silent for a beat. “Then you shall have it… Wylde,” Talon murmured. I frowned, wondering why he had hesitated to use my name, but before I could ask, he cocked his head, glancing over my shoulder. “Has the Honorable Elder Carl spotted our fly again?”
I heard him answer behind me. “Yes,” he hissed. “But he was gone when I tried to catch him. He held up two fingers rather than one finger this time. I don’t know what the devil he’s up to.”
Wild Side: A Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Book 7 (The Temple Chronicles) Page 10