by Lenore, Lani
“No, Rifter, we have to go back! You have to help them!”
“They can fend for themselves,” he told her, not having to ask about the Pack’s predicament. “I have to make sure you’re safe.”
He spoke so calmly; so certainly.
“What if they are killed?” she pressed, quite aghast.
“They will be fine,” he assured her. “Just trust me like you always have. I need that from you.”
Wren knew that arguing with him would do no good, but it did not cure the concern that she felt. He didn’t say anything else, and her eyes peered toward the old camp as it slipped away. She rested her head on his shoulder as her long hair slapped against her face. Wren breathed calmly, but she could not say that she was at ease, even with his assurances. Not at all.
6
“Pirates!”
From all throughout the camp, pirates rushed toward the sound of Finn’s voice. There were dozens of them and only four boys, yet the pirates did not know their secrets – the extent of how the darkness had latched onto them just as it had taken the land. These boys had been bound to it – to the world by Rifter and by blood. Of course the land would favor them.
The dirty, smelling seadogs, slick with rain, approached. The boys readied themselves.
Mach was the first to move. His gun rose, aiming toward the advancing villains – the enemies of their youth. He was as swift as lightning, and his aim was immaculate. He’d emptied his cartridge and shot down seven pirates – two with one bullet – in a matter of seconds. He withdrew another cartridge and attached it speedily. All this before the pirates even made it in to the rest of them. He and his twin had both shared this gift of swiftness. It was only too bad that they were apart.
Finn saw the advancing men as blotches in shades of orange and red. From his belt he withdrew two long knives, and though the pirates had swords, they stood little chance. He deflected their weapons speedily, slicing their hands before cutting their throats. He allowed them to clash their swords into him, because it did not do damage. The Tikilin helped, but in truth, Finn was thick-skinned and hard to damage. Even now, the horrible gashes made by the nightmare in the cave had been reduced to scratches. He sliced away unyieldingly, not caring that he was splashing himself and the others with dirty, pirate blood.
Toss wielded the large hammer, and while it would take an extremely strong man to even swing the instrument, the large boy had no problem managing it with speed and accuracy. He was a gentle soul, truly, but if he could find it in himself to hate any man, it was a pirate. He smashed down with the hammer, and any that happened to be caught in range was knocked from his feet, his bones crushed. Toss’ strength was impossible to measure, and because of his trusting nature, it was the only thing that had kept him alive this long.
Sly was not afraid of dirtying his hands, and he’d best not be if he wanted to live. He threw his claws about accurately, slicing flesh. The sharp nails shot forward, penetrating skin and muscle, ripping organs. His eyes were gone, but he could see everything. He saw what was in front of him and what was behind him. He dealt with them accordingly.
He was grasping a string of bloody guts when something strange came into his mind.
Something’s happened. Something’s changed.
He searched around as best he could while being attacked, trying to place this feeling he felt. He found it when he found Wren. She was not where they had left her. Sly felt the demon.
Rifter came for her.
At that moment, his ears caught a sound, a whispered chant penetrating his mind. It resounded, catching all their attentions. Though the boys and pirates alike knew what it was, it seemed impossible.
Whisper, Sly realized, aware like the rest. Though the wisp’s presence seemed completely out of place, none of them had ever known where she had gone after Rifter had banished her the final time. Perhaps they had assumed she was dead, but the truth was that they hadn’t given much thought to her until now.
But she had returned! Would her purpose be to help them? When the blessing fell over them, they received their answer. Sly felt it like the rest. He felt himself growing weaker. The pirates, on the other hand, seemed to move with fluidity, as if they were fully synchronized. They cleared a distance from the Pack, which had somehow compressed into a circle – back-to-back, every one of them. There were metallic sounds of disturbance to the rainy day as all the pirates stepped back and drew guns, surrounding them.
The Pack hesitated. Corpses of fallen pirates lay at their feet, but there were still a few dozen standing there holding guns at them. Where had they all come from?
“Drop your weapons!” one man ordered, and others chimed in, shouting their demands, cursing and spitting at them.
Out of breath, the Pack was uncertain. Sly lifted his voice enough for them to hear.
“He came. He took her away.”
Finn, Toss, and Mach were not sure if they felt relief or fear, but they knew what he meant. Wren was gone – safe, hopefully – and they were only to worry over themselves now. Looking down the barrels of these guns, what other choice did they have but to obey?
“We should,” uttered Mach.
Standing there silently in the rain, they dropped their weapons into the mud. The pirates began to chuckle, several of them stepping forward to bind their captives’ arms and legs. Wet and conquered, they shamefully withstood the ropes.
“This is a dark day,” Sly said quietly.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
1
Rifter took Wren a safe distance away, in an area surrounded by large rocks. Here, she would be hidden and safe, but the girl would not stop looking over her shoulder toward the cliff-side, worrying over the rest of them. Rifter guided her beneath an overhang so that she would be protected from the rain, but she felt little relief. Only guilt.
“Now that I am safe, you should go help them,” Wren insisted adamantly as soon as she was out of his arms.
Rifter shook his head, water dripping from his soaked tendrils of hair as he knelt beside her.
“There’s no need.”
“What do you mean, no need? They’ll be killed!”
She knew she was looking at him frantically, but he was calm and tolerant. That frustrated her.
“I’d been waiting for all of you for a short time already. When the pirates began to show up, I hid away. I knew that somehow they had guessed our venture. They knew that you and the Pack were going to meet me here. I heard them say they were to take you as a captive and barricade the boys in a cave. That way, they could not interfere further when they came after me.”
“Yes but – !”
He silenced her. “Trust me, Wren. I know where they are going to take them. Once they realize you’re gone, the battle will end. It was you they wanted – to lure me in. But it is truly best that I wait here with you and then go after them later when there are fewer pirates about.”
She wanted to protest, but he did not allow her to.
“They’ll be fine. I promise.”
He seemed so sure that he was telling her the truth. She, however, was not so confident.
Before she got the chance to protest, he touched her face.
“I missed you so much,” he confessed. It took her off guard. His strange eyes stared into hers, his lips smiling at her gently. “I felt bad about leaving you alone. I worried about you constantly.”
He brushed her nose with his, and all the bad things around her seemed to disappear. Her fingers stroked his face, unable to help herself.
“I worried about you, too.”
His lips moved gently to hers, but then, behind her eyes, there was someone else aiming to kiss her lips. There was someone else with his hands against her back – someone who had kissed her before and she had wanted him to. He had lowered his lips to hers. She’d felt a desirous need deep within her at his closeness. He’d barely let her feel the sensation of that kiss, but then he’d stopped. He’d said–
“No,” she
said suddenly, jerking her face from Rifter’s as if she might have been in pain.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, searching her eyes. For a moment, she could not look at him directly, but she resolved to be brave, forcing herself to look into his strange eyes.
“I wasn’t able to bring all of the boys, like you asked,” she said with regret, but all the while she watched him, gauging his reaction. At this, he did not seem disturbed.
“I know you gathered the ones you could,” he said tolerantly. “The others, well, perhaps they were unavailable to be gathered.”
This struck her. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know,” he responded. He was being vague, and not just to spare her feelings. He was hiding from her like the rest of them.
“I need to ask you something.” Her eyes studied his face. “It’s important to me; please tell me the truth.”
Wren bit her lip, wondering how she might speak of it without making him angry, but in the end, decided to be forward.
“What happened with Nix?”
As soon as the words passed her lips, she saw Rifter’s face twist, but it was not in anger. What she saw there was confusion.
“Nix?” he asked, seeming utterly baffled. “He’s dead.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. Her heart leapt once and then calmed again. Dead? No, he was not dead. He had just been with her!
Rifter tilted his head toward her confusedly, trying to figure her out, but she couldn’t quite guess why. She felt the need to hide from him. This was certainly a very strange thing. He thought Nix was dead, just as Nix had thought he was dead?
“How?” she asked. Within, she began to feel hot and uncomfortable – nervous.
“I suppose you’ve heard of our fight,” Rifter said, seeming disgusted at the notion. He paced toward the lip of the cleft, keeping silent as the sound of his boots resounded around them. “I searched for him for a long time, and I didn’t tell the others, but I found him.”
Wren was glad that he was not looking at her. She knew her face revealed her shock.
“He was dead. Some nightmare had gotten him.”
They stared at each other for quite a while, trying to guess the other’s thoughts as the rain fell around them. There were so many questions behind Wren’s mouth, but she was suddenly afraid to ask him when they were alone like this. In the end, it was finally Rifter who relented to their stare-down.
“I suppose I should go and see about the others, like you said. One never does know what will happen, does one?”
Wren felt a lump in her throat. Perhaps it had not been his intention, but she felt that he had not been talking about the boys with those words. He was talking directly to her. It was as if he was looking into her thoughts and heart, seeing her sins.
One never does know when the person they love will turn against them, do they? But she couldn’t blame herself.
If so, why do I feel so guilty?
She expected him to turn away then – wishing he would – but he stared at her pointedly with his eyes burning into hers.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, studying her. “Have you changed your mind about me? I’m not so sure you’ve forgiven me.”
Wren opened her mouth, wanting to answer, but the words were stuck in her throat. She wanted to tell him that she just needed the truth so that she could go forward, but in this moment, she was not so sure who was speaking to her. Was this Rifter who was staring at her so harshly?
Or the demon…
“You’ve let the others get to you,” he said knowingly, nodding to assure himself. “They’ve turned you against me.”
He stepped toward her and she could see that he was getting angry over his assumptions – which were not so far from the truth. She urged herself to speak, but her throat had closed beneath his stare. His blazing eyes caused heat to flare within her, slowly rising inch by inch. Her heart pounded, her temples pulsed, and she grew lightheaded.
“Wren?”
She heard his accusing voice, but it was distant from her now. Wren’s eyes rolled back and she felt herself slip away. Deep in her belly, the demon fire rolled.
2
“This is bollocks,” Mach announced disgustedly. “Pure horse shit!”
The rest of them agreed silently. They’d been forced into a cave, sitting back-to-back with their hands and feet bound. Pirates stood at the entrance, pointing guns at them – and greatly enjoying themselves at that. After years of being off the island, this sort of thing was exactly what they had been hoping for. They told lewd jokes as they shared vials of liquor, reveling in their victory.
Above the cave opening, there was a burning fuse attached to several kegs of powder over their heads. When the explosion shook the air, rocks would pile in front of the entrance and they would be sealed within. There would be no light, and there would be very little air. There was no chance of escape now. There were too many guns.
“I could get past them,” Finn said, for they were back far enough in the small cave so as not to be heard if they spoke quietly. “They could shoot me and it wouldn’t matter so much. But that will not keep them from turning their guns on the rest of you once I’m gone.”
“Why do you suppose they haven’t killed us?” asked Toss. “We killed very many of them, and they don’t want revenge?”
“They have been instructed not to kill us,” Sly said simply. Whether or not he knew through prophecy, he sounded certain.
“By who?” Toss asked. “Do you think…?”
He did not have to finish that sentence. What he was thinking of was very clear.
The Scourge.
“Perhaps,” Sly relented. “Without doubt, he has some role in this. Yes, if he hasn’t already, he will return.”
This rattled them all, but they had no time to show fear.
“But what good would possibly come from us being left alive?” Mach asked.
“Maybe they want us to die thinking we’re going to live,” Finn suggested grimly.
They fell silent then, their ears taken by the sound of air rushing in and out of the cave. Was it pointless to think they would get out of this? What if they had stayed apart, had kept to their own places in the world and had never followed Wren at all: this seemed to be on all their minds.
“Finn, can you still see in the dark without your goggles?” Sly inquired, for the pirates had taken their weapons and gear.
“Some, but not too well.”
“I can free us. Toss likely could as well,” Sly whispered, already working his claws on his own ropes. “But getting out of the cave after it collapses will be a different matter.”
They all paused and worked on this, sorting through strategies they had used in the past to get out of difficult situations. When they drew up nothing, they started over.
“Maybe Nix will change his mind,” Toss suggested. “Maybe he will come looking for us.”
“And what are the chances he’ll find us since he won’t know we’re stuck in a cave?” Finn asked of him, wriggling a bit in the ropes.
Toss was silenced.
“This is bollocks,” Mach said again. “We don’t have Wren, we don’t have a plan, and we don’t have a leader! The only one out there that can help us is gone!”
Within Sly’s mind, something clicked. He began to roll through this notion over and over again, wondering if it was real.
“You are speaking of Nix?” Sly asked. The others were stopped by his question, thinking that it was a ridiculous thing to ask.
“Yes; Nix. He was with us, you know.”
Sly shook his head. Yes; he was certain he saw it, but what did it mean? “Nix could not help us.”
“Because he’s a self-centered ass,” Finn commented.
“No, it’s because he’s dead.”
There was an uncomfortable silence after that in which only their thoughts were loud.
Dead? Nix? It’s not possible. He’s much too capable.
“Since he left us?�
�� Toss asked finally, fearing that they might have sentenced him to death by letting him leave them.
“No. Years ago,” Sly said with a shake of his head. “I-I see it now…”
Impossible! They had all seen Nix except Sly, and who was he to judge? Each one of them had spoken to Nix, and he was very much alive. They had seen him fight. They had heard him make demands. They had watched him protect Wren.
“Are you sure the air to your brain isn’t already cutting off, Sly?” Finn asked, fairly agitated. “I’ve been walking with the bastard for days!”
Sly sliced through his ropes, still holding his hands behind him.
“So, you are meaning to tell us that the man we’ve been looking at this whole time is a ghost?” Toss asked.
The ears atop Sly’s head perked up at the notion.
“Yes,” he said, his face lighting up in a way that none of the rest could see. “Yes, that’s exactly it.”
The animal boy laughed, unable to hold it in.
“What the hell, Sly,” Finn said with a shake of his head.
“And what other reason do ghosts have to linger,” Sly asked shrewdly, a wide smile on his face, “than if they are not finished!”
It was clear that Sly understood what he had said in some private way that amused him, but it was lost to the others and none could bring himself to ask. Sly seemed to have slipped off into a world of his own that could not be broken through. The others put it away from them. There were more important things to think of other than Sly’s apparent lapse of sanity. Figuring out how to escape would be a good start.
Above them, a muffled explosion rattled the air. Dust and rock fell down across the opening that let in the gray daylight, piling up until nothing could be seen of the outside world. They were left in darkness with the sounds of pirate laughter ringing in their ears.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
1
Across the ground, Calico’s woven shoes trekked through mud.
What had she been thinking, letting Sly go on without her? She had done too much to protect him to give up now. She’d taken special care not to reveal his whereabouts to the others until it was time. It had been because of him that she had put herself on that ship and gone to Bleed Neck Bay. That was near where he had seen Wren in his vision, and Calico had gone to bring her to him. He had advised her not to go, but she had not listened, even though she knew to take his warnings to heart. But that was behind her now. There was danger ahead, and she had let him go off to it.