Forgotten

by J L Terra

  Arnesto Cramelli, along with his men, was known throughout Africa as guns for hire. He was even suspected of having traded children in Sierra Leone. All of his men, Cramelli included, were dishonorably discharged military. All from different countries.

  And they had all been killed.

  Intel she’d gathered from her military contacts confirmed it. Dead in Sierra Leone a year ago.

  That had been the beginning of the downward spiral of her career. And yet, for all the insinuations that she was either wrong or crazy, it seemed she had been exactly right. “You find the kids for him, don’t you?”

  His face hardened. “I am in acquisitions.”

  “Even when that acquisition is an innocent life?”

  “Everything has a price.”

  “And you demand the highest.”

  “I’ve felt a lot of heat because of you.” He leaned down so that his face was close to her. “And I always repay my debts.”

  There was no way she was going to be able to convince him to let her go. Not when he was being paid—likely a lot of money—to do this. How the Druid had managed to hire him, she didn’t know. Maybe he’d even faked their deaths for them.

  International mercenaries, especially ones as well known as Cramelli and his men, didn’t fit in this situation. Not as far as she could see.

  Unless Bryn’s life was a whole lot more valuable than she’d thought, or she knew more than she believed she did. Someone was willing to go to this extent to keep her quiet. And to make everyone believe she had no credibility.

  Bryn shook her head and tried to process all of it while her thoughts continued to spin. She spotted a brown fox at the edge of the clearing. Just standing there watching them.

  Cramelli shoved her forward.

  The outside of the house was little bigger than a one room cabin. Probably built a hundred years ago by settlers who had come this far, choosing to stay in Wyoming. Although this particular spot might be Idaho. She wasn’t sure where the border was between the states. Either way didn’t much matter, this place had been long forgotten. Enough for the surrounding wilderness to have grown on the sides and roof of the cabin. To the point it was impossible to even see much of the windows and doors, or the wide log beams used to build it.

  Bryn had definitely been in this cabin before.

  She turned to Cramelli. “Whatever you’re going to do, just do it. I don’t even care anymore.”

  His lips warped into a sneer. “I think I like you, woman.”

  “I’m not going to take that as a compliment. Not coming from someone like you who is a party to the most despicable things people are capable of.”

  “We all have our special skills.”

  At that, he pulled out a knife. Bryn took half a step back. He grinned at her again and sliced the blade across leaves and thin branches to reveal the door.

  Bryn felt every inch of the movement crawl along her skin like ants. But she couldn’t let it penetrate. She had to keep her legs locked, her back straight, otherwise she would never find a way out of this. Keep breathing. Don’t think about it too much. The last thing she needed was to be sucked into her own head, unable to cope with what she was seeing around her. The fact she was back here again. At his mercy, again.

  Cramelli twisted the door handle. He pulled it toward himself and, at the same time, pushed her forward with a hand at the small of her back. Bryn’s stomach clenched. Her resolve hardened. This man was not the only person determined to pay back any debt owed.

  Before he could push her over the threshold, she turned and grabbed his arm, then kicked the door out of his other hand. Shock registered on his face a split second before she hauled him into the cabin with her.

  His hands twisted, and he grabbed her forearm. Whatever was inside, they were going to face this together. A twisted tit for tat that meant they’d either live or die. But whichever way it went, he could be sure they’d meet that end side by side.

  Cramelli didn’t even take one step before he began falling. Bryn was dragged behind him, over a ledge right inside the door. And then they dropped into the black interior of the cabin. Falling, just like she had in the illusion.

  “This isn’t real,” she called out to the darkness as she descended.

  In her mind, all she could see was Daire’s face as she dropped. She’d clutched the book for dear life then.

  Now she didn’t even know where it was.

  And what did it matter? Daire seemed to think it was important, but did it help her? This whole situation had been nothing but trouble. Now she’d been sucked into another mind game.

  Cramelli slammed into the ground. Bryn landed on top of him, and all the breath expelled from her lungs in a whoosh. “Feels real to me,” he said as he shoved her off him.

  Bryn rolled across the dirt. It coated her clothes as she came to a stop. The ground was cold, as though they really were deep in the earth. Around her she could make out the faint outline of daylight outside the cabin. It didn’t seem that far away.

  Was this real, or was it an illusion?

  A rushing noise reached her. Like the steady stream of a brook, or river. It started out quiet, the faintest of sounds. But the noise grew louder and louder as it approached them. Bryn scrambled back as best she could, her hands still bound.

  Cramelli clicked on a flashlight. The bright beam cast everything beyond it into complete darkness. He spun to survey the entire area with the light.

  Bryn covered her eyes to shield her gaze from being blinded. Even still, the noise grew louder. Until it sounded as though the river was right behind the walls. All around them. Underneath them.

  Cramelli moved the beam even faster as he searched for the source of the noise. She heard his grunt, then he shone the light at his feet. Dirt grew in a mound beneath his boots.

  He stepped back and yelped as a hundred tiny bugs erupted from the mound. They rushed toward him, drawn by some unseen force. Bryn scrambled back. The minute she hit the dirt wall, she stood, ignoring the ache of her muscles. Her eyes so fixed on what was happening that she couldn’t look away.

  The bugs climbed his legs. Cramelli slapped at them. He dropped the flashlight, and in the beam she could see them crawl over his hips. Up his shirt. She cried out along with him as the bugs swallowed his shoulders and arms. They crawled up his neck and disappeared into his mouth, cutting off his cry to a gurgle. Bryn covered her face with her hands. Forced to listen as the bugs swallowed him in their swarm.

  As his last choking cry shut off, she lifted her head. Were they going to come for her next? If that was going to happen to her as well, then there wasn’t much she could do about it. She’d have only seconds left to make sure this would be the honorable end her brother always talked about.

  There was nothing honorable about this.

  Laughter drifted in on a breeze she never felt. Bryn looked around but couldn’t see anything in the dark corners. The bugs, lit by the beam, left the body and retreated back into the earth.

  A small brown fox—the same fox she’d seen outside by the tree line—wandered across the beam. His eyes glowed in the light of it as he stared at her.

  In the next second, the fox grew. His body contorted into a fully-grown man, a ghostly figure.

  Long robes shifted in that same breeze. He stared at her with the eyes she’d seen in the fox, above a gray beard set into a square, flat face.

  A face she had seen before.

  He waved his hand and her bindings disappeared. For a second she was free before dirt behind and all around her shifted. Branches reached out to grasp her. Before she could move one inch, they had secured her hands and feet. A band of thorny shrub wound around her waist and dug into her skin.

  The ghostly form lifted his hands and began to chant.

  Chapter 22

  Ben parked their SUV a quarter mile down a dirt track from the cabin.

  “This is it.”

  His boss—and friend—turned to him. “You’re sure?”
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  “Bryn was found a half mile from here.” Daire pointed to the west, where Idaho stretched out. “And look at it.”

  They both did.

  In the back seat, Malachi made no noise. He cracked the door open and got out. Daire watched the man walk into the woods. “He’s weird, right? We’re acknowledging the fact something is off about him?”

  Yes, he was parroting what Mei had said to him in New York. But stuff had happened since then that she didn’t even know about. Which was probably a good thing.

  “Weirder than being in a symbiotic relationship with a golem?” Ben shot him a look. “Or being immortal?”

  “I see your point.”

  Daire cracked his own door. He closed both, since Malachi left his open, and palmed his gun. From this distance, he could see two men standing outside the cabin. Not on guard. If their stances were any indication, something was wrong. One was on a cell phone, held out in front of him. The other gestured wildly, also part of the conversation. The distraction was likely the reason they hadn’t seen him or Ben yet.

  Daire stuck to one side of the dirt track, Ben on the other. Thirty feet out Ben yelled, “Guns down! Hands in the air!” His voice rang with authority.

  Daire would rather have his sword out than be holding this gun, but that was where history had brought him. Same kind of fight. Different weapons. He held it up, aimed toward the men. He could get one man before the other fired. Ben would say the same. That meant they had these men beat. Did they realize that?

  The one on the phone hung it up, then let the phone go so it dropped to the dirt by his boot. Daire saw the flex of his shoulder a split second before he reached for his gun. Daire squeezed the trigger of his Glock and put a round in the man’s shoulder.

  What was the point in killing them again? That would be a waste of bullets.

  The man staggered back, clutching his now bloody shirt with the other hand.

  The other one shifted. Ben fired twice. They both went down.

  “Dead?” Daire glanced between the two and Ben. “I only wounded mine.”

  “And now he’s reaching for a knife.” Ben motioned to the man on the ground.

  Daire strode over. He kicked the blade away and pressed his boot down on the shoulder he’d just put a bullet through.

  The man gritted his teeth but didn’t make a sound.

  “Where is she?”

  “Inside.”

  Not a secret the guy felt he need to keep then. “Where is your third man?”

  “She dragged him in there.”

  Daire leaned down. “Who hired you?”

  “Can you see the wind? It flows through the trees and moves from place to place. Touches at will.”

  He lifted his boot from the man’s shoulder and strode to the cabin. Two paces from the door, a gunshot rang out behind him. Daire glanced over his shoulder in time to see Ben sprint to catch up.

  He kicked the door beside the handle. It swung open and he went in, gun first. Ben tapped his shoulder to indicate he was right behind. They cleared the living and kitchen areas—one room, really. The entire bathroom was the size of Amelia’s closet. The bedroom barely fit the queen mattress that had been dropped on the floor.

  “Clear.”

  He turned around. Neither of them stowed weapons.

  Ben said, “He said she pulled the gunman in here?”

  Daire didn’t nod. “So where are they?” He walked back through the cabin. “Basement?”

  He pulled up the ratted rug on the living room floor. Just a guess, but it paid off. Sure enough, under the rug was a hatch. And it was worth a shot. Still, if they’d both gone downstairs, then who had replaced the rug? Daire didn’t want to think about finding Bryn down there, dead. The gunman could pick them off from a hiding spot. Or he would disappear out the back door.

  Or Bryn had killed him.

  If she had, Daire was going to get her an application the next time Ben was hiring.

  The front door of the cabin swung open and a gust of wind raced through the house. It ruffled Daire’s hair against his collar and flapped at his T-shirt. Oh, no. He jumped down the hole to whatever basement was beneath this place.

  Ben shouted from behind him. Above him.

  Daire’s boots landed on the soft earth. “Bryn?” There was no wind down here. Just still air, stale and laced with the smell of blood. And a yellow glow in the distance. Ben’s boots slammed the dirt behind him, each step matched in pace with Daire.

  He ran toward the light. For how long, he didn’t know. The yellow glow grew. Slowly. It seemed like hours before he could make out the details. Sweat drenched, and now fatigued, he slowed to a stop to process what he was seeing.

  Bryn was suspended in the air, hung by branches. Her skin was deathly pale. Blood pooled beneath her. Dark liquid dripped from her fingers onto the ground. No ripples on the surface. Just the continuous drip…drip…drip.

  “Bryn!”

  Ben pulled him back. “Look.” He pointed to the pool.

  The surface shimmered.

  Ben tugged on his arm and glanced around. “My goodness.”

  His friend’s voice was breathy, his gaze on the walls surrounding them. Walls that were piled high with bones. Skulls. The skeletons small, not full grown.

  This was where those missing children had found their end. Sent from the horror and pain of this world to rest. At least they would be in peace. Daire muttered a prayer for justice.

  It was not unlike so many mass graves he had seen, unearthed in countries all over the world. Mankind hadn’t changed, not in all the centuries he’d lived. Evil still walked among them. It lived inside each of them. Twisted the good until there was only corruption.

  Ben said, “Is she dead?”

  Daire looked at Bryn. Eyes closed, her face pale as death. As many times as Daire had seen the end of life, and as much as he had for centuries avoided the reality of it, this woman’s death would be a shock to him. He didn’t want to have met her this way only to lose her. What it was about her, he couldn’t say. But there was some connection between them. One that meant a sure penetration through the wall he’d lived behind for hundreds of years.

  Since Adelyn’s death.

  It was hardly the same thing, considering he and Adelyn had been married for nearly two years. That wasn’t going to happen with him and Bryn, but it was the last time he’d let a woman get to him. He couldn’t help comparing the two.

  “Daire.”

  The low sound of a chant he hadn’t heard in years.

  “Get back.” He shoved Ben away from the pool and drew his sword.

  Daire swung high and sliced the vines that held Bryn’s legs. They dropped. He caught her around the waist before her feet hit the floor, then swung at the ones holding her torso and head up. Her skin was frozen, her clothes in tatters that barely covered her.

  Daire got her free and carried her to Ben. “Get her out of here.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Daire didn’t even want to know. Not right now. “Go.”

  The pool bubbled.

  “Now.”

  Ben did as he asked but not without looking back. Torn between helping this woman and aiding Daire. But Daire didn’t need his help when Ben no longer had the healing powers of the golem. He didn’t want his friend’s death on his conscience as well.

  Daire held his sword out, stretched toward the pool.

  At first, a few strands of hair crested the surface. Then the slope of a forehead. That face. The Druid’s gaze flicked from thing to thing. Awareness came as he realized consciousness had awakened in this body of his. The second the neck emerged, Daire swung. Strong enough to cleave a man in half.

  Blood lust rushed through him. Every ounce of his strength was behind that swipe. The fight he had been born to. Born again. Made immortal.

  The Druid raised a hand from the pool and pushed against the air toward Daire. An invisible force slammed against him. Daire
flew backward. His body twisted in the air with the force of his swing. He landed on the ground, dirt and dust flying.

  Ten feet away he saw the remains of the third kidnapper. Justice. But was he actually dead this time?

  Daire climbed to his feet and saw the Druid step out of the pool of Bryn’s blood. “No.”

  A grin stretched across the old man’s face. He lifted one hand and swiped through the air.

  Daire’s entire body bucked. His spine arched, his hips rising into the air. Pulled tight enough he felt like his vertebrae were about to snap apart. He cried out. His fingers cramped and the sword fell to the ground with a thud.

  “Still coming with that child’s eagerness. Not knowing where the true threat lies.”

  “You. Were. Dead.” Daire bit out through clenched teeth. So tight his molars were about to crack.

  He had stopped the Druid. Daire had fulfilled his destiny and extinguished this great evil more than a hundred years ago. And yet, Providence had done nothing. Daire had still been immortal. He hadn’t expected a reward, as such, but some acknowledgment of what he’d done—and the fact his mission had been completed, would’ve been sufficient.

  Nothing.

  Had Providence been silent because the Druid was going to come back? Daire had thought his work finished, and yet here they were. Facing each other again.

  This time Daire was going to fail.

  The Druid chuckled. “I exchanged one mode of existence for another. I would thank you for setting me free from a physical body to inhabit the world as one with its essence. But now I have returned to myself, and you are still here.” He sighed, as though Daire were a minor inconvenience. “The time has come.”

  Dread filled him. Pain washed through every inch of his body suspended in the air. It had all been nothing but pride convincing him that his work was done. So much pride. The Druid wanted to be set free from his body. Now he was back, born to this world by Bryn’s blood. Back to this unholy nightmare Daire was locked in and couldn’t be set free from.