Within seconds, I closed the gap and came up beside Adam. We caught up to the others and ran in companionable silence for several minutes, with nothing but the sounds of snow crunching underfoot. I was almost relaxed, nearly enjoying the run.
Then, it happened. A doe came running helter skelter, straight for us.
No, no, no, I thought, digging my front paws into the dirt in an attempt to stop. I don’t want to hunt you, was my first thought, which was followed immediately by a second—why are you running right at us?
My thoughts were echoed by six other wolves, as they parted, letting the deer run between them and escape.
The last time I saw one act like that, it was already dead. Brian’s voice edged into my brain, sounding anxious.
That one wasn’t dead. I could hear her heart beat. I sidestepped and turned to watch the slip of a white tail disappear into the underbrush.
I don’t want to hunt her, but I do feel like following her. Erik’s voice bounced into my head as Adam began to slowly walk toward the thicket the deer had bounded through. I’m getting really bad vibes about this. Do we really have to see what she was running from?
Adam paused just long enough to look over his shoulder. His silver eyes narrowed as he sent a clear image of six stoic wolves protecting the forest. They were Keepers. It was up to them to see what had happened.
Several grumbling voices echoed in my head as five wolves fell in behind him, ears pinned back. I knew Adam hadn’t really had to say anything, they would have followed him anywhere, whether they thought it was a good idea or not. They trusted him—and so did I.
Into the thicket we went, snow crunching beneath our paws. What greeted us on the other side, had everyone freezing in their tracks.
The snow left, as if we had stepped into an entirely different season, though it wasn’t one that I was familiar with. In every other season that I knew, there was always some sign of life. Here there were none.
The ground beneath us was dry dirt, littered with fallen branches and dead leaves. We were in a Deadland.
This wasn’t here yesterday. Adam’s voice was edgy and worried as it echoed in my head.
Slowly, we walked farther in. We were so close that everyone was bumping into the wolf beside of them. There was safety in staying close, so no one complained.
I had been in Deadlands before, but never as a wolf. I caught myself taking in a deep breath, searching for scents, but other than the wolves that surrounded me, there were none. I heard a low, worried whine that broke the eerie silence.
Adam turned to look at me. It was then that I realized that whine had come from me.
Sorry, I thought, ducking my head. Adam bumped my nose with his muzzle as if he understood, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me. Then, he turned back, sending a clear picture to us all to keep walking.
We need to see how far it goes.
Several moments later, we were standing in the grove of trees that bordered the back of the cemetery. The Deadland had led us directly to a familiar wrought iron gate, which had somehow ended up on the backside of where it should have been.
Normally locked and secure, St. Claire’s tomb stood wide open.
Chapter 4
TOMMY HAD BEEN the first to switch back into his human form, as if he’d wanted to make sure his question had been spoken aloud to break the eerie silence. “So now what are we going to do?”
“We’ll have to go down and make sure everything is how it should be.” Adam’s words said one thing, but the tense hold of his shoulders and the black mist that was swirling around his body said something else entirely.
“I don’t like it,” Erik muttered, “The last time we were down there all kinds of weird crap happened.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do, trust me,” Adam replied, taking a step closer to inspect what was left of the metal hinges. “Look.” He pointed to the warped iron. “Whatever tore that gate off, came from inside. I doubt that she is still hanging around down there, but we’ll have to go and make sure.”
Complete silence answered him. That tomb had held things made of nightmares—and no one knew that better than Adam and I. Far down in the depths of the earth, Adam had died—and I was the one who had exacted my revenge. At least…I thought I had. From the looks of the twisted hinges, it was possible that I had somehow missed my mark and that Zue, the flesh-eating fairy, was on the loose again.
“Adam’s right. We have to go down there.” My announcement shattered the silence and was met by a chorus of grumbles from behind me as I walked over and took Adam’s hand. “If Zue somehow made it out of there, we need to know. We’ll need to be ready.”
“We get to keep guard up here on the topside again, right?” Michael piped up.
“Yeah, just on the off-chance that she’s lurking close by,” Tommy added, backing his cousin’s request.
“Yes, you two keep near the opening. Ed, you stay with them,” Adam said, “Erik, Brian, you’re with us.” He looked over my shoulder to the others. “We go as wolves.”
Then he looked down at me. “Stay close to me, okay?”
I nodded, squeezing his fingers, before I let go. “You’ve got it.”
A blast of cold air smacked me in the face as I shifted back to my wolf. It felt like the crypt knew we were coming and sent its own personal “hello.”
At least Maria is safe and sound, I thought as I walked around the crypt that now held the remains of both the woman who had haunted it, and her husband. The elders of the tribe had held a funeral and buried her once again, in hallowed ground where she should have been all along. Since then, her ghost hadn’t been seen again.
That had been two weeks ago.
My brain did a quick re-run of the day of the funeral. I had come, wanting to show Maria the respect she had deserved and hadn’t gotten, but I stayed safely outside, not wishing to feel the dank, cold of the rock walls—or remember what had happened farther below.
I took a deep breath and shook my head, forcing myself to concentrate on the present. The only scents I was picking up were our own, and a few older, stale ones that belonged to the elders who had officiated the funeral. There wasn’t anything new that I could find.
When we came to the wall, I shifted back to human to light a lantern that sat on the floor.
You’ll be safer as a wolf, Adam thought, stopping when he realized what I’d done.
“That may be true, but I don’t think my wolf can see in complete darkness and I know she can’t light this lantern,” I replied, adjusting the flame before I followed him, ducking under the low wall that led to the stairway.
Brian, I noticed, had shifted back to human, too, and fell in behind me.
We started down the steps. I lifted the lantern up, letting the light play on the wall beside of us. The bodies that we’d found down here are still here, I thought, as we passed by the first opening in the rock wall. Gleaming ivory, bone and rotten rags still lay in the same place. I’d wondered if the elders had decided to come down here and give the witches a proper burial as well. It seemed they had decided against it.
Bad spirits. Adam’s voice popped into my head, as if he had read my thoughts and wished to give me an answer.
That makes as much sense as anything, I thought as I followed him, watching each grave as we walked by.
I realized I had been paying too much attention to the wall, when Adam suddenly stopped in front of me. I rammed into his back leg and started teetering on the edge of the step, when Brian’s arm came from behind me to grip my shoulder.
“Easy does it,” he whispered, steadying me.
I nearly smiled in relief, but the ridge of black hair that stood up on Adam’s back kept me from it. Following that line of furrowed black fur from his tail all the way up to his neck, I looked over his head and found what had caused his sudden stop.
In front of him, where the next grave should have held a long-deceased witch, a pile of rags lay on the step—but there weren’t
any bones with them.
The grave was empty.
“YOU’RE SURE THE elders didn’t decide to bury any of the bodies down there? You’re certain?” I asked Adam for what seemed the hundredth time.
He shook his head. “No, they decided against it. They didn’t want to disturb their spirits. As Maria’s was the only one who was known to haunt this place, hers was the only one they buried. Trust me, I’m positive. It’s been the talk of the Res for two weeks.”
“He’s telling you the truth, Nikki,” Erik piped in. “You don’t disturb graves. You’ll attract evil spirits.”
“So where is it?” I asked. “Bodies don’t just disappear.”
“Wherever it is, it’s not down there,” Brian announced, his head ducked low as he stepped out of the opening to the mound, and then moved to the side to let Ed come out. “We went back down there and walked around again just to make sure. The dusty pile of ashes that was Zue is still down there, as is every other corpse that was supposed to be there. The only one that is missing is that one grave that’s unnamed.”
“So you’re telling us that a zombie witch came from down there and ripped the hinges off the gate, and then slung it behind the mound?” Michael asked, wide-eyed.
“Something did.” Ed shrugged. “And whatever it was made a brand-new Deadland crop up. Whatever it was had to be strong—and I don’t mean just physically.”
“What could do something like that?” I asked.
Adam’s voice was low…barely audible, “Something with a magic that we’ve never seen.”
“NICOLE HARMON, IF you don’t clean that room this evening, you’ll be grounded until you’re eighty years old,” my mother announced in a tone that clearly implied that no nonsense would be tolerated. I hadn’t even made it completely through the front door and she was nowhere in sight.
“The book,” I hissed through my clenched teeth, only loud enough that Adam would hear me.
The others had taken to the woods, searching for anything else that was out of the ordinary. Adam had come with me to search for more clues in the only other place that we could think of—Wynter’s book.
My mother’s stomping steps announced her oncoming arrival two seconds before she appeared, looking more angry than I had seen her in a very long time. “Did you hear me?” she demanded, before her eyes flickered to my boyfriend. “Hello, Adam.”
“Hello, Mrs. Harmon.” Adam gave her the smile that previously had always won him a smile in return. This time, it didn’t work. Uh-oh. You’re in deep trouble, Nikki.
“No kidding,” I hissed in reply.
“No more snacks upstairs. It smells like something has crawled into that room and died.” A trash bag was thrust at me before she leveled a glare at Adam, and shoved another bag at him. “You can help her.” And with that, she stomped back into the kitchen.
“Something’s up. She never acts like that,” I whispered before we sprinted up the stairs to my room. Safe inside, we shut the door and threw the trash bags on the floor.
Adam put his ear to the door and listened. “I don’t think she’ll be up. She’s chewing out someone on the phone.”
“You know, I thought Brian was nuts when he brought this thing from his house in a Tupperware bowl and a trash bag. But maybe he was onto something,” I said, taking the source of my mother’s tirade from the top shelf of my closet.
“That book reeks.” Adam scrunched up his nose in disgust. “I can’t believe you don’t smell that.”
I inhaled deeply, nose poised right over the funky claw clasp on the book. “Nope…nothing.” I crawled up on my bed and laid the book down, and then patted the spot beside me. “Come on; let’s see what we can find in here on missing witches.”
Adam scooted onto the bed and pulled his t-shirt up and over his nose in a vain effort to squelch the odor that hadn’t bothered me in the least. Only his silver eyes were visible now, though it looked like he was contemplating pulling the shirt over them, too. “Okay, I’m ready,” he said, his voice muffled, “Open it up.” His long, black hair had swung forward, as if it, too, were trying to shield him.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing, but an amused snort still popped out. Adam’s silver eyes narrowed to slits. “You wouldn’t laugh if you could actually smell that thing. It’s no wonder your mom is so upset. Hurry up and open it. Let’s get this over with, please?”
“All right.” I nodded and turned my attention to the thick volume on my quilt. It had been dubbed “The Book of Skin”—and for good reason. The sensitive noses of the Keepers had informed me immediately that the cover was indeed crafted of human skin. Whose, we didn’t know. A giant birdlike claw with three huge talons was what kept the tome shut, and they wouldn’t open for just anyone. So far, I was the only one even able to touch the book at all.
I lightly traced the talons with my fingers and immediately felt them twitch, as if they were coming alive under my touch.
“Freaky bird book,” Adam muttered under his breath as the clasp released and I began flipping through the familiar pages.
“I’ve been through this a few times. I don’t recall ever seeing anything in here on witches, dead or living,” I said, ignoring Adam as he burrowed further into his t-shirt. “Plus, everything I’ve seen in here seems to be more or less just descriptions. Like this,” I said, tapping the picture of six wolves at the top of one page. Spidery handwriting etched over the wolves’ heads. The Keepers. “It says here that there are always six Keepers in each generation, with the gift passed from father to son on a full moon.”
“So far, so good. What else?” Adam peered over my shoulder.
“It says you’re fast healers. Very little can stop you or cause permanent harm.”
“Not entirely true.” The shirt fell from his nose, so he sat back against the headboard, safely away from me and the book. “Whoever wrote that is a little behind on recent events.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly, “I know.”
I felt Adam run his fingers through the wayward curls that had sprung free from my ponytail and spiraled down my back. He stayed silent as I continued to flip pages.
“There’s nothing here,” I said finally, exasperated, “There isn’t anything in it but descriptions and history. It’s outdated…and useless.”
“Too bad it’s such an old book. If the bog elf, or whatever he was, was still around, he would probably have a few updates that he could put in there,” Adam said thoughtfully, “I know of a few that I’d put in there myself…”
Adam’s voice dimmed as a bright flash blinded me and a vision took over.
I floated near the ceiling of a small hut. Below me were stacks upon stacks of books. They filled shelves, overflowed on tables and chairs, and towered in uneven piles upon the floor.
A small, wizened figure was bent at a table, hastily writing on a jagged piece of parchment. It stopped suddenly, realizing my presence.
Two bulging black eyes stared at me thoughtfully for a couple of seconds, before an ancient, rough voice spoke, “Ye need not skulk about, come and ask for what ye wish. Beneath the falls and through the mist, ye will find what ye seek.”
And with a dismissive wave of his hand, I felt a power surge toward me, shoving me to the roof, but instead of finding myself knocked against the beams…
“Oof!” Adam grunted as I slammed into him. Instinctively, he’d wrapped his arms around me, effectively shielding me from the hard wood of the headboard. “What happened?” he asked, once it was clear that we weren’t moving any further.
“I’m pretty sure that I just saw whoever it was that made that book.” I nodded to the open volume. “He’s still alive and I’m fairly certain that I got an invite of sorts…right before he slung me out of his house and into you.”
“An invite?”
“Yeah, any ideas on where there are waterfalls? He said ‘beneath the falls and through the mist.’ From what I can tell, he was giving me directions.”
Adam’s arms were
still wrapped around me. They’d tightened as I spoke. I was now being held very close. The air warmed around us and sparked. I settled back against him, loving the feel of his chest rising and falling and the sounds of his voice as he thought of various waterfalls.
“There are the slips up in the mountains, but I don’t think those are the ones he would be talking about. They’re too short, no one could pass under them unless they were pixie-sized. But then again, I’ve never known elves to be tall…”
Adam trailed off and went silent for a moment.
“The Cascades!” he exclaimed, making me jump. “I’ll bet money that was the falls, he was talking about.”
“Where are these Cascades?”
“About an hour north of here.”
“An hour in human time or wolf time?” I asked, wondering if this was a trip we would be driving to or running toward on four feet.
Adam grinned, “My preferred method of travel, naturally. Wolf.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“Want to try to go tomorrow after school?”
Grumbling echoed up the stairs, proof that my mother was still unhappy and ready to let her anger out on something or someone else.
“So what do you think? Are you up for it?” Adam asked, brushing a stray curl away from my cheek.
“Sure. As long as you don’t make me hunt anything.”
“Deal.” He grinned and leaned over, giving me a quick kiss before scooting to the edge of the bed. “I’d better head out before your mom comes after me.”
“Yeah, she does sound rather out of sorts,” I said, smiling, “Come on, I’ll walk you out. There is safety in numbers, you know.”
THE NEXT DAY, I ended up having to take the book to school with me. There was no way to leave it home. My mom was still on a rampage and threatening to tear apart my room and shove all the contents in the trash. Wrapped in several bags, I stuck the book in my backpack and headed out, hoping that she wouldn’t make good on her promise. When I got to school, I stuffed the backpack in my locker.
The Keeper Saga: Wynter's War, Charmed, and The One (The Boxed Set Book 2) Page 4