by Ari McKay
August gave way to September, and Julian’s frustration with their inability to find either their quarry or the cauldron grew. He had an increasingly oppressive feeling of doom, much as he’d felt twenty years before, just before the events leading up to the deaths of Thomas’s parents. Julian tried to tell himself he was only being paranoid, but he couldn’t help not wanting to let Thomas out of his sight.
On Mabon, the feast of the autumnal equinox, Julian and Thomas, along with Eli, Arden, Whimsy, and Harlan, all attended the celebration being held by Brianna Winddaughter’s coven. The witches had a large parcel of land outside of the city, and it was well warded against any intrusion. Julian unbent enough—after teasing by Arden, Whimsy, and Thomas—to even remove his clothing and join in the revels, allowing himself to relax his guard for the first time in weeks. It was a truly magical night, and when Julian and Thomas returned home, they spent hours pleasuring each other.
Then the next morning Julian’s phone rang, and he learned, to his horror, exactly why the possessed shifters had been so ominously quiet.
“YOU ain’t gonna like this, not one bit.”
As greetings went, Tharn’s words didn’t inspire confidence. Julian looked at the grizzled alpha werewolf he’d known for over two centuries, noting the tension in Tharn’s shoulders and the grim set of his jaw. Moreover, he saw something that might have been actual fear in Tharn’s eyes, and that was enough to ramp up Julian’s paranoia a few dozen levels.
“From what little you said on the phone, I didn’t think we were coming out to admire the leaves,” Julian replied. Tharn’s call had sent Julian scrambling out of bed, and he and Thomas had dressed hurriedly before setting out for the remote location Tharn had indicated on the western side of Cherokee National Forest. When they arrived, Tharn and his second-in-command, Earl, and a couple of the other members of Tharn’s pack had been waiting for them. All the werewolves looked grim, and even in their current human forms, it was easy to see their desire to bristle and snarl.
Tharn snorted. “You always was a smartass, Julian,” he said, then turned his attention to Thomas. “You must be the demon hunter Eli and Harlan was talkin’ about. I knew your granddaddy.”
“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, offering his hand to Tharn. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Eli and Harlan speak highly of you.”
Tharn clasped Thomas’s hand. “Then they musta been pullin’ your leg,” he said. He looked at Thomas intently, then released his hand with a nod. “You’ll do well enough, I reckon. You got the look of your mama about you.” He turned to Julian. “The others comin’?”
“Yes. Arden and Eli were going to pick up Whimsy and Harlan,” Julian said. He glanced around at the towering trees, wary of what might be lurking in them. “How far from here are we going?”
“’Bout two miles,” Tharn said, pointing to the north. The trucks the werewolves had arrived in and Julian’s SUV were parked at the end of a narrow fire trail leading from the main road north into the forest. This section of the forest sloped northward toward the Tennessee border and was riddled with numerous creeks and rivers cutting through the stone of the mountain in deep channels. It was rugged terrain, and there was no way the vehicles could go any farther.
Before he could say more, they heard the sound of an engine, and Arden’s SUV, with Eli behind the wheel, came into sight. Eli stopped at the end of the path, just behind Julian’s vehicle, and within moments Julian’s four friends had joined the group.
After greetings were exchanged, Arden looked at Julian. “I thought something might be going on. My mother said Appa has been restless and fretful for the last two days, but all he could say was that a door was opening.”
“Shit.” Julian grimaced. “What about you, Whims? Any funny feelings?”
“There have been some vague stirrings in the Force,” Whimsy said, mustering a smile. “But it wasn’t strong or specific enough for me to pinpoint a source.”
“If this is as bad as Old Jedidiah said, you’ll know the source soon enough.” Tharn smiled humorlessly. “Let’s get goin’.”
The group set out up the slope, the underbrush slowing their progress. Julian could have turned into mist and gone ahead, but he wanted to stay near Thomas. Something about all this made him uneasy, and it was more than just his usual wariness.
“What did Jedidiah say he found, exactly?” Julian asked. He’d seen the ancient, reclusive werewolf a couple of times, but only from a distance, and he’d never spoken to him.
Tharn shrugged. “I was havin’ a hard time understandin’ him. You know he’s been alone for a long time, took off to be by himself after his mate was killed. Probably ain’t used his voice in fifty years. But when he come runnin’ into the settlement, he grabbed ahold of me and started rantin’ about blood everywhere and glowing red eyes in the trees. I managed to get him to tell me he’d found somethin’ about five miles west of his cabin up on the ridge. Then he went harin’ off into the woods again. I sent a couple of my boys after him, but you know how he is. If Jedidiah don’t want to be found, ain’t nothing on this earth gonna find him.”
“He didn’t say what kind of blood? Animal or….” Thomas swallowed hard, appearing to have a little difficulty getting the word out. “Human?”
“I don’t reckon he got close enough to find out,” Tharn said grimly. “He was in a state, I tell you. I’ve known that old coot my whole life, and he’s got to be six hundred years old if he’s a day. He come over from England, you know. Still talks with that funny accent. I ain’t never seen him scared of nothin’, but he was shakin’ like a leaf in the wind, eyes about buggin’ out of his head. I don’t know what he seen, but I gotta tell you, if it wasn’t for my duty to my pack and to keepin’ the area safe, I’d be right tempted to leave it a mystery.”
Whimsy tugged on Julian’s sleeve. “So, uh…. You brought the feather, right? Maybe I should carry it. It sounds like this has the potential to be really bad, and you know how I get around dark magic. I’d rather not end up curled up on the ground, unable to do anything but shake and throw up.”
Julian withdrew the box from his pocket. “You don’t mind, do you, Thomas? The dark magic affects Whimsy worse than anyone.”
“No, not at all.” Thomas shook his head, regarding Whimsy with concern. “If it’ll keep him from getting sick, he needs it.”
Julian handed the box to Whimsy, who accepted the box with a grateful smile and cradled it protectively against his chest.
Julian turned his attention to Thomas. “How are you feeling? Any twinges, discomfort, feelings of dread?”
Thomas pointed toward the northwest. “There’s something foul in that direction.” He closed his eyes. “Coppery, like blood… rot….” He opened his eyes, which had changed from vivid blue to shimmering gold. “We’ll find death there,” he said, and the flash of gold faded.
Julian drew in a breath of surprise. While he’d witnessed the effect before when James and Alicia had been on the hunt, Thomas’s eyes had held more power than Julian had ever seen from his parents.
“Tharn! We need to turn more to the west!” Julian called out.
The werewolf motioned for Thomas to come toward the head of the group. “Might as well lead from the front,” he said. “You’re the demon hunter, we’ll follow you. Get them guns up, boys, but be ready to shift! Don’t know what we’ll find.”
“Come on.” Julian caught Thomas’s hand, lengthening his strides and heading toward Tharn. “This is what you were born to do.”
Thomas tightened his fingers around Julian’s as he followed Julian to the front of the group without any hesitation. “Yes,” he said, his voice strong and certain. “It is.”
Julian was proud of the way Thomas met the challenge, and he stayed next to Thomas as they continued up the hillside. He did release Thomas’s hand so that he could draw the sword he’d brought to help defend Thomas if the need arose. Julian had little concern for his own continued existence since he was, like all vampires,
difficult to destroy. But while Thomas had been born for this type of hunt, he was still a neophyte.
The group continued onward, and Julian became aware of the way the forest went silent around them. No birds called, no squirrels fled before their approach, and there wasn’t so much as a glimpse of the deer that had become in recent years so numerous as to almost be a nuisance. He tightened his grip on the sword, then glanced back over his shoulder to give Eli an inquiring look. They’d seen this before, when they’d gone out to where a pack near Eli’s former home in Georgia had lived, and found the body of the pack alpha sacrificed.
Eli met Julian’s gaze and nodded, his lips thinned into a grim line.
Julian wanted to grind his teeth. He’d hoped Eli might think it felt different, but obviously Eli also recognized the way the woods felt. A few minutes later the steep hillside began to level out, and Julian reached out to put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder.
“Slowly,” he murmured. “We don’t know who or what might be waiting, despite the daylight.”
Thomas slowed his pace, and he drew his daggers, a relieved expression flickering across his face when he looked at them. “They aren’t glowing,” he said. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Let’s hope they don’t start.”
Ahead of them, the sunlight through the trees grew brighter, as though they were approaching a clearing. Then the smell hit them and Julian hissed, the sound blending with the growls he heard coming from the werewolves behind him. There was no mistaking the scent of death.
Julian didn’t know what they would find; perhaps another shape-shifter or a human staked out in sacrifice. But as they stepped into the brilliant sunshine of the first day of autumn, what greeted their eyes was more horrific than Julian could have imagined.
It was a massacre.
The clearing was an irregular circle perhaps twenty-five meters in diameter. There was, as he had expected, a glyph in the center of it. But instead of the body of a single supernatural creature, there were dozens, perhaps even as many as a hundred, much smaller bodies piled up like broken dolls in the middle. Arden gasped with horror, and more than one of the people behind Julian began to retch. He didn’t blame them, since the only thing saving him from the same fate was that he no longer ate.
“Wee folk.” It was Harlan’s agonized whisper that gave name to the small beings whose magic-infused blood had been used to construct the glyph.
Thomas sheathed his daggers and moved closer to the glyph, his face pale and his eyes wide with horror. “This is worse.” He glanced back at Julian. “So much worse than the one we found on the farm.”
“There’s no comparison.” Julian didn’t think he’d ever seen anything worse than this. The wee folk were tiny humanoid creatures who were playful and gentle. They were very tied to the place they lived, whether it was the forest or the house of someone they liked and trusted. Castle Schaden had many wee folk who loved to keep things clean, in exchange for which Julian left them bowls of milk or gold coins.
Whimsy’s copper-colored skin had turned a sickly gray, and he was clinging to Harlan for dear life, the box with the angel feather held in one white-knuckled hand. No doubt the feather was all that was keeping him from collapsing. The dark magic was strong enough here to make Julian want to bare his fangs, but he kept himself under rigid control.
“This is the worst glyph I’ve ever run across,” Julian said. His voice was ragged, and he forced himself to ignore the stench of death that hung in the air like a dense fog. “We are going to have to dispel it and bury the wee folk. Do you think you’ll be able to help?”
“I’ll do my best,” Thomas said. Despite his pallor, his face was set in grimly determined lines. “Where do we start? What should I do first? Are salt and holy water enough for this?”
“There might not be enough salt in the sea for this,” Julian replied. He walked a bit closer to the glyph, frowning in thought. “You need to use the feather to erase the glyph. Which means we need to get Whimsy somewhere safe, because the minute he lets go of that box, he’s going to be in worse shape than any of us. We also need to keep a close watch on the woods while you’re doing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve got a couple of scouts waiting to see if we’d show up.”
“I can take Whimsy back to the SUV,” Harlan said. “But I’m not going to leave him alone. Someone needs to follow us and bring the feather back.”
“I’ll do it.” Earl exchanged a glance with Tharn, who nodded in agreement. “Going down’ll be a lot faster than coming up was.”
“You only need to come as far as where Julian gave Whimsy the box,” Harlan said. “He should be fine from there, but I want him farther away, in case something awful happens when you remove it.”
“Makes sense,” Julian said. “In fact, why don’t the two of you take my SUV and drive down to where you get cell phone reception. Call Brianna and tell her what we found, and ask her if the coven can bring us as much salt and holy water as they can get their hands on.” He pulled the key fob for the SUV out of his pocket, then walked back and handed it to Harlan. He touched Whimsy gently on the cheek. “Are you okay?”
“No.” Whimsy’s skin was dappled with sweat, and he was shaking even though he was clutching the box against his chest like a talisman. “This is… I can’t….” Tears welled in his dark eyes, and he burrowed closer to Harlan. “This is worse than Georgia.”
“Yeah. Much worse.” Julian wasn’t good at offering comfort, but Whimsy had Harlan to take care of him, and that would be enough. “Go on, get going. You need to be away from this.”
Harlan picked Whimsy up, cradling him against his broad chest. He set off down the hillside without another word, Earl keeping pace with him.
Julian moved to where Eli was comforting Arden.
“Hey, brat, are you going to be able to help with this?” The pet name Julian had used for Arden for decades slipped out. “Or do you need Eli to take you back like Whims?”
Arden raised his head from Eli’s chest. His eyes were red-rimmed, which made the green of his irises look even more intense. “I’ll stay,” he replied, his voice unsteady. “I want to help lay them to rest. They deserve to have one of their kin look after them.”
Julian nodded, pleased that Arden felt strong enough to stay. Whimsy couldn’t help it if the dark magic of the glyph made the area unbearable, but Tharn was right that they needed to work together to get this done.
He looked at Eli. “You okay?”
“I’ve been better,” Eli said, stroking Arden’s hair gently. “But this ain’t laying me out. I can help. Just tell me what to do.”
“Help watch for danger,” Julian said. “I’m going to stick next to Thomas. We need to protect him until he erases the glyph. No matter what happens, that glyph has to go, or the demon they summoned will be able to pull other things through it.”
“On it.” Eli bent to kiss the top of Arden’s head. “Do you want to stay with me, Itty Bitty?”
“There’s nothing in the world that’s going to pry me loose from you,” Arden said. “But I can help watch. I can talk to the dryads too. They must be scared.”
“You do that.” Julian headed back toward Thomas. “We can’t do anything about erasing this without the feather, but we could walk the perimeter and look for traps like we did the last time. You up for that?”
“Definitely.” Rather than scared or sick, Thomas looked angry as he surveyed the carnage. “Let’s get started.”
“Right.” Julian drew his sword. “You look, I guard. Take all the time you need. We don’t get extra points for going fast.”
Thomas began to walk slowly around the glyph, facing it, and although his gaze became unfocused, his steps didn’t falter. Julian followed, watching the woods around them but also keeping an eye on Thomas. They made it completely around the glyph, and Julian raised a brow. “Anything?”
“No, not this time,” Thomas said.
Julian frowned thoughtfully. “That’s interesting
. I wonder if they didn’t expect us to find it, or if they thought it was far too powerful for us to erase.” He studied the glyph itself, trying hard not to focus on the terrible sight at the center. “It’s not the same glyph as the one we erased two years ago in Georgia. This was used to summon a much more powerful demon. See, look at the intricacy of the design. The higher the order of demon, the more elaborate the glyph used to summon them.”
“I’ll take a picture of it.” Thomas reached for his phone. “We could look up the glyph in that book we found. It might give us more information on the demon.”
While Thomas was taking the photos, Earl returned. “Whimsy looked a bit green, but Harlan said it was fine for me to come back,” he reported, holding out the box containing the feather to Julian. “Now what?”
“Now we hope that between what training I’ve given him and his natural instincts, Thomas can get rid of this damned thing,” Julian said, grimacing in disgust. “If you, Tharn, Junior, and Ray Bob can spread out around the perimeter, I’ll stay with Thomas. Keep your eyes on the woods, and if necessary, shoot first and ask questions later. I doubt anyone or anything with good intent is left around here other than the poor dryads. Assume hostile intent, and if necessary, we’ll apologize later.”
“Got it.” Earl went to join Tharn and the others.
Julian scanned the perimeter once more and saw Arden, with Eli hovering protectively over him, speaking to one of the dryads. Julian didn’t plan to get involved with that, since dryads had no love for vampires. Satisfied things were as secure as they could be for the moment, he turned to Thomas and offered him the box. “Time to see what your instincts tell you.”
Thomas took the box and opened the lid, revealing the pure white feather within. He gazed at it with reverence as he lifted it out of the box and held it aloft. The feather appeared to brighten in his hand, and the golden glow returned to Thomas’s eyes as he approached the glyph. He went to the center of the glyph, careful not to step on any of the blood and offal, and he worked from the inside out, tracing the lines of the glyph with the feather in a clockwise motion.