by Gwynn White
A beast lunged at Jason. He sidestepped, but the path was too narrow. Behind him, another beast sank its teeth into his leg. Jason roared as smoke rose from his wound. He shook his leg, but the beast held on. Gritting his teeth, he swung a dagger down in one neat stroke. The hellhound’s decapitated body dropped to the ground. Jason pried the teeth from his leg and kicked the head at the rest of the pack.
They roared in outrage. Burning saliva dripped from their growling mouths, splattering the ground. Jason moved back from the line of burning grass.
Then he went on the offensive, tearing through them. Aaron worked with him. Even when the beasts knocked their weapons aside, the two men tore through them with their bare hands.
The Phantom and the vampire were merciless, cold-blooded killers. But so were the hellhounds—and their numbers continued to swell. They tackled the guys, their poisonous fangs biting down. Aaron’s hard armor protected him, but the beasts tore into Jason’s leather armor over and over again. His body was dripping blood from every limb. He fell.
An ear-splitting scream of pure anguish ripped through the forest. I realized it had come from me.
I ran at Jason, dispersing the wolves in my way. Instinct taking over, I jumped between him and the hellish beasts, my lips curling back to expel a low snarl.
The beasts were injured. They stalked toward me, trailing streams of blood behind them. As their hot blood hit the frosty ground, it steamed and dissolved. My snarl grew into a roar. I thrust out my hands, blasting them away with a wave of telekinetic energy.
Aaron grabbed his gun off the ground and shot the disoriented beasts.
“Thank you,” I said to him.
He nodded at me.
I lifted my hands to Jason’s chest, pausing for a moment. Then I peeled back the torn leather to check on the wounds beneath it. He cringed.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s fine.”
I grabbed a cloth from my pouch and wiped off the blood. “I shouldn’t have run so far,” I said. “I should have been there to help you. This is all my fault.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I should have done more damage to the monsters. I should never have—”
“Stop,” rasped Jason, his cracked lips parting only slightly as he spoke.
“Jason, you—”
“I’m fine,” he told me.
I rose. “But your wounds—”
“Have nearly healed. There was no need for concern. I am a Phantom after all.” He placed a hand on each of my shoulders and met my eyes. “It’s not your fault.”
“But had I—”
“Enough,” he cut me off, his voice sharp. “There’s no time for guilt. We need to get going.”
He pointed up at the sky. A storm was brewing overhead, and it was almost upon us. Jason retrieved his knives from the ground and continued running down the trail, leaving us to follow him.
13
A Witchy Storm
Hard rain fell upon the forest, washing away the last remnants of the icy dew. It had been over two hours since our run-in with the hellhounds, and Jason’s wounds had finally closed. Usually, he healed nearly instantly, the benefit of being a Phantom with accelerated healing. But the numerous lacerations had taxed his body.
I hurried along beside him, caught in my own thoughts. I was still trying to process what had happened. Back there, when the hellhounds had gotten him, what had possessed me to act like that? So like a Phantom?
I had been so worried about Jason. It wasn’t rational. He could take care of himself. He had been taking care of himself. Even bleeding like that, he was an excellent fighter. He’d been holding off the beasts. He hadn’t needed my help.
But I hadn’t been able to stop myself. I’d burst through the beasts’ line and run to him, a fierce snarl buzzing on my lips as I shielded him. My reaction had been almost primal—beyond thought and reason—in my drive to protect him.
It was a strange reversal of our regular roles. He was the overprotective one. So what had happened to me? My magic had been feeling so strange lately, so turbulent. And it had only gotten worse since our run-in with Vib’s menagerie. It wasn’t just my magic either. My emotions were all over the place too.
Tired, turbulent tears fell down my cheeks, mixing with the rain. The fight had drained me—magically, physically, emotionally. Probably because I’d used that mind blast against the hellhounds. How had I done that? I hadn’t been wearing any of Jason’s accessories this time.
I tabled the question. I’d have to figure it out later, when we weren’t on the clock. If we didn’t catch Vib and get back to the portal in time, none of this soul-searching would matter. We’d be stuck here—and sooner or later, the witches would find us.
Tiny droplets dripped off the canopy of evergreen needles and large pinecones, pattering against my hood. The path began to trend upward, and just as the mostly-cloaked sun reached its zenith, we came to a small clearing of patchy trees. It was the respite before the real climb. The muddy hill before us was steep and peppered with slippery stones.
The guys didn’t stop, and I couldn’t afford to either. I pushed forward, trying to keep pace with them. I wasn’t a Phantom or a vampire, but I wasn’t a slouch either. I just had to push myself harder to keep up. I didn’t want to be the reason we failed—and we all ended up trapped in the witches’ empire.
While hurrying up the hill, a steel bear trap burst out of the ground near my foot, nearly sinking its teeth into me. I jumped out of the way and lost my balance. Jason caught my hand as I fell, but my momentum carried me along, toppling us both over. He fell with me.
We slid and tumbled all the way down the muddy slope. Jason wrapped his arms around me like a protective cage and shifted his weight to soften my landing. His back hit the ground. My face slammed into the hard wall of his chest.
“You didn’t have to fall with me,” I told him.
He looked at me like there were a few screws loose in my head. “I promised I would always keep you safe.”
“From slippery slopes?”
“From everything. And from everyone.”
He meant from Aaron. That was clear.
“I’m fine,” I assured him.
“You are not fine, Terra. Don’t lie. Not to me. I know you too well. I can always see right through you.”
He was right. We’d known each other for too long. When someone had been your best friend all your life, there were no secrets between you. With Jason, I had no mental barriers, no pretense that could fool him. I was exposed, unprotected, bare, raw. And that was proving to be very inconvenient lately.
I grunted in frustration a few times, trying to free myself from his hold. “You can let me go now, Jason.”
His arms were still locked around me, holding me protectively against his body. I struggled futilely, not gaining a millimeter. Black swirled in his dark brown eyes. The Phantom was taking over. I stopped struggling. That would only incite him. The fight with the hellhounds had his blood boiling hot. He could snap easily.
He looked me in the eyes. “I have more control than you give me credit for, Terra.”
“Prove it,” I challenged. “Release me.”
He held on for one more second—just to show me that he could—then he released me.
I rose to my feet, cringing as I looked down on him. “I’m sorry.”
He stood in one fluid motion. “For what?”
“For the slip. For taking you down with me. You’re completely covered in cold sludge,” I said, mud smacking the ground as I wiped my hand across his chest, displacing the layer of mud.
Jason set his index finger under my chin, pushing it up until I met his gaze. “Don’t worry about it.” He traced his hand across my cheek, brushing the wet hair from my face.
I shivered.
His nostrils flared up, and he inhaled deeply, drinking in my magic. “You’re frightened.”
I met his stare, my lips trembling. “I…” My puls
e was pounding, hammering hard in my chest. “My magic has felt different lately.”
“Yes.” He drew in another deep breath. “It’s stronger.”
“I feel out of control,” I admitted.
“As do I.”
So he’d been affected by this too. Whatever this was.
“There’s something strange going on,” he said.
“Are you going to be able to hold it together?”
A Phantom losing control meant a bloodbath. And that was not an exaggeration. When a Prophet lost control of her powers, she became a danger to herself, drawn into madness by the turbulent rush of foresights. When a Phantom lost control, he became a danger to everyone else.
He turned his back to me. “No. I won’t lose control.”
As it was, Jason’s cold monotone was hard enough to decipher. With his back to me, I couldn’t read him at all. But if he really were on the edge of reason, I thought I’d have felt that. Or so I was telling myself.
At that, Jason turned around to face me. His eyes were still dark brown, but they were teetering on the edge of going black. He was barely holding himself together.
“You need a battle,” I told him.
That was what calmed a Phantom’s bloodlust. Strange that the fight against the hellhounds hadn’t been enough. But he had bled out a lot. Serious injuries also spiked a Phantom’s magic.
“I will be fine,” he told me.
Perhaps. But for how long?
“Jason.”
“I said I was fine.” His tone, saturated in frost-tipped fury, told me he would allow no room for discussion. But his eyes softened. His hand touched my face, stroking down my cheek.
“You can make out later,” Aaron called down to us from the top of the hill. “We have a problem.”
Jason turned and ascended the slippery slope. I followed him in silence.
At the top of the hill, we broke into a clearing. I could see the sky from up here. Green and yellow, it was thick with clouds. There was a strange static in the air, a cold stillness, like the sky was waiting for something, gathering its energy before an attack.
Thunder roared and lightning crashed across the sky. The storm was picking up.
“It’s the witches’ defense system,” Aaron told us.
“The weather is their defense system?” I asked.
“Yes. They’ve learned to brew potions that control the weather in some parts of their worlds. And they change the weather to suit their needs: whether that means a pleasant day, or a raging storm designed to keep out intruders.”
“Intruders like us,” I said in a whisper. “They know we’re here.”
“Perhaps,” replied Aaron. “Or perhaps their weather spell is simply responding to the changing magic in the air from our presence. It could be an automated system that protects whatever they are hiding here.”
The wind shifted, the clouds split open, and rain poured down—though it was not so much rain as torrential downpour, the assault of a thousand angry needles, a vomiting of the heavens. The tree we stood under provided only pitiful shelter. The storm had grown too wild, too fast.
Lightning cracked, splitting the tree nearly in half. Its splintered remnants plunged down. We ran out of the way. The fallen trunk crashed down, landing only a few meters from us. I stepped back from the felled tree, mud oozing up as my boots sank into the soft ground.
“I think we need to take shelter,” I told them. “Before the next lightning bolt hits one of us.”
14
Fallen Artifact
My socks slushed inside my boots. The wind howled and pounded my body, forcing me to fight for every step that I took. All around me, the trees swayed and bent forward, their trunks threatening to snap at any moment. I was soaked through to my underwear. I felt like I’d never get dry.
“Here,” Jason’s voice broke through the cacophony of storm sounds.
We’d left the trail. Before us, the hill sloped downward. The drop was nearly vertical. And at the bottom was a large grey cave.
I blinked. No, not a cave. It was too symmetrical to be a natural formation. Lightning flashed, and I got a better look. It was a massive spaceship. Its metal exterior discolored and coated with layers of green sludge, the ship must have been sitting there for centuries.
My mouth dropped. “What is that monster?”
“A crashed Xenen ship,” Aaron said.
“Xenen? You want us to go inside a Xenen ship?”
“I don’t think they’ll be coming back for it,” Jason said. “This ship crashed long ago.”
“Sure, but still.” I chewed on my lip. “It’s kind of creepy. Like sleeping amongst the dead.”
“It’s that or walking out in the rain,” Aaron said, heading down the hill.
Very few remnants remained of the Xenens’ time here, the era of the demons who’d once ruled most of the known worlds in the galaxy. Here and there, an odd bit of technology was left, but hardly anything big. The demons had taken most of their technology with them. A few crashed ships remained in the mage kingdoms. The nature of the Wilderness must have made their extraction impossible. It was hard to move something that big in an area where no machines functioned. Some people said demon artifacts were cursed, and I wasn’t sure they were wrong about that.
A few demon ships also remained in other parts of the galaxy, outside Elitia. This one must have been too damaged to move. When the Xenens had been banished from this galaxy, they’d not left anything of value if they could help it.
I stepped toward an opening in the ship. A tiny waterfall slipped down the roof, pouring over my hooded head as I passed under the arched doorway. The ground was packed with wet mud and decaying leaves, concealing whatever floor lay beneath centuries of forest debris. A dim orange light flickered against the walls as Aaron lit his lantern.
“I’m going to set up traps around the outside of the ship so we have fair warning if the witches or their beasts come for us,” Jason said to me.
I nodded, and he went off. Aaron and I turned down the dark corridor, checking all the hallways for any sign of life. Sometimes thieves and rogues camped out in old demon spaceships.
A thunderstorm was raging outside, throwing frozen hail pellets down on the roof. I hoped Jason was ok out there.
Aaron hit a button and the front shield of his helmet slid back to reveal his face. His eyes scanned the dark tunnel. “I wonder if there’s anything left of value in here.”
The Xenens were advanced. Their technology was still way ahead of anyone else’s, even half a millennium later. Some scavengers had made a business of stealing from fallen Xenen ships. Their tech fetched a high price on the black market.
“People shouldn’t be digging up anything the demons left behind, weapon or not. No good could ever come of messing around with those things,” I said. The demons had done enough damage with their gadgets in their time. There was no need to revisit the experiment in this one. “They are all tainted.”
“Everything the Xenens ever made?” he asked.
“Yes.”
His lip twitched. “Even their toilet seats?”
“Everything.”
“You know, my armor was engineered using old Xenen tech salvaged from a ship like this one,” he said. “Including the helmet you found so interesting.”
My boots slid to a stop, and I turned to give Aaron a hard glare. “You didn’t think to mention this earlier? You know, before I touched it?”
“What’s there to mention? It is what it is,” he said.
The inside of the ship was a maze of corridors and rooms. An eerie feeling crept over me, the feeling that we were being watched. It was a ridiculous notion. We’d already checked all the compartments that were still intact. Many had collapsed in on themselves in the last few centuries. There was no one here except for me and Aaron. But even though I knew that, I couldn’t shake the feeling.
It’s just an abandoned spaceship, I reminded myself. A tomb from an era long since pas
sed.
Somehow, the thought of walking through a tomb wasn’t especially comforting.
“Sorry,” I said when I stumbled against Aaron.
He looked back at me. “You’re awfully nervous.”
“I’m fine.”
“No.” He stopped walking and turned around to face me. “I’ve noticed something about mages. You get very edgy whenever the Xenens are mentioned. It’s not all that surprising, considering what they did to you.”
Things like torture and experimentation.
“But they’re gone. They’ve been gone for centuries. And they’re not coming back,” Aaron told me. “There’s no need to get nervous.”
“I’m not nervous. Just…”
“Unsettled? Tense? Jumpy?”
I planted my hands on my hips and glared at him. “Those are just different words for ‘nervous’.”
He returned the glare with an easy smile. “So they are.”
“I just have a funny feeling is all,” I said.
“A funny feeling that a Xenen will jump out from behind the next corner and shout ‘boo!’.”
“Yes, precisely that,” I said drily.
Aaron focused on something behind me. “Terra, look.”
I rolled my eyes. “What did you find? A demon soldier?” Did he honestly think that I was going to fall for that?
Aaron stepped around me. “No, seriously. Look.”
He bent down to scoop something off the ground. I turned to get a better look. It was a black box about as big as his two hands. On the box there was no lettering—no markings of any kind, in fact. It was simply blank.
“What do you think is inside?” he asked.
“Aaron, I don’t think that is a good—”
He opened the box before I could finish uttering my warning. Curiosity compelled me to move shoulder-to-shoulder with him and take a peek inside. The two objects that lay there were as dazzling as the box was dull. Made of a silver-white metal I didn’t recognize and studded with rows of colorful gemstones, they resembled bracelets. They were so pretty, even in the darkness of the ship, that before I could think twice about it, I reached out and touched them. They didn’t zap me or do anything else nefarious. They must have been out of power. I wasn’t naive enough to think anything the demons had made was benign. But they were stunning.