Sunburst

by Rachel Higginson

Page 31

 

  And I loved him.

  This wasn’t complicated at all.

  Or scary. This wasn’t scary.

  Except I was so tightly wound that I felt sick to my stomach and my hands were trembling where they grasped the two hilts of my katanas. My wrists were anything but loose and my breaths shook and quivered as I forced them in and out of my lungs. I was such a chicken about this stuff; it sucked, since it was basically my entire life.

  Something glided alongside my foot and I yelped a pathetic sound.

  “What’s wrong?” Nate jumped around with sword raised.

  “There’s something on the ground. ” I poked the soft forest floor with the tip of my sword but only met mud and leaves.

  “Stella. ” I could tell Jupiter was barely reigning in his patience. “There are Shadows literally all around you. Please don’t tell me you’re just now noticing them. ”

  “Obviously, I’m not just noticing them. ” I was totally just now noticing them. Damn it, I was the worst Star ever. “I just didn’t realize they were on the ground too. I thought it might be something…. different. ”

  Serena chuckled darkly. “As in a wayward field mouse. ”

  I ignored her and let my eyes reflect against the dark night around me. The moon broke through the heavy cloud cover up above; some of the light filtered in between the trees so I could finally adjust to my surroundings. When everything became clear I could see them now. They covered every available space as we trudged through the forest. They blanketed tree branches, glided over their trunks and whipped back and forth across the ground.

  There were so many of them that I instantly felt threatened. They didn’t exactly have eyes, but they seemed to be watching us with wagging tales. And if they had any kind of expression hidden in the dark mass, they would have looked hungry- starving. I imagined them licking their lips and purring with anticipation.

  “Why aren’t they attacking us?” I stage-whispered, almost afraid to give them the idea. As if they wouldn’t come up with it on their own.

  “No clue,” Nate shrugged. “But I’m going to assume it’s because something worse is waiting for us. ”

  “Oh, geez,” I sighed.

  Nate grinned and Jupiter sighed.

  A Shadow came to a stop directly in my path and twitched its tail back and forth. I tried to step over it, but it slithered around and stopped again, this time facing me. I wasn’t exactly sure what it wanted, maybe for me to rub its belly?

  I moved to the side, bumping into Jupiter in my attempt to change paths, but the Shadow followed me. “This thing is begging me to kill it. ”

  “Don’t,” Jupiter ordered. “A Shadow that anxious to go back to hell is hiding something. ”

  “Good to know, I muttered and subtly retracted my sword. I had been just about to gut him. Instead I stepped over him again. He was persistent, but I somehow kept up with Serena and Nate while avoiding getting Shadow goo on my feet.

  The further into the forest we walked, the darker it became until our Lights were bright, blinding and hot. This kept the Shadows away from us for the most part, but they seemed to be growing thicker as we continued as well. Beyond where our Lights reached there were walls of them, they stacked on top of each other, tangled in columns or along tree trunks.

  And they weren’t just everywhere. They smelled terrible, too.

  I hadn’t noticed at first, but now the smell was impossible to ignore. The scent of rotting eggs and something so foul and diseased it could only have originated in Hell itself, hung in the air. I felt it on my skin, I tasted it on my tongue.

  I would need to take at least fifty showers after all this and we hadn’t even shed any blood yet.

  We pushed through the Shadow-made barrier and stumbled into a remote cabin.

  The lights were off inside and it looked utterly deserted.

  However, there was no way I was getting out of this that easily. This was the perfect precursor to the world’s scariest movie, and because I was living it, I knew without any doubt that this moment was only the beginning of a very long, very bloody night.

  So, was this a trap or a true tip?

  That was the question.

  “That looks rather ominous,” Nate drawled.

  No kidding.

  Serena looked back at the forest behind us and visibly swallowed. Stealing a breath for courage I turned around to see what made even Serena cringe. And when I finally understood, I let out a weary sigh.

  The Shadows followed us. Thousands of them created a black, solid wall of no escape. We had been herded here, rounded up and delivered for execution. We could have seen this coming. Ok, we probably knew this was coming and chose to ignore it in favor of retaining at least some of our fighting spirit.

  Or that was my excuse anyway.

  They had a purpose. And we had a purpose. Everything seemed to be falling into place. There was only one thing left to do.

  And that was explore the cabin.

  “Is everyone else thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked lightly.

  “And what is that?” Nate asked carefully.

  “That the cabin is secretly a church, blessed by a priest and a perfect place for refuge?”

  Jupiter choked on what sounded like laughter.

  I made Jupiter laugh- I could officially die tonight and be happy.

  “No more stalling,” Serena announced calmly. “Let’s explore. ” She pulled a second sword from her waist and tossed the hilt until it fit exactly in her tight grip. On Earth, the closest style of sword she used was called a scimitar. Longer than mine and more pointed, it wielded a wide, powerful arch. Where my katanas had a square but angled edge, her blades were strictly pointed. The saber curved in a long, subtle way. The bend was important- it made catching the neck of a Fallen just a bit easier. Her hilts were made out of pure, heavy gold, forged in Heaven itself.

  In other words, her weapons were bad ass.

  One day I would get my very own Heaven-commissioned swords and then I would also be bad ass. Until then, I would use my hand-me-down katanas that Jupiter pulled out of his bag of tricks and kick ass the old-fashioned way.

  The cabin appeared exactly like a haunted cabin in the woods should look like. Actually, this one could easily be where the whole Hansel and Gretel myth came from.

  The pure log building’s old wood wasn’t golden blonde anymore; these logs had become dark and wet with heavy moss growing on every beam. A short staircase led to the main door and the stairs looked completely rotted and sagging. Evenly-spaced windows surrounded the cabin on every wall, but most of the glass was broken. Frayed sheer curtains were snagged in the jagged edges as they tried to float with the whipping wind, that was sucking them into the outside.

  The mossy roof was completely overgrown with ivy that I suspected had pushed its way into the house, by the look of the dilapidated shingles. And beyond the cabin lay more forest. I half wondered why we didn’t simply fly to this spot when we first stumbled upon it, but now I could see that would have been impossible. The forest created a second roof over the structure and boxed the cabin in from every side. We stood in the only small clearing right now.

  This cabin never saw light and never saw day.

  Darkness every single moment of its existence, drowned and suffocated it.

  No wonder it looked like a Rob Zombie set piece.

  This is what I would look like, too, if I had to deal with that kind of repression.

  I immediately thought of Seth and I felt punched in the chest.

  Nate and Serena were first up the stairs, carefully stepping around the weaker looking spots. I held my breath and bravely followed forward. Jupiter flanked me, but I knew this was not out of fear. As the least visible out of all of us, it made sense for him to remain as undetected as possible.

  At the door, Serena kicked it in, but she really didn’t need to. Rotten wood that was already off its hinges, expl
oded at the slightest touch of her booted foot. She didn’t wait around to comment but burst through the doorframe with Nate hot on her heels.

  I sucked in another steadying breath and was right behind them with Jupiter only a half a second behind me.

  We took in the even darker space. The cabin was just one giant room with a dead leaf and ivy covered floor. The vines had come out of the ceiling and wrapped around every available space, effectively obstructing whatever life could have been left here. This was not a friendly or pretty plant; this was destruction and domination at its most obvious.

  But other than the aggressive vines, there was nothing here. No Shadows, no Fallen, no anything evil that was waiting in the Darkness to meet us.

  Serena took a confused step forward and that’s when it happened.

  The floor gave way and we were all falling.

  It was a strange feeling to be standing on solid ground one second and lose all sense in the next. I could have easily started floating or flying, but my mind was so discombobulated that I found myself lost in the heady, overwhelming sensation of losing my footing.

  I wasn’t the only one, since we all landed with the thud on a hard dirt floor.

  My butt hurt. But I scrambled to my feet and managed to grapple hold of my flailing swords. When I finally managed to stand and regain my composure, I stepped back into a defensive formation, with my back to Serena, Nate and Jupiter’s backs. Our swords pointed out and our Lights lit up brightly as much as we could without melting Jupiter.

  Oddly, there was no debris or dust around us. The floor didn’t collapse; the floor disappeared.

  Vision. Hallucination. Or whatever. It was the Shadows and we fell for it.

  Ok, we fell for it a bit willingly, but still.

  And now I stood trapped in a basement with my enemies. This was my worst nightmare.

  Aliah stepped forward from out of the dark corner; I was less surprised with this than any other moment in my life. It was like we were following a scary movie script, only if we kept following the one he wrote, this was not going to end well for us.

  I did have the whole virgin thing working out for me. Wasn’t that part of some Hollywood formula?

  I was almost positive it would work for me to.

  Well, Ok, not exactly positive.

  “Thank you for joining us,” Aliah greeted us warmly. “Stella, lovely to see you, as always. I’m surprised to see you twice in one day however. I didn’t realize you were incapable of listening to simple directions. ” His accent was thick with impatience and I had to hold back a smug smirk.

  “Oh, is Seth here?” I asked innocently. “I guess I didn’t realize who was throwing this party. ”

  Aliah motioned with his hand, and Seth and Seven walked into the glow of our light. They looked more related than ever before tonight- hauntingly beautiful, terrifyingly dangerous. And then out of the shadows stepped more Fallen than I had ever seen in one place. They lined the walls around us, armed, dangerous, menacing.

  We were seriously out-numbered.

  Which meant one thing. We were set up tonight. This was carefully planned. And by the Elders themselves. Or at least one of the Elders.

  That was good news. A traitor was officially confirmed. I couldn’t stop the grin this time. Although my current circumstances were nothing to smile at.

  “You’ve complicated my plans, Stella,” Aliah explained carefully.

  He walked forward to within the reach of my sword, but Serena stepped in front of me and raised her own blade to his carefully groomed throat, “Ah, ah, ah, Aliah, my dear. ”