by Linsey Hall
Ares appeared on the sidewalk a half second later, dressed in clean jeans, dark shirt, and a beat-up brown leather jacket. It looked damned good on him.
“Just in time.” I made the introductions with Kelly and explained that Cass was coming along.
“And you’re picking me up if you need backup,” Del said.
I saluted. “Be ready.”
She nodded.
I turned to Ares. “Ready to head out?”
“Yes.” He looked at Kelly. “Do you know Death Valley Junction?”
“I do. Go there for poker every third Thursday. Nothing like playing cards in the real old west.”
It didn’t sound like a bad way to spend an evening, actually.
“Then let’s get out of here,” Ares said. “We’ll meet on the main street.”
He reached for my hand. The ether sucked us in, spitting us out on the main street in Death Valley Junction. A half second later, Cass appeared next to me. Then Kelly. It was convenient to have so many people who could transport.
As expected, the street was dead quiet this early in the morning. Death Valley Junction probably saw some late nights with all the saloons in town.
“This way.” I led the way down the street toward Bree and Ana’s house.
They were waiting out front when we arrived, seated on their stoop. Each wore a pair of aviation goggles on their heads and were already wearing their hiking harnesses. They stood, each looking like a teenage badass in their leather. Though in truth, it wasn’t the clothes. It was the wary look in their eyes and the fighters’ stances.
“Déjà vu,” Cass muttered to me.
“Right? All they need is a third.” I approached them. “Thanks for being ready.”
“Gotta be pro.” Bree stuck her hand out to Cass. “I’m Bree.”
“Cass.”
They shook and Bree moved over to Kelly, introducing herself. Ana did the same, starting with Cass.
“So you’re going to transport the buggy?” Ana asked Kelly.
“That’s the plan. Then I’ll leave you to it and pick you up again when you call.”
“All right.” Bree gestured us toward the buggy. “Come on.”
The thing looked just as I remembered it. A hulking beast of metal and rubber, the spikes that jutted off the sides gleaming in the early morning sun. The small platforms over the front and back of the car had been given an extra safety bar.
We all climbed in, Ana behind the wheel and Bree next to her. Ares took the back platform, while I sat in the back seat between Kelly and Cass.
Bree turned around and gestured to the back seat floorboard. “Harnesses down there if you want them.”
“Thanks.” I reached down and grabbed one, then handed it back to Ares. I grabbed the other and strapped it on, ready to take on the challenges that protected Drakon’s miserable operation at Elesius.
Cass did the same, asking, “What are these for?”
“If you want to fight from the platforms, you wear a harness,” Ana said. “That way, if you go overboard, you don’t go far.”
“Smart.” Cass strapped hers on.
“We like to think so,” Bree said.
Tom rubbed his hands together and grinned gleefully. “Ready to go?”
“Ready,” Ana and Bree said in unison.
Kelly’s magic swelled on the air, feeling like a fierce wind against my face. She reached out and placed her hands on the back of the front seats, closing her eyes. I touched Kelly’s shoulder, envisioning Elesius. Except this time, I pictured the forest right outside the smoky barrier.
Magic vibrated through the car, Kelly’s power filling the thing with magical energy. A moment later, the ether sucked us in, spitting us out in the woods. We were right next to the smoky barrier, fortunately. Not near the city entrance where Ares and I had discovered the barrier, but in a more remote section. The whole dome was massive, covering parts of the mountains and valleys as well as the city. We might have to drive a long way around to find Alton and Drakon.
“Perfect,” I said. “Thanks, Kelly.”
She handed me a small golden pebble. “Press that with your thumb to call me when you’re ready. It’ll take about thirty seconds for me to find you and arrive, so you’ve got to stay in the same position during that time. Don’t move.”
“All right.” I nodded and she disappeared.
Ana and Bree studied the forest around us. I tried to see it through their eyes, unencumbered by my love and sorrow for this place. Even with a neutral mindset, it was still amazing. The trees were massive—not quite as big as redwoods, but still huge. There was enough room between them that the buggy would be able to navigate the forest, but it’d take some expert driving. Fortunately, we had that in spades.
But the forest was silent. No birds or insects. Not even the rustle of winter wind through the leaves.
“Don’t like it here,” Bree murmured.
“Nope.” Ana turned around to study the forest behind us. “Can’t see what’s coming. Not like in the desert.”
“Does this thing have a stealth feature?” I asked.
Ana arched a brow. “Does it look like we’re running some kind of amateur operation here?”
Bree chuckled, then hit a black button on the dash. When Ana cranked on the car, it vibrated with the rumble of the engine, but there was no sound. It was quiet as a Tesla.
“Lead the way, boss,” Ana said.
“Straight ahead. Follow the dome around. We’re a ways off, but this was as close as I could get us to the target.”
“How do you find it?” Ana asked.
“Seeker sense,” I lied. Though something told me I could trust these girls—I had an eye for honor—it wasn’t worth the risk. “But the specific location is being protected.”
“By more than just a spell,” Cass said. “Keep an eye out for monsters. We saw two last time. Giant Boarhunde and some kind of creepy, shadowy vampire thing.” She looked back at Ares. “No offense to your vampire half.”
He smiled, unconcerned. “None taken.”
Ana pressed on the gas, navigating around the massive trees with the hazy dome on our left. Bree climbed up on the front platform, hooking her harness to the safety bar. Ares stayed on the rear platform, while Cass and I stood on the back seat, our eyes alert on the forest. I scanned the trees, searching for any sign of life or threat. There wasn’t so much as a squirrel or a robin sitting in the partially barren trees.
The thundering of hooves came almost as a relief. I’d been waiting, tensed for the first obstacle, and at least it sounded familiar.
“Boarhunde,” Cass said. “Coming from right side.”
I perked my ears. She was right. I could just make out the direction from the sound. Bree knelt on the front platform, her magic flaring as she readied herself. I conjured my bow, my heart pounding. Boarhundes were fast and mean.
The thing crashed through the trees forty meters away, as big as a city bus and almost as fast. Ana turned the buggy left, swerving behind trees, but the foggy gray dome surrounding my city blocked our escape.
I drew back on my bowstring, but hesitated. I hated to kill him. Perhaps wounding….
I fired, aiming for the Boarhunde’s leg. A magical beast like him would heal more quickly, but at least it would keep him from attacking us. The arrow whistled through the air, straight and true. Then bounced off the beast’s leg.
“Magically enhanced hide,” Cass said.
The Boarhunde cantered alongside us, twenty meters off now, veering close enough to strike with his great horns. Fire blazed in his eyes, a black flame of determined rage. His horns were big enough that he could flip the buggy with them, then trample us with his great hooves.
My heart thundered. That’d be a terrible way to go.
Bree eyed the Boarhunde like a hawk. As soon as she had a clear shot, she threw out her hands. The sonic boom exploded out from her, striking the nearest tree instead of the Boarhunde. The tree half uprooted itself,
slowing the Boarhunde but not striking it.
“Damn!” She scowled fiercely, then tried again. This shot nailed the Boarhunde in the back legs, bowling him over. He skidded on the ground, temporarily down. Long enough for us to get away, I hoped.
Bree scowled, clearly pissed at the miss.
Strange. I’d thought her more controlled with her magic.
“Shake it off,” Ana said.
“Yeah.” Bree scanned the forest like a hunter, looking for her next prey. It came in the form of two Boarhundes, each charging us with a ferocity that made the ground tremble with their steps.
Bree threw her sonic boom toward them, striking the first beast and sending it careening back against a tree.
“I gotta recharge!” Bree shouted.
The second Boarhunde was nearly on us, only fifteen meters away and galloping closer, its breath bellowing, somehow stinking up the air all the way over here.
Hoping to buy Bree some time, I fired my bow, sending arrow after arrow at the beast, faster than I’d ever done before. Each one bounded off the Boarhunde’s hide. Cass’s hands lit up with flame as she was about to throw a fireball, but Bree beat her to it, hurling a sonic boom at the beast. This one hit dead on, sending the monster skidding across the ground.
“Nice!” Ana called as she swerved around an upcoming tree.
She was right—Bree had done well. But clearly she was having a harder time away from her usual stomping grounds at Death Valley.
“Reminds me of me,” Cass whispered.
“Yeah.” Cass had once been totally unreliable with her magic—as likely to cause catastrophe as she was to save the day. For years, she’d hidden her gifts, not using them for fear of drawing attention to herself. FireSouls never wanted to draw attention. I’d suspected that there was a reason that Bree and Ana lived in Death Valley. This might’ve been it.
Fortunately, Ana could still drive like a pro, and Bree was no wimp. She’d charge the danger alongside her friend, reliable magic or no.
“Trees are getting closer together.” Ana’s voice was slightly worried. She cut through the biggest gaps, dodging and swerving.
“You’ve got this,” Bree said.
I kept my gaze trained on the forest around us. It wasn’t long before the vaguely familiar dark shadows appeared in the distance, zipping through the trees.
I pointed. “Shadow monsters!”
They flew through the trees, each seven feet tall and looking like grim reapers.
“Not Shadow monsters,” Ares said. “Nosferatu. They’ll tear your throat out and devour your soul.”
Oh, hell no. I shivered. They were the terrifying stuff of nightmares. I’d only ever heard of such awful beasts, never seen one in real life before.
There were dozens of them, all converging upon us as a mass. They were fast—as fast as the buggy. But they didn’t come straight for us. Instead, they darted through the trees in a strange pattern. What the hell were they doing?
Ana careened the car away from them, directing us down a dip in the terrain and dodging trees as she tried to gain some distance. The car whizzed past trunks so close that the spikes on the side gouged the bark.
Ares unclipped his harness and leapt off the back of the buggy, charging the shadow monsters in the distance. They were about thirty meters away now, still darting through the trees in their same pattern.
Cass took Ares’s place on the back platform, clipping off her harness and charging up her firepower. I drew back on my bow, aiming for the nearest Shadow monster. I fired at one who was about twenty meters away, but my arrow sailed right through him.
“Damn it!” That was two creatures impervious to my arrows.
Cass hurled a massive fireball at the same monster I’d tried for. It sailed right through.
“What the hell!” She tried again, hurling a larger bomb.
Nothing.
In the distance, Ares darted through the trees, as fast as the Nosferatu that he fought. His shadow sword whirled in his hand, slicing off heads and gutting the beasts around him.
“Looks like his blade works,” Cass said.
The Nosferatu had grouped behind us, driving us away from the shadowy dome instead of towards it. Why? They could trap us if they corralled us against the dome.
Trap us. Realization hit me.
“Ana! They’re corralling us!” Like mammoth hunters had corralled the mammoth so that they could kill it in the location of their choosing.
“Where?” Ana scanned the surrounding terrain, searching for the oncoming threat. She had to drive slower and slower as the trees closed in. Soon, we weren’t going more than twenty miles an hour. My heart thundered as the monsters gained on us.
Ares raced behind us, cutting through the monsters one by one, but they were still driving us away from the shadowy dome. I felt so damned helpless, my arrows worthless against their incorporeal forms.
Suddenly, the ground gave out from beneath us, a huge pit swallowing us up.
I screamed as we fell, but we thudded to the ground a moment later, the front of the buggy crashing into the side of the dirt wall. I slammed forward, the front seat gouging my side. Cass flew into the back seat, and Bree flew forward, her harness keeping her from going too far.
I scrambled upright, heart thundering. We were in a pit at least fifteen feet deep. I looked up, catching sight of the black-cloaked figures staring down at us. When they began to drop into the pit—their trap—my skin chilled. Though the light was dim here, it glinted off their long white fangs.
They converged on us. Visions of them tearing us apart flashed briefly in my mind.
Bree threw a sonic boom at the nearest Nosferatu. It flew right through him, blasting away the dirt wall behind.
We couldn’t fight them.
Maybe my enchanted sword could, but I wasn’t fast enough to take out all them before they got to my friends. I shoved aside the terror that roared free and called upon my magic, seeking the roots of the trees that threaded through the dirt around us. Their life force pulsed, drawing me toward them. I envisioned them bursting forth from the dirt.
They did as I commanded, massive roots surging out of the ground and lifting up the buggy. They twined around the mass of metal, lifting us out of the pit as the Nosferatu surged below. I could feel their thwarted rage.
“Whoo!” Ana howled as we were raised high into the air, out of the grip of the Nosferatu.
With our luck, they’d climb after us soon enough, but the reprieve was welcome.
On the surface, Ares sliced his blade across the neck of the last standing Nosferatu, then he leapt into the pit to finish off the rest. Though I wanted to join him and try out my new blade, I doubted my ability to be able to keep the vehicle in the air if I was distracted.
I leaned over the side of the buggy, peering down into the pit thirty feet below. The roots had taken my request seriously, hoisting us a good fifteen feet above the normal ground level.
“This is some badass power you have,” Bree said.
I wanted to answer, but instead focused my magic on the roots as I watched Ares cut through the Nosferatu in the pit. As expected, he had no trouble. Now that they were all contained, it was quicker work. He slayed them all, twelve in total, in less than two minutes.
“Not bad,” Cass said.
“No kidding.” I directed the roots to lower the car to the ground. They set us down at the edge of the pit.
Ana scrambled out over the hood and inspected the damage to the buggy. Fortunately, a massive black metal grate covered the front.
“Minimal.” Ana climbed back into her seat. “The grate protected the front.”
Ares climbed out of the pit and leapt onto the back of the buggy.
“Nice work,” Bree said.
Ares nodded, taking up a post next to me. Ana put her foot on the gas, directing the buggy back toward the foggy black dome surrounding our city.
“Why’d your sword work when my arrows didn’t?” I asked.<
br />
“It was crafted specifically to defeat Nosferatu.” He scanned the forest, searching for threats. “We had a plague of them five years ago in the Vampire Realm. This blade is the only thing that could defeat them.”
“And it was wielded by you, I imagine?” I asked.
“Yes. But I had help. Doyen and Magisteria each have their own blade, and they’re fierce in battle when they need to be. ”
Yeah, I totally bought that. They might lounge around on their thrones if given the choice, but they were like coiled adders, ready to strike.
Ana steered the buggy around the dome.
“Are these monsters native to this area?” Ana asked.
“I don’t know.” I still couldn’t remember everything about my homeland.
“I think not,” Ares said. “Nosferatu are nearly extinct, and they generally don’t live on Earth. They were brought here by an outside source.”
“Drakon,” I said. “They’re his guards.”
Ares nodded. “Most likely.”
“Which means more are coming.” I shivered. “Maybe not Nosferatu, but something.”
“No doubt.” Cass scanned the forest around us, searching for the threat.
We covered another few miles of ground, absorbing the eerie silence around us. Magic sparked in the air, a new signature that I hadn’t felt before.
“I think we’re getting close,” I said.
“I feel that, too,” Cass said.
The trees rustled, the first breeze we’d felt. The hair on my arms stood up. I shivered. The air was thick with tension. Thunder rolled on the horizon. I looked up. The sky was clear.
“Too blue,” I murmured. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky to make that thunder.
In the distance, between the trees, the air shimmered.
“Incoming.” I didn’t know what it was, but something was coming for us. And it wouldn’t be good. The shimmering air coalesced to form a massive figure. A giant.
“Oh, shit!” Cass cried.
The beast was fifty feet tall if he was an inch, covered in heavy iron armor that concealed his form. Huge horns jutted from either side of his head. A massive club hung from his big hand. This guy’s picture would be next to blunt force trauma in the dictionary. It was his footsteps that sounded like thunder. Though he was still sixty meters away, they shook the buggy.