Dräng turned and smiled. A shabbily dressed boy next to him spit forward a noxious gas before Fish or Dink—still baffled—could fire off a round. It clouded their vision and filled their minds with pain. The boy smiled at them through their tears, his mouth full of obsidian canines.
The only thing the three humans could recall before they passed out was a cry that might have been grating stone. With a great crash, the gargoyle—wings looking as if they had recently been broken off—leapt into sight, crashing into Dräng and the monstrous child, where it shattered into pieces.
To the east of the wolves’ den, the other party of Hunters had seen the beginnings of an ambush. Nash and Derrick had both noticed wolves roaming, running, stalking the edges around their line of sight. They gathered closer together, the younger ones almost crying from exhaustion and the proposition of having to defend themselves against more monsters. Priest and Chen ignored their considerable injuries, unwilling to die yet.
A distant howl pierced the air, and the Monster Hunters tensed on their horses. The wolves stood in the trees, the grasses, and behind the hills—so many of them.
Priest prayed silently and quickly for some sort of miracle to happen. For the earth to open up. For fire from heaven. For even some giant robot, like those kids watched on that TV thing, to come smashing through Ireland and distract the wolves.
Instead, the wolves retreated. Priest looked up to the sky, mouthing thank you.
“Where are they going?” asked Nash. “They had us.”
Darcy cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’m not complaining. I’m just glad they’re gone.”
Priest shook his head, murmuring, “He’s right, though.”
“What is it?” asked Darcy, having not heard him.
“Nash is right,” said Priest.
“I am?” asked Nash. He nodded. “I am. What am I right about?”
Priest turned his horse to face Chen. “Can you sense the wolves still?”
Chen closed his eyes, grimacing. “It might be difficult right now, but…yes.” He frowned. “They’re slowing down.”
“Can you sense anyone else there, Chen? Anyone human?”
“I...yes. Four of them, I think.”
Nash and Darcy looked at each other, both having counted off the names in their minds. Charlie, Lisa, Dräng, Aisling, they thought.
“We have to go there,” said Nash. “It’s the others.”
His horse dancing under him a little, Derrick shook his head hesitantly. “But, Drakauragh…the full moon is tomorrow night.”
“Those are our friends out there!” Nash snapped. “We’ll get to Drakauragh, but I’m not letting anybody get surrounded by a bunch of werewolves!”
He kicked the sides of his horse and sped off, Darcy not far behind with an equally determined look on her face.
Derrick looked at Priest for help.
“You heard the boy,” said Priest. “Besides, you said we’re close. We have a little time left.”
Priest and Chen rode after their young companions, Priest careful not to jostle Maurie too much in front of him. Derrick followed, after some deliberation.
Nash grit his teeth as his mount crested a hill, the bones in his body feeling the effects of both gravity and pain take hold. Knowing Charlie and Lisa, and others that needed help, were just ahead gave him the strength he needed to push past it and fight with everything he had.
And then he frowned. In the valley below, he indeed saw Charlie and Lisa and Aisling surrounded by wolves. But—unless Dräng had gotten a few feet taller and put on some fluffy white trousers—the group was missing a monster and had picked up another human.
Another human, thought Nash. Who could be out here that they could have run across?
Nash’s mind made the connection, and he nearly choked.
“Nash,” said Darcy, sounding like she was trying not to cry. “Who is that? It can’t be him, can it?”
“Dry it up,” Nash said, although his own voice sounded a bit strange. “We can’t help the others if you have to stop and blow your nose.”
As Priest and Chen caught up, Nash leaned forward, and horse and rider nearly fell down the hill they rode so fast. He took out his hunting rifle.
Ahead of him, the other group was closed in by wolves on all sides. They formed a box-like shape, each holding their own corner of a battle. Charlie fought with a spear, and Aisling with what looked like Lisa’s rapier. Lisa herself fought with her energy in a way that Nash hadn’t seen before, and the other figure—the new person, shaggy and white—he fought with his hands like a wild animal.
Nash took aim a little ways behind the wolves attacking Aisling—she looked like she needed the most help—and aimed his horse for that direction. The shot took down a single wolf, but it caused enough of a stir that the other wolves parted. Nash put his rifle away and whipped his ax out. He made a sweeping pass on his horse, careful not to let the wolves overpower his mount, as he hacked away at the necks of two wolves that had turned to face him. A third leapt for him, aiming to knock him down, but Nash had fallen off his horse already once today. He ducked in his saddle and struck the wolf’s hind leg with his ax as it was descending from over the top of him.
On the other side of the skirmish, Darcy had phased through her horse and lit two pipe bombs, throwing them into the crowd of wolves. They whimpered as they tried to get out of the way.
Priest and Chen hit the pack next, straight on from where they had ridden down the hill.
Knowing when they were beat, the wolves retreated at full speed, parting ways to move past their four would-be prey, and dispersed into the close horizon.
The wolves knew who the white werewolf was. That he had escaped before turning worried them all greatly. Something was wrong at the den. They could stop the humans later. They needed to regroup with the Alpha and the rest of the pack, learn what had happened and what the Alpha planned to do about it.
“You have no idea,” said Charlie, nearly collapsing as he leaned against his spear, “how glad we are to see you.”
Nash smiled, getting down off of his horse. “Likewise.” His eyes glanced over Charlie’s shoulder, quickly turning somber. He took a step toward the pale newcomer, Darcy right behind him.
“Liev?” she asked.
The werewolf before them growled, but stopped when Lisa grabbed his hand. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it.
“Yes,” he said, not sounding at all like the Liev they once knew. “It’s me.”
Nash and Darcy both rushed forward with arms open and nearly suffocated the twins.
“We thought you were dead,” said Darcy, crying again.
“He was,” said Lisa, also crying again.
After a moment, Liev added, “Technically.”
Charlie smiled, watching. Priest rode up beside him.
“Is that the boy who died? Lisa’s brother?”
Charlie nodded.
Priest shook his head in disbelief, but what could he say? “You’ll have to tell me about it tonight when we stop to rest. You look like you’ve been through hell.”
“You don’t look too good yourself.”
“Trust me. I feel worse. I know they’re having a tender moment, lad, but help me break them up soon. We need to move away from this spot before we set up a camp.”
Charlie nodded, continuing to lean on the spear.
He didn’t have to break them up. Before long, Liev got fidgety being at the center of a group hug. He seemed torn between growling and talking, settling a little behind Lisa. They stood there, awkwardly, not looking at him.
“Wait,” said Darcy, “where’s Dräng?”
“What do you mean?” asked Lisa.
“Well, he ran off with you guys…”
“I thought Dräng stayed with you.” Lisa looked at Charlie questioningly.
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“I sent him back to Hunter’s Key,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
That was when Aisling noticed her grandmother, unconscious in front of Priest.
She walked forward slowly, a question forming on her lips but unable to voice itself.
“She overexerted herself,” Priest said, watching the girl’s expression. “She hasn’t woken up since.”
Her voice cracked as she asked, “How long ago?”
“It’s been hours, lass.”
Aisling closed her mouth and looked away, nodding. Priest saw the weariness and regretful anger flash across her face and wondered what she’d been through with Charlie and Lisa in the last two days.
“We’ve got a lot to catch up on,” he told them all. “But for now we need to keep on moving. We’re close to Drakauragh, but tomorrow night is the full moon and I’m sure that witch isn’t going to let us get into the town without a fight.”
“How could you?” cried the Sagemistress. “I gave you the task of stopping the Hunters, and not only have they trampled past you, they’ve taken a very important wolf from me—one of their own!—and are right at the edge of Drakauragh.”
Carman felt the eyes of the entire coven on her in the crooked house. “There was a powerful Huntress, my mistress. She used magic to amplify her gift and did something I thought not possible. And the children themselves were too strong, stronger than you had told us.”
“Was not the Dark Prince’s defeat enough to caution your movements?” the Sagemistress shouted. The room seemed to shrink around her as she raised a hand and brought it down, her bony knuckles leaving bloody trails across Carman’s cheek as the younger witch flew into an empty desk.
Some of the older witches snickered, while more than a few of those who had spent the last two centuries with the Sagemistress flinched.
The Sagemistress strode across the room, picking Carman up by her neck. “What more did I need to say?”
“They killed my sons!” Carman spat hoarsely, blood obscuring her pearl teeth.
The Sagemistress brought Carman up to her face, the younger witch’s feet hanging a few inches off the floor. “They should have killed you, too, you foolish girl.”
She set Carman down in the rubble of the desk, then turned and marched back to her bone table with a flurry of black and white fabrics.
“Let me go again, mistress. Only this time I shall take twenty of us to be sure and overpower them.”
“Destruction and frenzied attacks are the only methods your mind can come up with,” said the Sagemistress. “This is why you cannot lead us to a better future. Enough with you. Let my wolves deal with them.”
“Sagemistress—!”
“Be gone from my sight! Go mourn your children and your folly, and let the true witches here finish our work against Hecate!”
Carman snarled, grabbing a shard of the broken desk. In her hand, it became like a stake.
“Take care, Carman, or you will have no place in our future world. When the Ancients rise, I will throw you to them and close the door.”
The younger witch looked around at the stares of the other witches. She saw disapproval in some, and uncertainty in others. Sneering at the Sagemistress, Carman transformed into a murder of crows and flew out of the crooked house to make preparations for when she, not the Sagemistress, would lay waste to the Hunters and claim Drakauragh as her own.
For once, they were on ground that wasn’t marsh or rock, and while there were smatterings of trees, there were no woods for the wolves to hide in. Except for the hilly areas that could potentially hide a threat, the campsite they chose was relatively safe.
Still, it was colder now than it had been the entire journey. The wet grass made it difficult for them to sit or lay down without getting chilled to the bone. They craved a campfire but dared not use one, lending a sense of defeating finality to the cold. The moon shone bright. Looking full already and never letting them forget how little time they had left.
With no fire and with no meat, they ate only bread, nuts, and berries. Still, as no one had eaten yet that day, they treated it as if it were a feast and ate handful after handful. Besides Maurie, Liev was the only one who did not eat. Exhausted by the hellish nightmare he had been living through, he fell fast asleep not long after they made camp.
Finally, Aisling was the one to break the brooding silence that hung over them. “What happened to her?” she asked, looking at her grandmother. Maurie had been laid down between two sleeping bags next to Aisling.
“She saved us,” said Priest. “Twice.”
He told her about the kelpie, and then about the witch Carman and her trap, and the way that Maurie had kept them all from getting destroyed by Carman’s monster made out of corpses. To his surprise, Aisling only nodded, her jaw taught. When he had finished, she started digging through her pack, bringing out leaves and bottles of a medical nature.
“We ran into her, too,” said Charlie. “Carman, that is. She only came to threaten us though.”
“Threaten, how?” asked Nash.
“She said she had sent one of her sons to Hunter’s Key. That’s why I sent Dräng back, to warn Loch.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” said Lisa.
He shrugged. “We had other things on our mind at that time.”
As Aisling treated her grandmother silently, Charlie and Lisa took turns telling what happened while everyone else dealt with kelpies and witches, going over the Blind Boy’s mysterious disappearance, the powrie, the wolves’ den.
“How did you get out of there?” asked Darcy.
Charlie shivered and looked at the ground. “We had help.”
“Help?” asked Priest, immediately catching onto Charlie’s sudden frown.
“There were white wolves,” said Lisa.
Charlie glanced at her. “And a witch.”
Nash sat forward. Darcy laughed nervously, saying, “A witch?”
Priest glowered at Charlie. “You accepted help from a witch?”
“It’s not as if we had a choice,” said Lisa.
Charlie looked away. “We did.”
“There is always a choice,” said Priest. “Never trust a witch.”
Lisa scowled. “At that moment, it wasn’t a matter of trust. It was a matter of getting my brother out or getting eaten by giant wolves.”
“Perhaps if you had stayed in the group, we all would have benefitted; Maurie would not have strained herself so, and you wouldn’t have felt as if you should trust a monster!”
“And leave him to die?” Lisa shouted, thrusting an arm at Liev. She stood up and jabbed a finger at Priest. “You know, we took time out to save you and Chen and Elizabeth Witherington, and everyone who had gone missing for that matter, before we fought the varcolac. Why shouldn’t my brother have had that same chance?”
Priest began to apologize, but Lisa had already stalked away, looking up at the nearly-full moon with crossed arms.
“What was she like?” asked Derrick, looking at Charlie.
“Who?” the boy asked.
“The one that helped you. Was she like the other witches?”
“No. She seemed like an outsider to them. And strangely enough, she was different each time we met.”
“Each time?” asked Priest. “How many times did you come across her?”
“Three.”
Derrick’s eyes narrowed at this, although for once he seemed more intrigued than worried. “How was she different?”
“Well, the first time we saw her, she was young. Maybe just older than me or Lisa. The second time, she was older. Like my mom’s age. The third, she was old and hideous.”
Derrick inhaled slowly. “I know who it is you speak of.”
Everyone in the group turned on him.
“Then who was it?” asked Darcy.
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“I-I cannot speak her name. But don’t be afraid! To meet her, to be helped by her in such a way, it is surely a good omen.”
No one spoke. Priest stroked his beard.
Finally, Charlie said, “I hope you’re right.”
Chen offered to take the first watch that night. Before everyone tucked in, Charlie sat down next to Aisling. She still tinkered with herbs and medicines, but Aisling was really just watching her grandmother’s face.
“How is she?” Charlie asked.
Aisling’s face—which had been screwed up into a determined frown all evening—broke. Tears poured out as if she had already been crying for minutes, and she fell over on his shoulder.
“She’s…dying,” she told him between gasps. “And I can’t do anything about it.”
Surprised, Charlie hesitated, then patted her on the shoulder reassuringly. “Surely…surely she’s just in a sort of coma. She’ll come out of it. Right?”
Aisling shook her head.
Charlie’s eyes were tired and heavy, but he let the blood rush to them, feeling them burn as he looked over Maurie with the Sight. What he could describe only as a dull pallor hung in the air above her, as if Maurie were sucking the life out of it to stay alive. Her heart beat slow and softly.
“Oh,” Charlie exclaimed softly. “Maybe…maybe there’s someone in Drakauragh who can help her. Maybe the Curse Eater.”
“It’s not a curse, Charlie.” Aisling mumbled. “It’s age. It’s age and fighting monsters and this stupid road to Drakauragh when she should be at home.”
Charlie said nothing. What could he have said? They drifted off into silence and when Charlie shifted, he realized she was asleep. Gently he removed her from his shoulder and went to his sleeping bag, where he curled up and tried to close his tired eyes. It took a while before sleep actually came.
He didn’t know what time it was when he woke up again. A pained roar and a girl’s worried shouting pounded in his ears. He jumped up, ignoring the pain in his bones and eye sockets, bracing himself for whatever attack they were under.
Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters: Witch Moon Page 16