It didn’t take long for him to realize they weren’t under attack. This was worse.
Charlie rushed to where Priest and Chen had their weapons raised, looking at Liev. Only Lisa stood between the three, her black energy wrapping around her brother as he howled and moaned, his eyes silver-white. Streaks of white energy ran through Lisa’s bonds, spiking out in places as if trying to break through. Charlie could see what was happening. Liev had lost control.
Lisa swiped an arm through the air, black tendrils grazing Priest’s sword. “Get away from him!”
“Girl, I don’t want to hurt him anymore than you. But we have to contain him.”
“I’m containing him!”
“Lisa!” Charlie shouted.
“Stay back, Charlie! Just don’t even do it.”
Charlie sighed. He hated it, but his eyes turned red and he forced Lisa to see blackness. Blinded, she swung her energy at him and cursed at him frantically. Charlie sidestepped her wide swings and stood in front of Liev just as Lisa’s hold on her brother broke. Liev raised a paw—no longer a hand—glowering at Charlie, not recognizing friend or foe.
Charlie let go of the mental hold he had on Lisa, focusing now on the werewolf before him. He tried to remember every moment he could about Liev, the memories moving through his mind like a jumpy movie-reel, sometimes in fast forward, sometimes in reverse. Charlie ignored the drop of blood on his upper lip as he fed the rush of images into the figure before him.
Liev the werewolf howled, his paws awkwardly ramming themselves against the sides of his skull. He fell back, sniffling and whining like a dog.
Charlie doubled over, feeling sick. He felt as if his lungs were not pulling in air fast enough. Then something struck him over the back.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Lisa cried angrily. She was lifted away as Priest and Chen tried to calm her down.
Charlie couldn’t speak, beyond himself. He just looked at Lisa, while she glared back.
A congregation of howls met them from all sides. It was impossible to tell where any of them came from, only that they were surrounding the camp.
“Was’ going on?” Nash mumbled from his sleeping bag.
“Get up,” said Priest. “Make sure everyone is awake.”
“What happened?”
“Just do it! We’re leaving.”
Nash looked around, still not fully awake. “In the middle of the night?”
“It’s closer to sunrise than you might think,” said Chen.
Nash shook his head, but went over to Darcy, shaking her by the shoulder, and then doing the same to Derrick, albeit less gently. They both groaned irritably.
Chen helped Priest get Maurie on a horse while Charlie struggled to get Liev on another ride. The pale boy—wolf—twitched violently in his sleep. Lisa watched wordlessly, still clearly angry, and then hopped onto the horse with her brother when Charlie was finished.
“Have you got him?” he asked.
Lisa moved her horse forward and away from Charlie. She turned back after a few feet. “Are we leaving, or not?”
Another set of howls, closer this time, was her only answer.
Miserable, they left their so-called camp and rode into the heavy mists that would pervade that cold, wet morning. Within ten minutes it went from a dark, foggy night to a dusk whose air was filled with an endless white blanket. They couldn’t see where they were going, only the damp green grass their horses trampled through.
“You’re sure we are going the right way?” asked Priest.
Derrick nodded, rubbing his watery eyes. “We are going north, don’t worry. We’re close.”
“We should be more concerned with what’s in this mist,” said Chen.
“How far away?” Priest asked.
“That is what I’m saying, Priest. They are upon us.”
Charlie peered through the mist with his Sight, forcing himself to stay calm. The wolves surrounded them completely. Yes, they had been through worse; however, as they were now, he couldn’t see how they would survive this. He wondered what the wolves were waiting for.
And then he saw it. It was not far away. It was closer than the horizon, even, which was more than Charlie had hoped for.
“It’s Drakauragh,” he said.
Derrick turned around in his saddle. “You see it.”
Charlie nodded. He saw it. Black and brown buildings, worn down and crooked and looking as if they had been built in medieval times. He didn’t make out any people, but he could see it already, the oppressive and lost feeling of the village so far removed from modern society that monsters couldn’t help but target it.
“Then we should make all haste for Drakauragh,” said Derrick. “We can outride the wolves!”
Charlie shook his head. “They’re all around us, and most at the front. There’s no way we could get through that many wolves just riding through.”
“I’m afraid I agree,” said Chen. “I can feel their intent. It isn’t to let us just ride into the town.”
“Get ready!” hissed Charlie, lifting his spear. “They’re running now. There!”
He pointed next to Aisling and threw his spear. The silver arrowhead whizzed in front of her small nose and rammed into the brow of a wolf diving through the mist. It missed Aisling—its target—by a hair and crashed into the ground behind her, already dead.
Before Aisling could react, there was a human shout and an inhuman snarl. While one wolf had aimed for Aisling, another had singled out the party’s other weakest link. The beast pinned Derrick’s leg against his own horse and clawed the clothing and the skin off his back and chest.
“Kill it!” cried Priest. He raised his sword but was afraid to swing when Derrick was so close to the wolf.
The spike of Chen’s rope dart, as well as an arrow from Darcy, appeared in the wolf’s neck. It howled in pain, but then bit down in the crook of Derrick’s neck and shoulder, shaking his muscles loose between its jaws. The horse beneath them, which had been dancing in place, fell over backwards on both wolf and rider.
Then came the pack from every direction, and no one had the chance to save Derrick as they fought for their lives. They moved into a cramped circle, with Priest, Nash, and Lisa fending off most of the wolves, but only barely. While Lisa’s energy slapped and battered away the wolves, and while Nash shot them down and axed others, Priest could only kill one at a time with his sword. Darcy and Aisling released arrows into the wolves that threatened to get through.
Charlie found his spear and pulled it out of the dead wolf. He immediately returned to Derrick to kill the wolf attacking him. But he found that the wolf was already dead, crushed by the horse’s fall, and the young messenger himself did not look far behind. In the midst of chaos, in the eye of the storm, Charlie knelt beside the dying man.
Derrick’s far off eyes caught the movement. He nodded several times. “It’s alright. I’m not afraid.”
There was nothing else Charlie could do but nod in turn. “That’s good. You don’t have anything to be afraid of.”
Derrick smiled. “Thank…thank you.”
“For what?”
“For saving Drakauragh. And for telling me…about the goddess.”
Charlie frowned, not comprehending.
“The three-faced goddess,” said Derrick.
“The witch.”
“Because she came to you…I know Drakauragh will be saved…and she will welcome me into a better death.”
Charlie felt the knot grow in his stomach, slowly sinking. Still, he couldn’t rebut Derrick’s only hopeful thought as he lay there, bleeding and crushed under his horse, only an hour’s walk from his home.
Derrick smiled as the blood pulsing from his neck slowed to a trickle, and his eyes looked beyond Charlie to a place not even the Sight could see. “Thank…you.”
Charlie wiped a tear away from his cheek and stood up. He threw his spear between Priest and Chen, grabbing its end as it pierced a wolf’s throat and yanking it out, only to thrust it forward again into a different target.
The Hunters fought well, but they knew it was a losing battle. They were too worn down, and even if Maurie and Derrick had been able to fight with them, they were outnumbered twenty to one.
“Lisa.”
Lisa looked away from the wolves as someone whispered her name. She cried out as, in her distraction, a claw raked down her thigh. She wrapped fingers of energy around the forelegs of the wolf that had attacked her, and then jerked the legs in different directions before throwing it back into the crowd of its pack mates.
“Lisa!”
Mind straining, she sent fist-thick spears of energy out, punching and puncturing wolves away from her side of the circle.
“Lisa!”
This time, the voice was a grinding snarl, and it sent shivers down Lisa’s spine. A wolf slipped through her defense, and she froze as its claw touched her forehead. She waited for it to tear into her skin.
Instead of a ripping sound, there was a crack, and then a whine, as a set of jaws clamped down on the wolf’s arm, snapping the bone. Lisa gasped for breath as Liev crouched in front of her, tossing the brown wolf down onto the ground with his teeth.
“Now,” growled Liev, “do I have your attention?”
Lisa looked over her brother miserably. With the shape of his head changing, and short white fur covering his face, Liev was almost completely wolf except for his mouth which was filled with sharp teeth. His body still looked humanoid, as well, but only by the vaguest definition of the word. He crouched in front of her, glaring at her with those silver-white eyes.
“Liev, we have to get you back to normal.”
He barked or laughed, she couldn’t tell which, and said, “Never mind that right now. I’m going to get the wolves to stop, and I need you to get the humans to be still. Do you understand?”
She didn’t, but she said yes anyway.
He nodded and stood straight on the horse, which was shifting nervously, sensing the predator on its back.
“I challenge you!” cried Liev. Other than distracting the Hunters, his voice was lost over the hills that morning.
He tried again, louder, searching the crowd of wolves. “I challenge you, one on one!”
And then with his heightened senses Liev saw him. The Alpha. The giant wolf stood behind his pack, watching the barrage, seething with the desire to kill.
Liev said it again, looking at the Alpha, but this time in a language the bigger wolf couldn’t ignore. He howled gutturally, menacingly.
I challenge you to the death.
The Alpha stood slowly and, even in the midst of battle, his snarl and the snap of his jaws could be heard. The pack’s assault hesitated, and then the wolves slowly backed off in groups, creating a large circle around the Hunters.
“What just happened?” cried Nash, wheeling his horse around. He saw Liev standing up on Lisa’s horse.
“Everyone, get back,” Liev said.
“What did you do?” Lisa asked, the worry in her voice louder than her actual words.
“I just gave you a chance to run.” He leaned down next to his sister, speaking as quietly as he could. Still, the wolves might hear him, but he had to say it. “If I die, then you run. You take advantage of the distraction and you run from here to that town, and you live. You got that?”
“No! No, I won’t let you—”
“Lisa.”
She looked at him with tears in her eyes.
“Thank you for coming to save me. If you hadn’t, I would have given myself over to being a wolf. At least I can do this, now.”
As the other Hunters watched—some understanding what the boy was about to do, some not able to understand—Liev jumped down from his sister’s horse and stepped forward.
As he did, just as mysteriously as before, a formation of white guardians appeared, watching over the terms of challenge about to take place.
Chapter 8: Drakauragh
Maurie drifted down the halls of an unfamiliar house. It was strange to her, the rooms changing style with every new doorway. Some looked as if they belonged in a Turkish castle, while the next might look as if it was taken from the Roman Empire. She wandered, lost, until she came to a great foyer with a giant, curving marble staircase. Opposite the stairs were two giant wooden doors, above which sat a stained glass window. Although the window was broken, she could just make out the edges of a pattern—a keyhole.
Hunter’s Key, she thought. I’m in Hunter’s Key. But why?
Maurie felt herself drift. She felt pulled away from the broken window and the great staircase and through a door that was clearly closed, and she realized that she was not really there after all. At least, not in body.
The new room she found herself in was less of a room and more of half a prison, or a dungeon. The left wall rose into the darkness, lined with hundreds of cells; it was shadowy and cold even for a person without a body. Maurie heard the sniffling cries of someone nearby and felt herself pulled again, this time to a cell that held—to her surprise—the Monster Hunters’ little brownie monster.
Dräng, she thought. That’s what they called him.
Dräng seemed to be straining, gripping the bars so hard she could see they were bent in some places. When she leaned forward, his large eyes snapped open, startling her.
“Who’s there?” asked Dräng. “I-I’ve been reaching out for one of you to help me. Are you really there now? If you can hear me, go upstairs,” and he pointed up with one pointy finger. “Go upstairs and you’ll see. Please come back soon. He’s dying.”
Maurie frowned. She left the miserable monster to himself and drifted back through the door to climb the marble stairs. Then she wondered if she could just float up and through the Key, and she did. In fact, it felt less like flying and more like the Key had picked her up in one huge hand and was giving her a ride. She was carried up and through three stories, coming to a rest in a dimly-lit hallway. The only light came from a cracked door, which she entered.
Inside the dim room sat three men and a woman, two of the rougher looking men and the woman had bandages on their heads. They crowded around a sleeping figure laying in a bed. His hair was wild, even under his bandages, and he was hooked up to a machine that wheezed and thumped, pumping air into his lungs. Another machine beeped next to him, telling those in the room he had a steady, but very slow heartbeat.
Maurie would have gasped if she could. She knew this man, or had, when they were both younger. Loch. A powerful Hunter, and a wonderful friend, once.
What has happened here? Maurie wondered.
And then the Key seemed to speak to her, or rather, share with her images of the things that had happened, and she understood. Unsure of how to do so, but doing it anyway, Maurie asked the old, enchanted mansion a question, and it responded. She looked sadly upon Loch, and mentally asked another question. She felt the Key give its equivalent of a slow nod.
I will help him, then, she told the Key. But help me do one thing first…one last trip.
Several yards away from Liev and the Hunters behind him, the fog now dissipating in the morning sun, a part of the circle the wolves created separated as the Alpha slowly stepped through. It closed again behind him, making a wall.
The Alpha and Liev locked eyes, red drilling against silver-white, and the two approached each other with a strange mixture of reverence and hate. On all fours, the Alpha stood eye to eye with Liev, but now the wolf stood up. From where the Hunters sat, it looked as if the wolf was more than double the boy’s size.
They stopped, seeming to communicate with each other.
“What is he doing?” asked Darcy. “Why did the wolves stop? What is going on?”
> Charlie looked at Lisa, expecting her to explain. But she couldn’t speak. Her eyes were on the fight that was about to take place, her hands clasped together over her heart, as if she were praying without words. He tried to explain what was happening, but found he could not.
“He’s going to fight for us,” said Priest grimly. “And their leader will fight for them.”
He knew enough about the wolves to understand their sense of honor and respect. And the boy was the only one who could do this, so close to being a wolf himself. Priest didn’t like what came next, but what else could they do?
“But that’s crazy!” said Darcy. “He…he can’t!”
Nash placed a quieting hand on her shoulder.
Aisling looked at her grandmum, all but dead, and suddenly felt remorse for these other Hunters. Moments ago she blamed them for the way her grandmother was. But how could she blame them now, when one of their own was about to sacrifice himself…again?
In front of her, Maurie stirred, and Aisling’s attention riveted on her.
“Grandmum?”
Maurie said something, words muffled against their horse’s neck.
Aisling raised her grandmother to a sitting position, hugging her. “I’m here. Thank God, you’re going to be okay.”
“No, dearest,” said Maurie in Gaelic. “I am dying.”
“But-but you can’t die…”
“Oh, Aisling,” the old Huntress groaned with a sad smile. “If only that were true. Listen now, my child. Something horrible has happened in Hunter’s Grove. My death will ensure another lives—it is either he dies, or I die, but his power will be greater than mine.”
“What do you mean?” Aisling asked. “This doesn’t make any sense!”
“This is powerful magic, girl!” Maurie gasped, seeming to pain herself. The others were all focused on Liev and the Alpha. Only Aisling was really listening to her grandmum.
“I don’t have long. You have to tell the boy with the Sight, his monster is innocent.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“Never mind that girl, just promise me you will tell him.”
Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters: Witch Moon Page 17