Seeing Pam work last night was surreal. Like watching Rylee, but . . . different. Harder in a way. She had to be hard in this world; we all did. She was doing what she needed to in order to help us all. And she did find out there was some sorceress after her, so it was worth it in the end. But when she offered me a piece of his leg, I couldn’t stomach it. I was hungry, but not that hungry. I don’t know how she did it, chewing his leg in front of him.
Pam stood off to the edge of the camp, looking north, and Mac approached to help me with Roe as Oka trotted off to be with Pam.
“What do you think?” I asked the big bear.
“Not much.” He glanced at Pam, then Roe, and I nodded. He didn’t want to talk about her problems in front of Roe. Probably a good idea. The bastard would turn his back on us at the first opportunity. He was a worthless, conniving son of a bitch that I wouldn’t trust any further than I could throw his oversized ass.
Roe struggled to his feet with a lot of groaning and drama, wobbling, sobbing, hopping on one leg.
“You know, you’re a bit theatrical for an ogre,” I pointed out.
He lunged at me, as if he might hit me, but fell flat on his face instead. I’d learned to tie knots shortly after I left Rylee. I met a guy who used to work on boats. He was nice and taught me a lot. We parted ways when he found a caravan.
I pulled hard on the long end of the rope and yanked him back to his feet. “You done?”
He spat at me, missed me by a mile, and I shoved him out front. His leg looked horrendous and smelled even worse. I hoped he wouldn’t attract anything . . . unsavory.
Then again, he had a horde of zombies at his beck and call, so he didn’t need a rotting leg to bring them down on us.
But Pam had taken care of that, too, hadn’t she? She’d nearly killed Mac and me doing it, but she’d done it. When the rage took her, that was when I was afraid, not for me, but for her. She was losing sight of who she was, and I couldn’t let that happen. She could always evolve into someone new, but not without building on the person she’d been. She couldn’t turn her back on that . . . on me.
Her new magic was a little intense, for lack of a better word. But I’d told her she didn’t scare me, and I meant it. Even when she was brandishing her blades at me, I wasn’t afraid of her. We all had to die sometime. And what better way to go than at the hands of my best friend? Well, at any rate, I could think of worse ways.
Roe limped along slowly, agonizingly slowly, in front of us, grunting as he went while Pam hung off to the side. Mac walked behind me, covering my back, and Oka walked with Pam. Silence reigned in the forest still, just like it had everywhere else.
Our stomachs rumbled, the only other sounds breaking the silence of the woods around us. That and our footsteps as we tromped along.
I decided Pam wasn’t the only one who knew how to ask questions.
“So, Roe, how old are you?”
“Why do you care, wolf?”
“Just making conversation.”
“Well, make it with someone else,” Roe said. I thought he might try to spit at me again, but I had the advantage of being at his back. He did toss a glare over his shoulder for good measure.
We walked on a little farther in silence when he answered me. Surprisingly. “Forty-three.”
“Forty-three what?” I asked. “Don’t say more miles to go.”
“How old I am, you idiot. You really consider this wolf one of your best friends, demon witch? He’s dumber than a sack of rusty hammers.”
She glared at him but said nothing as she walked on.
“I probably wouldn’t push her if I were you,” I advised.
“Where’s the fun in that?” he asked.
“Pretty sure she had the fun last night. With your leg.”
He limped a bit more dramatically at the mention of his injury and said nothing further about it.
In for a penny, in for a pound, as the saying goes. “What clan are you from?”
“Briscrag,” he said simply. I’d never heard of that clan, so it did nothing to help me understand him, or where he’d come from.
“You knew Dox?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. Maybe he was learning. Dox had been a hot button issue for Pam.
“How did you know him?”
“We’d crossed paths a few times. He was different. My clan didn’t care for him. Called him a bleeding heart. Can’t say they were wrong.”
“Did they ever fight with his clan?”
“No. We had bigger fish to fry.”
“Like . . .”
But I’d crossed some kind of invisible line and set him off. “What difference does it make, huh?” he yelled at me. “None of it matters now. The world is different. Everything is different.”
“What do you mean?”
He stopped walking and turned to me. “There aren’t any ogres left. We’re scattered to the winds like a bunch of filthy vagabonds who mean nothing.”
“If the shoe fits,” I offered. He glared at me, and I shrugged. “I’m just saying.”
“You wolves are all the same. Arrogant pieces of shit who think they’re some kind of gift to this broken Earth,” he said, more than a little bitterness in his voice.
Mac chuckled. “If the shoe fits,” he said quietly with a wink in my direction.
I smiled. Mac was a good man, and a good fit for Pam even if it cut a piece of my heart to admit it. He would help her through this. We both would.
For just a moment, I thought I picked up something from Mac. It was there and gone before I could pinpoint it.
“So, you couldn’t find any mates, and you joined up with the Sorceress? Getting pretty desperate, eh?” I pushed. I knew I pressed my luck, but what did I have to lose?
Pam watched him for an answer out the side of her eye, interested, but covered it by looking down at Oka. I agreed. Best if the ogre thought she didn’t care. He might be more open.
He grunted, but I wasn’t sure if that was part of his limping act, or agreement with what I’d said, at least until he added a nod to it.
“Your demon witch there is powerful, but this sorceress. She can create things. I’ve seen her do it. She can help me raise the ogres from the dead and make them whole again. That was the deal.”
I glanced at Mac to make sure he’d heard. By the size of his eyes, he’d heard all right.
“How does she do that?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation going.
“Probably the same way your demon witch killed my zombies. Black magic. Who knows? I keep my nose out of that stuff.”
As if raising the dead wasn’t some sort of black magic. I held back the snort that nearly escaped me.
“An ogre necromancer with standards. That’s unusual,” I said, and he didn’t respond.
“So, what are you hoping to gain from your freshly raised ogre clan?”
“My old way of life, you numb nuts nincompoop. No one wants to live like this forever. Isn’t that what everyone is working for in this world? Some semblance of the old way? Some glimmer of normalcy?”
Pam looked at us, sadness pulling the corners of her lips down. “I suppose so,” she said. “But at what cost?”
Roe laughed out loud. “Well, you hit the nail on the head with that one, demon witch. Bargaining with your lot isn’t cheap, is it?”
“And what did the witch want from you?” I asked. “For your bargain?”
“Everything,” he said cryptically.
“Everything? If she wants everything, what will be left to build your new life? How will it be worth it?”
I could hear the grin as he spoke through his teeth, but I watched Pam. How her face darkened as he spoke.
“Oh. It will be worth it. You just wait and see, kiddos.”
21
Pamela
We walked north for another day, still plodding along despite Roe’s leg. I let him lead, knowing he wouldn’t step out of line again. I had a firm hold on his magic, and Alex had a hold on hi
s body. He limped along at an agonizingly slow pace, but I supposed it was the price I paid for answers.
I thought about healing his leg, but that would mean using my magic, and I wanted to do that as little as possible. Raven might believe in me and my ability to manage it, but I surely did not.
Necromancers could make zombies and control them, like Roe did, but making them like their old selves instead of mindless soldiers, well, that was something different entirely. If this sorceress could do that, why was she playing with me? Because that’s what had been happening. A game of cat and mouse. First Madeline and her crew, and now Stefan and Roe, who I had no doubt had been waiting for us.
The setup had been too perfect.
“What do you think she wants from you?” Oka asked.
I glanced down at her and then back to the path. “Power. Control. Something like that is my guess.”
Mac walked silently behind me most of the way. He was my constant, keeping me grounded, letting me know I was okay. Or at least, I would be. And he was fine with whenever that happened. He stayed. He’d seen me level the zombies, try to kill him, and eat an ogre while the beast watched, and still he stayed. And that was exactly what I needed. I felt alone, but I didn’t need to actually be alone.
“Why is he playing nice all of a sudden?” Mac asked quietly.
“Because Pam knocked him on his ass. He knows who’s strongest here, and he’ll wait to make his move until she’s not in the picture anymore,” Alex answered loudly.
I wasn’t so sure that was it. Maybe it was at the base, but it felt like there was more to it than that. I had taken part of his leg, after all. I’d need a few days to play nice and recover after that too. But what else was driving him?
Was he still working for the Sorceress? He could be. I couldn’t read his mind even though I’d bound his power to me.
“Ogres are assholes, but they recognize strength. Once they see you’re stronger, they let you lead,” Alex added.
“Not all ogres are assholes,” I said, but didn’t need to elaborate.
The forest thinned as we walked away from the river and the waterfall, heading still farther north. The air had cooled considerably for the late summer, but the sun kept our skin warm. The woods remained silent as we went, void of all creatures, except us. I missed them. I missed the sounds they made, the normalcy of their presence. Even if some of them wanted to eat me. Fucking shark fish. I’d give a great deal just to see one of those big-toothed monsters in the water, to know the curse wasn’t so complete that we couldn’t escape it.
We walked on through midday, and the trees thinned even more, like a young man rapidly balding.
“You hear that?” Alex asked suddenly.
Mac and Oka hit the brakes and I did the same. Oka bobbed her head first. “Yes, distant but I hear it.”
The hair on my arms stood on end, and in between Roe’s perpetual moaning about his damned leg came a variety of new sounds.
Voices, and . . . engines? Machinery.
Alex tugged on Roe’s rope.
“What you stopping for?” Roe asked. “Didn’t you want to get to the wall? What did you expect? It would be empty of people? She’d just lift her skirt for you and show you the goods?” Roe’s laugh echoed through the sparse woods, if you could even call it that anymore, and I cringed. Alex was right about Roe at least, if not all ogres. He was an asshole of the worst kind.
“Tie him to that tree and let’s get a closer look,” I whispered, even though logically I knew we were far enough away, I didn’t want to take a chance.
Alex tied Roe up and I walked over to him.
“Try anything funny, and my next meal is sausage,” I said to him. “With a side of meatballs for breakfast. Got it?”
He swallowed hard but said nothing. I hoped my message got through, because I wasn’t sure I could stomach eating him again, let alone those particular parts.
I caught the look on Mac’s face. He was fighting a grin. I pursed my lips.
Do not make me laugh, bear. I sent the thought to him and he looked away as though the trees to his left were suddenly far too interesting to ignore.
The moment passed quickly, and we crept forward, darting from tree to tree for cover until there were no more trunks to use. We slid into a shallow valley and climbed up the other side.
Alex reached the top first and dropped to his belly. He army crawled up and then held a hand back to us, motioning for us to do the same.
I scooted across the dirt and grass, Oka with me. Mac too. At the top of the valley edge, I found myself looking into a far deeper valley. Not a canyon, but a full-on valley that spread a long way.
More than that, though, what took all my attention was the huge brick wall that sprang out of the ground, at least twenty feet tall with razor-covered barbed wire lining the top. Nope. She certainly wasn’t lifting her skirt for us.
“Where do they get the resources?” Alex whispered the question I had running through my own mind.
Mac shook his head. “I’ve not seen anything like this in the last three years. And I’ve wandered a long way.”
“Like it just sprang up overnight,” I said. “Like magic.”
Both men turned their heads to me and I shrugged.
Below us, it was like the breaking had never even touched this part of the planet. Which was impossible.
Movement drew my eyes again. Men marched not only along the top of the wall, but along the outside as well. They were heavily armed with weapons big enough to be a real problem.
“They likely have a healthy amount of ammo to hand out that many weapons,” Mac said.
Before I could decide what to do, Oka scooted ahead, and trotted bold as she pleased toward the wall. “Oka,” I hissed, but she ignored me. Clearly, she had it in her mind that she would scout it out. But I wasn’t sure what she hoped to see. The wall wasn’t getting any smaller or easier to get past just because she got a closer look at it.
Mac put a hand on my shoulder, keeping me down. Alex did the same on the other side. Damn it, I knew they were right, but my heart was in my throat. I’d come close to losing her forever once, I didn’t want to go through that again.
I gritted my teeth. This was a terrible idea. I watched my little peachy orange cat make her way closer and closer to the wall, ducking and diving behind rocks, and into dips in the land. Her fur blended in well with the sandy colored dirt around us, but I knew that wouldn’t be enough to save her.
I closed my eyes and connected with Oka more strongly than ever before. What the hell are you doing? I demanded.
I’m scoping the place out. Be grateful.
I’m not going to be grateful if you get yourself killed. Those men look like they’d eat a cat like you for breakfast without a second thought.
She laughed. They haven’t met a cat like me.
Please be careful, I urged.
She didn’t respond. But I saw the wall in my mind through her eyes. It was huge from her tiny form just a little more than a foot off the ground.
To my horror, my little cat popped up out of her hidey-hole, and sauntered up to the wall, tail up, and actually meowed for attention. Meowed.
Stooping a bit low, don’t you think? I asked her, but she ignored me.
One of the patrolmen spotted her, and I braced myself. Ready to spring into action should he try to hurt her. She was too far away from me now, and panic set in. Could I save her if he decided to shoot her where she sat? I continued to watch through her eyes as she peered up at him. I didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t mean much. He was blond with a five o’clock shadow, tan skin, and a strong build. He wasn’t starving like the rest of us, that’s for sure. His eyes were bright and alert as he bent down to pet my cat.
“Well, hello there, pretty girl. What are you doing way out here?” he asked her, his voice sweeter than I expected. He slung his weapon across his back as he knelt to pet her more thoroughly. She meowed at him as he cooed to her, and the exchange wa
s bizarre, to say the least. As if she were a normal cat.
I just knew something terrible was about to happen. Every hair on my body stood on end telling me it was coming. She would die, or I would. Or both. And probably that guy who let his guard down with her too. Innocence like that had no place in this world.
She rubbed up against him, purring loudly as he pet her. “You’re beautiful, but you look awfully thin. I wish I could give ya something to eat, but the boss keeps the good stuff locked up. Sorry, sweetie,” he said, keeping his voice high and light. Oka meowed at him in reply and he smiled down at her.
“You’re sweet. But you better get on. If the boss sees ya, he won’t like it.”
Oka sat at his feet, and he tried to shoo her away, but she stayed. Why did she stay?
Oka. That’s your cue. Come on back.
Not yet. I haven’t seen a way inside, she protested.
We’ll figure it out. Get back here, I insisted, but she ignored me, looking around the wall while the guy gently nudged her with his boot. A boot that looked newer than any piece of clothing I’d seen in ages. In fact, nothing about him looked like he’d been surviving. No. He’d been living without fear of any sort of loss.
Bingo, she said as a section of the wall pushed open, like an invisible door. There was no crack, no break in the area that opened, it just parted. And who should step out, but that son of a bitch Stefan.
“Wade. What are you doing?” he demanded.
Wade fake coughed and stood in front of Oka, clearly trying to block her from Stefan’s sight. She froze, knowing he would recognize her.
“What is that?” Stefan asked.
“What?”
“Behind you, you idiot.” Stefan gestured behind Wade, and Wade was out of options. He turned and revealed Oka, and I swear I saw a cringe on his face.
“Kill her. Kill her now,” Stefan demanded.
The man turned and grabbed his gun off his shoulder, and Oka froze. What the actual fuck was she doing?
Run, I said, more than a little bit of panic in my voice. But she didn’t answer. Was she blocking me, or just an expert at ignoring?
Caravan Witch (Questing Witch Book 2) Page 21