by E. A. Copen
I jerked my head back. There was nowhere to go.
“Now, I will break you, just as I did your friend.”
My breathing was fast, my body stiff, and Warren was right. I was hungry and alone. But I was still me, dammit, and if some basket case was going to turn my brain to mush, I was going to make damn sure he remembered me for the rest of his life. When his fingers got close, I snapped at him with my teeth, managing to get one of his pointer fingers. The bone crunched when I closed on it. Warren tried to jerk away and the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. Something hard struck me in the stomach and I had to let him go so I could breathe.
“Bitch!” Warren cradled his hand as blood streamed from his finger.
I smiled and his blood dripped down my chin.
Rather than make a hasty retreat to see to his bleeding finger, Warren rushed forward and gripped my head, digging his fingers into my temples.
Images flooded my brain, pictures of death, rot, disease and suffering from all over the world and all through history. I saw pits and trenches full of bodies burning, tanks and napalm and swords and fists when men had no other weapons. I saw war.
War brought famine. People wandering in desolate wastelands with the distended bellies of starvation, bodies left to rot by the side of the road during some migration to only God knew where. Mothers wept dry tears, holding the emaciated bodies of children.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Armies marched on the unarmed. It was slaughter, bloody, bloody slaughter until the world was left dead and bare. And I had to watch every single one of them die, helpless to do anything about it.
If I had only seen it, maybe I could have endured, but Warren’s illusion was too strong. I didn’t just see death and the end of all things. I felt it, felt knives go in and twist, felt it when a child was snatched from my arms to have his head dashed against the rocks. I knew the pangs of hunger, the dry and bloody sandpaper tongue, the empty, indescribable feeling of loss.
Hopelessness. That is what Warren showed me while I hung on his cross.
~
I don’t recall it being over. I don’t know when he stopped or how I was taken down. The images didn’t stop for a very long time.
The next thing I was aware of, I was lying back in my cell, curled into the fetal position, sobbing dry tears. My fingers were bloody and nails torn down to the cuticle. Scratch marks lined the floor. I must have tried to claw my way away from the horrible sights, sounds, and feelings. Seeing death once was enough to drive most people to insanity. With what I had just gone through, I had no idea how bad the damage was.
I lay there, numb to everything for a long time. The cell was still dark. I was still hungry, still cold, still trapped. All my fight had been for nothing. What was the point of fighting? Warren had already won. Any resistance at this point was just a waste of my energy. Whatever he wanted from me, it would be easier on everyone if I’d just let him have it.
No, said a small, distant voice in my head. We have to keep fighting.
There’s no point, I answered and shook my head before muttering aloud, “There’s no point.”
You want Hunter to find out you just gave up? What kind of example is that to set for your kid, Judah?
I shook my head again and pressed my nose against the cool floor. “It doesn’t matter. Warren won. He can tell any story he likes. The truth doesn’t matter anymore. I can’t take another session like that, not again. I’m lucky I’m not drooling on myself and screaming in the corner after the first one.”
But if you give up—
“Nothing. Nothing happens if I give up. Nothing different than if I don’t. I just don’t have to fight anymore.”
I slumped over and pressed my forehead to my hands. The movement felt oddly uncomfortable, like I strained something doing it. And then I realized why. Before, I hadn’t been able to touch the floor. I jerked my head up and moved my hands to my wrists, feeling for the metal teeth that had been biting into my wrists. They were gone.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered into the dark. “Why? Why aren’t I bound?”
I turned my head toward where the tiniest sliver of light usually crept under the door. The light was gone, too. The room beyond was dark. They left me, I thought. They locked me up here and left me to die. Then it really is over.
I curled up on the floor facing where I thought the door was and drew my knees up to my chest, waiting to die.
Just as I gave up hope, I heard a sound. It was a new sound and, at first, I didn’t think it was real. Then I heard it again. My head perked up as footsteps echoed into my little room. They stopped in front of my door. Warren was back. I shrank against the wall, too tired and defeated to think about fighting back. The door opened and I threw my arms over my head, screaming, “No! No, leave me alone! I’m done! I’ve had enough!”
Hands came down on my head, on my shoulders, warm, calloused hands. “Judah?”
I pushed them away, frantic. “I won’t fight you anymore! I won’t fight! Just don’t…don’t make me see it, not again. Please.”
“Judah, it’s me.”
“Please, I’ll do anything! Just don’t…”
Hands tightened my shoulders firmly and shook me before one of them moved to my chin and tilted it up. “Judah, it’s me. It’s Sal. You’re safe.”
I stared at the shadow in front of me. It couldn’t be. This was a trick, another one of Warren’s games. “No.”
“It’s me. You’re safe.”
He tried to pull me against him and I did my best to fight back, but I was so weak and he was so warm. Who cared if he was real? Wouldn’t I rather die with a warm illusion than in cold reality? Wouldn’t I rather go with his arms around me, wrapped in his scent with the promise of false safety, than alone in filth?
He pushed dirty, grimy hair out of my face. Dim light flooded the room and I flinched away from it, afraid it would get too bright. It didn’t. For once, it was light I could bear to look at, soft, warm and yellow. It hovered at the end of a long piece of wood in front of another familiar face. “Oh, lass,” he said with pity in his voice.
“Creven?”
“Collect her.” Abe stepped into the light and handed his shotgun to Creven so that he could strip off his coat. He held it out to Sal who knelt in front of me. “Put this on her, but we must go. The squad will be arriving at the compound any moment.”
“When I find the bastard that did this…” Sal’s growl shook every bone in my body.
“We must see to Judah’s safety first,” Abe reminded him.
My jaw quivered. It was all too much. Too much. This couldn’t be real, could it? It had to be a trick. Even if Creven, Abe and Sal had come for me, he was probably waiting to kill us all. There had to be a spell that would activate as soon as I walked out the door and it would kill us all.
Sal began to lower Abe’s coat over me.
“No,” I said, my voice slurred and dreamy sounding. “You don’t understand. I can’t go. I can’t go!” Sal hesitated when I screamed in his face, “No!” He looked like I had stabbed him in the heart.
“She is not in her right mind,” Abe said. “Collect her so that we can get her medical care, despite what she says.”
Sal wrapped the coat around me and reached down to pick me up. Rather than fight, I went limp the moment the coat was around me. It was warm and comfortable, but more than that, it felt safe. If that’s what it felt like all the time, no wonder Abe wore it everywhere he went. Sal adjusted me in his arms and turned around. “You’re safe,” he promised as we made for the door.
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, burying my head in the leather of Abe’s coat. “Safe,” I repeated. It was the first time I fully understood the meaning of that word.
A scraping, shuffling sound made me look up. The blood in my veins went icy when I saw Hector standing in the doorway, armed with a sword. “I can’t allow her to leave.”
Abe flashed a set of fangs. “You don’t have a cho
ice.”
Creven readied his staff.
Sal clutched me tighter to him.
Hector raised the sword stiffly. It was a broadsword, not dissimilar to Reed’s, but with a more intricate design.
Abe charged at him.
I tried to scream out a warning. Hector wasn’t a mere human and it would take more than claws and fangs to take him down. Well, maybe Abe would have a chance if he could bite him, but I didn’t know what effect that would have on Abe.
It didn’t matter. Abe didn’t get close.
Hector swung the sword, forcing Abe to dodge. When Abe shifted to the side, Hector pulled a dagger from his belt and threw it with practiced efficiency. It caught Abe in the chest, right where his heart would be. Abe looked down at the blade sticking out of him. His hand drifted toward it, but it was too late. “Blood,” he cursed and fell back, stiff as a dead man.
Creven sprang into action, throwing up a blue barrier around us. Hector hacked at it, a determined grimace on his face.
“I’m not sure how long I can hold it,” Creven said, wincing.
I closed a fist around Sal’s shirt. “He’s an immortal. You have to cut off his head or bleed him dry. You’ll never get close enough.”
“I’m not going to stand here and let him kill us!” Sal ground the words out through clenched teeth and moved to put me down.
“Hector Demetrius!” A voice rang out clear and strong through the chaos.
Hector immediately stopped and shifted his focus away from our barrier to the figure standing in the doorway. When the figure raised his sword and fire spread down the blade, there was no question in my mind. It was Gideon Reed.
“What the hell’s he doing here?” Sal growled.
“He must’ve opened his own Way.” Creven turned back. “I can’t extend the barrier far enough to cover him. Afraid he’ll be on his own unless you want me to put this down.”
Sal looked down at me and then turned away. “No. Reed’s on his own.”
Reed didn’t seem to mind. He charged at Hector, their two swords crossing. They pressed in against each other, each one grappling for control over the other, until Hector swung a knee into Reed’s side. Reed might have been immortal, but he was still hurt. He doubled over and Hector seized the opportunity, bringing the sword down at the back of Reed’s head.
Reed tumbled forward in a roll, allowing Hector’s blade to hit the ground instead. Hector drew the sword back again and took another swipe at Reed, who had rolled over onto his back. Instead of slicing across, however, Hector changed tactics at the last second and drove the blade straight down into Reed’s chest.
I flinched as it went in and almost turned my head away from watching Reed squirm. He opened his mouth in a cry of pain, but choked on blood. Hector scowled and twisted the blade, prolonging Reed’s suffering.
It was the last thing he’d ever do. With a battle cry, Reed used the last of his effort to swing his sword. It slid through Hector’s neck as if his whole body was made of butter. Hector’s head shifted down and then detached completely. His body went limp and fell to the side, blood flowing everywhere.
Everything else happened in slow motion.
I screamed.
Creven waved away the barrier and moved to pull the knife from Abe’s chest, unstaking him.
Sal put me down and raced to Reed’s side.
I sat for a long moment, shaking, still trying to process everything. Then, I rose on trembling legs and dragged myself to Sal’s side. Reed was an immortal, too, I told myself. I’d seen him recover from far worse. He’d pull through this too. But, when I reached his side, he didn’t look like he was recovering. Sal had pressure around the wound, but had left the sword in.
“Why isn’t he getting better?” My voice was small and distant, still not my own.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Sal was in panic mode, working to wipe away something gray on Reed’s forehead.
Reed smiled, showing bloody teeth. “Don’t. It won’t matter.”
“You’re not healing because of that damn ash!”
Reed’s arm rose weakly to grip Sal’s. “I’m still under Warren’s spell. If you remove it, I won’t be myself.”
“But you’ll live.”
“I will kill you. I can’t fight it, not without the ash.” Reed shook his head and then pressed his chin to his chest to look at the sword. “I would rather die like this than harm another innocent.”
I put my hand to my mouth and sank to my knees next to him, not caring that I knelt in a pool of blood. “Reed…”
“It’s alright. I’m not afraid. I know where I’m going.” He tried to shift his sword but he was so weak, he could barely move his arm.
Sal put his blood-stained hand over Reed’s and helped him move the hilt of the sword to Reed’s chest.
“Thank you,” Reed said, his voice strained. “Judah, the sword.”
I swallowed the growing tightness in my throat and blinked away tears. “I won’t let Seamus have it. You have my word.”
Reed closed his eyes and moved his hand until it was over mine. “Father, watch over her. Protect her where I could not. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil. In…Your name…Amen.”
The air left his lungs in a deep, rattling wheeze. His head rolled to the side and Gideon Reed stayed still.
I slumped forward, but Sal caught me.
Abe removed his hat. “We still have to find Espinoza.”
“We can’t leave him here,” I insisted, shaking my head.
“We must worry about the living before seeing to the dead. Get her up. Let us go before the suicide squad gets here.”
Sal picked me up against my will. I was too weak to fight.
We left Reed’s body where he had fallen, but I made Creven take the sword. There was no way I was breaking my word to a dead man, especially not after everything he’d done for me.
The light in the hallway was blinding and felt heavy on my skin. I tucked my head into the coat against Sal’s arm to block it out. The first time I’d been out there with Warren, I hadn’t had time to look around and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it this time, either, but when I heard Abe mention splitting up, I had to open my eyes. I didn’t want him to leave my sight. I didn’t want any of them to go. They might not come back. Losing Abe might be worse than losing anyone else because it would be my fault. I had his coat, his protection. I tried to say something about it, but the words wouldn’t come.
Abe gave me a heavy look. “Stay out here with her, wolf. If we find Espinoza, we will bring him back.”
Sal’s hand tightened its grip on my shoulder. “And if you run into Warren? Then what?”
“I’m fuming enough that we should’ve no problems dealing with that fecking gobshite,” Creven said and tapped his staff on the floor. “If t’wern’t for him, none of us’d be in this mess.”
Creven’s speech was what finally convinced me beyond the shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t in one of Warren’s illusions. Warren might be good, but Creven’s odd manner of speaking wasn’t something anyone could duplicate, especially when he got mad enough to mash three and four words together at such a quick pace.
While Abe and Creven hurried down the hall in search of Espinoza, Sal lowered me toward the floor. I knew I couldn’t stand, and I couldn’t bear to be put down just yet, either. It was silly, but I was still deathly afraid something would happen and freedom would slip away. I closed my fingers around his arm with a death grip.
“Just a minute,” he said. “It’s just for a minute, Judah.”
He lowered me to the floor. I reached out and kept a hand on his shoe, just in case.
Sal stripped off his shirt and put the collar over my head. It took longer than normal for me to remember how to get my arms through the arm holes. My head still felt fuzzy and every time I focused too hard on anything, it hurt. I tugged his
shirt over my knees and stared at a big, red smear on it. Breath caught in my throat as the barrage of images struck me again.
Blood. Death. Famine. War. Pain. Suffering. I was buried underneath the weight of it all, suffocating as each image piled, one atop the others, and threatened to crush my heart.
And then, the weight lessened. As if each painful, horrible thing were an item of clothing on a laundry line, someone wheeled them backward, tugging some of the weight away.
I gasped as the image faded and flailed forward, looking for someone, anyone to hold onto. But Sal’s hands were already in mine and his eyes were wet. “Jesus, the damage is…What did they do to you?” His jaw shook and then set, his eyes darkening. “When I find that fucker, I’m going to peel the skin off his bones and make him watch.”
“Oi, Sal,” Creven called, standing in another doorway further down. “You’d better come quick. It’s Espinoza.”
Sal stood, took a half step away, then paused. He was going to pick me up and carry me again. As much as I wanted that, I didn’t want to restrict him in any way. He’d need the use of his hands and arms to help anyone, and I needed to find my own feet. I grabbed for the fabric of his jeans to pull myself up, but he caught my hand and pulled me to my feet. Once I was upright, he put an arm around my shoulders and we limped down the hall together.
Espinoza’s cell was identical to mine. Linoleum floor. Rocky, unfinished wall. Drain in the middle. Espinoza himself was splayed, naked, over Abe’s lap. He looked like someone had dipped him into a vat of red that painted up to his shoulders. There was so much blood everywhere and he was so pale, I was sure he was dead.
“Life signs are faint,” Abe reported in a small voice. “I am told you can help?”
Sal left me standing alone in the doorway and went to kneel on the other side of Espinoza. He took a pulse, checked his pupils, looked over wounds, nodded. “I can try.”
Sal was a healer, the most powerful healer I’d ever met. Still, there was a limit to his power. He could only heal as much damage as he could take. Thanks to the accelerated healing of werewolves, he could take more damage than most, but there was still a hard limit to what he could do, especially since he was still healing from Reed’s first attack. If he took too much, he could die himself. I had never seen him heal someone as far gone as Espinoza, but Sal had also served as a medic in the army in Iraq. If anyone could save Espinoza, it was him.