by Liz Schulte
I didn’t have to ask what was happening. I knew from the expression on his face. There was a tear. Keeping all of this a secret wasn’t going to be possible. I waved the guard away.
When the door clicked shut Sebastian asked, “Where?”
“Cedar Ridge. I don’t know what it is, but I already lost two bounty hunters there when I sent them to check out a settlement of missing sylphs.”
“How do you know they just didn’t move?” Sebastian asked.
Sy’s lip curled. “Pieces. There were pieces left. I sent two hunters and they haven’t come back, either.”
“How did you hear of the missing sylphs before me?” I asked. He raised an eyebrow, reminding me of Selene, and I shook my head. “It’s doesn’t matter, let’s go.”
“You need to get Selene,” Sy said. “If there’s a tear, someone has to close it and none of us can do it but her.”
“She’s teaching Frost about magic.”
“Great. Bring her, too.”
“I’ll get them. We’ll meet you downstairs.” Sebastian took off at a run without waiting for a reply.
Sy and I headed outside. “Do you think we’ll need the coven, too?”
“I sent Tobias, a berserker, and Ghurim, a half-giant. They aren’t bright, but they make up for it with brawn. Whatever took them out has to be fast and strong enough to kill them on the first pass. I don’t think anything could survive round two with either of them. We need to shut this down now. I don’t care how we do it. There are worse things than death.”
Worry looked out of place on the laid-back half-elf. Sy normally gave the impression he had seen everything before. It made me wonder if he was more concerned about what we were up against or something else.
“How did you know about the attack?” I renewed my earlier question.
Sy’s mouth pursed and he glanced around to make sure no one was close. “The Abyss isn’t as autonomous as you might believe. There are unwritten, unspoken rules we all have to follow or…” He splayed his hands. “Let’s just say, it’s best not to draw attention to yourself from the wrong people.”
My whole life I had heard rumors—bedtime stories meant to frighten small children into being good—about a secret council who protected the Abyss from exposure by any means necessary, including cutting off tongues and turning bad little elves who revealed themselves to humans into swine. Obviously we all dismissed it as we got older and elf/human relationships became more of a reality without anyone turning into a pig.
Sy shook his head like he could hear my thoughts. “But those relationships never last, do they? Do you know a single half-elf who has both parents? How many even have one? It’s not a coincidence.”
What exactly was Sy saying? I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off.
“I’m not saying anything,” he said pointedly. “But if you’re a human without some sort of magical connection to the Abyss, you better hope you never learn about it.”
“Are you reading my mind?”
Selene came through the door, wearing a backpack and accompanied by Sebastian and Frost.
“Ready?” Sy asked them. “Do you need the coven?”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know if we can do anything. I want to see what we are dealing with before I bring them in.”
Sy nodded and pulled on a pair of thick rubber gloves from his pocket. When he had them on, he offered a hand to Frost, who rolled her eyes but took it, grumbling about hating to transport. Sy gave us the exact location of the settlement, and then a moment later we were all standing there. I let my eyes take in the surroundings. We were on the side of a mountain that was thick with cedar trees. The scent masked the only other smell. Death. Chunks of flesh and pieces of bone littered the ground. Most were small and delicate but some were larger—much larger—but every bit as dead.
A scream ripped through the mountain, impossible to pinpoint. I looked at Sy. “What was that?”
It was Selene who answered in barely a whisper. “Wendigo.”
I looked back at her, her hand trembled as she pulled a sword from her holding—something a half-elf shouldn’t even have, but rules never seemed to apply to her. Sebastian and I followed suit. I tossed a weapon to Sy and offered one to Frost, who shook her head. Selene crouched low to the ground, staring up at the trees, sword ready for battle.
“What’s a wendigo?” Frost asked, not looking overly concerned.
“Shhh,” Selene breathed as her eyes continued to dart around. “Cut off its head,” was all the explanation she gave.
There was another scream, and while I still couldn’t determine a direction it sounded closer. A lot closer. I squatted next to Selene and closed my eyes, letting my senses take over. Eyes could be deceived—made to see things that weren’t there. My other senses, when not hindered by sight, could work together to discover the truth. The hunter in me was at home in the woods and knew which sounds belonged and which didn’t. My nose could distinguish foreign odors. I was willing to bet that a wendigo wasn’t native to this forest or any other I knew, since I had never heard of it. Movement in the trees surrounded us—definitely not a squirrel. It was something larger, much larger and too fast to be human, but not quite as fast as an elf. The smell of blood and death, like a battlefield after a fight, grew thicker. My senses continued to sharpen as my heart beat slowed.
It happened in a flash. One instant we all waited and the next the enemy was on top of us. I opened my eyes and came up slicing with the sword when the trees went silent. My blade met flesh and cleanly passed through. The arm of the creature dropped to ground with a thump and everyone around me exploded into action. There were six of them. Strange creatures with half-rotting, grayish skin stretched over nothing but bone and muscle, and eyes of starving wolves. The one closest to me spurted blood from the stump above the elbow where his arm used to be, but it didn’t stop its attack. The monster charged, teeth gnashing and clawing with its one good hand, seemingly without an ounce of fear. Even the hungriest animal would retreat when injured. It would know it was outmatched instinctually, but this creature had no such recognition. I swung again, taking the head this time. Selene already had a body at her feet and was charging a second one. Sebastian, like me, had removed limbs, but the creature he was battling didn’t seem to notice. Sy stabbed his through the heart, jerking his sword up then pushing off with his foot against its chest, but the creature lunged for him at the same time he loosened his weapon. They tumbled backward.
“The head!” Selene shouted and went to assist her cousin.
I spun in a full circle, sweeping the surrounding forest. Frost was missing. I moved to where she last stood and a soft grunt carried through the air. I looked back over my shoulder at Sebastian who had finally killed his creature. “Frost,” I said, then took off down the incline in the direction I thought I’d heard the grunt come from. I spied her twenty feet away, leaning against a tree with her hands curled around a creature’s neck, holding it back as it snarled and dripped blood on her. Its fingers dug into her biceps, drawing blood. I took two steps over and decapitated the creature with one decisive stroke, its head rolling down the mountain.
Frost’s chest heaved as she caught her breath. “It didn’t die,” was all she said. I pulled the headless body off of her. “Should have taken the weapon.”
She turned her big eyes to me. “It didn’t die.”
I nodded. “It was already dead, I think.” I glanced back up the mountain. “We should regroup.”
She took a couple more deep breaths, and then struggled to her feet. My hand twitched to help her up, but I couldn’t.
“Do you need help climbing back up?” I asked.
She looked at the steep incline then rolled her shoulders with a grimace. Her cheeks slowly colored a bright shade of red. “I don’t think so.”
I nodded and whistled the call Sebastian and I always used. His head popped over the edge above and I motioned him to come down. Looking closer at the body of the decapitated creatu
re, I noticed that it wore tattered clothing. Bites were missing from its arms and a couple fingers had been gnawed off.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Frost asked.
I shook my head and refocused on her. “How hurt are you?”
“Why? You going to heal me?” She moved to cross her arms, but couldn’t do it. The blood spread over her shirt. She glanced at the others climbing down. “Thank you for saving me, again,” she said softly, cheeks coloring once more.
The other three joined us. Selene adjusted her backpack while her eyes flickered from the body on the ground back to us. “You okay?” she asked Frost.
“Fine,” Frost said.
“Wendigo?” Sy asked. “I thought I knew every creature in the Abyss. How did you know what to do?”
Selene chewed on her lip, a haunted expression clouding the life that normally danced in her eyes. “Purgatory. Souls who fail to make it past the mountains become…that,” she gestured to the body on the ground. “Greed was the sin, I think. They couldn’t overcome whatever they did to get them there, and the monster they were on the inside eventually started to show on the outside.” Her eyes filled with tears. “But after you killed them there, they turn back into a person.”
No one spoke. She’d told me about her experience, but not in a lot of detail. I knew she fought things and I knew that she had overcome a lot of obstacles, but I didn’t know what all of those obstacles were. I would never understand the depth of what she went through. She fought monsters I had never experienced, but it was deeper than that. She also battled her own demons in a way that was hard to fathom.
“Did you have a weapon?” It was the only thing I could think to ask to break the silence.
“No,” she said. She absently licked her lips and glanced at the body on the ground. “It still looks like a monster now, doesn’t it.”
I stepped between her and the body. She didn’t need to look at it anymore. “It is a monster.”
She nodded, and her eyes met mine. “I killed them, but that could have been me had Corbin not saved me from the illusion.”
Sebastian cleared his throat. “So, there’s a tear to purgatory.”
I watched her shake off her emotions as well as any elf could. “We have to find it. What’s in there shouldn’t be here.”
“Not much lives up here, so it could have opened anywhere, and this was just the first buffet line they found.” Sebastian glanced around. “I suppose we shouldn’t split up. There could be more.”
Selene shook her head. “You guys know what you’re looking for now. This is our world, not theirs. We should have the upper hand. Finding the tear quickly is the most important thing. Frost and I will go left, you guys go right.”
“Frost is hurt,” I objected. “She won’t be a lot of help.”
Frost turned her icy glare to me. “I can take care of myself.”
“Could have fooled me,” I said, not loving the idea of sending my pregnant wife with a completely useless necromancer. Selene could take care of herself, but still.
“I’ll go with them,” Sy said. “I have the gloves in case Frost needs help and I can watch Selene’s back.”
“And if we find the tear, how will we get the rest of you? We’re beyond the reach of cell towers, I think,” Sebastian said, looking at his phone.
I pulled a flare out of my bag and handed it to Selene. “If you find it, use this.”
She kissed me, digging her fingers into my shirt. “Be careful.”
“You too.” I looked at her one more time, my heart hurting for what she suffered and not being able to protect her from it.
CHENEY AND SEBASTIAN MOVED silently into the woods in the opposite direction as us. I turned to Frost and Sy. We needed to do something about the bleeding or every wendigo in the area would come after us. I opened my mouth to say something, but I stopped, pressing my lips together. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. We would make sure the mountain was clear as well as protect Cheney and Sebastian.
“What?” Sy asked.
I shook my head. “Keep your eyes and ears open.”
Sy frowned at me but didn’t push.
I gripped the cold weapon in my hand a little tighter. “Let’s go.” We headed left, weaving through the trees as silently as we could with a full human with us. “Watch the tops of the trees. That’s how they travel.”
“Probably so they don’t leave tracks.” Frost rolled her eyes when both Sy and I looked at her. “I am a bounty hunter. No matter what you elves think, I can take care of myself. I didn’t know I was dealing with the undead. I’m prepared now.”
“Can’t you sense the undead?” I asked.
“Not always. Sometimes I get feelings, though. Like I know you’re carrying the book,” she nodded at my backpack, “but everything with the wendigo happened too fast.”
“How are you going to close the tear?” Sy asked.
I didn’t answer him. I was going to use the book to close the tear. We didn’t have another choice. Frost wasn’t ready to cast and we couldn’t leave a pathway to the underworld open. Anything could escape—who knew what else had already escaped.
“The book,” Frost said.
“What book?” Sy asked.
Her eyes narrowed and a knowing smile spread her lips. “She’s your cousin, right? Well, your cousin’s carrying around some serious dark magic. One has to wonder where she got an item like that. Not something good people typically stumble upon.”
“Enough,” I said. “We’ll worry about closing it when we find it. Doesn’t matter until then. Shut up and watch for wendigos.”
I led the way through the woods, weaving through the trees trying to cover more ground to attract the monsters, but nothing came. No one spoke for the first couple of hours. Frost stumbled a couple times and I caught her telepathically—each time she glared back at me. The next time she caught a root in the thick, dark part of the forest, I let her fall. She landed with an oof. Sy looked away with a big grin.
“How’s Femi?” I asked Sy, ignoring Frost struggling to get up. If she wanted to do it alone, fine.
“I don’t know. She hasn’t been in for a while. I think she’s helping Olivia and Holden.”
“What do they have going on?”
He shrugged. “Whatever it is, I’m sure they can handle it.”
Frost finally struggled to her feet without the use of her arms. “Who are Olivia and Holden?”
“None of your business,” I said without looking at her. “If they need our help, we owe them—”
“They don’t.” He glanced around. “Honestly, Femi shouldn’t be involved either, not that she would listen any better than you. Helping them is like ants declaring war on a foot.”
“Who’s the foot?” I asked.
Sy started walking again. I let Frost go in front of me and I took up the rear. Nothing felt abnormal about the woods. I wasn’t the hunter—Cheney was—but even I could tell it didn’t feel like it did when we first got here.
“What are we even looking for?” Frost knocked a piece of her hair out of her eyes, and the muscles in her back went rigid at the movement.
“I take it we’ll know it when we see it,” Sy said. “You should really let Selene try to heal you.”
“She can’t touch me,” Frost said through gritted teeth.
“Witches normally don’t have to,” he said.
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to beg her to let me help her. If she wanted to suffer then we should let her suffer. “There’s nothing here. The tear isn’t here. We should find Cheney and go home.” It was a feeling more than a fact. If there was a tear in the veil between worlds surely we could sense it.
“Then why are we doing this?” Frost asked, stumbling over another root.
I again didn’t answer. No one likes to be told they’re being used as bait.
“There has to be something here,” said Sy. “Where did those things come from? They sure as hell weren’t here before.
”
I nodded. He had a point. “We should ask Corbin.”
Sy rolled his eyes. “Why would we ask a vampire?”
“He knows how to walk out of the underworld without a magical assist. If he can walk through, there must be a tear, which means he would know what we are looking for. That’s why we would ask Corbin.” I walked a couple more steps. “And for that matter, whatever your problem is with vampires, see that it doesn’t extend to Corbin. Without him I wouldn’t be here. As far as I’m concerned he has proven himself.”
Frost scoffed.
“You have something to say?” I snapped.
“Without me you wouldn’t be here either, but that certainly hasn’t earned me any trust, has it?”
“You were paid.” Deep down I knew I was being unfair. I didn’t have a problem with Frost, but for some reason just the sight of her grated on my nerves. Perhaps carrying the book was making me irritable. Not that I was turning into Gollum with his Precious or anything, but something was definitely off. I trudged on, trying to hold my temper and keep my mind focused on finding the tear.
“Hello,” Cheney’s voice called out.
“Over here,” I called back before I remembered how I had hallucinated Corbin in the forest in purgatory. What if this wasn’t real? My head darted back to Sy and Frost. “Did you guys hear that?”
“What?” Sy stepped forward, listening.
I swallowed back dread. How could I have forgotten to warn Cheney and Sebastian about that? ”Cheney.”
He lowered his weapon. “I thought we were under attack. Of course I heard it. Why?”
Cheney and Sebastian stepped into sight. I eyed them carefully, looking for any indication they weren’t themselves.
“Nothing. “ Cheney held his arms out. “Absolutely nothing.”
“Do you sense anything unnatural here?” I asked, my eyes flitting from one person to the next. He shook his head. “Ideas?”
“Teaching Frost about magic is still our best option of finding the Pole. Take her back, and the three of us will stay and see what we can figure out here,” Sebastian said.
Cheney agreed, and Sy tossed me the rubber gloves. I pulled on each glove. “You should talk to Corbin,” I told them, then waved my fingers and grabbed Frost before transporting back to the castle grounds.