Will was there. Somewhere.
“Fuc…Fuck you, Will.”
Then I lost consciousness.
He’d said, “Come to me.”
This time, she had.
But he hadn’t wanted this.
He wanted to grab her away from Rob, cradle her close. Instead, he gripped her hand and forced himself to stare at the wound.
“Can ya fix it?”
Rob’s voice was blunt.
Rob knew what coming here had done to him.
He wasn’t who he had once been.
But the powers, twisted as they might be, were still there.
“I can.” He slid Rob a look. “But it will hurt her and that makes me want to kill you.”
“You want to do that anyway.” Rob jerked a shoulder up in a shrug and looked around. “You do what you best do, mate. I can only fight these beasties back for so long.”
Will curled his lip.
Rob could—and had—hold orin back for hours, days, perhaps.
At least he could as long as he wasn’t held back trying to protect somebody weaker. Somebody who didn’t fully understand what Rob was.
As Will knelt by Mandy’s side, Rob started to prowl around him, singing under his breath. “Hey there, little Red Riding Hood…”
The man’s sense of humor was beyond warped.
An orin lunged.
Its death scream was lost on Will, as was the one that followed. More and more gathered, drawn in by the carnage.
But Will saw nothing but the too-black, poisoned taint of her blood, dripping across her bared torso. She screamed as he drew it out of her, all but tearing it out by force. No more calm, gentle healings for him. He was the rough ruin of the beast he’d made himself into centuries ago, no longer yoked by the chains of his punishment.
It was laughable, Will thought, that he’d rather have those chains. That he’d rather be back, serving out the final terms of an eons-old sentence.
But he’d known when he’d come here what he was facing.
He’d come here to die.
It was, finally, the death sentence he should have been given long ago.
Though it wasn’t possible, the scar at his throat seemed to burn him, mocking him, and it got worse and worse as Mandy screamed and twisted, trying to escape the agony as he purged her body of the poison.
“I’d suffer the pain so you didn’t have to, if I could,” he said. She didn’t hear him, her body wracked by the pain. “I’d take it all away if I could.”
* * * * *
The man touched the earth, recalling the ugly stain it had borne so long ago.
How much time had passed?
He didn’t know.
He had been cast out, left to wander, and wander he had. So many years had passed.
Why do you return here?
He flinched at the sound of that voice, turning his face away. Shaking his head, he started to back away.
“I will leave,” he managed to whisper.
Why do you retreat? Stay, talk with me. You turn your face from me all these years.
But he was too afraid to stay. Too afraid to face the ugly truths that had led him here.
* * * * *
Finally, he was done.
Will caught her up in his arms and turned, searching for Rob among the carnage.
Something emerged from a mess of bodies.
It barely looked to be human, the way it came tearing across the ground in a loping, four-legged gait.
Will was too used to Rob’s…peculiarities to be concerned.
When the Grimm leaped across the bodies and then came to stand in front of Will, he just shifted the precious burden he carried.
Rob looked down. The ichor staining his face made him look horrific and his eyes spun with red and black, his smile glinting with a monstrous sort of hunger. “That was…fun,” Rob said.
“I’m glad you enjoyed your playtime. Now make sure you keep her safe—and get her out of here,” Will said, turning Mandy’s limp form over to Rob.
Rob was strangely silent.
“Did you hear me?”
“No.” Rob cocked his head, staring off into the distance. “Too busy listening to them. You ready for your playtime, mi’lord?”
Will sneered but before he could say anything, Rob was already gone, loping off. Soon, he was lost to the craggy, uneven landscape and Will turned back to the orin emerging from the mists.
Their low, sonorous growls of the orin drew him back to the battle and he bared his teeth at them. They gathered around the bodies and shot him dark, ugly looks. “What?” he asked, his voice silky. “Did you think you could toy with one of us and not come out the worse for it?”
“You’re the one who’s looking worse for wear, Grimm.” The biggest of them licked his lips, his tongue long and skinny, gray, flecked with black. His teeth were thick and jagged, sharp points in his ugly mouth. The orin had wide, big eyes set in a spade-shaped head. Their necks slender, almost too slender, and it made them look frail.
They were strong enough to rip a small adult limb from limb.
Will had seen it.
“You’re in our world and you number but a few. How stupid, how desperate must you be to come here?” the orin said, kicking at the fallen body of one of his kin. “We will slaughter you here. We will drink your blood from your dying limbs and laugh as we listen to your strangled breaths.”
Will curled his fingers toward the thing. “Then come do it already. I am, of course, only one.”
The orin cocked his head, searching. He sensed a trap.
But he saw no other, sensed no other.
It made a low noise that Will couldn’t understand.
A moment later, they swarmed him, coming at him in a wave.
Will waited.
They tore at his flesh and he waited.
Their blood lust rolled into him and he welcomed it as more and more tried to join in on the feast.
Once all of them were gathered around, tearing at the ground and at each other as they tried to get at him, he answered the blood lust they had set off inside him. It exploded in a river of black fire, all consuming.
When it ended, he was covered in black soot, his body shuddering as the poison ate into him.
Too weak to stand, he lay there.
Panting, he closed his eyes while his body tried to shut down in response to the damage they’d done. In response to the damage he’d allowed them to do.
Wind drifted across his ravaged flesh, beat at the exposed bones and pulped meat that was his body.
Will managed to turn his head to one side. Blood pulsed out from the ragged hole on the other side.
“You let them make a mess of you.”
He blinked his one eye. The other, he had no idea what had become of it. Deep in his skull, he could feel the odd, deep ache that signified his body was already at work rebuilding a new one. As Crow approached, Will rolled his head back to the sky. There was a mental wall between him and the pain that tried to devour him. If he gave into it, it would swamp him and destroy his fragile grip on control. He could never allow himself to lose control.
The big, winged angel crouched down near him, his black-feathered wings draped around him like a shroud.
“You…” Will swallowed, blood choking him. “You…can…”
He stopped, the thought escaping him.
Crow cocked his head. “Demon got your tongue?”
Will closed his eyes.
He was too tired.
The lure of stasis called him although adrenaline was trying to stir inside him. It was dangerous to sleep now, dangerous to sleep around this creature.
In the distance, something screeched, a new threat.
Too many of them.
If he slept now, would he ever open his eyes?
Would Mandy…
“Take your rest, boy. I’ll make sure you rise again.”
Will would have told him to sod off. If he’d had the breath. If
he’d remembered how to talk.
If he had still been awake.
Chapter Seven
“You’ll get her out of here.”
Rob came awake at the sight of the knife that was pressed to the vulnerable underside of his chin.
It was hard for the uninitiated to keep track of the passage of time in this place, but Rob was far from uninitiated. He’d thought he’d have a few more hours, maybe even a night or so before Will caught up with them. Will hadn’t bravely flung himself to his death when he’d turned to face a fetch of orin.
He’d bought them time, nothing more, and both of them knew it.
Why it hadn’t taken more time, Rob didn’t know, but he’d stopped trying to make sense of Will a long time ago.
The knife dug deeper into his throat and Will said, “Now.”
Rob wasn’t exactly what one might call a quick study. He was well aware of that. But he was almost positive that Will had every intention of shoving that pigsticker of his all the way through his cranium if he didn’t agree to do just what he asked.
That created something of a problem, because Rob couldn’t do what Will wanted.
Rob already knew what needed to be done and he’d made his decision.
Rob was a stubborn son of a bitch, always had been.
But he rather liked not having eight inches of metal shoved through his cranium too.
So he decided he’d pull the bullshitting game. He’d been around long enough that he thought he could play it rather well. “Why don’t we talk about that, mate?”
“Nothing to talk about, Rob. You’ll take her out of here. She’s not healed yet. While she’s still sleeping, you’ll take her back to where you crossed over and you’ll leave. You won’t return. Period.”
Rob eased his head back just a bit, enough so that he no longer felt the bite of metal digging into him. The bullshitting game wasn’t going to work very well.
Rob should have known as much.
Maybe he’d try honesty instead then.
He ducked and spun, moving with a speed even Will couldn’t counter.
It left him standing there with the knife in his own hand. In a full-out fight, he knew Will could kill him, could shove the knife sideways up his ass and not even break a sweat over it.
But Will didn’t want Rob dead.
He just wanted him—and Mandy—gone.
There was just one small problem with that.
“Why don’t you just do it already?” Rob said, moving toward Mandy, his voice apathetic. “None of us will, but you’re a heartless bastard. Always have been. You’ll do what needs to be done, right? After all, that’s why we’re here…Will.”
Will stared at him, eyes ruthlessly cold.
“Come now, Will.” He threw the name out mockingly. “You weren’t always big on efficiency but you learned that life skill fairly well over the past couple of thousand years, yeah? Do what needs to be done and move on, right? So just do it already.”
Will’s eyes flashed black.
His hair, once pale as fallen snow, hung in limp, black strands around his harsh face. Rob twirled the blade as Will took one step toward him. “If you can’t do what needs to be done, maybe I should,” Rob murmured, flicking a look toward Mandy. “I guess a few thousand years have made you soft, old man. Want me to do it?”
A low, warning snarl escaped Will.
“What? She’s not likely to make it to the tear, and if she does, we could both die on re-entering. She’s getting reckless and doesn’t care about life now. Sooner or later, her actions will end with her death, and likely the death of some of us. There aren’t many left. Why not just save her the misery and end it all now?” Rob tossed the knife from one hand to the other, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Not like you haven’t made those hard calls before.”
He was flung into the cave wall a moment later.
“Touch her, and you die the worst death you can imagine dying.”
“I don’t know if you can imagine my worst death, old man. I’m half-demon, remember?” He groaned and went to touch the back of his head. Blinking, he tried to focus on Will’s form. “Bollocks, mate. There’s two of ya, now. That’s not good.”
Will grabbed the front of his shirt and jerked him up. “There’s going to be two of you—or maybe four—after I rip you apart. Arms, then legs? Which shall it be? I’ll scatter you to the far reaches of this godforsaken place and grind the rest of you to pulp. Even you won’t recover from that.”
Will shook him and Rob caught his wrist, wrenched and twisted away. He threw himself to the side, immediately tucking into a ball. Physical distance had never been a problem for Will—he seemed used one of his other abilities.
Fire licked at Rob’s heels and he did the only logical thing—placed himself at Mandy’s side.
Will immediately froze.
“Don’t,” he said, one hand lifted.
Rob, in a crouch at her side, looked down at her. Slowly, he touched her hair, stroking it back.
She didn’t even stir.
“What would it matter?” he asked, looking up to see Will watching him with hate and fury—and betrayal. “Really, Will. What it would matter? You want her out of here because you think it will make her safer. But she doesn’t want to be safe. Without you, she doesn’t even want to be alive.”
Rob sighed, slowly looking up at Will.
His death danced in the other man’s eyes. “She’s already dying, Will. Dying, bit by bit, day by day. There’s nothing left for her on the other side and the only thing for her here is you.”
Will spun away.
“Yeah, you go ahead. Run off. Hide from it. You always hide from the hard things—you hide, you run. Or if it really gets hard, you tie a rope around your neck, throw yourself from a cliff. Just how many times have you tried to end yourself anyway?”
This time, Will didn’t just throw him into the wall.
He bodily rammed Rob into it and Rob choked on the dust that settled around them. Will wrenched him from the wall, then spun and drove him into the floor, toying with him like a child’s ragdoll—and Will was one very brassed-off child.
Will drove Rob into the ground and for a moment, Rob couldn’t see anything but the blackness that tried to overwhelm him and he couldn’t think past the pain and he thought the blood in his mouth would choke him.
“What do you know of it?” Will snarled, his voice a low, awful growl in Rob’s ear. “You know nothing.”
Rob gagged as the blood rose thick and bitter up his throat.
He turned his head and spat.
Then, in a move of desperation, he swiped that blood up and swung out. He hit hard, he hit fast, and struck to penetrate.
A human isn’t likely to be able to tear into a body cavity with force alone.
But Rob had never been just human.
Stiffening his fingers right before impact, he let that monster in him come out. His fingers elongated into hooked, ugly claws and he tore into Will’s body.
Their blood mingled.
It wasn’t the first time they’d bloodied each other.
But the first time had been centuries ago.
And Rob had learned.
“I know everything,” Rob growled.
The images blurred and twisted and Will, red flaring in his eyes, tore away.
Will slammed into the wall and pebbles fell from the fissures that had spread through it.
Rob stared at him, blood dripping from his fingers. “You might be ascribed to myth by much of the world. But there are others who still know quite a bit about you, old man. I know probably bloody near all of it. I even know why.”
* * * * *
I was burning.
Burning alive from the acid that ate into my body, ate into my very bones.
It started at the center of my abdomen and worked its way out.
Shuddering, trying to scream from the pain of it, I curled into myself and sobbed.
I screamed.
Ugly, awful images played out in my head.
Do you believe in angels?
I knew that voice.
Somebody had asked me that.
Once.
I’d laughed.
The pitying look I’d been given had made me angry. Angry, because I felt foolish.
You can believe in demons…but not angels?
I didn’t want to make sense of that.
Now I found myself staring at a…thing.
It was worse than the ugliest of demons, the scariest of them. Yet he hid behind a face so beautiful, it hurt to look at him.
He stood in front of a man, yet the man was so dark and swarthy, so covered with hair, it was hard to even recognize him as a man.
“Would you like to leave this place, you poor, forsaken fool?”
He’d forgotten the color of the sky.
It had been that realization that drove him to the top of the cliff and then over it.
Now, broken and bleeding, yet not dead, he lay staring up at the murky bowl overhead that wasn’t the sky. Yet it was.
A thing stood between him and the sky. Sometimes it was a man. Sometimes it was something monstrous and terrifying.
The man didn’t know what it was, but he was frightened. He’d thought he’d forgotten what fear was, but he hadn’t.
He closed his eyes, because that was one thing that still worked.
“No answer?” The thing paused and then added something else.
A name. One that brought even more misery to him, but he couldn’t understand why.
A hand touched his brow and he gasped. Pain exploded through him, but even as he tried to scream, the pain was gone.
The thing that was sometimes a man helped him rise and they stared at each other. “Would you like to escape this hell? It wasn’t meant for such as you. I can help you leave…for a price.”
That was when he knew.
Backing away, he shook his head. “No. Get away from me.” He spat the thing’s name on the ground.
Its eyes glowed with an avid hunger and the man turned to run.
He did not make it far.
As creatures tore into his flesh, the monster that was also a man began to laugh. “You could wander here until the end of days. Is that what you want?”
Will tore himself out of the shared memory.
Grimm's End: Grimm's Circle, Book 9 Page 7