Hidden Realms

by Dean Murray

  Hunter’s lip twitched.

  Mackenzie didn’t seem to notice. “What happens to the other ones?” she said, absently rubbing a hand across her breastbone. “In the arena, I didn’t see very many women.”

  His humor faded. “When they are brought over, the changes take hold in them much faster than the other creatures.” Mackenzie’s brow knitted and he explained, “There’s something in their makeup that accelerates the transformation. It isn’t long before they become wholly of this world and often… a bit feral.”

  Her brows rose, eyes going wide. “Feral,” she repeated.

  He shrugged. There wasn’t a much better description he could think of. “They are not much for convention. A few will come through with us at the reaping, but mostly they stay away. They don’t have a great deal of interest in the king’s tasks.” They thought the king a fool to be honest. They’d no desire to dress in silks and parade among the castle walls.

  Hunter didn’t tell her of the others, the few among the Iron Bound who might sneak through and tie themselves to the undying realm until the gateway was closed. The ones her fairytales had warned her about, witches and child thieves and the old world’s succubae. There was no reason to disclose that now. The majority of them were sane, worthy.

  The kingsmen on the other hand…

  Mackenzie pressed her lips. “So your men play at politics while the women are…”

  “Above it,” Hunter finished. “The Iron Bound do not need mothering and the reaping was always performed by a son. So the women were content to leave us to it. They had better things to do.”

  “But you were born here,” Mackenzie said, apparently realizing for the first time how different his life was than she’d imagined.

  Hunter smiled. “Krea looked after me. Once my father—”

  Hunter’s words cut short as Mackenzie’s hair flipped, caught in a gust of wind.

  Wind.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Azral slammed into Hunter with the force of a hundred Iron Bound, knocking them both to the ashen field beyond. Hunter spun, shoving free of the larger man before Azral had the chance to pin him down. A cloud of dust surrounded them, Azral’s wings blocking the sky. Hunter could not find Mackenzie past the other seven guards. “We go now,” Azral growled. “We go and we take what is ours.”

  His fist crashed into Hunter’s jaw and Hunter swung out in reflex, connecting with the base of Azral’s arm. It was not his intended target; he could only think of Mackenzie’s empty spot on the bracken. One of them had her.

  Azral rushed forward, wrapping a hand at the base of Hunter’s neck, pushing him backward and demanding his full attention. “You will never be king,” he hissed. “The undying lands are ours.”

  It was the same argument. The world was changing, inundated with technology and iron, threat of global war and a constant state of transformation. They didn’t trust the humans to keep their side alive. There was no guarantee the Iron Bound could reap again, no way to know what the next cycle held.

  Two thousand years was too long.

  “No,” Hunter said, unchanged from the hundred times before. If they took more than they needed, it would make them no better than the humans they feared. If they could not stay within their bounds, they would destroy both worlds.

  Azral stepped closer, tightening his grip. “We take what is ours.”

  Hunter felt something cold and sharp pressing into his gut, some shard of glass or stone. He let his own power roll through him, his voice hard. “That is for a king to decide.”

  He tore Azral’s grasp away with one hand, drawing him close to strike with the other.

  Hunter had been weak before, giving his power to open the gate, and then being poisoned by Azral’s men. This time, Azral would feel it. Hunter set the monster within him free, letting the blow rip through his attacker with full force. Azral was thrown backward, landing in the ash ten paces away against a broken wing, limbs sprawled loose and unnatural beneath him.

  Hunter didn’t wait to see if he would get up.

  He turned, searching the sky for the other men. Two of them had waited, watching the fight play out. The other five were airborne, fading into the aether with Mackenzie in tow.

  They had her.

  Hunter shoved from the ground, ash and bracken dusting his skin and hair. Azral would pay for this. If he wasn’t already dead, he was going to pay.

  The other kingsmen weren’t headed for the city, and Hunter had a sickening feeling it was all part of the plan. The gateway was closed until the reaping, yet their hazy forms were bearing that direction. They were trying to trap him, trying to force him to open the gateway again.

  And they were using Mackenzie to do it.

  They were at the edge of the forest when he caught them. Hunter was angry enough that he knocked the first two out of the sky without a second thought. They crashed into the ground, a bounce at full speed. The third was not so lucky, catching a jagged limb on his way down. Their screams ripped through the forest and by the time Hunter reached Carac, the determined grip he’d held on Mackenzie was no more than a feeble, clutching grab.

  “Give her to me,” Hunter warned. He might have rushed the man, might have seized that fallow mop of hair and torn his fool-headed pate off. Except Carac gave every indication he would drop her.

  Carac held Mackenzie forward, a shield, and Hunter could see nothing but the fear in her eyes. Blood streaked her face, but by its color, it was not her own. She must have gotten a good strike in somewhere before Carac had taken her. Because she wasn’t fighting now.

  She was looking down.

  “There, child,” a voice echoed through the trees. “Not long now.”

  Krea had come for him. To warn him.

  That was exceedingly bad news.

  He moved forward. “Carac, if you drop her, they will find a piece of your carcass in every realm.”

  Carac paled, wrenching Mackenzie closer. Her head jerked up, wide brown eyes finding Hunter. She really didn’t want to fall.

  Hunter eased toward them, all too aware of the other guard. Then Krea edged between the trees behind him and the other guard was done for.

  Hunter smiled, closing the distance as the heavy thump of the second guard’s body hit the ground, so far below them. Krea’s movements were quick, and she waited beneath as Hunter rushed Carac. He howled, dropping the girl, and Hunter struck him with power and fist to careen across the forest and collide with an outstretched limb.

  Hunter glanced down, finding Krea and Mackenzie, the old woman holding her tightly despite the evidence that Mackenzie might at any moment retch. Hunter moved to them, taking Mackenzie in his arms over her protests of, “I don’t think I like to fly.”

  “They come,” Krea said. “Many and many.”

  She was speaking the human tongue, so he could only assume she’d been followed. He responded in kind. “I can’t take her through. The alignment isn’t close enough.” She would be crushed.

  “No,” Krea said, placing a hand over Hunter’s on the girl’s back. “Is too late now. She can pass as any. You must go now.”

  He hesitated, unsure. But the sound of wind, of feather and wing and gilded claw was nearing. They were coming for him, the king and his men. Krea gave him one last look of assurance, and then pushed, shooing him on.

  Mackenzie had made it before. Surely, so many hours closer to the reaping, surely she’d be fine.

  A shriek tore through the air and Hunter was moving, drawing every bit of energy he could from the land. He pressed into the sky, opening a gateway as old as time.

  Hunter squeezed Mackenzie, glancing over his shoulder one last time. The horizon was a mass of bodies, Iron Bound warriors with an order to kill. As the chosen, Hunter was stronger than any one Iron Bound. But he could not take them all. Not with Mackenzie. He closed his eyes, using the last of the power to draw the gateway closed behind them, he and the girl falling like humans to the broken earth below.

 
; Part Three

  Coming Home

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Riley sat packed in beside twenty other soldiers in the back of an olive-green canvas-covered truck. It was hot and cramped, and he was pretty sure it had been deployed to the county fair for its last mission. It smelled like stale sweat and caramel corn. But at least he was doing something. Finally.

  Half a dozen trucks had lined up in the caravan, and when they came to a full stop, one of the soldiers, a young black boy with close-cut hair, glanced out the back to count them again.

  Riley took heart when the boy’s face didn’t change. It felt strange to think of armed soldiers like that, but in truth they were merely boys, all of them. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. The army didn’t care. Not when monsters came for war. All Riley had had to do was wrap tape around his forearm to hide the mark. He could run and hold a gun. Nothing else mattered to them now.

  Riley leaned back into his seat, glancing at Hannah beside him. She was straight-backed, feet flat, chipped pink polish flaking off her fingernails where they wrapped tightly around a black M4.

  “They all made it,” he whispered.

  She nodded, the rim of her helmet falling lower across her brow. She tilted her head, using the bar behind it to push the helmet back into place.

  She had incredible eyes. Not a hint of fear in them since the day they’d met. Had it been a week already? Eight days?

  Riley looked away, not wanting to think of that. He had to do this. It was his turn to keep Mackenzie safe.

  “I feel so useless,” Hannah said, her voice as low as a breath.

  He shifted toward her, allowing the press of his shoulder to be what reassurance it could. They’d had this discussion. How did you sit back and watch your family being taken from you, your world being destroyed?

  The answer was that you couldn’t. And the new question became what chance did you have against monsters, beings from another world.

  The cut on Riley’s arm prickled, as if the very thought of them brought it to life. He pressed his fingers into the hard metal of his gun, resisting the urge to touch his mark.

  He could never let them see.

  Hannah wiped her brow, tucking a strand of dark hair back inside her helmet. “What’s taking so long?”

  Riley shook his head.

  “I heard they caught one,” the boy on Riley’s other side said. “A big, nasty one with fangs and spotted fur.” A scoff came from the opposite bench, but a few of the others egged him on. “Yeah,” he added. “It’s got, like, claws.” He held out his hand for emphasis, curling the spread fingers into a poor imitation of hooked talons.

  Riley glanced sidelong at Hannah, who looked like she might be ready to shut the kid up.

  “It isn’t a joke,” Riley told him. “Those things have killed people, Tyler.”

  The boy shrugged. “You don’t gotta tell me. That’s why I’m here.” He leaned forward, apparently unable to restrain either his words or the jittering of his legs. “Bobby says the doc’s cuttin’ people for fun, but I think it’s more than that. Why would we lock the Marked ones up if they’re not plannin’ on doing something with ’em?”

  A gangly kid in sun-bleached fatigues spoke up from the back of the truck. “I heard they were chopping the marks off, like whole limbs and everything.” He made a slicing motion with the edge of his hand.

  “See?” Tyler said. “Now why cut off a man’s arm if he wasn’t worth nothin’?”

  “I heard it’s a virus,” another voice said.

  “You know it’s not,” Hannah barked. “They don’t cut off your arm for a virus. Now shut your traps, all of you. We’re supposed to be on watch.”

  “All I’m sayin’,” muttered Tyler, “is that the bus of ten-year-olds is at the front of the line. And I ain’t so thrilled at the prospect of rippin’ off my own skin just so they can figure out what’s inside.”

  Riley’s elbows drew back, arms hugging closer to his sides. Contamination, the officers had said. Something in the Marked’s blood they couldn’t identify. Hannah was right, it wasn’t contagious. But no matter what they’d done, the poison remained, lingering there for whatever it was these monsters awaited.

  The tarp door flipped open, throwing a blinding light inside. “Fall in!” their commander—a pale, lanky twenty-year-old with flat-topped blond hair—yelled. He turned to go before they’d even had a chance to move.

  Riley and the others leapt through the opening single-file, lining up in two rows beside the bed of the truck. Three men in clear plastic suits over shirt and tie walked by, black metal cases and clipboards and electronic devices in their gloved hands as they chattered about what they’d find.

  Riley remembered his high-school science teacher droning, “The Earth’s core is composed largely of metallic iron and nickel.” Those words were echoing here, along with terms like gravitational redshift and the Einstein-Rosen Bridge. He wished he’d paid closer attention. He really wished he still had access to the Internet.

  “What’s here?” Hannah whispered from beside him.

  Riley shrugged, unable to see much past a line of armored tanks and supply vehicles. The trucks had stopped on an unlined, paved road, the grass verges beneath their feet already tracked with mud and boot prints. Even with the crowd of armed men, something about it felt deserted. There were no treetops in the distance, no buildings, no real signs of life.

  “Ain’t no monsters,” Tyler mused from behind them. “Looks like they already ate everything in sight.”

  Two more men walked by, these wearing full hazmat gear, their gadgets clicking with a sound Riley recognized from old television shows. But surely they weren’t checking for radiation. Hannah shifted beside him. He was certain they were all thinking the same thing: Why are we the only ones not wearing hazmat gear? And where are we?

  Their commander came toward them, that ready-with-orders look in his eye, and they straightened, ready themselves.

  And then the truck that had been stopped in front of them lurched forward with a sputter, leaving Riley a view of the land beyond.

  His stomach turned.

  “It’s Oak Park,” he whispered. “Just outside of West Ridge.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Mackenzie fell to the earth on top of Hunter, a harder landing than before, even though he’d protected her by hitting first. The dizziness was gone though, replaced by a strange electricity.

  They were home.

  She had made it.

  She sat up, momentarily straddling a still-shirtless Hunter before rolling off of him to hug the ground. Her fingers dug through spikes of green grass, searching out the dark, rich soil below. It smelled of home. Everything smelled healthy and alive and right. She flopped onto her back, throwing her arms wide, and breathed in the cool air. It was overfull of moisture and scent, the chill of a fresh breeze tingling every inch of her skin. She was alive.

  Mackenzie leapt to her feet, giddy with the sensation of sun on her face, ready to shout out to the sky—and tripped on Hunter’s legs to sprawl face-down in the grass. She pressed herself up in a giggling heap to assure Hunter she was fine, steadying herself against him while she plucked crisp fall leaves from her hair. They crunched beneath her hands into a thousand pieces and she began to laugh. It was a deep, full-bodied thing that reached every corner of her heart. She laughed like she hadn’t laughed in weeks. She laughed liked she used to laugh with Riley. Riley, who was going to be okay.

  She let out a long, glorious breath, gaze finally finding Hunter’s, and couldn’t help but think of what her brother would say about this. Mackenzie in the park with a monster, her hand resting on his bare flesh. Her smile turned mischievous, and something changed in Hunter’s stare.

  His eyes never came off of her, turning to heat. Before Mackenzie had a moment to process it, Hunter launched himself at her, taking her waist and crushing her to him for a heartbeat of hesitation until Mackenzie’s startled grip eased and she relaxed against
him.

  Hunter’s gaze never left hers. When he felt the change in her, he moved closer, closing the distance. His lips touched hers, testing, teasing, waiting for her to answer. Mackenzie was drunk with the energy of that other realm, with being home and with hope. Her breath fell from her lips in a thousand tiny, tingling sparks and she tilted her head toward him, pressing closer, melting into him and relishing in it, feeling every single element of his touch. The sensation rolled through her, and the kiss deepened. Hunter drew her to him, close enough that every part of them could meet. Her hands were on his bare skin, dragging up his muscled back, and his hands wrapped around her, one low, where his thumb pressed to the front her hip, one higher, keeping her close and trailing her neck as his mouth—hot, wet, unrelenting—tangled with hers, his fingers tracing the line of her collar bone and—

  Mackenzie pulled away the moment his touch slid lower, her hand coming between them to press three trembling fingertips against her lips. All of her tingled, and for a moment, she’d nearly forgotten why she’d drawn away. She stared at him, hand still pressed to her lips, unable to speak.

  He had kissed her stupid. She’d heard the expression, but apparently it was a real, true thing.

  She blinked, cleared her throat. Hunter was watching her, hand still resting on her hip. Every part of her remained entirely aware of him, but Mackenzie thought he didn’t look like he believed he’d actually done it.

  She felt as if she were on fire.

  She lowered her hand, easing back from him. “We need to go find Riley.”

  Hunter opened his mouth to speak, got out, “I—” and then started again. “Mackenzie—”

  “It isn’t like before,” she said. “I don’t need to you to tell them where we are. I just want to get Riley, to find him before it’s too late.” She grabbed his hand, pulling him behind her. “I know what we need to do now, you just have to go. You just have to save him, to take off that mark—”