by Zandria West
‘Nothing you wouldn’t expect, warlock. You’re on the watch-list, you and your little friends…’ Duriarg’s accent is strange, one I haven’t heard before. And then I see him notice me and his eyes widen. ‘And who is the human?’
I frown and draw myself up to my full height, which is still about half of his and does nothing to change the way he’s looking down at me.
‘This is Lana, she is travelling with us…’ Gabriel responds calmly.
‘She’s a long way from home,’ Duriarg says, and I can’t tell if it’s a threat or a warning or a simple statement of fact. Then he turns back to Gabriel. ‘Everything is ready, just as you requested…’
‘Thank you, Duriarg, I owe you –’
‘Nothing, warlock, you owe me nothing.’
The demon watches us as we walk past. A smell of sulphur and smoke clings to him, filling my nostrils. He’s so close I could almost touch him, and it takes every ounce of my self-control to stop my head from swivelling to study him more closely. He’s remarkable: his appearance is powerful and terrifying, like something out of a nightmare, but apparently, he’s not a threat. Regardless, Alex grasps my hand tightly, as though to keep me close for safety. There’s still an atmosphere of tension in the air as we walk the final distance to the car, the demon watching us all the way.
‘What did he do?’ I whisper, imagining something brutal and terrible. Like maybe he’d filled the trunk of the car with the severed heads of our enemies.
‘I’d say he checked the water, oil, tyre pressure and brake fluid, and hopefully he fixed the broken window…’ Alex grins.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘He’s a mechanic, Lana,’ Gabriel says gently, as Alex unlocks the car. ‘And a good one. There aren’t many in Darktown with expertise in human technologies. He’s given the car a service and checked it over for me. Last thing we’d want is to break down halfway to the Arvonne. There are some places between here and there where you most definitely don’t want to stop.’
I turn again to where the demon is still watching us, and now I think I see an expression of pride on his face. He raises one huge, clawed hand and waves. I wave back, to Alex’s amusement.
‘Alright, bags in the trunk and everyone in,’ he says. ‘Let’s get this party started.’
5
LANA
We drive along winding back roads, through streets that all look so similar the city begins to feel endless. Grey, grey and more grey. Everywhere we go, I have an uncomfortable feeling of being watched, as though silent eyes are looking through darkened windows to track our journey.
Then finally it changes.
‘See that?’ Reuben asks. He’s sitting in the back beside me, while Gabriel takes the front seat and Alex drives. I look to where Reuben is pointing: a blur on the distant horizon.
‘What is it?’
‘The Arvonne mountain range.’
Something in his voice catches my attention – a mixture of longing and dread.
‘Is that where you’re from?’ I ask. I remember what he told me about his pack. He was cast out by them, as good as dead.
He nods, not taking his eyes off the horizon.
‘How long is it since you’ve been back?’
He doesn’t respond.
The mountains don’t look so huge from here, but they’re still a long way away. We’re entering thickly forested lowlands now, scattered with run-down cottages and ancient ruins. Alex has put his foot down so we’re travelling at a speed that makes me slightly giddy. I know he wants to put some space between us and where we’ve come from. I’m happy to just enjoy the car-ride while it lasts. Once we reach the boundary that marks the start of the Arvonne Forest we’ll leave the car behind. From there, everything we want to take with us we’ll be carrying on our backs. Ugh.
‘It’s been nearly ten years since I left.’ Reuben’s voice startles me. He’s still watching the mountains, and his expression tears at my heart.
‘That’s where your family is, right? Your pack?’
He nods.
‘You haven’t seen them in ten years? That’s a long time.’
‘It was for the best,’ he says, but his voice is gruff and filled with pain. ‘Gabriel’s magic found me, and I knew I had a duty to fulfil…’
I look from him to where Gabriel sits in the front seat of the car, leafing through an old book, his expression serious and intense. I know so little about these men, about what they’ve done together, what they’ve been through… I know they were Enforcers. They enforced the rules of the Accord, which governs the separation of the human and demon realms. They worked on both sides of the Barrier to protect humans from rogue demons who’d found a way through into the human realm. I have the sense that bad things have happened to them, from the way they interact, and from how they talk about Grayson, and that’s why they stopped. I’m not sure if I want to know more or not.
‘My pack like their isolation,’ Reuben says quietly, finally looking away from the mountains and towards me, breaking my train of thought. My breath catches in my throat. The sorrow that is clearly carved into his hard features just makes him more beautiful – I want to run my fingers over the rough line of his cheek and jaw, I want to touch his eyelids with my fingertips, to catch the long deep-gold strands of hair…
‘I don’t blame them for it,’ he continues. ‘It is a beautiful place, the forest. Life is simple. The code they live by is good. Loyalty. Strength. Respect. But the world is not a good place. And they are only able to live the way they do by locking the rest of the world out. I wanted to help…’
‘That meant you had to leave?’
He nods. ‘Loyalty. Strength. Respect. That is what they demand. But only to them: to the elders, to the pack. I felt loyalty to my calling, to the duty that weighed on me. They saw that as a betrayal…’ Pain flashes in his eyes and I have to physically stop myself from reaching out and taking hold of his hand. I don’t want to do anything to break the spell of intimacy between us.
‘You must miss your family,’ I say gently.
‘This is my family,’ he says, looking forward to Alex and Gabriel. Then he looks across to me, his eyes lulling me like a moment of perfect silence deep in an ancient forest. ‘You,’ he says. I sit perfectly still, hardly able to breathe. ‘You are my family. My pack.’
I swallow. I feel suddenly hollow inside, like I don’t deserve this loyalty. Reuben has suffered in his life, he’s made hard choices for good reasons. He’s sacrificed for his beliefs, and to try to make the world a better place. What have I done? Nothing, basically.
‘Not true, Lana. You’ve done plenty. You risked your own life to try and save your brother,’ Alex says from the front seat. Eavesdropping on my thoughts again.
Tears sting my eyes. ‘That went well, didn’t it?’
‘Not your fault,’ Alex says.
‘I witnessed you saving a perfect stranger from a demon at Hell on Earth, at grave personal risk,’ Gabriel says from the front seat, guessing the unspoken strand of our conversation.
‘You’ve healed both Gabriel and I,’ Alex says. ‘We might have died without you.’
‘You wouldn’t have been hurt in the first place if it wasn’t for me,’ I say.
Reuben takes my hand, draws me closer to him. ‘Don’t you see, Lana? None of that matters. You don’t have to earn our love. You don’t have to prove yourself to us. We know you, absolutely, maybe better than you know yourself. The bond does that. We see you. And we love you.’
I wipe away the tears that are spilling onto my cheeks.
For the next half hour, we drive in comfortable silence. Reuben seems calmer now, and he lets me sit close, pressed up against him. I get snoozy and my head rests against his mountainous side, his arm around my shoulders cocooning me in a nest of pure muscle. I dream of Clarissa, strange dreams that mix when I first met her with the last time that I saw her. She is inside our house, my father is still alive, and the magic is pouring out of her, lit
erally spilling out in brilliant, ugly colours, and I’m telling my father, telling Jamie, pointing to what I can see and neither of them believe me. They just can’t see it. They think I’m making a joke. Clarissa meets my eyes and laughs, an expression of pure victory on her face. I wake with a shudder and a heavy feeling of dread. It lessens as my mind returns to the present, but the sense of discomfort doesn’t completely go. After a moment or two I realise why. My bladder. It’s just about ready to burst.
Damn.
I look out the window. It’s late afternoon now, we’ve been driving for hours. We’re on a rough dirt road. Each time the car lurches with a bump, I feel a sharp stab of pain like someone’s poking a needle into my lower abdomen.
‘Might need a quick stop,’ I say, loud enough that Alex can hear me in the front.
‘Say, what?’
I clear my throat. ‘I need to pee, Alex.’ I look at the landscape we’re passing through. Dense, dark forest. It must have rained during the day, because the trees are dripping and the ground is moist. Ferns and thick bushes grow around the base of the trees, forming an almost-solid mass. The forest looks impenetrable and unfriendly.
‘Um, you can’t hang on for a bit?’ Alex asks. ‘This might not be the best spot.’
It’s strange how the urgency of a full bladder outweighs even the risks of walking into what is probably some kind of cursed forest full of monsters. Right now, I’d walk into hell itself if it had a restroom handy. ‘I really need to go. Please. I’ll be quick.’
‘You’ll have to be,’ Alex says, sighing and slowing the car, then pulling off onto to the verge. ‘Okay, who’s on Lana duty?’ He turns, giving me a quick grin.
‘I’ll go,’ Reuben rumbles.
‘I don’t need a babysitter. I’ll be fine,’ I say, starting to open the door to get out.
In an instant, Alex is out of the car and standing outside my door, opening it for me. He doesn’t use the vampire-speed thing often but when he does, it sure makes my head spin.
‘Ah, thank you?’ As I step out, I find I’m standing face to face with him; he’s not giving me any room.
‘Reuben will go with you,’ he says in a low voice. ‘And don’t you fucking argue. Stopping at all in this region is dangerous. Squatting bare-assed and unprotected is asking for trouble of a sort you can’t even imagine. So be quick. I’ll keep the engine running.’ His eyes narrow, watching me until I nod compliance.
Reuben gets out from the other side of the car and I let him take the lead as we walk a few steps into the forest.
It smells… strange. Almost spicy, as though the rain has released some scent from the foliage. It’s also weirdly silent. No birds, that I can hear. No people, or traffic. No gentle sigh of wind in the leaves. Just an uncanny dead flatness to the atmosphere that almost feels like it’s pressing in on me.
‘This is far enough,’ Reuben says, indicating a spot.
We’re still in view of the car but I figure that just means it’s nice and close if we have to make a run for it, for whatever reason.
‘Do you mind…?’
I know he’s seen me naked, but this feels different. A girl likes a bit of privacy when she does her business.
He clears his throat awkwardly and his face flushes. He turns away slightly; enough so he’s not looking at me directly as I undo my pants and pull them down, not enough that he can’t monitor the area around me for potential danger. The air feels cool on my bare skin and as I lower myself to squatting, I sigh in relief. In a moment I’m finally free of the pain that has gripped me.
Thirty seconds later I’m finished. I stand and pull my pants back up, trying to retain some fraction of dignity.
‘Done,’ I say.
‘Good,’ Reuben says, allowing himself to cast a look in my direction. ‘Let’s move.’ He turns and begins to walk back towards the car. I follow, just a few paces behind, but something catches my attention. Just out of the corner of my eye I see a strange glow. It stands out amongst the fifty shades of green that surround us, because it’s a kind of shimmery pinkish-purple colour. I pause and look more closely. There’s something in the forest. But it doesn’t look monstrous or dangerous or terrifying, it looks… well… pretty.
I take a step in the direction of the light and hear pealing laughter, so high and free on the air that it seems to vanish into the forest in an instant, like music. And then a voice calls –
Lana… Lana…
I frown and take another step.
The light seems to condense into a shape. A beautiful girl, smiling and inviting me to come closer. The strangest feeling of peace and comfort flows through me and I take a step towards her. The feeling grows. I smile back at the girl, who is clearly the loveliest ever in existence, who emanates nothing but friendliness, kindness and grace. All I want is to be closer to her, all I want is to –
Whump
Reuben sideswipes me and knocks me to the ground. I land with a jarring crash, and the impact somehow wipes all the warm fuzzy feelings from my mind. I blink. The forest is dark and murky and threatening.
Reuben is lying on top of me, my whole body captured by his massive frame. For a second, I can’t move, can’t think. My nostrils are filled with his scent, which is like pine and cinnamon and wood-smoke. My face is buried in his neck.
‘Don’t look back. We have to get out of here. Now,’ he whispers into my ear.
Then he rolls off me, gives me a hand and pulls me to my feet, and then drags me forward at a kind of awkward jog. We’re not running, but we’re definitely not walking.
I hear the voice again behind me but this time it sounds different: this time it sounds angry.
Lana –
I shiver. ‘What is that?’
‘No time.’
We’re almost out of the forest and to the road now. I can see the line of light where the forest ends, and just beyond that, the car. The engine is running.
LANA –
There is a movement beside us, around us. Reuben pulls me forward in a sudden rush. My heart beats faster. I sense something reaching for me, the shiver of fingers almost touching my skin. I try so hard not to turn, not to look. I don’t know what that was I saw, but whatever it was, it did something that turned my brain to mush. I’m not letting it get to me again.
Reuben pulls me across the boundary and into what counts for sunlight in this UV-deprived world. Alex is beside us in a heartbeat, opening the car door. Reuben shoves me in roughly, so I end up sprawled along the seat, then he climbs in beside me. In a moment, Alex is back again in the driver’s seat, revving the engine and we’re taking off.
‘What the fuck was that?’ I breathe, allowing myself a look through the back window of the car.
I make out a shape in the shadows at the edge of the forest, something tall and wispy in shades of grey. It’s definitely not girl-like.
‘I’m not sure,’ Reuben says. ‘I’d guess some kind of forest spirit. I didn’t see it or hear it, but you clearly did…’
I blush, embarrassed to have been drawn into danger so easily. It didn’t even occur to me to be wary or afraid.
‘Yeah, magic can get you like that,’ Alex says, his expression hard. ‘And then before you know it, you’re some fucking ghoul’s dinner.’
‘Sorry,’ I say.
Reuben shakes his head. ‘No, I’m sorry Lana. I didn’t sense it. Protecting you was my job.’
‘And not walking straight into some creepy trap like a complete numpty was mine,’ I say frowning.
I’m used to relying on myself. Always. I don’t like accepting protection or recognising the fact that I probably need it. I’m usually pretty good at sensing danger and taking precautions. I touch the amulet that hangs around my neck; it’s warm but not burning, not hot enough to draw my attention. I feel like an idiot.
‘Don’t feel too bad, Lana,’ Gabriel says evenly from the front seat. ‘The forest can be a tricky place even for an experienced traveller. Don’t think of it as a b
ad thing that you rely on us for protection. We all rely on one another. That is the nature and purpose of the bond.’
Alex glances back at me from the front seat. ‘But next time, angel, you’re peeing in a goddamned bottle.’
6
LANA
Do vampires even need sleep?
We’re driving through the night, and Alex appears just as bright-eyed and alert as he did when we left, hours and hours before. Reuben thinks we’ll reach our destination around dawn. And honestly, I don’t know how I feel.
Nope, that’s a lie. Scared. I feel scared. The idea of meeting a whole goddamn pack of Reubens, and that they might not in fact welcome our arrival… Yikes.
I force myself to think of what we’re running from – the Demon Council looking to punish Alex and Reuben for crossing the Barrier to help me, the psycho witch Clarissa waking up with a sore head and a desperate desire for vengeance. I imagine what’s ahead of us – my mother. Answers.
I’ll take the werewolves, if I have to.
Reuben digs through a backpack he has stowed at his feet and pulls out a paper bag which he passes to me. I look questioningly at him, and he gives me a kind of crooked smile that sends a shiver right through me. ‘I brought you something,’ he growls.
I open the bag and look inside and –
‘Oh my god, thank you!’
He’s made a huge sandwich. I didn’t realise until I saw it how damn hungry I am.
He passes another to Gabriel in the front seat and pulls one out for himself.
I take a bite. It’s delicious.
‘Nothing for you, Alex?’ I say through an over-full mouth. The whole vampire-not-eating-food thing bothers me more than I thought it would. I worry he’s hungry. I just wish I could see him eat.
‘Not for me, thanks Lana.’ I catch the smiling glint of his brilliant blue eyes in the mirror.
‘Mmm…’ I sigh. This is one good sandwich. I don’t know where Reuben got all this stuff. Corned beef, swiss cheese, and something tangy… sauerkraut maybe? And then something occurs to me. I chew and swallow and turn to my favourite werewolf.