by Zandria West
‘There are too many of them,’ I turn to Alex, panic swirling in my chest. ‘We can’t fight them. They’ll kill us.’
This is a bad plan. Anything involving crazy werewolves is a bad fucking plan.
‘Too late now, angel,’ Alex says, taking my hand and leading me a few steps away from the road and back into the forest. He indicates to a thick section of bush. ‘You stay here. I’m going to stick close to Reuben, try to make sure he doesn’t do anything too stupid. If it all goes wrong, I want you to run, you hear me? No heroics. No trying to save anybody or stop anything from happening. Just fucking run. Lose yourself in the forest. We’ll find you easily enough.’ He puts a hand to his heart and I know what he means. The pull is the bond growing stronger. I can sense them too, each of them, their presence, their mood, their energy. I couldn’t lose them in a maze with my eyes closed. I will always know where they are. I’ll always be able to find them.
I nod and see Alex relax just a little. Then he turns and heads to where Reuben, Vera and Andreas are readying their weapons.
Please let this not be a bloodbath, I silently pray.
We don’t have long to wait. A few minutes later I hear the sound of the engines, then a little while after that a convoy careens around the corner and into sight. At first I think they haven’t even noticed the rocks because they don’t appear to slow, but then at the last minute they screech to a halt. There are three vehicles, big black army troopers, the windows darkened so you can’t see inside.
I look at the trucks. How will we know which one Briony is in? I’m not even sure how many demons there were in the convoy. We’re running blind, even more so than I’d thought.
Then one of the doors eases open and a guard steps out. He looks more like a rock troll than a demon. In fact, he resembles nothing more closely than the pile of rocks itself. He looks at it and lets out a grunt, then walks up and picks up the first massive rock and tosses it away down the hillside on the far side of the road.
He’ll make short work of the obstruction the wolves worked so hard to create.
There’s a high whistling noise in the air and a sudden thwack. The guard grunts again and slowly collapses – first to his knees before toppling forward directly onto his face. An arrow sticks out of the side of his head.
Silence.
I glance up to where the others are hidden, ranged along the slope of the mountain. I can just make out Vera wielding a crossbow, and Andreas eagerly fingering a large axe.
I shiver and put a hand to my amulet for reassurance. It’s still cool. The demons haven’t seen me. It doesn’t actually make me feel much better.
The door of the leading vehicle cracks open again and this time three heavily armed guards pile out in a defensive formation.
I look to Reuben in a moment of panic, but he just holds a hand up as if to stop me from speaking. There’s a soft thwack and one of the demons screams, holding its hands to its neck where an arrow protrudes, just between where the body armour ends and the mask begins.
Whatever else I might say about her, Vera is demonstrating some pretty fucking impressive marksmanship right now.
The other two guards spin around so they’re standing back to back and scan the surrounding hillside, trying desperately to spot where the attack is coming from.
Then the front door of the other vehicle opens and the boss demon steps out.
‘This is about the children, right? Always about the children. You werewolves get so goddamn emotional. Well, you can stop that right now. Take one more shot, and you can have a child back. Or a bit of a child, at least. My colleague in the truck will happily rip a head off and toss it out to you. Understood?’ He smiles a vicious, gleeful smile. ‘Now, if you’re going to be sensible mutts and stop shooting, come out. We can talk.’
There’s a moment of utter silence.
‘We’ll offer you a trade!’ Andreas yells.
The demon puts a hand to his ear and turns around, looking up at the mountainside.
‘I’m sorry, what was that? I must apologise my hearing isn’t what it used to be. And I fear being shot at is so very distracting.’
‘A trade,’ Andreas yells again. ‘I think we have something that you want.’
A moment later, I feel the pressure of a blade against my back.
What the fuck?
‘Stand up,’ Vera murmurs. ‘We’re going for a little walk.’
I glance around for Reuben or Gabriel or Alex but they’re out of my line of sight and I’m worried that actually turning my head might not end well. They don’t realise yet, I think. They don’t know what’s about to happen.
Shit, shit, shit.
‘What could you possibly have that I’d be interested in?’ the boss demon asks, but the hunger is clear in his voice. He likes to make deals. Watching a few of his minions die horribly is probably just his usual warm-up to negotiations.
‘A human girl. Her name is Lana. You might have heard of her. Apparently, she’s the magical key to re-making the Barrier between the worlds. Or so the warlock Gabriel told us when he begged for our help. You’ve heard of him too, I presume?’
Then the pressure between my shoulder blades sharpens and a strong hand pulls me up to standing. A little shove and I find myself walking out of the forest and onto the road where the demons wait.
I look around to try and see where my men are. The bond with them feels strangely… fuzzy.
‘Tranquilizer darts took care of them,’ Vera whispers into my ear. ‘Old school but effective. Life’s a bitch sometimes, Lana.’
The huge demon looks me over. Vera lets go of me and backs away a couple of careful steps.
‘Do you have proof of your claim?’ the demon asks, his eyes narrowing.
I find myself staring at him, unable to look away. His skin is a silvery grey colour, his eyes are dark slits, and his teeth are in every way excessive. Too big, too many, too pointy. How the hell he even manages to talk with what he’s got going on in his mouth I have no idea.
‘She was brought to us by the warlock Gabriel. He begged for our help. He is the son and apprentice of the Great Witch and was present when the Barrier was first made. The Great Witch hid the key so it would not be found until the time was right. It has been Gabriel’s mission for centuries to ensure that as the magic begins to break down, the key will be found to re-make it.’
‘And the key is a human?’
‘Apparently. We thought you’d find that interesting.’
‘Hmmm, it is unusual, at the very least, to find a human so deep within our territory. I will take her. You have certainly raised my curiosity, and that’s not such an easy thing to do. You can have one child back. I do still need to make my point.’
‘We’ll take the girl,’ Andreas calls.
I hear Vera let out a sob. She’s hidden her tension well, but she’s desperate to see Briony. I would be too, if I was her.
The boss demon signals and one of the car doors opens. A small figure is pushed out. She looks around blindly for a moment with an expression of sheer terror, as though she can’t make sense of what’s going on, then she spots her mother and runs towards her.
‘Very good, let’s go,’ the demon takes a hold of my arm and pulls me towards him. The amulet on my chest grows so hot that it’s almost burning. I look around wildly, hoping for help, for rescue, for one of my protectors to wake up, but there’s nothing, no-one.
Vera and Andreas have vanished back into the forest almost instantly with Briony. Now it’s just me and a horde – well convoy – of uniformed demons. I force myself to walk. There’s no choice. There’s no escape. And I’m sure as hell not going to show this guy how fucking terrified I am, which is: utterly.
‘In you go, there’s a good girl.’ His voice would almost be kindly if it wasn’t for the way he leers at me and licks his lips.
I reach the door and look up. The man inside is almost unrecognizable; he’s been beaten so badly he has two black eyes, a bloodied nose
and a swollen lip. Pale yellow bruising sallows his face, and his profile looks strangely distorted. Then I realise who it is: Varik. The fucking crazy werewolf who wanted to disembowel me.
Brilliant. Perfect. I couldn’t have imagined how this day could go better if I’d tried.
‘What you waiting for, Princess? In you go,’ I feel a prod in the centre of my back.
There’s no point arguing.
I grab the door with shaking hands and pull myself in and collapse on the seat beside the other prisoner. The door slams behind me. A demon guard sits on the other side of Varik and another in the front seat.
‘What the fuck are you doing here, human?’ Varik turns towards me, the words thick from his bruised mouth.
I turn away and look out the window. He’s not my ally. We may share a predicament but that’s all we have in common.
He laughs, a cold, hard laugh. ‘The Grey Pack traded you, huh? How’s that feel? You know what these guys like to do to human girls?’
He leans towards me. I stiffen but I don’t move away. I meet his gaze. Something broken and corrupt looks back at me from behind his eyes. It makes my skin crawl.
‘Pretty thing like you? You won’t last a week the way they’ll use you. Pain’s the thing they like. And what makes human girls so special is their nerve endings are all so close to the surface. That skin of yours will be like a palette for them and your agony will be their fucking masterpiece.’
I flinch and my stomach churns. If I threw up on him right now he’d deserve it, but I don’t particularly want to travel for the next five hours soaked in my own vomit.
I swallow the bile that rises in my throat and look away. He laughs again.
‘Even the worst day can have its little bit of sunshine. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to watch, or at least be held within earshot. That’ll be fucking music.’
I turn away from him to look out the window as the car begins to move and the forest flashes by.
I remember all the things that my men told me about the demon prison. It’s an inaccessible fortress. Nobody has ever broken out of it. Moats and monsters and curses and more. And that’s where I’m going now.
I sit stiffly as I feel the tears well and then spill.
There’s no way I’m going to let them see me cry.
21
ALEX
For a moment I have no fucking idea where I am.
Sky above. Blue with puffy white clouds. The smell of pine needles and the taste of something bitter on my tongue. I groan and roll onto my side. My right shoulder aches. My head is throbbing and my whole body feels heavy, like it’s turned to stone while I slept.
Slept? Why the fuck would I be sleeping? Last thing I remember we were watching the demon convoy slow to a halt in front of the blockade the werewolves had built. And then – nothing.
I scramble up to sitting, my heart suddenly pounding.
I do a quick scan. I have all my limbs and no obvious bleeding. I run a hand over my head. No lumps, no blood.
No fucking clue what’s going on.
Then I hear another rough groan and I turn to see Reuben beside me, opening his eyes.
I stagger to my knees and look down to the road.
The rocks are cleared. The trucks are gone. There are a couple of bodies lying on the side of the road – it’s obvious from a glance which side they were on. Huge, uniformed, dead demons.
Reuben groans again.
‘It’s all over, whatever the hell happened,’ I mutter to myself, then look around.
No sign of movement. No sign of anyone else nearby.
Where the fuck is Lana?
‘Bastards –’ Reuben growls as he sits up. ‘Those goddamned bastards...’ He seems to get his sense of balance back more quickly than I do.
I stand up, leaning a hand against a handy tree-trunk to avoid toppling.
‘Lana!’ I call.
I spot movement in the bushes a dozen paces away and tense up. I’m ready for a fight, my blood instantly humming with adrenalin. Then I see a flash of black and Gabriel steps out, looking around, his face wracked with pain.
‘She’s gone. They’ve taken her,’ he calls to us.
‘I should have guessed,’ Reuben growls. ‘Never should have trusted them –’ he groans and rubs his head. ‘They fucking darted us and traded her to the Council.’
‘What?’ An icy chill runs through my body. I can’t make sense of what Reuben’s saying. My mind is refusing to compute his words.
‘Lana,’ he says, his voice thick with agony. ‘Vera and Andreas did a deal. Of course they fucking did a deal. And I basically handed it to them.’ He aims a solid kick at a nearby tree trunk then curses.
Gabriel strides down the hillside to meet us.
‘How long have we been out?’ I ask.
Gabriel looks at the sky. ‘A few hours? Long enough for them to get an impossible lead on us. We’ll never intercept them before they make it back to the city.’
Reuben growls, deep and low. ‘When I find those treacherous motherfuckers, I’ll tear their arms from their bodies. I’ll rip their eyes from their skulls and fucking feed them to them…’
‘How far is it to get back to the car?’ I ask. I’ve lost all sense of direction from our epic trek. I’m sure Reuben knows exactly where we are though. He knows his way around this forest as well as I know my way to the bloodbank.
‘Hours. Too many hours. It’s no use!’ He tears at his hair, like he’s going to rip it out in his rage and self-disgust.
I look up. The sky is fading into silver. Night is coming.
‘How fast can you run, Benji?’ I say.
Reuben growls. ‘Not fucking fast enough.’
‘How about as a wolf? Moonrise in, what, half an hour do you reckon Gabe?’
Gabriel pauses pacing for a moment to look at me with a stunned expression. ‘You’re right. It’s the full moon tonight. Moonrise will be coming any time now.’
‘Think you can catch them?’ I say to Reuben. I see his expression darken with a look I’ve seen him wear before. Obsessive commitment. Willingness to face impossible odds. Preparedness to die. When Reuben looks like this it doesn’t usually end well for anyone.
‘No. That’s bad,’ Gabriel says, shaking his head.
‘It’s the best plan we’ve got,’ I say. ‘Benji runs, we follow. Fuck knows what happens after that but—’
‘It’s not that. It’s Lana. She’s in a car with Varik and his followers and they’re about to turn...’
‘They were chained,’ I say quickly, remembering the heavy handcuffs the demons had placed on them.
‘Those chains will do nothing. They’ll tear her apart.’ Gabriel says. ‘It doesn’t matter how fast Reuben runs if she’s dead before he gets there.’ I feel a sudden wave of cold, like my blood is snap-freezing in my veins.
‘Fuck!’ Reuben swears.
I feel sick. I turn to Gabriel. He’s meant to be our leader, isn’t he? ‘There must be something we can do. Think, Gabriel. We have to get her out of the car. Use that enormous overrated fucking brain of yours. Is there a spell…?’
Gabriel frowns, his expression dark as an oncoming storm.
‘I cannot reach her through the bond. The distance is too great.’
‘A lot of fucking good that is then, hey?’
I want to hit something.
‘I can’t cast protection on her. I can’t speak with her. I can’t harm her captors...’
I really want to hit something.
‘Okay, I love a good list as much as the next man, Gabriel. But how about thinking of what you can do?’
‘By the Goddess…’ He closes his eyes and clenches his fists.
I look to Reuben and see him watching with the same expression I’m most likely wearing. Incredulous impatience. Surely warlocks must be good for something? He got us into this fucking mess; it was his idea that we seek the help of the Grey Pack and everything since then has gone wrong. He can get us out.
/> He opens his eyes again, but his expression is grave. ‘I have an idea, but I don’t know that it will work. It’s beyond the realms of anything I’ve done…’
‘Well? Spill,’ I say. The miniscule reserve of patience I usually have has already been used up. I’ve got none left at all now.
‘With the help of the Goddess, I can call on the spirits of the forest…’
I tilt my head to one side. ‘That sounds like some fanciful mumbo-jumbo even for you, Gabriel.’
‘No, he’s right, it may just work. It would be dangerous though,’ Reuben says. ‘The forest spirits sensed Lana already, they tried to take her once before. Who knows what they might do with a little prompting…’
I feel a sudden moment of confusion. ‘Hang on, you’re talking about actually asking the forest spirits to take her? Like, offering her to them? How the fuck does that help? That’s not a thing we want to happen is it?’
‘Better than leaving her locked up with a truckload of pissed off wolves,’ Reuben says.
‘Are you sure about that? How much better? Quantifiably better? Or just a nicer way to die?’
I look from one to the other of them. The tales I’ve heard about this forest make my blood run cold. There’s no way that handing Lana over to the spirits of the fucking forest is an option. In no universe is that a good idea. They’ll find her irresistible, I’m sure. They’ll snatch her from the demons and the werewolves. And we’ll never see her again, not even to bury the pieces of her body.
‘Do you have another suggestion?’ Gabriel says, glaring at me.
He’s going to do it, I know. He’s had the idea and he’ll carry it through unless I think of something to stop him. That’s who Gabriel is. It’s part of what makes him a strong leader – he has no fear of executing a plan, even at great risk. It’s also part of what makes him, at times, a complete fucking asshole.
‘I’ll run,’ I say.
Gabriel narrows his eyes at me. ‘You haven’t fed in days. Your speed is only good over short distances at the best of times. There’s no way you can sustain it in the condition you’re in now.’
I think of Lana, trapped, waiting either to be turned into mincemeat or thrown into a demon prison cell and tortured... The anger that burns inside me feels like fuel enough that I could run to the moon. I’m incandescent with fury. There’s a moment of sharp pain as my teeth descend.