Untethering Dark

Chapter Forty-Eight

To Suri’s credit, they didn’t vomit at the macabre sight before them. The impaled, flayed bodies. Heldin’s deranged followers adorning themselves with strips of bloody, tattered skin, hooting and hollering and baying at the moon. Suri stared down the enemy with an unexpected calm, dusting snow off their third and final drone, kitchen knives tucked into their boots.

Astrid wouldn’t be alone in meting out carnage this night.

With a quiet buzz, the drone lifted and disappeared into the canopy of the trees. The revelry was so loud, their enemy didn’t so much as twitch at the sound. “Free our loved ones first,” Suri bid. “Then make these fiends regret ever daring to come back. I’ll clear a path for you.”

Astrid moved quickly and silently from their shadowy hiding place amongst the trees to the tanning frame in which Johanna was bound. No one looked her way, their attentions on Gudarīks on the other side of the bonfire. One of Heldin’s acolytes was stealing the hide from his chest in small strips, like someone might peel an apple. For now, Gudarīks took it in quiet agony. But the torture had only just begun.

Rage bubbled and brewed, a noxious potion that would poison and destroy, and these murderers would have their taste. They were not long for this world.

Approaching from behind without the crunch of snow, Astrid whispered, “Johanna, it’s me, Astrid. I’m going to cut you loose.”

The ranger jumped but gave the barest nod to acknowledge that she heard and understood.

Drawing on the moisture in the air, Astrid forged a knife from ice, the magic making it sharper than even the finest steel blade. She carefully sliced her friend free.

Rubbing her wrists, Johanna began to turn, then stumbled back at the sight of her.

Astrid grabbed the front of her coat and cupped one clawed hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. “It’s still me,” she whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek. Johanna’s right eye was swollen shut, and there was a cut across her cheek. Although she didn’t appear to have any other injuries, that didn’t dim the reality around them.

If Astrid had come any later, Johanna easily could’ve been one of the flayed.

Relaxing in her grip, Johanna reached to touch one of her antlers with a trembling hand. More tears fell, neither of their faces dry. Johanna nodded and tenderly cupped her cheek.

“For you.” Astrid released her, slipping the ax she brought into the ranger’s hand.

Hefting the weapon, Johanna turned to her colleagues, a finger pressed to her lips. They tried to school their faces, deliberately not looking in their direction, but notes of relief shone as Johanna sawed the ropes binding the forest ranger next to her.

A mob of thirty acolytes formed a semicircle around Gudarīks, cheering on his torturer’s efforts. They thought they were invincible, unstoppable.

How nicely they’d rounded themselves up for her. A flock of sheep ready for slaughter.

Icicles stretched from Astrid’s palms, a whirlwind encircling her body. Her self-made weapons were jagged and crude. The magic didn’t need to be pretty to do its job. She hurled one, then another, watching with satisfied glee as they punched through someone’s torso, eliciting a bloodcurdling scream.

Suri’s drone dropped down, releasing pepper spray into the crowd.

Chaos reigned supreme as the crowd devolved into a mass of screaming and flailing limbs, many desperately scrubbing and clawing at their eyes. “What is this sky poison?” one screeched. Another insisted they never should’ve left the Otherworld.

Astrid’s conjured wind whipped around her friends and herself, keeping them safe from any blowback.

The drone circled round for another pass, weaving this way and that, targeting those who eluded the first spray. It sent the crowd scattering.

An angry voice shouted, “Get back here! We’re not finished.”

A fiery ball launched itself from the bonfire and knocked Suri’s drone from the sky, sending it careening to the ground with an ugly crunch. One of its four propellers snapped off and bounced, leaving the rest a flaming ruin.

No more drones then, but Suri had given Astrid a tremendous advantage, and she wouldn’t squander it.

She shot more icicle javelins into the reeling crowd, not giving a rat’s ass about honor, carving herself a path forward. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to get to Gudarīks and put an end to his suffering.

Not all had been hit by the pepper spray. Two brandished daggers and stalked her way, and several more yet prowled toward Johanna and the remaining forest rangers, distracted by freeing the last of their own.

Suri burst from their hiding place, screeching, “Get away from my wife!” They raised their hand, holding aloft a small black cylindrical container and sprayed the nearest acolyte in the face. The man backed away with a furious scream, dropping his knife to rub his eyes, making the burn worse. Johanna whirled around and kicked out his legs, following him down with the swing of her ax.

A forest ranger grabbed the discarded weapon and slashed at an acolyte. Another pulled a flaming tree branch from the fire and swung, blood and embers flying upon impact.

Astrid dodged the two who came at her, spinning away from their knives and, in one fell swoop, slashed the backs of their knees with her claws. Both howled in pain. Their throats went next.

A third came charging toward her, a war cry on her lips. Astrid sought the moisture in her body, willing it to freeze and expand. The acolyte burst into a frozen pulp midstride, spattering her face and dress with ice-cold blood.

“You killed my wife!” someone shouted in her ear, a rough hand seizing her shoulder in a bruising grip.

Wordlessly, she reached for his hand and sent glacial currents into his body, freezing him rock-solid from the inside out. One great swing from her new antlers, and he shattered to pieces.

She slew her way to Gudarīks’s side. Biting, clawing, freezing.

The man who dared flay her love stood guard, brandishing his carving knife, still glistening red with blood. He took several swipes at her in quick succession, the first grazing her arm, the rest narrowly missing as she twisted and turned out of harm’s way. But this was not a dance she wanted to continue.

Snarling, she caught his wrist, crushing bone and freezing the knife right out of his hand. Yelping, the man jerked back, but she held fast.

If there were time, she’d flay him—an eye for an eye and all that—but she’d settle for his heart. She punched into his rib cage, fingers finding the wet, beating muscle and ripping it out. Shock froze his features, wide-eyed and mouth gaping. Astrid bit into the organ like an apple—not half-bad—and spat the piece in his face. When she let go of his wrist, he slumped to the ground in a heap.

Licking the blood from her lips, she turned to Gudarīks.

A ghost, she had to be. His Astrid, a blood-soaked goddess of vengeance, alive right here, right now, rescuing him, rescuing all of them. It was too good to be true. No, this had to be a pain-induced delusion. She’d been shot. Her life’s blood still stained his hands.

But the claws, the rack of antlers that sprouted from her scalp, adorning it like a crown, were so like his. And that dazzling smile, full of bloodied, razor-sharp teeth. She was so beautiful and glorious his chest hurt with yearning.

Please let this be real.

The disappointment would destroy him if it weren’t.

Lifting his tormentor’s heart to his mouth, Astrid murmured sweetly, “Eat, Liebe. You need to regain your strength.”

Liebe . Tears streaked down his bony cheeks.

“Oh, Liebling.” She cupped his cheek, the press of her fingers cool and soothing, and so very real. “I’m here. The ritual worked.”

He leaned into her touch, soaking in a sensation he never thought he’d feel again. “I thought I lost you.”

“I know, but lucky for us both, I’m not that easy to get rid of. Now eat.”

And ever her most ardent supplicant, he ate the offering from the palm of her hand.

The moment she cut him free, he dragged a knuckle down her lower lip, covered in blood that was not her own. “Why, Liebe, what big teeth you have.”

She grinned. “The better to slay our enemies with.”

He kissed her fiercely, two parts love, one part lust and the other longing, all mixed with the blood of his torturer. His mind, body, and soul were hers for all of eternity, but most of all his wildly beating heart.

It was a short, hard kiss. They had work to do; there’d be time for more later.

He tested his limbs, shaking them out, getting a sense for their strength. Still fatigued, but Astrid being alive and well and thriving had greatly restored his spirits. The Wiederg?nger’s heart was a nice boost, too.

With Astrid by his side, he entered the fray, cutting down and devouring every acolyte in his path. Astrid flung icy projectiles.

No words passed between them, just an unspoken agreement to never part while they fought. After almost losing her, he couldn’t bear to be anywhere but in her orbit. And it seemed she felt the same.

The forest rangers and Suri had banded together, moving as a unit as they slashed, stabbed, and hacked, avenging their fallen colleague. Their enemies’ numbers had dwindled into the single digits. It wouldn’t be long now before they were wiped out completely.

One of the few acolytes left standing wielded a makeshift torch, pulled from the bonfire, trying frantically to light the nearby trees on fire. To what purpose was anyone’s guess—distraction? Or just senseless destruction for destruction’s sake?

Before Gudarīks could put a stop to it, Johanna thwacked the arsonist over the head with an ax, cleaving the man’s skull into two.

Impressive . He never would’ve thought the forest ranger had it in her, but like a warrior of old, she felled her foes left and right, barely batting an eye at the carnage left in her wake.

Catching his eye, Johanna shrugged. “Don’t be mean to trees.”

No, indeed.

The forest rangers were ruthless in their quest for vengeance. He supposed being forced to watch a friend be skinned alive would irrevocably change someone and recalibrate their moral compass.

Astrid paused her slaughter to survey the skirmish. And he followed suit, enraptured by her wrathful beauty.

Silvery, white hair billowed with the winter wind. Several wayward strands curled around a crown of antlers that matched his own, and he itched to untangle them and trace the topography of the prongs.

A once-white nightgown clung to her skin, soaked through with blood, and oh, how he loved the color red on her. It painted her chin and coated her breasts. Begging to be licked clean.

He bumped his hand against Astrid’s, brushing a finger along her long, black claws. They looked so pretty and wicked on her. They’d feel even better entangled in his fur or wrapped around his...

Stars above, that nightgown was ruining his focus.

The corner of her mouth quirked up, as if sensing his thoughts, and she looped their forefingers together. “Focus, Liebe.” Shards of ice emerged from the palm of her other hand, ready for release. “Which one’s Heldin?”

He tore his gaze away to scan the scene. “The better question is, where is Heldin?”