Chapter Forty-Two
SETH
Abandoning the ATVs in the foothills, the three of us race toward the cabin, ignoring the trees falling down all around us and adding to the hazard the wildfire already creates.
I can feel the heat of the flames, but all it reminds me is that Aurelia might be feeling them too.
We’d already glimpsed the cabin on fire once we were high enough. Had she gotten out in time?
We shouldn’t have left her.
Our paranoia over keeping her safe might just be the reason we lose her forever.
A helicopter flies overhead, no doubt alerting the sheriff and emergency services of the fire destroying everything.
I expected no less of Isaac than to burn down Zeke’s refuge and any feeling of safety.
Rabbits, squirrels, wolves, deer, and even a family of bears forced to leave their homes race by us in the opposite direction, toward the safety of Maia and Little Bear while the three of us head into the thick of the danger.
For her.
Isaac is up there waiting for us, waiting for us to fall into the trap he’s set. But we were already too far away. There will be no time to plan, no time for caution, so we keep running at full speed up the fiery hill toward home, knowing that it might cost us our lives.
Finally, we’re closing in on our clearing, so Khalil, Thorin, and I slow our run to a creep, keeping our footsteps silent. It’s a few more feet before we see them. The robed figures scattered throughout the trees.
Jesus, there’s a fucking lot of them.
A few of the disciples are gathered in the clearing watching the cabin burn, and I search among them for Isaac. It’s not hard to spot him in the crowd of his disciples. The prick always had to be the center of attention. The crown jewel. He stands among them silent and unmoving.
Until someone screams.
The attention of everyone, including Isaac, turns toward the woodshed in time to see the body of one of the hooded disciples drop mysteriously to the ground.
“She’s out of the cabin!” a voice shouts.
“Where is she?”
“Does someone have eyes on her?”
“There she is! Get her!”
The air is thick with more than smoke, and I feel like I can’t breathe until I spot a small figure with golden curls darting away from the woodshed and into the trees on the other side of the clearing.
Aurelia.
She got out.
She must have found our secret tunnel and the key we hid in the walls.
Good girl. My relief is palpable, mingling with Thorin’s and Khalil’s as we watch our girl disappear from sight.
It’s all I can do not to rush after her when I see three or four disciples give chase.
But that would be foolish and counterproductive since there are about twenty more of them armed and standing in between us and Sunshine, not to mention the ones hiding in the trees with us.
“We need to get over there,” Thorin barks under his breath. “Now.”
“Come on. We’ll go around,” Khalil suggests.
We skirt the fire and hug the dark, killing as many disciples as we can without detection until one unknowingly puts himself in our path. We see his eyes widen with recognition through the mask, but then Thorin reaches out and snaps his neck before he has a chance to call out.
Hearing the body fall, another disciple nearby whirls around. “What was that?”
Khalil is already circling his position, getting behind him and closing in until he’s able to wrap a thick arm around the disciple’s neck and squeeze hard until the man slumps in his hold. Khalil lets his lifeless body fall to the ground.
When we left the cabin hours earlier, we only expected to make a quick run to the hardware store, so we went unarmed, something we never do.
It figures the one time we let our guard down in ten years, this happens.
I still have the deputy’s gun, the only weapon between the three of us, but there aren’t enough bullets for all of Isaac’s men, so I won’t use it until there’s no other choice.
I only need one for Isaac.
We’re still searching for Aurelia among the flames consuming the forest when we’re suddenly surrounded by twelve hooded figures.
“Ezekiel,” the sole masked disciple greets with his eyes locked on me.
There’s something about him that’s familiar but before I can poke at the memory, a massive branch engulfed in flames breaks off from a bent tree behind him.
The tree with its trunk aflame had been split in half from the fire and propped up by another tree with a burning crown.
The branch falls to the ground with a boom, but the masked disciple doesn’t flinch because he doesn’t fear death.
“The Savior is eager to meet again. Please. Come.”
There’s nothing we can do with their weapons trained on us, so we don’t fight them as we’re led out of the trees and into the clearing. Our home is little more than flames now, with only some of the structure remaining.
Gone.
The cabin is fucking gone.
“Savior, we have located the sacrifice,” the masked disciple announces. “We’ve found Ezekiel.”
Isaac turns and tilts his head, his gaze too discerning even behind the mask. “But that isn’t Ezekiel at all, is it?” The disciples surrounding him immediately tense as they look to each other in confusion and worry that they’ve failed him.
“Savior?”
“This is Seth. I remember him well. There’s a certain wildness to his eyes that can’t be hidden. Zeke begged me to stop. Seth laughed through the pain.”
“Yeah,” I say with a sneer, “but you screamed. Like a bitch if I recall. How’s your face, little bitch?”
Isaac reaches up and removes his mask. The charred skin around his lower jaw and cheekbone seems to split apart when he smiles.
“Just fine, thank you. You’ve helped me more than you know.
Because of your…intransigence I was able to show all of Death’s children that he will not forsake his most devout if we believe. ”
Great. I blowtorched his face and made him a goddamn living martyr. And I’m sure that’s when the masks became a part of the uniform. To protect Isaac’s vanity at being a fugly piece of shit now.
“You mean if your sheep convince someone who loved and trusted them to kill themselves so your followers can live forever. I’m just curious. What happens if one of you does die?”
“They’ll rise again of course.”
“And let me guess, if they don’t, you just tell your sheep they must not have been a true believer. Kind of a convenient pile of horseshit, don’t you think? Your retention rate of followers must be through the floor.”
Isaac’s smile wavers a little as he holds out a hand rather than answers my question. “Come with us, Seth. Quietly, and we’ll let these nonbelievers flee unharmed. You were so close the last time I had you on my table. I’m sure it will all be over soon.”
“Well, that would be a mistake,” Thorin says. “Since he isn’t going anywhere, we don’t flee, and we have every intention of harming you.”
Isaac turns toward one of the unmasked disciples and gives a short order. “Convince him.”
Thorin immediately shifts into a fighting stance as the disciple moves to obey, but he isn’t the only one.
Two of them grab Khalil before he can react.
They throw him to the ground and pin him there with knees on his back and feet on his arms while six others descend on Thorin and proceed to beat the shit out of him.
Of course, Thorin fights back and even gets the best of a couple, so more of the unmasked disciples join until there are so many I can’t see Thorin anymore.
I run forward to help, only managing to pull one of them out of a dozen off Thorin before I’m yanked back and shoved away. The disciples don’t restrain me though, and that’s a mistake. Instead, they create a wall between Thorin and me.
“Interfere again and that one will get the same treatment.” He points to Khalil, who is struggling and screaming obscenities and threats into the dirt. “Your friend is strong, but he isn’t one of us,” Isaac taunts. “He isn’t an Undying. He’s another lost soul for Thanatos.”
A disciple kicks Thorin in his jaw. The blow snaps his head to the side, and blood spews and hits the ground in a wet splatter. He doesn’t move after that.
“Stop! Stop! Stooop!” Feeling helpless, I crumble to my knees as I’m forced to watch Zeke’s friend—my friend—brutally beaten to death.
But Isaac doesn’t call them off, and he doesn’t lift a finger to end it.
He watches me with that unwavering smile as Thorin is beaten long after his grunts of pain end and he falls quiet and then deathly still.
Over the sound of my blood rushing, I think I hear Thorin’s ribs shatter and Khalil crying for him to get up.
Thorin doesn’t so much as twitch as he lies face down in the dirt.
“I said stop!” I don’t remember pulling the gun hidden in my waistband or shooting one of them in the head. There are still too many, but I can’t give a shit anymore. It’s Thorin. The disciple drops, and the rest of them quickly move away from Thor with wary eyes trained on me.
“You didn’t search him?” Isaac shouts.
I don’t see who he directs his ire at because my gaze is pinned on Thorin, waiting for him to get back up.
He doesn’t.
I don’t even think he’s breathing.
His face is mangled and blood coats his hair, and I’m pretty sure one of his arms looks broken.
Rage that tastes like ash and blood in the back of my throat rises up and I re-aim the gun.
Something akin to fear flickers in Isaac’s eyes once I have him staring down the barrel.
It’s gone in a flash when he remembers he’s not supposed to fear death, and his calm mask of control slips back into place.
“I can see that you won’t be moved so easily, Seth. That’s unfortunate.”
The masked disciple who captured us suddenly reaches for his mask and removes it. When his face and salt-and-pepper goatee come into view, I feel the edges of my vision turn black.
Not now, not now…