Chapter 22 #2
“Only exceptionally powerful casters have been able to affect us,” Hart said. “We have to assume that Kellan is very powerful.”
Avery snorted and then covered his mouth and nose.
“Care to share with the class?” Black asked.
“Well…I just hear rumors. Not that I gossip! They just forget that I’m in the room, you know? Like furniture,” Avery said.
Echo made a sad noise.
“Well, what’s the tea?” Black asked, skipping closer. “Tell me, tell me, tell me.”
Avery backed off. “Uh, well, people say that Kellan isn’t that powerful. That he only got the job for other reasons.”
“That research you were talking about earlier, perhaps?” Hart said.
Avery’s eyes widened like he hadn’t put that together. The machinations of the politics of Nexus flying right over his head.
“So he’s magically limp?” Wren said.
“Crass,” Hart said. “But it would seem that way.”
“So who put the bamboozle on us?” Ash asked. “Is Kellan working with the eye cult?”
“What is the eye cult?” Echo asked.
Black smacked Ash in the stomach. “Good one, dumbass.”
“We don’t know. They seem to be a group connected to these powerful casters and they seem to be in both cities,” Wren said.
“Does Nexus know about this?” Heir asked.
“Yes,” Wren said. “Still drinking the Nexus juice?”
Every member of the Arcstead team besides Saint frowned and exchanged glances.
“Whatever the case. We can’t sit here and belabor it. We just need to be more careful,” Trace said, pushing aside the building unease for practicality.
They dusted themselves off and looked around for the way forward again. Sable’s growl caught Wren’s attention, and he glanced over to see him crouched down low, locked on to something in the distance.
Wren crept closer, trying to see what Sable saw, freezing, his hair standing on end when another slow heartbeat reached his ears.
He didn’t know where it was coming from, but he instinctively knew it was connected to the venom still running through his system.
Something was out there. And that something was watching them.
A predator.
“Nobody make any sudden moves,” Wren said quietly.
“What?” Echo squeaked, turning himself into a statue.
Midas signed, “What’s going on?”
“Danger,” Wren signed back. “Something big. It’s stalking us right now. Hunting.”
They passed the signing around and whispered to the Arcstead team members who didn’t understand. They grew paler with fear.
“I’m going to try and draw it off,” Wren signed.
“No, you’re fucking not,” Midas immediately signed back. “It’s more than likely cursed.”
“I know. Just trust me. Keep following the trail and I’ll meet you there. Teddy needs us as soon as possible.”
Midas flexed his jaw, but they both knew Wren was best equipped to deal with this. “Take the new guy.”
Wren pulled a face and Midas raised a brow. “Fine.”
The message got passed around again and Saint silently swore to himself, but he traded glances with Wren then nodded.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Avery signed. “I’ll give you some cover.”
Wren tilted his head, watching Avery pull a pouch from his trousers. He began sifting through it, getting distracted by a few trinkets that were mixed in with the magic components.
“I was looking for this,” he said brightly, completely forgetting the circumstances as he held it up for Midas to see.
“Avery,” Midas signed slowly.
Avery glanced around at the incredulous, staring faces. “Oh. Right.”
He reached inside his collar and pulled on a thin chain. It came out with a small, teardrop-shaped vial hanging off the end of it. He uncorked it and drew out some silver dust. Immediately every cursebreaker straightened their backs, feeling a cascade of powerful magic begin to build.
Wren watched him work, shivering when he realized he had been looking at an untestable. Above level nine. Above what history books claimed was the most powerful.
Wren had never met his equal, and all that power had been hidden behind dusty warehouse walls, dressed up in argyle socks, spectacled glasses, and awful sweater vests.
Wren met Midas’s gaze, silently asking if he had known all along. Midas gave him a small nod before looking away just as Avery’s power spread outward, a creeping fog being breathed into life by the caster.
It spread from him, quickly enclosing them in a dense cloud.
Wren nodded to Saint and they burst out of the other side of it, Sable and Blu following them.
“Do you have a plan?” Saint panted as Sable streaked ahead to lead the way.
“Not as such,” Wren said, glancing over his shoulder.
Bushes were moving, and a roar soon followed, reverberating in Wren’s chest as thundering steps chased them.
Whatever it was, it was big and no longer being quiet.
“Well that’s just peachy. We have about five seconds before it catches us and picks its teeth with our bones!”
“We need to break whatever curse Kellan put on it.”
“That would require us getting close to it, and it doesn’t seem so friendly.”
“You do this for a living. Surely you’ve seen worse.”
“I like bugs! I specialize in bugs! That thing sounds like a dinosaur!”
Blu let out a warning chirp before Wren could reply, and he shoved Saint to the side just as the creature sprang for them.
It was massive. Coiled muscles and a long, powerful body covered in golden fur that was matted and patchy. Its giant head was half the size of Wren’s body, each of its teeth the size of Wren’s forearm, as magnificent as it was deadly.
Wren recognized its unfamiliar shape as a liger, bred for maximum damage and aggression and Wren didn’t need Blu to tell him it was radiating cursed magic. Its eyes were glowing red, foam dripping from its slavering mouth, and there was a collar around its neck.
Sable jumped onto its back as it turned to face them, getting a swipe in at its side before jumping off and scaling a tree as the liger tried to bite back.
Wren rolled to his feet and hurried to get Saint back up as well. They ran in a different direction, snaking around some trees to try and slow it down.
He heard Sable moving through the trees overhead before he jumped back down to lead them again, Blu keeping an eye on their backs.
“We can’t keep playing kiss chase with this thing. I’m already about to collapse,” Saint wheezed.
Wren could feel his own legs burning, his lungs fighting for air.
“Have you got any tranquilizers on you?”
Saint patted his small satchel. “Enough to put down a horse, not a mythical beast the size of a bus.”
“I suppose we’re about to find out how much it takes.”
“We are?” Saint squeaked. “How? We can’t get close to that thing.”
Wren gave him a smile. “Ever heard of something called a Hail Mary?”
“Of course I have. It was what we did when we ran off into the woods alone in the first place! What has that got to do with this?”
“In the cursebreaker space, that shit was named after me.”
“What?”
“Look it up later. Now, you’re going to go left and circle back around.”
“What—”
“LEFT!”
Saint cursed and ran left as Wren stopped in his tracks in a small clearing of trees, there was just enough space for him to maneuver, but not enough for the liger.
Sable stood at his hip and Blu hovered overhead, ready to face it together. Wren wished he could convince them to leave, but he knew it was futile. They were connected and he needed to trust them just like they’d trusted him.
The liger, seeing three prey instead of one, concentrated on Wren like he knew it would. It slowed its gait and began prowling toward him, winding its massive body through the trees, making some of the smaller ones shake and creak.
Wren kept some distance, moving in a circle as it did and never showing his back.
“Okay, darling, let’s see if we can talk about this,” Wren said.
He received a growl in answer. Sable snarled back.
“I know that asshole hurt you. He hurt me too. He’s hurting someone I care about very much right now. So you and me are going to have to come to some sort of agreement here.”
Huge paws with claws the size of stakes continued their journey toward him. Red eyes flashed with madness, and Wren couldn’t see a way through the haze. He could feel a visible block, the cursework stronger than anything he’d had to break before.
It seemed to enrage the liger more, likely by design, and it roared, pouncing for him.
Wren barely moved out the way in time, feeling a stray claw clip his arm and immediately sending blood pouring.
He hissed at the sting, clutching the area as he hurried away while Sable darted forward and took a swipe for the liger’s maw in retaliation.
They traded blows, Sable keeping to the backside to try and bring the liger down and avoid the worst of its bites and swipes. But it was only so long before a hit sent him flying.
Wren dove in front of Sable with his arms stretched out.
Wren could feel the effects of the venom still lingering in his system, and he tried to remember what it had felt like in the machine. How he had managed to draw on that power when he needed it.
Wren could feel his heart racing with fear, but he held strong as the liger approached, blood on its mouth and body from the fight.
“Please let me help you,” Wren begged, staring into the creature’s eyes and looking for a way in past the madness and bloodlust.
He could almost feel its hurt, the beat of its heart in time with his own.
It shook its head like it was trying to shake him off and took another step toward him. Wren didn’t back up, he let it come, pushing at that spot.
The next step, the liger hesitated, growling and shaking its head again. Wren made sure to keep eye contact and saw Saint creeping up from behind in his peripheral vision.
Sensing something, the liger tried to turn but Wren knew it would be over if it did.
Throwing caution to the wind, he jumped forward and grabbed the creature around its massive skull, pushing with all his magic against the barrier.
With hands on it he could feel the curse pulsing under his fingers and did his best to burn it away, the leftover venom in his body fighting the strength of the curse.
Saint sprinted over and emptied a fistful of needles into the liger at once, scrambling back out of the way as the liger roared and pulled out of Wren’s hold, swiping at nothing.
Wren barely avoided being eviscerated as he backed up, hunkering down. “Calm, darling. Just calm,” he crooned.
“Wren, get out of there!” Saint called. “I don’t think that’s going to put it down.”
“He’s just scared,” Wren said, not moving further than he had to.
The liger was disoriented, the tranquilizer and Wren’s lingering magic fighting against the curse that still lingered. It swayed on its feet before falling, and Wren hurried over to place hands on its head again.
“It’s okay,” he said as he reached for the rest of the curse.
It fought against him, trying to shove him out, but Wren gritted his teeth, closing it in an angry mental fist, and squeezed it until all that was left was pain and vulnerability in a creature that had never deserved to be used like this.
He stroked its head with his bloodied hand. “It’s okay.” He realized he could feel the liger in the back of his head, the same way he had in the machine with the snakes. He met its intelligent eyes with his own. “Can you help me?”
The liger growled.
He pushed an image of Kellan through his mind and the liger roared, making Saint jump in fright.
“I want him dead too,” Wren said. “Can you lead us there?”
The liger was quiet for a moment before it rose slowly, grumbling in its barrel chest. Wren got up too and removed the collar from around its neck, realizing it was a shock collar with insane voltage.
Something to keep an animal like this under control for when they wanted to pass through the woods. It also had a tracker.
Wren chucked it aside and turned to Saint. “I think I got us a guide.”
“Oh. My. God,” Saint puffed out, collapsing on the ground himself. “You’re insane. Absolutely insane.”