Chapter 28 Hector #2
Sudden relief washed over me just as the dark power engulfed us. I felt the floor fall away from me, so I held on to Kai just that bit tighter. A kitten purred. A serpent snapped its fanged jaws. We existed in nothing but endless night, floating meaninglessly amongst stars.
A familiar voice sang out from the darkness. “Well, this truly is an exciting turn of events.”
I couldn’t even begin to reply before we were evicted from the safety of Kai’s conjured dark.
His body was torn out of my grasp. The dull light returned. Nothing bright, but also not the endless black of demonic power. And then I was rolling, spinning so quickly that I couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
I pinched my eyes closed to steady my spinning brain. It ached in my skull. Hell, all of me ached. But that discomfort was nothing to the pain of hundreds of decaying teeth and nails ripping into my body.
Once my body stopped tumbling over itself, I opened my wary eyes and looked up to find a person stood above me. They were upside down, or maybe I was? Either way, I could’ve screamed with joy at seeing them.
“Romy,” I gargled up at my friend, her worried face crowned by the star-filled sky. “Hi.”
“What—how—Hector Briar.”
I sat up, body aching, mind immediately going to Kai.
I couldn’t see him at first, not as I swept the area around me.
Then I spotted two motionless legs sticking out from behind a gravestone.
Yes, the gravestones were everywhere. We were still in the trial, still surrounded by a sea of potential threats…
Except the zombies were nowhere to be seen.
“Kai,” I exhaled, scrambling over to get to him. “Check on him.”
“Oh my god,” Romy exhaled, piecing together what was happening. “Hector, what have you done!”
Nothing, I wanted to say, but my tongue was heavy as led, and my jaw clenched together.
“You are a well-seasoned liar,” Emon added.
I ignored him, blocking his mocking voice out of my head. If snakes could laugh, Emon was certainly giggling.
Kai was breathing, but barely. Romy was fussing over him, back hunched as she cowered atop his body, laying fingers on every pulse point. Tears spilled down her face as she clutched the man in her arms, rocking back and forth like she was going to lose him all over again.
When she spun on me, her eyes were wild with fury. “What. Have. You. Done?”
I lifted my hands in defeat. “We were attacked. Zombies. Hundreds of them. Kai—I took the risk and used Bahmet’s power to save us. It worked.”
“Does he look saved to you?” Romy gasped, eyes flickering to something behind me.
Emon let out a long hiss, but this time it wasn’t aimed at me. It was a warning.
I turned around and found someone stood a few feet away from me. She looked worse for wear, but nowhere near as pained as I’d last seen her.
Verena hobbled a step closer, brows soft with a sorrowful expression. “Let me see the boy.”
I thought she meant me for a second, until she barged past me and fell at Kai’s free side. No one seemed to care that a little black-furred kitten was sat on his belly, hissing at them. Apparently we were all used to strange goings-on these days.
Romy looked up at Verena, eyes glistening wet. “He is asthmatic.”
I would’ve pumped a fist, but it wasn’t the right time or place. I’d keep my silent gloating to myself.
“And yet he is still breathing,” Verena replied, “without medication which is a good sign. It is going to take some time to calm him down and he will be fine.”
“Umm,” I said, lifting a finger to interrupt. “We actually don’t have time. Did you hear the bit I said about the zombies?”
Both women shot me a look so identical and sudden, the blood drained from my face.
No. There was no way. I blinked, wanting to rub my fists in my eyes just to see if it was the panic that made me see it, or the trick of the light. By the time I did, they were focused back on Kai.
“Hold him close to you,” Verena said to Romy. “It’s calming him down. See. Relax him enough that the tension in his body abates, and he can breathe easily again.”
Romy nodded, trembling hands running over Kai’s face, leaving track marks in the mud that covered him. She shushed him, rocking slightly, whispering words that my ears couldn’t pick up.
Verena gave them space, using a gravestone to get standing again, a wince creasing across her face. When she looked back at me, it was with trepidation.
I got it. After all, she was a Hunter. A witch, but a Hunter too. And yet, there was something in my gut telling me that she wasn’t a threat.
Perhaps it was because Romy was still alive, which meant in the time they’d been together during the trial, nothing amiss had happened.
Or, and more obvious as an answer, perhaps it was because Verena looked so much like Romy. Almost identical.
The eyes. The complexion. The way her emotions read out in every crease and line across her face.
But no. There was no way.
“Who are—”
Verena lifted a finger to her lips and shook her head, all in a sense of saying, ‘not now’.
Emon coiled tighter around my forearm, little scales pinching my skin. “Now this is thrilling. If I had sleeves to roll up for dramatic effect, I would.”
My adrenaline left me in a rush. I turned to the side, doubled over, and emptied every item of food I’d eaten last atop an unmarked grave.
Every. Last. Thing.