Chapter 17
Jon
Róisín stepped across the jagged remnants of glass clinging to the cylinder that had housed her.
Even when her bare feet pressed over shards and drew inky dark blood from her, she moved without flinching.
I couldn’t detect even a hint of glee on her face in response to her freedom from the choking control of the cylinder, but she did carry a spark of life I had yet to see from her. A focus.
As she descended from the back of the van like falling silk, frantic orders began echoing across the loading bay. I ducked behind the van and inserted a fresh magazine into the semi-automatic.
My heart thudded at a runaway rhythm as I peered through the gap between the van and one of its open back doors. My left arm still sent white-hot shoots of pain with every movement.
I wasn’t sure what I expected from Róisín—chanted words or a wave of her hands like Sylvia, maybe. My close encounters with earth affinity fairies had me second-guessing myself. We were surrounded by concrete and metal. Could a forest nymph even tap into the earth from here?
She stood perfectly at peace, seemingly unaware of the dark formation of masked guards approaching with their rifles raised.
“Get on the ground!” one near the front snapped. “Nice and easy.”
She didn’t move. Even then, they didn’t open fire. Maybe they were under threat about damaging such a rare and valuable asset.
As she tilted her head back, Róisín’s eyes fluttered like she was in a trance or ready to drop into a dead faint.
The ground began to shiver like a mounting earthquake. Murmurs of uncertainty flitted among the guards. Just as suddenly as it started, the shaking paused.
And then all hell broke loose.
I was thrown off my feet as the concrete beneath us exploded with multiple ruptures.
Vegetation burst through the openings, entire trees climbing high toward the ceiling in a matter of seconds, roots and bark destroying the flooring in its path.
As I got my bearings, I watched as the rapidly growing trees speared several guards with branches.
Others were devoured entirely by the trunks that were morphing into existence.
Viscera clung to wood, bones snapping and creaking like the branches themselves.
Strangely, none of it felt vindictive. They were just in the way, and the environment taking form was too ancient to notice the lives it was mowing down.
The chaos spread, an earthen humidity and scent taking hold around me. Nearby vans were turned onto their sides and swallowed by foliage, glass shattering and cages bursting open from sheer impact.
Cursing, I bolted in time to avoid being crushed by the van that had housed Róisín.
An earsplitting shriek came from my right. I fired my weapon, immediately catching the shaggy monster charging at me off guard. The howler staggered, then lowered its head to charge at me with its pointed horns.
Wheeling around just in time, I yanked a silver knife from the body of a fallen guard and drove it into the creature’s neck. My fractured arm trembled with shockwaves of agony, and the creature’s dying cry was deafening enough to rattle my vision.
As my senses cleared, the cacophony around me only grew.
Róisín’s pale form was up ahead. She took slow, light-footed steps along the row of vans, the forest spreading in her wake.
Any guard that dared get in the way of the growth swiftly became part of it, and the ones wisening up enough to stand clear were soon overwhelmed by the creatures bursting into violent freedom.
Overhead, I swore I heard screams amongst the cracking of the ceiling, but I was too concerned with what was happening on the ground.
Bullets punched and whizzed among the trees. Lee moved from tree to tree amidst the chaos, trying to regroup with me. Behind him, a guard raised his gun, but he didn’t have an opportunity to fire.
An ahool swooped down, plucking the guard from the ground.
Lee flinched from the screams, but kept his eyes on me as he made his way in my direction.
A second ahool leapt from a branch and tried to lay claim to the screaming guard.
The monsters’ predatory struggle ended in a rip of flesh and half the body being thrown against one of the trees with a sickening crack.
“Don’t look,” I breathed as Lee finally staggered to my side.
“No need to tell me,” he said, shuddering. “I’m already about to puke from the fucking sound.”
The ahools swept out of sight, but a couple of ghouls approached the fallen half-corpse hungrily. I shot them down at once and urged Lee to follow behind me in search of Róisín.
As howls of pain popped in all directions, an unsettling sense of satisfaction burned through me.
The guards weren’t the wealthy invitees upstairs making a game and profit of these nightmares, but they were more than complicit.
And every guard alerted to come in here was one less that could point a gun at Cliff and Sylvia.
But as the forest became redder, I had to wonder—can we contain this?
As though reading my thoughts, Lee panted beside me, “What the fuck did you unleash?”
Something to bring this place to its knees.
Stunned, I drank in the destruction. Perhaps it was more like sheer, unfathomable creation.
I would have never known this place was a loading bay constructed from concrete.
It was pure woodland with a canopy so thick that I couldn’t even make out the ceiling.
The only sign of its true form came from the fluorescent lights peeking through the branches—the ones that were still operating at least.
For all I knew, the entire hotel would soon collapse on us. And then how far would it spread? Past the hotel, into Aspen, the entire fucking state of Colorado? I would have to kill Róisín before allowing that, but was that even possible?
“Mierda! Stop here.” I pulled Lee to a halt, hiding in the shadow of a tree.
A monstrous snake was fighting with a pair of harpies over a guard’s corpse. One of the winged beasts divebombed with gnarled claws, catching one of the snake’s eyes and ripping it apart. With a shriek, the snake snapped its jaws around its attacker. The other fled in search of an easier meal.
Just as the serpent was starting on the guard’s body, I swung out partway and put a burst of bullets into its brain with my pistol. It didn’t have time to screech again before it collapsed dead on the forest floor.
Further ahead, an alp shapeshifted into a wildcat and launched itself at a guard whose armor was already shredded. The creature found the guard’s throat. A nearby crocotta mimicked the gurgling screams that ensued.
Before I could take aim, bullets flew from elsewhere and took out both creatures in quick succession.
Tammy.
I caught a glimpse of her dress before she disappeared into the shrubbery, chasing the shriek of another monster.
“Do you feel that?” Lee muttered. “The ground’s gone still.”
Relief prepared to take hold, but movement from the corner of my eye made me turn and take aim.
Róisín. Sections of her dress were splattered in blood, her pearly white hair pink with little bits of gore. I kept my gun raised as she came to a stop mere feet away from me.
“It is done,” she said. Although she didn’t smile, a glint danced in her eyes. “Are you pleased, hunters?”
Lee gave a little scoff but didn’t correct her. He peered at the blood-watered forest. “Something like that,” he said.
Monsters all dead. Eros' armed guards dead or unconscious. By all accounts, the loading bay was clear.
Breathing heavily, I dared to lower my gun. She did stop. She wasn’t going to keep spreading her wrath upon the innocents out in the world. Still, a voice at the back of my head begged me to kill her now while she least expected it. A voice that sounded like Tammy’s.
If I waited any longer, Tammy would do it herself.
“Get out of here,” I said.
Róisín blinked at me. “You made a request, and I answered it in full. It is only right that you listen to my request in return.”
An angry chill crawled down my spine. “I’m letting you live. What else could you want?”
“You carry a silver blade upon you.”
“I’m not going to drive it into your back the second you turn away. Just go before I change my mind.”
An odd energy resonated from her, humming through the forest like it shared a pulse with her. She tilted her head up and breathed deeply, admiring the trees. The smallest hint of a smile graced her lips, and for a second, I saw the type of beauty that could drive a person insane.
“I can think of no better place,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone. She looked at me beseechingly. “Let my lifeblood spill upon my final creation. I humbly beg you, hunter.”
Lee and I shared an equally disturbed look, but there was no mistaking her sincerity.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” I asked, the ire in my voice softening.
“More than anything.” She slowly closed the space between us and lifted a hand to caress my cheek. She searched my eyes like she could find some unreachable answer in them. “If there is ever a realm where his forgiveness can be found, it is not in this one.”
A few years ago, I would have been overjoyed to comply with her request. But now, a part of me mourned that she wouldn’t have a chance to see the outside of a cage any further than this before she died.
But she was ancient and dangerous, and she had made up her mind.
I pulled the small silver blade from my pocket.
Gently, I guided Róisín to lie upon a mossy patch of ground.
She mostly kept her attention on the forest canopy, but her eyes flickered to me with warmth every few seconds.
It struck me again—how fragile she felt as I wrapped my left hand around her shoulder to steady her.
“Thank you,” I said. Without her, this would have been next to impossible.
She leaned into my touch tenderly, but I got the sense she was picturing someone else.
Who knew how long she’d been in that glass cage, or when was the last time she’d felt a kind touch?
She was a perfect, unearthly beauty, lying there.
I could understand, even through ample caution, why people would go mad venturing into the woods for just a taste of those perfect, lonely lips.
“I think that person you lost would be proud of what you’ve done here,” I said, glancing at the righteous carnage and foliage that littered the bay. I wasn’t sure what possessed me to say it, but it felt right when Róisín smiled ever so slightly.
“Eoin,” she murmured. “Yes. Perhaps he would.”
I watched her face the entire time as I drove the silver blade into her heart. She made a soft noise: something between a frightened gasp and a grateful sigh. As the light left her eyes, I swore the forest withered slightly.
Slowly, I pulled my blade free, the metal sliding cleanly back through flesh and bone.
Róisín’s blood inked through her pearlescent gown, ruining the illusion that she was some glittering spirit.
Now, she was just another body. A monster.
But something in my chest squeezed at that sightless expression on her face. I closed her eyelids before standing.
Foliage rustled. I felt eyes on us before I turned. Achingly familiar eyes I’d never thought I’d be at odds with.