Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
The phone rings at six in the morning when I’m curled up with Chase’s pillow instead of the man himself.
I frown, then glance around to find Chase standing naked in the kitchen area and speaking into his phone.
I try not to stare, but that’s obviously not happening.
So, instead, I try not to eavesdrop, but that’s harder than it sounds in a studio, and I hear clear as a bell when he says, “I’ll check it out,” then ends the call.
“What’s going on?”
He turns to me. “You’re up,” he says, then pours two cups of coffee. He brings them over and hands one to me, and I take it with a happy sigh, because a gorgeous, god-like, naked man is foisting caffeine upon me.
The sigh’s got a frustrated edge, though, because I’m quite certain that the coffee will need to be dumped into a to-go cup, and that despite his current au natural state, he’s off to check something out, and my morning sex fantasy is about to get kicked to the curb.
I push myself up off the bed. “Do I have time for a shower, at least?”
“Not if you want to come along.”
“Right,” I say, then pull on yesterday’s clothes as he rummages jeans and a T-shirt from a laundry basket. “So what’s going on?”
He picks up his phone, taps the screen, then passes it to me. I glance down at what I realize is footage from one of the cameras Tia and Riley set up near the Widow Maker. It’s black and white, grainy, and timestamped 5:38 a.m.
The angle catches the lower part of the trunk, the dead grass, and a slice of the walkway beyond.
And right there—as creepy as fuck—is a figure dragging itself out from between the twined and exposed roots at the base of the Widow Maker’s trunk.
The creature is low to the ground. Not crawling, exactly—more like dragging itself across the dead grass toward the bushes on the far side of the paved walkway.
I watch as the shadowy figure drags itself a little further, then it looks up, and its mouth moves, possibly drawing a breath, possibly trying to speak.
After that, it collapses, and the clip ends.
“A wounded mare?”
“Not sure.
“Where is it now?” I ask, yanking on my jeans and scanning the floor for my bra.
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
He’s already pulling on his hip holster with his silver knife, both mostly camouflaged by his untucked shirt. “Ready?”
I give up on the bra and yank a tee over my head. “Hell, yeah.”
No way am I staying behind. If it’s a person, I want to know who. And if it’s something else...well, I want to know that as well.
A minute later, we’re outside and walking fast toward campus. It’s Sunday, and except for a few joggers, we’re the only people around.
Soon enough, we’re at the Widow Maker. I suck in a breath, shocked by how much the dead zone has grown overnight. The brown circle has eaten another foot of grass and has reached the walkway. A dead bird lies on the concrete at the edge. The cameras are still on their poles.
But the figure we saw on the video feed is nowhere to be found.
“Hedges,” I say.
He nods, and we move toward the row of hedges about twenty feet out.
At first, I see nothing and wonder if the figure on the video managed to get itself up and scamper away.
Then I see the dirt-covered sole of a boot. I signal to Chase, then stand very still as he moves forward, kneels, then reaches into the hedge and pushes a branch aside.
I can only see his back from where I am, but I can tell that he’s gone very, very still. “Chase?” The word is barely a whisper.
“Come here.” His voice is firm but flat.
I hesitate, my stomach in knots, then move to his side.
And there, in the gap between the hedges, half-curled on his side in the dirt and looking beat up and half-dead, is a man I last saw in a Nightmare Realm desert before Kali’s wolves dragged him away. His eyes are closed, but his chest is rising. Barely.
“Whistler,” Chase says, his voice low and solemn.
Whistler doesn’t open his eyes. But his mouth moves and the words are clear—“Took. You. Long. Enough.”
Chase is on the phone with Mr. Griffin in seconds, and I listen as he outlines the situation, his voice breaking with the news.
“Get him here,” Mr. Griffin says, with a calm, controlled tone that suggests he’s having to work to hold himself together. “Come as fast as you can. I’ll start pulling supplies.”
Chase ends the call without a goodbye, then gently lifts Whistler as if the man weighed nothing.
I imagine he doesn’t. Not that Whistler was brawny—from what I’ve learned, the natives from the Unseen tend toward small. But he was compact and muscular.
Now, he looks like a meal, not a man.
I shudder, remembering those wolves. I have no idea how he survived, but damn, I want to.
I have to really work to keep up with Chase, and I’m breathing hard as I keep my eyes on my mangled friend.
His face is gaunt and gray-yellow. As we hurry along, a crude bandage falls off his hand, revealing two missing fingers.
At least I think it’s two. I don’t remember how many fingers he had, and his other hand is hidden by Chase’s body.
What I can see is that the remaining fingers healed badly.
Like they’d been broken, and someone set them wrong.
But he’s alive. Broken and battered, but alive. And that’s a thing I never expected.
At the bookstore, Chase hurries down to the training area, now set up like a MASH unit.
Mr. Griffin is already there, looking like he hasn’t slept in weeks, and I make a mental note to ask Chase what barrier-related task Mr. Griffin is working on that’s weighing so heavily.
Mr. Griffin gestures to the table that’s been down here since Riley walked us through her discovery. “Gently, son.”
Chase nods, then carefully deposits Whistler on the wooden tabletop. As one, he and Griff quickly remove Whistler’s filthy clothes and a few dressings.
I want to look away, but I don’t seem able to. I’m shocked into silent paralysis by my friend’s missing fingers, bruises, scars from bites, and fresh bite marks, too. And that’s not all. Entire sections of flesh are red and raw, as if he’d been dragged across asphalt.
I look away, hating to think how that happened.
Whistler’s eyes flick open, and he groans, then turns his head to scan the room. “Sorry,” he says, his voice little more than a rasp. “I think I’m late for the party.”
“But you’re here now,” Mr. Griffin says, his voice thick.
As he speaks, Mr. Griffin’s hands move over Whistler, putting on small dressings and salves. But as he strips off Whistler’s shirt, he sucks in air. I see it, too. A long, deep cut that’s black and oozing, the skin around it bright red from the heat of a fever.
Whistler groans, then passes out, and I can only assume that the exposure of the wound to air was too much for him to handle.
I move to Chase’s side, and he pulls me close, his arm around my shoulder. “Mr. Griffin?” I say, hating the fear in my voice.
Griff shakes his head, then covers Whistler in a blanket, presumably to help with the chills from his fever. “This is beyond me,” he whispers. “The fingers I can set. And I have salve for the wounds. But there’s internal damage, and that’s beyond my skill.
“I know,” Chase says again, then looks to me.
“You weren’t this bad off,” I whisper, understanding what he’s asking. “And she wasn’t the one who saved you.”
“She’s the only hope he’s got. She’s Adric’s best healer.”
I nod, then move to Whistler’s side. “I’ll take him to her.”
But Chase shakes his head. “He’ll never survive the crossing. Bring her back. Make whatever deal you have to, but bring her back with you.”
I nod. Then I draw a breath, meet Chase’s eyes, and step out of this realm.