Chapter 46 #2
Stella tips her head in acknowledgment. Her gaze lingers on Elodie through a momentary hesitation before she dashes off. Heath casts about as if searching for a weapon and then jogs after her with a determined scowl.
The nearest cries, mingled with gulping sobs, are filtering through the brush on the other side of the path. I pick up my pace, pushing between the bushes.
The sobs come from higher than I expected. I peer between the leaves and make out a girl who can’t be more than sixteen perched on one of the lower boughs of a hunched maple tree. She’s clinging to the trunk, the side of her cardigan stained with an ominously dark blotch.
A void creature I think is an otter lunges at her from the ground, its claws scrabbling against the bark. Its snapping fangs only miss her dangling foot by a couple of inches.
Then a chittering squirrel bolts past the otter up the tree, heading straight for the girl like it’s possessed by a demon—which it might as well be.
I hurtle forward on instinct, my sword arcing through the air. The blade slams into the tree trunk and sends the squirrel’s vacant head careening to the ground off its now spasming body.
As the smaller void flops onto the grass, I realize my companions have spread out around the maple without being told. There’s another creature I hadn’t noticed alongside the otter: a snake slithering around the base of the trunk with an eerie rattle of its tail.
Byron sets off a flare of electricity right near the snake’s head, then another next to the otter.
I step closer with a wordless bellow, thumping the flat of my sword against the tree trunk.
Salvatore pounds his feet against the ground, and Elodie tosses another broken branch to crash on the ground near the creatures.
As the otter jerks closer to the snake in the midst of the cacophony, an unexpected exhilaration washes through my body.
We’re doing this together. Working alongside each other like a cohesive union. Almost like… a family.
I like how it feels.
And I made this possible. I did lead the way; I set us on a course to save at least three of our schoolmates.
Looking over at Salvatore and Byron, I know right down to my core that this is where I’m meant to be. That I belong here, with Elodie, just as much as they do.
With a few more hollers, the otter nearly trips over the snake. Salvatore summons another, smaller clay structure to encase the feral creatures. The girl’s frantic sobs dwindle into sniffles.
I’m just starting to turn when there’s a whoomph of motion and a gasp from where Elodie was standing.
I whip around in time to see her form vanishing between the trees as if she’s been flung by an invisible force. A groan and a whimper follow in quick succession.
Without an instant’s hesitation, all three of us race in the direction she was hurled.
A few steps between the nearby tree trunks, I slam into a barrier of ephemera. With a grunt of frustration, I throw my shoulder at it and only earn myself a bruise.
Next to me, Byron’s features tense with a glare. He rams his hands into the barrier with a roar of collected electricity.
The wall of condensed energy crumbles apart, and I throw myself forward.
At the base of a ragged pine, two figures are grappling with each other. A glint of moonlight catches the purple streaked through Elodie’s hair and the threads of silver mingled with the older woman’s.
The woman we saw Professor Jovak talking to—the one he called Gwyn. The one who warned him to make sure he did his job right, or she’d step in.
And here she is.
One of Gwyn’s arms sags limp at her side. Her ankle lies twisted at an unnatural angle.
Are those injuries she gave Elodie that Elodie’s glim propelled back at her?
Even as we stumble on the skirmish, the woman flicks the fingers of her unwounded hand. Salvatore tosses out a bolt of ephemera that knocks her arm back and pins her wrist to the ground before she can complete whatever vicious magic she meant to cast out.
Lightning flashes across the sky, bringing the scene into starker visibility. One bolt slams into the base of the surrounding trees and sends two toppling over on their sides. The impact reverberates through the ground.
As we stalk closer, Elodie and Gwyn roll over on the ground. Gwyn aims a warble of ephemera that has Elodie wincing… just seconds before Gwyn flinches in turn.
In the older woman’s distraction, Elodie scrambles into a crouch. She leans over Gwyn and points the serrated blade of her borrowed knife right over the other woman’s heart.
“Who are you?” she demands roughly. “Why are you trying to get rid of me?”
Gwyn simply glowers up at Elodie, her lips pressed defiantly flat. A hum rises through the air.
Byron sends a sliver of electricity at the side of the woman’s head. Her features twitch, though her eyes stay unglazed.
“Answer her questions,” he snaps.
Gwyn stays rigidly silent.
Elodie prods her with the knife again. “You’ve got to have some reason. Don’t you care whether you get murdered?”
As the woman makes a scoffing sound, a rustle in the underbrush draws my gaze. I only have time to yelp out Elodie’s name in warning before a mangy coyote flings itself into our midst.
It lunges right at the two figures on the ground, the easiest targets.
Elodie heaves herself away faster than I knew she was capable of, her knife flashing up. She doesn’t need it.
The void coyote falls on the prone woman instead.
Its fangs tear through Gwyn’s shirt and into her shoulder. Even in her stoicism, she can’t hold back a faint cry.
The coyote’s head veers toward her throat, and I leap in without any further thought.
We need this woman alive. We need her answers, however we end up getting them.
I slice my sword downward with all the force I can bring to bear. It cuts through the coyote’s neck with a sickeningly gristly sound.
Blood splatters across Gwyn’s chest. Breath harsh in my throat, I kick the animal’s limp body aside and stand over her with my sword half an inch from her throat now.
“Try anything else, and that’ll be you next. Why are you after Elodie?”
Salvatore lets out a dark chuckle. “Let’s start by carving off her hands and her feet. Her ears and her nose. She can still talk without those. Bet she’d rather keep them, though.”
My stomach lurches, but I hold my sword steady. If that’s what it takes to protect my match, that’s what I’ll do.
So far this woman hasn’t proven herself any less monstrous than the voids I’ve trained to slaughter.
But just as I’m opening my mouth to echo his threat, several pairs of footsteps crunch across the forest floor.
“Police!” a firm voice calls out. “Step back and lower your weapons.”