10. Chapter 10
I never thought I’d miss the foggy labyrinth of the wood.
The upside was that Serich and I were able to move faster than before, unencumbered by trees. The downside was the stark lack of useful cover. We could be seen at a distance by anything that might happen by. If diurnal creatures dwelled here, we would be in trouble.
Nearly as troubling was that the landscape never seemed to change.
I felt we’d passed the same plains of dirt and grass, the same twisted, diseased-looking fig trees, over and over and over again.
Every gasp of wind sounded like wicked snickering.
The shadows and the hungry teeth of the wood may have been well behind, but still it felt like eyes watched us.
Is this Hell? I wondered dully, after hours of the same scenery. Have I already died?
If this were Hell, you’d know it.
Then this had to be the In Between, where you wound up if neither Hell nor Heaven wanted you. We don’t even seem to be getting anywhere, I thought desperately. It’s as if we’ve stood still all this time.
I’m sure that’s part of the design. It shifted uncomfortably in my head and said, almost to himself, It’s like it’s changed, gotten bigger since the last time I was here. It shouldn’t have taken so long to cross it. Maybe it stretches when it senses humans, maybe it’s grown since I left—
But where will we spend the night? When I’d suggested to Serich that we might have to strap ourselves into trees, it had been a last resort. Now it seemed it would be our only option. Will we happen upon some cover eventually?
I don’t know.
That there was something It didn’t know about this place frightened me more than I could articulate. I said nothing in response, but I couldn’t hide my anguish from him.
Send him back, It said impulsively, dashing my eyes toward Serich, who moved beside me red-faced and stiff-legged.
Send him back to the cave. He can make it if he runs.
Tell him to spend the night there and go back to your village at first light.
I can give strength to your legs; you’ll run faster on your own.
We could make it out of this place in half the time.
He came to help me, I argued. He was there for me when you couldn’t be bothered.
I know. But now he’s a hindrance. He can’t outrun a succubus.
He won’t last the night, and by extension you won’t either.
You’ll be too concerned with helping him than listening to what I tell you.
Don’t you want him to live? He’ll never make it, but you might.
You can’t fight a succubus with steel. All you can do is run.
“Its saying you ought to head back to the cave,” I told Serich, my breathing ragged around the words. “That you could save yourself, and It and I can run faster, maybe make it through this place in half the time.”
“And you believe It?” Serich asked, his voice delicately inflected.
“He’s lent strength to my legs before—”
“No,” Serich huffed shortly, staring straight ahead, eyes on the unchanging horizon. “Can’t you read between Its lines? Do you believe you’ve no use for me? That I’m slowing you down? It is a demon, Desideria. Demons lie. It wants me gone for some ulterior motive. I’m not leaving you.”
“He says you’ll die if you don’t go,” I said helplessly. “I don’t want that, I don’t want you to die on my account.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t put a whole lot of stock in the dire warnings of a demon.”
Tell this sack of meat that he’ll be— It started before I cut him off.
I will tell him no such thing.
It choked out a disgusted laugh. Then you’re as stupid as he is.
We started running flat-out eventually, running with a sort of desperate stamina, bogged down by our satchels as the sky brewed darkly above us.
My sides were full of screaming stitches, my throat in flames.
We didn’t stop until it seemed as though we’d passed no graves for miles, and eventually we veered left and collapsed at the knotty, contorted roots of a fig tree.
Serich’s face was red as the setting sun when he tipped his head back toward the sky. “It’s no use going any farther,” he panted. “It’ll be dusk soon.”
I sent a hopeless glance up through the branches of the fig. Our home for the night. Perhaps we could lose ourselves in the dense foliage and what little fogs would float out this way. The leaves may have looked ill, but they grew thick along the colossal, powerful arms of the tree.
I used some of our precious remaining water to make a mud from handfuls of dirt at the trunk of the fig. We would have to smear ourselves in it to disguise our scent, maybe even apply it to our clothes to better camouflage ourselves.
“The branches look strong enough to support our weight.” Serich forced a smile to his lips as he clapped a palmful of mud to his cheekbone. “God looks down on us, even in this wretched place.”
I hadn’t the heart to tell him what It hissed through my mind: That God was not listening anymore.
Perhaps it was my terrified imagination, but I felt the tree did not appreciate our added weight; it seemed to shift its shoulders uneasily, leaves shivering despite the lack of any breeze.
I had strapped the pair of us in with a length of rope, though I knew I wouldn’t sleep.
I would spend the night with my heart in my throat, my hands clinging to the branch for dear life, the stench of drying dirt stuffed inside my nostrils.
Serich and I shared the same thick branch for warmth, and, though neither of us admitted it, from fear. He pressed against the tree bark; I was wedged between his open legs, my back against his chest. The figs were rotten when a hopeful Serich slit one open with a knife, the meat dead and black.
Dusk fell but silence reigned, unlike in the wood, where darkness was always met with shrieks.
Nothing trilled, nothing called. If the creatures living in those graves had woken, they hadn’t ranged far enough to find us.
A fat moon poured over the fields, silvering the grass, but nothing stalked toward us whenever I chanced a glance through the leaves.
“You should cover your eyes,” I breathed to Serich, drawing back against him. “Just in case. I can handle the bow.”
“And leave myself blind to whatever comes our way?” He settled his bow across my lap. He had nowhere to comfortably rest his hands, so he cupped my knees with his dirt-crusted palms. “You said you know nothing of archery.”
“I wouldn’t be blind. Nothing here can sway me, and It said these creatures need eye contact to hypnotize.
I’d let you know if something was coming.
” I left the archery comment alone simply because I had nothing with which to refute it.
I’d never shot an arrow, but I clutched one in my hand anyway.
Wood was our only weapon of use in this place.
“They’d have to be able to see me to hypnotize me.”
This one has more bravery than sense, It said. Rub yourselves in all the mud you like. Your blood will still betray you. Your heartbeat will give you away to any succubus or incubus that happens by. They don’t have to see you to know you’re there.
A few hours later, Its prediction came to pass.
If it hadn’t been for It jerking up from his slump at the back of my head, I would not have known she’d arrived. She moved noiselessly, silent as the wood we’d left.
“Does something lurk up there, hidden amongst the leaves?” a woman’s voice called, dripping with honeyed venom. “I smell something sweet.”
Serich started from his fussy doze, his arms tightening around my waist.
I knew we were dead when I felt a second heartbeat flutter in my body, as if It too was afraid. His fear increased mine a hundredfold, for I had never felt his terror before.
“I thought I’d smelled something in the fields earlier,” the voice said, melodic and conversational. “My sisters thought me mad. Said the scent must have drifted through the fogs from the wood. How could any of you make it this far through our lands?”
I looked up at Serich over my shoulder. His gaze collided with mine, but we held our petrified silence.
He disentangled himself from me, lifting the bow across my lap.
The fig shook loose a few leaves as something knocked against its trunk.
I squinted through the foliage and spied a corpse-pale hand splayed against the bark.
Serich nocked an arrow silently beside me.
“You’re a long way from home.” The blue-white hand trailed around the thick trunk until I could see only the fingertips as she circled the tree. “And this is a very odd place to spend the night.”
I whipped my head to the left, waiting for her to reappear.
I can’t save him, It said. I could maybe save you.
Us. She will rip your heart from your body before you see her twitch.
The second she gets him in her sights, it’s over.
She’ll take her time with him, but you she’ll kill instantly.
She has no use for a woman. Not unless one of her brothers lurks around the corner.
I have an arrow. I clutched it in a clammy palm, anxious for the succubus to show herself and dreading it at the same time.
You have a pointy stick that will maybe buy you a few minutes before she heals around the wound if your aim is true. A vulnerability isn’t the same as a mortal weakness.
A head of long, golden blonde hair appeared below us as she pressed her palms flat against the trunk. I drew back before she could look up to find me peering down at her from the leaves, too afraid to even breathe.
She’s stronger than you, Des. All you can do is run, run and hope she doesn’t care enough to catch you.
You’re strong, too.
I’m hindered by your body, It said roughly, rapidly. She’s not some stupid faerie I can rip apart, she’s steel and wolfram, your hands would be left in ruins; I could do irreparable damage to you if I so much as tried—
Serich’s warm, living body tensed behind me. How tender he really was, for all his strength. How easily he could be torn to bits. He hadn’t left me on my own when he had the chance. I’m not leaving him to her.
I don’t say this lightly. I wouldn’t let him die if I could change it, but I can’t. I’m limited in here. I can run, we can run, but that’s the best we can hope for. Do you think she’s incapable of climbing? She’s playing with you.
“Your blood flows quickly,” she called, like the trilling of a sparrow. “You needn’t be afraid. Won’t you let me help you?”
The fig leaves murmured a traitorous song as Serich drew back the arrow. He shifted to get a better opening, but she looked up at the same time.
Of course she was beautiful, even with a streak of dirt across one sharp cheekbone.
That was her weapon, just like her lethal hands, her hypnosis.
A finely carved nose with chiseled, flaring nostrils, a red rosebud mouth pursed in icy humor.
Her eyes were garnet flames, glowing as though from a contained hellfire inside her body.
And they were locked on Serich. I might have been another branch upon the fig for all the notice she paid me.
“Well,” she said playfully, leaning against the tree with her arms crossed over her chest, loose-boned with amusement. “You’re very handsome, aren’t you?”