45. Jack
FORTY-FIVE
JACK
The noise sounded like it was coming from somewhere in town. Jack looked at Abigail, who stood pale, watching him for direction. Jack reached for the weapons that he had left inside. “Go inside your house. Lock the door.”
“But there’s something I have to tell you about my fa?—”
More screams split the sky, but now there was another sound. It was a howl of a creature Jack had never heard in all his years of tracking. “Please, Abigail, go inside. You’ll be safe.”
Without waiting for a reply, Jack took off at a run. As he rounded the mayor’s house, the door burst open with Sloan in the lead, followed by Aareth and Marcus.
Sloan ignored Jack as she bolted toward the sounds of chaos at a dead sprint. Sword already drawn in her left hand, she was the picture of a Valkyrie incarnate.
“Let’s go, Romeo. You’re going to miss all the action.” Aareth sprinted past next, his gauntlets on his hands.
“Come on, Jack. Eyes open, wand ready.” Marcus skidded up to Jack, handing him his belt, the wand still secured in the holster.
Jack followed Sloan, who, in another lifetime, could have been a professional athlete.
Even Aareth’s large legs were no match for hers as she practically flew over the dirt road through the center of town.
Candles and lanterns were lit in all the windows.
Even the bravest townsfolk were only willing to peek out the occasional head or part the blinds to see what was going on.
The first thought that came to mind when Jack saw the general unwillingness to help displayed by the people of Burrow Den was “cowards.” But he had to remind himself how much the town endured over the past few months.
The cries of human anguish were gone, soaked up by the cool night.
The only noise was the sound of the creature’s snarls.
The closest thing Jack could relate the noise to was a cross between a wolf howling at the moon and the arcane guttural noise a lion makes, deep down in the far recesses of its chest.
As the group got closer, the sound became louder. It was coming from a medium-size building near the edge of town with a large sign that read Shoe Repair.
Seconds before the four emissaries to the Queen arrived at the building, the animal noises stopped.
Jack half expected Sloan to slow down and wait for the rest of the group.
Maybe he thought she would come up with a plan for surrounding the building.
Not Sloan. Jack looked on in shock as the captain of the Queen’s personal guard jump-kicked the wooden door, sending it flying inward with a shower of splinters.
Jack, Aareth, and Marcus all arrived at the same time.
Jack had his wand out, alive with dark green flames as they entered.
The interior of the shop was a mess. Shoes, small nails, hammers, rolls of leather and cloth were strewn in every direction.
Bottles lay broken on the floor along with chairs and so much blood, Jack would have thought an entire family had been slaughtered.
A body so mangled by claw and bite marks it didn’t resemble a human being at all lay in the corner of the room.
“It’s—it’s not here.” Sloan appeared from somewhere deeper in the house out of breath.
“It’s Benjamin Clive.” Aareth knelt next to the bloodied body and shook his head.
Jack looked at his father, who was already recalling the green magic from his staff. Something on the floor had caught the tracker’s attention. Jack followed his gaze. There were the same large footprints they had seen in the forest. The tracks were imprinted in blood throughout the house.
“How are you two at tracking at night?” Sloan sheathed her sword and skewered both Jack and his father with a wildly determined look.
“We’re good,” Marcus said with a nod.
“He’s being modest,” Jack chimed in. “He’s the best.”
“Then let’s find and kill this thing,” Sloan said.
“We’ll cover more ground if we split up.” Sloan led the way out of Benjamin Clive’s house as she spoke over her shoulder. “Jack with me and Aareth with Marcus. We’ll take the?—”
Sloan stopped mid-sentence as they walked outside. Jack knew whatever had halted Sloan in her tracks couldn’t be good, and as he exited the building, he was right.
It seemed like the entire population of Burrow Den, who cowered in their houses just minutes before, were now surrounding Benjamin Clive’s home.
Torches added light to the night, with the occasional pitchfork and club mixed in.
The expressions on the faces of the townspeople were ones of fear, curiosity, and anger all rolled into one—a mixture Jack had seen before and knew was as deadly as a powder keg.
“Did you kill the beast?” Elijah Ahab walked through the crowd. He stopped at the front, facing the group of emissaries. He wore a long black coat that had seen too many years of service. His balding head glimmered in the light of the torches around him.
“No,” Sloan said slowly.
“But the monster has struck again?” Elijah shouted. His face twisted from honest and polite to something else entirely.
“Benjamin Clive is dead. We’re on our way now to track the animal we wi?—”
“Another dead? Isn’t that why you’re here?
To stop this? If the Queen’s own best from New Hope can’t stop this plague, maybe it’s not of this world.
Maybe it’s not meant to be stopped until it has finished what it has been sent for.
Just like the angel of the Divine One came down to earth, so too this creature was sent to punish us for our sins! ”
There was a murmur among the crowd as heads nodded and whispers of agreement were shared.
“We’ve only been here for a few days. It’s not as though the creature has eluded our grasp for weeks or months on end. Angel of the Divine or not, we will find it and we will stop it.”
“How dare you speak of killing the Divine’s creature in such a way?” Elijah took a step back from Sloan’s words like he had been stung by a wasp. “As if you could stop it. What do you know of heavenly creatures and words of scripture? You are just a woman; a girl, really.”
Jack braced himself for the tirade of anger he was sure Sloan would unleash on her target. No such rebuttal came. Instead, she stood firm and took a deep breath.
“My being a woman or not, if I was a captain of the Queen’s guard or not, has no bearing on what needs to be done.
I wouldn’t stand by and let this happen to you or the town under any circumstances.
We will find and kill it because it is the right thing to do, regardless of where we have come from or who we are. ”
Elijah let out a loud laugh.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Aareth take a step forward. A hand pulled him gently back as Marcus moved to stand next to Sloan. Elijah opened his mouth again but didn’t get a chance to speak.
“Proverbs twenty-eight, one.”
Elijah turned his viper-like eyes from Sloan and looked at Marcus as if he were an unwanted dinner guest.
“You wanted scripture, Preacher? There you go. Proverbs twenty-eight, one, ‘The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous will walk as bold as lions.’ It’s interesting that you run or hide when you hear the creature and we run to meet it.
We are the lions, Preacher Ahab, and you can believe that.
Now let us go and do what lions do best. When we bring back the creature, we can all decide together if it’s an angel of the Divine or not. ”
Everyone stood stunned at the boldness Marcus showed, none more than Jack. His father was generally a quiet man. This was a whole new side to his father Jack had never seen, a side that made him proud. Even now he could feel respect growing in his chest.
Elijah was practically boring holes in the group from where he stood. The intense stare in Sloan’s eyes only infuriated him further. Clearly, he had expected her to back down.
“We’ll see, how this goes.” Elijah glared at Sloan. “We’ll see.”
With that, the preacher turned on his heels and disappeared in the mob. The crowd seemed to relax at the preacher’s absence and began dispersing themselves or peeking into the house of the deceased Benjamin Clive.
The four hunters huddled. Jack caught a look of gratitude pass from Sloan to Marcus before she started to speak.
“Thanks to Elijah, we’re further behind whatever this thing is now. Let’s go and get this animal.” Sloan looked at Marcus with a sly smile. “What was the last part of that verse? ‘As bold as lions’?”
“As bold as lions,” Marcus repeated.