by Lola StVil
“What did you do?” Rye demands.
“I heard a couple days ago that Deputy Hammond and a couple of the other deputies were being let go. Mrs. Hammond is pregnant, and as you can imagine, losing the family income has her rather pissed off. Chuck in a few hormones and it was easy enough to get her pissed off enough to speak up in the meeting. To be honest though, I didn’t see it going that far. I just thought it might create enough noise for us to start getting closer to the door.”
“And I guess War’s presence in Whisper did the rest,” Mel says. “Because what happened in there isn’t normal.”
“You can’t just let me have my moment, can you?” Jinx laughs. “We don’t need War to cause an argument. That was simmering away nicely. It just took me telling Mrs. Hammond not to let the mayor define her life.”
Oh, I think War had a very big hand in this. I think War instigated it in fact. I watch Jinx for a moment, my hand still on the spear, waiting. Did he do this to get us alone in here so he can attack? Is he done worrying about separating me from the team first?
“Well regardless of whether I did it single-handedly or with a little divine intervention, we need to make the most of it and get moving,” Jinx says.
Okay, so he’s not going to attack me here. He’s likely going to wait until we’re in the tunnels and then try to get me off alone. His words remind me of why we’re here though, and I feel my tattoo burn slightly right on cue.
“This way,” Sunday says, moving away from us. “I’ve been studying old maps of the town. The entrance to the tunnels is in the next room if the maps are correct.”
With no better plan, we follow Sunday across the conference room and through the next door. This room looks like a filing room. It’s filled with filing cabinets and the large table in the center has a pile of paperwork ready to be filed away too. Sunday nods to a hatch in the bottom left-hand corner of the wall opposite us.
“There it is,” he says.
He moves towards it and gets on his knees. He tries to open the hatch, but it won’t budge.
“Dammit. It’s locked,” he says.
“Stand back,” Rye says.
Sunday gets up and moves aside. Rye approaches the hatch and kicks it hard. It flies open with a loud bang that makes me cringe.
“Hurry up, because I’m sure that attracted some attention if they’re not still fighting in there,” Aziza says.
I don’t think they’ll still be fighting now that War is no longer amongst them, and I don’t wait for the debate that’s bound to follow. I get on my knees and crawl through the hatch before anyone can stop me. Inside of the hatch is a ladder leading down and I begin to climb down it.
I can hear the others behind me as I climb down. It’s not a long climb and I jump free of the ladder within a couple minutes. The tunnels are bare concrete walls, but torches are set into the walls and the tunnels are light enough to see where we are going. The team get off the ladder one by one and join me in the little clearing.
“Sailor, what were you thinking going off like that?” Rye demands.
“I was thinking we were going to waste too much time debating, so I moved. And now I’m thinking now isn’t the time for this conversation,” I say calmly.
“Sunday? Which way?” Aziza asks, cutting Rye off before he can start in on me again.
He’s still glaring at me, but he’ll get over it once we’re not in such close proximity to War. I look both ways and see identical branches of tunnel running in each direction.
“I have no idea,” Sunday says. “How would I know?”
“You said you studied the maps,” Aziza says.
“I did. And I can tell you that way leads to the brook on the east edge of the forest, and that way leads to the center of town. But believe it or not, there was no key on the map to find out which way the Soul Gem is,” he says.
“Sailor? You have a connection to the gems. What do you think?” Aziza asks.
I clear my mind and look down each section of tunnel, but nothing jumps out at me. I take my hand from the spear and run my fingers over the gems embedded in my tattoo hoping they’ll give me some clue as to where the next one is. Still nothing.
I try facing one way and touch the gems again. Still nothing. I turn and face the other way and touch them. I think I feel heat from them, but I know it could just be that my touch has warmed them slightly. I take a few tentative steps forward and the gems get warmer. I’m definitely not imagining it.
“This way. I think,” I say.
“Away from the town. That makes sense,” Mel says. She glances at Rye. “Your parents wouldn’t have risked leaving them somewhere where a maintenance crew could accidentally stumble upon one.”
“She’s right,” he says. “Let’s go. Sailor, no running off alone. And I mean it.”
He stalks past me and positions himself in front of me. The others get behind me, covering my rear. I know better than to argue. It would only waste time. Rye sets the pace and we are almost jogging as we move through the tunnels. I can feel the gems in my chest warming up as we move, but it’s not like before. It’s not burning and there are no visions. It’s actually quite a pleasant sensation.
We come to what looks like a dead end, but then I see another ladder leading down. Rye glances back at me and I nod. What else is there to do but go down? He disappears over the edge of the ladder, and for a moment, I am seized by panic as a thought goes through my head: I will never see him again. His scream does nothing to convince me I’m wrong.
“Rye,” I shout, rushing to the edge of the opening.
A hand grabs me, stopping me from throwing myself over the edge.
“I’m okay,” Rye shouts back. “The ladder vanishes halfway down and it took me by surprise. I fell but nothing’s broken. Come down slowly and I’ll warn you when the ladder is running out.”
I start down the ladder, relieved that my premonition turned out to be nothing but paranoia again. Rye’s voice calls up to me.
“Now,” he says. “Let yourself drop. It’s not far and I’ll catch you.”
I do as he says, letting go of the last rung and letting myself fall. I don’t fall far before Rye catches me and pulls me against his chest. I feel warmth spreading through my body, and this time, it’s got nothing to do with the gems. I pull back quickly, afraid to let myself lose concentration. I change my mind and throw myself back at Rye, holding him tightly for a moment.
“I thought something terrible happened to you,” I admit as I release him again.
“Nothing more terrible than a rolling stomach and a bit of embarrassment that I screamed.” He grins. His grin fades as he sees the pain on my face, and he reaches out and caresses my cheek. “Hey, don’t look at me that way. I’m fine. Really.”
I swallow down the feeling, telling myself he’s right. He’s fine. I’m paranoid.
“Come on, guys,” Rye shouts.
I step out of the way as Sunday drops down beside us followed by Ya-Ya, whom Rye catches. Once we’re all down, we start walking again. We haven’t gone far when we start to hear howling sounds in front of us.
“What the fuck is that?” Aziza asks.
No one answers. The rest of the team is as clueless as I am on this one.
“I guess it means we’re getting closer to the gem at least,” Aziza answers herself.
“That’s a good thing because I’m sure I heard footsteps behind us,” Ya-Ya replies. “We’re not the only ones who took advantage of the mess upstairs. The Boundless are right behind us.”
A picture flashes into my mind. The team gathered in a huddle, a giant hell beast on one side of us and Raven on the other. I don’t have long to ponder it because as we follow a curve in the tunnel, we come out into a large clearing and in the center of it is a large wolf. An actual fucking wolf. I come to a stop almost subconsciously.
The wolf looks at us, snarling and showing its teeth. Its eyes are bloodred and its fur
is jet black and matted. Before I even have time to wonder how we’re going to defeat the thing, Aziza steps forward and rains fire down on the wolf. Its snarling stops, replaced by an unearthly, pained howl. It drops to the ground and Aziza stops the fire from coming. The wolf still burns, sending up a smell that makes me want to retch.
“Now I know what it is,” Aziza says. “And it’s no normal wolf. It’s a Lago Wolf. They move in packs. And once the pack picks up this scent, they’ll all be on us.”
“I don’t think it matters if you can take them down that easily,” I say.
Aziza shakes her head.
“Don’t be fooled, Sailor. One is an easy kill. A pack is a whole different story. Their packs are usually a minimum of fifty wolves, and they communicate with each other, stalking and tracking until they have their prey surrounded and then they strike. Their bites aren’t venomous or fatal, but they will turn you into a Lago Wolf.”
“I suggest we get moving again then,” Rye says, looking over his shoulder as more howls fill the tunnels.
We start moving, a lot quicker now with both the Lago pack and the Boundless on our tails. I can hear the howls getting closer, and suddenly, the pitch changes, sending shivers down my spine.
“They’ve found their dead pack member,” Aziza says. “Now they really want us.”
We start running, and as we run, my eyes scan all over the tunnels looking for the trapdoor that will contain the Soul Gem. I see nothing that looks familiar and I keep running. Suddenly, I feel the cool breeze on my face, and we step out into the night air.
“What the hell?” Jinx says. “Sailor? Why didn’t we find the Soul Gem?”
“I… I don’t know,” I say. “We must have missed it when we were running.”
“Well, what do the other gems say?” he asks.
I touch my chest, but regardless of which way I face, the gems remain cold under my fingers.
“They’re not telling me anything,” I say.
“It’s all been a wild goose chase?” Jinx says.
Rye glares at him, but before either of us can say anything, Ya-Ya gets in first.
“No. It hasn’t. We might have gone the long way around, but look.”
She’s pointing down at the ground and I move to her side, followed by the others. It’s almost buried by the underbrush, but I can just see it. A metal ring on a trapdoor. I feel my heart skip a beat. We’ve done it. We’ve found the trapdoor.
Rye pulls out a test tube and I’m already plucking a hair from my head as he pricks his finger on his knife. I hand him the hair and he gets it coated in my blood. We all get down on our knees and start pushing away the underbrush. It feels like it’s taking forever, but we get the trapdoor clear.
The howling is getting closer by the minute and I frantically search for a hole in the trapdoor.
“We’ll go and try to hold the pack off. You guys, find that hole and get this thing done,” Aziza says.
She bounds away followed by the others, leaving just Rye and me. It’s fast getting dark and the trapdoor still has patches of dirt all over it.
“It’s no use, Rye,” I say. “We’ll never find it in these conditions. We should go. We know where it is now and we can come back later, once the wolves are gone.”
He shakes his head.
“No way. The Boundless are on our tails too, and you know what happened last time they got too close to one of the gems. Just keep looking. Don’t give up.”
It’s hard to focus on the trapdoor when I can hear the howls behind me. The Boundless don’t seem like much of a threat compared to the wolves, but I know Rye is right. I almost died the last time they got too close to a gem.
I can hear the sounds of a fight from behind me and I know the wolf pack has reached the team. This is going to get ugly quickly if we don’t get this done. I swipe angrily at the patches of soil on the trapdoor, running my hands over it. Twice I think I’ve found the tiny hole, but each time, it turns out to be a pebble. Finally, the third time I feel something, when I’ve just about given up hope, I feel it. The slot.
I motion to Rye to give me the hair, which he does, and I slide it into the hole. The trapdoor clicks open and I see a brilliant flash of purple light. I blink, trying to get rid of the purple spots that now dance in front of my eyes.
“Guys, that’s not helping,” I hear Jinx shout, and I realize the light is drawing the wolves closer to us.
I can hear the fight getting closer as the wolves advance, pushing the team backwards. I reach into the trapdoor and grab the Soul Gem, gasping as I feel the now familiar pain as the gem embeds itself in my tattoo. The pain overwhelms me for a moment and then I am back to normal. The team is almost upon us and I scramble to my feet with Rye’s help.
“We can’t fight that many of them,” I shout when I see the sheer number of Lago Wolves that are advancing. “Open a portal, Rye. We have to jump through and close it quickly, leaving them behind.”
Rye nods and opens a portal.
“Guys, get through quickly. We can lose the wolves,” he shouts.
He grabs my arm and pulls me through and we’re back in the cabin. Jinx and Mel follow close behind us, then Aziza and Sunday.
“Where’s Ya-Ya?” I demand.
I take a step towards the portal, but Ya-Ya stumbles through before I reach it.
“I’m here. Close the damn thing,” she shouts.
A wolf’s head and front paw appear, the head snarling and growling, drool landing on the floor of the cabin. Rye ignores the wolf, closing the portal around it. It pulls its head back in the nick of time to avoid being decapitated, but its paw gets trapped and with a last unearthly shriek from the wolf, the portal closes and the paw lands on the ground.
Jinx looks at the paw and shakes his head.
“And they say rabbits’ feet are good luck. Whoever made that one up never faced a Lago Wolf.”
“I don’t know anyone who’s faced a Lago Wolf pack and not become one,” Aziza says.
Her face is deathly white and it’s only when I see her looking so shaken that I realize what a lucky escape we had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: INFLUENCE OF WAR
I am humming to myself as I pull open the classroom door and go to step into the hallway. The humming dies in my throat when I see the utter chaos in front of me. There must be at least seventy students along the hallway and crowded around the lockers at the end of it. And every one of them is arguing with someone.
The noise is deafening; it’s so loud I want to put my hands over my ears or duck back into the classroom but I don’t do either. Instead, I just freeze, knowing this is a mess caused by War’s proximity. Normally, I see Nexus’s point about why the team have to come to school and act like normal teenagers, but right now, I’m questioning her logic. Can it ever be a good idea to send an entity that is known to cause disruption and unrest everywhere he goes into a high school?
I look up and down the hallway, and I know without even trying that nothing I can say or do is going to help here. Even the teachers are arguing amongst themselves. I spot Raven and Nexus going at it and I debate stepping in, but if Nexus takes Raven down a peg or two, then at least something good will have come from all of this.
Everyone who is arguing seems to be totally oblivious to everyone around them doing the same thing. Otherwise, I’m sure at least some of the students would have questioned what the hell is going on.
I spot Aziza and Mel and I think I’ve found some reprieve from the chaos, someone who might be able to help me calm it all down, but then I realize they too are arguing. I can’t hear them from here, but I can see Aziza staring Mel down, and Mel, totally unfazed by Aziza’s death glare, is yelling and waving her arms around to illustrate her point.
I start making my way through the arguing people to get to them anyway. Maybe out of everyone, they’ll be the ones I can make a difference to. If I can talk some sense into them, make them realize this is the effe
ct of War being unleashed on the world, I can get them to stop.
I am halfway across the hallway when the first punch is thrown, and within seconds, I am in the middle of what seems like a full-scale riot. I totally lose sight of Mel and Aziza as a group of guys get into my path, shouting and punching each other. One of them has a black eye and another has a bloody nose, but if it’s bothering either of them, they don’t show it. They just keep on yelling angrily and swinging their fists around.
I manage to push my way past them without taking a stray punch, but before I can go any further, a blonde girl steps into my path.
“You bitch. You stole my boyfriend,” she snarls at me.
That’s when I realize who she is. Felicity. The girl Rye went on a date with when he was trying to ignore how he felt about me. I roll my eyes and try to ignore Felicity, but she’s not backing down and as I sidestep to go around her, she copies me and gets back in my path.
“I’m talking to you,” she snaps.
I can feel my temper starting to get the better of me. War’s powers don’t affect me, but Felicity’s attitude certainly does.
“I heard you and I don’t give a shit what you think. Now move,” I say. “I didn’t steal your boyfriend, because Rye was never your boyfriend. You guys went on one date, which he cut short because he couldn’t stand to be around you any longer.”
Felicity’s face is a mask of anger and I smirk at her. I know I should be the bigger person, that this isn’t really her talking but just War’s effect, but I really don’t like the bitch. It’s not just about Rye. It’s about the way she laughed at me on my first day at this school when I ended up soaking wet and covered in mud. Or at least that’s what I tell myself to condone my anger without coming off as a jealous loser.
She swings at me and I easily move my head back out of her range. She stumbles a little when her shot misses, and I laugh.
“Seriously, don’t do it. You will regret it,” I say.
