“I don’t think so. It sounds like—” She spun around to Donovan. “It sounds like Artemis.”
Donovan had been Artemis’s original owner before the Rottweiler died and became Charley’s guardian. Then Beep’s.
Donovan looked around, even though he couldn’t have seen her if she were right in front of him. Out of the bikers, only Eric could see the departed, thanks to an unfortunate demon possession some years back.
Before Garrett could get a bearing on the howl that bounced off the trees and rocks surrounding them, Marika took off at a dead sprint.
“Shit,” he said, gathering up his weapons and following her. “Marika, wait!”
But she was gone. Disappeared into the tree line. “Follow us on the bikes!” Garrett shouted as he took off after her. Little sprite was quick.
“Marika, damn it,” he said, knowing she couldn’t hear him. Though, to her credit, she did seem to be on the right track.
“Artemis!” he heard her yell, but he couldn’t figure out why she was so worried. The dog had passed years ago. It wasn’t like anything could hurt her. Could it?
He finally caught up to Marika when she tripped on a tree branch. She righted herself quickly and headed deeper into the forest.
They were on reservation land now, and it was land Garrett didn’t know well.
“Marika, wait,” he said through huffed, labored breaths.
While the cocktail the doc had given him worked wonders, it seemed to be wearing off. Pain clutched at his sides, and his back was on fire.
When he finally caught up to Marika, she was kneeling in the dirt, trying to coax Artemis to her. And after knowing about the dog for the past six years, Garrett finally got to see her.
She was a beauty. Black and tan in all the right places. Enough muscle to make her look buff. But her face was angelic. Dark, expressive eyes.
While Marika attempted to coax her closer, Artemis seemed to be trying to get Marika to follow.
“So, that’s her,” he said, kneeling beside the escape artist.
“Isn’t she gorgeous?”
Another howl split the air around them, and Garrett almost tripped trying to leap to his feet. Though the cry wasn’t from Artemis, she joined in, adding her own.
“Is that wolves?” Marika asked.
“Maybe. I mean, it has to be, right?”
Robert ran up to them then, followed quickly by Donovan.
“Is she okay?” Donovan asked.
Marika knelt down again. “She appears to be. But something is wrong.”
“Elwyn,” Robert said, rushing past them to follow the dog.
“Beep?” Garrett asked, taking off as well, but not before he grabbed Marika’s hand.
They heard the bikes shut off in the distance. They could only take the Harleys so far in this terrain. It was too bad they weren’t a dirt bike gang. Those would’ve come in much handier.
They ran through the forest, branches scratching their faces, but Robert was a man on a mission. “There’s only one person alive Artemis would watch over like this,” he said over his shoulder.
He was right. Artemis, along with twelve hellhounds and a veritable army of both the living and the dead, lived only to protect Beep. Could she really be out here? If so, how? She hadn’t been on this plane—
Robert skidded to a halt. Garrett did the same, and Marika slid into his back a microsecond before she took a sharp intake of breath. Deep, guttural growls bounced off the trees around them. Blood-soaked trees. Broken trees, some of them ripped completely in half.
Both Garrett and Robert raised their rifles. Donovan raised a pistol when he showed up, and Marika kept a death grip on Garrett’s shirt.
In unison, as though the movement were choreographed, they all dropped their gazes to the shadowed ground around them.
Marika’s hands flew to cover her mouth as they took in the carnage they now stood right in the middle of. Half a dozen hellhounds lay wounded. Some of them looked dead. Others panted, their tongues hanging out, their gazes blank.
“What’s going on?” Donovan asked, unable to see the hounds. But he did see the battlefield on which they’d fought. He saw the blood.
Artemis whined and Army-crawled closer to one of the wounded hellhounds. It whimpered back at her, and she lay a few inches from it.
“What the fuck?” Garrett said in a harsh whisper. “What the hell happened, Robert?”
“The creature.” He started to kneel by one of the hounds when a low growl sent static electricity coursing over his skin.
They turned in unison to see a girl no older than thirteen or fourteen surrounded by the remaining six very healthy hellhounds. Her head was down. Her spear, much like the creature’s, at the ready, both hands gripping it as though she were prepared to charge.
Garrett lowered his weapon and motioned for the other two to do the same. Correction, four. Eric and Michael had entered the arena and had their weapons trained on the girl as well.
“We won’t hurt you,” Garrett said, confused as ever because the girl looked entirely human. Yet, like the creature, she carried a spear and was covered almost head to toe in blood. For some reason, he hoped it wasn’t hers.
She didn’t move a muscle. Just watched them from beneath hooded lids partially obstructed by thick locks of long, ink-like hair that looked as if it hadn’t been brushed in weeks.
Garrett raised a hand in surrender and knelt to put his semiautomatic on the ground. “We just want to know what happened. Did the creature do this?”
He stood again, minus the rifle.
She didn’t move, but he could see her gaze flit from one intruder to the next as though sizing up her opponents. Then, with painstaking slowness, she sidestepped to one of the hellhounds, keeping her spear trained on the group.
Garrett’s heart seized when she knelt down and poked the hound with the spear.
The hellhound whimpered, but Garrett quickly realized she wasn’t hurting him. She was assessing him. She spared the briefest of glances at the wound, then refocused on the group, raised a bloodied wrist to her mouth, and tore at it with her teeth.
Marika tightened her fingers on his shirt as they watched the girl drip her blood into the hound’s wound and then its mouth.
The hound shook its head, immediately coming out of its stupor, then struggled up onto all fours.
“Robert, what’s going on?” Garrett whispered.
Uncle Bob didn’t answer. His brows were drawn in concern, but he didn’t waste a single breath with a haphazard guess.
Just then, Garrett remembered that the hellhounds could let humans see them if they wanted to. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder and realized the rest of the group could definitely see the enormous beasts. A classic combination of shock and awe reflected on each and every face around him.
“She’s healing them,” Marika whispered at his side as the girl moved to the next hound.
Even though her wound was fresh, she had to bite her wrist again to get the blood flowing once more. It was so savage, Garrett felt for the girl. Marveled at her bravery.
He didn’t hold out much hope for the hound, though. It was one of two that Garrett had taken for dead. It didn’t move even when she dripped her blood into its mouth, again without shifting her gaze from the group. When it still didn’t move, she risked a quick glance, bent over and put her mouth near its ear.
It sprang to life, exactly like the first one had, shaking its head as though trying to regain its senses.
“This is magnificent,” Donovan whispered, clearly impressed.
Garrett agreed.
The girl repeated the trick until only one hellhound remained sprawled on the forest floor. The one Artemis kept watch over.
She whimpered when the girl got near and pawed at the dirt. The hellhound had been gutted. The fact that it was still alive was a bit of a miracle.
This one seemed to concern the girl more than the others. She wiped at her cheek, smearing blood across
her face, and Garrett realized she was crying. She whispered something to the hound and cradled its head with one arm, keeping the spear in the other. All the while, she cast nervous glances at them.
Finally, she lowered the spear and leaned it on the hound for easy access should she need it. Then, to everyone’s seeming surprise, she bent over and started to scoop up the hound’s intestines.
It released a sharp cry, but she continued until she had most of the innards back inside the hound’s body cavity. Then she raised her bloodied hand and once again tore her wrist open with her teeth. This time, however, she went deeper, dousing the wound with her blood and then letting it flow into the hound’s mouth.
The hellhound licked his jowls, but it did him no good. He didn’t recover like the others. He lay on his side for several minutes, his breaths slowing until he stopped moving altogether.
The girl’s chin quivered as she bent over him. The group forgotten at last, she buried her face in his neck, but only for a second. She drew in a deep breath and ripped at her wrist again. The act wrenched a sob out of Marika as they watched the girl fight for the hound’s life.
She forced its massive jaws apart, pulled its head toward her, and let her blood drip into its throat. Then she ran her hand down the outside of it as though trying to force it to swallow.
Artemis whimpered again, and the other hounds, the giant, bearlike lot of them, circled their fallen comrade.
The girl had power. No doubt about that. But bringing a celestial creature back from the brink of death was not one of them. Or so Garrett thought.
As they looked on, the hound’s side began to rise and fall. The group grew even quieter if that were possible, listening for signs of life. Suddenly, it shook its head, emitted a guttural groan, and scrambled to its feet.
It was like watching a newborn colt trying to gain its footing. It fell and then picked itself back up again, only to stand on wobbly legs.
The other hounds were ecstatic. They jumped and growled and nipped at each other playfully. Even Artemis got caught up in the revelry, wagging her tiny nub of a tail and barking at the playmates who were several times her size. It was like comparing her to a Chihuahua, only in reverse. Even the birds started singing, all of them joining in on the festivities. All except the girl.
When Garrett looked up, she was gone. He whirled around, just in time to see the tiny thing, spear clasped in both hands, rushing toward him so fast he could hardly make her out.
Time ceased to exist as he watched her. She was going for his heart. It was her best option. And she would have met her mark if Marika hadn’t jumped in front of him. He watched as the tip of the spear, which had been only inches from his chest a heartbeat earlier, pierce Marika’s throat. It was like a slow-motion scene in a movie.
Disbelief warred with instinct, but before he could react, Robert shouted, his voice hard enough to slice through the air with razor-sharp precision. “Elwyn!” he said, and Garrett leveled a stunned expression on the tiny girl.
Chapter Eight
If your path demands that you walk through hell,
walk as though you own the place.
—Meme
Every person there stood so still they could’ve been mistaken for statues from a distance. The three bikers all had their pistols aimed at the girl’s head. Garrett didn’t dare move because Marika’s backside was molded to his front. If he moved, she moved. She’d stepped in front of him. She’d risked her life to spare his, and it was all for nothing because he was going to kill her.
Marika froze with the tip of the spear at her throat. If she even swallowed, it would sink deeper.
But the girl was the stillest of them all. Powerful and wild and in complete control. She hovered the spear unflinchingly at Marika’s throat but kept her gaze on Garrett.
“Elwyn,” Robert said again, softer this time. “Look at me, pumpkin.”
Her delicate brows drew together, and Garrett could see several scars on her face. One reached from her temple down across her lips, ending at her chin. The wound had been deep, and that realization disturbed him most of all.
Robert stepped forward, but the girl—Elwyn—didn’t tense. She didn’t move at all. She didn’t even look at him. It took Garrett a few seconds to realize that her eyes were welling up again. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before. Those shimmering copper irises, so unusual, so distinct. And yet, he’d missed it. And the bracelet on her wrist. The gold one that Osh had given her before he disappeared. It shimmered in the sun streaming through the branches, plain as day.
A droplet of wetness slid over her lashes, and her breath hitched in her chest. Without another thought, she dropped the spear and ran into Robert’s arms.
The rest looked on, their faces the picture of astonishment as Robert swallowed her in a hug. He swayed with her, his shoulders shaking with sobs.
“Oh, my God. Where have you been? Where have you been?”
Her slim shoulders shook as well, but she didn’t answer. Garrett didn’t even know if she could.
After a long moment in which the hellhounds, now healed and sensing no danger to their ward, disappeared one by one, Robert set her at arm’s-length. He looked her over. Pushed her hair back to examine her face. Lifted her wrist to study the damage she’d done by repeatedly biting into it.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.
She shook her head, and he pulled her into another hug. A soft, light laugh escaped her.
It was then that Garrett realized that Marika was in his arms. She rested her head against his shoulder, her face alit with joy as they looked on.
“Do you remember everyone?” Robert asked at last, finally releasing Elwyn.
She kept her arms locked around one of his, almost hiding behind him before turning toward the rest of the group. She glanced from one man to the next, then to Marika. Giving up her need for safety, the girl stepped closer to Marika and lifted her fingers to where she’d pierced her skin. “Brave.”
Marika sobbed into a hand and, unable to contain her emotions any longer, pulled the girl into a hug. Garrett wanted to join them but held back. Beep hadn’t suggested that she’d recognized him yet.
When she finally looked up at him from behind the hug, her tiny frame even smaller than Marika’s, almost as if she’d suffered through years of malnutrition, she said, “Did you two finally get married?”
Garrett thought his heart would explode. He wrapped them both in his arms, one of Beep’s sliding around his waist.
“Holy fuck, kid. You scared us to death.”
“I’m sorry.”
He hugged her harder, then asked, “Did you think that we hurt the hellhounds?”
She looked up at him. “No. I knew it was Hayal. I can smell him everywhere.” Her speech was a little stilted, a bit hesitant, but she still spoke almost perfect English. Yet she spoke it with an accent, almost like Scottish with a bit of Greek mixed in. “I thought you’d come to take them. As guouran. As a trophy.”
Just then, she looked past him at Donovan, who was still in shock if his unhinged jaw were any indication. Elwyn gave Marika one last squeeze and then headed to him.
“You remember me, yes?” she asked.
He laughed and shook his head. “You got taller.”
“Maybe you got shorter,” she countered, then she lifted her hand and ran her fingers along the curve of his mouth and over his scruff.
“She used to do that,” Garrett said softly to Marika. “She always ran her hands over his face. Something about the scruff.”
“You have scruff.”
“Yeah, but he’s a master at it. He’s the scruff master.”
“I can hear you,” Donovan said.
“Well, I don’t blame her,” Marika said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’d run my hands over his face too if it weren’t awkward and unsettling.”
Garrett started to laugh, then scowled down at her. “How long have you had that urge?”
“About twenty seconds.”
Beep moved on to Eric, the youngest of the bikers. She beamed at him. “Prince Eric.”
He laughed and pulled her into a tight hug. “Your mother used to call me that. She said I looked like a prince.”
Elwyn giggled and stood back. “Silly rabbit. That’s not why she called you that.”
Before he could ask her what she meant, she moved on to Michael.
Ever the placid bad boy, he leaned against one of the few trees left standing, arms crossed over his chest, and watched her from over his sunglasses. An appreciative smirk lifted one corner of his mouth, and he said in the smoothest voice possible, “You’re grounded.”
She laughed and jumped into his arms.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, pretending not to enjoy the embrace.
When she finished, she turned full circle to take them all in again. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you. Especially you,” she said, singling Garrett out, her white teeth blinding him, her smile was so big.
“Why me?” he asked and beckoned her to him. He took full advantage and kept her in his arms even longer this time.
“Because I’ve drawn you the very most.”
“I’ve never seen any drawings of me.”
“Oh, that’s because I give them to—”
“Would you look at the time,” Marika said, interrupting her. She lifted her wrist.
“You’re not wearing a watch,” he said.
“I just meant that we still have a creature to hunt down and shoot to death.”
“She’s right,” Robert said. “We need to get back out there. We have to find that creature.”
“That creature? You mean Hayal?”
Garrett tore his focus away from Marika. “Is Hayal twenty feet tall with black horns and razor-sharp claws?”
“Yes,” Elwyn said, her expression grim. “Well, not twenty.”
“And you know him?”
“Yes. He’s my fiancé.”
* * * *
By the time they got back to the compound, Cookie and the Loehrs were waiting outside and, quite literally, wringing their hands.
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