Even at the heightened speed, the horse was extremely agile, weaving in and out of the trees rushing toward them with tremendous dexterity. Many times, he had to duck his head to avoid a low-hanging branch that threatened to decapitate him if he didn’t move quickly enough. It didn’t take long for him to grow tired of trying to avoid the branches. Surely he had covered enough ground to leave the eyes he felt boring through him behind.
He pulled the head back a bit, sliding another chunk of rotting flesh off the skull. The horse slowed to a fast walk that looked like a predatory insect moving in for the kill. George relaxed a little when he realized that he could no longer feel those unseen eyes watching him.
About an hour passed when he began to notice the trees were thinning out. Just at the edge of his sight, George saw what appeared to be the edge of the forest. His best guess told him that he would likely reach that point in roughly fifteen minutes.
As he closed the distance, George contemplated his plan of moving to a different outpost. How was he going to get around? Were there horses waiting outside each outpost for him? George was pretty sure there was no way his current horse would fit through the doorway of the outpost he was using as a base of operations; and he was just as sure that even if he somehow managed to get the horse inside the outpost, there was no way it would be able to fit in, or negotiate, the stairway leading down to Morgana. Perhaps he should try to contact the Black Knight and find out for sure.
He broke through the outer edge of the woods and brought the horse to a stop. About five hundred feet from his position, he could see a building that was surely the outpost. Something was different about it though. There seemed to be a blackened path leading from it that he didn’t remember being there before. As George stared at the trail in confusion, he noticed the path seemed to be moving.
He cautiously approached the building, keeping a watchful eye on the moving black mass. As he got closer, George began to see what the path consisted of. He stood and watched as thousands of black bugs, which resembled beetles of some sort, trundled outward from the building, seemingly coming from under the door.
Where did these tiny creatures come from? And where were they headed? George stood watching the strange procession for nearly fifteen minutes before sighting what appeared to be the last of them. The entire mass moved as one, heading toward the direction he had just come from.
Diverting his attention back to the task at hand, he stepped toward the door, placed his hand into the strange locking mechanism, and turned it. The door silently slid open. As George walked inside, he heard something coming from the other room. With one hand, he loosened the strap holding his sword in place and reached across with the other to pull it from its sheath. He stepped into the doorway leading from the main room and relaxed. A twisted smile formed on his face.
There, before him on the floor, was the woman he had captured and decided to keep for himself. She was tied to one of the beds in the room and had a gag in her mouth to keep her from crying out for help.
He had completely forgotten about having this woman tied up here. He had been gone for close to a week and other, more pressing matters, had occupied his mind during his time away. The woman now looked absolutely dreadful; she could have been a poster child for an Ethiopian adoption program. She was so emaciated that her skin literally seemed to hang from her bones, and her hair looked stringy and wild. The stench of urine and feces rolled off of her like a tidal wave, and George had to plug his nose to get any closer to her. He had to do something; the stench of decomposing flesh had nothing on this. Actually, he rather enjoyed that smell, as twisted as that might sound.
Watching his step, lest he slip and fall in the excrement covering the floor, George approached the terrified woman. He bent down and freed the gag from her mouth.
She looked up at him with a hopeful glance. "Please, let me go," she pleaded. She turned her head for a moment and wretched, adding to the mess on the floor.
He reached behind the woman and untied the rope that had held her to the bed. Her hands were still lashed together behind her back, but at least she could move a little now. He laid the piece of rope onto the bed and firmly grasped her now bony upper arm. George hefted the woman to her feet.
Silently, he led the woman from the room. Good thing he had decided to move his base of operations to another outpost. There was no way he could tolerate the smell of piss and shit that permeated this place. Not for very long anyway. He opened the door and led the woman outside.
As the door slid quietly shut behind him, he took a deep breath of the fresh air. It helped a little bit, but he could still taste the foul air from inside in his mouth. Even though it was nothing she could have prevented, he was still furious with her.
For a brief moment, the woman had gotten a slight gleam in her eye. Perhaps she thought George had changed his mind and would now let her go. This delusion was shattered moments later when he rudely shoved her to her knees on the ground beside him. Before she could catch her balance and look up to plead with him once more, George raised his sword and brought it down swiftly. A small gasp escaped the woman's lips as her head fell away from her body.
Chapter 26
Night had begun to fall as the sun sank below the horizon. Edward, Katie, and Melissa had conversed for much of the day. Then they had napped for a little while in the late afternoon. Luckily, now Melissa seemed much more at ease; both with the people around her, and with her role in the grand scheme of things.
Edward looked over at the opaque bubble near the cave entrance. Jack still sat next to it, keeping his silent vigil. "Are you awake, Mike?" Edward called out.
A barely audible stirring came from the direction of the bubble. Shortly thereafter, a sleepy sounding mumble emitted from within. "Yeah, I'm up." Mike yawned.
"It should be safe for you to come out now," Edward told him.
"Okay, thanks." Moments later, the shroud of the bubble disappeared. Melissa looked on with curiosity. Supposedly this man was a vampire, but he didn't look like any she had ever seen in the movies. To her, Mike looked more like a zombie than anything else. Sure, his skin was that pasty white she associated with vampires, but his lips were more of a bluish color—like she would expect to see on a corpse. He looked like hell to her. Apparently, nobody had faxed him the memo: Vampires are supposed to be good-looking. At least, that's how all the movie vampires looked. Leave it to Hollywood to get it all wrong.
Mike looked over toward Edward and noticed Melissa for the first time. He tilted his head quizzically to the left as he looked at her, as if listening to something nobody else could hear. He then stood up and approached the rest of the group. Jack had seemed almost like he was in a trance before the bubble had gone away, but now that Mike had stood Jack followed suit. It was a strange sight. Almost as if Jack was a faithful dog following his master.
Mike stopped in front of the rest of the group. He looked down at Melissa, his head still cocked to one side. "I don't believe we have met. My name is Mike," he told her as he held out his hand in greeting.
Melissa looked up at him and hesitantly put her hand in his. She had to muster all of her self-control not to retract her hand immediately. Gripping his hand was like holding onto a block of ice. "Melissa," she said, trying her best to not sound completely repulsed.
His grip tightened on her hand for a moment as he pulled Melissa to her feet. Mike looked down at the others. "Are we just going to sit around all night?" he asked with a chuckle.
Edward flashed Mike a nervous smile. He was still very unsure about keeping Mike as part of the group. He only allowed it without making too much of a fuss because it made Katie happy. Edward boosted himself from the floor of the cave and then helped Katie to her feet. "I guess I was just dreading going through the waterfall again," Edward told Mike. "We finally got dry and I wasn't relishing the idea of traveling through the night with soaking wet clothes."
"True, but there's no time like the present. No matter what, when w
e leave we will get wet, so we may as well get it over with," Mike replied.
Edward conceded the point and looked toward Amber. "If you would be so kind to lead the way." He gave a grand, sweeping gesture of his hand.
Amber glided across the cave and disappeared through the waterfall. After that, the rest of them made their way through the falling water one by one. A few moments passed. Edward was the last one to go through and he paused for a brief time before entering the rushing water. He looked down with sadness at the corpse of yet another horse. Surely, his luck with them had to change. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes.
After grieving for a moment, Edward turned from the dead animal and dashed into the waterfall. As he approached the rest of the group, Amber turned away and began heading to the north.
The group followed Amber in silence for quite some time. None of them wanted to draw attention to themselves by shouting to be heard. After about an hour of walking, the sound of rushing water had become softer, more like the trickle of a stream.
As they continued their trek northward, Mike noticed the only part of the group that would walk beside him were Katie and Jack. Edward and Melissa hung about ten feet behind. Every once in a while when he looked back, Mike would see Melissa leaning close to Edward cupping her hand over his ear. Obviously, she was uncomfortable with Mike's presence. That much was clear when he had offered his hand to her back in the cave. He didn't understand it though. Sure, it must have been a shock to meet a vampire for the first time, but he had done nothing to her. She was judging him without knowing who he actually was. He could understand the mistrust from Edward. After all, he had killed the man's horse. Somehow, Mike had to figure out a way to make up for his misdeeds. It pained him to see his relationship with Edward so strained. He needed time alone to think.
Mike stopped for a moment and turned toward Edward. "I'm going to scout ahead," he informed Edward.
"For what?" Edward asked with a raised eyebrow. His question never managed to reach Mike's ears though. After Mike had spoken he had turned and disappeared into the darkness. Edward looked at the remainder of the group with confusion written all over his face.
"What was that all about?" Melissa asked.
"I have no idea, but I don't trust the fact that we don't know where he is," Edward stated grimly.
"So. What do we do now?" Katie asked. "Do we wait for Mike to come back or do we keep moving?"
Edward shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not sure there is a correct response to your question."
Katie looked to everyone else, hoping to get some sort of answer from one of them. "I think we should keep going," Katie said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
"Then on we go." Edward walked up with Melissa to join the others. Just as they got to where Katie was standing, Edward stopped and pressed a finger to his lips to quiet them.
"What's wrong?" Katie whispered.
"Shhh. Listen," he whispered back.
They all listened intently, not sure what they were hearing. A soft, clicking sound was coming from somewhere ahead of them. The longer they stood still listening to the sound, the louder it was becoming.
"What the hell is that?" Melissa asked nervously.
"Not sure," Katie replied, "but it sounds a lot like beetles."
"If that noise is coming from beetles, then there must be a hell of a lot of them!" Melissa said.
The dim light of Amber's glow had begun to flicker again. Obviously, she was stressed out by the situation. She only seemed to do this when she felt that danger was nearby. Katie didn't understand why Amber was acting this way. They were just tiny, little bugs. What possible threat could Amber perceive them to be?
After fifteen minutes or so passed, the sound began to lessen in volume. They appeared to be heading south. Even though she had never heard of such a thing, Katie thought perhaps the weather had grown too cold for them to survive this far north. She had never heard of insects migrating before, especially beetles. Didn't they just burrow into the ground when it got too cold?
As the sound of the passing beetles faded into the distance, Amber's glow began to stabilize. With one last nervous, backward glance, Amber turned and started leading the group northward once more.
Chapter 27
They had traveled steadily northward for the past two days, during which time nothing out of the ordinary had presented itself. No more strange columns of insects. No more serial killers roaming about.
Even though Edward had misgivings about bringing Mike along, he seemed to be a little more at ease with the situation. They weren't exactly buddies, but at least the two would talk to each other now.
The first signs of the approaching dawn were beginning to show. The sky was slowly growing lighter, but the chill of the night still hung in the air. It was a good thing that the trees, keeping the wind to a minimum, sheltered them. Otherwise, it would likely feel kind of frosty. The air temperature seemed to have gone from a late summer feel to something more reminiscent of mid-fall or early winter.
The group huddled together in a tiny area, too small to be considered an actual clearing, and began to set up a makeshift camp. Mike, as usual, opted to sleep a short distance away from everyone else to keep anyone from accidentally touching his bubble.
Admittedly, Melissa had found the whole bubble thing fascinating at first. She had never seen actual magic performed before, only the illusions and parlor tricks of those on Earth that claimed to be magicians. The magic of Earth was nothing more than slight of hand and optical tricks though. Not true magic.
Mike found his spot of choice to spend the day and lay down on the leaf-littered ground. "I'm ready," he told Edward.
At first, Edward had been very nervous about casting this spell. After all, before a couple of days ago, he had never used the spell. As with all things, he became more proficient with each casting. Edward held his hands out at arm's length and quietly spoke the words to invoke the opaque shroud. At the last word, he began to slowly bring his hands together until they touched. "There you go, Mike. The spell is in place now," Edward said softly.
"Thank you," he replied.
Edward walked over to where the rest of the group was gathered. "Where is Jack?" Edward asked.
"He took off to the north again. Just like he's been doing for the last couple of mornings," Katie answered. "I think he's scouting ahead or something. Apparently he's never found anything interesting on his excursions, because he's never said anything to us when he comes back. I imagine he'll return before it gets dark again."
"I just find it odd," Edward quietly mentioned. "Before we left the cave he was never more than a few feet from Mike, and now all of the sudden he keeps taking off."
"Didn't he tell us that his wife had been murdered?" Melissa inquired.
"Yes, but I don't see what that has to do with him taking off like he's been doing," Edward said.
"Maybe there is more than one purpose to what he's doing. Perhaps he is trying to track down his wife's killer to exact his vengeance," Melissa replied thoughtfully.
"Good point. I hadn't even thought about it from that angle," Edward conceded.
Just then, an ear-splitting roar shattered the near silence. It echoed through the trees, coming from all around them. Amber was so terrified by the sound that she didn't even bother to pulse like she'd done in the past. She just winked out and disappeared entirely, leaving the remainder of the group in complete darkness.
"What the hell was that?" Melissa asked as she removed the hands she had temporarily clamped over her ears.
Edward produced a small flame in the palm of one hand in order to see the others. He saw Katie looking at him nervously.
"That sounded a lot like—" Katie began.
"—the creature from the tavern in Haven," Edward finished for her.
"Only," Katie began again, "it sounded bigger somehow, and really pissed off."
"I'm missing something here. What creature?" Melissa asked.
Edward
gave her a puzzled look. How could she forget something like that? Then it dawned on him. Melissa hadn't been with them during the ordeal in Haven. "When we were spending the night in a town south of here," Edward began to explain, "a large, mechanical, wolf-like creature attacked us. We were fortunate to escape with our lives. I thought that I had killed the creature, but apparently I was mistaken."
"But," Katie interjected, "we saw it again after we left Haven. It was nothing more than a pile of scrap metal when we found it in the woods a few days ago."
"I know. I saw the same thing you did," Edward told Katie. Melissa's eyes darted nervously between the two, trying to comprehend what was going on. "Obviously, someone must have come along, found it, and proceeded to fix it somehow," Edward added grimly.
"How did you kill it before?" Melissa interrupted.
"If I remember correctly, I used a lightning spell," Edward replied. "Although, given what we just heard, I would have to say that all I did was temporarily disable it. We need to come up with a new plan."
"And fast," Katie added.
"What do you want me to do?" Melissa asked.
"If that creature shows up here, the best thing you can do is try to stay out of harm's way," Edward told her. "But, whatever you do, don't run away. The closer you are to myself and Katie, the more likely we will be able to protect you."
"Not to mention, we really can't afford to lose anyone," Katie added as an afterthought.
"Exactly!" Edward nodded in agreement. "We could ill afford to lose a healer."
"Or anyone else for that matter," Katie chimed in.
Another mechanical roar erupted. It was significantly louder than the last. The beast must be coming closer, Katie thought. As if to confirm her thoughts, they began to feel the ground trembling slightly beneath their feet.
"Hello! Can anyone hear me?" Mike asked from his place inside the magic bubble.
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