by J M Thomas
We were hopelessly surrounded. I tried to slip between two of them, but they dashed in to close the gap, breaking formation to snatch me. Unleashing a flurry of kicks, squirms, and screams, I tried to pull free. Their grips only dug in tighter, sending pain streaking up my arms.
When I stopped screaming long enough to gasp for breath, a distinctive click rang out far above, from the trees. I dropped toward the ground like a stone, but they bore up my weight, so all I could do was duck my head. A crack followed the click, and the man holding me toppled over on top of me, missing the back half of his head. A second crack followed, and the other’s hand went slack as he rolled aside, twitching and bleeding.
I clamped my mouth shut to keep from vomiting as my stomach lurched into my throat. With shaking hands, or maybe it was his body jerking and shaking with death throes, I shoved him off and tore away. More cracks echoed through the night behind me, and more thuds of bodies dropping. I didn’t keep count; I just ran.
Pavement blended into a black sea underfoot. My knees gave way once. I caught myself on my hands, then I was back in the wooded area. I headed back around the other side of the embankment so I could look down on the ambulance fire. I had no idea of what else to do, where else to go.
A dark, poncho-covered figure blocked my path. I screamed, backpedaling so hard I tripped over myself and rolled down the hill. He was upon me in a second, a canine grace to his leaps as I scrambled to get away.
“Celeste! It’s me! I came as fast as I could!”
I drew in a deep breath, a moan escaping with the pain that hit me anew. “Hugo! Don’s up a tree. Aeron’s hurt…”
His fists clenched at his sides. “Which way?”
I pointed in the direction I’d come.
“It’s too open. Oh dear.” Hugo put a finger to his lips, then held out a hand to help me up. “We shouldn’t stay here. I brought supplies, and more should be coming, but I fear I’m too late already.” His gaze scanned the treeline. “Are you bleeding anywhere?”
I checked my knees and hands. A few scrapes had opened up on my right palm. I released my fist and held the scrape out to Hugo.
“That’ll do it.” Hugo raised his head and sniffed the air. “Think as loudly as you can to Don that I’ll be coming around behind Aeron, and not to take me out if he can help it. Hopefully, in the dark they won’t realize it’s me any more than you did.” He spoke quickly, as if he didn’t need to breathe between sentences.
“Can I entrust you with these things?” He lowered a backpack from his shoulders, then pulled my bag from across his body. “The others will know what to do with them. Hopefully, they will hasten a resolution with minimal casualties... on both sides.” He held both bags out to me. “We have more friends in these woods, Celeste. Hope isn’t lost yet.”
“Is this the prophecy?” I whispered. “Coming true, I mean?”
“It is.” Hugo’s dark eyes met mine, concern paling his features.
I struggled to get in another deep breath past the pain as I accepted the additional weight. “Can I know it now?”
He nodded, pulling out his wallet and snatching a paper from it with trembling hands.
I read the words by moonlight, my eyes barely registering them:
Does the bluebird sing a love song,
Perched on razor wire coils?
A true blind she, who cannot see
That puddled blood around her boils.
The watchers’ sons, they look and lurk.
The dark awaits the lion.
Where friend and foe converge, all masked
A thousand souls scream dying.
Monsters rise to feast on men
Whose powers can’t contain them.
Betrayal traps, and lovers snap,
The night’s depths, dark and grim.
When worlds collide in deadly clash,
None can bear to see it.
In defiance one small song;
One fate, if bird can seal it.
-Necromancer Prophecy, “The Fall of Wachenta”
My brothers,
A new evil will arise to threaten our existence. I looked through time and saw a great and dreadful battleground in the epicenter of a mighty city. A league of abominations practiced dark magic unfettered. A hundred summons fell with a single snap. Meanwhile, in the center of it all, a pale harbinger of doom danced and sang. It was blood revelry, sickening to behold.
We cannot allow this evil to occur. See to it.
-Watchling prophecy, “The Fall of Wachenta”
My stomach sank into my stomach like a stone. “So, is this the instructions, then?”
His eyes lit up. “You know… you may be right.” His footsteps paced the ground in our tiny alcove of cover. “For one faction, this prophecy is the unfortunate doom. For the other, it’s the instruction manual for victory.”
“All that’s left is to figure out our part in it.” I held the paper up to the moonlight, already fishing in my bag for my seal. My fingers closed around it and I gripped it tight.
“That’s easy enough. You’re the blind bird.” He turned to leave. “I’d make for razor wire and get to singing, if I were you.”
“So what’s your part, Hugo?” I whispered.
He pivoted back to me, scanning the paper again. Tears brimmed in his eyes. “I… I don’t want to.”
Confused, I blinked at him. “What?”
His voice cracked. “I’m the betrayer with the trap.”
“Who?” My mouth went dry. “Who will you trap?”
“My brothers.” He swallowed hard.
Which ones? The watchling brothers, or the necro brothers? Then, it hit me. “They’re all your brothers. Everyone here.”
Hugo nodded again, burying his face in his hands. A single sob wrenched itself from him.
I shouldered his burden of goods, tossing my seal back in my bag and tucking Sian’s necklace into a side pocket. I needed all the help I could get. “Don’t think about it too much. Just get through. It’s the only thing keeping me vertical right now.” Then, without looking at him again, I headed toward the treeline.
“I disagree,” came a whisper from behind me.
I whirled in time to see Hugo sink to his knees, a read thread wrapped around his shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides. His clenched teeth bared his dog-like canines as he cringed in pain.
Behind him stood Alena, or I assumed it was Alena. She wore a balaclava over the lower half of her face, the upper half not quite managing to cover her flowing hair. Over her navy athletic clothes, she’d strapped a messenger bag, no doubt laden with tools of her trade.
“Leave him alone! He’s here to help!” I called, taking a step toward them.
“Help who, exactly?” Alena tightened her grip on Hugo.
He flinched, clearly struggling to remain still.
I couldn’t exactly answer Alena’s question for him, either.
She continued, fuming, “This conflict is only blowing up because he wouldn’t leave well enough alone. I won’t let Aeron compromise the success of this guild. I’ll take every one of them down until someone sees sense!”
Yup, it’s Alena alright. The betrayer with a trap. My fingers fumbled in my bag, hunting for a familiar carved shape.
Alena released Hugo to crumple helplessly to the ground, stepping over him to advance on me. She seemed to have a second thought, then knelt again to tap his chin once. “You know, it won’t hurt as much if you don’t struggle against it.”
He stiffened, face contorted. “When you’ve… struggled against it your... whole life… it’s… not so easy… just to turn it… off!”
“Stop it, Alena!” I shouted. “The whole point of the guild was to unite the necros for this!”
“So, Aeron finally found someone who will buy into his shit. I’m sure he was thrilled beyond measure. So, tell me, true blind…” She was on me in a second, sprinting in a burst of energy the likes of which I’d never seen, grabbing my arm with bruisi
ng force. “Did he bring you here, too? To watchling territory?”
A line of reddish brown shot from her hand and snaked around me, a yarn-like cord exactly like the one she’d immobilized Hugo with. Alena touched the two ends of the cord together around me, but nothing happened. I shrugged it off easily.
She seemed somehow stunned by this. “You really do have incredible resistance to magic!”
I tried to break away while she stood with her mouth agape, but she caught me easily. The ground rose up fast, then her knee was in my back, one arm twisted painfully behind me. I cried out as the pressure on my cracked rib exploded through my body.
“Hold still, and it won’t hurt as bad. Now, let’s see what you have here…” Alena pulled open the bag Hugo had brought me. “A couple very impressive dispel mists, some ordinary walkie talkies… Quite a few boosting serums… is that it? I’ve seen children’s camping expeditions with better equipment.”
“There’s one more… thing… in my bag…” I managed through a groan.
“Oh?” A zipper being undone sounded behind me as her free hand rifled through my satchel.
Almost there…
“I don’t know what it is you thought was in here, but there’s just a wallet, some tampons, some makeup…”
Could it have fallen out? What if this whole thing fails because I left my bag unzipped…
“You bitch!” Alena jumped off me so fast she landed on her rear end in the pine needles. She writhed like she was being hit by bolt after bolt of lightning. “Get it off me, get it off! Aagh!”
Her hand was clenched tight around my warding seal, muscles in her arm spasming. As much as I wanted to give Alena recompense for the pain she’d caused, I had to pity her agony. Her screams were also going to give away our position if I didn’t stop this soon.
Already, a pair of dark figures rushed toward us.
I pried my warding seal from her hands as she crumpled in on herself, panting and beating the ground with one fist. “What have you done? You bitch!”
I pocketed my seal, then scooped the vials back into the satchel, bringing a handful of pine straw with it. “And stay there,” I commanded, patting the pocket with the seal.
Alena tried to struggle to her feet, but crashed down again. “Oh no, you really have done it. Shit!”
“You did that to yourself.” I searched in the dark for Hugo for a minute before nearly tripping over him. My fingers fumbled at the knot on the rope as the two masked figures came upon us.
A male voice spoke first. “We got here as soon as we could.”
“How can we help?” The woman knelt beside me as I finished untying the red cord and wadded it into a ball.
I recognized Ethan by his walk, then realized his companion was Marla. “I don’t know—I have no idea what we’re supposed to be doing. I think I figured out that we need the pieces of the prophecy to happen somehow, and that we need to stop something, but I don’t know what anything does or how anything works, and I… I…”
Marla’s hand on my shoulder stopped me. “It’s all right. I’m sure we’ve got lots of great minds here who can help us think things through.”
“I hear them…” Ethan had a faraway look in his eyes as he held his hands out in front of him, palms up. “They’re building up to break through the port hole. The watchlings will summon every goddamned hellbeast in Abaddon and throw them all at Lyons.”
“How do we stop them?” I asked.
“We don’t.” Marla shook her head as she laid Hugo’s unconscious form on his back, keeping a finger to his radial pulse. “The spot will be crawling with hellhounds and watchlings.”
“Aeron is hurt, bad.” Tears stung my eyes. “I don’t know if he can hold them off.”
“I have it!” Ethan snapped his fingers, placing his hand on Marla’s shoulder.
Marla nodded as if catching his line of thinking. “We head them off.”
“But I can’t dispel them…” His eyes flicked downward.
The lovers snapped. Well, that wasn’t what I expected—it’s better. I smiled through the tears. “If you had an impressively powerful dispel mist? And maybe a magical boosting something or another?”
“Serums?” Ethan’s eyes brightened again as I handed him the satchel. “These will do nicely.” He took one for himself and handed another to Marla. “And I suppose the communications devices are for you and the point caller.”
“Wait…” My eyes widened. “How much do you know about this plan?”
His eyes twinkled. “Only what Lyons told me on our way to meeting up with you in the cafe. He didn’t say who he’d gotten, but apparently he’d found someone to take the high ground and call out timing.”
“Don!” I nodded. “He’s got a scope that can hear thoughts. I guess I’ll get the walkie talkies to Don next, then. What about Hugo and Alena?”
“He’ll be fine. She’ll… what the hell happened to her?” Marla scrambled to Alena’s side. “Ethan?”
“Looks like a drain, or some kind of backfire…” He stepped around her to look into Alena’s glassy eyes. “I’ll admit, I’m as baffled as you are.”
“She grabbed my warding seal,” I explained. Their heads whipped around, two sets of eyes wide.
“You have the warding seal! May I see it?” Ethan asked. “Not touch it, obviously, but…”
I produced the little carving. He took a step back, observing it with the kind of keen interest and sheer terror one would employ while inspecting a glowing ball of radioactive waste.
“Spectacular!” Ethan breathed. “An incredible magic drain.” He eyed Alena. “I don’t envy you for how that must feel.”
“You…” she muttered through chattering teeth. “Do you think you’ll keep your license to practice magic in this city? There will be no place in the guild for…”
“Yes,” he interrupted with a huff, tapping the mask covering everything but his eyes. “But, as you said yourself concerning Lyons and his helmet, no one saw anyone’s faces. Can’t prove who was and wasn’t here, even if they use fairly distinctive magic.” Ethan winked. “In your own words, I could be anyone.”
“Can we make sure she’s not going to come after us?” I eyed Alena’s seething glare with concern.
Ethan gestured to the ball of red thread. “That should do the trick. If you could unravel it into a single line, carefully, please.”
I teased it into order, then handed it gently to Ethan. He looped it around her once, then tied it in a simple bow, whispering an incantation to activate it..
In a sobering contrast to how powerful and energetic she was minutes before, Alena could barely make a nuisance of herself. Ethan didn’t even have to be firm—she could barely raise her arms on her own.
“Do I want to know?” I asked Marla in a whisper.
She pressed her lips together. “I don’t mess with these things. All I remember from med school is that it’s a restraint system that burns if you press against it, even a little. Try to undo or cut it, and it’ll tase you. No physical marks or scars—but a lot of non-lethal pain. If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll stay nice and still and think about her choices while we try to prevent further bloodshed.” Marla nodded to Ethan as he helped her to her feet.
“I suppose I have deliveries to make, then. Be careful, guys.” I shivered, resisting the urge to give them both a parting hug as the two disappeared into the growing mist between the trees.
The night had gone cool, mist clinging in creases and multiplying my nervous sweat. Clouds billowed, blinking out the stars one-by-one. If there was a night in which I didn’t want to be caught as the stuffing between a necromancer and watchling sandwich, this was it.
Chapter 31 – None Can Bear
Despite my inexperience, I couldn’t help but weigh all the pieces I knew against the parts that were still a mystery to me. I didn’t have time to pull out the prophecy again to look at it while I sneaked around what appeared to be some kind of training area in a larg
e compound. At least I didn’t have to run—my crunchy rib hated me bad enough at this speed.
I could kill Aeron for not giving me time to get familiar with the important details before people were counting on me. I doubted he expected I’d be this involved, even with me bookending the prophecy. I had to look for razor wire and hope fate had left me with some way to use it when I saw it—some way that didn’t involve me actually using it on anyone.
It was the worst possible time, but man, I hated myself at this moment. When everything was all “oh, you’re special,” I was here for it, darn me to heck. I was dying of being ordinary back home, and this dating service had given me everything I ever wanted. Now it was trying to snatch everything away again in one fell swoop.
I had to find a way to turn the tides, somehow… hopefully not by hurting anyone else, or being the reason they were hurt. Anything else I accomplished was icing on the cake.
I’d get my chance soon enough—the clearing where I’d left Aeron was almost in sight. Above us, Don’s rifle had fallen silent. There was one piece on this crazy chessboard that at least was stationary. With communication, Don could listen in on everyone else’s thoughts and communicate strategic information to Aeron on the ground.
With Hugo down and Alena hopefully down for good, Ethan and Marla getting into position to draw off the hordes of whatever was fighting over here… I didn’t know who else would make it to help us. Lana was here in spirit only, her gifts a priceless treasure that could mean the difference between failure and success.
That left Sian and Orterios, the mage who’d used the runes, and I wasn’t thrilled with the possibility of either of them showing up. Sian because of how he’d knocked me out with his needle necklace, and Orterios because of how he’d hurt Aeron and the uncanny feeling I got that I knew him from somewhere.
