For once, I could see it clearly. The body was covered in a combination of fur and scales intermingled in equal measure.
The Night-Wing dropped toward the ground, flipping its body over in mid-air allowing it to land on its powerfully muscular back legs. The five claws on its back feet ripped into the wooden floor beneath it, leaving long gouges behind as it moved. The same kind of wounds I’d seen on the female troll down by the river.
It opened its mouth and let out a long shrill cry that tore painfully at my ears. Clearly, it did not appreciate getting shot with a tranquilliser. The Night-Wing screamed again and then started to scuttle across the floor toward me.
The gun lay on the floor near Victoria and I dived across the floor, narrowly avoiding the Night-Wings attack. Grabbing the gun from where Victoria had dropped it, I ejected the spent cartridge and fired a second dart directly into the creature’s chest as it barrelled toward me once more. It screeched its displeasure over getting shot backing up into the corner, it tried to pull the darts free but its movements were definitely slowing down. Clearly, the sedatives were beginning to work and as though it wished to emphasise that point, it wobbled on its over developed back legs.
Victoria lay on the ground and I reached out toward her, touching my fingers to the inside of wrist as I searched for a pulse.
It was faint but there was no mistaking it and I let out a sigh.
The Night-Wing faced me once more, its red eyes alight with rage. The collar around its neck caught the light filtering through the open window. I’d seen a version of a collar like it before but where?
The Night-Wing let a plaintive screech out and I half expected it to run at me one last time. Instead it dropped to the floor with a crash, its eyes rolling up in its head as it hit the ground.
21
Victoria woke a few minutes later and judging by the look on her face, I could tell she had a headache.
“It worked,” she said, sounding somewhat surprised as she sat up and glanced over at the Night-Wing.
“Looks that way,” I said, wincing as I examined the deep cut bisecting my arm. It wasn’t healing in the same way my other wounds did, making me think there was something in the Night-Wing’s claws that kept the wound open and bleeding. Perhaps some kind of anti-coagulant?
She got slowly to her feet, which for Victoria was most unusual, and I watched her from the corner of my eye as she crossed the floor and crouched next to the Night-Wing.
“You saved me,” she said thoughtfully, as though tasting the words.
“You’re my partner,” I said. “It’s what partners do...” My words hung in the air between us, more accusation than statement. We both knew the score. When I had needed her, she had left me to my fate. And when it had counted, I had saved her ass.
With her back to me, I couldn’t read her expression but I could feel the tension in the room.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she said finally.
“Sorry might be nice...”
“But I’m not.”
It was like a slap in the face and I felt my anger rising in response. “Seriously, you’re not in the least bit sorry that you left me there to die?”
“You misunderstand,” she said. “I don’t know how to be sorry. Everything I have ever done, I have done for my own benefit. I spent a lot of time in debt to others. Everything I had, everything I was, was theirs to command. It is the way of the changelings. We must earn our right to a life.”
Perhaps if she had told me this before the events in the tunnel, I might have felt something. Instead, I felt nothing as she struggled to explain her rationale to me. I’d screwed up with my power, there was no doubt about it. And her anger toward me was completely justified but I was new to my power. It didn’t forgive my actions but I was learning on the job and I would never deliberately try to hurt her. She was my friend... and when I needed her most, she had betrayed me.
“That doesn’t make it all right,” I said. “We’ve all got our baggage but I would never leave you to die simply to save myself. It’s just not how I work.”
“Then you’re a better person than me,” she said simply.
Cradling my arm against my body, I pushed up onto my feet. “Have you seen the collar?” I said, choosing to change the subject. If she couldn’t understand why I would try and save her after everything, it wasn’t my job to break it down for her.
She opened her mouth as though she planned to say something more and then changed her mind. “I’ve seen this before,” she said. “The Saga Venatione have a collar they use to control their witches.”
Confusion raced through my mind as I cast back to my visits with Lily in the prison. She hadn’t been wearing a collar the last time I’d been there. I was sure I would remember something as dehumanising as that.
“Lily wasn’t wearing one,” I said. “When I visited her...”
“No, Amber,” Victoria said patiently. “I’m talking about the Saga Venatione of old. The inquisition and the witch trials. They created the collars as a way to tame the witches, render them harmless so they could use them to fight the Shadow Sorcerers.”
“They used witches against other witches?”
She nodded. “It was a slaughter but the witch-hunters didn’t care. They used the witches to do whatever needed to be done. Some even bedded the witches, deliberately breeding with them to create even more powerful witch hunters.”
Shock rooted me to the spot. The kinds of violations she spoke of were beyond abominable.
“Why do you think Nic and Jason’s power is so strong?”
“But their mother isn’t a witch,” I said quietly.
Victoria’s smile was cruel. “But someone in their family line was. And with a power as strong as theirs is, I don’t think you’d have to trace the lineage back very far to find a witch.”
Bile crept up the back of my throat. “Do they know?”
Victoria nodded. “All Saga Venatione are told of their heritage when they are accepted into the order. They both know. It’s necessary to accept the oath.”
“There’s an oath?”
“One that demands fealty on pain of death.”
“Oh...” It was a pathetic response to her revelation but I couldn’t think of anything better to say. My immediate reaction was to confront Nic, demand the truth from him. Victoria, after all, could lie. Changelings were not trapped by the same rules as the fae. But there was no lie in her words now. What use would she have for telling me something so damning?
“Now do you understand why I distrust him so much?”
“Thanks for telling me,” I said flatly. “We need to get the collar off and secure him before the team gets here.”
“Amber, are you even listening to me?”
I shook my head. “I can’t begin to unpack what you’ve just told me,” I said. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it, I—“
“You love him,” she said. “I know it makes the truth that much more painful.”
“It does. So can we please just focus on the task ahead?”
She nodded. “Suits me just fine. The sooner we’re finished here, the better.”
I couldn’t have agreed more with her.
“Now,” I said, moving over next to her, “how do we get that collar off?”
After nearly a full hour of struggling, we managed to get the creature strapped up and down the ladder. We laid it out on the tarp we’d borrowed from the sheriff, securing it at the side of the church.
However, nothing could remove the collar we discovered as we searched carefully for the release. Short of cutting the creature’s head off, which I was pretty sure was against the treaty with the fae, I couldn’t think of another way of getting the collar off... Unless.
“You said the witch-hunters use the collars to control the witches,” I said, “does that mean there’s another part to it, something they need to use with the collar?”
Victoria’s eyes turned black. “There is
another component,” she said, “we just need to find the person with the other piece and we can unlock it.”
“I think I know who might have it...”
Our work had attracted a small crowd, mostly people coming to see the creature that had helped terrorise the town over the last few weeks. Near the gate of the church, I caught sight of the four boys and shook my head. Apparently telling them to go home was only a suggestion and not actually an order.
I beckoned them over and they practically tripped each other up trying to get in the church gates.
“What is that thing?” Keith asked, wrinkling his nose as he got a better look at the Night-Wing who was now wrapped up tight and more closely resembled a burrito than any kind of dangerous flying monster.
“A Night-Wing,” I said. “Listen, I need your help.”
Victoria eyed me suspiciously as I drew the boys in around me. “I need you to tell me if anyone from the logging company is here...”
The four boys stared up at me with wide eyes. “You mean like Mr Rikerson?”
“Well, like anyone,” I said, as nonchalantly as I could.
“He’s standing over there.” Paolo said, pointing in the direction of a man in his forties who was at that moment pacing up and down outside the church railing.
“Thanks boys,” I said, moving away from them.
Alan Rikerson saw me coming and decided that would a good time to beat a hasty retreat. I made it as far as the gate when I saw Alastor leaning against Rikerson’s car, preventing the other man from getting into the driver’s seat.
“You wanted him?” Alastor asked, giving me a wide smile.
“I just want to ask him a few questions,” I said.
“I have nothing to say to you people,” Alan said, “I came down here like everyone else to see what was going on...”
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a particular collar said monster is wearing?” Not that I expected him to answer my direct approach but there was the slightest flicker of fear in his eyes as he tried to sidle past Alastor.
“A collar?” Alastor said, sounding suddenly interested. “Like the kind the Saga scum use?”
“God, does everyone else know about that but me?”
He shrugged and shot me a good natured smile. “You can be a little slow to pick things up.”
Ignoring him, I followed Alan to his car. He tried to open the door and I slammed it shut before he could get in.
“What’s your problem, lady?” he barked, turning on me. He jammed his index finger into my chest, pushing me back a couple of steps. “You magical freaks are all the same, you really think you can intimidate someone like me and—“
Alan screamed and I jumped. Alastor had caught the man by the finger he’d been jabbing into my chest and was in the process of bending it back in the opposite direction to the one it was supposed to go in. There was an audible snap as the bone gave way and I suddenly discovered my voice.
“Stop,” I said, grabbing Alastor’s muscular arm. He paused, glancing down at me, his eyes entirely black. The demon mark on my shoulder began to crawl with power that sent tiny trickles of heat racing down my spine. “I said stop, Alastor.” I pushed as much authority in my voice as I could.
He released Rikerson and took a step back, glaring at the other man. “He shouldn’t touch you like that.” There was true hatred in his voice and I suddenly found myself glad that I wasn’t the one on the wrong end of his wrath.
“You know something about the collar,” I said to him. “Do you know how to take one off?”
Alastor nodded. “I might,” he said. “What’s in it for me?”
“How about you’ll have done a good thing? A step in the right direction to help make up for all the bad shit you do.”
He glanced back at Rikerson. “You really want me to do this?” he said and I suddenly wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or the man standing in front of us.
“I want you to take the collar off,” I said. “Please...” I touched his arm and Alastor glanced down at the spot where my fingers curled over his bicep.
“Sure,” he said with a wide smile. He took off, slipping through the gates of the church and making his way up to where the Night-Wing lay, still thankfully unconscious.
I caught up to him at the side of the church. “Why are you here, Alastor?”
“I told you before. I want you.”
“No,” I said, “really, why are you here? You don’t like me, you don’t like being bound to me so why bother with all of this… Why bother to save my life earlier in the tunnels?”
“For one thing,” he said holding a finger up as method of counting off his points, “I didn’t save you earlier. I was at a strip joint one town over.”
“Really, a strip joint?”
“What can I say, I like watching humans behave like animals. Helps keep me grounded. But…” he sighed, “I came straight back when I felt your fear…” he sucked in a deep breath.
“And two?”
“Two… I’m tired of running scared of the one tracking me. I want to fulfill the promise of my birth. I want to pledge myself to you, become your demon.”
“Sounds kind of cheesy,” I said.
“Well when I put it like that, it does,” he said. “But it doesn’t change what it is. I can’t offer you romance, Amber. I don’t believe in love. You’ll have to find that elsewhere. But what I can offer you. besides mind-blowing sex, is my soul, my essence, and my power. Everything I am, is yours if you’ll only just let me in…”
“I told you already, I said—”
My cell-phone began to buzz in my pocket and I tugged it free.
“We’ll discuss this later,” I said and Alastor shrugged as he stalked off in in the Night-Wing’s direction.
The number on the screen was unfamiliar as I answered the call.
“Is that Ms Morgan?” The male voice on the other end of the line was brusque and instantly set my teeth on edge.
“Speaking,” I said, “who is this?”
“This is Commander Jones,” he said. “We got a call that you needed a containment team down in Fortune for a Night-Wing?”
“That’s right,” I said, feeling a weight lift from my shoulders. “Are you nearly here?”
“I’m afraid there’s been a delay,” he said. “A truck overturned on the highway just out of town, it’s blocking all vehicles from entering and exiting the town.”
I glanced in Rikerson’s direction once more and my stomach lurched painfully as I noticed him on the phone.
“This wouldn’t happen to be a truck carrying logs now would it?” I asked, hoping against hope that I was wrong.
“Yeah,” he said, “they’re everywhere. We were lucky we weren’t directly behind them when it went over.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think it was an accident...”
“Excuse me?” Commander Jones said, his voice turning icy.
“How long of a delay do you think there’s going to be?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “It’s hard to say, no one seems to know what’s going on here. We’ve called in reinforcements but they’re at least another two, three hours out from your position. Have you secured the creature?”
“Yeah, the little guy is all tied up here on our end,” I said, “strapped down tight. He isn’t going anywhere in a hurry.”
There was another pause on the other end of the line. “Hold on, Ms Morgan, how big is your Night-Wing?”
I glanced over at the long bundle stretched out across the ground. “At least thirteen feet,” I said. “And that’s with its wings tucked into its body and I’m not counting the tail.”
Commander Jones swore loudly on the other end of the line and the first real trickles of fear tracked down my spine.
“Why, what’s wrong with that?”
“It’s a baby,” he said. “It’s not the mother...”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “It’s on its own. T
here isn’t a mother around.”
“Oh, she’ll be there somewhere,” he said. “She’s looking for her young. Mark my words. If I were you, Ms Morgan, I’d get the hell out of dodge before she finds you.”
I glanced up at the sky as the sun sunk below the horizon. “I can’t leave all these people here,” I said.
“Then I hope for your sake and theirs that it doesn’t wake up and start calling...”
22
An ear-splitting screech cut through the air and I cringed, glancing over at the Night-Wing still securely wrapped up on the ground.
“Shut that thing up,” he said, “or everyone there is dead.” The line went dead and I stared blankly down at my phone as another screech tore the air. It wasn’t the same sound it had made when we had hit it with the tranquillisers inside. This sound carried, like vibrational frequency that passed through the body and turned you bones to jelly.
The four boys stumbled backwards from the Night-Wing, blood trickling from their noses as they clutched their hands over their ears.
The Night-Wing cried out again, the sound like an amplified car alarm. Alastor turned to face me, the collar clutched in his hands.
“Put it back to sleep,” I said to Victoria, who was still standing next to it.
“It is asleep,” she said. “It hasn’t woken up, we just took the collar off and—“
A much louder answering call ripped the night air apart, the noise driving me to my knees.
It felt like every cell in my body was being ripped apart before slowly knitting itself back together again.
Turning my face up to the night sky once more, I expected to see the shape of a huge Night-Wing bearing down on us but there was nothing. No dark shape, no winged death to mar the indigo sky.
“What is that?” Victoria asked, as the Night-Wing on the ground stirred and began to fight against the restraints keeping it bound.
“That’s the sound of its mother,” I said, as another bone-rattling screech ripped through the air. The alarms on the parked car on the street outside the church gates began to sound off, joining with the general melee to create an atmosphere of panic.
Embrace of Darkness Page 17
