by Hazel Hunter
Hailey shook her head hard.
“I refuse to believe that. Believe me, I am prepared to mourn them if I have to, but I’m not going to yet. Not when we’ve not heard from anyone else, and not when the sun is still up on the first day of the search.”
Piers started to respond to her, but his phone rang. He got up to answer it, walking away a few steps. From the tone of his voice, it wasn’t good news, but it didn’t sound like bad news, either. Not yet.
To distract herself, Hailey gazed around the small clearing where they rested. It was sheltered from the wind by a large stone outcropping. There was a blanket of dried pine needles on the floor, giving it a soothing, brisk smell. She wandered around the edge, beef jerky in hand, thinking about nothing in particular, but then she stopped in her tracks.
There was a small gray fox looking up at her, eyes wide, showing the white all around the edges. She backed away slowly, but the small animal still opened its mouth and growled at her, a sound that was both frightened and desperate.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, honey. I’m going to let you be.”
That was apparently enough for the fox, which sprinted across the clearing. Piers, having hung up the phone, frowned as it went.
“That was strange,” Hailey mused. “Foxes are active at dawn and dusk. They usually want to stay away from people, not menace them.”
“Unless there’s something they want enough,” Piers said, his voice grim.
They walked to the edge of the clearing together. Now that Hailey was listening for something strange, she could hear it. The woods were utterly silent. The last time that they had stopped, the air was full of bird song. This area felt oddly muted. It was as if the woodland was holding its breath, as if it was waiting to see what would happen. Perhaps others would have found it peaceful. Hailey felt as if she was standing in a haunted house. She wanted to cover her ears and return to a place where there was sound. Instead, she stayed right where she was, determined to investigate the strange occurrence.
Suddenly she jerked, her nose crinkling up as if the tip were on a string.
“Can you smell that?” she asked.
Piers looked a little dubious, but when he sniffed the air, he startled. She could tell he could smell it now. It was a rank odor, something unhealthy and sour. She cooked with her father often as a child, and one of the memories that stuck with her was her father opening a small package that was enclosed in no fewer than three bags. The crumbled blackish-green spice on the inside had made her wrinkle her nose immediately. Her father had told her it was called devil’s garlic. A tiny pinch gave many foods a singular savor, but on its own, it smelled amazingly foul.
That was what she thought of. Devil’s garlic only grew in India and the countries nearby. There was no accounting for what she was smelling now.
Piers turned to her.
“Hailey, I’m being completely serious now. I need you to stay behind me. We’re heading in that direction. If anything, anything at all happens to me, I want you to head straight for the Castle and sound the alarm. Do you know the way?”
Hailey nodded, biting her lip.
“What about you?”
He drew one sword, leaving the other hand free.
“I can take care of myself, but I can’t do that as easily if I’m also worried about you. Please, Hailey. You can keep us both safest by doing as I say. Unless you can agree to that right now, I am going to send you back.”
Hailey hesitated before nodding.
“I understand. I’ll do as you ask.”
Together, they set off on foot, following the foul odor. After just a few dozen paces, however, they realized that they needn’t have worried about finding the source. The trunks of the trees nearby were covered with a coating of something black and unhealthy. The grass beneath their feet crumpled as if it had been rendered fragile.
Hailey could see that Piers was considering sending her back already. The only reason he didn’t was because she needed to know more if she was going to prepare people at the Castle.
Soon, they started to hear a strange noise. It reminded Hailey most clearly of someone smacking their lips, but the sound was far too loud for that and it went on and on. They drew closer, and it became clear that it was a kind of speech, uttered low and in a bestial fashion.
Piers held up a hand, making Hailey halt in her tracks. Peeking around his broad form, she could see an opening in the trees in front of them, and in that clearing was someone walking.
“Which-which-which shall I choose. This one is no good, no good at all, even if he was convenient.”
The voice raised goosebumps on Hailey’s skin. It was a human voice certainly, but it was like a human voice that had been pushed through some other animal’s voice box. There was a dead flat hum to it. Whatever it was could never have passed for human.
Piers shifted, drawing his second sword. Now Hailey could see more clearly into the clearing. When the tableau became clear, her blood ran cold.
Lying on the ground, tied up and quiet, were Julie and the man she assumed was Miles. Pacing around a small smokeless fire was a man, or what was left of a man.
He looked incredibly out of place in the forest. He wore a sharply tailored jacket over a bare chest. His sharp gray trousers were shredded below the knee, and he was barefoot. If he were any kind of a natural thing, he wouldn’t have been able to walk on his bloody and lacerated feet. As it was, he ignored the blood, the shredded flesh, even the white bone that protruded from one heel.
“Which shall I choose. Human vessels are so flimsy, so flimsy these days. Once they lasted years, I believe it, I do. Once I could walk and walk forever, and they would not tatter and tear.”
Demon, Hailey thought with fear. They were not unknown to Wiccans, but so rare that a century or more might go before they would be sighted.
Of course, that was if there was anyone left to report the sightings.
Demons walked outside the world, but when they chose to enter it, they brought with them nothing but despair and suffering. She could feel Piers tensing for an attack when it all went wrong.
The demon looked up, and in that moment, both Piers and Hailey were captured by its gaze. There was no telling what the man’s eyes had been like before. Now they were a burning terrible yellow. The demon’s gaze pinned them where they stood. Hailey could no more move her arms than she could move one of the ancient pines.
The demon shambled towards them, wagging its head back and forth as it looked over one and then the other.
“Oh, very fine, very fine, very fine indeed. A fool who believes that he knows the way out of the forest and a vampire. How very fine, indeed. We shall see, yes, we shall see what kind of pleasure they might provide. Let us crack them open.”
Hailey saw the thing’s hands reaching for her, for her eyes, and she knew no more.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE RAIN PATTERED against the window, making a steady rhythm that comforted her. Young Hailey listened to the rain instead of the man behind the desk.
“Are you listening to me, Hailey?”
On a whim, she had shaved half her head. She was underweight, which made her look even younger than her fifteen years. She dragged her eyes away from the window, and stared at him. From long practice, she kept her gaze sullen and empty. Before he could hide it, she saw the look of distaste and disgust that crossed the man’s face. He took in her skirt that was far too short, the tank top that was far too tight, and the tattered boots she had gotten at the swap meet.
Do you think I’m trash? Are you thanking your lucky stars that your daughters aren’t going to turn out like me?
Hailey kept her eyes turned carefully away from the pictures on the man’s desk. It was a happy family life that she couldn’t even dream of anymore, but the memories still cut like glass.
“Yeah,” she said finally. “I’m listening.”
He leaned over the desk and shoved her hard in the forehead with one bony finger.
“I don’t think you are. This is your third placement this year, and it’s the same goddamn story.”
It always was, Hailey could have told him. Sleeping on screened porches instead of real rooms, food that was expired or far too scanty, being hungry so often, and the roving hands of her foster brothers. It was all the same story––one she had given up on telling.
“If we can’t find another place that’s willing to overlook all this crap, we’re going to have to send you to the juvenile detention hall.”
She had heard of Parkhill. The other foster kids talked about it like it was prison. The lights never went off. They could strap you to the bed if they thought you were going to be disruptive. They could put you in solitary. Hailey thought that she should have been scared, but the fear just wasn’t there anymore. She wondered if she would ever feel anything again.
The sound she made must have sounded like a laugh. Whatever it was, it made her caseworker’s face turn red. Moving faster than Hailey ever thought he could, he leaned over the desk and landed a hard slap to her small face.
She stared at him, he stared at her. Now that his fit of rage was over, he looked startled, almost terrified of what he had done.
Hailey had been struck before, and she would be struck again, but there was something about it this time that hurt––inside.
“If you’re not careful, you are going to end up getting yourself funneled straight into the prison system after you graduate. Girls like you don’t last long on the street. We are trying to find solutions for you, and you just keep ruining them. Look at how infuriating you are. Does it not occur to you to try a little harder?” The man’s voice droned on and on. Finally, he stood, shaking his head in disgust. “Stay there. I have to pick up the files from downstairs, and we’ll start over. Maybe this time you’ll find a family that’s willing to put up with your shit.”
He walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Her face still flaming from his blow, Hailey sat numbly in the plastic chair.
Finally she slumped over, wrapping her hands around her stomach and curling in on herself. She had been in the system for six years already. It would be another three before she could get out. Eighteen looked so far away, so impossibly far away, but it terrified her as well. After eighteen, there would be no one looking after her, no one who remembered her, who knew she was alive.
All she owned in the world was in a battered duffel by her side. She knew where her pocket knife was. It had slyly been honed to razor sharpness on the bottom of one her last foster family’s bowls. She knew how easy it would be. No more foster homes. No more fear. Before she knew what was happening, her fingers were wrapped around the knife’s handle. The blade was wickedly sharp. It probably wouldn’t hurt at all.
Behind her, she could feel eyes watching her. She knew they were yellow, and they were watching with approval.
Yes, yes, this was what she needed to do.
She brushed the sharp blade over the white skin of her wrist, and she paused.
The thing behind her hissed in anger, but she sat still.
She looked at her wrist.
She could remember a hand on it. The hand was larger than her own, holding it tenderly. Almost in a daze, she watched as an enormous man with bright blue eyes lifted her wrist and turned it so that he could kiss the palm.
He looked around, as if saddened by what he saw, and then he looked at her again.
“You know I’m waiting, little fox. Come find me.”
She rose from the chair slowly. In the past, her case worker had come back in and hurried her to his car. Now Hailey knew she wasn’t in the past. She turned to see the demon.
Stripped of its human form, it was foul. It had the shape of a primitive ape, enormous and hairy, but its head was that of a warthog. It snarled at her, full of hate, but she didn’t hesitate.
She moved fast and without doubt, driving the sharp knife into its eye. The thing howled with pain before disappearing.
She didn’t care. She walked quickly towards the door, certain that she would not see the dull and dreary hallway of the Child Services building.
Hailey had someone she needed to find.
• • • • •
The rain was bucketing down hard, obscuring the fine details. It still wasn’t enough. Piers could still hear the cries of the dying Wiccans around him. He could still smell the smoldering fires that had only recently been drenched by rain.
Piers hadn’t slept for almost four days. Everything had taken on an unreal quality. His vision felt dim, and whenever he needed to turn over another body, it got dimmer. He thought that there must be an end of bodies. There must be a time when it was over.
He wondered if this was Hell, if the Templars were right after all.
He entered a timber house, and found a pair of young girls curled on the hearth, dead. At least it had been quick. They were small. He could carry them both to rest under the hastily-erected shelter outside. The shelter was still miserable and wet, but it offered a little dignity for the rows of figures that lay underneath it, covered in whatever shrouds could be found.
There were others like him moving among the dead. They looked as dazed as he was. Sometimes they fell down in the mud. Then they had to be hauled away to rest themselves. Piers wondered if rest would ever come. He wondered if he would ever close his eyes without seeing the wreck of Costain again.
He settled the two girls on the ground, drawing a single blanket over their still faces.
He wanted to cry. He knew that there were tears inside him somewhere, but if he started, he would never stop. Instead he staggered to his feet, because there was still work to be done. This is work that would always need doing. Wiccans would never hide well enough.
He frowned when he saw a young woman with flaming red hair looking around. If he’d had more rest, he would have seen that her clothes marked her as an outlander. At the moment, he could only see that she was on her feet and unhurt. Something inside him warmed at the sight of her. Though he knew there was still work to be done, he stumbled towards her.
“Mistress, mistress, are you well? Did you survive the attack?”
She spun towards the sound of his voice. With no reserve at all, she wrapped her arms around him tightly.
“Oh Piers, oh my darling. I am so sorry. I am so sorry.”
For a long moment, he stood as still as a post. Something about this woman, barely more than a girl, soothed him. She took away the distant howl of battle and vengeance.
“Mistress, if you’re not well, we can take you to a healer.”
She stepped back, wiping tears out of her eyes.
“No, I swear to you, Piers, I’m fine. I am. I just…I suspected…well, I didn’t expect this.”
Piers shook his head.
“No one did, mistress. Costain was perhaps the best defended and best hidden community in the Isles. No one expected this.”
The woman nodded as if she understood something. She took his hand again. When she met his gaze, Piers realized that she had the brightest green eyes he had ever seen.
“It will get better than this, all right? You are going to survive this, and you will live a very long time. This is a dark day, but every one after this will get better.”
He wanted to pull his hand from hers and spit. He wanted to drag her to the shelter to see the bodies laid out. Some of the slain were only a few years old. He wanted to rage at her words. The Templar attack on Costain was more than a dark day.
Instead, he only stood there and drew from the strength that seemed to come from this woman. He wasn’t better. He wasn’t stronger. But he could go on. He glanced at the surrounding devastation. Every day would get better? How?
When Piers looked up, he wasn’t surprised to find she was gone.
When he turned around, he almost expected to see the pig-ape monster behind him. Almost casually, he drew his sword and struck off its head.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
; A SHRILL HOWL filled the air. Hailey’s first instinct was to hold her hand over her ears, but then she realized where she was. She was in the forest. Beside her, Piers was stumbling, obviously still disoriented. Though her first instinct was to rush to him, she didn’t.
The man possessed by the demon was crouched down low, black blood flowing through his stained hands. She saw where one eye had been. She saw where his neck had been brutally slashed. The demon fumbled and faltered, but then it raised itself up again. It opened its mouth as if to speak, but then it roared again instead, something that made Hailey’s skin crawl.
It moved toward Julie and Miles.
In an instant, Hailey understood what it wanted. Its current vessel was injured, so it needed a new one. For some reason, neither she nor Piers would do.
Hailey acted without thinking. She laid her hand against Piers’s cheek, drawing power from him faster than she ever had before. But she didn’t need fire. She needed cold this time. Cold had been Kieran’s power. Now she called it up.
She threw herself towards the thing and wrapped her arms around it.
It turned to her, but before it could strike, she froze it. She pictured bands of ice appearing out of thin air, wrapping around the thing’s chest and holding it immobile. She imagined those bands of ice tightening further and further until the thing screamed. She was touching it, and even through the thing’s clothes, it made her palms burn.
But she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t let it hurt anyone. She knew that she had to hold on.
Help would come.
She knew that, and despite her own cries of pain, despite the howls of the trapped demon in front of her, a strange feeling descended over her. To her shock, she realized it was peace. A deep tranquility filled her, something she had been searching for her entire life without knowing.
With a roar that threatened to drown out even the demon’s howls, Piers rose up with his sword bared. He struck the demon’s head from its body just as she let go. With his second sword, he pinned the writhing, twitching body to the ground.
