Wild Hunt (The Island Book 2)

by C. M. Estopare

  Light—sprint.

  Something snagged the back of her shirt, yanking her backwards—her own shirt choking her.

  Darkness. Freeze.

  The force dragged her backward, then straight through the camp. In the darkness, she saw flames and firelight glinting off of bleached bone.

  Light.

  “Drop the selfish girl.” Maka’s command. The Nephilim dragging her along stopped, but only to swivel its massive bird skull around to stare at him.

  Darkness. Maka’s grunt as two Nephilim descended on him. Before long, he was being dragged through the dirt toward Ren as her assailant began to move. Holding her breath, Ren tried envisioning the black energy. It thundered to life in the light, seeping from the bottomless eyes of the Nephilim listing around the camp. They twisted their skulls toward her and began to move. A crowd began to follow as darkness fell like a heavy curtain.

  Light. A massive Nephilim stood from a throne of hardened bone. Massive prayer beads and white animal bone jingled as it spread out its hands. The Nephilim holding Ren steady released her. Darkness dropped again and Ren fought to pull the energy wafting all around her.

  The Nephilim before her pulled it back.

  “Another one,” it rasped, “lurching toward Her Heart. Hoping to reset Her. To revitalize and resume Her.” A choking wheeze clawed up its throat. Cringing, Ren realized that it was laughing.

  Light. It took a jagged step toward her. “How…confident must you be to believe…that you are any different…from the hundreds…of us?”

  What?

  Ren blinked her confusion away. Rage built behind her eyes as she tried to pull the energy again only to have it stolen away by the Nephilim before her.

  Tilting its colossal skull, man-sized antlers on either side of its head swimming through the onslaught of pulsing blue light, it considered her. “Answer…Outsider.”

  Behind those bottomless, sunken, eyes; Ren saw a flash of green. “Uh…I’m just trying to get back to the, uh, Lower City…”

  It’s snorted laughter came slowly. “Yet…you proceed…opposite.” It straightened. “We who have…failed…Great Moira…hold our homes…here.” It cleared its throat with a hiss. “Why…remind us…of our failure? Why come…here?”

  Ren’s face was a mask of confusion. Nephilim…Wild Spirits. They’ve…failed Moira? What did that mean?

  As if it could read her thoughts, it took a step back. “You know…nothing.” It croaked. “Who…will warn the Chosen? No one…ever does…” blue light bled along its bony features, settling into the black pools of its eyes, “Until it is…too late.”

  A chorus of stale wheezes surrounded Ren and Maka. Ren was pressed for words but had none. The Wild Spirits—Nephilim, whatever—always had a way of speaking nonsense that kind of made sense. If that meant anything. The Nephilim’s words hit home. But Ren couldn’t put her finger on why.

  “The four humans…may pass…if only…,” stretching out its arm, it offered Ren a flattened palm. “…the Chosen offers something…of value…to me.”

  Let. Me. OUT.

  Nakato’s scream hit Ren’s temple like a fist to the forehead.

  You’re going to die down here if I don’t do something and I will not die again!

  Something of value? Cold sweat slithered between Ren’s shoulder blades. Shit. Why was this harder than it should have been? Back home, she had hundreds of things she valued; her laptop, her phone, piles and piles of clothes that never gave her something significant to wear. Fuck.

  The only thing she had left was…

  Her hand went to the crystal at her chest. Empty. The glass was cool against her skin. Ripping the Scion crystal off of her throat, she dangled it above the Nephilim’s outstretched hand and dropped it.

  In the Nephilim’s blackened palm, the crystal crumbled to dust.

  19

  Gnarled fingers closed into a tight fist, the Nephilim’s hand trembling slightly as it met Ren’s gaze.

  “Maybe…you…will be different.”

  With a nod of its massive antlered head, the Nephilim holding Ren and Maka let go. With its fingers still curved, the Nephilim before Ren opened its hand out to the side, stretching it toward the back of the high-ceilinged cave.

  Ren and Maka sprinted.

  They met Ekanna and Chi Chi at the end of the cave, the two women peeking in through the tunnel behind them. Chi Chi offered them an apology in the form of a smile and a shrug.

  “What?” Ekanna barked, looking specifically at Maka. “It’s your own fault.” She lifted one shoulder.

  Grumbling under his breath, he stomped below the low arching entrance into the tunnels beyond and stopped a few steps inside. “Lead.”

  Before Chi Chi could turn around, Ren snatched up her forearms. “What are they?” she said, looking back, “The Nephilim?”

  Without meeting Ren’s eyes, a pained expression on her soft face, Chi Chi murmured, “They are nothing more than monsters, Renata. Truly.”

  Ren’s eyes narrowed. “Truly?”

  “Now, if you would let go…” Chi Chi wiggled out of Ren’s grasp and walked forward, leading the pack away from the cavern. Ekanna stood her ground, pinning Ren with a piercing glare before flicking her auburn hair over her skinny shoulder and charging forward.

  She’s lying.

  Ren pursed her lips and moved. You don’t think I know that?

  No, Nakato snorted, why else would I warn you, stupid girl. You are the seagull that was never taught to fly.

  Ren rolled her eyes. Whatever that meant.

  The path curved and straightened, rising in gradual intervals as brilliant blue illumination became more consistent. More steady. When the pathway split into two, Chi Chi did not hesitate to take the path most center, the ground picking up in slow heaps of sooty rock. Electric blue dimmed to a soft aqua hue that blared through the cave like stained sunlight, painting the onyx walls in a soft white and blue light.

  The tunnel opened, blooming like a lily in summer. Another cavern loomed, this one gleaming with soft aqua light that washed in from above, from a massive crater in the ceiling that welcomed mist and salty tears. As they walked, every footstep echoed. The aqua-blue light danced over statues ten times Ren’s height, the towering dark blue silhouettes of women with ripe leaves and blooming blossoms sprouting off of their fingertips hung over her. They guarded a towering double door hewn in the black stone of the mountain. Even from here, Ren could see complex locks surrounding the double stone doors like gates of fire.

  Chi Chi covered her mouth with her hand as she walked forward. Ekanna stiffened beside her, head going right and left. Maka, spinning in slow circles, threatened to trip Ren up as he surveyed the entire room. Ren’s lips parted as her eyes widened, her gaze going from the towering stone statues to the massive doors separating them from whatever lay inside.

  Wait—

  “This definitely isn’t the Lower City,” Ren said, not stopping, not even daring to look away. “Where are we?”

  By Moira…I never imagined it would be so…that She would be so…

  Even Nakato was surprised. That sure was saying something.

  A magnetic hum crept between the crevices and cracks in the massive stone doors. The low thrum vibrated through the floor, kicking up pebbles and dust.

  “The Heart.” Ekanna murmured, eyes straight, gazing at the double doors. “This must be it.” She brought her gaze to Chi Chi.

  “I…I…” Chi Chi shook her silver head, “…this is it.” She confirmed, clenching her fists and nodding her head. “I have seen it in my visions. But…I saw her touching the…” she turned her gaze to Ren.

  “Touching what?” Ren stopped between the two guardian statues, hands on her hips.

  Descend into my Heart.

  Moira’s voice. Ren’s jaw dropped.

  Bring my twelve.

  It echoed off of the walls, filling the room with a deep timbre.

  Descend into my Heart.

  �
��I got it!” Ren screamed, throwing open her hands. “I think I…”

  I think you definitely do not have it.

  Ren shoved her way through Chi Chi and Ekanna. Standing before the stone doors, she was forced to look up—high up—to survey the doors entirely. On either side of the stone lay two deep divots, dark holes in the stone that took on four different shapes. At her feet, lay a semicircle of stone split into four different tracks, barriers in the stone denoted different routes for different elements. An etching of fire lay in the outermost ring, next was earth, then water and air. Looking back up at the divots, Ren could only guess that something had to go inside of those four holes. But she couldn’t put her finger on what.

  Scions for the rings. Something else for the holes. Ren shook her head as she began to kneel before the outermost ring, but what about the Shapers? If this really is Moira’s Heart, how would the Shapers open the doors?

  Splaying her fingers into the outermost ring, Ren searched for energy and found it pulsing in droves from the nearby stone. Ripping the energy away, she used it to light her fire. It roared to life beneath her fingertips and rippled along the outermost ring of the stone semicircle. Ren watched it race up both sides of the massive stone doors and surround the outer edges of the doors in rollicking fire.

  Earth. Nakato murmured, I can help, Renata. Let me through.

  With a sharp intake of air, Ren broke her concentration on the magnificent spectacle of fire dancing around stone. I don’t trust you.

  There is none other like me, Nakato said, voice grim, I am your only chance. Learn to trust me.

  Tentacles sprouted from her chest. Ren held her breath and blinked the vision away as a cold rolling force swam around her right arm in spirals, forcing her fingers to tremble. Reaching over, her body no longer her own, Nakato forced her fingers to splay in the second ring. Earth spiked through the second ring, stone jolting up into pikes of pure white. The power rolled along the second ring, charging through to the doors and ringing around them, enveloping the fire.

  All they needed now was water and air. Kato and the Water Scion.

  Without them, they couldn’t open the doors.

  Shit.

  Ren snatched back her hand, forcing Nakato back into her place. I don’t need you.

  That, my dear stupid girl, is where you are sadly mistaken.

  Ren wished people like Nakato would stay dead, but it seemed as if Moira had other plans for the Mesh’s former shamaness.

  Ren spun around and stood. “Can’t open it.”

  Maka, Ekanna, and Chi Chi surrounded her in a broken circle of awe.

  “What?” Maka rasped.

  “We need more people.” Told ya so.

  “How many?” Ekanna asked. “I thought—the Shapers and the Chosen.”

  Chi Chi pursed her lips. “We are missing one.”

  In the back of the cavern, a lone silhouette moved, slinking along the ground. It clambered toward them, throwing off the shadows of the cave to reveal a Nephilim tailing them. Bull Skull.

  These things just didn’t know when to quit.

  Ren rolled her eyes as the rest of her group turned.

  Clattering toward them on uncertain taloned feet, the Nephilim eagerly closed the distance before shedding its sweat stained robes and sallow skin. It’s colossal bull skull clattered to the ground, as did bone-white trinkets and a necklace threaded into a palm-sized dream-catcher. Like a snake wiggling out of its skin, a gray-skinned man flung off the skin of a Nephilim.

  Icy eyes scanned the group. Chi Chi bristled, her face pulling into a sneer.

  “You could not open it.” The man rasped, his voice like rocks grinding together slowly. “I am surprised.”

  “Who is this?” Ren whispered at Chi Chi.

  “Slate.” Chi Chi hissed. “He is the reason the Lower City and the city above do not coalescence.”

  Dead eyes slid to Chi Chi. “The Paragon banished you.” He said matter-of-factly, “She banished all of our kind—or, so I thought.”

  Beside Ren, Maka shifted.

  “So, you just…followed us?”

  “The holes in the door.” He pointed, counting all four. “You need keys for them. Godcallers.” He said, fingering the silver chain that dived beneath his form-fitting black tunic, “I know where you can find them.”

  Well, great. “And I’m sure you want something in return for that info?”

  “Ren.” Chi Chi growled. “You should not make deals with thieves. They cannot be trusted.”

  Slate shrugged and took a step back. Opening his arms nonchalantly, his face and body twisted and morphed. Color dove into his skin, while his hair lengthened, stretching to the small of his back. His body mimicked Chi Chi’s, minus the dress. His face was a mirror image, one that Ren couldn’t tell apart from Chi Chi’s.

  What the fuck?

  Nakato snorted in her head. He’s one of them.

  A Shaper, got it.

  “Would it be easier to trust me now?” He asked, eyes glued to Chi Chi’s. “As a self-titled messiah of the people? One the Lower City never asked for, nor wanted?”

  Chi Chi let out a strangled breath, her fingernails cutting deep into her palms. “Drop it.” She said. “Drop the glamour, Slate.”

  He dropped it as easily as a curtain falls upon a stage. One moment, he was Chi Chi’s mirror image, the next he was a person all his own.

  He closed the distance between himself and Ren in an instant. “I want sunlight for the Lower City,” he began, leaning into her, “and Outsider technology for my people.”

  “In exchange for the Godcallers?”

  “I will escort you to them, then back to the Heart.” His hand shot out. “Deal?”

  Sunlight and technology? Ren wasn’t sure how in the hell she’d get some tech from Morgan Black here, but she’d find a way. Then, there was the sun…

  She clasped his hand. “Sure.” His grip was clammy and cold, dead like the breath of a Nephilim.

  Slate snatched his hand away and turned around. “Follow me, then, or rot.” He said flippantly, throwing a hand over his head. “Fortunately, I only need one of you.”

  Ren exchanged a glance with Chi Chi. Betrayal. It was written all over her face.

  20

  Diamonds glittered on the high, staggered, ceiling of the Lower City’s colossal cavern. White light filtered in from its mouth, followed by the roar of the waterfalls curtaining the Great River outside. Towering structures of marble, stone, and wood were swallowed by a tumult of rocks. Crushed. The statues that once lined the pathway up to the city now stood in a mountain of rubble that slid down into a city populated by tents.

  Yet, life goes on.

  “In one day,” Slate said, turning to face them, “meet us there. At the mouth.” He said, pointing.

  “And, why?” Chi Chi spat, crossing her arms. “Do you plan to drown us?”

  “If the boats don’t sink.” Slate shrugged. Turning on his heel, he left them at the opening to the tent city. Chi Chi bristled as the hustle and bustle of people attempting to live amid chaos crisscrossed before them.

  Ren snapped her out of her rage. “Your clinic.” She said, snapping her fingers at her side. “Your clinic!”

  “Yes!” Chi Chi barked. “I hear you.” She glued her gaze to Ren’s. “Just, give me a moment to get his slime off of me!”

  Ren rolled her eyes. “What’s with you and him?”

  Chi Chi dipped her chin to her chest and shook her head.

  “They—”

  “Ekanna!” Chi Chi roared.

  Ekanna clamped her lips shut as Maka chuckled.

  “Come on, nosy girl.” Chi Chi grumbled, snatching up Ren’s wrist before diving headfirst into the tangled crowd of tents and people.

  Combing through the crowd, Chi Chi asked around in island speak for the clinic before taking hard lefts and rights, losing herself in the jumble of tents and greasy cook-fires. Finding her destination, she slipped beneath the scraggly veneer
of a curtain barely covering the square mouth of a substantial tent that glared over the heads of multiple tinier tents in the vicinity. Ren followed, the sickly sweet smell of sickness pervading her nostrils once the veneer shimmied over her head and dropped behind her.

  Ekanna and Maka did not follow, the two preferring to meander around outside.

  That guardsman cannot be trusted. He works for the Paragon—

  Ren’s jaw clenched. Not. Now.

  Nakato hushed with a heavy sigh and a low, rumbling, growl.

  Thatch bedrolls thrown onto the dirt held patients, those with broken limbs or unsettled organs. Finding her attendant, Chi Chi questioned her rapidly in island speak, talking faster than Ren thought possible for any human. Sighing and shaking her head, Chi Chi dismissed the woman with a curt nod and turned back to Ren.

  “Ah, your friend is lucky…” she wouldn’t meet Ren’s eyes, however. “…unfortunately, he is lost.”

  “What?” How does a guy in a coma get lost?

  “She swears he’s around here…somewhere…”

  “How long has this guy—who can barely open his fucking eyes, let alone walk—been missing?” Ren ground her teeth, fire burning behind her eyes.

  “She, um, she didn’t say.”

  Of fucking course.

  Ren stormed out, but thought better of it and turned around, lifting the veneer. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She meant for the phrase to sound like a goodbye, but it came out as a grunted warning.

  Chi Chi dipped her head curtly and turned away as Ren vanished, moving through the tent city with an ache in her jaw and a stitch in her gut.

  How could he just go missing?

  Hi there. It’s your brain. You aren’t using me correctly and I’m a little worried I may turn to slush.

  Ren sighed heavily. What do you want?

  Think harder, stupid. If he’s in a coma, he can’t get lost, can he?

  Ren blinked away tears and stormed past an opened tent flap. Eyes burned holes into her back and she swiveled toward a familiar stare.

  He waved. Carelessly happy. Cross-legged on a patchwork rug, he just sat there and waved.