Heart of the Resonant: Book 1: Pulse (Resonant Series)

by B. C. Handler

  I ran up and cracked my sword on the hunched back of the nearest werewolf, right on the bony ridges of the spine, then I swung blindly at the other two. Enraged, the beast I struck in the back tore its teeth away from Aleih and focused on me. I barely managed to block a clawed hand with my sword, but the follow up swipe knocked it from my hands. Disarmed, I was tackled into the wall, only managing to work my arm under the wolf’s jaw as it snapped at my face.

  There was a terrifying sense of déjà vu as the beast snarled and fought desperately to overpower my arms to get a chunk of Al meat. I did get a break when a knife flew from the side and sank into the wolf’s neck. Using my chance, I drew the hunting knife from my pocket and stabbed the wolf through its jaw. The pop from the knife told me I got through the skull.

  The dead werewolf fell away, taking my knife with it. Leaving the blade lodged in the wolf’s skull, I retrieved my bokken from the floor and turned to see Neepa kneeling over the severely injured Aleih and Eva fending off the other two wolves. I gripped my sword tightly, bracing for another fight, but the two wolves facing Eva ceased snarling and their ears perked straight up, the low pitch from the wizard’s whistle vibrating the air.

  I looked down the hall to see what he was doing, and then chilled air slammed into me. A flash of purple, black, and green exploded in my vision as the back of my head collided with the wall. Next thing I knew, I was being dragged across the hot, charred floor. There were shouts. Neepa and Eva’s I recognized, but there were a few new voices, some male and female. Once my head cleared, I was at the boots of the wizard, who leered down at me with glee. A werewolf’s snout snarling inches from my face.

  “Just in time,” he said proudly. He pulled out a yellow crystal from his pocket, then snapped it before tossing it to the side. An oval-shaped void of rippling blackness appeared, roughly four feet tall and two and a half feet wide. The void shimmered a uniform radiance of yellow before fading away and revealing a detailed picture of a forest at night.

  “Stop!” a man's voice from behind yelled.

  “After you,” the wizard said. The wolf then flung me into the freestanding portrait.

  That blow must’ve knocked several things loose because I went into the picture and fell into cool, wet grass. The scent of nature and soil filling my nostrils as my swept open forestry, then settled on the opening I was throwing through. The wizard was stepping through with the burning hallway and werewolf to his back, my bokken in his grasp.

  A fucking magical portal?

  “Cutting it close there,” he said gallantly as the portal behind him began to shrink. “Now, we have some very big plans for—Gah!” His face contorted and he pitched forward. As he fell away, I saw Eva tackle the werewolf through the portal just as it blinked out of existence.

  Eva was on her feet with another blade in hand, but the wizard turned and blasted her with a gale of wind. The roaring gust sent her into the brush ass over teakettle as the man slowly got to his feet, revealing one of Eva’s throwing knives embedded in his lower back.

  Eva lunged from the bushes with knives clutched in either hand, but the wizard had another gale ready. She was swept up and slammed into a tree, the winds screaming as it kept her pinned.

  “I’ll see you suffocate, whore!” the wizard growled as the air around us thrashed violently, the tree Eva pinned to groaning and bending from the strain.

  Eva cried once and that was the shock that set my brain on track. While he was distracted, I leapt up and grabbed the leather-bound handle of the knife, driving it inches deeper and twisting for good measure.

  The wind stopped abruptly when the wizard roared and began fighting with me. An elbow nailed me in the forehead, but I maintained my sloppy hold around his waist. We both fell into the grass and I managed to get the knife free. I wrestled myself on top and caught another blind fist in my cheek.

  For a wielder of magic, he hits like a toddler.

  His greasy palm pressed into my face, I could feel his other hand clawing at mine, desperately working for control of the knife. Using my free hand, I slammed my fist down blindly, striking something, but whatever it was, it was enough for me to free my knife hand.

  I stabbed blindly into the man, getting an assuring screech of pain. Then I stabbed again, then again, and several more times after that. The cries tapered off into guttural noises, the wizard’s arms losing their tension. Just as gurgling babel stopped, his arms fell, growing limp like the rest of him.

  Gasping, I stared down at a dead face, eyes staring blankly into the trees partially obstructing the night sky, the face still contorted in pain.

  I stared at my hands next, looking as if I dunked them into a bucket of red paint. Bile rose up from my throat and I managed to scramble off the corpse in time to retch on the grass.

  Killing a grotesque monster was one thing; killing a human being was another. He had bad intentions, obviously. Doesn’t take away the brutality of stabbing someone to death.

  I spit away what was left in my mouth and heard footsteps approaching. I looked up and saw Eva. Dirty, covered in soot, and a few bloody tears in her tunic around her hip.

  “You okay?” she asked ironically.

  Slowly, I rose to my feet, head throbbing as I did. The back of my head ached something fierce. I checked and felt a considerable bump, my digits coming back with a smear of crimson. Lord knows how many brain cells I’ve lost from all this blunt force trauma.

  “I think I’ll live,” I answered.

  I looked past Eva and at the werewolf she tackled. Rather, what was left of it. Everything from the waist down was just simply gone.

  Fighting back the urge to retch again, I nodded towards the remains. “What the hell is up with that?”

  Eva went over and knelt down in front of the gore. She even reached into the blood and intestine covered grass and dug around a little. She uncovered something from the earth, and after inspecting it for a moment, tossed it at me. The thing fumbled between in my hands before grasping it.

  “That’s what happens when a rift closes on you,” Eva said while she went over to the wizard’s body.

  In my palm was another crystal like the wizard used for the portal. Although this one held no yellow phosphorescence. Cracks spider-webbed throughout the pentagonal shape, the thing dusted in a thin coat of dirt.

  “A what?” I asked.

  “A rift; a door that bridges two points. The rift shard you’re holding is a valuable and expensive item. Something one could only get from a highly developed region.” Eva looked up into the sky through the trees. “We’re still near the capital, somewhere west.”

  She knelt down in front of the body, studying his face. Without any care or hesitation, she yanked out the knife I left planted in his chest, then calmly wiped away the blood on his cloak before returning it to her belt. Still kneeling, she ripped the whistle from his neck.

  The way she handled herself with such cool composure around dead bodies was alarmingly impressive.

  “So that’s it,” Eva cringed, as if those very words tasted fowl on her tongue

  “I think he was using that thing like a dog-whistle,” I added, going off of my observation from earlier. “I mean, they only seemed to attack when he used it.”

  Her head whipped towards me like she was just slapped. “You think?” she snapped.

  I stepped back from her sudden outburst. “What?”

  “Feral beastkin can’t be tamed, let alone with a whistle that controls them like puppets! These weren’t normal; they don’t look like that.” She jabbed her finger and the upper portion of the corpse. “They’ve been corrupted.”

  I fought the urge to retch again. “Corrupt… what do you mean?” Her meaning was obvious, I just didn't want it to be.

  “The Null,” Eva said coolly, much to my dismay. “I’ve witnessed enough corrupted beings to recognize the Null’s heinous touch.”

  A breeze rolled past us, susurrating the trees, the forest moaning in a promising threat. Our
vulnerability was plainly obvious in the wake of this unaccounted epiphany. The Null, actualized evil, is here in Scintillion, and they managed to strike in the heart of Lucinia, the very building I’ve been told is the most secure and guarded. The most alarming of all: they were looking for me.

  My fingers and toes chilled, and I paced around the grass, making a poor effort of not trying to lose my shit. Another breeze rolled by, this one stronger. I shivered as the chilled air blasted through my light shirt and seeped into my skin. But what I saw next froze the very marrow of my bones.

  Branches swayed by the stronger current of air high above the treetops, the shadows they cast forced to dance and ripple the lines between darkness and light. Revealed from the shadows, the remains of what was a face stared back at me from where it lie off in the brush a few feet away.

  I swallowed the frog in my throat and called out in a quiet voice, “Eva?”

  She caught on to my tone and looked toward where I was staring.

  After focusing more, I was able to make out the remains of some other figures in the scant light provided from the dark heavens.

  Of, fuck. Can this get any worse?

  The universe heard me, and like a spiteful ex-girlfriend, decided to take pleasure in twisting my already strained nerves.

  Leaves rustled and grass crunched under steps, the sounds coming from all around us with no discernible source.

  God, throw me a fucking bone here.

  With nothing else better, I snatched up my bokken from where the wizard dropped it and held it at the ready. Eva and I shuffled closer together until we were back-to-back.

  “You still got bolts and throwing knives?” I whispered.

  “Lost my crossbow when that beastkin threw itself at me as a distraction. I’ve only two throwing knives and my boot knife.”

  And I’ve got a stick. The ultimate weapon.

  Fuck me.

  The rustling hushed, the world stilled. Then, out of the brush directly ahead were footsteps. Fright coursed through me when I saw the furry feet step from the shadows, then that fright became dumbfoundment as a pair of powerful, pale thighs came into view, followed by the very bare breasts.

  A woman, but not human.

  Poking through her wild grey hair were two pointed ears, and swaying behind her luscious and wide hips was a puffy, grey tail with a slight curve that ended with streaks of white. Running along her legs and arms was a similar grey coat that matched her hair; the fur stopping just shy of her elbows, and halfway up her thighs. Delicate hands were absent on this woman, instead possessing powerful mitts mostly covered in a gray pelt with snow-white claws protruding from her digits. The same story true for her feet, looking larger than normal, coated in grey fur.

  The sight was so jarring and the woman so beautiful that I forgot my unease. However, the fear came rushing back when several figures with identical features, male and female, emerged from the brush, completely encircling us.

  As the woman stalked closer, I saw her intense, golden eyes, and her almost innocent, child-life face. The virtuous nature of the face perished at the sight of blackened, dried blood caking her mouth, chest, and claws.

  Thoroughly petrified and enamored, I stood still as a statue, watching her as she did the same. I caught Eva looking over her shoulder from the corner of my eye; I could feel the shear tension in her muscles as our backs touched, much like an over wound spring desperate release its energy. That tension only grew worse as the wolf-lady continued forward.

  She stopped just a few feet shy, then lowered her gaze to my bokken. Low growls and hisses sounded from the others.

  Taking the strong hint, much against logic, I lowered my bokken slowly, then let it fall from my fingers.

  “Eva,” I whispered, “drop the knives.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” she whispered back through her teeth. “They’re feral. They. Will. Eat. Us.”

  “And you think we can fight them off?”

  Eva went silent, actually considering fighting to the death with a pack of wolf-people, or dog-people, whatever the fuck.

  “Eva, if they wanted a meal, they would've done something. Please, for the love of God, trust me.”

  Another long stretch of nothing came from Eva. Then, thankfully, she sighed heavily, the sounds of her knives falling to the grass there shortly after.

  As soon as the blades left her hands, the wolf-woman got right into my personal space. She took her time staring, scrutinizing every feature with her unwavering eyes. Next, she came even closer, mashing those wonderfully round breasts of hers into my chest, and sniffed me. And sniff me she did. She sniffed all around my neck, my nose, my ears, and stood on her tiptoes to sniff the locks of hair that fell into my face.

  It was weird and uncomfortable, but at least she wasn’t hurting me, something easier than breathing for her, I’m sure. As she sniffed my hair, traces of her iron-heavy breath waft into my nostrils. Whoever those other bodies were, they met their end by the very wolf-people around us, by the very wolf-lady who was inches from my face.

  Once satisfied with my scent, she stepped back and stared at me closely again. Fear kept me from turning away from the dangerous she-beast. Enrapturement also played a small role in keeping my eyes fixed to her.

  After several hammering beats of my chest, her ears swiveled toward one direction, and her head followed. She made a sort of barking grunt, and then raced off into the brush, giving me good view of her bare ass. The others followed after her in a rush. Then it was just me, Eva, and the corpses.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding then gasped for sweet air. Then nearly stumbled over when Eva broke away. In my moment of relief, I inadvertently sagged against her.

  “Those were—”

  “Normal wolf-beastkin,” Eva finished. “They may not look as hideous as the corrupted ones, but they’re just as dangerous. Far cries of the civilized beastkin of our world. We’re very far west if we’re in their territory.”

  She went over to the dense brush and started pulling the other bodies out of the deep shadows. I joined and watched over her shoulder. Eight bodies in total; seven grotesque werewolves and another human, another mage most likely. They looked like what one would imagine from the aftermath of getting mauled by a pack of wolves, of wolf-people. The satisfaction of seeing them dead dampened by the savage state of their wrenched bodies.

  “One went to fetch you, the other was waiting,” Eva said dismissively while she ruffled through the man’s bloodied clothing. She found another whistle around his neck, then pocketed it. Just as she was about to dismiss the others, something made her head snap to something. She leaned in close to one of the corrupted bodies, then another down the bloody line. She hastily went over to the bisected one. A curse hissed under her breath.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Collars. All of the corrupted beastkin, they have collars.”

  Difficult to see in the low light through squinting, I saw the subtle contrast in the monster’s furry necks. Simple bands of blackened metal were fastened around their necks. “What does this mean?”

  Eva sighed, then grabbed her knives from the grass. “I don’t know.” She gave a slow one-eighty of our surroundings. “We have to find them. Now.” Those words came out slow and hard, carrying a heavy sense of urgency. “We need to find them before things escalate.”

  “They’re dead now,” I said. “And that wolf-lady seemed, uh, friendly. Let’s just start walking towards the capital.”

  “Al,” she said sternly, “why do you think they breached Lucinia and brought you specifically deep into the woods in the dead of night?”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but Eva beat me to it.

  “This is the Null, Al. Those deranged fuckers,” she said, gesturing to the two dead men, “are Null sympathizers, and they were able to handle corrupted beasts like Casters. Something very bad is happening if they are here, the very heart of the One’s domain. For something like this fucking mess to
happen, they must have a plan and there must be more of them. In these woods.

  “This feels more than an abduction. It may be something much, much worse. Much can be at stake.”

  Eva trembled, from fear or rage, I know not, but she was upset. This was her home, and the very thing she loathed was here, and killed several of her own people. The only thing on her mind was killing them back.

  I reached out and grabbed her shoulder. He trembling ceased and her vivid green eyes trained to mine.

  “Eva, I still have no idea what’s going on, but it’s going to be okay.”

  She slapped hand away and took a heavy step towards me. “You really are an idiot! How can you even say that?”

  “Because it’s all I can say. I’m terrified, Eva, really, I am. I’m haunted by the things I saw and by the fate of everyone I loved. And it’s so painful knowing that I’ll never, ever see them again. The nightmares I've had the last week and a half nearly broke me.” I swept my arms through the air. “All this, the strange land and people, the hazy future, this war; all of it is threatening to break me. If it wasn’t for you and Neepa, I just… I don’t know, I can’t even begin.

  “Neepa’s compassion kept me moving. What you told me at the cliff, you reminded me of my second chance, you got my head out of my ass and got me thinking straight. Things are really fucked up, confusing, and I’m so conflicted on what I should do. So for now, I’ll just keep telling myself it’ll be okay, even if I’m leagues from it. It may be irrationally optimistic, but it’s better than waiting to die.

  “I know you’re worried about Neepa and everyone else, but fretting about what the Null is doing isn’t going to help us now. Let’s get back to the capital, share what we know, and then we can figure out what to do next. Going off to fight blindly in the woods, where you’ll probably die, won’t help anything. Right now, let’s get out of these woods. Together. Please, Eva.”

  She watched me. I waited for her to snap and argue, only it didn’t happen. She shifted her hip to one side and brushed aside some of her blonde locks behind her ear, seeming to deflate as she let out a deep breath.