The Questing Beast (Veil Knights Book 4)

by Rowan Casey

Dani kept an eye on Perce and the uninjured demon. No, not uninjured, she saw dark blood staining its jeans. Score a hit for her brother. She made her slow way, half-crawling across the dozen feet to where Gary twitched and moaned.

  She severed the tendons of his good arm with a practiced slash of her knife and then sank the blade into the brachial artery. She didn’t have Sophie to help her saw through the demon’s neck but she gripped the knife there with her good hand and started working it back and forth, turning her face away from the blood that sprayed out of the gargling demon’s mouth.

  Dani detached herself again from the blood and gore, the sounds of the dying demon. This was necessary. This was survival. She would do this because there was no choice. When it came to evil, the only option was to root it out and then destroy it. Her mother had taught them that since they could understand words and concepts like good and bad. This demon didn’t belong in this world and Dani had been bred and born to fix God’s mistake in allowing it to get here.

  “Bitch,” the other demon yowled.

  Dani saw that Perce had maneuvered it around so that he stood between her and the demon. She didn’t stop sawing the blade back and forth.

  “You have to do a lot of damage,” she told Perce. Her voice was nearly gone, her throat raw, her tongue and lips swollen.

  The other demon charged Perce as soon as Dani spoke and Perce looked her way.

  Her brother took the charge full on instead of sidestepping. To protect her, she realized. The demon and Perce grappled, Perce trying to get his remaining knife into its body while holding its claws at bay. The demon snapped dangerously close to Perce’s face with its jagged teeth. The two fought to nearly a standstill, neither quite able to breach the other’s guard or break their grip.

  Dani let go of the knife in her nearly dead demon’s throat and grabbed the blade she’d used to cut its arm. She crabbed forward, crawling right over the rifle. Dani hesitated but realized with her broken wrist, there was no way she could probably hold and shoot it. She’d shoot the trees if she was lucky, Perce if she wasn’t.

  Perce stomped down on the demon’s boot but it had little effect. He spit into its face as Dani crawled closer and the demon roared. The muscles in Perce’s arms bulged as he strained against the demon’s strength. Dani made eye contact with her twin. With a grunt, Perce pulled the demon around, giving Dani its back. He lost the grip on its right hand in the process. The demon’s claws slashed down and sank into Perce’s shoulder.

  Dani ignored the ripping pain in her leg and thrust herself forward. She stabbed deep into the demon’s thigh, dragging the blade downward through muscle and cloth and across to sever its hamstring.

  The demon collapsed backward onto Dani, flattening her beneath its heavy, sulfurous body like a metric ton of rotting eggs smashing her into the ground. Then the weight was off her as Perce lifted the wounded monster and dragged it to the side, his own knife slashing back and forth in quick cuts along its limbs, severing vital tendons and veins.

  Dani lay on her back gasping for breath, out of fight to give.

  “Sever their heads,” she managed to say to Perce.

  She closed her eyes as he moved to do exactly that. She figured she could rest now, just for a moment. Maybe she would be warm again if she got a little sleep. Perce was here. He had saved her. The demons were dead. They’d won and she could rest now.

  Just for a minute. She was so cold. So tired. Only a minute. Then they had to go. Later. In a minute…

  Chapter Twelve

  Perce hacked through the spines of both the demons, one after the other, ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder. He had no time for pain or injury. A glance at the wounds showed they were shallow and not bleeding too heavily. He’d always clotted and healed quickly anyway.

  “Dani,” he said as he finished off the demon formerly known as Gary. The demon turned to ashes just like the first one had as soon as its head was severed. Perce’s twin didn’t respond.

  He went to her side and knelt. She lay on her back, wearing the torn remains of her dress. Blood and dirt covered her. A makeshift bandage was half-bound to her thigh but had slipped, revealing the angry torn edges of the bullet entry wound. The remains of a single stitch curled like a thread the maker had forgotten to cut.

  “No, stay with me,” he told her, bending low to listen to her breathing, her heart. She breathed, just. Her heart still beat. “You can’t sleep yet,” he said, hating himself for having to wake her. If she was unconscious she’d be dead weight and he wasn’t sure he was up to carry her miles out of the forest again. With his shoulder, he’d need her to hang onto him.

  She cried out when he shook her but her green eyes opened, one further than the other due to the swelling and bruising in her sweet face. He saw that her right wrist was swollen and black. Broken.

  “Dani,” he said her name again, getting her to focus on him.

  “Too cold,” she whimpered. “Perce, I’m done.”

  “You’re not done,” Perce said. “Come on, hold onto me. We have work to do.”

  “Too cold,” she repeated and her eyes started to close.

  “Dani, God damnit!” he said, shaking her again.

  “You swore,” she said, her eyes opening wider. “Took His name in vain.”

  “I’ll go to church with you later and pray for forgiveness,” Perce said. “Hold onto me, Dani. We have to go.”

  “Sophie,” she said, reaching up with her good hand to touch his face. “Find her?”

  “She’s waiting for us,” he said. “There will be that nice doctor, too, when we get back. His name is Felix, isn’t that funny? He’ll be there and we’ll all be warm and safe.” Perce kept talking softly to her as he pulled her into his arms and stood.

  Dani curled her injured hand into her chest, her fingers brushing the pentagram. Perce noticed it was as shiny as a new dime, untouched by the filth and blood that coated his sister. She laid her head against his good shoulder and murmured something too quietly for him to make out. Her good arm went around his neck, helping a little to hold her in place.

  He heard the sound of claw on tree root just before the hell hound emerged from the trees. It snarled at them and Perce backed slowly away, almost tripping over the dead demon’s rifle. He held onto Dani despite the tearing pain in his shoulder.

  “Perce,” Dani said, adrenaline seeming to wake her from her shocked state. “Left.”

  A second hell hound appeared to their left, also crouched and snarling but not charging or attacking yet.

  Then a third behind them. Perce heard it and turned slightly, trying to keep them all in sight. That one had black ichor down its side. One of the ones he’d fought earlier, then. He wondered how injured it was, if he could get past it somehow.

  That idea was quickly abandoned. He was fast and strong, but with Dani in his arms, he couldn’t hope to outrun or outmaneuver the hounds.

  Movement to his right. The fourth hound appeared, limping horribly from the injuries it had sustained from Perce’s knife. He hoped it was in agony. He hoped it died slowly of its wounds. They weren’t attacking yet and that worried Perce. They had him and Dani trapped but hung back, as though waiting for something to happen.

  “Perce,” Dani said his name again and he looked down into her face. Her eyes were calm, the clear green of a glacial lake. Cold and far away. “Thank you for coming for me.”

  “I’ll always come for you, Dani-girl. You’re the other half of my soul.” His eyes burned with unshed tears. Perce couldn’t remember the last time he cried. Not even when Mama had finally wasted away to a ghost of herself and slipped her mortal coil. He knelt gently and laid Dani down, keeping the hounds in his peripheral vision.

  He had a little fight left in him. He’d do what he could until the very last.

  “Love you, Perce,” Dani said, pronouncing his name like Percy the way she used to when they were kids and she wanted to make him mad. “I’ll keep you safe. I’ll always keep you safe.”


  Her fingers closed around the pentagram and light spilled from her open mouth.

  “Dani, don’t,” Perce cried out. He didn’t understand what she was doing but he knew how tired using her magic made her. She wasn’t strong enough for this. She was dying and he didn’t see how this could do anything other than kill her more quickly.

  Despite what the Lady of the Lake had said. Despite their quest. Their family curse and their prophesy. Those things could all go straight to the deepest levels of hell for all Perce cared. He was with Dani. She couldn’t die.

  Warm golden light poured out like mist around Dani and pooled at his feet. The hounds started barking and baying as they crept back, unnverved by the light. Perce bent and picked up the rifle, checking the load. Thirty-aught-six. A caliber that could stop a bear.

  Time to find out if it could put down a hell hound. There were only five shots left. Not a lot of room for error if a single bullet didn’t do the trick.

  At his feet, Dani’s body bowed upward. The golden light spilled farther, encircling them both. He wanted to pick her up and run for it, but he knew her power wouldn’t last. It was fight or die, now and here.

  Maybe fight and die, a traitorous voice in his mind whispered.

  Perce lifted the rifle. He’d go for the uninjured ones first.

  A white blur slammed into the hell hound he was taking aim at. Huge jaws snapped the hound up and shook it like a rat before tossing it away into the trees.

  The Questing Beast. Its ears were pinned flat to its head, its long tail lashing as it twisted around and blurred into movement again, leaping at the nearest hound.

  Perce swung the rifle toward another hound. The cavalry had arrived like a gift from heaven and he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity. He squeezed the trigger, leading his shot as the hound charged the Beast. The shot took it off its feet and the hound tumbled sideways. It rose and then stumbled down again. Perce didn’t take a chance. He shot it in the head, the almost motionless hound an easier target this time.

  Smoke curled up from its body and it turned to ash before his eyes.

  The Beast tore another hound into two pieces, both pieces smoking and burning as they fell to the ground. Sulfur and the smell of rotting meat filled Perce’s nostrils as he spun in place, looking for the fourth hound. He didn’t fear the Beast. It was helping them and it hadn’t attacked him when they were face-to-face on the bank of the stream.

  Besides, he’d been raised to believe that the enemy of his enemy was his friend, and he was in dire need of a friend right now. Beggers and choosers and all that platitude nonsense.

  The fourth hound was the one he’d badly injured. It snarled and braved the light, charging at him. The moment its paws touched Dani’s golden circle, the hell hound stopped, frozen. The light started to climb its limbs turning from a glowing mist to golden fire that flared and crackled.

  The hound sprang back with a howl. The Questing Beast was a white blur as it angled past Perce and took down the hound, shredding the demon dog with its claws and teeth.

  Perce lowered the rifle and knelt at Dani’s side.

  “It’s over, Dani-girl,” he murmured. “Rest now.” Don’t die, he prayed silently. Just don’t die.

  She heard him. Her body sank into the lichen-covered ground and her eyes fluttered open as the light began to fade.

  “Perce, the Beast.” She looked past him and struggled to sit up.

  “Shh, it’s okay. I don’t think it means us harm,” he said. Mama had always told them it was the Pellin family curse to be hunted, and to hunt the Questing Beast, locked in an eternal battle of good and evil.

  Perce watched as the Beast slunk toward them. Its fur was unstained by the hell hound’s oily blood. She, Perce thought. It was female. He didn’t know how he knew but the knowledge was in his head like a memory half-forgotten.

  “Easy girl,” he said to her.

  “How do you know it’s a girl?” Dani said. She looked more alert now, not drained like she usually was when she used her powers.

  “Anything that gives me this much trouble has to be female,” Perce said, slipping back behind his mask like climbing into a pair of old jeans. His mask felt cracked and worn, it didn’t quite fit anymore.

  Dani laughed and then groaned as blood leaked out over her lips. “I hurt,” she said. “I’m sorry.” Perce watched the momentary strength she’d seemed to regain after her spell drain out of her.

  His mask didn’t matter, wouldn’t matter if he lost her anyway. He had to get out of the woods, had to get Dani to safety before she died of shock or bloodloss.

  “Dani, stay with me,” he said for what felt like the millionth time.

  Her eyes fluttered shut.

  “Help me,” he said to the Beast. He had no idea what she could do, but he was out of options.

  She crawled forward like an unsure housecat, her ears erect. Perce felt no menace from her, but he didn’t have Dani’s ability to sense that, so he had to work on desperate instinct. On faith.

  The Questing Beast came right up to Dani and him. Her warm breath pushed away the sulfur stench and replaced it with wildflowers and rainfall and all the scents he associated with pure and growing life. Perce doubted that something which smelled so good could be evil. He hoped.

  Again he saw the red streak on her chest, but closer up he realized it wasn’t red colored fur, but fur matted with fresh blood. Deep within that streak glinted the blade of a knife, jammed into the breast of the Beast so that only a broken off bit of blade stuck out.

  Perce let go of the rifle and reached out slowly, leaning over Dani until he was nearly under the Beast’s chin. The Beast huffed but didn’t back away so he leaned forward all the way and laid his hand against her fur. Her fur was soft and thick, reminding him more of a rabbit’s than a mountain lion’s. She stared at him with leaf green eyes but held very still as he slid his hand over the bloody fur to the blade.

  A low whine started in the Beast’s throat.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Perce murmured, keeping his voice as calm and soft as he could. He gripped the end of the blade and yanked as hard and fast as he was able.

  The broken blade slid free of the Questing Beast. She sprang back with a yowl of pain, glared at Perce, and then started licking her chest, looking exceedingly cat-like as she did so. Perce sat backward onto his haunches, holding his prize. The knife blade of Llawfrodedd Farchog. He’d fulfilled the quest.

  But at what cost? Perce looked down at Dani’s peaceful face. Her heart was barely beating, her breath a wheeze in her throat.

  “Please,” he said again. To the Beast or God he didn’t know and he wasn’t sure it mattered.

  The Beast’s breath warmed his face again and she bent and began to lick Dani’s skin on her wounded thigh.

  Perce’s first instinct was to shove the Beast away, keep her from hurting Dani, but some deeper understanding within him held him back. He watched in awe as Dani’s leg wound closed, the skin knitting together and sealing shut, leaving only a puckered pale scar behind. Dani’s bruises on her face and wrist faded as well and he heard a grinding pop as her wrist bones reset and came back together.

  His sister gasped as though she hadn’t breathed in years and sat bolt upright, her eyes, unswollen and whole, opening wide.

  The Beast slunk backward as Dani slapped at her. Perce caught his twin’s hands in his own, after dropping the Blade to one side.

  “It’s okay. She healed you. How do you feel?” Perce could hardly believe his own senses.

  “Aching and tired,” Dani said, her voice no longer sounding like she was talking around a piece of raw meat. “But…” she trailed off and tested her hands and wrist, then rubbed the scars on her thigh. “Whole,” she finished.

  “I have the Blade,” Perce said, picking up the shard again. He handed it to Dani and she turned it over in her hands, awe on her face.

  She looked over to where the Beast was grooming herself a small dista
nce from them.

  “She’s beautiful,” Dani said, her tone grudging. “I thought she’d be more, I don’t know, monstrous.”

  “I think we’ve had enough of monsters for a lifetime,” Perce said. “I left Sophie in a tree. We should go.”

  It was full daylight, the sun not yet over the trees, but its warmth and light were brightening the day.

  He got to his feet and helped Dani up. She took a step forward and then froze.

  “Evil,” she gasped, pointing into the woods beyond the Beast.

  The Beast snarled and crouched as the trees began to shake. Something huge was coming. Perce had time enough to swipe up the rifle and then a hellish nightmare crashed into the small clearing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The demon was larger than a bear, nearly double the size of the Questing Beast. It arrived in a roil of shadowy tentacles. It had a head like a ram’s with a mouth like a shark’s—full of teeth that curved wickedly backward in multiple rows—and eyes that glowed with sinister yellow light in the coal-black ridges of its face. Its forepaws were like a bear’s but its hindlegs were more like a deer or goat. Or a moose.

  In the long second of time where everything seemed frozen, Perce realized his mistake with the tracks at the moose kill. He’d treated the large hoof prints he’d found here and there as separate, belonging to a moose or elk moving through the forest. He’d only paid attention to the bear-like prints, the ones with claws. It hadn’t occurred to him they could belong to the same creature.

  Then the demon was upon them. The Questing Beast cut to one side, snapping at the tentacles of the monster as it went for her.

  Dani wrapped her hand around her pentagram and shoved Perce away from her.

  “Go,” she said. “Distract it. I think I know what to do.”

  Perce, used to listening to his sister, didn’t question her. Now wasn’t the time for being a stubborn butt about things. He dashed away from Dani and around a tree, raising the rifle.

  Three shots. Hopefully that would get its attention.