by Jayne Hawke
“What can I say, I’m an awesome teacher,” Kerry said, beaming at me.
I said nothing. That was a conversation for another time.
“It sounds like Matt’s found our dealer stealing the god magic. He said a few hounds have been seen going in and out of his place, and they keep heading to some ruins.”
Ethan’s phone buzzed, and he looked at it.
“Ok, so it looks like we’re dealing with more hounds than we feared. The photos are showing at least six of them, and possibly a few god-chosen witches. Be careful. Use your heads. And make sure they’re dead before you move on,” Ethan said as he put the address into his GPS.
This was really it. We’d found the people stealing the god magic, and we were going to storm a hound stronghold.
FORTY-NINE
The ruins in question looked to have been a church once. Tall old stone walls towered up from the short grass with gaping holes for windows. The archway that formed the doorway was easily eight feet tall and wide enough for horses and a carriage. The path leading up to them was well-trodden, with the grass having been worn away to reveal sandy soil and stone.
There were smaller ruins dotted around the area. The main ruin was a simple cross shape with crumbling walls blocking off the large rooms on either side of the main hallway. The other ruins were far smaller and shorter, but I felt more there than met the eye.
Ethan nodded towards the grey-stoned ruin to the left of the main church. It was only a storey high, with the wooden upper storeys having rotted and gone long ago. Narrow rectangular holes sat where windows would have been. The vegetation in the area looked as though it had receded, leaving only a thin layer of grass covering the stony, sandy soil around the area.
Dean sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. I felt it too. Death, decay, and a spark of something else. My witch magic was bubbling beneath my skin, it felt almost sentient as it tried to claw its way out into the world. I was going to have to get that under control once this was done with.
There was only one entrance and exit to the ruins, unless we vaulted over the walls themselves. Dean pulled the sword from his back, and I called my god magic closer to the surface. If what I knew about the hounds was right, then that magic would be like catnip to them. They wouldn’t be able to resist tracking me down. It was what they had been chosen for.
Footsteps came from the main ruin. We darted into the smaller ruin and hid behind the wall to try and get a feel for what exactly we were getting into here. The thin layer of mist didn’t offer much cover and seemed to stop at the perimeter of this area. There were too many open spaces to try and get a sneak attack in.
A trio of hounds wearing battle leathers and large swords strapped to their backs casually strolled out of the ruin. They looked so normal. Their human bone structure softened them despite the hardness I could feel in their magic. They moved with military precision and practise.
Those three men had been born as normal humans. They could have had a life working in an office, going to bars on the weekend, having a nice family life. Instead, they had been claimed by one of the gods and forged into a weapon used to remove those the gods didn’t want walking their earth. They had been trained to torture and drain witches and fallen gods of their magic to be siphoned into the gods sitting on their plane. My stomach twisted. I felt sick at the thought.
Two big silver SUV’s pulled up in front of the ruins, and ten more hounds got out. Two women with hard blue eyes were amongst them. I saw Yasmine chatting to one of them with a smile on her face as though she were discussing a TV show. They were here to steal magic and sell it onto the market so addicts could kill innocents.
Ethan put his hand on my shoulder and gripped it tight, stopping me from running out there to start making heads roll. He was right. We needed to see exactly what we were up against, but time was ticking. Every moment we were there, fallen and witches were suffering at the hands of those bastards. My father could be amongst them.
“Those assholes have been draining fallen gods and witches of their magic to give to their gods since they were made,” I hissed.
“Well, that explains their role,” Cade whispered.
“Does that mean all of these hounds have gone rogue?” Kerry whispered.
“How does that even work?” Dean asked.
“Yea, surely their gods know what they’re doing,” Cade whispered.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how their connection works,” Ethan whispered.
They were right. The hounds were a form of god touched, which would surely mean the gods were in their heads and aware of their every movement. I wasn’t sure, but that was what I’d been told happened with the god touched. My blood chilled. Unless this was what their gods had wanted all along - to incite violence and stir up chaos with those addicts that had been given a taste of god blood.
The one I’d met in the alley had said that he needed more. He must have meant my god magic.
“What if the gods do know, and they’re creating the addicts to help them hunt down the fallen?” I asked.
“They can only have so many hounds at once. The addicts would give them a huge army. And they wouldn’t have to give up much stolen magic to achieve it. Shit,” Kerry said.
I didn’t want to imagine a world where I was hunted by crazed addicts lusting after my blood. Everything was bad enough as it was.
“They had already tried to turn society against the fallen and failed. Too many people loved the idea of meeting a god in person. Cults quickly popped up; it was a disaster,” Ethan whispered.
The more I found out about the gods, the more I hated them.
FIFTY
Ethan tensed first. Then I felt it. The hounds were surrounding us. Their footsteps were as silent as a cait sidhe’s. Ethan nodded towards the door. We were going to make a break for it and take as many of them down as we could. He kept his hand close to his hip and counted down from three.
Kerry was the first out the door. She threw a small black knife at an older hound with silver at his temples and a slight stiffness in his left knee. His eyes widened slightly, but the air shimmered in front of him and the knife dropped as it caught his cheek.
“Apollo hound,” Kerry growled.
I was racing at the young blond hound with short hair and brilliant blue eyes. His magic coursed through him, begging me to pull it into myself. My own god magic surged through my veins, giving me a burst of speed and the ability to see what he was going to try. He was lean with corded muscular arms and a steady stance as he watched me approach.
My magic slid over my daggers as I prepared to plunge one into his abdomen. A rabid smile spread across his face as he lunged at me, his fingers extended like claws. Suddenly he was on me. He raked his fingers down my stomach and tried to sink his teeth into my neck. I couldn’t feel an animal inside of him, there was only god magic. What on earth was going on?
“Dionysus!” Dean called over as he wrangled with his own rabid hound.
I slammed the hilt of my dagger into his temple, unable to twist my hand around enough to drive the blade into his brain. He snarled at me before he tried to bite my forearm. The leather jacket protected me, but this was ridiculous. I slammed my knee into his stomach, but he barely seemed to notice it.
My witch blood whispered to me. If I could just get some of his blood, I’d be stronger, better, able to reach within him and steal away that beautiful, precious magic. I ignored the whispers and tried to get away from him in order to give myself some room to slit his throat. He remained close to me, his hands grasping onto my jacket as he clawed and tried to bite at every bit of exposed flesh.
Something caught his attention. It was enough for me to get a half step back and thrust my dagger into his throat. His ruby-red blood trickled down his throat and called to me. I could feel the tingling sensation of the magic right there. It would taste so sweet and give me all the power I could ever crave.
There was a downside to it. I didn’t know what it w
as, but nothing like that ever came for free. The hound dropped to his knees, and I turned away from the call of his blood.
Ethan was slamming the head of an older guy with steel-grey hair into his knee. Then suddenly everything went black. I was aware of my body collapsing onto the cool hard earth, then consciousness fled me. It wasn’t supposed to end like that.
FIFTY-ONE
I woke up to the feel of cold stone beneath me. Groaning, I opened my eyes and looked around for the pack. If I was conscious, there was a chance they were still alive, too. It took my eyesight what felt like forever to return entirely, but I saw them in the gloom. Ethan was sprawled out next to me. Blood had dried at the corner of his mouth and his temple. I reached over and shook him.
“Ethan. Ethan, you need to wake up.”
A frown formed on his face, and my heart leapt. I’d never been so glad to see someone frown before. His breathing changed, and he opened his eyes. Suddenly he was sitting and looking around with alertness in his eyes.
“Wake up,” he growled at the other three.
Kerry groaned and rolled over.
Cade and Dean sighed and slowly sat up rubbing their heads. Dean nudged Kerry’s calf with the toe of his boot.
It looked as though we were in an underground room beneath a castle, or more likely the church. The floor was old stone slabs. The walls were dirt-covered stones. And the wall in front of us had a heavy wooden door with wide metal bars across it. Those assholes had thrown us in some ancient prison.
“Now what?” I asked as I tried to stand.
My magic was still deep within me, but something had made it recede deeper than I’d felt it in a long time. My head began to spin as I stood and my stomach growled.
“We’re still alive, which means we can still kill them,” Ethan said.
“When they come here, and they will, we shank them,” Dean said.
Ethan nodded and stood up.
“How did they knock us out?” Cade asked.
“The bastards used a spell to wipe out our magic. Our bodies fell unconscious from the shock,” Kerry said with a snarl.
“I knew they must have had something to help them subdue the fallen. We should have done more research, but I didn’t think there was time. There’s a very real risk to our home plane,” Ethan said.
“No point dwelling on what we could have done,” Cade said.
“The plan’s simple. Pull yourselves together, attack whoever comes in that door. Kill anyone we come across. Free the fallen,” Ethan said.
“Just like that,” Cade said with a smirk.
Ethan smiled.
“We’re the best. Are you going to let people hear a couple of hounds knocked you on your ass?” Ethan asked.
“Screw that,” Cade said.
We laughed. My ribs ached, but it felt good to share the moment with them. Our situation wasn’t great, but we weren’t done with just yet.
I took a long deep breath and calmed myself. We didn’t know how long it would be until the hounds showed up. We needed to conserve our energy and be ready.
I hated waiting.
There was no way to track time down there. There was no shift in the darkness, no bird song to hear when they retired for the night. It was just the sounds that we made. The quiet began to grate on me after a short while. I never had much liked the quiet.
Finally, footsteps began approaching the door. We all perked up. They’d taken our weapons, but we’d do just fine without them. I still had my magic and my skills. If I had to strangle them, then I’d do it. Those hounds had caused an obscene amount of pain and suffering. It was time they had a taste of that.
Ethan held up his hand. Five hounds were outside.
Dean began to snarl as he glared at the doorway. Kerry started hissing as Dean dropped to his knees.
“They’re blocking our magic and inflicting some form of binding on us,” Ethan growled.
Cade growled as his legs slowly buckled.
“Listen to me, Kit. We need you to stop holding back. You have the magic. Break them,” Ethan snarled.
The door opened, and my pack was on the floor panting in agony. A rage rose in me that I hadn’t felt before. Those bastards were going to pay.
The older woman with dark blonde hair and a single white highlight just above her left ear looked at me in surprise.
I grinned at her as I pulled my magic forward. Every last scrap of it. The liquid metal filled my core and the witch magic bubbled just beneath my skin. I saw the small hand gestures of the delicate witch behind the hounds. Her small fragile body would snap beneath my fists with ease.
Her binding spell washed over me as I embraced my heritage.
“How?” she gasped.
I didn’t know exactly what was happening, but my magic was weaving together and breaking her spell.
“Spell breaker,” Ethan whispered.
This was what I did. And it felt amazing.
The hounds flooded the room. They fought unarmed like animals, either out of disregard for our skills or a preference for their own natural weapons. They moved with military precision as they kicked my pack away to give themselves room to get in close and surround me. The rage at their acts consumed any gentleness or compassion I might have had.
Reaching out with my magic, I felt the magic binding the closest hound, a lean red-haired woman with a beautiful forest-green jacket and a sharp-edged smile. I saw the rope that reached upwards to her god. My magic moved with a savagery that I felt reflected in my own mind as I reached out and drove my finger into her eye.
The sharp crystalline threads of my witch magic sank into the rope tying her to her god and slowly began severing it. Her breath came in quick pants as I wrenched the sword, a jagged vicious-looking weapon, from her hand and snapped her wrist. There was a detachment as I felt my body fulfilling these acts. This was what I was made for.
Pain bloomed in my back. The older hound with broad shoulders and small cold grey eyes had punched me in the back. They were packed in close around me, reducing my ability to move. I should have been terrified, but I all I felt was the cold rage and certainty that they would die at my hands.
No one hurt my pack.
FIFTY-TWO
The hound whose divine tether I’d cut had cried out in pain before she fled the room, but the rest were relentless in their attacks. They remained in close, reducing my movements. I lashed out at every opportunity, but I needed my pack. Seeing them on the floor with agony written over their faces only fuelled me.
My body was weakening. The blows were taking their toll. My vision was beginning to blur, and the cold rage was dulling. I continued to strike with everything I had, feeling their armour beneath my stolen blade and muscle beneath my knees and elbows as I tried to drive them back.
I allowed my magic to work with my instincts. It wrapped around Ethan in a tender embrace as it systematically broke through the complicated web of magic that had bound him. Slowly, he began to gain colour in his skin as the bindings snapped beneath my onslaught. He stood with a roar and threw himself against the largest of the hounds. Ethan fought with unfettered ferocity, giving me a little room to breathe and free the rest of our pack.
My breathing was becoming laboured as the broken ribs and damaged muscles were becoming harder to ignore. I slammed my sword into the throat of the model-worthy raven-haired hound that had been pressuring me hardest of all. Her eyes widened as she grasped at the large hole in her throat. The blood called to me, and I answered. Reaching out, I wrapped my hand around her throat, feeling the warm blood beneath my skin.
The tingle of the magic quickly turned into a delightful burning that brought me back to life. A euphoria began to cloud my mind. Snapping my hand back, I pushed everything I had into breaking the binding on the remaining fallen pack while I whipped around and slashed at the face of a blond hound with icy eyes and bearlike hands.
Kerry leapt to her feet and jumped onto the back of a dark-haired hound. She sank her te
eth into his throat and raked her claws down his face. He screamed as she tore his throat out. Cade and Dean were on the remaining hounds in the blink of an eye. I had managed to dampen their god magic enough to make them normal foes. It had cost me, though.
I dropped to my knees as the final hound slumped down to the blood-soaked ground. Ethan came to my side and forced a health potion vial to my lips. It wouldn’t be enough. I needed to refill my magical well. The god magic remained alive within me, but we needed the edge the witch magic gave us. With that I could break spells and hinder the hounds, making them a manageable foe.
I knocked back three healing vials, and my body began to ache less and become more mobile, but that only left me exhausted and ravenous.
“We need to go,” Ethan growled.
“I know,” I snapped back.
“Use the blood, Kit. Forget whatever horror you have attached to it. We need to do whatever we must to get out of here and free the fallen gods,” Ethan said.
He looked pointedly at the pools of blood on the floor. I could feel it calling to me. The euphoria had almost claimed me. If I allowed it to go too far, then I’d be consumed and lost forever. I could feel it.
More footsteps started down the hallway.
I reached out and pressed my hand to the cooling corpse of a hound. The blood tingled against my skin and flooded my system with fresh magic. The exhaustion remained around the edges of my mind, but I had enough to stand and fight.
The blood continued to call to me as I stood and turned away from it. The whispers echoed around my mind, promising me sweet bliss and incredible power. All I had to do was surrender.
Ethan smiled at me. Pride radiated off him.
“Let’s take these bastards down and save the day,” Ethan growled, searching for and failing to find a salvageable weapon on the corpses around us.
He led the way out of the room and into a dark hallway lined with bare grey stone walls. Small fae orbs hung near the ceiling, casting a warm golden light over the space. The footsteps had paused. I felt something change in the beings up ahead of us.
