Shayla breathed in deep before taking my hand and vanishing us from the spot. We reappeared in one of the apothecaries on the ground floor, where I spied the man’s blood in a test tube next to a myriad of other bottles of multicolored liquids.
“So?” I asked, raising my brows.
“I need more time to examine the sample,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “Hopefully I’ll be able to get a better idea of what the hunters were doing to him, and start working on a cure for his legs and memory… There aren’t a lot of other witches on duty right now, so I will be taking full charge of him for all medical issues. You, however, Grace, I would like to appoint as his caregiver for when I’m not treating him. He’s suffered a severe loss of memory, and likely a lot of psychological damage too. More than medical treatment, he needs mental and emotional support. You’ve been trained well by Corrine and me during your preparation for joining the League. I know that this is something that you can handle. What do you say?”
“Oh, um…” The truth was, the idea really excited me. I’d never been given such a big responsibility before. I’d merely been an assistant, both in medical matters and in caring for patients suffering from trauma. I’d never been appointed as a caregiver in my own right. “I would love to… but what about school?” Now that I’d returned, I didn’t have any reason not to resume my classes.
Shayla smiled. “I’ll talk to your teachers and say that I’ve offered you work experience. You can always work harder over the weekends or holidays to catch up on things that you’ve missed. I’ll volunteer Eli to help you, if you like.”
I grinned. “Sounds like a deal.”
“Good,” Shayla said, clasping her hands together “I’ll keep an eye on him for the rest of the day, and I’ll appoint Tom to check on him during the night.” Tom was one of the male human nurses who worked at Meadow Hospital. “And tomorrow morning, you can arrive here at, say, 7 AM?”
“Sure.” I usually woke up at around 6 AM, anyway.
“Then I suggest you return now and get some rest. It could be a long day tomorrow.”
We bade each other farewell. I headed to the washrooms and, after disinfecting my hands, left the hospital. I was practically skipping through the sunflower meadow as I made my way back to the Residences. It was cool to have a reason to skip school, but I was also genuinely excited about the challenge Shayla had given me. It felt like I was finally doing something truly of value, of impact, rather than always following in the shadows of others and being a perpetual learner.
This was a responsibility that I planned to take very seriously and give all that I had.
Grace
Before returning to my family’s treehouse, I decided to pay a visit to my aunts and grandmother on my mother’s side. Aunt Dafne was almost thirty years old in human years; she had been turned into a vampire at twenty-one. Aunt Lalia, in her mid-twenties in human years, had turned into a vampire only a couple of years ago. And my grandmother Nadia was frozen at forty-eight years old. She always joked that she would never reveal her real human age to me, although my mother had already told me her date of birth.
All three single ladies shared a penthouse, a few trees away from mine. Then there was Jamil, my vampire uncle, who lived a little further away with his human wife and five-year-old son. Nadia, Lalia, Dafne and Jamil had all been turned by my mother at their request.
My aunts and grandmother rushed to greet me as I arrived at their front door.
“How are you, Grace?” my grandmother asked, planting a big wet kiss on my cheek.
“How long have you been back?” Dafne asked.
“Fine, thanks,” I replied, stepping inside. “Just got back earlier today.”
“How’s it going with the others?”
I thought back to the bombing. God knew how many lives we’d taken, of both hunters and mutants. The destruction we’d caused. “It was going, uh, well, I guess.” I went on to explain what had happened as the three led me into the dining room. The table had already been laid with glasses of deep red liquid; they’d started their meal. My grandmother always kept her fridge stocked with human food for when she had visitors—specifically me as a visitor. She prepared some falafel before planting it down in front of me. Mmm. How I loved my grandma’s cooking.
“Do you know when they’ll return?” Lalia asked.
“No idea,” I muttered.
We talked almost exclusively about the trip over dinner, until eight o’clock struck and I decided to leave. I didn’t usually fall asleep until around 10 PM at night, but I had some preparation to do for tomorrow. So I bade them good night and left, returning to my treehouse.
I took a shower and washed my hair before slipping into my nightie and heading to my bedroom. I sat down at my desk and retrieved my brand-new, pink polka-dot journal from a drawer. Picking up a pen, I turned to the first page. This notebook had been a gift from my cousin Hazel on my sixteenth birthday, and I had just been waiting for the opportunity to use it. This new project I was about to undertake felt like the perfect excuse.
The witches’ training had been thorough and extensive when it came to caring for sick patients and sufferers of trauma. I turned my mind back to those lessons now. They had taught us to approach each patient individually and methodically. We would always start by taking a piece of paper and listing down everything and anything we knew about the patient—basically a character profile.
As I placed the tip of my pen against the paper, I realized what a difficult exercise this was in this man’s case. Usually I would write the name of the patient at the top of the page. Here, I could only think to write, British Guy.
Still, I wrote down what little I knew of him. His physical symptoms, like his coldness and inability to move his legs. Shayla’s statement that he was a half-blood. His general physical appearance. And then some notes on his demeanor, what little I had gleaned of that. I hadn’t had much of a chance to observe his personality yet. I also noted his inability to hold down food today. And that was about all I could fill the page with.
Well, that was quick.
But it was a start nonetheless. Hopefully, in the coming days, Shayla and I would be able to learn a lot more about him, and I would fill up more pages of my notebook. For now, I placed it into my backpack along with my pen, which I planned to take with me to the hospital tomorrow. Then I sank into bed.
Although I had gotten to bed earlier than usual, it wasn’t until about midnight that I finally dropped off to sleep. My mind was too filled with recollections of everything I had witnessed in The Woodlands, and I also worried about how my parents and family were faring now on the mission. Then I began mulling over what the day might be like tomorrow with the nameless half-blood stranger.
If there was anything that I could complain about in my life—which, if I was honest with myself, there really wasn’t—it certainly wasn’t that it was boring.
Vivienne
As we arrived at the mountain, it was time to make good on my word to Victoria. I’d promised her that we would do our best to look for Bastien and relay her message to him.
Truth be told, when my daughter had confessed to me that she had fallen for the young man, I’d felt deeply concerned, although I’d tried not to show it. She was nineteen years old now. I’d meant it when I’d said that she was free to make her own decisions. Of course she was. Still, the abrupt way in which she and Bastien had met, and the exceptionally short amount of time they had spent together, made me fear that the relationship would end in disappointment—even if Bastien survived the hunters. But that was a concern that I had to keep to myself.
In any case, as much as it pained me on my daughter’s behalf, I didn’t hold out much hope that she would ever see him again. I feared that the hunters might’ve slaughtered the whole lot of those wolves, burned them to ashes along with the woods.
The woods surrounding the mountain were scorched to the ground. Even the mountainside itself was charred black.
We touched down on a mountain peak, affording us a clear view. We scanned the area to spot hunters milling about on the ground below. There were also mutants—many, many mutants—roaming about the area. None of these were on chains. They moved freely among the array of werewolf corpses strewn about the soil. I felt sick as I spotted a group of mutants pecking at the bodies.
This area was about to get another scorching.
Once we’d located most of the hunters who’d remained outside, the dragons resumed their fire-breathing. They soared downward so fast, the hunters barely knew what hit them as deadly billows of fire shot down and enshrouded them. The mutants emitted a chorus of screeches as they launched into the sky as a single cloud. Being unable to see their attackers had them confused and on edge.
Two dragons focused their attention on the horde, exhaling more fire. The mutants rose higher to dodge the flames. The dragons followed, continuing to harass them with their blaze until the mutants fled. Away from the mountain, and, hopefully, away from The Woodlands. Without their masters, I wondered what they’d do.
Now that we had cleared the outside of the mountain, it was time to search within it. The dragons remained outside in their beastly forms to keep guard, while the rest of us ventured inside. We hurried along the dark entrance tunnel with Derek and Ben at the lead. At the end of the tunnel, in front of an ancient-looking door, stood three hunters armed with what looked like machine guns. Ben, Xavier and Derek silently took them out, and they collapsed to the ground.
We hurried onward. Stepping over the dead hunters and arriving at the door, we pushed it open and found ourselves emerging in a grand auditorium. Rock Hall.
The room teemed with werewolves. Their faces looked strained and worn; they all appeared awfully traumatized, some close to passing out from fright. But at least they were alive. They still could not see us, of course, although all of them had turned in our direction as we pushed the door open.
I scoped out the circumference of the room. In the far corner was another door. I supposed that there would be guards on the other side of that, too. What do they want all these werewolves for? I wondered why the hunters hadn’t killed them already.
The witches lifted the spell of invisibility so that the werewolves could see us. They gazed at us with fearful eyes.
“We are not enemies.” My husband spoke up. “We are here to help you. Free you.”
The door at the other end of the auditorium swung open. Three hunters stepped out. They would have heard us. Raising their guns, they began opening fire. Corrine put up a shield while the jinn sent the men blasting back against the wall, guns spinning out of their grips.
Our group hurried across the hall toward the exit to search for any other hunters in the mountain, but Xavier and I hung back.
“Bastien Blackhall?” I called, eyeing the hall of werewolves.
“Is Bastien Blackhall in here?” Xavier reiterated, louder.
Nobody spoke up. We could not see his face anywhere in the crowd.
“Does anybody know where he is?” I asked.
There were murmurs indicating no, and much shaking of heads, while others just looked back at us blankly.
I heaved a sigh. It was very possible—perhaps more than likely—that he had gotten caught in the blaze outside. He had been in a tree when Vicky had last seen him, after all. I breathed in deeply. This might be the first true heartbreak my daughter had ever experienced.
Derek
While my sister and brother-in-law hung back in the auditorium, the rest of us continued through to the other tunnel, where we found more hunters. The jinn and witches led the way, doing most of the heavy lifting, ending hunters swiftly with their various brands of magic. We traveled deep into the mountain until we reached the end of the tunnel. We turned around and returned to Rock Hall.
The werewolves had gathered around Xavier and Vivienne, but their attention shot to us as we emerged in the hall. I didn’t think I’d ever seen so many werewolves all in one place. I wondered how many tribes in total were in here. Victoria hadn’t mentioned a number when describing the gathering to us.
A group of men stepped forward, the strongest, most imposing men in the room. Next to some of them were women, hardly any less fierce. A crowd of about forty in total. I supposed they were the alphas. The chieftains.
“Are you King Derek Novak?” one of the men asked, surveying me and the rest of my group.
I nodded.
“I am the leader of the Cuthrals,” he said. “Your sister and brother-in-law explained to us that you have come to free us from these barbarians.”
I nodded again. “That’s what we hope we have done, or will have done very soon.”
All the chieftains bowed their heads low to me.
“Thank you.” Several spoke in unison.
“Our deepest gratitude.”
Gratitude shone in the eyes of every single werewolf in this hall.
“We have destroyed their primary base,” I went on, “where they had established a compound with buildings, and we have gotten rid of every hunter in sight in and around this mountain. But I believe that you are not free yet. There are hunters elsewhere in this realm, am I correct?”
The werewolves exchanged glances. “It is hard for us to say for certain, but we believe so.” A female with wild blonde curls spoke up.
“Do any of you have any idea where they might be located?”
“They invaded the Tuftbrooks,” the Cuthral chieftain said. “We believe that they killed them all and then occupied their burrow. Other than that, we are not aware of any other locations.”
I drew in a deep breath. “Then you must help us search this realm and eradicate any hunters who remain.” I had no idea how big The Woodlands actually was, or just how colossal a task that would be—or how many days it would take—but while we were here, we needed to make sure that we had well and truly gotten rid of the last of the cockroaches.
Then we would need to assume that they would not return anytime soon after the massacre we had just proven ourselves capable of. And in the meantime, we had to begin uprooting them from other realms—I supposed starting with the ogres’ kingdom. They must’ve built very strong walls around that base, with high-voltage electricity, to keep the likes of ogres out. I wondered if they had even established a base in the dragon kingdom already. Something told me that if they had, they would be doing all that they could to keep it hidden. I couldn’t imagine them easily gaining a foothold in The Hearthlands against the strength of the fire-breathers, who, perhaps more than any other species, were intensely defensive of their land. Besides that, they were also extremely close-knit as a people—unlike the werewolves, among whom it was rare to find two tribes who could cooperate. Now, however, observing these werewolves all gathered in here together, I couldn’t help but feel this invasion would improve relations between them as they fought together for their country. This could only make them stronger in the end.
“Thank you again for your assistance,” another chieftain spoke up. “We will do all that we can to locate the rest of the hunters. We can split up into parties, each one searching every mile of The Woodlands. But I would suggest that a good place to start would be the Tuftbrooks, since we know for certain that the hunters have been there.”
There were murmurs of agreement from what seemed like every other wolf in the hall. It was as though they thought and spoke as one unit now, as true countrymen and women should.
“Then there is the matter of Bastien’s cousin, Detrius.” Sofia spoke up. “The Blackhalls’ lair has been compromised too, thanks to him.”
Of course. Although we had not noticed any hunters there during our brief stop, Detrius was in cahoots with the hunters. That would not do.
I was leery of being so heavy-handed, however. Especially since we had no idea who the culprits really were—whether it was solely the work of Detrius and his father, or whether others had joined in the conspiracy too. Once we had visited the Tuftbrooks’
burrow and finished our search across the rest of The Woodlands, I sensed it would be best to leave that matter to Detrius’ angered countrymen. After everything they’d almost lost, I doubted that they would have a problem agreeing amongst themselves who deserved to be punished and what the appropriate punishment was.
“Then let us gather outside at once and prepare to leave,” I boomed.
Victoria
I couldn’t focus on anything. No matter what I tried to distract myself with, my mind just kept being drawn back to that werewolf.
It was the not knowing that was the worst. Not knowing what, exactly, he might be thinking of me right now. Not knowing where he was, if he was even still alive.
My only relief came when I slept, but even that was after a hard struggle.
Is this what it’s like to love someone? To be so consumed with thoughts of them that you’re rendered dysfunctional?
That my state of mind could be so affected by Bastien’s circumstances unnerved me. Especially since they were circumstances I had no power to do anything about. It didn’t help that Grace wasn’t here. Although she was two years younger than me, my cousin was one of my closest friends on the island. I wished I could talk to her, even if there was nothing that she could say to make me feel better. I just felt the need to talk to somebody.
Maybe I should go talk to a werewolf. Who else would be better? Something drew me to the idea of going to seek out Saira. She was elderly and wise, and had seen much of the world.
I abandoned all attempts at completing my math homework and headed out of the penthouse.
Saira lived in one of the mountain cabins perched among The Black Heights. I unchained the bicycle I kept at the base of our tree and leapt on it to travel swiftly through the woods to the foothills of the mountains. Here, I had no choice but to abandon my bike in the clearing and begin climbing up the jagged stone steps toward the cabin houses. It was really about time that we installed an elevator among these mountains. Although the cabins were inhabited primarily by witches—with the occasional werewolf—humans still visited here sometimes.
A World of New Page 4
