By the time we reached the silhouette’s location, he was gone. We looked to what would have been his left and noticed the forest becoming dense, rich bushes covering most of the ground and lush vines of ivy wrapping themselves around the massive redwood trunks. It reminded me of a virgin forest, untouched by man. No one had set foot in these parts.
“Let’s go,” Astra said.
“Where?” I asked.
“Look beyond the purple shrubs ahead. Our eleven o’clock.”
I did, and there he was again. The silhouette, motioning for us to follow him. It irked me. He could’ve just waited for us here. He could’ve said hello and introduced himself. I had a hard time trusting anyone who played games like this. Giving into my sharpened instincts, I bolted toward him.
“Thayen, wait up!” Jericho hissed.
I heard their rushed footsteps behind me. They kept up with me as I ran toward the silhouette. The closer I got, the better I could see him. He was tall. Athletic. Black hair. Blue sparks where his eyes would be caught my attention and sent chills down my spine. He vanished behind a bush, and I was determined to reach him.
As soon as I passed the purple bushes, however, he was nowhere to be found. We’d gone deep into these woods. We were so far removed from any form of society that I could breathe again, my lungs filling up with the fresh air. Birds sang from above, nestled in the canopy. Snakes slithered through the underbrush, and wild beasts watched us from afar. I spotted a pair of antlers, the deer’s round black eyes fixed on us.
“Where’d he go?” Jericho was panting. There was something about this place, I was now willing to bet on it—something that wore us out quicker than usual. Jericho was one of The Shade’s finest athletes. Sure, we’d had our encounters with the shadow monsters, and we’d run for a good two to three miles so far, but we were already tired. I could tell from our faces and our ragged breathing. We were getting sluggish, fast.
“I don’t know,” Astra said. “But I think he brought us to the right place.”
She walked forward, then made a sharp turn left behind a curtain of green and yellow vines. We followed, and finally saw what she was talking about. There was a small clearing ahead, walled in by greenery—it was almost impenetrable but for this spot we’d just stepped through. It was smack in the middle of nowhere, and it met our immediate need for a safe spot.
The clearing itself wasn’t even the best part. A cabin stood at its center, covered in moss and climbing plants with heart-shaped leaves. It had two levels, and it was made entirely out of dark gray wood. Its door and windows were iron-framed, though the glass had long been broken. It had a small porch and a fountain just five yards away, with an old bucket hanging from a looping metal hook. “Well, this is unexpected,” Dafne said. “A welcome sight, but unexpected.”
“There’s no cabin like this one in The Shade,” I replied. “The woods aren’t this thick and wild in this area, either. It’s another anomaly.”
“Technically speaking, this whole place is an anomaly,” Jericho chuckled.
“Say what you will, but if there’s a good spot for us to wait out the heavy foot traffic, I reckon this is it,” Dafne said.
I agreed. “We need to check it out first, make sure it’s not some kind of trap. I know the guy helped us before, but you can never tell. Not with strangers, anyway.”
“You’re miffed about Myst leaving us, huh?” Jericho shot me a sly grin.
“Well, she could’ve stuck around,” I grumbled. It was more than that. But they didn’t need to know this. It was my secret. My business to untangle until I could figure out what it was about Myst that had me so rattled. Her beauty and power obviously sprung to mind. I was curious. More curious than I had ever been about anyone.
Astra smiled. “I’ve got a feeling that wasn’t the last we’ll see of her, Thayen. This place… it’s new to a lot of people, not just us. You saw how confused and upset she was, right?”
I didn’t agree, but I couldn’t disagree either. We spread around the cabin and checked every entry point. There were only four. A front and back door, plus two windows. There wasn’t anyone inside. Not the sound of a heartbeat. Not a trace of life. Nothing.
We went in and remained speechless for a while, simply staring at the wooden walls and the old furniture that had been buried under a thick layer of dust. Someone had lived here once. A long time ago. The loveseat in the middle had worn leather and a couple of ragged throws forgotten on top of an armrest. The armchairs were mismatched and had been black at some point. The fabric was a dirty gray now.
“I wonder when it was last inhabited,” Jericho said as he paced the room. He ran his fingers over different surfaces, collecting puffs of dust along the way. Books had been discarded on the walnut coffee table. Moths had eaten away at the brown and orange rug. The logs in the fireplace were half burnt and half rotten. Framed photographs rested on the mantle. They told the real story, so I walked over to get a better look.
A father, a mother, and two children. A daughter and son, neither older than ten when these pictures had been taken. It showed this apparently happy family in different circumstances: in thick winter clothes along the ski slope somewhere in Aspen—I recognized the mountain range behind them, since I’d visited that area often as a kid with my parents; next to their raft as they prepared to go down the rumbling river with it, wearing red shorts, matching yellow shirts, and inflatable vests; in multicolored bathing suits as they scampered out of the turquoise ocean somewhere in the Caribbean. Yet this place was empty and devoid of life, with barely a few memories of a distant past.
“They were humans,” Astra said, joining me by the blackened fireplace.
Soph worked her way through every drawer she could find while Dafne checked the small kitchen. There was a small dining space behind the loveseat. A round table with four crippled chairs. Remnants of rotted fruits lingered in a decorative tin bowl. Books filled the shelves mounted over the entire western wall—novels and biographies, mostly, and a predominance of Wild West stories. I recognized some of the titles. This was a purely human home. It had nothing Shadian in it.
Jericho confirmed that after checking upstairs. “Four bedrooms,” he said. “One master, three smaller. Well, the fourth is more of a guest room, from what I could tell. Kids’ clothes in the other two small ones. One bathroom. Tiny. Covered in limescale and years’ worth of dirt. Not a hint of magic or Shadian stuff anywhere. It’s odd.”
“Odder than this whole island?” I asked, slightly amused.
“Nah. It just feels like someone picked this whole cabin up and plopped it here in the middle of these woods. It doesn’t belong here,” Jericho explained. “The humans simply left one day and took absolutely nothing with them. I don’t know how else to explain its state of abandonment.”
“For better or worse, I think this could work as a shelter,” Soph suggested, hands resting on her hips as she came back from the kitchen. “All the food in the pantry is expired, but the woods are rich in game. And I spotted at least three wild fruit bushes and a couple of trees on the way here. I’ll check the fountain next and see if we can get water out of it.”
“And there’s that pile of dried wood out back,” Jericho added. “Good enough to make a fire, right? It’s pretty dark outside. Smoke won’t be that easy to spot. Besides, Astra here can help with a little bit of Daughter magic to make it scatter faster before it goes through the canopy.”
They all looked at me, their eyes hopeful. I was honored to be the one with the last word in this group, and I couldn’t bring myself to let them down. This cabin worked in our favor. There was enough room for all of us to stay comfortably, and like Soph had said, we could hunt and gather our food. I only needed blood, but they required more. Nuts could be procured from the nearby almond and walnut trees. There were berries galore and a couple of wild peach trees. And yes, the fountain needed a check.
We’d spend a few hours here to rest, I figured. “We can climb the redwoods and s
tudy our surroundings from up there,” I said. “It’ll help us work out a more effective angle for approaching the armory. This cabin looks good to me. I think we can make use of it in the meantime.”
“Yes!” Jericho replied with a broad grin, then patted his stomach. “I’m famished.”
We hadn’t fed in a while. We’d left the cave focused on reaching the armory, but we’d gotten sidetracked one too many times. We’d been forced to waste precious hours running for our lives. Whoever that mysterious figure was, I couldn’t help but feel thankful. We owed him big time.
My only concern was that his favor might end up biting us in the ass somehow. To prevent that, I turned to Soph. “Mind taking first watch?” I asked. “Pick out the nearest redwood and find a good perch. You can see everything within a five-hundred-yard radius from halfway up any of the sequoias here.”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” she replied before heading out.
Jericho moved closer to Dafne, his expression gentle and permanently smiling. He had a soft spot for her, and I didn’t have to be a sentry to see it. It was written all over his face whenever he was beside her. Dafne, on the other hand, kept her cards close. I wasn’t sure she’d reciprocate his interest. She was slightly warmer to us, but she always kept Jericho in a subtle dance of ice and fire. Maybe it was intentional, a game of sorts—or maybe it was just her defense mechanism. I knew from Isabelle that Dafne wasn’t into the dating scene at all. Her choice, apparently. “We can hunt and bring back some food,” the fae dragon said.
I nodded. “Knock yourselves out. Just stay close to the cabin. Wilderness or not, we can’t risk attracting any clones, let alone those freakish shadow monsters.”
“I’ll work on the fountain,” Astra replied. “We need water. I’m parched. No wonder I was getting sluggish earlier.”
I didn’t object. We all had something to do. I decided to clear away some of the dust and get sleeping places prepared for later. Provided our armory raid went well, we’d have this cabin to come back to. And if my suspicions about the bad energies in this place were true, we needed to get as much sleep as possible before continuing with the rest of our mission.
My mind kept wandering back to Myst. No matter what I did, she lingered in the back of my mind, and I couldn’t get her out. She remained there with her golden hair and spectacular armor, her strange blue eyes and supple skin, her sweet voice and the power of her light. Maybe Astra was right. Maybe that wasn’t the last I’d see of her. She had abilities that left me speechless. I yearned to know more about who and what she was.
This place had yet to run out of surprises. Most would be bad, but I had high hopes that some might still surprise me in a good way. After all, we’d made it this far.
Dafne
I doubted anyone had noticed but being around Jericho made me nervous. There was something about him that demanded my complete attention, and more than once he had been my protector. My father and mother had taught me to rely on myself. Maybe I had taken that to an extreme growing up, since I tended to steer clear of most people. I only had a handful of friends, but I genuinely loved and trusted them. Isabelle was one of them, so being here, searching for her… It made all the sense in the world to me.
Jericho was an unexpected element in my world, however, and I wasn’t sure what to make of him. We poked fun at each other. He was remarkably resistant to my sarcastic jabs, and he never took himself too seriously. I’d learned from Soph that Jericho had a way with girls—apparently, he was quite the charmer, never lacking company of the feminine kind. In the end, none of the women who traipsed through his life ever stuck around. It made me curious about whether they were the ones to leave or whether he pushed them away. Either way, I had been just fine on my own. Why risk any kind of vulnerability with a guy who’d known plenty of girls? I didn’t want weakness, nor did I need a man in order to be happy. Of course, my feelings were telling me otherwise, but I chose to focus on our major fake Shade and clone issue to keep my mind off Jericho. Hopefully, it would work.
“Are you okay?” Jericho asked, dragging me back to reality. We’d been treading the dense woods around the cabin, gathering some fruits and nuts in a pair of linen bags we’d found hanging by the front door. His turquoise eyes had a way of looking right into my soul, making me feel soft on the inside. It scared me a little.
“Yes. Just thinking about Thayen. He’ll need blood. We should hunt something as well,” I told him. But Jericho didn’t seem concerned.
“He’ll be fine. Soph and I can give him some of our blood. It’ll get him through a couple of days, at least. I know daemon blood has an extra kick to it.”
We found a wild peach tree with fruits as big as my fist, dew glistening on the pinkish fuzz. I started picking the biggest ones, further stuffing a bag I’d already loaded with a variety of nuts and apples and pears. Much like The Shade back home, fruit trees were growing in the wild here, though not as richly as in our orchards. “If Thayen’s okay with that, sure. Personally, I’ll be happy if we don’t have to make a fire at all. The smoke might draw the enemy closer. We know Haldor can’t stay away forever,” I said.
“Astra’s got some Daughter magic up her sleeve. I think she can pull something off. The nights get pretty cold this time of year. I’m naturally hot and rarely suffer from low temperatures, so I could warm you guys up at night. Well, one of you. Any more and it’ll be a crowd. I’m not into crowds.”
I couldn’t help but turn to look at him. He wore a boyish smile as he waited for me to pick up on the half-joke. It was the half-truth that enticed me, though. The idea of spending the night in his arms. Jericho had a way with words, even when it seemed he didn’t say much. I wondered what it would be like if I just gave into my most hidden, primal instincts and allowed him to wrap his arms around me. Would my heart give out? Would my legs melt? It sounded like fun to just play along, yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted to, but the walls of ice I’d built around myself over the years were hard to knock down.
“I’m all ice, Jericho. Your heat would do nothing for me. I thrive in the cold,” I said and almost heard his humor deflating like an expired balloon. I felt bad as I watched his playful smirk fade away into something more awkward. Truth be told, I did enjoy playing with him in my own way. Jericho didn’t relent, though.
“That’s a shame. My dragon heat will be right here, waiting, in case you change your mind.”
“You’re too kind,” I replied, smiling, then climbed into the peach tree and reached for the top, where the best fruit usually grew. They were harder to spot at night, but Mom had taught me about these things when we spent the occasional summer in the Vale with the humans. I remembered hating it back then. I’d always felt closer to the ice dragons. We were reclusive creatures by nature, so it was no surprise that I’d inherited that personality trait.
The fire dragons were a little friendlier, and Jericho had been raised in a big and loving family among the Novaks. I doubted he understood these tiny differences that could make or break any relationship I might enter into. I felt his eyes on me as I collected more fruit.
“You know, I don’t think I got to tell you earlier, but I’m impressed with your dragon form. Sure, you’re smaller than your full-blooded kin, but you make up for it with speed and agility,” he said. “In that sense, we’re alike.”
“Yeah, I noticed you’re tiny. I’m pretty sure I pointed it out once.” I should’ve thanked him instead, but I couldn’t help myself. Heat burst in my cheeks, and something tickled my throat, yet I remained steady in my frosty demeanor. If Jericho was determined to reach my heart, I wouldn’t make it easy for him.
He laughed. “True. But we do kick major clone ass, don’t we?”
I looked down at him. “We most certainly do. We make a good team. That much is undeniable.”
“I’m glad you’re with us,” he said, suddenly serious, his gaze softening slightly. “None of what we’re dealing with is in any way normal, but I’m glad yo
u’re around. It makes the insanity more bearable.”
That was the sweetest thing he’d said so far. Jericho was clearly a man of many shades. The playful one who liked to laugh and make jokes. The fearless fighter who roared with fire and avenged his friends and loved ones. The calculated soldier who followed orders but also knew how to take initiative and seize an opportunity. The sweet and caring creature before me now who looked up and bore his soul to me.
“I’d say the same thing about you,” I replied, resting on one of the top branches with the bag hanging from one arm. “While my ice powers and dragon form do come in handy, it seems your fire is most precious in this crazy world. Fire is light, and light keeps the bad shadows away.”
He stilled, his eyes wide as he took in every word. I’d probably surprised him.
“So, when you call me ‘Sparky’ you mean that as a compliment, right?” Jericho asked, the corner of his mouth twitching.
I laughed as I reached for a peach closer to the top. It looked big enough and ripe, but I overestimated the strength of the branch I’d perched on. It snapped, and I fell. It happened so fast, even my normally very quick reflexes weren’t enough to stop my fall. Fortunately, I only grazed a couple of branches on my way down, and Jericho caught me in his arms. He held me close, and my heart drummed maniacally. My linen bag was on the ground, half of its contents spilled across the short and scarce grass.
“Nice catch,” I said, our eyes locked on one another. A strange fire kindled inside me, threatening to melt away the ice I’d hidden behind for so long.
“Well, maybe this will make you reconsider my offer to snuggle tonight,” he chuckled. Time seemed to stop for one long and delicious moment. His breath tickled my lips, and his heartbeats echoed mine. Yes, he was warm. Unusually warm for anyone other than a fire dragon. Would his heat burn me if I got too close? Or would my ice cause him to freeze?
A Shade of Vampire 89: A Sanctuary of Foes Page 10
