Venators, page 6
The werewolf tried to get back on its feet but wobbled and collapsed. The goblins bellowed in unison and charged.
Tate pulled a vial from his coat pocket as they ran. The arch flashed and was then filled with a curtain of green light.
“I don’t know how bad it’ll be on the other side,” Tate yelled. “Be prepared.”
“On the other side of what?” Rune shouted back.
No answer. They passed through the green, and Tate turned, throwing the vial. It exploded in a brilliant shower of red. Then they were falling.
Through the Arch
His face was being ripped off. Little fingers of wind-sharpened air jabbed around his jaw, lips, and eye sockets, pulling and yanking until Grey was sure he was being flayed. The first door had been bad—this one was so much worse.
His heart stuttered awkwardly in his chest. Pain seeped up his throat, into his shoulder, and down one arm, transmitting threats that his heart was about to stop beating all together. His mouth gaped, not for air this time but in a fruitless effort to release the scream bunched in his esophagus like an oil-filled rag. He could see nothing but yellow—bright, pupil-searing yellow. The bones in his right hand were folding over each other as Rune squeezed it as hard as she could.
The pain in his chest intensified. Surely it couldn’t get any worse. But it did.
He’d escaped his stepfather, death by goblins three times, and death by werewolves twice only to die by the hands of an invisible assailant in an endless sea of yellow. The injustice of it was nearly comical.
Then, just like that, the pain was gone. Air inflated his lungs. There was blue above—blessed sky blue. He closed his eyes, grateful to be alive.
Then he hit the ground.
Unprepared, Grey smashed onto his back. Hips and spine took the brunt of the force until his neck whiplashed and he heard, as much as felt, his skull crack against hard earth. The freshly acquired air burst out with a wheezing sound while bells went off in his ears and spots swam through his vision like tiny black fish.
Rune fell on top of him. He folded in at the middle as an elbow punched into his stomach, what felt like a knee ground against his sternum, and Rune’s extra weight hammered his already bruised spine into a rock.
She groaned weakly and went to roll off, driving her elbow into his gut for leverage.
He gasped and wheezed, sounding like a ninety-year-old man. “Rune!”
She flopped flat, staring up at the sky, while her chest rose and fell with heavy breaths.
“Grey,” she said, with an edge of trepidation. “Where are we?”
No idea. He rolled his head to the side, trying not to wince, and looked around. They were on a hill. Long, gray-green grasses rasped against each other and framed a host of wildflowers that waved and nodded their purple-and-blue heads in the breeze. The smell on the air was new, sweet with a hint of cinnamon and musk. He propped up on his elbows.
Tate stood to the side of the glowing opening they’d just exited from. It hung in midair and then started to shrink, pulling in on itself until it sealed and vanished. Tate’s hand was under his trench on the hilt of a sword. His eyes darted in every direction, assessing. Then his mouth twisted to the side. “Oh, crap.”
Rune bolted straight up. “‘Oh, crap’! What do you mean, ‘Oh, crap’?” She scrambled to her feet. “Where . . . ?” She trailed off, the words forgotten as a moth the size of her head came fluttering by. Its wings were a brilliant blue, decorated with spots and stripes in cotton candy pinks and greens. The moth swooped down with perfect accuracy and landed on the tip of her nose.
“Hey!” Tate ran toward her, swiping at the bug. “Get out of here.”
The moth giggled, the pitch high and sweet like a child’s, then swooped away.
Rune held up a shaking finger. “What . . . was that?”
“A faery. Well,” Tate shrugged, “it used to be a faery. It’s been exiled.”
Grey stood and turned in a slow circle, taking in everything, not wanting to forget a single detail. A few trees and bushes were nestled at the base of the hill, waving in the breeze and sporting much brighter hues than Grey was accustomed to despite their familiar shapes. He could see pines and oaks and aspens, but their greens were richer and deeper. His gaze traveled up. The sky was so clear and bright—it had to be free of the contaminants that hovered in their atmosphere. He’d never known it could be so lovely.
The moth that Tate had shooed away returned, made a loop around Grey’s head, still giggling, and then paused to hover in front of Grey. Where the moth’s head should’ve been was a tiny humanlike head with antennae that protruded through the short, spiky brown hair. She winked at him with glittering blue eyes and made tiny kissing sounds before zipping off. Above them, something soared through the sky, the wingspan reminding him of a pterodactyl.
His grin spread until he couldn’t contain it anymore, and a laugh of utter joy burst out. “It’s all real, Rune. All of it!” Satisfaction settled around him like a blanket.
Rune closed her eyes as if mentally counting to ten, then turned away from him. “All right, Tate, what’s wrong with my arms?”
Tate strolled past them and headed down the hill. “Nothing’s wrong with your arms.”
“Really?” Rune shouted, jogging to catch up. “Because I’ve never had glowing tattoos before.”
As they walked, Grey looked down at the red, green, and pink that shimmered through his own markings. It was mesmerizing.
“Of course you have; they just weren’t activated. That is the mark of a Venator.”
“Latin for ‘hunter,’” Grey interjected.
Rune rolled her head to look at him with as much annoyance as she could muster. “You just happen to know Latin?”
The tone of her voice and the you’re a moron look ticked him off. “I happen to know a lot of things.”
“Yeah, but . . . Latin?”
“I do a lot of research. Many of the old texts are in Latin. Some of the translations are missing things, especially any translated by the Catholic priests. They altered the texts to exclude anything they considered demonic—namely, the supernatural. So I worked with the original documents as much as I could.”
She’d come to a stop and was looking at him like he’d just informed her he planned to marry a horse.
“What?” he snapped.
“Latin?”
“Keep up,” Tate called.
Rune, not wanting to be left behind, hurried forward.
Grey hadn’t realized how tall Tate was until he watched Rune walking next to him. She didn’t even come up to his shoulder. As she walked, she scratched at her arms and scowled at the markings as if she could will them away.
“What in the hell ‘activated’ these stupid things?”
“Your contact with my world. Once one of us gets close enough to one of you, it triggers the markings.”
“That can’t be right,” Grey said. “I saw you years ago.”
“You were a child,” Tate said shortly, as if it should’ve been the most obvious thing in the world. “A Venator doesn’t get their markings until they become a man.” He nodded to Rune. “Or a woman.”
“You’re trying to tell me that we have to hit puberty for these stupid glowing markings to . . .” She held up a hand, her lips pressed flat. “You know what, never mind. We’re here, wherever here is. Now where did they take my brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“What? But you said Zio had him. You said—”
Tate whirled on her so fast she stumbled back. “Look, I don’t have the answers you want.” His tone was sharp, but it was the intensity in his gaze that made Rune shrink. “I have no idea where Zio is or what she’ll do with your brother. There’s a lot I can tell you, and I’m sure the farther we walk, the more questions you’ll have. But right now my number-one priority is getting us all out of here before nightfall. We exited the gate in some very nasty fae territory, the kind that like to come out at night and the kind that will be most displeased that I managed to get you two over to this side. They are very creative in matters of death and torture, and if the wrong one finds us, you’ll be wishing we’d kept moving and left your questions for later.”
Rune swallowed and nodded.
“Glad we have an understanding.”
The terrain started easily enough, with gentle, rolling hills dotted at the tops with shrubs and masses of wildflowers then ringed at the base with a wide variety of trees. But the soothing, up-down rhythm of the hills soon gave way to a flat expanse that was abruptly broken by a straight line of trees stretching for miles in each direction. One moment there was grass; the next, a wall of trees reaching into the sky like dark sentinels.
Tate strode in.
Grey and Rune both hesitated at the edge, looking down the row of trees, understanding each other’s thoughts without saying a word. Something wasn’t right about this place . . . but what else could they do but follow Tate?
They stepped past the tree line. Within a few steps, the forest grew inexplicably dark despite the sun blazing overhead. Grey peered up through the branches, not understanding. It was like an invisible sponge over the canopy was sucking in the light.
A shiver ran down his spine.
“Do you hear that?” Rune whispered.
Over the rustle of branches and the chirps and titters of insects and birds, the faint lilt of foreign music tickled his ears. It was intoxicating, even at such a low decibel. It seemed to move and coalesce inside him, calling him toward the source. He knew enough about fae music to be grateful it was faint. The desire was there but manageable—he had no wish to dance until his feet were nubs and he’d lost the will to live.
The deeper they moved into the forest, the stranger things became. Rocks rolled into their path of their own accord. The wildlife became strange and malformed—like a band of children’s toys torn apart and reassembled. Birds with the legs of monkeys, woodpeckers with saws for beaks, an owl with glowing red eyes like two marbles. Branches seemed to purposefully rip at his clothes. He finally took his trench coat off after it had caught on every bush and tree he passed.
A small man the size of a garden gnome statue with a receding hairline and a rotund belly darted across the path, hissing at them. Tate pulled a knife and hissed back. The little man scuttled away, disappearing as fast as he’d appeared.
Soon after that, the trees began a gradual change. The bark morphed from varying shades of brown to ebony black. Next the leaves and pine needles faded—green, yellow, and then white. It had looked, for a moment, like a black-and-white checkered game board, the white leaves waving like flags on blackened posts. But then rich crimson saturated through the delicate veins as if pumping blood. Grey stared in fascination as they walked.
Dots of deep maroon appeared at the tips of the leaves, eventually flowing to the bases, moving and twisting like watercolors in a glass. Beautiful, flowing randomness transformed the white leaves to burgundy and the scene to a sinister backdrop. But the architect of this nightmare went a step further. As the leaves fell they changed colors again, from maroon to brilliant red. The now crimson leaves sat in spongy layers on the ground that gave way beneath their feet like dead flesh, coating the dark forest in a bloody warning.
The forest was rubbing his nerves raw. The strange animals, the unnaturalness of the trees, the queasy feeling from stepping on what looked and felt like bloodied flesh, combined with the ever-calling strains of faery music. A black bird with two oversized toes cawed at them from one of the branches before snapping up a large brown moth. Grey wondered whether it had been a moth or a faery.
The madness went on and on. Just when he thought he would unravel, give in, and run for the music—because surely it was better than this—the trees cleared, exposing a river of mud that stretched as far as he could see in both directions.
On the other side of the bank stood a wonderful sight. Trees, normal trees, with brown trunks and green leaves that were gleaming like stained glass as the setting sun shone through them.
Tate sat down and took off his boots.
Grey eyed the thick river. “Are we going through that?”
“Unless you see a way around. The sun is almost down.”
Rune sighed and knelt down to take off her shoes. “I would take a bath in mud right now if it meant I didn’t have to go back in there.” She shuddered. “That was horrible.”
“It’s not over yet.” Tate took off the many weapons that were strapped around his waist and legs, then wrapped them up in the trench coat. “If you feel anything while you’re walking, just keep moving. Don’t stop under any circumstances.”
“Feel anything?” Rune eyed the mud. “What kind of thing?”
Tate waded in, holding the bundle above his head. The mud was deep, and he sunk up to his waist. “Anything they think might make you stop.”
Grey tied the shoestrings of his boots together and draped them around his neck. He was going to hold his coat above his head, like Tate, but worried about what was lurking below the mud. He decided he might need his arms for balance and secured the coat around his waist instead. He didn’t want it dragging behind and weighing him down.
Rune stood on the bank, alternating glances between the forest behind them and the river of mud in front.
“Coming?” Grey asked.
“Oh, after you,” she said wryly. “I insist.”
“I thought you were ready to bathe in it?”
“Yeah, not anymore.”
He waded in, glancing back to make sure she followed. It wasn’t long before he felt bony fingers wrap around his ankles. Grimacing, he jerked his leg free.
Rune shrieked.
“Keep moving!” Tate shouted back. “If you stop, they’ll pull you under.”
Fingers continued to grab at him, and then something pinched. The abuse grew more violent the closer they got to the other side. Something kicked the back of his knee so hard his leg buckled, and he was grateful he’d left his arms free for balance. A hand with long, pointed nails scraped down his leg, deterred only by the thick fabric of his jeans. Then something—or someone—tore the coat from his waist, and his most prized possession vanished beneath the muck. He swore under his breath as he twisted away from another attack.
Rune stumbled, waving her arms for balance.
“Are you all right?” Grey asked, turning around to go to her.
“Fine.” She yelped and glared down. “That hurts, you little—”
“Don’t call them names,” Tate interrupted. “It just makes it worse.”
Rune gritted her teeth, glaring daggers.
On the fae side of the muddy river, a shape appeared out of the shadows, standing in the spot they’d just been. He was Grey’s height and wore nothing but a thin strip of fabric around his waist. Flaming-red hair stood out in all directions. His body was thin and chiseled, with hard, lean muscles that were far more defined than humanly possible. The boy faery grinned, exposing wicked, sharp teeth. This smile was not amused or friendly, but wound with danger.
“Um, Tate,” Grey called.
“Keep moving,” came the brusque reply.
Grey turned his back to the fae creature, his shoulders tense—uncomfortable with the vulnerable position—and fought against the suction of the mud as he made a push for the opposite bank. The river made a thick, sucking sound as Grey finally jerked his feet free. Once out, he offered a hand to Rune, pulling her up onto the bank just as the last rays of the setting sun vanished.
Tate stared at the redheaded faery and muttered, “That was too close.”
“Why don’t they follow us?” Rune asked.
“There are a few rules by which they actually abide,” Tate said. “They will only attack those inside their borders after nightfall. Otherwise, they risk the wrath of the council.”
On the fae side of the river, glowing eyes appeared one after the other—on the ground, in trees, inside bushes. The redheaded faery raised one hand and made a threatening gesture Grey had never seen before, then disappeared back into the shadows.
Revelations
They pushed on, obediently following Tate through the trees. The mud from the river had dried to a thick shell on their feet and legs. In the extra folds of Grey’s jeans, it had hardened to something that resembled cement, restricting his movements. Rune wasn’t faring much better. Tate, on the other hand, was walking normally, and Grey couldn’t figure out how he was doing it.
The air was filled with a heady, musk-like scent, rich with decomposing plant matter. He’d frequently wondered during his research how different the world had looked through the eras of time before the rise of machines and technology. Now he felt like he knew the answer.
With the sun down, the forest was filled with shadows and strange noises, but this darkness was natural—the light from the stars and moon penetrated it. The branches no longer reached for him, and the overall feeling of evil that had permeated everything in the black forest was gone.
Grey peeked up through the branches whenever he found a gap. Without artificial light to dilute the natural brilliance above, the beauty of the night sky was a show he’d only read about.
When he came across a hole in the canopy, Grey pointed. “Rune, look.”
The light shone through in a pillar, illuminating a perfect circle on the ground.
She offered her first real smile since crossing over. “It’s beautiful.”
Tate finally slowed to a stop as they came into a clearing that had obviously been used as a campsite before. A hollowed-out fire ring was surrounded by several fallen logs for seating.
“There are a few hot springs that way. You two get cleaned up, and I’ll get a fire started.”
Rune warily looked to where Tate had pointed. “There aren’t any strange things out there, right?”
Tate pulled a vial from his coat pocket as they ran. The arch flashed and was then filled with a curtain of green light.
“I don’t know how bad it’ll be on the other side,” Tate yelled. “Be prepared.”
“On the other side of what?” Rune shouted back.
No answer. They passed through the green, and Tate turned, throwing the vial. It exploded in a brilliant shower of red. Then they were falling.
Through the Arch
His face was being ripped off. Little fingers of wind-sharpened air jabbed around his jaw, lips, and eye sockets, pulling and yanking until Grey was sure he was being flayed. The first door had been bad—this one was so much worse.
His heart stuttered awkwardly in his chest. Pain seeped up his throat, into his shoulder, and down one arm, transmitting threats that his heart was about to stop beating all together. His mouth gaped, not for air this time but in a fruitless effort to release the scream bunched in his esophagus like an oil-filled rag. He could see nothing but yellow—bright, pupil-searing yellow. The bones in his right hand were folding over each other as Rune squeezed it as hard as she could.
The pain in his chest intensified. Surely it couldn’t get any worse. But it did.
He’d escaped his stepfather, death by goblins three times, and death by werewolves twice only to die by the hands of an invisible assailant in an endless sea of yellow. The injustice of it was nearly comical.
Then, just like that, the pain was gone. Air inflated his lungs. There was blue above—blessed sky blue. He closed his eyes, grateful to be alive.
Then he hit the ground.
Unprepared, Grey smashed onto his back. Hips and spine took the brunt of the force until his neck whiplashed and he heard, as much as felt, his skull crack against hard earth. The freshly acquired air burst out with a wheezing sound while bells went off in his ears and spots swam through his vision like tiny black fish.
Rune fell on top of him. He folded in at the middle as an elbow punched into his stomach, what felt like a knee ground against his sternum, and Rune’s extra weight hammered his already bruised spine into a rock.
She groaned weakly and went to roll off, driving her elbow into his gut for leverage.
He gasped and wheezed, sounding like a ninety-year-old man. “Rune!”
She flopped flat, staring up at the sky, while her chest rose and fell with heavy breaths.
“Grey,” she said, with an edge of trepidation. “Where are we?”
No idea. He rolled his head to the side, trying not to wince, and looked around. They were on a hill. Long, gray-green grasses rasped against each other and framed a host of wildflowers that waved and nodded their purple-and-blue heads in the breeze. The smell on the air was new, sweet with a hint of cinnamon and musk. He propped up on his elbows.
Tate stood to the side of the glowing opening they’d just exited from. It hung in midair and then started to shrink, pulling in on itself until it sealed and vanished. Tate’s hand was under his trench on the hilt of a sword. His eyes darted in every direction, assessing. Then his mouth twisted to the side. “Oh, crap.”
Rune bolted straight up. “‘Oh, crap’! What do you mean, ‘Oh, crap’?” She scrambled to her feet. “Where . . . ?” She trailed off, the words forgotten as a moth the size of her head came fluttering by. Its wings were a brilliant blue, decorated with spots and stripes in cotton candy pinks and greens. The moth swooped down with perfect accuracy and landed on the tip of her nose.
“Hey!” Tate ran toward her, swiping at the bug. “Get out of here.”
The moth giggled, the pitch high and sweet like a child’s, then swooped away.
Rune held up a shaking finger. “What . . . was that?”
“A faery. Well,” Tate shrugged, “it used to be a faery. It’s been exiled.”
Grey stood and turned in a slow circle, taking in everything, not wanting to forget a single detail. A few trees and bushes were nestled at the base of the hill, waving in the breeze and sporting much brighter hues than Grey was accustomed to despite their familiar shapes. He could see pines and oaks and aspens, but their greens were richer and deeper. His gaze traveled up. The sky was so clear and bright—it had to be free of the contaminants that hovered in their atmosphere. He’d never known it could be so lovely.
The moth that Tate had shooed away returned, made a loop around Grey’s head, still giggling, and then paused to hover in front of Grey. Where the moth’s head should’ve been was a tiny humanlike head with antennae that protruded through the short, spiky brown hair. She winked at him with glittering blue eyes and made tiny kissing sounds before zipping off. Above them, something soared through the sky, the wingspan reminding him of a pterodactyl.
His grin spread until he couldn’t contain it anymore, and a laugh of utter joy burst out. “It’s all real, Rune. All of it!” Satisfaction settled around him like a blanket.
Rune closed her eyes as if mentally counting to ten, then turned away from him. “All right, Tate, what’s wrong with my arms?”
Tate strolled past them and headed down the hill. “Nothing’s wrong with your arms.”
“Really?” Rune shouted, jogging to catch up. “Because I’ve never had glowing tattoos before.”
As they walked, Grey looked down at the red, green, and pink that shimmered through his own markings. It was mesmerizing.
“Of course you have; they just weren’t activated. That is the mark of a Venator.”
“Latin for ‘hunter,’” Grey interjected.
Rune rolled her head to look at him with as much annoyance as she could muster. “You just happen to know Latin?”
The tone of her voice and the you’re a moron look ticked him off. “I happen to know a lot of things.”
“Yeah, but . . . Latin?”
“I do a lot of research. Many of the old texts are in Latin. Some of the translations are missing things, especially any translated by the Catholic priests. They altered the texts to exclude anything they considered demonic—namely, the supernatural. So I worked with the original documents as much as I could.”
She’d come to a stop and was looking at him like he’d just informed her he planned to marry a horse.
“What?” he snapped.
“Latin?”
“Keep up,” Tate called.
Rune, not wanting to be left behind, hurried forward.
Grey hadn’t realized how tall Tate was until he watched Rune walking next to him. She didn’t even come up to his shoulder. As she walked, she scratched at her arms and scowled at the markings as if she could will them away.
“What in the hell ‘activated’ these stupid things?”
“Your contact with my world. Once one of us gets close enough to one of you, it triggers the markings.”
“That can’t be right,” Grey said. “I saw you years ago.”
“You were a child,” Tate said shortly, as if it should’ve been the most obvious thing in the world. “A Venator doesn’t get their markings until they become a man.” He nodded to Rune. “Or a woman.”
“You’re trying to tell me that we have to hit puberty for these stupid glowing markings to . . .” She held up a hand, her lips pressed flat. “You know what, never mind. We’re here, wherever here is. Now where did they take my brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“What? But you said Zio had him. You said—”
Tate whirled on her so fast she stumbled back. “Look, I don’t have the answers you want.” His tone was sharp, but it was the intensity in his gaze that made Rune shrink. “I have no idea where Zio is or what she’ll do with your brother. There’s a lot I can tell you, and I’m sure the farther we walk, the more questions you’ll have. But right now my number-one priority is getting us all out of here before nightfall. We exited the gate in some very nasty fae territory, the kind that like to come out at night and the kind that will be most displeased that I managed to get you two over to this side. They are very creative in matters of death and torture, and if the wrong one finds us, you’ll be wishing we’d kept moving and left your questions for later.”
Rune swallowed and nodded.
“Glad we have an understanding.”
The terrain started easily enough, with gentle, rolling hills dotted at the tops with shrubs and masses of wildflowers then ringed at the base with a wide variety of trees. But the soothing, up-down rhythm of the hills soon gave way to a flat expanse that was abruptly broken by a straight line of trees stretching for miles in each direction. One moment there was grass; the next, a wall of trees reaching into the sky like dark sentinels.
Tate strode in.
Grey and Rune both hesitated at the edge, looking down the row of trees, understanding each other’s thoughts without saying a word. Something wasn’t right about this place . . . but what else could they do but follow Tate?
They stepped past the tree line. Within a few steps, the forest grew inexplicably dark despite the sun blazing overhead. Grey peered up through the branches, not understanding. It was like an invisible sponge over the canopy was sucking in the light.
A shiver ran down his spine.
“Do you hear that?” Rune whispered.
Over the rustle of branches and the chirps and titters of insects and birds, the faint lilt of foreign music tickled his ears. It was intoxicating, even at such a low decibel. It seemed to move and coalesce inside him, calling him toward the source. He knew enough about fae music to be grateful it was faint. The desire was there but manageable—he had no wish to dance until his feet were nubs and he’d lost the will to live.
The deeper they moved into the forest, the stranger things became. Rocks rolled into their path of their own accord. The wildlife became strange and malformed—like a band of children’s toys torn apart and reassembled. Birds with the legs of monkeys, woodpeckers with saws for beaks, an owl with glowing red eyes like two marbles. Branches seemed to purposefully rip at his clothes. He finally took his trench coat off after it had caught on every bush and tree he passed.
A small man the size of a garden gnome statue with a receding hairline and a rotund belly darted across the path, hissing at them. Tate pulled a knife and hissed back. The little man scuttled away, disappearing as fast as he’d appeared.
Soon after that, the trees began a gradual change. The bark morphed from varying shades of brown to ebony black. Next the leaves and pine needles faded—green, yellow, and then white. It had looked, for a moment, like a black-and-white checkered game board, the white leaves waving like flags on blackened posts. But then rich crimson saturated through the delicate veins as if pumping blood. Grey stared in fascination as they walked.
Dots of deep maroon appeared at the tips of the leaves, eventually flowing to the bases, moving and twisting like watercolors in a glass. Beautiful, flowing randomness transformed the white leaves to burgundy and the scene to a sinister backdrop. But the architect of this nightmare went a step further. As the leaves fell they changed colors again, from maroon to brilliant red. The now crimson leaves sat in spongy layers on the ground that gave way beneath their feet like dead flesh, coating the dark forest in a bloody warning.
The forest was rubbing his nerves raw. The strange animals, the unnaturalness of the trees, the queasy feeling from stepping on what looked and felt like bloodied flesh, combined with the ever-calling strains of faery music. A black bird with two oversized toes cawed at them from one of the branches before snapping up a large brown moth. Grey wondered whether it had been a moth or a faery.
The madness went on and on. Just when he thought he would unravel, give in, and run for the music—because surely it was better than this—the trees cleared, exposing a river of mud that stretched as far as he could see in both directions.
On the other side of the bank stood a wonderful sight. Trees, normal trees, with brown trunks and green leaves that were gleaming like stained glass as the setting sun shone through them.
Tate sat down and took off his boots.
Grey eyed the thick river. “Are we going through that?”
“Unless you see a way around. The sun is almost down.”
Rune sighed and knelt down to take off her shoes. “I would take a bath in mud right now if it meant I didn’t have to go back in there.” She shuddered. “That was horrible.”
“It’s not over yet.” Tate took off the many weapons that were strapped around his waist and legs, then wrapped them up in the trench coat. “If you feel anything while you’re walking, just keep moving. Don’t stop under any circumstances.”
“Feel anything?” Rune eyed the mud. “What kind of thing?”
Tate waded in, holding the bundle above his head. The mud was deep, and he sunk up to his waist. “Anything they think might make you stop.”
Grey tied the shoestrings of his boots together and draped them around his neck. He was going to hold his coat above his head, like Tate, but worried about what was lurking below the mud. He decided he might need his arms for balance and secured the coat around his waist instead. He didn’t want it dragging behind and weighing him down.
Rune stood on the bank, alternating glances between the forest behind them and the river of mud in front.
“Coming?” Grey asked.
“Oh, after you,” she said wryly. “I insist.”
“I thought you were ready to bathe in it?”
“Yeah, not anymore.”
He waded in, glancing back to make sure she followed. It wasn’t long before he felt bony fingers wrap around his ankles. Grimacing, he jerked his leg free.
Rune shrieked.
“Keep moving!” Tate shouted back. “If you stop, they’ll pull you under.”
Fingers continued to grab at him, and then something pinched. The abuse grew more violent the closer they got to the other side. Something kicked the back of his knee so hard his leg buckled, and he was grateful he’d left his arms free for balance. A hand with long, pointed nails scraped down his leg, deterred only by the thick fabric of his jeans. Then something—or someone—tore the coat from his waist, and his most prized possession vanished beneath the muck. He swore under his breath as he twisted away from another attack.
Rune stumbled, waving her arms for balance.
“Are you all right?” Grey asked, turning around to go to her.
“Fine.” She yelped and glared down. “That hurts, you little—”
“Don’t call them names,” Tate interrupted. “It just makes it worse.”
Rune gritted her teeth, glaring daggers.
On the fae side of the muddy river, a shape appeared out of the shadows, standing in the spot they’d just been. He was Grey’s height and wore nothing but a thin strip of fabric around his waist. Flaming-red hair stood out in all directions. His body was thin and chiseled, with hard, lean muscles that were far more defined than humanly possible. The boy faery grinned, exposing wicked, sharp teeth. This smile was not amused or friendly, but wound with danger.
“Um, Tate,” Grey called.
“Keep moving,” came the brusque reply.
Grey turned his back to the fae creature, his shoulders tense—uncomfortable with the vulnerable position—and fought against the suction of the mud as he made a push for the opposite bank. The river made a thick, sucking sound as Grey finally jerked his feet free. Once out, he offered a hand to Rune, pulling her up onto the bank just as the last rays of the setting sun vanished.
Tate stared at the redheaded faery and muttered, “That was too close.”
“Why don’t they follow us?” Rune asked.
“There are a few rules by which they actually abide,” Tate said. “They will only attack those inside their borders after nightfall. Otherwise, they risk the wrath of the council.”
On the fae side of the river, glowing eyes appeared one after the other—on the ground, in trees, inside bushes. The redheaded faery raised one hand and made a threatening gesture Grey had never seen before, then disappeared back into the shadows.
Revelations
They pushed on, obediently following Tate through the trees. The mud from the river had dried to a thick shell on their feet and legs. In the extra folds of Grey’s jeans, it had hardened to something that resembled cement, restricting his movements. Rune wasn’t faring much better. Tate, on the other hand, was walking normally, and Grey couldn’t figure out how he was doing it.
The air was filled with a heady, musk-like scent, rich with decomposing plant matter. He’d frequently wondered during his research how different the world had looked through the eras of time before the rise of machines and technology. Now he felt like he knew the answer.
With the sun down, the forest was filled with shadows and strange noises, but this darkness was natural—the light from the stars and moon penetrated it. The branches no longer reached for him, and the overall feeling of evil that had permeated everything in the black forest was gone.
Grey peeked up through the branches whenever he found a gap. Without artificial light to dilute the natural brilliance above, the beauty of the night sky was a show he’d only read about.
When he came across a hole in the canopy, Grey pointed. “Rune, look.”
The light shone through in a pillar, illuminating a perfect circle on the ground.
She offered her first real smile since crossing over. “It’s beautiful.”
Tate finally slowed to a stop as they came into a clearing that had obviously been used as a campsite before. A hollowed-out fire ring was surrounded by several fallen logs for seating.
“There are a few hot springs that way. You two get cleaned up, and I’ll get a fire started.”
Rune warily looked to where Tate had pointed. “There aren’t any strange things out there, right?”
