She’d made her complete circuit when the barn doors opened, revealing a large number of people digging inside. Amelia and Thomas were sitting on chairs at the side of the barn, as a man she didn’t recognise spoke to a second man in dark-coloured robes whom Church had also never seen before. Judging from the yelling, the second man was in charge.

  Amelia was taken out of the barn, and Church moved back deeper into the woods, following from a distance as a large man with a stick pushed Amelia along. He took her up a path at the rear of the barn, to a second building, which was made of wood and brick and looked to Church like a house. The house was surrounded with a small lawn, and had flowers planted all around the border of it. The second the man and Amelia walked over the lawn, a powerful light came on, illuminating the entire area.

  The door opened, and Amelia was shoved inside, the man with the stick retracing his steps back toward the barn, never knowing that Church was so close to him. Something about him smelled bad, not in an unwashed way, but in an unclean soul way. It was a scent that, like Amelia, masked his human smell, but it was… unpleasant. She knew, without ever needing to know anything else about him, that he was her enemy. Magic, she thought. He’s the witch.

  Church watched the witch walk back down the hill toward the barn, and when his scent had gone, she moved up to the house. There was a large open gap from the woods to the house itself, and despite the darkness, Church knew there would be no cover for her if she approached over the lit-up lawn. Instead, she walked around the perimeter of the house, listening out for anyone, or anything, and smelling only Amelia, and… Church paused, and got low to the ground. A werewolf. The smell was unmistakable.

  The rear door of the house opened, and a large man stepped onto the decking, the light above the door illuminating him. “Who is out there?” he asked.

  Church saw Amelia sitting inside the building, on a sofa. She looked up at the werewolf standing outside the house. Even in his human form, the werewolf could smell her; he just didn’t know who she was. She could smell the confusion in him.

  “Come here,” the man said, going back inside, and dragging out another woman. “Get your desolate to comb this area.”

  Church recognised the woman immediately. It was Lauren from Seattle. A Desolate Queen, and someone whom Church had liked very much. Church’s happiness at seeing a friend stopped when the werewolf went back inside the house, and Lauren walked down from the decking to the grass at the rear of the house.

  A set of basement doors opened, and the desolate scrambled out of them, surrounding Lauren in a shield. “Who goes there?” she asked.

  Church made up her mind and stepped out into the light, letting Lauren see her.

  Lauren’s hands went to her mouth, and she looked back at the door, before running over to Church, dropping to her knees and embracing her warmly. “Oh, Church,” she said sadly. “I can’t leave. I’m tethered here. I can’t get away. They control me. You have to go get Miles. Do you understand?”

  Church pawed at Lauren’s hand once.

  “Good girl,” Lauren said. “Is Miles with you?”

  Church pawed twice.

  “Okay, you need to find him. If he rushes in here, Amelia will die.”

  Church pawed once.

  “Can you get Miles, bring him here? We have to stop them before they raise a Dusk.”

  “Nice dog,” Stuart said from the decking.

  “She’s just a dog,” Lauren said, pushing Church slightly, and getting back to her feet. “Probably belongs to someone in the remains of Ellsworth.”

  “Big dog,” Stuart said. “Doesn’t that vampire Arbiter have a big dog?”

  Lauren stepped in front of Church. “She’s just a dog. Leave her be.”

  “Bring her here,” Stuart said.

  “No,” Lauren snapped.

  The talisman around his neck started to glow, and two men stepped out of the building nearby and began walking toward them.

  Werewolves, Church thought, the smell coming off them easy to identify.

  “Bring. Her. Here,” Stuart commanded.

  Lauren let out a scream of pain before shouting, “Run!”

  Church let out a low growl. She wasn’t afraid, but then she smelled the fear coming off Lauren in a crashing tsunami, and she stepped back. She needed to find Miles. He would know what to do. She turned and ran off into the darkness, followed by the howls of werewolves giving chase.

  Chapter Thirty

  Where is Church?” Miles asked.

  The tram had taken Dr. Davies and himself to Bangor, ending at an underground station where the tunnel was partially collapsed, barring the tram from going further. The entrance of the station had been bricked up long ago, but a quick blast of telekinesis had seen it unbricked in short order. The number of armed people beyond who didn’t look happy about it was somewhat of a surprise.

  “Miles,” Bethany said, motioning for the guards to lower their guns. “Dr. Davies.”

  “We have a lot of information,” the doctor said. “Information I am happy to divulge. Why are these people here?”

  Miles looked around the small park they were in. There were fires somewhere nearby; the smell of them would have been obvious even to a human. “What happened?” Miles asked.

  “We had a desolate attack,” Bethany said. “It’s been resolved, and the desolate were stopped.”

  “Where are Church and Amelia?” Miles said, fear flooding his voice.

  “Church was fine,” Bethany said hurriedly.

  “Was?” Miles asked, taking a step forward.

  The guards raised their weapons once again, and Miles took a deep breath, calming himself.

  “She took off after Amelia,” Bethany said. “She was taken, along with Thomas. Thomas’s Blood Guard were killed. Maeve said that Jenny and her friends kidnapped Thomas and Amelia. We’re all cleaning up the town at the moment.”

  “How’d you know we’d be here?” the doctor asked.

  “We didn’t,” Bethany said. “I’ve been doing a sweep of the area with my team, and we heard something underground. Thought it was another desolate attack.”

  “Which way did Church take off?” Miles asked.

  “I’ll take you,” Bethany said. “Dr. Davies, please go with my people to the council offices. Carol and the other councillors will need to be told about what you found.”

  “Short answer,” the doctor said, “a bunch of idiots are trying to raise a Dusk.”

  Bethany paused. “What? That can’t be right, they don’t exist.”

  “I’ll explain on the way,” Miles said. “Let’s just get going. Doc, thanks for your help. Stay alive.”

  “I’ll do my best,” the doctor said.

  Miles followed Bethany out of the park, and into an identical golf cart to the one he’d used when arriving in town. “Anyone else hurt?” he asked her.

  “We’ve had several hundred people hurt, some seriously. About twenty deaths so far. We were prepared better for the attack than we would have been if you and the pilgrimage hadn’t arrived.”

  Miles stayed quiet for the rest of the journey, until they reached the motel, where the Major stood, looking worse for wear. “You okay?” Miles asked him.

  “Spent the last few hours killing desolate,” the Major said. There were several deep gashes over his arms and face, and despite the fact that they were healing, he looked as if he’d been in a war.

  “You going to heal up?”

  The Major nodded. “It’s been quite the few hours.”

  “What did you find out in Waterville?” Carol asked as she rushed out of the nearby building.

  “The doctor will fill you in,” Miles explained. “Just point me in the direction that Church went.”

  Carol pointed toward the eastern side of the city. “It’s been hours.”

  “She’ll be fine,” Miles said, hoping that was the case. “You need to prepare for more desolate. There’s a lot of them, and they’re marching up the way from Augusta to Ellsworth Falls. Want to guess which town is in the way?”

  “Those we saw?” the Major asked.

  Miles nodded. “There’s a lot more where they came from. I’m heading off now. If I’m not back by dawn, you need to prepare for the worst. Which is basically that the First Priest from House Idolator is possibly trying to resurrect a Dusk. Stuart and Liam are helping him, despite working with the Magistrate, because the blood of the Dusk might cure Stuart, although I think there’s more to it than just a cure.”

  Carol and Bethany shared an expression that Miles took to mean

  oh shit.

  “And you know all of this because?” Bethany asked.

  “Partly because an old desolate who this Dusk created over a thousand years ago told me,” Miles said. “And also because the First Priest is conducting a dig in Ellsworth, which is close to where the Dusk’s burial ground is. I might be off, but he’s either helping or he’s dead. I doubt there’s a third option here.”

  Bethany stared at Miles for a second before she said, “He’s always talked about finding the burial ground of the Dusk. I figured it was just in an archaeological sense of the word. Not in an actually bring them back from the dead way.”

  “You believe this?” Carol asked Bethany, who nodded in reply.

  “I need a car,” Miles said. “I can start running, but I’d rather not.”

  “How do you know where they’re going?” the Major asked.

  “It’s a longer story than I have time to tell, just trust me on this.” Miles turned to Carol. “Vehicle please. Not a golf cart.”

  “We have some 4x4s we use for travelling around outside of the city,” Carol said. “I’ll get one sorted for you.”

  Miles took a moment and sighed.

  “You okay?” the Major asked.

  “Where’s Maeve?” Miles asked him.

  “Common room,” the Major said, nodding toward the motel. “We turned it into a makeshift triage. She got pretty banged up during the fight. She’ll be fine, but I don’t think she’s up for visitors.”

  “She mention Jenny?” Miles asked.

  The Major nodded. “You know they killed the Blood Guards?”

  “Aye,” Miles said. “They’ll get what’s coming to them for it.”

  “Were they working for this Priest all along?” Bethany asked.

  “I’ll ask them that, too,” Miles said.

  “I assume nicely,” Bethany asked.

  Miles said nothing as Carol exited the council building at a run, throwing the keys to a Toyota to Miles. “It’s around the back,” she said. “All gassed up and ready for you.”

  “Be careful,” the Major said. “These people are clearly not fussed about hurting folk.”

  Miles was already in a flat-out run to the side of the building, and used the key fob to find which of the four Toyota Land Cruisers was his. A short time later, he was in the driver’s seat and speeding away. There were several triage stations all along the road, with a lot of people being seen to by clearly overworked doctors and nurses.

  The gate at the end of the city limits was in the process of being fixed, and after stating his purpose, Miles was waved through. He drove as fast as the terrain would allow, and was constantly irritated at having to slow to a crawl in his pursuit of wherever Church had gone.

  After thirty minutes of driving with all of the windows down in an effort to get even a hint of Church’s scent, Miles was almost halfway toward Ellsworth Falls. Driving at such a crawl didn’t do much to help Miles’s need to find Thomas, Amelia, and Church, but the road was bad, and the trail went all over the place, not just a straight shot toward Ellsworth. Presumably, the driver of the escape vehicle was trying to evade Church. Good luck with that, he thought.

  Miles pulled over to the side of what remained of the road, stopped the car, and got out. The moon was still high, and he had no idea where Church would have gone, but he was sure this was the direction she would have taken.

  Miles walked for a few minutes along the soft ground until he heard a howl in the distance. Wolf howls had a strange effect at night in that you were never sure if they were a hundred feet in front of you or a mile away. All Miles knew for sure was that it was no normal wolf.

  After placing his bag in the car, he turned into his beast form and took to the sky. He looked out over the trees and flew toward Ellsworth Falls, hoping to catch sight of movement below. His sense of smell in beast form was considerably better than in his human appearance, and his vision at night was good enough that it would let him see the movement of a mouse on a woodland floor.

  Miles had been flying for only a few seconds when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see something move beneath the gaps in the tree canopy far below him. Something large darted along the floor of the forest, and as he tried to pick up what it was, he saw two more large somethings moving after the first. He caught a whiff of their scent. Werewolves.

  With prey in his sights, he beat his wings once and took off after whatever was moving beneath the trees. He turned his wings slightly and flew down beneath the tree canopy, moving between huge tree trunks and branches with deft turns as he tried to keep his speed up to catch the fast-moving creatures in front of him.

  Those on the forest floor moved with such speed and agility that Miles wasn’t sure he could catch up to them, but then he caught a scent of the lead animal: Church.

  Miles let out a roar and beat his wings, speeding up toward Church, who was slowing down. The two werewolves—which he could now smell easily—turned to look back at Miles as he dove down atop one of them, driving his talons into the werewolf’s throat and tearing it out.

  The werewolf dropped to the ground as Miles sprang off it, clipping the back leg of the werewolf in front and sending it sprawling to the ground with a sliced tendon across its foot. With both werewolves on the floor, Miles stood between them.

  “Vampire,” the closest werewolf said.

  Miles moved quickly toward the werewolf with the damaged throat, taking it by the scruff of the neck and soaring up into the sky as he held it aloft.

  The werewolf struggled, stopping when he realised they were several hundred feet above the ground. A werewolf could heal a lot, but that didn’t mean they wanted to experience the impact of having their body broken.

  Miles beat his wings, brought the werewolf close to him, and said, “How many left?”

  “Liam,” the werewolf said hoarsely, his body healing from the deep wound across his throat. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  “I don’t want to know anything,” Miles said, and let the werewolf drop the near thousand feet back to the ground.

  Miles overtook the falling werewolf, slowing his descent just as he hit the top of the trees. Branches snapped from the impact as he flew toward the ground where the second werewolf was close to a snarling Church who had come back to finish the werewolf off.

  The second werewolf hit the ground a moment later, the scream that accompanied the fall immediately silenced.

  Miles smashed into the back of the werewolf at speed, breaking its spine in a dozen places, and sending it into the ground with such force that it threw up a crater of dirt around them. He placed one foot on the back of the werewolf’s neck, grabbed its head in both hands, and tore it free, tossing it aside.

  Miles turned back to his human form and dropped to his knees to hug Church, who buried her face in his neck. “It’s good to see you, too,” Miles said, scratching Church behind the ears. “You know where Amelia and Thomas are?”

  Church barked once.

  “Good girl,” Miles said. “You show me in a moment. I’ll go finish off the other werewolf.”

  Miles walked back toward the unconscious werewolf, who instead of hitting the trees had missed them and smashed into what remained of the road in front of the Toyota, making quite the mess in the process. Miles killed him in the same way he had the first, tossing the werewolf’s head into a nearby bush. He was very much done with playing nice.

  Church stood by Miles as he removed his bag from the Toyota. “How many bad guys?” Miles asked her.

  Church pawed at the ground with both feet several times.

  “A lot,” Miles said.

  Church nodded.

  “Did you see Amelia or Thomas?” Miles asked her. “Maybe Stuart or Liam?”

  Church wagged her tail and barked once.

  “All of them?”

  Church whined.

  “Amelia?”

  Church barked.

  “Stuart?”

  Church barked.

  “Thomas?”

  Church barked again.

  “But not Liam?”

  Church barked twice, before growling.

  “You could smell him?”

  Church barked.

  “Are there other people there?” Miles asked.

  Church barked again, before whining.

  “You didn’t see them, but there are?”

  Church barked.

  “Right,” Miles said. “We need to get to this place. Can you take point on this? There’s a witch there, right?”

  Church barked.

  “You did good,” Miles said, scratching her behind the ear. “Let’s go get people to safety.”

  Church took off with Miles following behind. He never let her out of his sight as they ran through the forest, easily avoiding branches as they moved at speed. Miles had missed running with her, with having someone beside him who he knew, with every ounce of his being, would have his back. The sense of relief he felt that she was okay was palpable. If either of those werewolves had hurt her, he would have done much worse to them than he had.

  It took an hour before Church slowed to a trot, and another thirty minutes before she stopped. Maybe he’d find something useful while in Ellsworth.

  Church sat still as Miles crouched beside her, looking at the house before him, and a barn farther away. The barn was old, made of wood, with parts of it looking rotten even from a distance. The house, however, appeared to be in good condition from the outside. As Miles looked at the front of the building, he closed his eyes and took a long sniff, recognising Amelia’s perfume. It was subtle, but there was definitely a hint of it going up to the house. He wished he had Church’s nose.

 

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