creepy hollow 05 - a faerie's revenge (5 page)

“Underground?” Vi interrupts. “Here in Creepy Hollow?”

“Yes. I went there this morning and he and all his belongings are gone. I went to his tattoo studio as well, and that’s also gone. Some creepy witches have a shop there now.”

“Witches?” Ryn says. “That can’t be right.”

I’m not in the mood to argue, so I simply say, “I don’t know, Ryn. They looked like witches. My point is that I have no idea where Chase is, and I doubt you or I will be able to find him. If he’s remained hidden all this time, he’s obviously very good at it.”

“There must be something else you can tell us,” Vi says. “Something he said that might—”

“Hey, Calla, we’re starting the race now,” Perry calls to me as he and Ned head for the library door.

“Great. Gotta go.” I slip past Ryn and Vi and hurry to catch up to my friends.

“Everything okay?” Perry asks. “Looks like your brother isn’t too pleased with you.”

“He isn’t, but it’s no big deal. I’ll talk to him later and sort things out.” We hurry down the stairs to the mentors’ level. “Do these assignment races happen often?” I ask.

Perry shakes his head. “It isn’t often that the Seers See enough things going wrong at the same time.”

“And all assignments need to be of similar difficulty level,” Ned adds. “That’s not something they can control either.”

We reach the second floor landing where the rest of our classmates are gathering. I aim for Gemma, who still looks miffed, but someone grabs my arm and pulls me aside. “You’re late,” Olive says.

“But … the race hasn’t started yet.”

“Ling was here before you,” she says, nodding to the girl standing patiently beside her. “That means you’re late.”

Ling gives me a sweet smile laced with venom. I choke down my desire to argue with Olive’s ridiculous logic and force myself to return Ling’s smile.

“Now,” Olive says. “If either of you return from this assignment in last position, there will be consequences. I have a reputation to maintain, and I don’t need the two of you ruining it.”

What reputation?
The words almost slip out, but I manage to hold my tongue. I doubt Olive would appreciate me asking what makes her reputation more special than that of every other mentor.

“And please don’t forget, Calla—since you seem to have trouble performing this part of your duty—that if you have to kill someone,
don’t hesitate
.”

I bristle at her implication that I can’t do my job properly. “I won’t hesitate. But I won’t kill either.”

Her lip curls up slightly, almost as if she’s snarling. It isn’t an attractive look on her. “Don’t be stupid,” she says. “Innocent people are going to wind up dead if you can’t do this.”

“I can do it,” I say as an image of the boy I forced off the top of the chef school building resurfaces. “But I’ve chosen not to.”

She sighs, her expression turning patronizing. “We all started off with our unrealistic ideals. You’ll learn.”

I certainly don’t want to
learn
that killing is sometimes the only option, and I plan to prove that to Olive by—

My thoughts are interrupted as someone shoves past, knocking me into Olive. “Lo-ser,” Saskia sings as she saunters past us.

Olive pushes me away with a growl of annoyance. “Somebody do me a favor and beat that Starkweather girl. Both she and her mentor have become far too full of themselves.”

Ling gives Olive a curt nod. “I’d be happy to.”

“Thank you, Ling. I don’t see Calla succeeding, so it’ll have to be you.”

I breathe in deeply and count to five.
Don’t react, don’t react, don’t react.

“Here he comes,” another mentor calls out. I look around and see a boy of about fourteen or fifteen coming down the stairs, struggling to balance a pile of scrolls in his arms.

“So how does this work?” I ask.

“They’re handed out randomly,” Ling says, to my complete surprise. I’m fairly certain those are the first words she’s uttered to me.

“And then what? Do we go over the details with our mentors as usual? Or do we read the scroll on our own and then—”

“Stop asking silly questions and get over there,” Olive says, pushing me forward into the crowd of fifth years. Scrolls disappear from the arms of the flustered Seer trainee as my classmates jostle around him. As I attempt to get closer, the remaining scrolls slide from his hands and land on the floor.

“Oops!” Saskia says, grabbing a scroll from the floor and skipping away.

I crouch down and help the boy gather the fallen scrolls. “Sorry about that,” I say.

His eyes lock on mine as we stand. He frowns, then sifts through the remaining scrolls and hands me one. “Here. This is yours.”

“Oh.” I wrap my hand uncertainly around the rolled-up reed paper. “I thought these assignments were random.”

“No, that one’s definitely for you.”

Unease pricks at the back of my mind. “How do you know that?”

He shrugs and smiles as the last few scrolls disappear from his hands. “I’m a Seer. Sometimes I just know things.”

CHAPTER

FIVE

I step tentatively along the edge of the swamp, careful not to slip into the murky water. Insects hover lazily above its still surface, and trees reach over from either side, their drooping limbs tangling with one another. A blueish green haze settles over the scene as daylight disappears bit by bit.

The assignment details were minimal: a swamp, two tourists, a dangerous dare, and a wolf-like creature that neither of them expects. I have to save them, of course. If the creature disappears, that’s great. If it fights back … well, then I hope to be able to restrain it and bring it back to the Guild.

Humidity clings to me, sticking my hair to the back of my neck. I reach for my jacket pocket for something to tie my hair up with, before remembering I left the jacket in Olive’s office. After seeing the location of this assignment, I figured I wouldn’t need it. I pull a twig from a nearby branch and transform it into a stretchy band. After a quick glance up and down the swamp to make sure I’m still alone, I scoop my hair up and secure it with the make-shift hair accessory.

Much better. I crouch down beside a tree and wait, watching the insects, the misty haze, the occasional ripple across the water’s surface. The smell of decaying vegetation fills my nose.
How pleasant
…

Above the high-pitched singing of insects, I slowly become aware of voices. I tense, readying myself to reach for a weapon. After another minute or so, they come into view on the other side of the swamp: two women who appear to be in their early twenties. They push noisily through the brush, laughing loudly, completely unaware of the danger that lurks within this swampy jungle.

“No way,” one says to the other amidst her laughter. “That’s got to be the stupidest legend of all. Where did you hear that one?”

“That guy at the restaurant last night. He’s a local. He knows these things.”

“Yeah, he knows how to tell stories while trying to pick up girls.” The two of them lean in to each other as giggles overtake them.

“Fine,” the second one says after she’s recovered. “I assume you’ll touch the water then, since you aren’t afraid of the big bad Swamp Monster.”

“Of course I’ll touch the water. I might die of some horrible swampy disease, but it won’t be the Swamp Monster that kills me.”

I suppress a groan, hoping her words haven’t sealed her fate.
She won’t die, she won’t die, she won’t die
, I chant to myself as the woman leans down and trails her fingers through the dirty water. I picture my bow and arrow—not focusing too hard on the idea—and raise my hands to the space where I imagine them to be. The weapon appears, fitting perfectly into my grip. Chase was right about that: it takes only a brief thought, an expectation that the weapon is already there, rather than a deep focus.

Don’t think of him now.

My weapon is brilliant and sparkling, filling the area with its light. The women won’t be able to see it, though. My weapons and I are both hidden by glamour magic. The wolf creature, however … Well, if he’s anywhere nearby, he won’t miss this brightly lit weapon. Perhaps I should have gone for stealth, rather than revealing myself too soon, but I’m hoping he’ll come for me instead of the humans.

A shriek pierces the air. I jump to my feet, ready to attack. But I realize a second later that it was only one of the women pretending to push the other into the swamp. The two of them dissolve into giggles once more as I release a sigh of relief. I scan the banks, the trees, the clumps of soggy vegetation growing in the water. Where will he come from? Is he watching already? Is he on
my
side of the bank?

I throw a glance over my shoulder as a shiver crawls up my back despite the smothering warmth of the air. Am I being watched? Or is it simply my imagination, like last night at the old—

Noise erupts behind me. I whip my head back around in time to see a black shape explode from the water. The wolf, his shaggy, dripping fur flinging water everywhere, collides with both women. Their screams chill my blood.

I don’t waste a second. My arrow zooms across the water and finds its mark in the wolf’s side before he’s finished rearing his head back. With a roaring snarl, he leaps off his prey and swings around to face my side of the bank. Wild, gleaming eyes stare hungrily at me through the hazy air. I discard my bow. It disappears, its glow vanishing in an instant. In the near darkness, I can see little more than those fiery eyes on the other side of the swamp.

The moment he jumps, so do I. With a single bound, he’s across the water, but the muddy earth I was standing on is now bare. Those glowing eyes turn upward. He sees me above him, balancing on the branch I launched myself onto. He lets loose a vicious growl. Then his head morphs and shifts and becomes something almost human. “Dinner time,” he snarls.

Fear ripples through me, raising the hairs on my arms. I don’t show it, though. Instead I reach swiftly for my bow and point an arrow directly at his head. “Try it,” I say, hoping he doesn’t.

But he readies himself to spring. He’s an enormous beast, after all, so of course he thinks he can take down the pesky guardian trainee trying to rob him of his dinner. I get ready to flip backwards out of his way the moment he launches at the tree. He tenses. He leaps—

And from a doorway in the air, a man steps out, knocks the wolf back onto the ground with a mere sweep of his hand, and brings slender branches slithering across the ground to bind the wolf’s limbs.

“Who the hell are you?” the wolf demands in rough, grunting tones as he morphs into a shape that looks far more like a hairy man than a four-legged beast. The newcomer sends a stunner spell straight at the wolf’s chest, knocking him unconscious.

Good question
, I think to myself. Whoever this is, he’s interfering with my assignment, and I doubt Olive will be pleased with that.

I drop to the ground, bending to absorb the impact before I straighten. “I’d like to know the answer to that,” I say.

The man turns—

—and I feel the air punched from my lungs. “You,” I manage to gasp.

“Calla?” He seems as startled to see me here as I am to see him. He can’t be feeling what I’m feeling, though. Never in a million years could he understand the way my heart just split. “Calla, what are you—”

“Stay back!” I say as Chase moves toward me. I hold a hand up between us, as though that might keep him away. As though I might possibly stand a chance against the most powerful being our world has ever known. The heavy air seems hard to breathe. The sheen of sweat coating my skin turns icy. “Is it true?” I manage to whisper. I already know it is, but I want to hear him say it. I want him to admit it.

Chase’s expression is indefinable as he says, “It is.”

I’m shaking, partly in anger and partly in fear. After all, it is
Draven
standing before me. Powerful, dangerous, a killer. What’s wrong with me that I couldn’t see that in him? How did I miss it? “You lied,” I whisper.

Stupid, stupid. Why are you still here? Why aren’t you
running
?

“I didn’t,” he says.

“I
trusted
you,” I yell. “I told you things I’ve never told anyone else.”

“I know, and I—”

“And then you made a fool of me!”

“No! That was never my intention. I was going to tell you everything.”

I choke out a laugh. “Everything? You were going to tell me
everything
?” I shake my head. “You were never going to tell me who you really are. Why would you do that? This is the only reaction you could possibly have expected.”

“I was going to start at the beginning.” He takes a step closer. “Tell you about the person I used to be. The guy I was before I discovered this world and its magic.”

“Is that guy supposed to be different from the guy who caused The Destruction? The guy who killed so many people?”

“Yes.”

“How? That guy is
you
!”

“No! Not anymore.”

I find myself shaking my head again. “I don’t believe you. I can never believe you again after all the
lies
you—”