A moonlit clearing broke the darkness of
the trees and he leapt into the midst of the fight. Swiping at a Death Hound’s
exposed belly, he gutted the beast before it knew he was there. Talons which
had matured while he’d slept in stone now delivered quick death to his enemies,
unlike the first time he’d fought the Death Hounds within the Lady of Battles’
kingdom. He’d nearly failed Lillian during that rescue twelve years ago. This
time he wouldn’t let anyone or anything harm Lillian.
He grabbed a beast with ginger-and-black-colored
fur by the throat and gave it a savage twist. Claws raked at him, but he fought
on—uncaring as long as he took out his enemies before they killed again. With a
second twist, the Hound’s neck broke. Gregory dropped the limp weight and moved
on to the next Death Hound.
There were several more of the beasts in
the clearing, each with thick black ruffs and varying earth-toned pelts.
Near-perfect camouflage for a night-shrouded forest. More arrived as he
watched. They far outnumbered him, but he had a few other abilities now that he
hadn’t had when he was newly born. When his talons ravaged his next enemy, he
released small spells of death into its bloodstream. He circled his next
opponent and dispatched it in short order.
One after another, Death Hounds dropped all
around him. The few beasts agile enough to avoid his talons tucked their tails
tight to their bodies and fled.
When no more Hounds came for him, he
surveyed his work. He was crusted with gore and dirt. But he was whole, unlike
the broken bodies that lay scattered around, pale against the darker backdrop
of blood. Some were Death Hounds, while others were ones he’d recently danced
with. No magic could aid them now. Lillian’s sorrow touched his thoughts, and
when he wished each victim’s soul a safe journey to the Spirit Realm, she
joined him in silent prayer.
He was about to continue hunting for any
escaped Hounds when Lillian broke away. The sharp tang of her fear shrouded her
thoughts from him, and before he could calm her, she was gone.
He roared in fear and challenge. How had
the Death Hounds gotten around him? He’d not detected anything near his lady’s
location. Frantic, he sought to reestablish the link. Panic had taken hold of
her mind and his magic slithered off her mental shields without connecting. He
leapt into motion, heading back the way he’d come. With each stride, he prayed
to the Divine Ones he would not be too late.
A man-shaped shadow blocked the path twenty
feet ahead. Lillian, blinded by her grandmother’s glowing quarterstaff,
couldn’t make out the man’s features. It wasn’t until Gran lowered her staff to
point at the man’s chest that Lillian recognized Alexander. She remembered
Gregory saying some of her attackers had escaped. She’d assumed this vampire
was dead since she’d injured him. But here he was—undead—and much recovered.
He’d even grown his face back. Damn.
Two black-and-silver-furred dire wolves
circled in front of Lillian. They positioned themselves between her and the enemy.
While they advanced on Alexander with heads low and white fangs gleaming, a
wild-haired elf galloped his mount up and took flank. More of the Clan and
Coven joined them, clustering together in a loose circle with staffs, swords,
and arrows pointed at the surrounding forest.
“Name yourself,” Gran challenged.
“His name’s Alexander,” Lillian whispered. Rage
made her voice strong even as fear sparked to life in her blood. “He led the
Riven who attacked me. He wants me dead.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Alexander said
with a shrug that stretched his suit across his shoulders. “In my defense, I
said I wouldn’t hurt you if you came with us, but my goodwill wouldn’t last if
you made me go through the stone ring. As I recall, you didn’t obey.”
“Go screw yourself.” Lillian’s fists
clinched, aching for a weapon of some kind. A sword, preferably. Then she’d see
if he could grow his whole head back.
“How very original.”
If not a sword, another rock with her blood
on it would do. The underbrush shivered behind the vampire. Eight more of
Alexander’s henchmen materialized out of the forest.
Without taking her eyes from the enemy,
Gran motioned for Lillian to lean closer, and instructed in a low voice, “Stay
with the elk. He’ll try to keep you safe while we deal with this threat.”
“But I can fight.”
Gran shook her head, then tossed her leg
over the elk’s withers and slid to the ground.
“What are you doing?” Fear for her
grandmother made Lillian’s voice break.
“The elk will have a better chance if he’s
only carrying you. Don’t worry about me.” Gran pushed the hilt of a dagger into
Lillian’s hand.
Alexander chuckled. “How touching. Now if
you don’t mind, I have somewhere I need to be shortly.” He gestured to the
shadows behind him and more dark shapes eased out of the forest. “Bring the
girl, kill the rest.”
At Alexander’s words, one of the intruders
started shedding his clothes. He dropped to all fours and fur burst from his
skin with the sound of wet sand hitting the ground. In the time it took to
blink, a massive dire wolf took his place. The shaggy black monster lunged at
Gran in a blur of speed.
Gran whipped her staff around. Light raced
up its length and launched from the end with a high-pitched shriek. It collided
with the enemy dire wolf while he was in mid-leap. Magic tossed him back
against a tree trunk fifteen feet away. He fell to the ground, unmoving. Gran
leveled her staff at another dire wolf.
Underbrush and saplings quaked violently as
the forest erupted into chaos. A dozen wolf-creatures raced out of the woods
toward the smaller circle of defenders. The screams and grunts of battle echoed
all around them. Lillian clung to the elk’s neck as he lunged sideways, away
from snapping teeth. But there was no escape. They were surrounded, trapped
with the rest of the defenders, forced into an ever shrinking pocket of space.
The elk danced in place, then bellowed a
challenge and kicked out at an enemy. His hoof smashed into a dire wolf’s skull
with the dull crack of bone. He struck out with his deadly hooves again.
Several enemies met death under his brutal defense, but more than once he was
too slow. Blood showed dark against his white coat.
The last of the enemy dire wolves crashed
to the ground as a willowy sidhe woman, accompanied by a massive waist-high hound,
took up the fight. The woman cried out a guttural order to her hound. The beast
turned silver eyes upon Lillian. It leapt to attack, crossing the distance too
swiftly. Its long, narrow head snaked out and snapped steel-gray teeth at
Lillian.
Hot breath and saliva washed over her
exposed arm. But there was no pain or the sensation of tearing flesh.
The beast dropped to the ground, leaving
Lillian and the elk untouched. It sat on its haunches and gazed up at Lillian
with a look of confusion. The hound gave a little shiver, ruffling its
ginger-frosted black fur.
“Bring down.” The sidhe woman screamed at
the beast, giving it hand signals as well as verbal commands.
Again the beast lunged at Lillian, but
twisted away at the last minute and returned to its crouched position.
“Bring down.” The sidhe gestured
frantically now. “Bring down.”
The beast snorted and shook its head, its long
neck twisting to snap at its own shoulder. It dipped its muzzle nearly to the
ground and clawed at the back of its head. Something small and white glimmered
at the base of the skull. The creature didn’t hold still long enough for
Lillian to see it clearly, but she thought it might be a large pearl or sliver
of crystal.
“Stop.” The woman screamed commands at the
creature.
With an agonized snarl, it stopped digging
at its own flesh and darted off into the underbrush, ignoring the woman’s calls
for it to return.
“You might try doggie obedience school.”
Lillian gripped her dagger tighter.
The strange woman whirled back around.
Clutched in her hands, two daggers flashed silver against the darkness. She
attacked. Brutal, graceful and fast, her long hair flowing out behind her, she
covered the distance in a bare moment. One flash of silver vanished under the
elk’s belly. His bellow of pain was cut short by a second violent stab. The elk
took another stumbling stride as the woman danced out of his way. Lillian
couldn’t explain it, but she’d felt the woman’s knife sever the elk’s soul from
his body.
Lillian glimpsed another flash of silver
and pain erupted in her shoulder. The weight and power of the strike toppled
her off the back of the elk. Breath exploded from her lungs when she smashed
into the ground. Her shoulder screamed of abuse. She rolled to her side in time
to see the woman leaping on her from above. Lillian twisted in the opposite
direction and surged to her feet.
The woman stared at her knife in her hand with
a perplexed frown, then back at Lillian. “Why are you not dead?” she asked as
she advanced on Lillian again.
“No idea.”
“She should be dead. Why isn’t she?”
Lillian glanced around for a second
opponent, but realized the stranger was looking down at the blade in her hand,
talking to the knife like it was sentient. After a moment her expression
darkened and she looked up at Lillian with a snarl.
“If the demon blade won’t kill you, I’ll
deal with you myself.” The stranger surged forward with a burst of speed.
Ancient instincts reared up within Lillian,
and she used her enemy’s momentum to slam her head into a tree trunk. While the
woman was dazed, a Clan dire wolf leapt at her. The two opponents tumbled off
into the underbrush.
Lillian’s body ached and her lungs burned,
but she maintained her footing, scanning the immediate area and the forest
beyond for the next attack. The twang of a bowstring came to her too late.
Agony ripped a path through the muscle of her right arm. She screamed and
pressed her hand over the wound. An archer stood off to one side, partially
hidden by the night. He raised his bow a second time, but a silver-haired sidhe
appeared between them, and with the flick of his wrist, he sent a small knife
flying at the archer. The bit of silver embedded itself in the archer’s neck.
Another enemy fell. The leader of the Hunt gave Lillian a slight nod and then
turned to his next opponent.
With a hiss, Lillian probed her new injury.
This one was just a graze, a non-threatening flesh wound unless they poisoned
their blades. A snap of a twig told her she’d have to worry about her injuries
later.
While Lillian had been distracted by the
archer and the Huntsman, the sidhe woman had finished off her dire wolf
opponent and was advancing again.
“Well, aren’t you a determined bitch,”
Lillian mumbled with a bravado she wasn’t feeling. Fear was eating away at her
strength, adrenaline made her muscles shake and her heart pound. She felt lightheaded.
Where was Gregory? Please let him still live.
The Otherness within Lillian’s soul, the
same one which had first whispered the words to claim and awaken Gregory, awoke
for the second time. It looked out through her eyes, taking in the scene with a
calm, cold center Lillian lacked. It reached out to touch Gregory’s thoughts.
He still lived.
Lillian wanted to cry with relief, but her
joy was short lived. The power gripped her mind harder. This wasn’t like
earlier at the dance, this was primal, dark power. It wasn’t asking for
control, it was demanding.
Had there been another way, Lillian would
have fought the power rising within, fearing it more than the enemies she now
faced. But more than her life was at risk. Her family needed her. Gregory
needed her.
Lillian surrendered control of her body to
that Otherness.
An arrow embedded in a nearby tree’s trunk
caught her dark power’s attention. Lillian backed toward the tree.
The sidhe advanced, her daggers poised to
strike. Lillian waited with her head bowed, her wounded shoulder pressed
against the arrow still embedded in the tree. When the sidhe lunged forward,
Lillian yanked the arrow free and coated the arrowhead with the blood running
down her arm in one smooth motion. Her free hand snaked out and grasped the sidhe
by the throat.
Surprise widened pale blue eyes. Lillian
gave her opponent a gentle smile as she reversed her grip on the shaft and
jabbed the arrowhead into the woman’s eye. The stranger screamed and clawed at
her face, trying to dislodge the smoking shaft. Lillian shoved the arrow
deeper, then sidestepped as the woman shuddered and fell forward. After
twitching twice more, the sidhe went limp. Lillian leaned down and tugged on
the arrow. It grated against the eye socket before coming free.
Immediate danger over, the power released
Lillian from its grip. She gasped for breath and fought against the urge to
hide and retch her guts out. There was still danger. Her family needed her.
With that thought firm in her mind, she left the shelter of the tree.
Staying low to the ground, Lillian crawled
to where an unmoving lump of white glowed palely in the moonlight. The elk’s
shimmer was fading in death.
She hunched next to the body and scanned
the area nearby, praying she’d find her grandmother alive. But there was no
sign of Vivian.
Battle still raged between the trees. Pairs
of dire wolves fought to the death and a dozen or more vampires jumped from
tree to tree, dropping down upon the sidhe Huntsman and his three remaining
companions.
Coppery blood-scent and the stink of burnt
flesh choked her. She fought the urge to gag, and then forced herself to focus
on the dense shadows surrounding her as a new threat wormed its way into her
mind. All the muscles running along her back tensed. Glancing over her
shoulder, she caught movement darting between the tree trunks. Alexander broke
free of cover and sprinted toward her, his expression wild, driven mad by rage
or blood lust. Three other vampires trailed a few paces behind.
He jumped into the air, an impossible leap.
And never made it to her position. A darker shape collided with Alexander,
slamming him into the undergrowth of the forest.
“Gregory!” Lillian screamed. The primal
power of the Otherness awoke within her again.
Shrubs shook and snapped. The crunch of
twigs and the smack of flesh on flesh dwindled into the distance as the
gargoyle’s momentum carried the fighters deeper into the forest.
The other vampires ignored her, swarming
after Gregory to overwhelm him with greater numbers.
Rage and power boiled up within her and she
felt the taint of vampire a moment before she touched their thoughts. They
planned to kill her gargoyle and then come back and finish off those still
living.
No one harmed her gargoyle.
She sprang after them, rewetting her arrow
with the fresh blood oozing down her arm as she ran. The deep shoulder wound
still felt numb. It would awaken soon enough, but for now adrenaline drove her
onward, her pains unnoticed. Her thoughts galvanized into one purpose. Kill
Alexander. Kill the other vampires before they killed her gargoyle. Gregory had
died too many times protecting her. Not again. Rage gave her strength and she
ran, unheeding of her grandmother’s calls for her to return.
* * *
Gregory’s mouth filled with the rancid
taint of vampire blood and a darker power, but he didn’t release his hold on
the monster underneath him. The dead carcass was half his size, but true
demonic magic gave the unnatural beast strength, surpassing what was normal for
a vampire. Fear solidified within Gregory’s soul.