Avenging Amethyst (Immortal Eyes) (21 page)

I managed to
kick my knee up just in time and throw him off of me before he could rip out my
throat. I scrambled to sit up and jumped at his chest, stake in hand. I fumbled
a little bit and missed his heart the first time I stabbed him but he was so
weak from blood loss and pain that he didn't fight back too hard when I pulled
my stake out and tried again.

This time I hit
his heart and I was soon sitting in a pile of blood and guts. I sat in the
puddle and stared at the wall while I caught my breath. I had completely
forgotten about Felix and I hoped he had managed to kill his own Zhulik and get
Ellie out of her cage. I couldn't hear any noises coming from behind me where
Felix and Ellie should be so I worriedly turned around to check.

They were both
there, alive and well. Felix had gotten Ellie out of the cage and she stood
next him. He was covered in blood splatters and it looked like a few drops had
managed to get on Ellie, too. They were both staring at me with wide eyes.

Before I asked
them why they were staring at me like that I looked around the room. There were
three puddles of Zhulik remains and blood splatters everywhere. I looked down
at myself and saw some of the insides of the Zhulik I had just killed laying in
my lap. I shot up so quickly that I nearly fell over and started brushing the
guts off of me. Felix was by my side then, helping to keep me standing. Once
all of the guts were off of me I looked up at Felix.

He smiled at me
gently and said, "You were amazing. Now we need to get out of here in case
some of the other Zhulik heard us and come to investigate. Can you walk
okay?"

I opened my
mouth to talk, to say that I would be fine but what came out were not words.
When I opened my mouth a bit of Zhulik blood ran down my face and into my
mouth. I shoved Felix away and threw up once I realized what it was.

"Avery,
calm down," Felix said as he rubbed my back. "The sooner we get out
of here the sooner you can take a shower and get all of this gunk off of you.
Right now you have to focus on something other than what you're covered
in."

I spat out the
last of the bile in my mouth and took a few deep breaths before I straightened
up. "You're right," I said, shakily. "Let's get out of
here."

I took a few
steps and felt a little wobbly and I wasn't sure if I would make it out of the
caves before passing out. I was tired from the fight and the headache from
being near so many Zhulik was draining my remaining energy. Seeing the
horrified look on the face of the young girl in front of me made me push my
discomfort out of my mind and urged me to get her out of here safely.

"Are you
Ellie?" I asked her when I was standing in front of her.

She glanced at
Felix as if asking him if it was okay to talk to me and I saw him nod out of
the corner of my eye. I had no doubt that this girl was afraid of me after
watching me brutally kill two Zhulik.

"Yes,"
she said quietly, not making any eye contact with me.

"We're here
to take you back to your family. In order to do that, we have to sneak out of
these caves very quietly. Do you think you can stay as quiet as possible while
we move?"

"Yes
ma'am," she said, still staring at the ground.

"You don't
have to be afraid of me either," I told her. I was a little bit offended
that she was so frightened of me. "I promise I won't hurt you. I'm only
here for the Zhulik."

"I know.
You're just very intimidating."

My eyebrows went
up in surprise at that. I had never once been considered intimidating before
but I guess I had gained some muscle in the past two weeks. Having just killed
two Zhulik and being covered in their blood from head to toe probably helped
with that image too. And I could only imagine how wild and crazy my hair
looked.

I didn't have
any response for being intimidating so I just said we needed to start moving.
The sooner we were out of the caves, the better. The walk back into the fresh
air would take a little time too, since it was all up hill. I quietly groaned
at the thought of it. Felix could see me struggling to walk and put one of his
arms under mine to help support me.

We left the
little cavern that we were in and slowly crept back up the smaller path to
where the main path was. I tried to tune into my senses to locate where the
other Zhulik were but my mind was so tired that I could only get small bursts
of my power at a time. I didn't think any of the Zhulik were coming after us
but I wasn't completely positive. I didn't want Felix to worrying though, so I
didn't let him know what was going on.

We made it back
to the surface without running into any other Zhulik. While the sun was
starting to rise, we still had time to make it back to the car before Ellie
would be in danger of burning. Whether or not I would make it there before
passing out was a different problem.

None of us spoke
on the walk back. Felix and I were too tired and Ellie looked like she was in
shock. I knew we needed to get some information out of her about what had
happened to her down there but now wasn't the time.

When we walked
through the clearing to where Colin's house was, Ellie froze for a minute. She
stood just inside the trees, staring at the house. Tears welled up in her eyes.
I untangled myself from Felix as he went to start the car and I gently put my
hand on Ellie's shoulder, making her jump slightly.

"Are you
going to be okay?" I asked. I felt stupid for asking that the second it
left my mouth. Of course she wasn't going to be okay. At least not for a while.
She just learned her uncle was a Zhulik and he kidnapped her and had her locked
in a cage surrounded by more Zhulik.

Ellie didn't say
anything. She just forced her tears back and gave me a small nod before walking
to the car. She looked at the ground the whole way and didn't glance back at
the house once. She got in the car without saying another word and I pulled
Felix away from the car to talk to him in private.

"What do we
do now? We need her to tell us what happened down there and if she knows why
they were keeping all of those Nesmyr in cages."

"I
know," he said. "We have to take her back to headquarters so the
council can hear what she has to say. We'll inform her parents that they can
meet us there to pick her up but the council has to hear her out first."

"Poor girl,"
was all I could say.

"It could
have been a lot worse. It doesn't look like she's been hurt at all so I think
she got lucky."

"She would
have been a lot luckier if it hadn't happened in the first place," I
muttered.

"But it
did. We can't change that. We need to go now."

I nodded and we
got in the car. Ellie knew we were talking about her but she didn't ask any
questions. We told her that she would get to see her parents soon but that she
wouldn't be able to go home right away. We left out the part about her needing
to be questioned but she seemed like a smart girl, so she probably already knew
what was going to happen.

Felix called
Ellie's parents to let them know we found her and that they needed to meet us
at headquarters to see her. He didn't explain much about what had happened but
said that the council needed to see her before she would be able to go home.
They asked to talk to her but Ellie had already fallen asleep in the back seat.
Once the phone call was over, I drifted off into sleep too. I trusted that
Felix wasn't quite as tired as I was and would be able get us to headquarters
safely.

I expected the
nightmares this time. I knew I was too tired to block them out right now but I was
kidding myself if I thought I could actually be prepared for the horrible
images I was about to experience.

I was walking
through the caves alone but all of the caverns were visible from the main path.
Instead of being hidden by layers of rock, there were clear walls blocking them
off. It reminded me of the zoo. There were Zhulik in each cavern but the main
display was the Nesmyr and Lovac they were torturing.

The caves had
been turned into a sick show where other Zhulik could come and watch those they
despised be tortured and murdered. With all of the gruesome torture and death,
there was a small stream of blood running down the main path. I forced myself
to avoid looking into the caverns and just followed the stream of blood. My gut
told me it would lead to answers.

The path went on
for miles. I kept my head down and tried to block out the screaming until I
eventually stepped into the main cavern of the caves. The stream of blood led
to a portion of the cavern that was sunken in, causing the blood to form a
pool. There were Zhulik swimming and laughing inside of it. The Zhulik were
laughing. That was almost more disturbing than the blood itself.

I tried to look
anywhere but at the pool and saw a set of steps that led up to a small sitting
area against the far corner of the room. Sitting at the top was Lucas, with a
crown on his head, proudly gazing down at what he had created. Sitting next to
him, holding his hand was a woman. At first I didn't recognize her, but after
closer inspection I saw that it was Kamila, the woman, no, demon, who killed my
mother. She also had a crown on her head but it was oddly shaped to allow room
for her horns that were barely visible through her hair.

The anger
immediately boiled up inside me. I took one step inside the cavern when
everything froze. I had planned to approach Lucas and Kamila to take them on
but I couldn’t move. I looked around and saw that all of the Zhulik were
frozen in place as well, except for Lucas. He stood up from his chair and
smiled at me, like a proud father would smile at his daughter.

Then I was
awake. I shot up in my seat and looked around and saw that Felix had gently
touched my arm to wake me up. We were at headquarters already. He was giving me
a strange look.

"What?"
I asked.

"I barely
touched you before you shot awake. Usually it takes a little more to get a
Lovac to wake up when they're having a nightmare."

"How did
you know I was having a nightmare?"

"You were
twitching a lot. That's usually the best indicator. I was going to start
shaking you awake if you started thrashing or screaming. It must not have been
a very bad nightmare."

I shuddered,
remembering how vivid all of the blood was. "It was horrible but I think I
might have learned something. Can our nightmares sometimes predict the future
at all?"

"Not
exactly," he said. "They can sometimes reveal small things about a
situation that we might have just been in or give us an alternate ending to
something that might have just happened. Most of the time they just mess with
our brain though."

"Well, I
hope this was just messing with my brain."

"You'll
have to tell me about. Later, though. We need to get Ellie inside and inform
the council of what we've seen. We might have to plan an attack soon to get the
rest of those Nesmyr out."

I turned around
in my seat and saw that Ellie was still sound asleep in the back. I reached
back and shook her arm gently. Her eyes shot open and she looked frightened.
Once she remembered that she wasn't still in the caves, she relaxed.

"We're at
headquarters," I told her. "Your parents should be here soon to get
you but we need you to talk to the council first. Do you think you can tell
them everything you know about what happened?"

"I'll
try," she said quietly. Her voice was barely a whisper every time she
spoke and I wondered if she was naturally quiet or if the shock was really that
bad.

We got out of
the car and were greeted by two Nesmyr guards at the front door. They gave us
nods but didn't say anything as they escorted us into the building. Felix said
he had called the council to warn them about the situation while Ellie and I
were asleep, so hopefully they were all ready for a meeting. The sooner we got
this started the sooner Ellie could go home and we could start rescuing the
other Nesmyr.

Ellie and I
walked behind Felix and he led us into the same room where the council had told
me I was allowed to start taking jobs. Sitting at the long table in front of us
were all of the council members. They had been quietly chatting amongst
themselves when we walked in but they went silent when they saw us.

"Council
members," Felix started. "Earlier tonight I called to warn you of
what Avery and I found. We brought back the girl we rescued to tell you
everything she can about what has happened to her."

Felix put his
hand on Ellie's back and gently pushed her forward so the council could get a
better look at her.

"This is
Ellie. Her parents posted for help locating her after she was kidnapped by a
Zhulik yesterday evening. Avery and I took the job and later found her caged up
in a cave, surrounded by Zhulik. Ellie, can you tell the council everything
that happened to you, starting with when you were kidnapped?"