Scarlet Dawn (12 page)

“So how did Celine take the news?”

“How do you think she took it? She nearly boiled my balls!”

Raith laughed, “You get kicked out of the bedroom?”

“Well, not exactly,” Zane chuckled.

Raith paused and looked back at his friend.

Zane felt his smirk betray him.

Raith shook his head, “Tell me that I didn’t indirectly get you laid!”

“I would,” Zane shrugged, marching past him, “but that’d make me a liar.”

The two laughed as they sprinted towards a vertical rise of the mountain. Launching themselves into the air, they planted their feet along the rock and used their remaining momentum to sprint to the jagged ledge nearly ten-meters above them. Reaching the point first, Raith grabbed the lip of rock—willing his arm and hand to transform into its clawed, bestial form to offer better grip—and looked back in time to see Zane about to miss the mark.

“Little help!” Zane called out as gravity began to pull him back down the mountain.

Catching his friend by the wrist in his free hand, Raith shook his head and grinned down at him, “Being post-coital going to be a problem? I can’t be catching you all day, you know!”

“Shut up and pull me up,” Zane grumbled. “We can’t all have been born to mothers who weren’t ashamed to fuck mountain goats!”

Raith raised an eyebrow and let his grip loosen enough to let Zane slip several inches. “It was a puma, actually.”

“Whoa! WHOA! Alright! I’m sorry! You’re part puma! YOU’RE PART PUMA!!”

Still laughing, Raith pulled him to the ledge and they continued up the mountain towards the isolated village of the taroe tribe.

“As we draw nearer to the peak,” Raith explained, “we’re going to begin seeing more and more glyphs. From what I’ve gathered, these are meant to channel the right energies into their village while blocking out the bad. While all this jargon doesn’t mean a thing to us, we can at least gauge how close we are by how densely the symbols are grouped. Once we’re sure we’re close, I’ll use the intel our client provided to direct you to the relic. They tell me that these guys keep the thing pretty well guarded, but, despite their magic, they’re still only human.”

Zane cocked a brow, “Which reminds me: why am I sharing the pay with you when I could just as easily do this whole thing myself? I could be in, out, and halfway down the mountain before one of them could blink an eye, and short of a few magic tricks there’s not a damn thing they can do that any other of their species can do! What are you gonna be doing?”

Raith sneered and gave his friend a punch in the shoulder, “Same as usual: keeping your ass out of trouble! You remember Paris?”

“Alright, Paris was
not
my fault!”

Raith rolled his eyes, “You tripped on your own feet and set off the damn alarms!”

Zane shook his head, “Only because you bought those piece-of-shit shoes!”

“Uh huh,” Raith shook his head, “And was it the shoes’ fault that the guard shot you four times?”

“In my defense, that asshole was clearly eager to pull the trigger on
anybody
!” Zane shook his head, “If I’d have been human then there’s no way I’d have survived.”

“Yea, I think that was sort of the point.”

“Look, man, you don’t have to get snippy just because I proved that you’re only here to keep me from getting bored.” Zane hip-checked Raith and watched as he stumbled beside a cluster of rocks, “I’d split the earnings with you either—Hey! It’s one of those cliff-things!”

Raith frowned and followed Zane’s gaze to the rocks and, sure enough, caught sight of a few partially faded symbols carved into them.

“They’re called ‘glyphs’,” he corrected, glancing around for any others, “And good eye.”

The two grew silent as the promise of their goal grew nearer. Continuing on, they began to spot more and more of the symbols carved into the varying-sized rocks littered about the mountaintop until they finally came to a polished portion of the ground that was littered in them. Marveling at the spectacle for a moment, they drifted into the center of the site.

“Their village must be just over that pass,” Raith nodded towards a rise ahead of them, “Which means this is as far as I can go without risking being seen.”

Zane nodded, sliding his backpack from his shoulders and retrieving a few of his blades. As he began to secure the weapons to his hips and left leg, he looked up at his friend, “Northern side of the mountain, right?”

Raith nodded, “Closer to the Northern side, but still occupying the center region. I’ve been told you’ll see a large structure that’s been carved into the mountain; this serves as their church. The relic should be just beyond that.” He frowned at the blades, “You’re not planning on using those, are you?”

“Not unless I have to,” Zane shrugged before he returned the now-empty backpack to his shoulders. “But I don’t take any chances ever since getting shot by a trigger-happy French security guard!”

Raith scoffed, “These guys aren’t going to use guns on you, Zane.”

Zane shrugged, “Acid cannons, laser pistols, or magic wands! Either way, I’m prepared.”

“Magic wands don’t sound too farfetched, actually,” Raith laughed.

Zane smirked, “Yea, too bad I didn’t bring a camera. I’m sure snapping a picture of something like that would make you die laughing. Anyway…” He gave his friend a nod, “Be back in a flash.”

“Be sure you are,” Raith offered.

But Zane was already gone.

Zane groaned as he was dropped on the frigid stone slab.

Where was he?

Hadn’t he been…?

Light. He remembered blue light.

Like lightning.

And pain.

Had he tripped agai—

Hands began to grab and pull at him; yanking his limbs and slamming his head back into the rock he lay upon.

“H-hey! Ow! What the fuck?”

His eyes opened and the vicious glare from the sun blinded him as his senses reawakened all at once.

The scent of blood and…

And the sound of tortured cries.

“Raith? RAITH?” Zane thrashed against the binds and hands that held him against the frigid stone slab, “G-get off me! GET OFF! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO HIM? RAITH? RAITH!”

The blood curdling cries of his friend were all the evidence Zane needed to know that, whatever they were doing to him, it wasn’t something he’d want to see. Fully registering this, however, he couldn’t bring himself to stop his struggling against his captors to see past them
; to get a glimpse of what the taroe chief was doing.

It wasn’t supposed to have been like this!

It was just a job!

A simple job!

It was never supposed to—

There was a pause in Raith’s cries—a
bitter-sweet break in the pained howls—that was occupied by a jagged and tortured hiss as Raith struggled to inhale.

~Five Minutes Earlier~

Somehow they’d known!

Somehow they’d been prepared!

It had all happened in a flash. Practically the moment Zane had vanished from Raith’s sight the ground had gone electric beneath his feet. All at once his body ceased to be his, and his therion form had exploded to the surface in a single moment of bone-and-organ twisting agony. He’d never felt the change like that—his entire body growing and shifting all at once—and it had been enough to force him to his knees.

Only by the time he’d fallen he was in his human form once again.

Unable to muster enough control to move his eyes, let alone transform again.

And then they’d closed in on him…

By the time the taroe soldiers had dragged him to the center of their village, Zane was already stripped and bound to a slab of rock; his eyes swimming lazily about within his skull as he mumbled incoherently in response to the taroes’ harsh treatment.

“You came here to steal from us, yes?” A deep, gravelly voice that sounded as though it was coming from the rocks themselves issued from the depths of the temple. A moment later, a tall, robust silhouette appeared at the entrance and a dark-skinned man brandishing one of Zane’s blades stepped towards them. As he drew nearer, the others of the taroe tribe paused in their onslaught and half-knelt before the newcomer long enough for him to offer a nod at their gesture. No sooner had they dipped their bodies in his direction then they’d returned to their tasks. Closing the distance between him and Raith, the man—his enchanted tattoos already glowing bright enough to cut through even the daylight—brought the flat of the long blade against Raith’s naked side with enough force to make him flinch. “Answer me, you wretched cur! You and that
leech
came here to steal from us, did you not? To steal
this
?”—one of the nearby taroe subjects suddenly lifted the relic into view—“
This
is why you’ve come?”

Raith struggled to pull away, but his weakened body was unable to shake the men that held him.

“Father?” Raith’s eyes widened at the familiar voice, “Father, what’s… OH MY—N-no! What’s happening?”

The chief turned and motioned towards Nicc’oule—tears already streaming down her face—and several of his
subject closed in and caught her before she could reach him. Knowing that she’d meet a similar—if not harsher—punishment for her involvement in their plans, Raith shook his head and silently urged her not to get herself involved.

Seeing the intent in his plea, however, only motivated her that much more.

“DON’T DO THIS! RELEASE THEM! FATHER, PLEASE—I IMPLORE YOU!—DON’T LET THIS GO ON ANY—”

“Take her away,” the chief ordered. “She is young and innocent still; there is no need to corrupt her with such matters.” Turning back, he nodded to the taroe who still held the relic. “Begin the preparations for the
Maledictus
!”

Overhearing this, Nicc’oule howled with sorrow and, with her tattoos glowing brighter than Raith had ever seen, began to try to fight off the guards who held her. Despite all her efforts, however, their magic proved just as effective at neutralizing her spells, and her cries of protest grew dimmer as she was dragged away.

Fighting the tears that threatened to grow in his eyes, Raith looked down, choking back the sorrowful proclamations of love he’d never got to offer her…