Something to Curse About (22 page)

I considered arguing the matter, since the shifter wasn’t my servant, but another glance at Cernunnos changed my mind. Nothing of Thorandryll showed any longer, and the god’s eyes flickered with crimson light. “Okay, fine, we’re going.”

We chose to crawl through the crack, which meant I had a view of Logan’s rear the whole way through. Probably would’ve appreciated it more if I hadn’t been worried about our immediate future. At roughly twenty feet, the low tunnel the crack made opened to an actual cave. One with four different openings. “Great, now what?”

“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe?” Logan sniffed the air. “Or we could take the one on the very left. It’s the one the dark elf used.”

“You’re a useful guy, Mr. Sayer.”

He smiled. “Thank you for noticing, Miss Jones.”

We walked over and looked. I shivered. “It’s dark.”

“Want me to go back and ask for a light?”

“Ha, ha. He might decide you’d make a good torch.” I squared my shoulders and intoned, “I’ve been commanded by a god. Nowhere to go but forward.”

“I’ll go first.” His eyes changed from dark to pale green, and he held out a hand. “I can keep you from running into walls.”

“Cool.” I took hold, and we walked into the dark.

THIRTY-ONE

I could make out Logan’s figure after a turn in the tunnel. “I can see. Sort of.”

“There’s another turn coming up, and it looks a little brighter.” We continued forward, and eventually, after walking for what felt like a mile, stopped to stare at the tunnel’s end. Sunlight spilled through it.

“Maybe I’m wrong, but haven’t we been walking downhill the whole way?” My legs said I wasn’t wrong.

“We have.”

“So how can the sun be out there?”

Logan frowned. “My best guess is that maybe we’re trespassing.”

Cernunnos had used the word “den” and I remembered my brief trips beyond Thorandryll’s home, which had been just like going outside. “Like, he has his own fairy mound?”

“They’re actually called ‘sithren’, but yeah.”

“I learn something new every day. Sometimes, it’s even good. Or at least not out to get me.” Neither of us moved. “We should go find him or Bucky will get mad.”

Logan chuckled. “Yeah, but if it is the dark elf’s sithren, there may be traps.”

I snorted. “This whole situation’s a trap, dude. We either find him and get him out there, or we’re going to be in trouble with Bucky Boy. Who has three hostages. Well, three I’m worried about.” The elves could deal with Cernunnos, since they hadn’t bothered to warn us about him and the Hunt. Plus, Dalsarin wouldn’t have picked Santo Trueno if it hadn’t been where Thorandryll lived. “We’ll be careful. Really careful.”

With a nod, he moved forward. Since we were still holding hands, I went with him. Nothing moved directly outside, but we halted again. While Logan scanned the ground and checked the air, I took in the view.

Dark elf or not, Dalsarin had a talent for exterior decorating. A lush green meadow dotted with bright flowers and surrounded by mature trees lay outside the tunnel’s exit. The only breaks in the ring of trees were from the path of a small stream sparkling under the sun that ran through the middle of the meadow. The sun looked brighter than the one I lived under. “I’m thirsty.”

Logan kept me from walking out. “Wouldn’t advise drinking from there. It smells wrong.”

“Dang it.” I took a closer look at the grass, which began growing a few feet away. The edges glistened. A glance at the sky said it wasn’t morning, so the moisture probably wasn’t dew. “Is it poisoned?”

“Probably.” He pointed at a clump of bright red flowers. “Don’t touch those either.”

While we watched, the flowers trembled, and a few blooms snapped at a bug flying close. I blinked. “They have teeth.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s just wrong.” I fidgeted, torn between wanting to teleport us the hell out of there and the whole “return empty-handed to a god” thing. The second probably wouldn’t go over too well with Cernunnos, and as I’d reminded Logan, he had hostages: Nick, Schumacher, and Deputy Martin. “We can’t keep standing here.”

“I know. Try not to touch anything with bare skin.” With that, Logan released my hand and stepped out. Nothing happened to him, and he waved me out. We began walking across the meadow, dodging each bunch of flowers we met. The creepy things turned their blossoms to track us, and I thought I saw an eye inside one.

Shuddering, I set my gaze on the stream as we approached it. That turned out to be a bad idea. There were things swimming below the surface, long sinuous shapes I felt certain were snakes of some sort. “I’ll teleport us to the other side because I am not wading through there.”

“Okay.” Logan offered his hand, and I suited action to words, moving us across. We dodged more of the creepy flowers while trudging through the ankle-high grass on the other side. I sent my mom a silent “thank you” for packing a pair of mid-calf, slip-on boots instead of sandals or running shoes. Logan wore his brown mechanic’s boots, but the cuffs of his jeans were dark with whatever oozed from the grass.

It wasn’t until we reached the trees that I realize the only noise came from us. No breeze rustled the grass or leaves, the few flying insects didn’t buzz, and even the little stream ran silently. Our breathing and the shush-shush of our feet through the grass were the only sounds.

That magnified the creepy factor by about a thousand.

We’d stopped again, surveying the trees. Logan jerked his chin toward two whose uppermost branches entwined. “He went between them.”

I really didn’t want to walk in there, but we didn’t have any other choice. Hoping to offset the gloom as we walked through the natural archway, I began humming “If I Only Had a Brain”. Logan’s face scrunched a bit, and he raised an eyebrow. “The Wizard of Oz?”

“You’ve seen it?”

He grinned. “Yeah. Come on, Scarecrow.”

Barely a dozen feet into the trees, he held up a hand and then put a forefinger to his lips. I froze, wondering whether he’d heard or smelled something. Logan’s head slowly turned from side to side as he scanned our surroundings. I felt my body tensing and tried to relax.

The distinct, unmistakable feeling of eyes on us didn’t make it easy. When the fine hairs on my arms rose to attention, I slowly turned my head to look over my shoulder. I immediately wished I hadn’t, because something that looked like a mad scientist’s attempt to cross animals that shouldn’t be mashed together stared back at me.

It had the body and head of a housecat, no tail, spider legs, and a mess of faceted eyes between its cute fuzzy ears and kitty nose. “Oh, gross.”

Logan’s turn to freeze. “What is it?”

“Spidercat.” I saw another one descending from a tree behind it. “Make that plural. What do we do?”

“Keep walking. Slowly. Maybe they won’t attack.” He suited action to words. I forced my feet to move, unable to take my eyes off the spidercats.

“What if they do?”

“I’m going to go with ‘run like hell’,” he said. “If we do, we need to stay together, Discord.”

“Right.” Yeah, no way I wanted to be alone in Dalsarin’s nightmare. Poison grass, silence, and spidercats probably weren’t the only things around. “Um, there’s more coming down from the trees.”

“I know.” I bumped into him when he stopped. “They’re ahead of us too.”

“Crap. Guess that takes away the run like hell option.” I took a deep breath to combat the panic beginning to flood my brain. “Keep walking. If any attack, I’ll swat ’em with my telekinesis.”

“Okay.”

The spidercats didn’t attack, but they did scurry around, blocking the way between different trees. Logan growled. “We’re being herded.”

“That’s better than being dinner.”

“Unless they’re taking us to the kitchen.”

I smacked his shoulder. “Don’t say stuff like that.”

“Sorry.” He turned sideways to edge between two tree trunks, careful not to touch them with his hands. “Maybe they’re putting on a dance performance and need an audience.”

My laughter sounded a teensy bit hysterical. I choked it off while slipping between the tree trunks. “All I know is that we need to hurry because Bucky didn’t strike me as the patient type.”

Logan stepped up the pace to a quick walk in response. “All good hunters are patient, and Cernunnos is the Lord of the Hunt.”

“Can I ask a personal question?”

“Sure.”

“Do shifters pick personal gods too? You were kind of worshippy to him.” I ducked a tree branch and stepped over a fallen log, trying to step exactly where Logan did.

“He’s not my god, but it never hurts to be courteous when possible. I think I see a break in the trees ahead.”

I leaned to look around him. “I see it. Yay?”

“Maybe yay. I’m reserving judgment.”

The spidercats kept us moving toward the break in the trees we’d spotted, but when we reached it, they didn’t follow us out into the open. I put my hands on my hips, surveying the revealed landscape and castle perched on the crest of a hill. “Does he shop at Villains R Us?”

Pure bravado, because inwardly I quailed at the sight. A dirt path ran between rows of rusty cages hanging from posts. Each cage held the remains of what looked like people. Most were nothing more than skeletons with a few tatters of clothing dangling from whitened bones. Dotted among them were a few still busily decomposing. I jumped at a popping sound, and fought the urge to gag when something oozed out between bars on a cage nearby. “Ugh.”

“Stay in the middle of the path.” Logan pointed ahead, to a cage that looked weird. I squinted at it, and shuddered upon realizing the occupant’s bony arms were wrapped around another skeleton, pinning it to the cage.

“Not a problem, dude. In fact, let’s skip the whole walk of horror thing.” Lacing my fingers through one of his belt loops, I teleported us to a spot just before the open castle gates. “Thank you for flying Discord Airlines."

“I didn’t get my peanuts.”

“Maybe next time.” I wrinkled my nose, letting go of his belt loop and moving to his side. “Phew. I don’t think I want to know what that smell is.”

“You don’t,” he assured me. “You really don’t.”

We looked at the open gate then back to each other. “I don’t want to go in there.”

“I don’t either. How about you shout a challenge at him from here?”

I smiled. “I like that idea. Okay, here goes.” Drawing in a deep breath, I yelled, “Yoo hoo! Cernunnos is here to kick your ass!”

Logan grunted. I glanced at him, about to yell something else, and saw him start to sag. “What the….”

His knees hit the ground and he fell forward, catching himself with both hands, and I saw the arrow quivering in his back. “Logan!”

“Pull it out. Poisoned.”

Oh, no. I grabbed the arrow just past the feathery part, gritted my teeth, and yanked. Logan’s yowl of pain ended in a groan. Arrow in hand, I turned to look behind us.

Dalsarin already had another arrow loaded and pointing. He released it, and I ducked. It flew over my head. Logan hissed, trying to regain his feet. “Run.”

“Not without you.” I deflected a third arrow with a slap of my TK, sending it off to the side. It struck a cage and the decomposing corpse inside jerked upright, shoving its arms through the bars to flail at nothing.

Two more arrows whizzed toward me. I dropped the one I held, grabbed a handful of Logan’s shirt and teleported twice. First behind Dalsarin, and then out of his pocket realm to the ravine. Dalsarin’s fifth arrow narrowly missed Alleryn’s thigh before thunking into the ravine’s wall. Releasing my hold on the hem of the dark elf’s shirt, I teleported once more, to the top of the ravine, which put the Hunt between him and us.

Still clutching Logan’s shirt, I stretched to look down and focused, setting the arrows in the quiver on Dalsarin’s back on fire with a push of pyrokinesis. He was reaching for one when they burst into flame, and yelped. I couldn't resist a giggle, watching him drop his bow and un-sling the quiver to fling it away before his hair caught fire.

Cernunnos pointed at him and Dalsarin screamed as his body contorted. I felt my eyes widening, a giggle caught in my throat, watching as the dark elf became a large, white buck. The Horned God’s voice boomed. “Flee!”

Sides heaving, the buck nearly fell down as it turned to obey, but with a desperate-looking scrabble of hooves, it managed to take off down the ravine. The riders shouted, but Cernunnos decided to give the transformed dark elf a sporting chance, holding up a hand to keep them from racing after the buck.

I stopped watching because Logan collapsed. Not only collapsed, but he quit breathing.

“Oh, no.” Rolling him onto his back, I pressed my ear to his chest and couldn’t hear or feel his heart beating. “No.”

Less than a second later, I began CPR. “One, two, three….”

After the first two breaths, a horn blew, and I heard the Hunt race after Dalsarin. Pounding hoof beats filled the air and faded as I kept going. By the third time I blew air into his lungs, my eyes were burning with unshed tears. “Come on. One, two….”

He couldn’t die. Terra needed him. Hell, I needed him. I’d come to depend on his calmness in the face of any danger, and his quiet strength. “Five, six, don’t die, nine, ten….”

I couldn’t let him die because he trusted me. Trusted me enough to follow me into dangerous situations without batting an eye, and in spite of what Nick thought, he’d never let me down. “Fifteen, sixteen, damn it, Logan, nineteen….”

Failure wasn’t an option. I couldn’t fail him or anyone else, not after failing Ginger so badly. A tear escaped, and I choked on a sob. “T-twenty, twenty-one….”

Reaching thirty again, I took a breath, pinched his nose closed, sealed my mouth over his and blew, watching his chest rise from the corner of my eye. Blew again, and dragged the back of my hand across my eyes while sitting up to start chest compressions again.

Logan coughed, his eyelashes fluttering. I held my breath, clasped hands resting on his chest, and felt the heavy beat of his heart. He coughed a second time, and I scooted back as he rolled onto his side.

His eyes opened while he noisily sucked in air. I began laughing and crying at the same time, while stroking his arm.