chapter Twenty-Seven
Going back the way we’d come was out of the question. There had been no exit from the island, no escape route, so when I grabbed Holden and screamed, “Run,” it was deeper into the woods we fled. We couldn’t escape their noses—the Loups-Garous would chase us until we were caught—and if that happened, I doubted Carn would let me barter with him again.
Holden and I barreled forward, moving with a speed only vampires could manage, giving us a slight advantage over the wolves. We needed to find where they kept their boats—they had to have at least one—and we had to be off the island before the ferals caught up with us. I clung to Holden’s hand as we ran, deathly afraid the moment I let him go he would disappear and be lost forever.
My lungs burned but still I ran. I ran until my blood was like acid, burning up the inside of my body with a vengeance for what I was asking my limbs to do for me.
The woods stopped as abruptly as they’d begun, and we found ourselves on a shoreline not unlike the one we’d been dumped on the previous night. Everywhere we looked there was nothing but sycamore and swamp water. No boat. No escape.
“We follow the shore. There has to be a boat somewhere,” I said, trying to squash my fear with a healthy shot of logic.
From the belly of the woods the racket of the pack pursuing us sang through the otherwise quiet night air. They were shouting what sounded like war chants to each other, songs of blood and revenge that didn’t sound fully human.
With Holden’s hand still clasped in mine I ran down the shore. No direction we turned felt safe. The hunting voices came from everywhere like a living nightmare. We ran, our feet slipping on the slick, mossy shore. The topography of the island itself was against us, trying to pluck at our ankles and throw us into the swamp. I staggered, and Holden pulled me up by my armpits, half-dragging me as he struggled to maintain our pace.
And then it was there, two hundred yards ahead. Salvation in the form of a yellow inflatable dingy. All we had to do was get to it and—
The pack poured out from the woods between us and the boat.
Holden skidded to a stop, and I slammed into his back. Behind us, more of the wolves spilled out from between the trees, leaving us surrounded on the beach within sight of our escape but unable to reach it.
I was unarmed, and we were outnumbered ten to one. We’d be able to take a few of them out, but we were right back where we’d been the night before, and this time they weren’t going to play nice. Their leader said they were to kill us, and their lean, menacing faces promised to follow through on his orders.
“Holden,” I whispered against the back of his neck.
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
He squeezed my hand and held it over his heart. “So am I.”
I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the damp material of his shirt, breathing him in one last time. Any second now they would come, and we would make our last stand on this shitty bog.
Any second now.
A wolf made a worried yip, and another whimpered. I opened one eye and looked to the woods, then opened the other eye and stared in shock. A faint red glow, swirling like a tornado, was advancing through the trees towards us. The sharp scent of urine punctuated the air as several of the wolves wet themselves before running into the woods.
One of the younger ones, directly in line of the red light, panicked and ran into the water, splashing around like a madman. Suddenly he screamed and the splashes doubled, a frothy boil of water tossing on the surface showing flashes of blood-red meat and green-scaled skin. A gator had gotten him. The water calmed, the scent of blood mingling with the other fear odors, creating an atmosphere of terror amongst the remaining wolves.
They scattered, leaving Holden and me alone on the beach still embracing as we watched the red light emerge from the tree line and stop a few feet from us. Then the light died, and in its place stood a small, fragile-looking woman stooped over a wooden cane.
Her hair was the brightest white I’d ever seen and was bundled in a braid, wrapped around the crown of her head. Earrings made of feathers and small bones dangled from her wrinkled lobes, and each of her bone-thin fingers had a silver ring on it.
She stared at us, her eyes shockingly blue and young-looking in contrast to the rest of her.
“La Sorcière,” I whispered.
The woman smiled, giving her the appearance of a sweet old granny. But sweet grannies don’t make a pack of feral wolves piss themselves.
There was more crashing in the woods, and I tensed against Holden. A moment later a slight girl, about eighteen, emerged from the tree line, sputtering so many curses I had no doubt she was my missing sister.
“Hells bells, mémère, did you have to just up and vanish? What was the damned—” She fell silent when she saw us. “What’s going on?”
The old woman pointed one frighteningly thin finger at us, and I winced, expecting some kind of magical assault. None came, but my reaction made her smile widen. She was a twisted old lady. If I wasn’t so damned terrified of her, I might like her. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that some of her blood was running through my veins.
Eugenia, in spite of being my half-sister, couldn’t have looked less like me. She was tall and slim, and her legs were well-muscled, probably from running after the witch. Black hair hung in a long ponytail down to her butt, and she had a fantastic tan.
La Sorcière crooked her finger at Eugenia, and my sister bent down to let the woman whisper in her ear. I don’t know what the old lady said, but when Eugenia’s eyes went wide and she started staring at me, I had a pretty good idea what the gist of it was.
Eugenia bounded past the old witch and came up to Holden and me. “Let’s get you two out of here before Carn sends reinforcements. There will be time to talk later.” Her hand rested on my arm, and she squeezed gently. “I’m glad she found you in time.”
“So am I.”
La Sorcière was already toddling back into the trees, looking about as dangerous and unassuming as Yoda.
Judge her by her size, I will not, I thought.
Holden and I followed Eugenia and my great-grandmother into the darkness, this time without the showy display of lights. When we came to a huge sycamore, La Sorcière stopped. Eugenia looked over her shoulder at us and smiled with poorly concealed pride. “This is the best part.”
The witch touched the tree with a bare hand, and it groaned like a dog receiving a belly rub. The trunk shuddered once, and the whole base of the tree ripped open, exposing a doorway. Eugenia waited for the witch to go in then stepped back for us to enter ahead of her. “Totally safe, I promise.”
At this point I would have walked face first into a normal tree if someone told me it would give me an alternative to Carn and his ferals. And, as a considerate follow-up gift from the Fates, we’d also been rescued by the very people I’d been sent to find. Sometimes a girl gets lucky.
And sometimes luck has nothing to do with it.
On the other side of the tree door we entered a space I was at a loss to comprehend. It was a house, but it was also still the forest. Sycamores had grown together in a tight circle so fused by age and the forces of nature, all the trees had begun to form as one. The canopy had sealed in on itself, Spanish moss dangling over our heads like a green chandelier. The space was lit, but I couldn’t say how because there was no electricity. The roots of the trees had warped to form wide ledges that were laid out with blankets, and a black cauldron sat on top of a smoldering fire next to the door.
“Wow,” I said.
“Amazing,” Holden agreed.
“You live here? You’re like Luke Skywalker after he crashed into—”
Holden squeezed my hand and shook his head.
Eugenia, to her credit, laughed. “She does kind of look a bit like Yoda, doesn’t she?”
I’m not sure if the witch did it to be funny, but she reached out then and cracked both Eugenia and me in the head with her cane. Witches didn’t appreciate being compared to a nine-hundred-year-old Jedi, apparently. It wasn’t an insult. Yoda was a total badass.
Be a wicked smartass, I will not.
Yeah, right. That would be the day.