Feast (9 page)
Authors: Merrie Destefano
Chapter 27
The Safe and Narrow Path
Maddie:
A chill of mountain air, crisp and electric, flowed into my lungs. All around me, a battalion of nameless pines towered, trying to hide the sun between lacy branches. They swayed and murmured, threatened to swallow me as I stepped onto the path—so obvious yesterday, shrouded today as if dressed for the grave. I felt the promise of adventure, like a wilderness kiss, luring me closer.
All this was necessary. To know my character. To meet him face-to-face.
I hiked down toward the stream, surrounded by the primal fragrance of evergreen. Fog rolled between the trees, muffling all sound, covering my tracks, hiding any evidence that I had even been here.
I found myself wondering if reality sometimes folded, if it could change into something malleable and indefinable, like liquid metal waiting for the mold.
I knew there were things that lived in the dark, things that could never be fully understood. Things that wanted to lure you away from everything safe. Just like in the story of Hansel and Gretel, you could be surrounded by a dangerous wildwood, while a bear trap with rusty hinges waited for you to step off the safe and narrow path.
If I hadn’t dreamed about a creature in the woods; if I hadn’t married the wrong man; if I hadn’t believed that I had the power to change people’s lives with my words.
I shivered when I finally stopped and pulled out my iPhone to shoot some photos of the misty forest. Then I turned in a slow circle, video camera on, seeking any movement in the bushes. Nothing. It was all white transparent shadows and layers of pale green, shapes that hung solid, unmoving.
Could that creature in the woods have been a chupacabras?
Maybe there was a nest nearby, or a cave, a den where the creatures lived. Maybe there were babies that the flying beast had been trying to protect.
I thought of Tucker, my stern warning for him to stay inside with all the windows and doors locked, Samwise there with him. I’d do anything to protect my boy. Was that the motivation behind these creatures? The primal instinct to protect their flock? I stopped, pulled a small notebook from my pocket and started jotting down ideas.
Just then the wind shifted, lifting my hair. It spun the fog around me, hissed through the treetops and stirred the leaves that lay on the ground. A small pile of leaves turned into a miniature dust devil at my feet, swirling, moving.
I glanced up. Then froze.
There, at the side of the path, the fog and the leaves had been brushed aside, revealing a shoe and part of a leg, sticking out from beneath a shallow mound of leaves. And over there, poking out from the leaves was another shoe.
Just off the path there lay a body, stiff and unmoving.
Dead.
Ash:
The Legend howled through the wood, leaked through the cracks in the walls and the crevices in between the windows. It called my name, so insistent and loud that I found it hard to concentrate. Meanwhile, a soft knock sounded on my sitting-room door, a sylvan voice on the other side, begging entrance, speaking smooth words of repentance. Sienna. She wanted in. Ross stiffened and stared at the door but didn’t move.
I raised a hand of assurance. “She won’t harm you,” I told him.
“Ash,” Sienna’s velvet voice called from the hallway, “I didn’t mean to frighten your human. I just—I just couldn’t help myself.”
Ross took a step backward, closer to the window.
“I would never take anything that belongs to you. I didn’t know he was yours.” Another soft knock. Rhythmic, part of a song. “Let me in. Please.”
I walked toward the door, felt Ross retreating inside himself, building walls and digging trenches, laying out an assortment of grenades, painting his skin in camouflage black and green.
“She’s lying,” Ross said.
I paused at the door, laid one hand on the wood, listened for the vibrations that were always present, knowing there was a secret message between her words.
“We’re blood cousins.” Her siren voice called to me, sweet and tempting. “But you don’t have to open the door if you don’t want to—”
The drumming of knuckle against wood continued, beating hypnotic and pure. I could feel myself being lulled into an enchantment, but suddenly I didn’t care. I wanted to believe; I knew that even now her face had shifted.
The voice, the face.
It couldn’t be, but I felt that it might be and that was almost enough.
Lily, my dead wife, was on the other side of the door.
“No, Ash, don’t!” Ross said. “Don’t let her in—”
But the pain and the longing fell on my shoulders, sparks and the fragrance of a meadow at dawn. It
might
be Lily, risen from the dead, back from the Land of Dreams.
One hand on the doorknob.
I turned and pulled.
Hoping.
Thane:
The back door opened, just far enough for River and me to slip through. Wearing the chameleon skin of fog and bark, we dashed away from the Driscoll mansion, both of us knowing that we wouldn’t have much time. At best, Sienna would be able to distract Ash for a few minutes. Hopefully, that would be long enough for us to sneak back into the woods and dispose of the body.
“You should have done this last night,” I snarled as we circled around the side of the house. “Before you met me at the edge of the forest.”
“Hindsight and wishes don’t bring dinner,” River answered, his mood sullen.
I kept low to the ground, running rather than flying, changing my body into that of a mottled gray fox. River loped at my side, now wearing the skin of a ring-tailed cat. As soon as we had both crossed the road and passed the crowd of teenage boys, we made a patchwork quilt of our animal bodies, adding wings and horns and claws. Then we flew through the wood.
That’s when the scent grew stronger—the stench of that human carcass blooming clear and ripe. It was nearby, sure enough, just a little bit farther.
We zipped through the forest, knowing that what we sought was up ahead, just around the next bend. I dropped my animal skin as I flew, replaced it with the garments of home. Gray flesh, wings of taut vellum membrane stretched wide.
Then I cast a Veil—knit from years of study and training, not a haphazard, shapeless creation like those made by the Blackmoors. My side of the family, the Underwoods, were the true craftsmen. We might not have been as good as the Blackmoors at casting enchantments, but we far exceeded them when it came to hammering Veils.
Before long, my handiwork glittered around us, strong and sturdy enough to provide shelter and privacy for what we had to do next.
Maddie:
The fog swept closer, the trees towered overhead and the forest filled with menacing shadows. Somewhere in the distance a bird took flight and my stomach wrenched at the unexpected sound. I fought a scream, pressed a knuckled fist to my mouth. With a quick glance, I scanned the surrounding area, checking to see if there was anyone else around.
Like whoever had killed the man who now lay on the ground.
The woods were empty, so I switched on my video, then took a cautious step closer to the body, leaning down to pick up a long stick with my free hand. Using the stick, I tapped the legs, checking to see if maybe, hopefully, the person lying on the ground was just asleep. He didn’t move. With a flick of my wrist, I started brushing the leaves away, uncovering the body.
I saw two legs and a torso.
Strange
.
The body looked flat. Like all the life had somehow been drained out. I’d never seen anything like it. And there—at the neck—were two bloody puncture wounds, some sort of bite.
It hit me then, the whiff of death, the realization that this truly was a dead body.
My stomach lurched and I turned aside and retched.
Then I wiped my mouth and lifted my head.
At that moment, a rushing wind surged through the forest, but it didn’t move the branches or stir the leaves. I dropped the stick and stepped away from the body. Whatever this noise was, it was heading straight for me, getting louder, increasing in pitch. I spun on my heel, headed back toward the cabin and that was when I saw it—an almost invisible cloud of fog and bark, flying toward me through the trees. It grew blacker and more menacing as it approached—a thick gloom that blocked out the sun, turning the forest mists into thunderclouds.
Recognizable shapes began to emerge from the clouds: massive wings that soared to the sky, charcoal shadows that melted and turned into bodies, backs and chests covered with gray skin and leathery muscles, wild faces with sharp features and feral eyes and sharp, crooked teeth.
I screamed.
Then I ran as fast as I could, feet slipping on leaves, hands grasping at branches, all the while lunging forward.
“Help!” I screamed again.
But they were coming at me from two directions. I was surrounded by a heavy darkness that obscured everything, overshadowing both sky and earth.
Monsters
.
Two of them.
I wasn’t going to get away.
I couldn’t see past the reach of my own arms. Still I ran, feet pounding dirt, faster and faster. My legs grew weary and my chest ached, but the landscape around me never changed.
I wasn’t moving.
Meanwhile, the shadowy creatures pressed closer. I tried to scream, but this time I couldn’t. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even cry out.
It was just like a nightmare.
Whatever these monsters were, they had me pinned in; they now blocked off the path back to the cabin and the trail that led up to the rocky cliffs.
Let me go, you’re not real, you can’t be—
As soon as I thought that, the creatures suddenly fluttered and a white hole shattered through their black skin. For a moment, I surged forward, felt my feet gain purchase on the wood-chip trail and I spun a foot further away. The darkness around me faded, a small hole appeared right in front of me—just large enough for me to crawl through. I dropped to my knees and I scurried toward it.
Just then, one of the beasts snapped forward, leaped upon me with a snarl, teeth glittering. I fought him, beat fists against his chest, kicked against his legs. All the while, I could sense him sifting through my thoughts, as if reading my mind. Then I saw his eyes flash, bright and yellow, and I knew exactly what he was doing.
He was trying to fashion a nightmare from my secret fears.
“No!” I growled, baring my teeth.
They are my dreams, my visions, my hopes; not one of them belongs to you, nor ever shall. I will fight with all I have within me—
“Nay, you will not escape me, my love,” the beast said.
He pushed me to the ground with a strong hand and then followed with a feathery incantation of his own, though I noticed that his words and chant were spoken too quickly and the rhythm wasn’t quite right. I knew then that he didn’t have the strength for this kind of battle.
Words were my kingdom, not his. I would find a way to break through his poetry, write my own song and spit the words in his face.
But even as I thought that I could feel myself growing sleepy.
Ash:
Sunlight cascaded through the windows, dampened only by velvet panels. The golden-white light set dust motes spinning about me, made me feel as if I had been trapped in one of my own enchantments. I swung the door to my suite open, all reason gone, all memory of the past and the future gone. All that mattered was this moment. Lily could be on the other side of the door. Somewhere, on the edge of the human universe, Ross talked and pleaded with me, spoke words of warning. But it was a foreign language.
Lily could be here. Miracles do happen. Dreams do come true.
Shadows from the hallway spilled into the room, a Darkling female stood on the threshold. Beautiful as a handful of starlight, she was almost too bright to look upon. I couldn’t see her features clearly.
“Ash. Let me in.” It was her voice.
Lily
.
“No!” Ross yelled. Ross, my one human friend.
But humans were the enemy, the spoils of conquest, the fields ripe for harvest. No need to listen to the faithful pet. Not now.
I reached out a hand, ready to pull my wife closer, to bring her into the room and invite her inside. She leaned toward me, eager.
That was when I knew. Her scent was wrong.
It wasn’t her. The dead don’t come back. They stay in the cold grave, turn into stardust, blow away on the wind. They vanish into the unknown, the place of the forever gone and forever mourned.
I grabbed on to her flesh, this not-Lily creature and dug my claws deep into her neck, pressing so hard that her blood started to flow. She screamed, her visage melted; she fought and tried to get away, tried to make her flesh burn mine, flames erupting where my hand had reached across the threshold and into the hallway. My fangs grew and I wanted to lunge out, to bite her, to rip her arm from her body.
Imposter. Evil. Beast.
Then her disguise fell away.
Sienna screamed again, pleading with me to release her. I growled, considered tightening my grip on her throat until all life vanished, until she joined my dead wife.
“Give Lily a message for me,” I said, my words like fire, ready to kill.
“Life—and—limb.” Her words came out one at a time in a wet, choking whisper. Sienna begged for her life, tried to remind me of our code, to never kill, not human and not Darkling.
“Must preserve life. Must,” she said.
“Ash! Let her go! Listen—” Ross was at the window, staring toward the forest.
Just then a woman’s scream echoed from the woods, followed by the flapping of great wings and the folding of reality. And after it came another sound, like all the rules in the world were being broken at once, breaking branches, howling wind.
One of my humans was being hunted.
I tossed my cousin to the ground, where she lay gasping, one of her hands attempting to stop the flow of blood from her neck. With a snarl, I dropped my human skin and folded reality, then swept across the room to the window and threw it open. In an instant, I was flying toward the forest—past the human boys who had gathered by the side of the road—toward the throbbing black hole where a Darkling fought against a human.
Somewhere in the forest deep, shrouded in murky fog.
Another human was being harvested. And this time I knew who was to blame. ’Twas none other than my own dear cousins, Thane and River.
I flashed my wings wide, tensed my muscles, blended the color of my skin to match the mottled blue-and-gray sky. Leaning into the wind, I scanned the wood for movement. I saw something then, a haze that hung over a section of the wood like a misshapen bubble—a Veil of cloud. I measured the beginning and the end of the anomaly, knowing that once I got closer it would be near impossible to see the sharp edges.
Then I called my sister, Sage, to join me in the hunt.
Like an electric shock, my cry sparked through the trees, snapped and buzzed and sang. I felt it strike her in the center of her forehead.
Come!
Take the northern edge of the Veil, then move upstream.
I heard the whisper of her wings as she answered, taking flight almost instantly.
That was when I reached the Veil, felt it brush against my skin like the ruffling of feathers. I hovered at the top of the forest, until I got my bearings, then sank to the ground, watching as the treetops gave way to thick trunks and finally to a mass of ferns and bramble bushes. Meanwhile, heavy fog twined through the wood, tendrils erasing and changing the landscape as they drifted past.
I dared not believe what I saw.
Instead, I battled against this foul magic with song—an Evenquest sonnet, words that overlapped one another, fourteen lines of iambic pentameter that rang strong as a blade. My enchantment fought the Veil, one form of magic against another, until at last, the false landscape began to fade. Then I heard another song echo through the thicket, one with sweet, high notes, cadence strong as a warrior’s drum. It came from the creek, somewhere upstream.
Sage
.
Together we would break through.
The Veil hung between the trees like razor wire now, biting my flesh. Still, I continued to sing, like a man leaning into a blizzard, hunching my shoulders, squinting my eyes, a low chant warming my chest as I walked with my head tucked down. I ignored the many cuts that slivered my flesh, my poems raising the temperature, making the earth hiss. With a lungful of damp air, I lifted my voice, louder and then louder still.
I wasn’t going to give up, no matter how long it took me to break through. For I knew now that it was Maddie who had been captured in my cousin’s Veil. I heard her voice slip through as she fought Thane, verse against verse. Then the clouds rolled thick and heavy across the path.
And after that, no more sounds escaped.
