Forceful Justice (95 page)

“Dorien,” Elsa said, knowing the Freja undoubtedly knew what the six of them were after.

“Listen,” Zamir said, “You need to get back to land safely. If this plan of yours will work, keeping you alive until you're out of the forest will have been worth it.” He got up, his eyes glowing radiant green.

“Wait,” Elsa said, grabbing his arm as he made his way out the door. “What if you die? He's a dragon. Are you sure you can take him?”

Zamir didn't even feel the need to respond, as his face said everything. He was Zamir the Great, unbeatable, immortal--the Prince of Evil.

“If we make it out, what happens to you?” Elsa asked him.

“There's no hope for me,” he said, without making the effort to look at her.

“Zamir, why? Whatever happens, I just want you to know I will never stop trying to help you out of the forest. There is a way to be good again.”

“I'm too far gone, Elsa. You need your own life. There's nothing here for you,” he said, jumping out the window, instantly changing into his wolf form. Elsa never got a chance to say goodbye, but now was not the time to cry about it, and she stepped out the front door to the cottage, rushed over to the boat, and rowed her way over to the other side of the lake's edge. As she made her way across the tar, ignoring the stench's power over her, she could see a literal fire fight, a stream of yellow lava shooting across the woods, as Humburt, Augustus, Kirbleitz, and Niklas all in shifter form, attempted to fight off Dorien the monster dragon. And they were losing.

That is, until Zamir showed up.

It was truly something to witness, Elsa thought. The Black Wolf, even from this distance, raced over the rocks, bouncing off the trees, rebounding off the dragon's hide, tearing and slashing pieces of him bit by bit. The other shifters didn't hold a candle to him. Zamir the Great, Elsa thought, that he was, that he was. The other wolf attempted to do what they could to help Zamir, who clearly carried the brunt of the fight, using his paws to swing around the dragon's neck, biting at his jugular. The fight exhilarated Elsa, and saddened her, when she realized Dorien was Theo's brother. He was that same fearless boy from long ago, and she'd hate to see him destroyed.

Trying to talk to Zamir, through her thoughts, she told him not to kill him.

Let him be, Zamir. Just get him off our tails so we can escape. Don't destroy him.

Zamir never responded, but she could see he got the message. The dragon took flight, its powerful wings sending a rush of wet, hot air into Elsa's face, as it raced toward the moon, Zamir hanging by his powerful jaws on the top. The monster flew off into the night, his squeals reverberating through the chilly air.

PART FOUR - THE PROPHECY REVEALED

CHAPTER 45

Back on the ground, Elsa got out of the boat and ran over to the shifter boys, who were all recuperating for their lashing. Elsa felt profound pride when she looked around those men nursing their wounds, inflicted by a dragon they wanted to protect her from. Seeing the gratitude in her watery eyes, Niklas looked up and smiled through his pain. “It's mighty all right, ma'am. Just a flesh wound.” She looked over to Humburt and Augustus, now back in human form, their massive chests heaving with power and struggle.

Augustus looked to Elsa. “What now? Did you find anything?”

Elsa took the spell and crystal out of her pocket and presented it to the four shifters. “What's that?” Kirbleitz asked, stuffing one of his wounds with maggots to stave off infection.

“I heard the Prophecy myself. It said a pure maiden would set us free. If the Prophecy is about me, and I'm so pure, then this is the spell that should work. The spell a pure maiden can use to fight Freja off.”

“Yes, but how do you know you're not wrong again?” Augustus asked her.

“I don't, but the crystal responded, glowing bright, when I started to use it when Zamir tried to attack me,” she said.

“This sounds contrived,” Augustus said, crossing his arms, as he slipped his crossbow around his chest.

“I know it does, but we've got to do something. We're running out of time. There's no telling how much time has passed in the towns.”

“Or if Freja is even alive,” Niklas said.

“Oh she's alive,” Humburt said, backing Elsa up. “She's just hiding. I guarantee you she sent that serpent to bite Elsa.”

Elsa looked around the group. “You all remember my visions when the snake bit me? This is our chance. You guys are a big group of lugs who ended up being my saviors. Now it's time for me to return the favor. Freja put me here, she sent that serpent to kill me, and it would have, if you hadn't rescued me. She stole Theo from me. She's trapped Dorien and Theo in the forest from the moment they made the mistake of falling into this place. She sent Dorien here to kill all of you. And if she has her way, we'll spend the rest of eternity here, while she lives on as the popular, well-loved version of me. Her star will rise, while mine will fall. I can't let that happen. I can't leave you guys behind. I know this will work,” Elsa said, as if she were a general rallying her troops. “I won't stop until we get out, all of us, every last one of us, so we can live a normal life in peace. Let's not allow her to defeat us.”

“Do you think she's the one controlling our freedom here, so we can't leave the forest?” Humburt asked her, thinking apparently Elsa had more answers now than any of them, since the snake bit her. Humburt always trusted his guts.

But Elsa didn't know.

“I have no idea if this place is actually alive, from an older time, with a mind of its own, or if it's something Freja conjured up with her black magic. I just don't know, and none of us will know until we cross over that border.”

“I'm with you,” Augustus said, ready for a fight to the death.

“And me!” Niklas said, clenching his fist.

“Me, too!” Humburt said, raising his sword into the air, as it glinted the murky moonlight in all their eyes. Elsa smiled, knowing how good it felt to have all these guys behind her, protecting her. But there was one person missing, who didn't respond, and Elsa saw Kirbleitz standing on the edge of the tar lake, looking pale and sallow.

“Doctor Kirbleitz,” Niklas said, “What is wrong?” The doctor looked over his shoulder then stumbled on his back as the entire group rushed over to him, Niklas leading the way. “What happened?” Niklas said, his voice beginning to break with emotion, fearing the worst. Kirbleitz uncovered a deep and bloody wound from under his vest. “Oh, Doc.no.” Niklas said, his best friend, his mentor now mortally wounded. “We're going to make it ok, doc, I swear. We just gotta make it past the border. Why didn't you tell me?”

“It'll be okay,” the Doc said, taking deep breaths, obviously in pain. His breathing rate was quick and shallow. Not a good sign. Humburt and Niklas picked Doctor Kirbleitz up, helping him walk along as best he could, the Doctor's arms draped over both mens' shoulders. Elsa turned around, ready for the journey to the border. They were all actually going to make a run for it.

Augustus caught up with her, as they continued their walk out of the woods. “Do you know how to get out of here?”

“I have not the faintest idea,” she said, looking ahead. “But we'll find a way.”

“Do you think Dorien will catch us again? Elsa, we won't be able to fight him off, now that Kirbleitz got hurt.”

“Call him Doc. Show some respect Augustus. And Zamir will hold him off long enough to give us a chance,” she said.

“You put a lot of faith in someone we can't even figure out is good or bad,” Augustus said. “You sleep with him or something?”

“We can count on him, I know it,” Elsa said, ignoring the question, as it sent a stab of pain through her heart. She looked behind her, at Niklas and Humburt, and forward into the darkened forest, unknown creatures whistling and calling out to all of them. She was thinking that, wherever Zamir was, she knew he would never let her down.

CHAPTER 46

“Look!” Augustus said, pointing ahead into the pathway they had come from. Elsa and Augustus discussed the possibility that the forest wouldn't let them follow the same path they took to get to Elsa's Cottage. But nothing had changed since Zamir led them away from the forest. Elsa looked at the same wall which formed when Zamir saved her from the shifters when they wanted to burn her at the stake. Tracks still marked the dirt as evidence of the initial scuffle between Zamir and the rest of the wolves. Elsa took this as a good sign that the her plan just might work. She waited for the rest of the group to catch up to her and Augustus.

“The sight of that wall makes my stomach churn,” Augustus said. “I just hope we make it.”

“We will,” Elsa said, her iron will stronger than ever. She looked at the stone wall which had formed before her very eyes, watching it just in case the Forest changed its mind, and entrapped them again. Niklas and Humburt brought Kirbleitz to a rock to let him rest.

“OK, what now?” Augustus asked. That was a good question, Elsa thought. She pulled out the spell from her pocket, terrified of the monumental disappointment which awaited her should the spell fail. She looked around the group, at the beautiful twin men Jordan and Augustus, the terrified Niklas, and the injured Kirbleitz. She feared breaking their spirits more than anything, and thinking about the last time she was here at this very spot, she remembered how willing she was to leave the boys behind if it meant saving herself and getting back to Theo in the town. But the thought now made her sick with disgust. Never would she leave these boys, who had done so much to help her. She unwrapped the spell.

“Here goes,” she said to the group, as they waited. Then she turned back to the wall and spoke the first careful lines of the poem:

“In these dark solitudes and awful wells.” Elsa looked up, waiting for a reaction. Nothing. She continued. “Where heavenly-pensive contemplation dwells

And ever-musing melancholy reigns;

What means this tumult in a vestal’s veins?

Why move my thoughts beyond this last retreat?

Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?”

Elsa looked up, checking to see if the Forest had responded in any way. And yet again, nothing. So she continued.

“Dear fatal evil! rest ever unrevealed,

Nor pass these lips in holy silence sealed!

Go now, unclean thoughts, be gone from blood

Leave me, in thought and breast, Clean, Pure, and Good!”

Elsa's heart beat in unison with the other men, who all stood waiting for the wall to crumble into a pile of rubble again, leaving an escape from the Forbidden Forest once more. This was their last hope, dangling on the thinnest of threads. Every passing second expanded into the future, elongating forever into uncertainty. They waited several minutes. Nothing.

Elsa sighed out loud. “Well that's it,” she said. “Now we wait.”

“Wait for what?” Augustus said. “We're stuck here, and now we've got a murderous dragon on our tail. I guess we should just go ahead and join ol' Doc over there, ready to die.”

“Augustus,” Humburt said, embarrassed by his brother's cruelty. But Augustus was fed up. They all were. “What's it going to take? How the fuck will we ever get out of this hell hole?” he asked, into the wind. Elsa shrunk down against the tree trunk behind her, wishing the damn thing would come alive and swallow her hole. Death was a much better alternative to the Forbidden Forest. She thought for a moment about Zamir, and wondered if he was all right. And the strangest thing happened to her--Theo burst through her heart and caught her attention again. She remembered the way he smelled, his beautiful smile, his hairless abs. She truly did love him, and looking back at her experience with Zamir, she felt a ting of guilt for what she'd done. She wanted so bad to be his hero, to be all their heroes, but couldn't change the past, couldn't make her mistakes right, and all she got for her efforts was more misery and further descent into sin. The anger that flooded her blood seemed like it would burst through her neck at any moment, so badly did she desire to get a good person again, to regain her righteousness and virtue. She felt a sudden burning sensation in her thigh, as the temperature of the crystal in her pocket grew hot enough to melt skin. She reached into her pocket and threw the crystal on the ground, as it illuminated the area around her. All the shifter boys looked down at the crystal with awe, a symbol of the Forest's spirit made manifest before them.

“Elsa,” Humburt said under his breath, “What's going on?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “Maybe the spell worked.” The red light flickered across all their faces like some haunted and haunting show from a circus.

And with that, the wall before them crumbled into dust, leaving a gaping hole in the Forest, shrouded in darkness on their side, and brightened by sunny daylight on the other. Elsa stepped forward to get a better look, and from her vantage point, she could see the towns in the distance--houses and buildings which looked just like they did when she left them. She leaped with joy, motioning the others to come through the hole in the wall. As soon as she made a first step, however, Niklas screamed from behind him, as the white two-headed serpent striking Doctor Kirbleitz over and over again, on the cheek, on the abdomen, on the leg, everywhere. He was practically covered with holes from its fangs, laying on the ground, shaking uncontrollably as the venom seethed its way through his veins, causing convulsions. Humburt looked back at the scene--the dying Doctor Kirbleitz and Niklas kneeling next to him, crying in grief, as the crystal in Elsa's hand flickered in mighty flashes, sending a strobing effect through the hole scene--and unsheathed his silver sword, to decapitate the serpent. With one fell swoosh, he cut the snakes double-head clean off, sending it flying across the dirt-floored clearing, far into the trees. Humburt tried to grab Niklas. “Let's go, Niklas. There's no time!” he said, shouting above a monstrous roar. Both Niklas and Humburt looked up to see a giant fireball coming their way. Humburt grabbed tiny Nik and covered him with his entire body, ducking under a rock, as the fire blasted its way over them. Even then, over all the noise, Elsa could hear Niklas wailing in pain, not from heat, but from sadness.