Revenant (37 page)

He
nodded. “She had control over the creatures somehow.”

I
remember Mildred cooing and petting the beasts. “I saw her with them in the
woods once. She fed them and talked to them like they were pets.”

“Who
would’ve thought the old woman had so much power?” Luke said.

What
was
Mildred? She told me she’d walked
with the demons a hundred years ago, and now she’d somehow brought Luke back to
me. Was she even still alive?

Luke
continued talking. “When it first happened, I was so confused. I wasn’t inside
Dean anymore. Mildred grabbed me, pulled me aside, and told me our only chance
of escape was if I pretended to be Caleb.”

“You
were in him the
whole time
after that
ritual?” I recalled the times when Caleb had been almost kind to me. Now it
made sense. It had been Luke all along.

Luke
looked away. “I couldn’t tell you. If I told you, I worried you would react to
me differently than you did to Caleb. Then Gage would suspect something was up
and realize what happened.”

Every
time I saw Caleb, I’d felt only fear and hate, but Caleb
died
during that ritual. All the anger I’d thought I was focusing
on Caleb had actually been directed at Luke. What must it have been like for
Luke to see me looking at him with so much hatred in my eyes?

Luke
got to his feet. “We need to keep moving. A couple days ago Mildred used her
disappearing trick to go off and find my family. She
told them where we are
. They’re coming in to attack Gage and his
men. I thought we would’ve run into them by now.”

I
felt my heart thump wildly in my chest. “Your guild is out here?” My eyes
scanned the trees. “If they find me, they’ll kill me.” I remembered Darla promising
to kill me herself the next time she saw me.

“I’ll
explain to them why you had to do what you did.”

He
reached for me, and I instinctively cringed and slid away.

Luke
pulled back his hand and narrowed his eyes, but continued. “We need them. With
their help, we can take down Gage. We can free the others.”

“If
they’re still alive,” I whispered, getting to my feet. I’d left my friends to
die in the middle of a bloody battle. The guilt that washed over me was
suddenly overwhelming. Gage had made it clear he didn’t need or want Dean
around. What would happen to Dean once his berserker power was gone?
Will he be killed? Is he dead already
? I
forced the thought away.
Dean, Wendy,
Mildred… They have to be alive.

Luke
was watching me. “We can hope, Colina. I’m sorry—I had no choice, I had
to get you away from Gage.”

This
time I couldn’t meet his eyes. Did he know about the new power Gage had over
me? I wondered whether Mildred told him about my bewitched affection for Gage
and how he forced me into marrying him. I wanted so desperately to ask the
questions swirling around in my head, but I was afraid of the answers.

I
looked up into the sky. Dark clouds were slowly covering the full moon.

Luke
pulled out a small flashlight from his pocket. “If we keep heading north, we
should run into my guild.”

I
nodded, but swallowed back a lump of dread. When we came face-to-face with the
Phoenix Guild, would they try to kill me before Luke had a chance to explain?

* * *

We scrambled over logs and pushed our way through heavy brush
in silence, and I was thankful for it. I didn’t know what to say to Luke.

I
thought back to the time I’d rushed into Dean’s arms for comfort. It had been
Luke, not Caleb, who stood there watching as I ran without hesitation straight
to Dean. Sonja found me with obvious signs that Dean had been in my bed the
next morning. Had she mentioned it to Gage? Had Luke stood by, listening to them
gossip about Dean and me?

My
thoughts were interrupted by a loud shuffling noise in the bushes ahead of us.
Luke grabbed my arm and pulled me to the ground as two shadows separated
themselves from the trees, but it was too late to hide. Two men dressed in
camouflage gear stood with deadly crossbows in their hands leveled right at us.

Before
I could even think to react, Luke stood up, yanking me with him, and shouted, “Phoenix
rising!”

The
guards seemed
to relax, but they
didn’t lower their crossbows. Without a word, one turned and walked into the
darkness, gesturing for us to follow. We walked down a trail barely visible in
the darkness with the second man covering us from behind.

After
we’d walked a few hundred feet, we stopped. I could see bodies moving in the
bushes to our left and Luke whispered in my ear, “Stay here.”

Where
was he going? Did he really expect me to stay put while he headed off into the
woods? He started to move away, but I grabbed his arm and hissed, “I’m coming
with you.”

I
walked by his side, trying to calm my pounding heart.
I’m not some wimpy, newly initiated death dealer,
I reminded myself.
I might not have
power
over the living, but I have magic
.

We
came into a small clearing and Luke stopped abruptly.
Hooded lanterns cast a wavering light on the surrounding
trees, making it look as if a mysterious group of giants towered over us in
judgment.
The sky had
gone dark as the clouds ate up the stars and the moon. The clearing seemed to
be an island of light in a very dark world.

Over
Luke’s shoulder, I saw a familiar face.

Darla
stood in front of a group of thirty or forty young men and women. Her
camouflage clothing faded into the greens and browns of the forest. Dressed in a
well-worn fatigue jacket and pants, she looked older than the last time I’d
seen her. Her blond hair was still short, though, cut above her chin.

Luke
strode toward her, but this time I didn’t follow him. I hung back in the
shadows.

Darla
stopped, her face anxious, and asked cautiously, “Is it
really
you?”

“It’s
me,” Luke answered.

Darla
stood staring at him, a hard look on her face. “Prove it,” she demanded.

“Once,
when you were seven, you got mad at me for taking the head off your doll. To
get even, you made me lemonade…but you substituted salt for the sugar.”

Darla
stared at Luke. Her posture was rigid and one hand held a dagger in a sheath at
her side. The tense silence stretched uncomfortably as she considered his words.
I could tell by the look on Darla’s face that Luke’s answer had been the right
one, one only he would know. But now that he’d answered her question, it seemed
like Darla didn’t know what to do next.

Another
familiar face emerged from the middle of the group—Freddy, Luke’s friend
who’d joined us in saving Darla what seemed a lifetime ago. With no hesitation,
he strode up to Luke and gave him a big bear hug, laughing a few times before
finally letting him go. A wide smile crossed his face. “I don’t care who you
look like,
buddy,
I’m just glad to see
you.”

Luke
returned the smile. “It’s good to see
you, too
.”

It
was only then that Darla spied me hiding back in the shadowed tree line. She
gave me a withering stare, and in a flat voice, said, “You’re still alive.”

“I
am,” I answered. I straightened my shoulders and made my way to Luke’s side,
highly aware of the fact that I was wearing only a skimpy slip. Wrapping my
arms around myself, I studied Darla’s face. From her expression, it was clear she
still felt the same way about me. Her eyes shone with anger and the threat of
violence.

Luke
moved in front of me protectively. “Darla, I wouldn’t be here if it weren't for
Colina.”

Darla
hissed, “You defend her after what’s she done? She raised the
dead
. Our people are targets thanks to
her.”

Luke
raised his voice. “She is not our enemy.”

Darla
advanced toward me, a menacing gleam in her eyes. “She needs to pay for what’s
she
’s done
.”

I
could feel a rush of adrenaline course through my veins as my heart started to
pound. A crowd of death dealers faced me with hostile expressions on their
faces. They hated me. They wanted to hurt me. That’s when I heard the howl on
the wind.

And
I wasn’t the only one to hear it.

The younger death dealers looked around in
fear. A few raised their hands and began speaking Latin.
A dozen banshees suddenly
filled the air between the crowd and me.

Luke
shouted, “Stop this!”

Shadows
raced past me—my spirit pack had materialized. I heard shouts of panic as
the crowd began to scatter
, but
one thin young man stood his ground.
Ignoring
the fleeing death dealers and the swirling, ghostlike wolves, the young death
dealer’s dark eyes glittered in the light of the lanterns. He shouted something
lost in the chaos and gestured toward me emphatically.
Two banshees
circling around him rushed in my direction.

Without
thinking, I took a deep breath and focused all my energy on the spirits coming toward
me. The air wavered. Where moments ago there was nothing, a shimmering light
appeared. I was opening a rip in the veil to the other side.

I heard voices cry out in astonishment, but my
focus was solely on the banshees. I used every ounce of energy in me to redirect
the spirits’ path and push both of them toward the rip in the veil. Rays of
light broke through the rip and shot out to surround the spirits. In a rush of
sound and light, they were engulfed. There
was
a loud whooshing noise and the light disappeared back from where it came—and
the spirits went with it. I’d crossed them over to the other side.

My spirit pack had circled around me. Dozens
of ghostly wolves were poised in the air, not attacking, but ready to protect
me. Directly beside me, a huge shadow in the form of a bear stood imposingly.
My heart soared and power rushed through me.
My pack survived the battle with Gage
. I had no idea what the fight
had cost them, how many spirit wolves had been lost, but the pack still
survived. I lowered my hands and looked straight at Darla.

Her face had gone white, but she seemed to
shake off the fear. Her face filled with
determination
and she started toward me. She was ready to take me on despite the threat I
posed.

“I
said,
enough
!” A voice roared through
the night, and seconds after it came a whirlwind of orange and yellow flames
that scorched the earth between Darla and me. When the flames went out, I saw
Darla had stopped, her eyes wide with shock.
She wasn’t the only one who seemed frozen with surprise.
A stunned silence settled over the clearing.

Luke walked between us. Flames wreathed him,
creating a tornado of hellfire that reached nearly to the treetops. Dozens of
banshees weaved in and out of the flames, but they were different from any other
banshee I’d seen. Rather than the normal, transparent forms of most death
dealers, Luke’s banshees now burned with hellfire. I knew without any doubt
that if I crossed these banshees over, they would go straight to hell.

I watched Luke with both awe and trepidation.
His face was full of fury, flames flickering along his body. How would he ever
find a balance against a power that was so rooted in evil?

With a wave of his hands, Luke released the
fire and banshees whirling around him. Though they faded slowly from sight, small
flames still slid off his hands.

He looked my way and then at Darla. “We have
a common enemy.
He’s
the one we need
to
focus on
. He’s the one we have to
destroy.”

Darla's face was emotionless when she
addressed her brother. “We’d heard that a death dealer in the Dragon Guild was
able to use hellfire, but…we thought it was just a rumor.

I noticed a quick flash of fear in Darla’s
eyes, though it was gone quickly. Was she scared of her brother? Did she think
he would harm her? I had the same doubts swirling through me. I was scared of
Luke in his new form.

Luke looked down at his fingers and the fire that
still twirled around them. “It’s not just a rumor. And the remaining members of
the Dragon
Guild
have joined up with
Gage. They were with Macaven before that.
They
are the ones who started all of this. They’re the ones who began killing people
to raise a demon. And they’re within our reach. We can stop them.”

The
anger and fight had left the crowd. Everyone
was
now focused
on Luke. Wide eyes full of fear and suspicion watched his
every move. I was no longer their target. With a sigh of relief, I let my spirit
pack slowly drift away and turned to Luke. “You think it’s a smart idea to go
back and take on Gage?”

“What
choice do we have?” Luke answered, though he didn’t direct the question at me.
His eyes were on his sister, surrounded by a semicircle of guild members.