Page 185 of Brimstone

SAERIS

FIRST CAME THEsmoke.

Then came the scream.

The bloodcurdling cry painted the air with terror.

“Cut off its fucking head!”

This was the moment—thiswas the split second in time around which reality pivoted, where everything that preceded it wasbeforeand all that followed becameafter.

I was still smiling from teasing Hayden. I felt the strange shift in the pit of my stomach that came with exiting a shadow gate . . . and then we were in hell.

The sky was thick with black smoke, the air rank with it. We were on top of a hill that overlooked a small township—small, neat little buildings with terracotta roofs below us, stretching out toward luminescent cliffs of chalk that dove into vast blackness beyond. Fae warriors sprinted across my field of vision, swords in their hands, blood staining their skin. The glow from campfires, kicked over and burning out of control amid the long, dry grass, washed over their faces and made them appear ghoulish.

At the bottom of the hill, one of the buildings exploded, sending a pillar of light and flame up seventy feet in the air. The ground rocked beneath my feet. I covered my head with my arms, trying to understand what the fuck was happening. And then my senses kicked in.

Hayden.

Where thefuckwas Hayden?

My palms found the hilts of my short swords. The weight of the twin god swords was reassuring as I spun them around, power flaring up my arms.

The shield on my right hand lit up the chaos like a signal flare.

There he was, on his knees in the grass, choking. Books scattered the ground around him.“Hayden!”

Ten feet. Only ten feet. I could get to him. My lungs burned as I bolted for him. He was fine. No injuries. No blood. He tried to look at me as I crouched down in front of him, but his eyes rolled back into his head. I slapped him as hard as I could. “No! Stay awake, Hay! There’s no time for that now.” He regained a little control, an alertness coming back to him, pupils focusing.

“What the fuck’s happening?” he gasped.

“I don’t know. I—” Another tower of flames jetted toward the sky, briefly illuminating the hillside. I heard the snarl before I heard the feeder. It was a woman.Hadbeen one once. It was naked, its breasts flat and droopping, its long hair snarled into mats. Its ribs were visible, as if they might tear through the monster’s skin any second.

Its teeth glistened black ichor, red with blood.

It had fed.

The smoke cleared, and then there was another one, huge, clad in golden armor, the rays of a sun embellished into the blood-spattered chest plate. It pinned a Fae warrior to the ground, its head bent to the warrior’s throat. Its body undulatedas it drank, draining the warrior dry. The warrior’s hands groped, yanking handfuls of grass from the ground as he tried todosomething . . . and then he fell still.

“Saeris! Gods, Saeris! To the left!”

Hayden’s cry shocked me from my stupor.

The naked feeder was coming. I got my blades up just in time to run her through with the points of both before she fell on me. Light blossomed in my right hand, flowing down Erromar’s blade, and pouring into the feeder. It lit up from the inside, its ribs stark and black as charcoal beneath the unnatural waxen white of the monster’s skin. It trembled, vibrating, letting out an ungodly scream, and then burst into flames.

Move, Saeris. Fucking move.

My boots pounded the ground as I sprinted. My hand closed around the top of Hayden’s arm. I dragged him to his feet. “You need to run,” I yelled.

He spun around, eyes wild.“Where?”Ren had carried me to a bed my first time through a shadow gate, and I was telling Hayden he had to run? Fuck. I didn’t know which direction to point him in anyway. The hillside was all smoke and killing. There was no shelter here. Nowhere for him to go. I cast around, searching for Fisher, but no . . . he wasn’t here. He—

Something slammed into me from behind. I went down, rolling, sticks and debris poking me through my clothes. A mindless groan filled my ears, and then there were fingers clawing at me, trying to open my leathers and find skin.

I slammed the hilt of a blade into the feeder’s face. It was fresh, its skin still flushed pink. A male, maybe twenty or so. Human. It let out a high-pitched keening wail. “Pleeeeeease.Please!”

More than fresh. It hadn’t fed yet. It wanted me to be its first. I threw my leg over its shoulder and flipped it, groaning with the effort. It was heavy.Sofucking heavy. It was wearing armor—

Teeth snapped too close for comfort. I watched, horrified, as those teeth fell out of the feeder’s mouth and new, razor-sharp, needlelike fangs speared from its gums to replace them. It lunged for me again, snapping its jaws together like a rabid dog, and I scissored my short swords and separated its head from its body.