Page 31

“Grab her, Reid!” the ringleader bellowed as the witch hunters moved closer. A few of them hesitated. Undoubtedly, if they knew who I was, they believed what Reid had initially believed—that I had power by the truckload. Which meant I’d bought myself and my backup a couple of minutes.

Unless…

Reid got to his feet and dusted off his knees, unable to look at me. He stood right beside me. He only had to reach out to catch me, while the others were still fifteen feet away. My chest clenched in a vise of panic. If Reid decided to “stay loyal” and do as these idiots said, I’d lose that wiggle room altogether. I’d divulged the truth to him. He was the only one in this fishery who knew I had no power other than the ability to spew up monsters, and I hardly had control over it yet.

I shook my head. “Reid…”

“I told ye.” He finally met my frantic gaze. “I’m a man of me word.”

“Which word?”The fealty he’d presumably pledged to the Veritas, or the vow he’d made to me, that he wouldn’t stab me in the back once I’d gotten him his antidote? My throat seized up. I looked him dead in the eyes, wondering if he was conflicted because he had to do as they said, or because he had to go against them?

Before I had the opportunity to find out which way his moral pendulum was swinging, Gren crashed through the doorway of the fishery with my beloved trio of pixies fluttering around his furry green head. The quartet unleashed a terrifying war cry. The pixies were small, but they were the fiercest buggers I knew. They made easy work of darting around the witch hunters, as tiny as they were, and surged toward me. They stopped just in front of my chest, turning their backs on me. The pixies linked arms, unleashing a blast of cerulean light from their cuttlefish spots, their magic spinning in a dizzying vortex until I stood in the center of a protective wall of pure energy. To the left of me, Reid had the sense to stagger back, his eyes widening in shock. Meanwhile, Gren had scattered the enemy, diverting their focus to him.

“What the flamin’ hell is that?!” The ringleader fell backwards in fright as Gren ambled toward the nearest witch hunter, fangs dripping venom and ready to bite.

Don’t! I mentally cried out, before I could stop myself, as Gren lunged for his target—a young man with a shock of red hair, who hadn’t spoken at all throughout this encounter. In the light that flared from the pixies, I saw his terrified face. His whole body shook as he screamed and he put his hands up to protect himself, as if that would’ve made a smidgen of difference.

To my relief, Gren paused just shy of ripping the guy’s head off. Instead, he cast me a green-eyed look of understanding before he raised his talons and swiped at the witch hunter, sending him flying into the fish-gut-stained wall. The young man slammed into it and crumpled to the floor, unconscious but alive.

“Persie!” Genie skirted around Gren to join the fray, with Nathan sprinting in behind her.

“I’m okay!” I shouted back.

The older woman with wiry gray hair delved into her pocket and took out something small and shiny. It looked oddly like a boomerang or a shuriken, but I couldn’t tell if it was magical. “She must’ve been followed!” the woman raged. “Let’s take ‘em all. Show ‘em what we’re made of!” She simultaneously hurled the peculiar boomerang directly at Genie’s head. Genie’s hand shot up, lightning fast, to catch it before it could strike. But the moment her fingertips closed around the projectile, it expelled a bolt of crackling electricity that shot up my friend’s arm, delivering a shock that very few could withstand. I watched, horrified, as her body went into violent spasms. But Genie was a Verso—she’d be all right, wouldn’t she?

She might’ve been, had the wiry-haired woman not had another boomerang at the ready. It sailed through the air and struck Genie directly in the head, sending a bolt directly to the brain. My friend’s eyes opened wide in alarm, lighting up with two bright sparks.

“NO!” I howled, plunging through the pixies’ defensive vortex and sprinting for my friend. I couldn’t go through this again. The déjà vu was too much. A red mist descended over my eyes, just as it had done when I’d thought Genie was gone for good. The pixies chirped frantically at me, flying in my face to get me to stop, but I ignored them and charged toward the enemy.

Meanwhile, Nathan was down on the ground, trying to shake Genie awake. The younger woman leapt onto his back and wrapped a silvery rope around his neck, pulling with all her might. The rope gleamed magically as it seared Nathan’s flesh, making him cry out in agony. He lifted his palms to fight back, but the sparks of his Chaos sputtered out the moment they erupted. The rope appeared to be a transmutation of Atomic Cuffs.

These bastards have been busy. They had devices and anti-magical tricks up their sleeves that I’d never seen before, and they knew how to use them. Brimming with stolen Chaos. As Nathan thrashed, the squat troll of a witch hunter took over on the rope, crossing the threads behind Nathan’s neck and pulling until his eyes bugged. Gren turned his attentions toward the rope-yielding witch hunter and headbutted him so hard that he sailed across the entire length of the fishery and hit a cluster of rusty equipment at the back. Nathan collapsed and lay still on the ground, his eyes rolling back into his head.

One of the witch hunters came at me from the right, wielding a shock stick. As adrenaline surged through me, I remembered something Marcel had taught us in our Martial Arts classes: “If ye cannae beat ‘em, duck ‘em.” Skidding to my knees, I glided right under the shock stick and leapt straight back up into a run, keeping my eyes on Genie and Nathan—who were still fairly close to the doorway—and my peripheral vision on everyone who was spread out around me. The witch hunters had dispersed throughout the fishery, thanks to their panic at Gren’s arrival, with some keeping to the distant sidelines and others daring to come closer. With Genie out before the fight had even begun, I needed to step up. Otherwise, these witch hunters were going to have three prisoners to take back to their evil lair.

“Get some Cosmic Cuffs on that lass, NOW!” the ringleader barked, having managed to drag himself up off the floor.

I shot him a cold stare. “They’re Atomic Cuffs, you assclown!” I felt as though I were channeling both Leviathan and my mom as I stooped to snatch up a length of iron piping that had been left on the filthy ground. Marcel had taught us Kendo as part of our training, and though I usually ended up flat on my back after he swiped me behind my knees, I was determined to give it my best try. With Nathan and Genie out for the count, I had no choice. Gren might have been enormous, but there was only one of him, and I didn’t know what else these vipers had up their sleeves. One of them was trying to get one of the silver ropes around Gren’s neck, but he continued to throw the witch hunter off.

Another witch hunter came at me from the right. I grabbed his arm and twirled around him until I faced his back, using a maneuver Marcel had made us practice until we’d felt like ballerinas at the Bolshoi. Startled, he didn’t turn fast enough, giving me an open invitation to crack him across the back of the knees with the iron pipe. His legs buckled, and I brought a second strike down on his shoulders. He toppled face down, groaning in pain.

“What are ye all standin’ around for!” the ringleader shrieked. “Knock her out and get her in Cuffs!”

With the executive order given, the hunters converged on me, blocking my path to my unconscious friends. Each took out a weapon or device of some kind: another boomerang, another shock stick, a pair of sparking nunchucks, a strange bow that had a string of thrumming energy stretching from point to point instead of wire or horsehair, and a handful of what appeared to be Entrapment Stones, amongst other unnerving, pilfered artifacts. For a split second, I thought of the poor souls who must’ve hexed and charmed all of this stuff for them. And how the witch hunters were able to make these things work. A temporary Chaos infusion, drained out of magicals, maybe? If they had Ephemeras in their pilfered arsenal, which they’d somehow modified to imbue with a general dose of magical-level Chaos, it was very possible. But I couldn’t focus on that now. I had to get myself, my friends, and my monsters out of here alive.

Eight witch hunters formed a circle around me, while Gren dealt with the first antagonist he’d attacked just outside the doorway. The guy had made the mistake of getting back up again. As for the second guy Gren had swiped, he was nowhere to be seen. The others took nervous steps inward to close the net, weapons glinting with stolen magic. I whirled around on the spot again and again, holding my iron pipe like it was a true Kendo staff, bringing it down on any hands that dared to prepare an attack. As Marcel had taught us: “When ye find yerselves in a tight spot, it’s best to give yerselves as much extra reach as possible. Don’t let ‘em too close.”

Gren… I need you! I called out in my mind, willing him to hear me.

The ground trembled as he answered, and not a moment too soon. The old harpy with the gray hair had just raised another electric boomerang, and I wasn’t sure I had the reflexes to dodge it. Gren thundered through the circle, scattering the witch hunters like bowling pins, and coiled himself around me. The pixies flew down to join him, taking up guard positions along the length of his scaly body.

“Get rid o’ that massive thing first!” The ringleader got to his feet again, pulling out a familiar looking pouch: a hex bag. “Use yer spell sacks and crush that bastard!”

The witch hunters converged once more, now numbering nine once more since Gren’s target had rejoined the party. They slipped into a well-rehearsed formation and, before I could take in what was happening, they began to launch hex bags at Gren. Once the first trio had hurled their magical artillery, they raced to the back, and the next group moved forward to attack, rotating through an endless salvo. Acrid puffs of brightly-colored smoke erupted from the hex bags as they hit Gren, prompting the pixies to dart toward me and conjure up a defensive barrier that would protect us from the incessant hexes.

Gren roared in pain as puffs of emerald green, baby pink, and rusty red bombarded him, unleashing their own unique hexes on my beautiful Purge beast. A liquid fire spilled out of a red hex, scorching him and melting entire patches of his scales. A green hex sent out thick, gnarled vines that constricted around his body, and a pink one expelled a horde of tiny beings that seemed to be made of light. They burrowed into Gren’s skin and, though I couldn’t see what they were doing, I could hear the agony in my beast’s roar as he tried to fight off the relentless bombardment.

Run, Gren! Get out of here! I begged. He looked at me mournfully and simply shook his head, a soft whine emerging from his throat. A second later, it turned into a heartbreaking roar as a black puff of smoke careened into his chest. A horrifying, tar-like substance splattered out, then crawled up to Gren’s throat, where gelatinous fingers scraped around his neck, trying to suffocate him. Please, Gren! RUN! Tears pricked my eyes as I willed him to obey, but he either couldn’t hear me through his own pain or he didn’t want to heed my warning. Just then, in the midst of a shattering roar, a bag with a violet plume hit him square in the face. Glittering tendrils slithered out of the smoke and plunged down Gren’s open mouth, directly into his throat.

“No! Please, no… Please, run! Just run away!” I sobbed as a gut-wrenching gurgle bubbled out of Gren’s mouth, cutting off his roar. His eyes turned to meet mine for the last time, and he pushed his head toward me, not even flinching as more hex bags exploded into him. Gently, he rubbed his cheek against mine with a quiet whimper. It seemed to say, “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’ll be okay. Don’t be sad for me.” I reached out through the pixie barrier and grasped his face, hugging it tight as he rested his chin against my shoulder. My tears dampened his fur as I held on, hoping that if I just willed him to live, then he would. After all, I’d brought him into this world, and I wasn’t ready for him to go. I’d only just started getting to know him.

He whimpered again, his breaths strained. I didn’t need to know his language to understand. He was saying goodbye. If the witch hunters had known that, they would have come straight for me. Instead, they held back, still afraid to approach in case my sweet-natured monster tried to rip them to pieces. To the untrained eye, he was still a threat. But I knew better. He didn’t have long now.

“I’m sorry, Gren.” I buried my face deeper into his fur and clung to him, so he would know he was loved. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help you. I’m sorry I ever told anyone about you. I should have let you go free when I had the chance. I should’ve… saved you. You were never meant to be in a cage. Your heart’s too big for that. I’m so, so sorry. Please… forgive me.”

Gren nudged me gently, one final time. And then he was gone. He slumped forward, his chin rolling off my shoulder, his head collapsing onto his coiled body. I waited to hear him whimper or snuffle or bellow again, but he lay silent and painfully still.

“Well, what are ye hangin’ about for? It’s dead! It ain’t gonna protect her no more!” The ringleader jabbed a finger at my Gren, realizing the threat had passed. “Clamber over that thing and get her so we can get out of here!”

Up until now, I’d tried to play nice. I’d stopped Gren from devouring them, not wanting death on my hands, and how had they repaid us? They’d zapped my best friend’s brain, they’d tried to strangle the life out of Nathan, and they’d killed my gentle giant of a monster—not to mention, they wanted to kidnap us. A blinding spike of pain stabbed through my entire being. I felt it cut into me like it was an actual blade, the despair spreading out across my chest like fluid. I felt the grief of all my recent losses: my home, the pixies, Genie, and now Gren. Not to mention the stinging hurt of Reid’s betrayal. He hadn’t joined the fight, but he hadn’t stood beside me, either. He was still on the sidelines, watching me struggle.

“I save you, and this is all you can do? You come crying to me, and you kill a beast that I love? You beg for mercy, and you repay me with a knife in the back and a hex in his throat?” My voice boomed out of me with a volume and power that, on any other day, would have scared me senseless. This didn’t sound like me. This sounded like Leviathan. And maybe this occasion called for a bit of a hell queen’s attitude.

The witch hunters froze, terror evident on their nasty, twisted faces. Perhaps, given a few minutes to let the agony ebb, I could’ve found a way to rein in my anger. However, at that moment, my Gren began to disintegrate. Ashy flakes of gray drifted away from his body and turned to black mist in the air, each flake disappearing and taking him to wherever Purge beasts went after they died. The sight tipped me over the edge.

“You’ve no doubt heard the name Merlin.” I roared, mimicking the monsters that I’d lost. “Well, you’re about to find out why we’re so famous.”

I let the all-consuming pain loose, feeling the white-hot energy of it pulsing through every cell and fiber of my being. Tears trickled down my cheeks as I threw back my head and clenched my hands into fists, calling on all of that raw emotion to bring about the very thing that, just hours before, I’d still feared. In losing Gren as he gave his life to protect me, I became aware, more than ever before, that my curse wasn’t a curse. It was a gift. It was everyone else, everyone who thought of my creations as “things” and “fuel,” who made it a heavy weight to bear.

Violent spasms wracked my body, each intense pulse pushing something dark and intense up from my chest and into my throat. Black mist seeped out of my pores, creating a circle of black fire that began to spin faster and faster and faster until I saw only shadow. I shook uncontrollably, the sensations too forceful, too extreme, too strong for my flimsy human shell to take. Then, without warning, a pillar of black mist shot out of my mouth and pummeled skyward.

You would run, if you had any sense… But they didn’t. Their desire to capture me was greater than their fear of what I was doing. Either that, or they didn’t fully understand what was happening and the danger they were in.

As the mist arced down to the floor, it began to take shape. Enormous, bulging legs with clawed feet, each talon as long and sharp as the blade of a hunting knife, the muscular limbs coated in a thick layer of coarse maroon fur. More of the creature appeared, revealing an abdomen of dense armor-plating, striped with white and navy. Above that was an armored chest, broader than I was tall, followed by eye-popping biceps and arms that ended in sharp claws that were only marginally smaller than its talons. A long neck, protected by more bands of that natural armor, finally revealed the creature’s head. Vaguely leonine, it had burning red eyes and three sharp horns nestled between two flicking feline ears, and a mouth full of dagger-like teeth. The beast stood there, gorgeous and fierce, smoke pouring from his nostrils.

I’d seen this beast before, but not in a book or a dream—rather, somewhere I couldn’t place.

The beast turned to me and bowed, one arm in front of its abdomen and one behind its back, like a gentleman. I guessed it was a male of its species. As he bent, I noticed jagged spines protruding from his back, like a gigantic porcupine. Rising to his full height once more, he growled, as if to say, “I’m awaiting orders.”

Exhausted to the bone, I simply glanced at the witch hunters, who all looked as though they were about to faint. “Them,” was all I said.

He immediately homed in on his targets. Two of the smart ones turned tail and ran, sprinting out of the fishery before they had the chance to find out what this monster could do. As for the others, they panicked and began flinging their weapons at my creature. The electric boomerangs bounced off the armor, and the hex bags were swiped out of the way by the monster’s huge paws as he marched toward victory. He unleashed an almighty screech that brought a torrent of napalm-like fire out of his mouth, the near-liquid flames thundering downward. The fire enveloped the squat strangler completely, and when the torrent disappeared, there was no trace to suggest that there’d ever been a person there. Complete incineration.

My monster launched an attack on another witch hunter—the boomerang-throwing harpy who’d zapped Genie. As he incinerated that particular devil, the other witch hunters seemed to realize that their moment of glory had packed its bags and left the building. Shouting in fear, they ran for their lives.

The monster looked back at me and bowed, like he was asking, “Am I done?”

“For now, thank you,” I replied. He stood at ease with his arms folded behind his back and his chin lifted proudly, waiting, soldier-like, for further instructions. If I hadn’t been totally exhausted, I would’ve been more intrigued by the sentience of this particular beast. More than anything I’d ever Purged before, he seemed to understand exactly what I was saying, and I him. The pixies and I had come a long way, but our understanding had taken time and patience, while this appeared to be immediate.

Now, I had one distraction left to deal with: Reid hadn’t fled with the others. He stood there, still on the sidelines, watching me.

What do I do with you, huh?

As if sensing that he had another order to fulfil, my monster turned and glared at Reid with burning eyes. Without waiting for permission, he stalked toward my kidnapper, like a predator hunting its prey.