Nephilius - A Walker Saga Book 5 (10 page)

The
s
heplas had risen from the pits, a group
of three, and they were as ugly as their world. I tried to figure
out how to describe them: about the size of a large garden gnome,
but they resembled knobby tree branches. Brown in color, their skin
was rough and they looked as if they were carved from wood. They
had dark, angry eyes and sharp pointed noses. The screeches
continued to emerge from their wide-open slashes of
mouths.

I released the energy which was smashing at
my insides. The blast knocked them back, and for a brief second
there was blissful silence. And then, rising from the muddy depths,
three more replaced the last ones, and this time they had weapons
grasped in their hands. Spear-type structures with metallic pointed
ends.

“Oh, eff,” Lucy groaned.

She was wiping blood from her cheeks, which
I guessed came from her ears. I could tell by the lack of ringing
that my ears were already healed.

“It’s the rise of the gremlin stick insects.
Quick, everyone, get out their bug spray and lighters.”

I had to
snort back my laughter, beca
use something
told me that the sheplas did not appreciate Lucy making fun of
them. And we already knew, despite their size, that they packed a
vocal punch.

“Stay behind Cerberus,” Malisna ordered.
“They know we are here now. We have to move fast before they all
emerge. They can’t survive long out of the pits, so we just have to
make it to the next land.”

The race was on.

I couldn’t see what Malisna and Refis were
doing. I had to focus on following Cerberus’ steps and making sure
Lucy and I weren’t ambushed from the side. Trust me when I say
those little spears were lethal.

We would never have made it through without
Cerberus snapping them up with both heads and swiping others away
with his huge paws.

Finally,
after twelve hours – okay it was more like twenty minutes, but it
sure felt like hours – the ground firmed up under
ou
r feet and we moved out of the sheplas’
area.

The little creatures popped up out of their
pits to throw spears and screech, but we were too far away now for
them to reach us.

Lucy collapsed on the ground, her breathing
heavy. She didn’t have the stamina of Walkers or pixies, it
seemed.

“I need to unlock your power.” Malisna knelt
next to her. “You will find the increased strength and stamina
extremely beneficial.”

Lucy was flopping around on the ground like
a fish out of water. She started to speak.

“Yes … I … eff need … hurry … shit,” was her
garbled response.

I burst into laughter. She looked so wrecked
and annoyed. Probably more about the fact we were both covered head
to foot in mud. Even as a child she’d hated being dirty. I narrowed
my eyes; there wasn’t a speck of dirt on Malisna or Refis. Their
green-toned skin shone clean in the bright light. Maybe pixies
repelled dirt; Lucy would love that power.

Eventually when Lucy could stand we started
along another path. This one was on a cliff edge; it was made of
stone and curled around a giant drop-off. Down the bottom looked to
be forests.

“So how will you be unlocking my pixie
side?” Lucy said, still quite red in the face, although her
breathing had calmed.

“My blood will carve through any blocks that
have been instilled, either from your father, or your half-pixie
side.” Malisna again took her hand. She couldn’t stop touching her
daughter. “Full pixies are born with their abilities and they only
increase as they age.”

“What is the life-span of pixies?” I had to
ask. We had thought Lucy was half-First Worlder, which should have
given her the ability to live forever. But she was pixie and
faerie.

“
Pixies are
long-lived but not eternal.” Malisna blinked at me a few times, her
eyes shifting color. “But fa
eries are
forever, unless injury steals their blood or last
breath.”

“So what does that mean for Lucy? What’s her
lifespan?”

“I cannot be totally certain, but I believe
that Lucy should live for at least a thousand pixie years, and she
quite possibly has the eternity of the faerie.”

Lucy let out a whoop. “I’m happy with either
of those. If the Seventine don’t kill us all in the next few
months, I’ll have an eternity with Colt and Abbs.”

“So optimistic,” I said with a laugh.

“Why am I not struggling more without Colt?”
Lucy suddenly burst out. “I saw how hard it was for you to be away
from Brace – and still is – are we not true mates?” Her lips
trembled then, but no tears fell.

I wasn’t
sure what to tell her. The pain of my lost melding bond did seem to
be a little less in here. Maybe the bonds could not really be felt
inside pixie
land.

Refis confirmed my thoughts. “Everything in
here is muted. We have no connection to the outside world.”

“Yes,” Malisna interrupted, “that’s why it’s
so strange that you had visions about where to find us.”

Refis looked unhappy now. He was working his
jaw back and forward in an agitated manner. “Pixies rely on their
families to ensure a good mating match. You’re a princess; we
should have met this Walker.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry, he’s perfect,”
I said, hiding my grin. “He barely ever sheds, only a little in the
summer and he’s house trained and everything.”

Eyebrows drew together on both pixie
faces.

Lucy smacked my arm. “Shut it, Abbs.” She
turned to her brother. “Colt is a wolf-shifting Walker, blond hair,
hundred-pack abs, chiseled jaw; he’s perfect. I’m very lucky, but
thanks for looking out for me.”

As if Lucy would take advice from anyone.
She was as strong willed as they came and her pixie family would be
figuring that out one day very soon. Refis still looked a little
horrified, but I saw Malisna smile.

“Holy shit balls,” Lucy suddenly gasped.
“You said your blood will clear the blocked paths. How exactly does
your blood get inside?” Her eyes were wide as she faced her mother.
Malisna opened her mouth, but Lucy cut her off. “No, don’t tell
me.” She squeezed her eyes closed so tight that her entire face
crinkled up for a moment. “I can’t handle any more gross stuff
while I’m already ass deep in mud.”

Well, it looked as if Lucy had recovered
from her earlier blissed-out awe. She was now back to snarky Earth
girl and I was pretty sure the pixies were missing the reference to
all the slang and cursing she was doing.

The stone path continued to wind around the
cliff, and we seemed to be getting closer to the trees below. Until
finally we were on the edge of some massive, but sparsely spaced
woodlands.

I prepared myself for the sprites, having no
idea what to expect after the pantaponies and sheplas.

“The road to perdition is just through these
trees.” Malisna gestured. Her tone was calm. She didn’t look at all
worried, and I hoped that meant there was not any real danger
here.

Unlike the jungles we’d been in lately, this
forest was not damp, just pleasantly warm. There was not a lot of
undergrowth, so we could move easily and no creatures were visible.
We marched quickly through, from one side to the other. It was
about two miles across and the journey was uneventful. For which I
was thankful.

Malisna turned back when we reached the edge
of the woods. “Always watching, King, thank you for safe
passage.”

Spinning my
own head back, I scanned the area. It took me forever to spot him.
Okay, I didn’t so much spot him as he stepped out into the clear
path. He stood a little taller than Lucy, slender, but with lithe
muscles. He had a crown of roses and brambles atop his head and,
judging by the nature of his leafy attire, I was going to guess
this was the
king of the woodland
sprites.

The male
didn’t acknowledge us. He hadn’t looked away from the pixie
queen for even a moment. Since he wasn’t
watching me, I had free access to gawk. He had brown skin, like
that of freshly turned dirt, and brown eyes. His hair was green,
much lighter than Refis’. He was extremely good looking, like
almost the most perfect features I’d ever seen. Only Brace topped
him in chiseled handsomeness. Although the king was tad feminine
for my liking.

And hot damn … he still had not looked away.
The sprite was in love with Malisna.

The way those two stared at each other
almost had me blushing, and Lucy couldn’t keep the stupid grin off
her face. Refis was the one to break the moment, clearing his
throat.

“We need to keep moving.” He turned away
from the touching scene.

My heart
ached as I watched them, so
much love,
and pain. I recognized both emotions. The familiar agony stabbed at
me like a blunt knife. I wondered why they weren’t
together.

As we turned away, I heard a mournful howl.
When I looked back, the path was empty, but I knew he still watched
us.

We didn’t
speak until we were well clear of the forest, and then Lucy
couldn’t hold it inside any longer. “Please tell me that you’re
planning on letting down your hair and going all free spirit with
that gorgeous
king of the
sprites.”

Malisna’s mouth fell open, but at least some
of the sadness receded from her eyes. “You just say whatever you
think.”

Lucy snorted. “Nope, the scary part is I
censor everything I say.”

I breathed deeply through my nose. That was
definitely the scariest part. Living in Lucy’s head must be an
interesting experience. I wondered how Colton would handle it.

“We are from different worlds; our love can
never be,” was all Malisna would say about the sprite, despite the
badgering from her newly discovered daughter.

Bet she was having thoughts about sending
her back to Earth for a little while. Lucy was tenacious when she
got a hold of something.

After we left the grassy outer area of the
woodlands, the ground started to darken and harden under my feet. I
wrinkled my nose as we walked. An unpleasant scent was irritating
me, and as we moved further along I realized what it was –
sulfur.

Seriously? Could this world get any more
clichéd? The road to perdition, sulfur, Cerberus.

Suddenly the
smell increased and the path we were on shifted beneath us.
Now it resembled something along the lines of a
red brick road, and on either side were burning lava falls of red,
molten embers. The section of path behind us fell away and we had
no choice but to move forward.

“This doesn’t look good.” Lucy shifted
closer to me.

We were both squished into each other in the
center of the path, neither of us wanting to get near the edge.

“This is just a façade to scare those of
weak disposition away,” Malisna said. “The real test is further
along.”

A façade,
what did she mean? I stopped looking with just my eyes and opened
my senses wider to really
see
what was around us. The path
started to get a little hazy. I blinked rapidly a few times.
Another scene flickered in behind the ‘hell road’.

And then, as soon as my brain broke the
first part of the illusion, everything came into focus. The
rotten-egg smell vanished and the true landscape appeared. We were
on a path still, but there were no lava falls. Instead it was a
stone trail with this weird shadowy world on either side.

I must have said something out loud because
Refis grinned at me.

“Walkers were never fooled for long. This is
the road to perdition, or as we call it, the land of illusions,” he
said.

Malisna sighed. “This is why no one
completes this task. You must be strong enough of mind to be able
to see past the many illusions that you will face. Some terrifying,
others heart-breaking.” She halted Lucy. “And you, my daughter,
need to have your pixie side unlocked. You will not stand a chance
otherwise.”

Lucy screwed her face up. “Right … again
with the blood. Should be fun.” Her voice rose in false
cheeriness.

And then, before I could blink, Malisna
ripped a long dagger from somewhere inside her outfit and she
stabbed herself, right in the heart.

My strangled scream never even left my lips
before she turned and stabbed the same dagger into Lucy. The thin,
pointed knife was long enough to enter her chest and burst out of
her back.

I watched in horror, tears and screams
falling from me as Lucy and I locked eyes. I watched as the light
died in my oldest friend’s eyes and she collapsed.

A
black
mist came over my vision and for a
moment there I lost myself. I was no longer Abby. I became as
mindless as the energy exploding from me in one long pulse of
light. The full range of the light spectrum was visible as the
waves curled from me.

It took me a long time to notice that
Cerberus was standing in front of me, blocking most of my attack.
Was he protecting the Queen? That traitorous bitch who’d just
killed her own daughter.

“Abby!” Someone was shouting my name. But I
was too consumed with rage to even take a moment to look for
them.

And then a calm pocket opened inside my
head. The sensation was foreign enough that it paused my expulsion
of energy.

It took me a moment to realize what had
happened … I could feel them, the other half-Walkers. Talina, Fury
and Ria’s energy was familiar, but there were three others I didn’t
recognize. The three unknowns were there briefly, as if I was only
allowed a taste before it was yanked away. I was confused and a
little shocked. Somehow in my heightened craziness I’d found a way
to connect with my half-Walker girls.