Samhain (Matilda Kavanagh Book 2) (23 page)

I screamed, I writhed, I kicked and clawed, but Tollis continued like a man fighting through the waves of the ocean. I pressed my hands on his body and screamed, “
Exuro exussum
!”

Tollis cursed, nearly losing his grip and dropping me, but he tossed me in the air and caught me. I landed facing him, his snarling face much too close to mine. The smell of burning fur crawled into my nose. The hex should have done more than burn a hole in his clothing. It should have melted his skin or engulfed him in rolling flames, but his stupid Were skin was so thick, it protected him, and I was still too drained.

“You bitch,” Tollis bit off the insult, baring his teeth at me. They were no longer flat and straight, but long and sharp, ill-fitting in his mouth.

I glared at him. Any fear I’d had was burned out, chased away by my anger and my mother’s words. I wasn’t going to go along quietly. I wasn’t just going to be led to my death like a sheep to slaughter. I would fight and fight until I couldn’t lift my hands, and then I would fight until I couldn’t speak. I would fight until nothing was left of me.

“
Exuro exussum
!” I screamed again, willing the wildfire to burn through me and into him. Smoke rose between our bodies, and I felt the heat of the hex burn me, looking for anything to latch onto, but I didn’t care.

Tollis growled, snapping his jaws too close to my face as he squirmed against the pain of the hex. “Stop it, damnit!”

I almost couldn’t understand him, his words were so muffled by his misshapen mouth as he fought the change. But I didn’t stop. I bucked against him until I got one arm free, and I clawed at his face. When my fingers touched his face, I screamed the hex again, leaving a trail of four red marks.

My vision went soft at the edges as pain lanced through my head. I had used up so much power when I killed that beast, and now I was fighting with all my power, willing more and more magic through me. It was too much. I had to get away from Tollis before I blacked out.

I struck at him again and again, screaming the incantation, until the left side of his face was a ruin of red. Tollis howled, throwing his head back as he fought the change. I felt the claws forming on his hands, pressing into my back and threatening to pierce me. Just as I was about to hit him again, he let me go.

Tollis hurled me through the air with a growl so angry, it raised the hairs on my arms. I flew and hit the ground hard enough to make stars burst in front of my eyes. Pain went through my shoulder where it struck the ground, but I was free. I scrambled to my feet and ran back toward the festival. I heard Tollis behind me, grunting in pain and frustration. He was desperate to keep from shifting into his wolf form, but with the pain and anger raging through him and the pull of the moon above him, he was fighting a losing battle.

Just like a deer knows when the hunter is right behind her, I knew instinctively when Tollis started to run after me. I forced my legs to go faster. I willed my body forward while I fought the creeping black at the edge of my vision. I would not pass out when I was so close to getting away.

“
Labefacio labefeci labefactum
,” I called and felt the ground respond to my spell. It shook and rolled, and I hurried to get away before I lost my footing.

The ground shook harder until cracks appeared. I risked a glance over my shoulder. Tollis was gaining on me. The rolling ground did nothing to deter him. When the earth split, he merely dodged to one side and continued. I knew he would catch me even before he barreled into me. We hit the ground in a mass of tangled limbs. His claws raked at my side, finding the skin under my sweatshirt.

A wild scream ripped from my throat as my skin opened under his claws. Blood ran down my side, soaking into my jeans. It was so hard to breathe. Too hard. I was on my back, looking into the night sky. The stars that had been so bright were winking out of existence. I pressed my hands to my side, my fingers becoming slick with blood.

“
Sano curatio salveo
,” I whispered, pressing into the wound. Pain lanced through me, and my vision failed me for a moment. Warmth spread through me, but my lungs were burning with the effort to breathe. The last thing I saw before everything went black was Tollis’s contorted face looming over me.

***

It wasn’t long before I came to. I was bent over Tollis’s shoulder as he carried me. I knew I hadn’t been unconscious for long, because I could still hear the screams of the ruined festival, and when I craned my head up, I saw the dimming lights. The ground beneath me wasn’t broken. Tollis had managed to cover the ground he’d lost when I went running.

His shoulder felt wider under me, and I thought I was farther from the ground than his five-foot-nine should be. I blinked, trying to focus my vision, and I realized Tollis wasn’t wearing shoes. His feet looked misshapen, each toe tipped with a menacing claw. His arm tightened around me, pinching my arms against my side, as he shifted my weight. He had to be in that creepy half-man, half-wolf phase for his arm to be long enough to wrap around my arms and body. A groan escaped me when I tried to wriggle out of his grasp, the still-healing wound at my side protesting the movement.

It took me a moment to realize we’d passed two wagons butted up against each other. When I lifted my head, I saw that we were in the center of a ring of wagons, just like the ones I had seen at the encampment. But this place was quiet, eerily quiet. I didn’t have to wonder where all the people were.

We lifted off the ground in a halting motion, then I heard a door squeak in protest as it opened. I was sliding off of Tollis’s shoulder, but before my feet touched the ground, he grabbed me and threw me. I didn’t even have time to scream before I struck the far wall. White light burst in front of my eyes, and my side burned in agony.

When I tried to get to my feet, things fell on me: books, pillows, a broken shelf. Perfume so strong it was like a punch in the face filled the small room, making me cough. Pain lanced through my side again, and I whimpered, wrapping my arms around my waist.

“
Sano curatio salveo,
” I whispered with my eyes squeezed shut. I focused all my attention on the pain emanating from my center. A cool wave of healing power washed through me, taking the edge off the pain, but it wasn’t enough to make it go completely away. I was just too drained. What I wouldn’t give for one of my healing potions.

“Enough,” Tollis barked.

I shoved a pillow and silk scarf off my head so that I could see him. I regretted that immediately. Tollis was a horror show. The bones of his face were moving under his skin, like liquid ready to boil over the edge of a pot. His teeth pressed at his lips, forcing him to keep his mouth open or rip through his skin. His eyes glowed yellow in the dim light of the wagon, and his hands were misshapen and clawed, held out in front of him like loaded guns meant to keep me in line. He was hunched over, the ceiling too low for his now-too-tall frame. Drool slid along his jaw and dripped slowly to the floor, making my stomach flip.

I turned my face so I wasn’t looking right at him, but could still see him, and I struggled to extricate myself from the mass of fallen and broken things. “What’s the plan here, Tollis?” My voice was strained with pain and exhaustion. When I got my feet under me, I braced my back against the back wall.

“Is this the part where I tell you all of my dastardly plans?” Tollis’s voice was as unrecognizable as mine.

I nodded. “Yeah, it is. So go ahead, tell me how you bested everyone and what you’re planning on doing now.”

“I know you think I’m stupid,” Tollis growled, “but I’m not.”

I bit my tongue, telling myself to keep my comments to myself. Tollis was on the edge of losing control. If he shifted fully, I was the only sack of meat around, and no amount of magic would save me.

“I don’t think you’re stupid.” I looked Tollis in the eye then, let him see the truth in my words. The stench of the perfume was too strong for him to smell the truth on me. “I think you’re misinformed, possibly naïve, but not stupid.”

“You’re the one who is misinformed and naïve.”

I wanted to add “immature” to my list. “Fine.” I held up my hands in defeat. “Whatever, guy. Whatever you’re planning, whatever you’re doing out there at the festival, has nothing to do with me. Let me go.”

“It has everything to do with you.”

“How?”

“It has everything to do with every single supernatural citizen out there.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“You’re all sheep. We’re more powerful than any human, and yet you all bend to their wills. We have had enough. It is our time now.”

“This crap again?”

“Yes!” Tollis snapped his jaw, his head flipping from side to side as the muscles and veins bulged in his neck.

If I kept pushing his buttons, he would lose control. I slowed my breathing and went as still as possible, waiting for him to calm down.

“You all just go along with what they want, and now we’re slaves in this society,” he growled.

“Tollis, that’s not true.” I tried to keep my voice low and even.

“You’re too blind to see it. Have you ever been collared?” Tollis waited, and I realized he wasn’t asking a rhetorical question. I shook my head, and he gripped the collar of his shirt and pulled it aside to expose an angry red scar that circled his neck. “I have.”

When supernaturals came out into the open, letting humans know that all their fairytales were true and horror-story monsters were real, they kind of freaked out. To make the transition easier, many laws were put into place to regulate our behavior and our interactions with humans. It was all very expected, but the humans didn’t realize that their forms of restraint did little against most of us. Handcuffs were useless against the stronger creatures, and zip ties were a joke for most of us. If we didn’t have the brute strength to overcome the restraints, then we probably had magical abilities.

So the humans had to come up with something that would negate magic, power, and supernatural strength. A small coven of witches, hired by the government, developed collars. They were locking metal collars that were put around a prisoner’s neck, and the metal was enchanted to negate any supernatural ability the prisoner might have. It was both barbaric and understandable, depending on what side of the fence you landed. But I had never actually known anyone who had been collared. The very threat of it was usually enough to stop someone from doing whatever they were doing to get the cops called on them.

“This is what they do to us,” Tollis said as he tugged his shirt back into place, hiding the scar.

I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept my mouth shut.

“Things will only get worse if we let the humans continue to remain in power,” he said.

“So unleashing werewolves affected by Moon Madness on the city is the way to fix things? Do you really think slaughtering hundreds of people will get anyone on your side?”

“They need to see our power.”

“This isn’t our power, Tollis. They need to see that we aren’t different than them. That’s what we’ve all been working toward for the last seventy years, and what you’re doing is ruining all of that. Don’t you see that?”

“But we are different,” Tollis said. The bones in his face had stopped moving, and he didn’t seem quite as tall. “We are better.”

“We’re all just people.”

“No, we’re not.”

“And why kill us? If you want us to rise up, what are you doing out there?” I pointed in the general direction of the park, feeling a spark of anger ignite inside me. A tingling sensation ran up my arm, and I had to fight to control the beat of my heart. I didn’t want Tollis to realize something had healed inside me.

“Because you all are kowtowing to societal rule. We have to thin the herd.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snapped. Power pressed at my fingers, aching to be released. “You want to start a revolution, so your first order of business is to kill half the supernatural population of Brighthaven? Are you mental?”

“No.” Tollis’s voice was low and dangerous. I heard fabric tearing slowly. Tollis was taller again, his shoulders almost touching the ceiling. “My first order of business was to lure Jameson out of his hiding place.”

“What?”

“When Jameson hears about what we’ve done here, he’ll come running to save the day and his own hide. And when he finds out you’ve gone missing…” Tollis’s words hung in the air as he smiled at me. But it was an ugly effort of bearing his fangs at me.

Anger arched through me, fueling my kinetic power. I couldn’t even feel the pain in my side anymore. I balled my fists at my side, electricity snapping around my hands and pressing at my skin. It zipped back and forth through me until I could even feel it behind my eyes.

Screams in the distance, muffled by the walls of the wagon, grew louder. Tollis twitched. He wanted to turn toward the sounds, as if he could see them through the walls, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off of me.

A loud crash outside startled both of us. Tollis took half a step back toward the door before he caught himself. Howls cut through the screams, and Tollis’s lips pulled into a sneer that I think was supposed to be a smile. I shook my head, but before I could say anything, the howl was cut short. Someone barked, then whined in pain before the noise cut off abruptly, sending a chill down my back.

“I believe Mr. McKendrick has arrived.” Tollis stepped toward me, breaking something underfoot.

I pressed myself into the wall, willing it to open and let me fall through to safety, but of course, it didn’t. My body vibrated with power until I thought my skin would rip.

“I wonder just how important you are to ol’ Jameson.” Tollis reached for me, his clawed hands getting too close.

“I’m not, damnit. For the love of toads, I am not important to him!”

“We’ll see about that.”

But we didn’t. Just then, the door of the wagon was ripped from the hinges in a shattering of splinters, and the night air rushed in, whipping out the cloying perfume. Fletcher’s frame filled the door. The perfume had been so strong that Tollis hadn’t smelled him coming. My heart thudded, as if remembering how to beat again, when I saw him. I wasn’t alone.