The Paladins (19 page)

Cole

Tied into my makeshift hammock on a tree limb, I can’t help listening to Rae and Gideon’s post break-up spat.
Right.
Okay, maybe I can help it. I’m only half-ashamed to admit my curiosity to know what killed their relationship rivals a forensic coroner with a dead guy on the slab. After a few minutes, I have new insight on the couple-drama happening below. In fact, I’m about to pull an optic muscle with all the eye rolling I’m doing.

A knot in the branch digs into my spine. I shift to my side, and just that fast, I’m sucked into another dream state. The lull is so powerful, not even a good fight keeps me awake. As I enter the mysterious space holding Rose captive, I no longer fight against it.

The turret room materializes, solidifies. Moonlight streams in through the window. Dim candlelight glows on the table by the bed.

I’ve barely taken a breath before the lovely blond is in my arms. Rose is instantly corporal. I reject the idea she’s holding me for any other reason than to feel the weight of her own body.

“I’ve missed you so much, Cole.”

Okay, until she says that. There’s no guile in her. No games or coy talk. Just, “I missed you.” My arms cinch around her frail shoulders. Her cheek nuzzles my chest making me feel strong and needed.

“I said I’d be back.”

She takes my hand and gives a tug, leading me to the open window. Without releasing my hand, she presses her thighs against the cool stone and leans out to gaze at the courtyard and surrounding labyrinth. “He was here again today: Pan.” The name slithers though my mind like a curling viper. How often does he come to see her, and why? “He knows you’re coming for me. Be careful, Cole. He’s planning something bad.”

“Define
bad
.”

“I can’t.” She shakes her head. “I mean, I don’t know, maybe a trap.” She shivers and I squeeze her hand.

“We expected a fight, but thank you for warning us.”

Her smile is quick before fading to a frown. “Don’t thank me. I’m not a good person.”

“Of course you are. Why would you say that?”

“Because I’m turning out just like my uncle. I swore I wouldn’t, but I am.” Her eyes continue scanning the courtyard as though she’s lost someone.

She’s different tonight, distracted and pensive. My finger slides beneath her chin, and I force her gaze up. “I’m sorry, Rose, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You always call me Rose now. I like it.”

Her comment is deflection 101. Used it myself, which is why she won’t get away with a non-answer. “Why don’t you think you’re a good person? What happened with your uncle?”

When she bites her pale peach lips, I realize I’m staring like a perv.
Focus, Cole.

“Talk to me.”

“I’m here because my uncle wanted Pan to rig a big game he had going in Las Vegas. Poker.”

“He lost?” I ask, but I already know what she’ll say, and my stomach sinks.

“Yes, and no. More like
I
lost.” Her features harden with a look I’ve not seen before. “Pan used magic to ensure my uncle won. In return, Pan asked for a percentage of the winnings. His
treasure
.” But my uncle was sick, he couldn’t stop gambling. He lost everything he’d won the following day. Pan took me instead, and I wound up here.”

“Which was likely his plan all along.” I surmise.

“Exactly. See that mirror on the wall?” When she releases me to point, her feet disappear in a white mist. I touch the fabric of her gown and bring them back. “Pan’s enchanted other mirrors in different places that connect to the labyrinth. He left that one here on purpose. So my uncle could see into my jail and suffer with what his choices had done to me. He fell into a deep depression, before he hanged himself.”

“That must have been—”

She waves me off. “Ask me how I know.” Her tone’s sharper than the ragged edge of a broken bottle.

There’s no need to ask her anything. I know she watched her uncle kill himself through the looking glass. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.” The anger dies from her voice leaving it tired sounding instead. Lines mar her smooth skin. Her pain is pure and authentic. Listening to her story feels like spying, even though she invited me in. “I can’t bring him back, but I don’t want to die never having lived.”

At the catch in her voice, I reach for her but she tears herself away. Fully ethereal, she hovers at the window, facing the garden again.

“That’s why I’m bad. I wanted my life back so much; I risked you and your friends for the slightest chance.” Her fingers play with her hair. “It’s hopeless. No one beats the magician. And you’ll hate me, and I’m sorry, and I wish I could take it all back, because you’ll be stuck here. I don’t want you of all people to hate me.”

Why me of all people?
But that’s not what comes out. “I could never hate you.” I asked Raven to risk as much a year ago myself. “We’re not as different as you might think.”

Silver-blond hair stirs with the faint breeze, and a strand floats over her eyes. The silence between us stretches, yet I’ve never felt closer to anyone. My body leans in. I’m going to kiss her. She lifts her face like she’ll let me. We barely know each other, but I don’t care.

A hiss brings me up short. I glance out the window, and in the yard, dozens of glowing orbs gleam like animal eyes watching from the forest.

Never mind the kissing now. “What the hell are those?”

“The Draugar,” she whispers. “I knew he—”

“What’s a Draugar?”

“The undead that roam these woods.”

I stare as though she slapped me. “Vampires?”

“Zombies.”

“Impossible.”

“Except it isn’t. My grandmother told stories. Old Nordic women used to threaten us kids into good behavior with scary fables about black monsters who ate naughty children. The legend says they are mound dwellers, shape shifters. Ones who walk after death. The stuff of nightmares, but in this place, our worst fears become real.”

She’s right. The eyes in the forest grow brighter. Skulking, black shapes draw near the tower. “What do we do? How do we kill them?” I’m yelling my head off. Not that I’m blaming her, of course, but damn, zombies?

“You don’t.” Her little hands clutch my chest. “Cutting their heads off will slow them down for a while.” I stumble back, as her silver eyes latch onto mine. “They aren’t fast, but they don’t stop. You have to get out of here. Go! Save yourself. Warn your friends … ”

“Cole, wake up. Can you hear me?”

Though I’m still inside the turret, Raven’s urgent call penetrates the stones themselves. “Rae?” My head swivels. “Where are you?”

“Oh for crying out loud, will you just wake up? We have to get out of here!”

“Out of where? What the hell?”

Rose ignores my crazy conversation with an invisible Raven, choosing to shout at the ceiling instead. “Pan, don’t hurt him, please. I’m begging you, anything but this. Leave them alone.”

I throw my hands up. Torn between two worlds, it’s obvious something scary is also happening on Raven’s side of my trance, but I’ve no idea what. Voices blend, each shouting their own agenda until I can’t tell who’s speaking to whom.

The room blurs and it no longer matters. I spin out of time and function. The turret disappears. Rose is gone. And I wake in the tree where my night started.

Raven’s fingers bite my shoulders. “For the love of Pete!” She gives me a good shake. “Wake up before those
things
get us.”

“What things?” My eyes blink open.

Rae balances her weight on the thick limb at my head while Gideon squats at my feet.

“Those,” he answers, pointing to the clearing below.

Yellow lights shine from the surrounding wood, filling my stomach with sick dread. I have no idea how they got here so fast, but the zombies I’d seen from Rose’s tower now plod toward our campsite.

I sit up too fast and lose my balance. Arms flailing, my hand knocks Raven over, while my feet sweep Gideon’s boots. He swears an oath, and then we’re falling. Wind whistles past my head, Rae and Gideon alongside me.

On instinct, my hands fly out. Wind might cushion our fall, but in my panic, I send mixed signals to the east and northern currents with no time to correct my mistake.

I land so hard, it’s a miracle I can still breathe. If I’m going to wield air for our benefit, I’ll need to be faster. A lot faster.

Maddox groans and staggers to his feet in a very un-Gideon-like manner. I don’t see his cane until Rae steps from behind me and hands it to him. He grasps the handle, planting the other end in the dirt. One arm wraps his waist. He curses again, raising his gaze. “Is everyone okay?” It strikes me we should be asking him that question.

“I think so.” Raven says, rubbing her dirty shoulder.

The hissing grows louder. Pale yellow lights move closer on all sides, and I guess the Draugar are roughly forty meters away.

Gideon steps forward, leaning heavily on his cane. “What’s out there?”

“Zombies,” I say, forcing my feet under me. My legs shake, but I’m up. “Saw them from Rose’s window.”

“Wait, what?” Raven winces. “Real, brain-eating zombies?”

“I don’t know about the brain-eating part, but yeah.”

“God help us.”

“What do we do?” Gideon’s asks. Moments of indecision feel like hours. Through the shadows, a few misshapen silhouettes threaten the clearing.

“Their heads have to come off.” Nerves tingle down my arms. Wind sweeps the leaves around in gusts. Unfortunately, it’s an involuntary response to my fear and not a sign of my controlling anything. “Or we can run. Personally, I vote we run.”

Gideon grabs Raven’s arm and sends her barreling into my chest, followed by her backpack. “Split up. Take Raven with you.”

Her headshake is vehement. “No, we stick together.”

Gideon jogs the opposite direction, his limp definitely more pronounced. That’s when I see the blood spreading on his T-shirt under his arm.

“You’re hurt?” Rae asks this as though her eyesight is lying.

Instead of answering, Gideon stares me down. I get it. There’s no time to debate with her.

The first Draugar enter the clearing. Moonlight washes the dark monsters blue. The non-humans are tall and emaciated. No flesh, just shriveled leather stretched over bone. Each mouth is a flapping black hole, their teeth clack in a terrible, steady rhythm.

And they keep coming.

“He’s bleeding.” Raven wrestles free of my grip. “We need to stay together.”

“No!” Gideon and I yell at once. More zombies lurch from the forest cutting us off.

We’re running, within view of each other at first, but after a few minutes of dodging trees and monsters—more popping up at every turn—the landscape and zombies force us farther and farther apart.

A mad giggle echoes from the treetops.

“Pan, please don’t!” Rose’s ethereal voice floats through the wood followed by a sinister laugh. I spin, watching for a flash of silver, but see nothing.

“Dry your tears, Rosamond angel, delicious though they are. I’m only having a bit of fun with our new guests.”

“Don’t do this.” Rose’s desperate pleading leaves me gutted. “This is my fault. Please don’t punish them with my nightmares.”

“What’s her fault?” Gideon yells from somewhere in the black.

Pan ignores him, continuing the eerie disembodied discussion. “If you won’t share your night terrors, sweet Rosamond, I’ll simply have to improvise.”

A woman sobs, volume increasing until her weeping rolls like thunder overhead. I cover my ears but still hear
Pan’s cruel mimic. “Oh, boohoo. Please don’t hurt them.”

I grind my teeth to shut out the noise. His voice is so loud my ears may bleed.

“Keep going, children.” Pan’s laughter twines with the hissing Draugar. “Run for your lives. Since our dearest Rosamond is unwilling to share, feed us with your fear. Face the terrors within.”

Whatever Pan is threatening, there’s no time to ask. As more zombies break from the tree line, I zigzag around saplings and bushes.

Raven calls and I answer. At least I think it’s her, she’s too far ahead to see. Roots snag my bootlaces. Branches scratch my arms and face as I tear through the underbrush.

My foot sinks ankle deep in mud. Hissing follows a hair’s breadth behind. Always advancing. Gaining. I’m sure I catch a glimpse of Gideon as he fades into the murky shadows ahead. Freeing my boot from the muck, I startle, imagining the twig brushing my shoulder is the rotting claw of a zombie. Every thud and bump echoing in the night becomes a monster’s footstep announcing my doom.

I run until hard clay softens to swamp, and tall leafless trees surround me. Stripped of bark, they glow white in the moonlight, their knotted roots still stab at the saturated ground that drowned them long ago. My tread slips in the damp, the earth sucking with moisture and slowing my pace. “Rae? Gideon? Where are you?”

No answer.

Another misstep has me tripping over a taut vine. I stumble, splashing down hands and knees into a foot of dank water. “Bloody horror show, isn’t it?” I whisper to no one. Vines litter the swamp. They float across the bog dotted with big purple blooms. Several flowers spring open when jostled. With each move I make, more petals unfurl, the flowers, one by one, shuddering and sifting open along the cluster of vines I’ve disturbed. All at once, yellow pistils secrete a cloudy mist that fills the air.

“Bollocks.” This can’t be good. Plus, I’m talking to myself.

My eyes sting and tear. I hate on the flowers. Curse the dust in my nose, because I’m choking on it. I’m too loud, but can’t stop. The flowers blow more powder, and I hack and wheeze, waiting for the next coughing fit to produce a lung.

A hiss goes off in my ear. Shudders crawl under my skin as I twist away. I’m up and jogging, but my boots lose traction on the boggy leaves sending my feet flying out from under me yet again. I land hard on my back. Peering into the canopy of crippled tree branches, a single Draugar is here, looming overhead, arms outstretched. I scuttle away, palms and feet to the ground like a hermit crab. My shoulders smack the broad trunk of a tree, and I can go no further.

Misshapen legs shuffle toward me. He’s on me in seconds, and when the zombie clamps his dry, rotting fingers around my neck, my airway closes. Rough bark digs and scrapes my spine as I grapple with the stony bones at my throat. The eyes are nothing but gouged-out holes that go on forever. Desperate to free myself, I kick both feet up, but instead of throwing him off, my boots punch straight through his sunken chest. The laces snag somewhere inside his ribcage.