The Paladins (24 page)

Gideon

The back of my skull bumps a hard surface, pinpointing the exact location of blunt trauma. I picture my gray matter swelling, cerebral plates pushing maximum capacity until my brain explodes in a fine, pink mist.
Poohft.

How does a person go from zombie apocalypse, to seduction, to the world’s worst hangover? I can’t remember, but pain drills my head so incessantly, I hardly care. My tongue is thick and gummy, lips dry as ash. I’d kill for a drink of water.

My eyelids crack open. The scene blurs and refocuses. While the space is dim, light shines from an opening at the other end of what appears to be a small cave. I shift but can’t move more than an inch or two. My ankles are tied, wrists bound behind my back. My fingers extend against cold, damp stone.

I fist and release my hands to get the blood pumping. No telling what’s happened to Raven by now, I have to get to her.

A foul odor attacks my sinuses. I’ve never snorted dead rat rolled into a dirty diaper, dipped in pus and sardines. If I had, I imagine it would smell like this.

Embers glow from a small stone pit in the center of a dirt floor. Lumps of things stuffed in burlap sacks sit in odd groupings here and there. One jiggles and rolls over, but whatever lurks within stays hidden. I shudder, wondering if it’s causing the stench.

Propped next to me on the same stone bench is Cole. Bound, listless, and out cold.

Fantastic.

I let my eyelids slide shut. Where are you, Rae?

Injured, lost, afraid and hiding somewhere in the woods?

She has to be okay. Every curve of her face is etched in my brain. Her smile when I’m teasing, the flash of her eyes when I’ve pissed her off.
God, I miss the girl
. The memory of her satin lips pressing my cheek threatens my sanity. I’m torturing myself, but can’t stop the flashbacks. Her voice is forever burned into my mind as though she were here. Right now. I feel her hands in my hair, quickening heartbeats, soft breaths in my ear.

If Pan hurts her, I’ll—

You’ll what?

My eyes snap open. Anger kindles in my chest, and I strain against my bonds, but it’s no use. Nothing. I can do nothing.

You let her go, remember?

For her own good.

And look where that got her.

I tell myself to shut the hell up. To help Raven, first Cole and I have to get free.

He snorts and smacks his lips but doesn’t wake.

Yeah.

I’m stuck here with Wonder-Wind Boy, while Raven is God knows where. The Void is a hellhole, nothing but mind games and death traps. What if she’s facing the same trials we are? Did some mythical Greek god try and seduce her; abduct her to a cave like this one? Suddenly, I’m shaking with rage.
I’ll kill him.

Cole’s head slides against the wall and comes to rest on my shoulder. A healthy string of drool glistens on his chin, and he’s snoring like a blender full of nails.

I shrug. “Get off!” Shouting actually hurts less than I feared. My head begins to clear. The ache lessens, if slightly. Still, I lower my voice. “Wake up, Wynter.”

Cole’s head flops forward. A groan escapes from under his greasy, dark hair.

A breeze sends the stink of ammonia wafting from a corner. No sooner do I mumble about this being the perfect spot for a colony of blood-sucking bats, and a cloud of sharp black wings swoop from the ceiling. Their high-pitched keening deafening as they dive.

My heart jolts, pulse goes supersonic as my spine presses the wall, but there’s nowhere to go. Wheeling in unison, the animals head straight for us, consuming Cole and me within their black hive of terror.

Cole wakes, hollering like a deranged Tarzan. Bound and immobile, we’re unable to shield ourselves from the onslaught.

Needle-like claws slash my arms and face. A bat lands on my chest; his nose shrivels exposing small, white teeth. I buck and squirm, but the devil digs in. Using its wings like hands, the bat crawls commando-style over my torso.

I’m not usually one for hysteria, but I’m petrified he’ll head for my junk. Instead, the little bloodsucker hones in on the hole in my shirt. His snout roots at the blood-stained fabric until my wound is exposed.

There’s a nibble, then a sting as his needle-like fangs embed themselves in my flesh. My stomach lurches with my revulsion as the animal feeds on me.

In my panic, I call to the embers in the pit. Fire responds with a golf ball-sized cinder levitating two feet up. Keeping my focus on the widest part of the rodent drinking my blood, fire blasts the target. One screech and the animal darts away leaving the scent of singed fur in its wake.

Blue flame burns the ropes at my wrists and ankles. I feel no pain. It’s a heady feeling, willing fire to do my bidding. Too bad I can’t enjoy the moment.

White smoke billows up, adding to the chaos. A cough rips from my chest. I’m choking when a breeze clears a path around me.
Cole.

I’m done with this cave. Whoever tied us up will be back, and we’re wasting time. Rage burns like the fire I’m controlling. I fight like a madman against the ropes, aiding the flame until the fibers break loose.

A garbled scream sends my already racing pulse toward the checkered flag.

Through the flurry of dusky wings, I spy a bat hanging from Cole’s mouth. How he caught one with his teeth I’ll never know, but like a dog with a sock, Wynter shakes his head before slinging the limp creature to the floor in a heap.

He gets full props. Bat biting is some badass shit, and must send a message, because the rest of the bat cloud retreats to the cavern’s roof.

Cole’s eyes are round, red rimmed, and shining. We’re both blowing like marooned fish. “What the hell?” he pants, shaking the hair from his eyes.

I wish I knew.

Three silhouettes, backlit from the morning sun, enter the cave. Curvy figures hint these are the girls from the meadow.

“Sirens,” Cole whispers.

I search my memory, but can’t recall much about sirens—other than I thought they drowned fishermen at sea. I angle toward Cole, keeping my voice low. “They don’t have fins.”

“Those are mermaids, mate.”

So, I’m not versed in fairy tale trivia. I risk a quick glance at the whispering shadows.

“Can you get loose?” Cole asks.

“Shh.” I keep my wrists and ankles knit together, feigning restraints for our jailors. No sense tipping our hand.

“Hush, sisters, they’re awake.”

Damn.

We’ve barely recovered normal breathing from the bat horde, making my desire to fend off another love-trance right up there with root canal. I’m not confused about who my heart belongs to, but our bondage suggests the girls have something more sinister in mind than forced make-out sessions.

Somewhere in the twenty-foot walk between us and them, a metamorphosis occurs in our captors. Several inches of height disappear and their spines bend. Breasts swell and sag, waists thicken and bulge. Deep lines mar their youthful skin, while three heads of luxurious hair fade and tangle, as if someone rinsed a bright dye job from cheap gray mops.

I’m equal parts disgust and fascination as their long fingers curl to knotted talons at their sides. Eyes blend and sink into one empty, dark hole in the center of each forehead.

“Who has the eye?” one croaks. Faint traces of blond hair distinguish her from her sisters.

“I have it … here in my pocket.” The brunette fishes in her tattered coat and produces a single, naked eyeball. She holds the slimy orb in the air like a trophy.

“Give it here,” says the blond. She swipes blindly for her prize and misses.

“No,” the redhead answers. “My turn, it is.” Grabbing the eye from her sister, she twists it into place in the middle of her face. A milky secretion drips from the socket to her lip, and I smother a gag.

“Who are you?” Cole demands of the three crones before us.

“Can you not guess?” the redhead answers. Her once ruby lips have deepened to an ugly purple, much like two fat worms. “T’was you that called us forth. Woke the Weird Sisters, you did.”

Who is this chick, Yoda?

“Me?” Cole answers. “You’re mad. I did no such … oh, wait.”

“Wait?” I ask.
Wait for what?
My anger redirects to the idiot beside me. If he did call these creepy old hags, I’ll break his little French face. “What’s going on?”

“Weird sisters, weird sisters … ” Cole chants, and I think he’s finally lost it. “You’re the Grey Witches.”

“Careful, sister,” says the blond. “He’s not as stupid as he looks.”

“Hey!”

The redhead nods, smacking her bloated lips.

Revulsion slithers across the membrane of recent memories. I lean aside. “You kissed that, Wynters?”

Cole shifts against his bonds. “So did you.”

I glance from blond to brunette. He’s right. My soul withers a little.

The brunette feels her way around her sister to the forefront. “Enough of this, I’m hungry.”

“Yessss,” the blond answers. “Let’s eat the plump one.”

I hope they mean Cole.

Coincidentally, he starts vibrating beside me. “Get ready,” he whispers, then louder, “and get
the eye
.”

“Right!” Wait, do what?

Cole rattles like the tail of a snake and is gone. Nothing left but a few ropes in the dirt.

He reappears in the midst of the witches, bowling them over like ten pins. The eye is knocked to the floor and rolls under one of the mysterious burlap lumps. Of course it does.

Get the eye!
I’m up, charging ahead.

Witches curse, scrambling to their feet. Lights flash followed by a roll of thunder. I swear a bolt of lightning hits the center of the cave. I suspect the weather connects to the sister’s anger somehow. Or Cole’s.

The brunette follows him. Every time she gets close, he vanishes, reappearing a few feet away. Hissing like a cat in a dark alley, the brunette asks her sisters for help. I’m hopeful they’ll be distracted by Cole’s diversionary tactics, but no dice.

The pair dives for the eyeball. Nimble moves for old ladies, but I’m already there. I plunge my hand under the burlap sack. Damp soil greets my searching fingertips, and the bag squeaks. As I reach further, the damp changes to thick slime. What the hell is this stuff? Maggots, troll snot, frog eggs? Whatever it is, it smells like death. I’ve hit a new level of putrescence.

The witches crawl forward and grab my boots. I toss the bag away and balk. Mice. Thousands of naked, pink mice squirm blindly in a sea of gray mucus, and the witches’ eye sits dead center.

Veins fork over the orb, pulsing up the sides with tiny charges of light. The iris moves as I do, watching me. I swallow my nausea and scoop with my palm.

Searing pain shoots up my calf, and I howl. The redhead’s long yellow teeth embed in my calf. I kick her off, then plant my heel directly in her hooked nose. Cartilage snaps and she wails.

The blond scuttles over her suffering sister with zero compassion and comes after me. Her sideways crawl is crab-like and just as fast. There’s no way to outrun her, and I can’t teleport the way Cole does to escape.

Desperate, I scramble for the fire and suspend their precious eye over the heat. “Get back or I’ll drop it.”

The sisters stop, heads still waggling on their wrinkled necks. They scratch at the air and whine, exposing broken teeth, but no one takes a step. Lightning flashes like a strobe sending off round after round of thunder, but these women don’t scare me anymore. I have something they want.

“Brilliant, Maddox! Good thinking.” Cole materializes beside me. “So, ladies, tell us how we beat Pan.”

I’m lost as to what he’s talking about, and say so.

“Perseus,” he says from the corner of his mouth. Like I should know what the hell that means. “Remember? Professor Arnold told us the story in class. Perseus took the witches’ eye and they did whatever he asked to get it back.”

The redhead licks her lips. “Clever, the lad is.”

The brunette crosses her scabby arms. “Yesss, sister, very clever indeed.”

Cole

The nerves under my skin tingle with anticipation. Later, I will be tired, allow myself to feel scared, or worried. Right now? I’m brassed off and ready to plant the three Weird Sisters six feet underground.

“Clever he may be,” the blond observes, “but, will it save him?” She pauses, head poking up in curious bird fashion. “If we answer your question, you will give us the eye?”

“Of course.” Gideon tosses me the eye.
Blech
. Oh, this is bloody disgusting. Sticky with gooey shite all over it, the thing must have a lot of power for them to want it so badly. I hold the desired object near the pit, ready to be rid of it. The fire flares higher, flames reaching for the eye. Gideon’s theatrics, no doubt, and very effective.

“Do not singe the eye!” the sisters plead. “He mustn’t have it,
nooo
.”

The blond steps nearer. With one hand outstretched, her mouth parts as if she’ll speak.

A sudden flash and lightning explodes in the cave, temporarily blinding me. I whirl, but the blond is on me. Attached to my back, she weighs nothing, and beats my head with both fists like a tyrannical child.