Chapter 43

-Chase-

I could see the first hints of sunlight in the horizon when we parked our cars as close to Humble’s Ravine as we could. Ben’s van and Frank’s bucket of a car were filled to the brim with weapons and other equipment we could possibly need, but I still wasn’t sure if it was enough. Even though ogres were not as tough as the creatures in the Death Zone of Njizrski, it was still wise not to underestimate them.

We unloaded the cars in silence, constantly peering over our shoulders. The silent forest around us was still pitch-black, making me more nervous than I cared to admit.

I peered at Dante when I grabbed my bag from the backseat. His attention was on the forest as well, and I was so goddamn happy of his super senses at that moment. Ogres were smart hunters, and they knew their territory. We, on the other hand, had arrived with two noisy cars, plowing our way through the almost nonexistent road just because ogres were smart enough to protect their lands from magic, making teleportation impossible.

We could only hope we were still far enough from their territory, and they hadn’t noticed us coming.

I walked up to Dante and placed my hand on his arm to gain his attention. He shifted a little, turning to look at me without saying a word. I reached into my bag and pulled out a leather pouch.

“Here,” I whispered.

I didn’t let go of the pouch when he wrapped his hand around it. Instead, I pulled him closer and got up on my toes to kiss him. His kiss wasn’t enthusiastic, nor particularly loving either, but I couldn’t blame him. His thoughts were on the pouch we were holding.

“Don’t use it unless absolutely necessary,” I reminded him, finally letting go of it.

He nodded and opened the pouch, peering at the adrenalin shot. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he muttered, shaking himself a little as he closed the pouch. “I still can’t stand needles…”

“I know,” I murmured, touching his cheek.

I wished I could’ve forced him to stay at home, but this mission was important to him. I wasn’t quite sure why we were here, fixing a situation that wasn’t ours to fix, but if it was important to him, it was important to me.

I turned to look at the pixie trio that had demanded to come with us. Bon, Chels and Chari were fiddling with the earpiece that was supposed to help us locate the Eavesrock. Ben, Frank and Gus were following Zane’s order while unpacking his guns with Eru at their feet.

But the last member of our group was again being conspicuously absent.

I stepped away from the others, pretending to be getting something from the van.

“Roe?” I muttered quietly once I was out of the view.

“This is complete waste of time, you know that, right?” he asked inside my head.

“And you know why we’re doing this,” I said quietly. “Dante needs this.”

“Hmph… Tell him to be a hero another day.”

“Roe.”

“What? As if we’re not in a hurry to save his life or anything, but fine. Let the boy be a hero…”

“We just need to find the rock, then we’re out of here,” I told him sternly.

“Hmph… Helping pixies of all things…”

“You’ll just have to live with it,” I told him. “Pixies are good people.”

“I’d be more inclined to help them if they were bad people,” Roe said with a snort. “Using their magic on nonsense… They’re wasting their mridi on turning rocks into spies, for crying out loud!”

“Not the time, nor the place,” I told him sternly. “Where are you?”

“Far enough to protect my ears from their screeching noises,” he said with a sour voice. “I haven’t spotted a single ogre yet, so you should be safe. You better get moving before I get bored.”

I could feel his presence fading, so I didn’t bother with an answer. I grabbed a random box and brought it with me when I joined the others. Dante raised his eyebrow at me. I knew he’d heard me talk with Roe.

“No ogres around,” I told them without elaborating on how I knew that – pixies and demons got along just as well as cats and dogs. “But we need to get moving. The sun is rising.”

While the rest of them grabbed our stuff, I stopped to draw the coordinate runes so we could find a place where portals worked and teleport back to the cars once we had the stone. After I was done, we started making our way through the forest, trying to be as quiet as possible. It wasn’t easy in the darkness. Every time someone snapped a branch or accidentally kicked a rock flying down the path, my heart skipped a beat. I didn’t like being so skittish, but I’d heard stories… Gruesome stories of people getting their skulls bashed in before they even realized they were under attack.

Actually, I preferred the monsters in Njizrski, after all. At least I could hear them coming. Ogres were smarter than that, and now I couldn’t even use my magic. I tried, but failed miserably.

The sun was up by the time we reached their territory. It was fairly easy to determine where their land started.

“Is that a…?”

“A totem made of bones.”

I stopped to stare at the ten-feet-tall structure. Most of the bones belonged to animals, glued together by clay, but there were three human skulls in it as well. The totem was crudely made, the bones placed in no particular order, but the message was still clear: run or die.

“Well then, we must be close,” Frank said, turning his back on the totem.

“Yes,” Gus nodded. “I remember walking past this.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t that one?” Frank grunted, pointing on our left. There was another totem. And a third one in the distance.

“I… uh…” Gus stammered, scratching his head. “I’m not sure… The all look the same.”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Bon said, eyeing at the closest totem timidly. “Once we get close enough, the earpiece should connect with the rock and we can just follow the signal.”

“Should?” I repeated.

“If the rock is still alive, but don’t worry, it should still be fine be,” Bon said, but not nearly as reassuringly as I’d hoped.

“We better keep going,” Zane said, squinting his eyes at the trees around us.

I nodded and waited for Dante, who was still staring at the totem while the rest kept going. I stepped next to him and touched his hand.

“Everything all right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Let’s just find that rock…”

“Sure,” I said, and took one last glance at the bones.

One of the skulls stared at me with unseeing eyes. To me, it was just a skull, but I could tell Dante was more affected by it. He wasn’t a killer, but the beast in him was, and that had to be gnawing on his sanity. Seeing death used to affect me as well…

“As I said not that long ago,” Roe spoke in my mind, “it only gets easier. Dante is still determined to keep his conscious clean, but you are already free from that nonsense.”

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. He obviously felt that since he laughed menacingly at my reaction.

“How long do you think you can keep your secret from him, hmm? How long will it take until he finds out his ex is dead? Are you still going to pretend it wasn’t you who killed her?”

I took a careful look at Dante. Determination was written all over his face as he stared in front of us.

“We are here only because he wants to use the beast for good. He needs to prove himself he is not a monster, even though he carries one with him,” Roe continued. “But he’s dating a murderer.”

I really wanted to yell at him to get the fuck out of my head. This was not the time for lectures!

“Don’t mind me, I’m just bored,” Roe sighed. “But you know you can’t keep lying to him. He will find out what you’ve done, and that will get messy.”

I hated him for being right. Lies never lead to anything good, but Dante was better off not knowing. At least for now. I would find a way to tell him about what I had done once he was cured.

I pushed those thoughts out of my head and focused on our surroundings. It was eerily quiet, but I trusted Dante and Eru’s senses. We all kept a close eye on the trees and bushes as we walked deeper into the ogre territory, but none of us spotted anything out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until much later when we spotted the first footprints.

“This is it,” Frank muttered after taking a closer look at the hole in the ground. “Any sign of that rock?”

“Nothing yet,” Bon muttered, shaking the earpiece a little before putting it on. “Just static… We need to get closer.”

“Any idea which way it could be?” Frank asked Gus, who was turning around, clearly trying to remember the surroundings.

“I think I was close to that hill,” he said, pointing ahead of us. “The ravine should be right next to it.”

“Aight,” Frank grunted, and we continued walking.

“They better be asleep…” Cheri whispered, and I agreed – knowing I was unable to use my magic was driving me crazy.

I peered at the pixies. They really shouldn’t be there, but they had insisted on coming with us. We formed a big crowd, and this mission required stealth. The forest was thick and hid us well, but we were still making too much noise. If even one of them spotted us…

“You’re getting close to their village,” Roe warned me, and I stopped.

The rest of them stopped too and turned to look at me.

“We’re…” I paused for a moment, knowing I had to reveal Roe was with us now, “We’re getting close to their village.”

“How do you know that?” Bon was the first to ask – my non-pixie companions already knew how.

“My master is ahead of us,” I mumbled.

“Your… Master,” Bon repeated, nodding slowly. “Of course, you have one…”

“Not the time, nor the place,” I said pretty harshly and pushed past the group to take the lead. “Come on – we have to get past the village quickly.”

And that was a nerve-wrecking task. We couldn’t see the village as we tried to go around it, staying as far away as we could. Roe acted as our eyes and told us where to go to avoid the clay huts ogres used as homes. The pixies were giving me the stink-eye every time I talked, but I ignored them.

We were almost halfway past the village, when Roe suddenly told us to stop and hide.

“Not all of them are asleep,” he said with a dark voice. “There are guards just ahead of you.”

“You could’ve told me that sooner!” I whispered.

“It’s not easy to spot them all,” he replied. “Stay still.”

I didn’t reply to him. Dante carefully crouched next to me, sniffing the air. He must’ve found their scent since he wrinkled his nose and turned to look at me.

“Now I know their scent,” he muttered.

“Good.”

Soon, Roe gave us permission to continue. I hesitated for a moment, before gesturing at the others to follow me. Five minutes later, we had to stop again.

“They have too many guards,” Frank muttered.

“We’re fine,” I whispered back. “Just stay calm and be quiet.”

I didn’t have to tell him twice. Once we were able to move again, no one uttered a word, not until the village was finally past us.

And the ravine in front of us.

“We got a signal!”

I turned to look at the old pixie. He had an excited look on his face as he pressed the earpiece against his ear. I didn’t have to ask for the direction since he was already pointing at somewhere in the distance, a little to our left.

“Quickly and quietly,” I whispered, waving my hand.

Bon came to walk next to me, listening to the signal with a focused expression on his face. Apparently, the signal wasn’t that easy to follow since Bon had to stop a few times to find the right way to go, though our general direction seemed to be correct.

Finally, we reached the edge of the ravine, but we didn’t leave the safety of the trees in case there were ogres around. The ravine was deeper than I thought, and the rocky walls were as vertical as walls could get, the ground simply vanishing behind the edge. There was no way of surviving the fall if we lost our footing.

But to my relief, I could finally use my magic, and that gave me more comfort than I could’ve thought.

“This way,” Bon whispered.

“It better be on this side of the ravine,” Frank grunted quietly, glancing at Gus.

“It is. It’s towards that hill. It was dark, but I remember that hill,” he whispered back, pointing at the hill that was – thankfully – on the same side we were.

Frank nodded and turned to look where he was going, but I kept an eye on Gus. He was looking around just like the rest of us, but while we were giving nervous glances at the trees, he was mostly looking down at the bottom of the ravine.

He never did get his hands on that vampire treasure…

“Ah, you finally figured it out,” Roe chuckled in my head. “He’s not here to find the stone.”

I tried to hide my disgust towards Gus, but I had the feeling I was failing at it. I smothered the sudden urge to push that weasel of a man off the edge. If he was going to betray us or make this job more difficult than it already was, I would not hesitate to act on that urge.

“We’re getting close,” Bon murmured, trying to hurry his step, but Frank grabbed him by his arm.

“We need to stay quiet,” he reminded the old pixie.

“Or I could fly while you wait here,” Bon suggested. “It’s really close now – I’ll just go grab it quickly.”

Frank turned to me with a questioning look on his face.

“Roe?” I mumbled.

“Can’t see anyone nearby. I’m afraid you’ll have to get out of the forest and take the risk of getting noticed if someone is watching,” he told me. “Perhaps it is for the best if the pixie goes alone.”

“Let’s continue until we reach the last trees,” I told the rest. “Then we’ll decide.”

They agreed.

It didn’t take us long to reach the last trees. We stopped and hid behind the spruces to take a closer look at the open ground and the hill in front of us. This side of the hill had partially collapsed into the ravine, making the ground dangerously uneven.

And it was filled with thousands of tiny rocks.

“Great…” I sighed. “How are we supposed to find the rock?”

“It… should be easy,” Bon said, but the whole pixie group looked unsure about it.

“Flying does seem like the best option,” Frank muttered, peering at the unsteady rocks that could easily toss us into the ravine if they started moving under our feet.

“Roe?”

“Still nothing,” he replied.

I turned to look at Bon. “Roe says there’s no ogres around. How fast can you find it?”

“If it’s not buried, I should be able to spot it. The signal is strong, and it should narrow the search area to one or two square foot,” he said, looking a bit more confident now.

“All right. We’ll wait here and keep an eye on things, ready for anything,” I said, looking at Zane. “We should get ready for anything.”

My best friend nodded, making sure his gun was ready to fire. Ben and Frank followed his example with less steady hands.

“How are you holding?” I asked Dante, whose silence was making me worried.

“Still human,” he murmured. “It’s being… quiet.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way – and that we don’t need it,” I said.

Once we were as ready as we could be, Bon took a careful step towards the clearing. Cheri and Chels both wished him luck, getting ready to go to his aid if needed. So far, things were going too smoothly, and I didn’t like it.

Things were going so well it could only mean a massive failure.

Bon took off, flying quickly closer to the hill and leaving a trail of glittery dust behind. I could almost feel the tension in the air. I counted seconds as I watched the old pixie getting further and further away from us.

“It was supposed to be close,” Zane whispered with a frantic voice, lifting his rifle up to check his aim. “It takes too long for us to get to him if he gets in trouble.”

“Stay calm,” I ordered, trying to follow my own words. “Roe still hasn’t spotted anyone.”

But the thought of the old pixie risking his life like this… I didn’t like it. Pixies were not fighters, and ogres enjoyed killing for fun. They didn’t care if their victim was an old, innocent pixie.

“Come on…” I muttered, when Bon suddenly stopped and fluttered around for a bit. The clouds of glitter falling down his wings were sparkling way too brightly under the sun, and if there was someone looking, they would notice him right away.

“Come on…” Chels whispered too, wringing her hands together. “Find it already…”

Bon was closer to the hill than us at that point. We would never get to him on time if the enemy was up there, lurking behind the trees.

“There’s no one else up here but me,” Roe murmured. “Calm down – I won’t let him die.”

“You’re on the hill?” I asked.

“Yup.”

I let out a relieved sigh, and the rest turned to look at me.

“Roe’s up on the hill. He says there’s no one there,” I explained quickly.

“A demon is watching over my father?” Cheri raised her eyebrow. “I’m supposed to trust him?”

“Please, not now! You can trust my master – he’s not like the others,” I told her sternly.

“Then why didn’t you tell us about him?” Cheri asked, but I never got the chance to reply to her.

Bon suddenly dove down, landing on top of a pile of rocks, and I completely forgot everything else. Bon ran around for a bit, picking up rocks and tossing them away as he went. Or so I assumed, since I couldn’t see that far.

“He’s close,” Frank gasped while I was holding my breath.

“Find it already,” Chels said, pacing back and forth. “Should we go help?”

“That will take too long,” I told her. “He’ll find it.”

“We shouldn’t be here…” she replied. “Is the rock really worth this?”

“I…” Cheri started, but it was clear what her answer was. It was a no. This really wasn’t worth the risk, but there was no going back.

And then…

“Did he find it?” Chels coughed when Bon suddenly started flying towards us as fast as he could.

Zane peered through his gunsight and smiled. “He found it.”

A massive wave of relief washed over us, but we were far from safe. I started looking for a good place to make a portal and spotted a couple of trees next to each other that formed a pretty good frame to draw. I grabbed my sharpie and notebook and got to work.

“Come on, come on!” Cheri muttered anxiously while I was making the first rune. I looked over my shoulder to see Bon already past the halfway. Mere seconds, and we’d be out of there.

Seconds.

A loud explosion shook the ground, nearly breaking my ears. I could see rocks flying out of the ravine behind the trees, and the ground under Bon started moving. I could only stare at the massive wave of rocks being sent flying off the edge, the sound of them echoing almost as loudly as the explosion.

“No, no, no, no!” Frank yelled, getting out of his hiding place. “Gus! You mother fucker!”

My heart froze when I realized that weasel was not with us anymore.

“What did he do?!” I yelled, hurrying back to the others.

“I don’t know!” was Frank’s reply. “But we need to get out of here, now!”

“You better hurry,” Roe said, but not in my head this time. He appeared out of nowhere in his demon form just when I could hear the ogres yelling in anger as they started waking up.

And the ground was still shaking.

Bon landed next to us, looking just as scared as his female companions. “What was that?! What happened?!”

“They’re coming! Make the portal, fast!” Roe yelled at me, Eru turning into her demon form right behind him. “They’ll be here in seconds!”

Seconds…

I ran back to the trees and started drawing faster than ever before. My thoughts were racing as I tried to understand what Gus had done, and why. When I started the third rune, I had come to a conclusion: he knew where the treasure was buried, and he had used us to get there.

We were being used as a bait to keep the ogres distracted while he went to get the treasure.

I took one hasty glance at Dante, but he was still in his human form. He was listening in to the loud noises of the entire ogre clan that was marching our way to see what had happened in their territory. They were yelling angrily in their own language. I wasn’t fluent in ogre tongue, but I knew enough to understand what they were saying.

Kill the trespassers.

“Any minute now,” Roe told me sarcastically.

“I’m drawing as fast as I can!” I yelled back at him, and spotted the scared pixies. “Roe, take them out of here!” I ordered him, nudging my head towards the pixies.

My master grabbed all three of them and vanished. I started drawing the fifth rune when he returned, grabbing Zane’s hand so he could take him to safety as well, but Zane refused.

“Frank first!” he said, yanking his arm free and aiming his rifle at the growing noise.

“Too late!” Frank yelled back, and he was right.

The ogres had found us easily, and I could see hints of the first of them running towards us in the distance, waving their stone clubs and axes, looking ugly as hell. Ogre adults were considered short at eight feet, and they weighted at least three hundred pounds, pure muscle. Their necks were thicker than their heads, they had massive tusks and little to no hair. The noise they were making was much louder than the falling rocks behind us.

“Keep drawing!” Roe ordered, facing the enemy with his spells ready, Zane, Ben and Frank by his side with their weapons.

Part of me wanted to drop the sharpie and help them fight, but we were so vastly outnumbered that we’d die in minutes. I continued making the portal, cursing the difficult lines I had to draw, hoping the ogres were too busy to stop our magic from working. We only needed a minute.

And Dante was still not turning… Why wasn’t he turning? From the corner of my eye, I saw him reaching for one of Zane’s weapons. I would’ve told him to use the adrenalin, but he was way too close to the rest of us.

I just needed to make the damn portal…

That fucking Gus! I was so mad at him! And I was mad at myself for not keeping an eye on him! I swore to myself, if I ever got the chance, he would become the fourth soul in my hvjerdnir.

The gunshots, explosions and ogre screeches filled the air, but I kept my eyes on the trunks, hurrying to the next one once the runes were ready on the first. I didn’t waste another second to see what was going on behind me. I trusted my friends to keep the ogres at bay, no matter how big and fierce they were.

But then I spotted several of them approaching me behind the trees in front of me. They were running fast, and my friends hadn’t noticed them. Eru did, and dashed next to me, growling menacingly at the enemy, but she couldn’t handle all of them at once. I was about to drop my sharpie, when Dante joined us, holding a rifle.

“You know how to use that?” I asked when he reloaded the gun.

“I’m a rich kid,” he only replied, took aim, and fired. His shot pierced his victim’s skull.

“Nice,” I smirked and turned my attention to the tree.

The ogres were getting closer. They weren’t afraid of us, even though their bodies were piling up. There were so many of them… We were completely surrounded, and what was worse, they knew how to use bows, though there weren’t many of those. An arrow flew past me, missing me only by inches. I had only two runes left, so I ignored it. The rest of our group was already standing right behind me, getting ready to jump through the second I opened the portal. They’d watch my back.

I only needed a few more seconds…

Just a few… more… seconds…

But we were cursed that day. The seconds we needed were all cursed.

They finally reached us, and even Roe’s powerful magic couldn’t stop them all. I had one more line to draw, but I was suddenly flying through the air when something big hit me, knocking the air out of my lungs. I landed close to the edge of the ravine and looked up. I saw a massive ogre standing next to the portal, grinning as he charged at me again. I somehow managed to get out of the way, and the ogre stopped right next to the edge.

I grinned at him in return, conjuring a big ball of fire, and aimed it at him. The fire burned him, sure, but it was the impact that sent him flying to his death. I could hear the pleasant splatter at the bottom of the ravine as he landed.

“Dante!” My heart froze when I heard Zane’s scared voice and I turned to look for my love in panic.

One of the ogres had him. Dante was bleeding, his face mutilated and eyes closed. The ogre was holding him by his throat, his feet hovering over the ravine. Roe was trying to get past a wall of ogres to get to him, and my human companions were too scared to shoot the ogre.

The cursed seconds betrayed us again.

When I blinked, the ogre let go of him.

“DANTE!!“