I landed in my tent on the return trip, and there wasn’t a thud to jar my bones to attention. I had mentioned to Malphas that Nate would probably come to find me, but I knew he hadn’t moved. He was planning something, but it wasn’t exactly a rescue mission. The fact that he wasn’t rushing to save me more than likely had to do with Malphas’ blocking abilities.
“You’re so cute when you go into planning mode,” I said loud enough that he’d hear me from where he was about a football field away from our tent.
“So you’ve told me. Are you in one piece?” He didn’t rush to my side because he could feel that I was on the move in his direction.
I’d barely stayed in the tent a second before I was on the move. The sun was shining brightly when I exited the tent. By where the glowing orb sat in the sky, I’d been gone at least two hours. It’d only felt like fifteen minutes to me, which had me questioning Malphas’ way of traveling. It could’ve also been the fact that some planes didn’t always work on the same timeline.
“You can’t believe I’d let him actually do any harm. He just had something he had to get off his chest and it was easier to show me. The battle continues as planned.”
I joined Nate and the usual characters as they stood at a table. All eyes were focused on me and I did my best to not reveal the reasoning behind my sudden disappearance. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but I knew things would go on as expected.
It’s what the Fates wanted, and evidently they always got their ways.
“Are you sure? I might need to do a thorough exam just to verify that claim,” Nate said as he looked me over. His eyes showed worry, which I understood.
“Traveling took the longest time. Once Malphas actually had me around him, he realized it’d been a while since I’d had a bath and sent me on my way. You were right to wonder if I should change my shirt this morning, and it’s a good thing I didn’t take your advice.” I smiled, and indicated to him that it wasn’t the time to push.
He nodded and turned back to what they were studying on the table. The rest of the crew wasn’t quick to dismiss my absence.
“What did he need to show you that he couldn’t show the rest of us?” Rick asked.
I could almost feel him prying at my brain searching for the answer. If Nate couldn’t get at it, Rick didn’t have a chance, so I wasn’t worried about him finding out. I’d been able to hide other important information from him and I trusted my success with that would continue.
“Nothing I deem important to what’s going to happen today. I do know he’ll be coming and everything will be over before the sun sets.”
“And in whatever vision you’ve had of the sun setting, are you still breathing?”
It was Liam asking the question. I knew how much my not making it through the battle would mean to Nate, Rick, my parents and my children, but I tended to forget about the non-biological members of my family. Liam’s voice broke just a little as he asked the question.
I looked at the man as his blue eyes bored into mine. There were certain times when I wished I didn’t have an aversion to hugging. I felt like every one of the men and women who’d been fighting for and with me deserved one.
If I would’ve even offered one hug, they’d try to skin me to make sure I wasn’t an imposter. I decided to wait until the fighting was all over; it’d be more meaningful then anyway.
“The only time I’ve ever seen a future where I didn’t exist was that messed up coma the warlocks put me in. Anything I’ve seen with my own power has me alive and kicking, so rest assured Malphas won’t win today. I’m pretty sure whether they’re here with us or not, the Fates have placed money on that outcome.”
The group around me didn’t look so certain, but they got back into whatever they were discussing before I’d shown back up. Mak was the only one who continued to stare at me like he knew something was up.
He’d been with the group long enough he should’ve known when it was time to move on, but he wanted to press things a little. He opened his mouth to ask a question, and I quickly shook my head.
“Not now,” I pushed into his mind. “There will be time to ask later, but for now it isn’t important.”
He didn’t look happy, but he kept his mouth shut. I was sure everyone else wanted to grill me about what had happened while I was gone and exactly what parts of the future I’d seen. By me not saying anything, they knew I didn’t have anything that would help.
“It’s after the time we’ve seen them every other day, how long do you think we have until they show up?” Nate was looking at some kind of map while he asked the question.
I’d thought they’d been planning some kind of rescue mission for me. Maybe I didn’t fully believe that, but I’d expected them to just because of how they normally acted. The map they were studying was of the terrain around us, and it was detailed enough that it had to have been drawn at some point while we’d been there. I didn’t remember seeing anyone doing the drawing, though.
Ignoring Nate’s question, I asked, “What’s this?”
“The way things have been going, we’ve been so focused on fighting and recharging that we haven’t had a chance to see if there’s anything around us that we can use to our advantage. Vinnie took it upon himself to draw this up so we can hopefully find something.”
It made sense Vinnie was involved in its creation. I was a little surprise he hadn’t brought it out the very first day.
“Please tell me you haven’t spent the last two hours staring at a map.” I knew none of them had that kind of attention span, so I was curious what else they’d been up to.
“Do you know how long it takes to try to torture your location out of him?” Kyle nodded his head towards Nate in case I needed an explanation.
“I heard Malphas tell you that he’d return me, did he say something I didn’t hear that made you believe him?”
“Not really. He probably just used some of his magic on me to make me believe he was telling the truth. For some reason I got the feeling he didn’t want to hurt you, which didn’t make me feel extremely joyful, as odd as that sounds.”
“We didn’t get to hear the magic words and we about tied him down and took off in every direction to find where you’d gone,” Joseph said. “The fact that we weren’t sure you were somewhere we could actually get to was the only thing keeping us here.”
“That and the fact that you couldn’t tie me down if you wanted to,” Nate boasted. “Anyway, looking at the map, the guys think the high ground around this tree is vital.”
I didn’t look down at the map. The quick glance I’d seen had the tree circled.
“High ground is logical, but we’ve been fighting all over these plains and I don’t think any specific location has given us an upper hand.”
I’d purposefully been trying to keep certain members of our team away from that tree. I wasn’t really sure what difference position would make in a battle against an opponent who could easily overcome any disadvantage.
Looking over to the tree in question, I saw there was already a group scouting out the area. It was about three hundred yards to the object I despised. It stood there, with its leaves that couldn’t be more than a month old taunting me.
“I’m sure you’ve discussed the blind spot with that location. It may be high ground, but it’s hard to see people coming up from the north side if you’re focused on an attack coming from the logical direction.”
It wasn’t really much of an excuse to get them focused on something else. I already knew they were in the latter stages of their plans, so any weaknesses had already been figured out.
“You’re right.” Joseph went right into his general speech.
I listened along as he explained where everyone would stand and how the blind spot wasn’t that big of a deal because we had Liam to keep an eye on it. I was going to point out the obvious that once Liam went true berserker, his focus was mainly on breaking bones, but Joseph kept speaking.
“Before anyone can make
it up the steep incline, they’ll have to go through a little minefield that I believe was just finished being put in place. Even if Liam is busy, I don’t think we’ll miss that explosion. Plus, I think we can spare some people to keep an eye on it. With how the fighting has been going, I don’t think everyone has to engage in the battle.”
“But how can you be sure the demons will detonate a physical weapon? If they can detect and feel it, they’re going to find a way around it.”
“They aren’t physical,” Mak provided. “I’m sure if you weren’t indisposed, you would’ve been able to supply the ammunition. Since you were, I made a few warning devices that won’t be easy to detect. I don’t know that they’ll work if Malphas shows up, he’ll probably see through it, but the guys we’ve seen the past few days are all we’re worrying about coming up that way, I think we’re safe.”
“Okay, so that location may work. How is focusing our efforts there going to make things different today? I’ve heard the battle plan, but we’re still fighting a force we can’t make a dent in. I guess that probably doesn’t matter with Malphas showing up. All everyone needs to do is make sure they don’t get any body parts cut off.”
“I brought this up while you were gone, but I want to get your opinion on whether you think the demons have only been fighting half-heartedly. I know we’ve gotten a workout each day, but from what I’ve heard about them, I feel things should be a little tougher.”
I wished I had heard what everyone else had to say about Rick’s thoughts. I’d wanted to believe that we were just more prepared than the demons were, but after talking with Malphas, I had a feeling they were told what level of energy to exert. It would make sense that their horrible attitudes were partially because their leader told them they were only allowed to keep us occupied.
“I’m still trying to figure out why it is that we haven’t had to deal with demons in the past. I know they tend to have their own hangout spots, but shouldn’t we have planned a little better for this situation?”
I had no idea where demons like to spend their free time, but to make their minions they had to visit our plane at some point. We should’ve tried to find one of them and learn what made them tick like we had the warlocks.
“I’m pretty sure if the troops had to go through your training any longer than they did, we would’ve found out just what a unique’s limit is. Unless you had a way to give us your powers, I think we’re as good as we’re going to get.”
That was easy for Kyle to say. He hadn’t needed very much training since fighting was something in his blood. Most of the uniques were similar, but they all required training to deal with the magical aspect of things.
“We don’t have time to rethink what we could’ve done differently. Are you ready to answer my question about how much time we have before company shows up?” Nate reached over and pulled me closer to him.
I was surprised he’d left any room between us when I’d appeared at his side. It seemed he didn’t want to let on how much Malphas snatching me had affected him.
“It won’t be long. He wants this over with just as much as we do. We probably better move into our positions to get ready. I’ll grab my extra weapons and be right back. I’m not saying they’ll show up by that time, but we’d be smart to prepare for anything today. I imagine sneak attacks will be something new they’ll be trying out.”
I squeezed Nate’s hand, and then jogged off to the tent. I really wanted to get into the fighting so I didn’t have to think about anything. Whether the prophecy was a bunch of crap or not, I’d consistently seen the same vision for how things turned out, and nothing I’d done had really fixed the problem.
I knew Nate was on my heels as I left, so it didn’t surprise me when I found myself turned around and his lips attached to mine the second I stepped into the tent. It became clear that he didn’t think either one of us needed to breathe, so I nudged him away. He resisted for a second, but allowed me to breathe through my mouth.
“I’m not going to ask what happened. I already know the news was bad by how many layers of locks you’re keeping it under. I assume he didn’t take advantage of you in any way, but if you’d like to verify that, I’d be grateful.”
Nate ran his hands through my hair as he tried to pick up anything from my eyes. There was a time when he knew every detail fluttering through my brain by just looking at my face. I prayed, to who knows what god, that there’d be a time soon that I didn’t need to keep anything from him.
“All that came out of the meeting was a greater hatred for someone I’ve wanted to kill for a while. I don’t have time to deal with that now, but I promise to fill you in. It’s not going to be an easy day, and I’m going to need to vent. I just hope I can pull everything off.”
“If anyone can, it’d be you. Grab your stuff and let’s go see how long it takes for them to show up.”
Nate did his best to hide his worry. I was lucky that there were enough people in the world who I wanted to kill that he wouldn’t immediately guess I was going to wring Eva’s neck as soon as I could.