“Good, we might need your presence there once we find her. It’ll be better if it’s someone she knows and trusts. Are the teachers or hotel staff sending anyone with us?”
“They’ve got almost every available adult out scouring the forest now. They offered to send people to help us, but I figured they’d only get in the way.”
“Probably true. If Chloe is with the krampus, the fewer people it can see as targets, the better. Besides, the three of us will make a lot less noise than a few dozen. What about the witches?”
“Mara and the witches have gone to their rooms. I think they believe that witchcraft might help.”
“Will it?” I asked.
“Witchcraft created a krampus; I very much doubt it’s going to do an awful lot to make this situation any better.”
My smile was slight. “Once we have the girl, I’ll find out who created this krampus. Then we’ll deal with them too.” I already had an idea about who was responsible, but couldn’t be certain.
“You mean you’ll kill them? I won’t help you kill witches.”
Kasey reappeared. “Dad’s in the woods, says he’s ready.”
“You stay here,” I instructed, and then I walked off with Emily toward the hotel’s exit.
“You never answered my question,” Emily said as we left the hotel and made our way south to the forest beside the lake.
I didn’t look at Emily as I spoke. “Tommy’s ready. Let’s just go get that little girl back. We can discuss the rest later.”
CHAPTER 22
The full moon and clear skies gave more light than would have been usual at this time of year. Even so, I used my magic to start my night vision well before I reached the forest where Tommy was waiting for us.
Werewolves, like all weres, have three forms—human, animal, and beast. The beast was the strongest, and most dangerous, of all the forms. In his beast form, Tommy stood on two legs, was easily over six feet tall, and probably weighed double his human weight. He was a machine designed to kill and fight. The monster inside him was closer to the surface, and once fighting started, it was more likely to try to convince Tommy to ignore his humanity and give in to the urge to kill.
Fortunately, as a gray wolf padded toward us, it was clear that Tommy had decided to use his wolf form. It was a harder form to maintain, but better for tracking and stealth. There was also less likelihood of the monster inside gaining any kind of leverage. Probably a good idea when dealing with what I was sure would be a very scared fourteen-year-old girl.
“You got a scent?” I asked Tommy, who nodded.
I enhanced my use of air magic in preparation for keeping up with Tommy. In his wolf form, he was faster than anyone in a human form could possibly be, certainly much faster than a natural wolf. The only way to keep up was to use my air magic to increase my own speed and agility, one of the benefits of air magic, just like earth magic users can increase their strength.
I turned to Emily. “You going to be able to keep up?”
She’d drawn runes around her eyes in pen. I recognized the runes as a way to let people see in the dark. It was old, and usually pretty unpredictable, rune magic; either whatever ink you used faded, along with your night vision, or it left you with permanent night vision until you got rid of the runes, sometimes screwing your vision up even more if you were exposed to bright lights before you got rid of them. But it was better than running head first into a tree. Witches tended to have whole books of runes, most of which they kept with the same level of secrecy as sorcerers did their grimoires.
“Let’s go,” Emily said, ignoring my question and motioning for us to get started.
Tommy didn’t need telling twice, and with a quick sniff of the air, he bounded into the darkness beyond and started running at speed. Even with being able to use my fire magic to create a sort of night vision and air magic to increase my speed, it was still difficult to keep up with Tommy, who seemed to avoid branches and trip hazards as if they weren’t even there.
I’d been running with Tommy a lot over the years, and normally it was a fun, exhilarating experience. But this time there was no joy in it. This time I expected the worst but prayed for anything other than that.
After about two miles of running at a speed that would have put Olympic runners to shame, Tommy slowed to a stop. I followed suit and crouched beside my friend, whose breathing had barely changed at all. Two or three miles was a short trip for him, even at full sprint.
I wanted to ask what he’d seen, but didn’t dare interrupt him as he tried to figure out where Chloe’s trail led. After a minute, he motioned toward something to the east of us and began trotting off, his movements slow and deliberate.
Another few hundred feet and he stopped again, sitting down and sniffing the air.
“What’s he doing?” Emily asked from behind, as she caught up with us.
“Tracking,” I said and turned to look at her. “Good run?”
Emily nodded and raised a finger for me to wait a moment. “Bloody knackered,” she whispered and sat beside a large tree.
“You made good time, though,” I whispered back.
Emily raised the leg of her trousers, showing the dark rune on her ankle.
I frowned. “You’re going to exhaust yourself. You’re not an enchanter; you keep on painting runes on yourself, and it’s going to have serious repercussions; and I don’t just mean the amount of your own life force you’re using to power them.”
“I’ll crash after we get Chloe. She’s more important than my immediate health.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t really my concern about how much witches burn themselves out by using runes to access magic. Witches usually only added a few runes to themselves, unlike most enchanters, who tattooed dozens over their bodies.
Tommy growled slightly and moved forward past some thick bushes. I followed at a crouch, and then Tommy just stopped as voices floated through the darkness.
“The girl okay?” a man’s voice asked.
“I think so,” a second man said. “She’s quite the fighter. We couldn’t have done this quietly without the big ugly bastard to distract her.”
“You’re telling me. My jaw’s gonna hurt like hell tomorrow.”
“Oh don’t be such a pussy,” the second man said with a chuckle. “How long is she supposed to stay here?”
“Couple of hours. Then she’ll be miraculously found.”
“And that creepy bastard isn’t going to kill her?”
There was a brief pause. “No. It can’t kill her without the witch’s say-so.”
“She’s a creepy bitch too.”
“Yeah, no shit. Holds a grudge like no one’s business. You ever get the feeling that this is all personal for her?”
Another pause. “It’s something. She’s not part of the Vanguard, though. I don’t trust her. I didn’t like the fact that she made the krampus escape the compound, leaving our guys behind. Did you hear? None of our people got out of Hades’s compound.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”
“Right, let’s go,” a third man said, and shortly after I heard the three men walk off into the forest, chatting quietly among themselves.
Tommy growled, low and menacing.
“Follow them,” I said.
Tommy shook his head.
“Look, of the three of us, you can track the best. Just follow them and see where they go. Emily will grab Chloe, and I’ll take care of whatever else is there. But this is our one chance to track whoever is behind this.”
Tommy made a noise that sounded like grudging acceptance. He nudged my hand with his maw, the best way he had to wish me luck, and then slunk off silently into the dark forest once again.
I moved forward until I reached the edge of a clearing that contained a huge rock formation that stretched fifty feet into the sky. The mouth of a dark cave sat directly in front of me, and an orange light flickered inside. Someone, or something, was in there.
“What’s the plan?” Emily asked as she crouched next to me. Her perfume was slight, but still noticeable; it was probably a good thing she’d not been able to keep up with Tommy and me.
“I’m going to go get Chloe out of that cave, and then you and she are going to run back to the hotel.”
“You’re sure she’s in there?”
“We won’t know until we look, but it certainly sounded that way.”
“Can you beat a krampus?” Emily asked. “You could come back with us instead.”
“Can’t leave it out here, where it could hurt someone else. It seems to be under the control of whoever was behind the compound attack. Maybe I can get more details.” I turned to glance at Emily. “Right. You wait here, and I’ll either come out fighting a monster or have Chloe with me. You ready?”
She nodded, and I stood and walked into the clearing, remaining quiet and low as I made my way toward the mouth of the cave. The smell of blood and animal was overwhelming as I got closer and closer, until I was able to peer into the cave.
The cave consisted of a fairly narrow pathway that opened up into a huge cavern about fifty feet in. I crept down the pathway and crouched beside some rock that jutted out of the wall, to survey the cavern.
A large fire burned in the center of the open space, to one side of which sat Chloe. She sat hugging her knees and resting her chin on them, and kept her gaze firmly locked on the ground in front of her. In the far corner, half-concealed in darkness, was the whiteness of bone. I was too far away to see what the bones had once been a part of, but their very presence sent a shiver up my spine.
I kept looking around, trying to pinpoint the exact location of the krampus, but couldn’t see it. I moved out of my hiding place and immediately spotted the monster at the far side of the cavern, opposite Chloe. It was a tall, well-built creature with a long face the color of an infected wound, and two huge, goatlike horns on top of its skull. Its mouth was full of tiny razor-sharp teeth and two massive canines, which it was currently using to tear into the flesh of the cow leg it held in one of its dark fur-covered hands, on the ends of which were long talons. The krampus’s entire body was covered in thick, black, shaggy fur, although it had a long white beard of fur that stretched down from its jaw.
The unexpected crack as the krampus’s strong jaws crunched into the bone made Chloe look up quickly. She moved her arms, and I could see the chains connecting them to the floor beside her.
The krampus tossed the bone toward the large pile, causing several to spill onto the ground, before selecting another piece of cow and tucking in once again.
I crept toward Chloe, sticking to the shadows that stretched along the sides of the cavern, and made it to her without being spotted. I placed a hand over her mouth, and she glanced up at me, the fear in her eyes softening as she realized who I was.
I removed my hand and created a blade of fire that I used to cut through the chain, catching it as it fell to ensure it made no noise louder than the krampus’s.
Chloe slowly got to her feet, but as she took a step forward, she stumbled, kicking a rock and catapulting it across the cavern.
The krampus glanced up, saw me, and roared in anger.
“Run!” I shouted to Chloe.
Chloe froze, her gaze fixed on the monster getting to its feet.
“Run!” I shouted for a second time, jolting Chloe out of her trance.
She sprinted toward the exit, followed quickly by the krampus, but a blast of air magic slammed into its side, throwing it against the cavern wall and giving me time to run after Chloe.
I found the young girl outside, beside Emily.
“No time—go!” I shouted to them both, and to their credit, they quickly moved off into the forest as a roar of anger, accompanied by unmistakable bell ringing, resounded from the cave behind me.
I turned to see the krampus emerging from the mouth of the cave, the bells that were grafted to its flesh ringing with every step. Protruding from each of its wrists was a four-foot-long silver whip; it grabbed one in its hand and smashed the whip against the ground, causing dirt and grass to rain down around itself.
At one point, the krampus had been human, but dark magic had been used to transform someone with a wicked soul into a monster of pure malevolence. In the past, witches had almost always performed the ritual, usually as a form of punishment against someone who had wronged them. They’d transform the person and then send him off to feed on the children in nearby towns and villages, usually places the witch had been expelled from.
The fact that the krampus hadn’t taken or hurt Chloe was a surprise. Whoever had created it had expelled a huge amount of power to do so, which meant a lot of people would have died in its creation. Using magic to change a person’s form requires the darkest form of blood magic—human sacrifices. Sorcerers could use such means to create monsters such as the one before me, but there are other creatures that are easier to control, so sorcerers don’t bother with a krampus.
The krampus stamped its hooves again and again, roaring at me while I stayed between it and the route Emily and Chloe had taken.
“You’re not going to get them,” I said through gritted teeth.
It rose to its full height, a good foot taller than my own five-eight, and flicked its whips in the air, slamming them into the ground several times.
“I can do that too,” I said and created two whips of fire that trailed down from my hands, burning whatever ground they touched.
The krampus darted forward; the speed at which it moved was at odds with the size of the creature. It brought one of its whips down toward me, but I moved sideways, extinguishing one of my whips and blasting the krampus’s hand aside, opening the creature to my other whip across its belly. The krampus dodged back in time for the whip to only kiss its toughened skin, causing the beast to roar in pain, but not doing much damage.
The krampus backed off, and I extinguished my whip. It was too fast to fight with whips, and I didn’t want the confrontation to be long and protracted, if possible. Apparently, the krampus felt the same way, as it scuffed the loose dirt with its hooves and charged toward me.
I dodged aside, but it managed to grab me around the leg before a blast of air took its own legs out from under it and sent it tumbling into the nearby thicket.
I didn’t have time to capitalize on the situation because the krampus exploded back into the clearing and aimed itself at me. Another blast of magic threw loose dirt into the air, blinding the creature, but it managed to flick one of its whips around my leg and, with enormous strength, pulled me off my feet and flung me into a nearby tree.
I surrounded myself with a dense shield of air, which took the brunt of the impact, and I dropped to the ground, sore but in one piece. The krampus stood in the center of the clearing, its dark eyes trained on me with ferocious intensity.
I took a step forward, and the creature charged once again. When it was close enough, I darted forward and to the side, dropping to my knees and driving a blade of air through the krampus’s thigh, using my own momentum to get back to my feet in one fluid motion.
Thick black blood spilled from the injury, but the krampus made no noise; it didn’t even show any sign that it had been injured. It just turned back toward me and began stalking forward, seemingly ignoring the wound as its whips flicked around it in a blur of deadly motion.
It snapped both whips at me, but I dropped to my knees, allowing them to sail harmlessly over my head; then I sprang upward, my fist wrapped in dense air. I caught the krampus under the chin, snapping its head back with vicious force. I followed up with a right hook to its jaw and a kick to the chest that sent it sprawling in the dirt.
I moved forward, creating a blade of fire in one hand and intending to finish the job, but the krampus moved quickly, putting some distance between us. I extinguished the blade, and the creature watched me closely, maybe trying to figure out what was going wrong for it. After a few seconds, it paused and retracted its whips. It the
n moved forward slowly, watching my every move, like a predator stalking its prey. Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that I make for pretty awful prey.
I dashed forward, avoiding the powerful swipes of the beast’s claws, and went to drive a blade of air into its ribs. But the krampus smashed its arm down on my back, knocking me to the ground and then kicking out with a hoof, which I blocked with another blast of air, putting some distance between us. I threw a ball of flame up at the monster’s face. The krampus moved back, avoiding it, but not avoiding the blast of fire that hit it in the chest.
All but ignoring the fur burning on its chest, the krampus charged me once again. I threw out tendrils of air, wrapping them around and around it, tightening them until I heard something crunch. The krampus roared in pain and rage. I tried to stop it from moving, but it kept stepping forward, despite the obvious difficulty in doing so. Eventually, the strain of keeping the magic in place was too much, and I had to release it, which allowed the monster to dart forward and catch me across the chest with one of its newly extended whips.
The pain of the silver whip cutting into my flesh and the burning sensation that followed forced me momentarily to one knee. But a moment was all the krampus needed.
It wrapped the whips around my arms and raised me to its eye level as it growled, a low rumble that seemed to echo around us. It threw me the length of the clearing. I managed to create a second shield of air before I hit the rocks, but couldn’t stop myself from landing in a heap on the ground, knocking the air out of me and giving the krampus enough time to grab me by the back of the head and smash my face into the nearest rock before throwing me aside once again.
Blood flowed from a new cut on my forehead as the krampus moved slowly and with purpose. It was like a force of nature; no matter what I did to it, it just kept on coming. I wrapped my air magic around its legs and pulled, taking the monster off its feet with a crash and giving me time to wipe the blood from my eyes.