“That’s… just… it,” he panted. “I didn’t… see her.”
No, he didn’t. The realization was strange. We’d had so many shared experiences over the years, that it felt weird that I’d gotten to know her, and he hadn’t.
“She saved people, even though it hurt her to do it,” I said, trying to explain something I knew I could never fully explain. “She survived alone, in a terrible place, and still maintained her humanity. Not many people could do that.” I couldn’t do that.
The first pod came free, and my shadows rushed out and cradled it until it slowly lowered to the ground. I stared down at the squirming cocoon and gestured to my dagger. It flew from the ground into my hand, and I cleaned the purple goopy blood onto the outside of the cocoon, then carefully started cutting the child free.
“And how… do you… know any of that is… true?” Ellis said, his sword resheathed on his back as he climbed to the next pod.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” I said, as I managed to cut away enough of the strange substance to reveal a girl, no older than six.
Her gaze met mine, and then her entire body relaxed, and her eyes closed. Panic uncurled inside of me for half a second, before I realized she still breathed. I finished cutting her free and laid her on the ground.
Above me, Ellis called, “Ready?”
“Yeah.”
The next pod fell, and we repeated the process, cutting free a boy of about the same age as the girl. And although he didn’t move, he lived too.
When we finished cutting all the pods down, and freeing all the children, Ellis climbed down from the ceiling, breathing hard, and stood near me as I sawed through the biggest pod, praying that Frank was okay.
“You saw her for a little while, Hunter. What if she was pretending? What if this is some kind of trap or some kind of plan?”
I didn’t stop sawing into the pod, but his words bothered me. “What kind of trap?”
He took a long while to answer. “Releasing her awakened something dark in this world. How many creatures do you know that would want more darkness?”
I finally looked up at him. “Something dark? You mean that crap the banshees said?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s... something I feel.”
Focusing back on my work, I pulled the substance aside and found Frank inside, asleep like the children. Gratitude flowed through me. At least everyone was okay. And if we could get help from the others, hopefully the damned creature wouldn’t catch any more kids.
“Hunter?”
I looked up at him and hated that there was something desperate in his expression. Ellis was more sensitive to changes in the world than all of us. If he felt something dark awaken when Mae stepped out of the Mirror Realm, I believed him, but that didn’t mean I thought Mae was bad.
“I trust her, Ellis. But I trust you too. We’ll figure out the darkness.”
He looked troubled as he stood.
“That’s not all, is it?” I asked.
Finally, he looked at me again. “You’re bothering me too.”
“Me?” I couldn’t help the surprise in my voice.
He drew his shoulders back. “What the hell is going to happen to you if you give this woman your heart and she betrays you? Or just breaks the damn thing?”
“I don’t… I’m not…”
“You like her. More than any woman I’ve ever seen.”
How the hell could I deny that? He was right.
“Something like this… I think it could destroy you, Hunter, so just be careful.”
I was tired, but I used my shadows to sweep the bodies of the kids and Frank together and send them down the steps of the bell tower ahead of us. Ellis followed slowly behind, but my thoughts churned as we listened to the wind smashing against the building and the rain pounding the wood.
I wanted to tell Ellis that everything would be okay. That he didn’t have to worry about me. But the thing was, he might be right. There was a reason I didn't open myself up.
The smartest thing we could do was get as far as we could away from Mae as fast as we could.
So why did I think I was going to do everything I could to keep her close?
Ellis was worried about me… He damn well should be. Because now I was worried about me too.
6
Mae
When we rolled up to the church, Ellis was already glaring daggers at me like I killed his puppy or something. Of course, when I got out of the car and smiled at him, it morphed into him looking like he could smell shit or something equally foul. I suppressed a sigh. He had an issue with me and until I figured out what it was we weren't going to get along, apparently.
"The Purple People Eater got away, but we managed to save the kids and Frank," Hunter said as he nodded to the car where they were all visible, not awake, but alive, sleeping maybe. I hoped it wasn't a coma. I'd seen mages do that before. My eyes flicked toward Alastair of their own accord, betraying my unease.
"What do you want us to do?" the mage asked, glancing at me before his eyes moved back to Ellis as though he could feel my gaze on him.
"We're going to drop by the hospital with these guys then if you come with us we can use the blood on this dagger to track her," Hunter said as he held out the bloodied weapon. The mess on the metal was purple.
"Huh," I murmured to myself. "That's a new one."
"Not used to getting blood on your hands?" Ellis asked as though he wanted to catch me in a lie.
"I can't say I've ever had purple blood on my hands, no," I replied, smiling at him again, hoping that at some point he’d give up on his anti-Mae campaign.
He sneered at me before turning to the others. "While we were waiting for you to get here I was able to check my messages. There have been sightings of yetis, satyrs, and even gnomes. The one that worries me the most though is a suspected dybbuk. There hasn't been a case like that in decades, let alone all of this shit happening together, so something," Ellis's eyes looked pointedly in my direction without actually making eye contact before he continued, "has caused a ripple effect. All the oogy boogeys are coming out of their creepy closets and terrorizing us."
"I can handle the dybbuk," Grim said, sounding about as excited as if he was contemplating cutting his hair.
Ellis nodded and pulled out his phone, swiping and tapping on the screen as he said, "I'll forward you what I know."
They were about to break apart so I asked, "What do you want me to do?"
Before the others could respond, Ellis snapped, "Go with Grim, he shouldn't be alone. You're better than nothing."
It wasn't meant in a friendly way but at least the man understood I could defend myself and others. Part of me wanted to fight him though, just because that was how he made me feel... like I wanted to punch him in the face. I didn't though. Instead, I just turned around and followed Grim back to the car.
We got in and drove away in silence. I expected that to last the whole way but Grim surprised me and said, "Sorry about Ellis. I don't know what crawled up his ass and died, but he's not usually like that."
"It's okay, I'm used to worse. I do wish I knew why he'd saved me, or at least helped, if he didn't think it was a good idea."