22. Cym

Chapter 22

Cym

C ym, Sterling, and Hester flew skyward, bouncing around inside their shield like a trio of unfortunate hamsters inside a ball. Absently, Cym noticed it looked like they weren't the only ones affected by the blast. Most of those assembled around their shield had become airborne as well.

The shield sailed through the air, arcing over the heads of dozens of huddled figures looking for cover, and bounced into the forest, exploding upon impact with an old rotted-out log. The shield's dying act had been to take the brunt of the fall, but all three occupants lay dazed and disoriented in a tangled mass of limbs on the dark, dank floor of the forest.

"Get your ass off my face!"

"Stop stepping on my hair then!"

Cym lost a chunk of hair in the ensuing struggle as three bodies tried to untangle themselves after being tossed around like wet knee-socks in a dryer.

Unfortunately, Cym only remembered that one of their members needed to be watched closely after the rock smashed into the side of his head.

Gods fucking dammit. He'd just had someone fix that. He was going to need to look into getting a helmet at this rate.

He dropped to his hands and knees, barely registering the muffled swearing from Sterling as he fought to keep Hester from escaping into the night. Since Sterling was only a kid and Hester was at least two hundred years old, Cym wasn't surprised that he lost.

"Well, I'm pretty sure I just swallowed a bug," Sterling said mildly, like he hadn't just gotten his ass kicked by his great-something-grandmother. There was a nasty squelching sound as he made an abortive attempt to pull his body out of the mud pit he'd been knocked into. "Good riddance to her anyway. At least you and I made it out."

"We still have to find Fourteen before we can leave here." Cym's stomach clenched. What if he hadn't survived the blast? "If he's still alive, I mean." Cym tried for a neutral tone, but his voice cracked on the word alive .

Sterling waved his comment away, a blurry gesture in the dim light. "Your champion will be fine. That asshole can clearly take care of himself, and he's with the guardians—I wish we'd been in that hole too." He finally heaved himself out of the muck with a loud grunt.

Cym wished he could have been as positive, but until he saw Fourteen with his own eyes, he wasn't going to be okay. "How can you be so cheerful after getting your ass kicked by our mom? Don't think I'm letting that go any time soon."

Sterling sputtered indignantly. "Okay, first, that creature isn't our mother, and second, could you not mention this to Adelle next time you see her?"

Cym laughed and instantly regretted it. "Ow."

He poked the side of his head gingerly and sighed. He really should have paid more attention when Adelle had fixed him up, but in his defense, he had a lot on his plate right now.

Regardless of their predicament, Cym could feel the grin stretching across his face. Of course a sixteen-year-old boy would get an instant crush on someone as beautiful as Adelle. It was nice to have something as normal as his brother's hormones to laugh at amidst the pain and horror of the past two days.

"Here let me help you up." Sterling's form loomed over him, and he took Cym's hand without thinking.

Cym's head went swimmy when he was yanked upright, and he suddenly felt giddy. He'd lost Fourteen and Hester and now they were stuck in the woods, but in that moment, he was halfway to feeling euphoric. He was just a dumbass guy doing stupid shit with his brother.

Something he should have done a million times. The fact that this was a first for Cym had magnified it times a thousand.

"You really are the best, you know? Hey, remember that one summer when we did that thing with Helen?" Cym knew he should be making a plan to find Fourteen and escape, but it was a small concern.

Fuck. Cym felt fantastic.

Sterling put an arm around his shoulders and laughed.

"You mean when we took all of Astin's clothes and put them on every horse in the stable?"

"No wonder he hates us so much!"

"It was Helen's idea!"

Sterling began giggling like a twelve-year-old learning his first fart joke. Cym was supporting most of his weight at this point and began sinking slowly back to the ground, taking Sterling with him, but he found he didn't care. He felt warm inside. Not at all like he had just lost his very important person and then been blown across a field.

His knees hit the dirt, and he did his best to keep his brother off the ground.

"We have to get out of here!" Sterling howled as if it was the funniest thing he'd ever said.

"We'll get right on it. Any minute now." Cym burst out laughing too and, again, regretted it. "Ugh."

Still draped over him, Sterling's body shook as he laughed helplessly. "I don't… know why I'm not…getting up right now." He gasped between giggles.

"I know! We could be swarmed any minute by Astin and his circus of freaks!" Cym grinned, not giving three rotten oranges about their impending doom. Sterling's elbow was digging deeply into his side, and Cym shoved him, knocking Sterling to the forest floor.

Suddenly, the bubbly, drunken feeling lessened, and Cym could think more clearly.

"What… what the hell was that?" Sterling's laughter faded, and now he just sounded bewildered.

"I'm not sure. My magic has been doing some weird things since I ran away." Cym pushed himself back to standing, keeping well away from his brother. "Shit. We need to move before they find us."

"Yeah… Right…" Sterling's dark shape rose unsteadily from the ground, and he swayed back and forth as he spoke. "I know the woods around here pretty well. If we circle around that way, we might be able to sneak back into the compound without anyone seeing us."

"Which way? I can't see you pointing, I can't see anything in here." Cym tried to imagine what Fourteen would say if Cym accidentally got himself killed while stumbling around in the woods at night. Probably nothing nice.

Sterling said hesitantly, "Maybe you could hold onto my jacket and follow me? I'm standing pretty close to you right now, and all I feel is a little tipsy. I don't feel angry or murderous at all."

"Thank the gods for small favors," Cym muttered. It might be frustrating to have such unpredictable magic, but at least it was finally doing more than just driving people into homicidal rages. There was a glimmer of hope in his mind that, if they got out of here alive, he might not have to spend his life locked away or on a deserted island somewhere.

Before they set off, Cym smeared more mud into his white pants to keep from standing out like a beacon in the night, but he might as well have saved himself the time and effort. Five minutes of stumbling and tripping after his brother gave him ample opportunity to wreck his clothes and cover them with dirt.

Once they reached the spot Sterling had mentioned, he said, "You know, I don't even feel drunk right now, just mellow. It's kind of nice."

Cym patted his brother's back. Even with the world crashing down around them, he was still trying to make Cym feel better about his freakishness.

Movement on the compound snatched his attention away from their little bonding moment, and Cym and Sterling watched as a beehive of activity swarmed through a break between buildings.

Three nightmare-tainted witches flew past a dormant rosebush. One smacked against a car, and white smoke shot out of her chest, only to dissipate like dandelion seeds in the wind. The other two collapsed to the ground, the larger one crushing the smaller one under his bulk. As soon as they landed, the same white smoke drifted away into the night. A deep orange shield flared out, causing the entire area to stand out in sharp relief, and another two witches followed the first three, also losing their nightmares upon hitting the ground.

The shield became transparent, and Cym could just make out Adelle's features.

"Yes! They're alive!" Fourteen had to be okay if Adelle was. Cym had to believe it so he didn't go nuts.

Cym stopped himself before running out to meet her. What did he think he was going to do? Stand off to the side and cheer loudly as Adelle fought twice as hard because she now had someone to protect?

Cym couldn't just stand around and watch someone fight for their lives, but before he could figure out what to do, Fourteen came into view, brandishing a shiny new toy. As he fought a shadow made up entirely of beaks and eyes, he swung a massive staff that glimmered with the same nebula of colors Cym had seen in Jack's impossible eyes. With every swing of the weapon, another chunk of monster fell to the ground and melted away.

Fourteen radiated the same grim joy and focus he had during the fight in the garage, but Cym was terrified—with good reason. The second Fourteen incapacitated the creature in front of him, a portal opened, releasing a fresh horror to take its place. Even seeing Jack come around the corner didn't make Cym feel better since he had another monster nipping at his heels.

There had to be something Cym and Sterling could do to help.

"Can you do something? Anything is better than just standing here. Please!" Cym begged, grabbing his brother and shaking him like he could jar an arsenal of weapons from Sterling if he tried hard enough.

"I'm sorry, man. On a good day, I wouldn't be able to defeat one of those things, and I'm fucking tapped out. Usually, only guardians are equipped to take on demons and nightmares." He gulped as they watched Fourteen lop off the head of a creature with a rotting clown face and seal flippers. "And that guy too, apparently."

"What about the holes? Can we get rid of them somehow? If we could cut off their reinforcements…" He knew he was stabbing wildly but couldn't stop himself.

Sterling snorted. "Those are portals to the Demon Realm. That's so far above my level of training, I wouldn't even know where to begin, and right now I don't know if I have enough magic to scare a mouse."

"And anything I try to do is only going to make everything worse," Cym growled, frustrated with their collective uselessness. Then something occurred to him. Something incredibly, unbelievably stupid. "You should get out of here and look for help. Maybe you could find more guardians and bring them here."

If Cym was going to pull off his incredibly stupid idea, he didn't want Sterling around. Now that he had his brother back, he had no intention of getting him killed.

"And leave you here to frolic with monsters and such? Not happening, dumbass. What if Hester comes back for you?" Sterling's voice cracked hormonally, making him seem like the opposite of someone who belonged on a battlefield and more like the child Cym had once known.

"Pfft. Like she wants to tangle with me again. At best we'll end up in a stalemate." Unless Hester hit him with another rock. Cym rubbed his sore head and scowled. "Besides, you know where to go to find help and I don't. And with this near-concussion, I'd be dead weight slowing you down."

"The chapter house is over an hour away! Any help I bring will come too late."

Clearly Sterling was going to be a pain in the butt about being sent to safety.

Cym abandoned his first attempt and moved on to the next. "What about the rest of the family? You said not everyone was in Hester's pocket, where are they?"

"The main house has a dozen or so people tucked away in the panic room for their own protection. It's what I was coming here to tell Mother—er—Hester. It was my job to oversee their safety if we came under attack," Sterling said bitterly. "In hindsight, the people in there are all the ones who are less than enthusiastic about what's been going on lately."

"How was Hester able to keep them from running to the guardians for help? How did she hide this corruption from people?"

Sterling sucked in a hissing breath of air through his teeth and shifted his weight. At first Cym thought he wasn't going to answer. Then he sighed, and it was like the floodgates had opened. "I don't know how much you remember from before you were locked up, but family loyalty has been shoved down our throats since I can remember. Things would have had to have been terrible for anyone to consider going outside for help, and until the past month or so, everything ran the same as usual, with the exception of random temper flares from normally calm people."

Sterling turned his head away like he was embarrassed to look at Cym, even if it was too dark for them to see each other. "We all attributed it to you, to be honest. We just assumed they got too close to your building. Everyone was strictly warned to keep away from it. Of course, random mood swings are also a side effect of prolonged demon exposure, but none of us even considered it as a possibility.

"Clearly, some people in our family knew exactly what was going on. Astin is an obvious choice for demon bitch of the month because he's been into some really sketchy portal magic lately. And the magic Stella used to get us away from your champion was probably demon magic as well. Gods, how could I have been so blind?" He threw back his head and shouted up at the stars.

"Beating yourself up isn't going to help anyone right now! And yelling like an idiot is going to get us caught." Cym tugged at his sleeve, but Sterling refused to turn toward him. "Sterling. I need you to focus. Can you get our family out of the panic room and to safety?" If he could convince Sterling he was needed, Cym might be able to get him out of the line of fire and far away from the incredibly stupid plan Cym was about to put into action.

Slowly, Sterling tilted his face down from the sky.

In the darkness, Cym couldn't tell if Sterling was looking at him, but he chose to assume he had his brother's attention. Cym might not be able to fix Sterling's issues right now, but he could give him something else to focus on so Cym could accomplish his goal. "They need you, Ster."

Silence stretched between them, but Cym could practically hear his brother thinking.

Sterling snapped his fingers, startling Cym. "With everything that's going on, there's a good chance no one is even thinking about the panic room." He began to pace, a dark shadow weaving in and out of the underbrush surrounding them. While he moved, his words came out faster, as he gained confidence in himself. "I should be able to get them out, but you can't go back in there. If someone recognizes you, they'll either freak out or try to capture you, and that's not going to help anyone."

Now Sterling was doing Cym's work for him. Perfect. "That makes sense. If I hide here I should be safe enough until you return." Cym crossed his fingers behind his back, though it wasn't exactly a lie—Cym probably would be safe here.

If he stayed, that is.

"Good. Give me fifteen minutes, and I'll meet you back here with everyone I can find. It's dark enough that if you keep away from the group, no one will notice it's you until we can get them to safety. After that, they can suck it up if they don't like it." There was relief in Sterling's voice. Cym imagined he was probably congratulating himself on keeping Cym out of harm's way.

Sterling thrashed his way through the woods toward the main house, and the second Cym could no longer hear his brother, he stumbled and tripped back the way they came. They both really needed to work on their forest skills.

Fortunately, Cym knew exactly where to go, because Stella and Sekt were a beacon of evil beating against his senses. If he couldn't be of any help to Fourteen during a fight, perhaps he could go where he would be needed instead. Adelle had said some guy named Marshall would need his help fighting Sekt, so that's where he was going to go.

It took longer than he liked to fight his way back through the forest. Snow had drifted through the thin defenses of the bare branches overhead and was making it impossible to walk. After falling for the third time, he resorted to crawling across the cold forest floor. It was fortunate Adelle had helped him heal himself earlier, even if he had immediately gone and damaged his head again. If he'd had to do this with a dislocated shoulder and a sprained ankle as well as a banged up brain, he would have quit right then and there.

Cym was cold, tired, and terrified. And starving. Gods, he would cheerfully maim someone for a taco right now.

Cym was one hundred percent done with this day. All he wanted was to be somewhere warm while he curled around a healthy and happy Fourteen. Everyone else could just fall right the fuck down a well, for all he cared.

But Fourteen wasn't safe, and Sterling was only slightly less unsafe. He was going to have to soldier up and get this over with before he could have his well-earned and hopefully taco-laden snuggle.

By the time Cym made it to the edge of the forest—right where he could feel the demon—his bones ached with the cold, and his fingers were completely numb. He shuddered to think about how he would feel if Fourteen hadn't thought to bring him more clothes.

He was about to take a short rest, but when he emerged from the forest, he saw a young man lying prone at the feet of his aunt. In the firelight, Cym could see his features twisted in agony as something bright tried to force its way into his body.

Time slowed as Cym raced toward the young man. Snowflakes pelted his cheeks and clung to his eyelashes. The wind shifted, and a wave of heat from a nearby fire melted them away.

Three feet from his destination, his ankle folded under him, and he slipped, skidding until he landed on top of the man. Cym braced himself on the stranger's chest with one hand and put another hand up to push Stella and Sekt away. The man's hand shot up to wrap around Cym's wrist, and he was plunged into chaos.