Chapter 16

The Wolf

Ispit out clumps of flesh and pick at what refuses to budge.

Yet again, I have mud witch stuck in my teeth.

Worse.

Paedophile mud witch.

They taste even worse.

I didn't need to shift completely to slaughter these fuckers. With a steady supply of Pix's blood, I'm beginning to be able to control my form just as much as I used to before I was cursed in the first place. I can add claws to my hand. Lengthen my teeth into my wolf fangs. Hell, I can grow a tail if I want.

I wonder if Pix would like me with a tail…

‘Pleeeeassssee…‘

‘Shut the fuck up,' I groan, looking at one of Pix's abusers. I've grown tired of hearing them all beg.

His hand is just blood and tendon. The skin lies next to him as if it's a discarded glove. I took one of his eyes. I broke every finger. When he tried to run, I did the same to his legs. They're a beautifully mangled and bloody mess.

As I walk past him, I run my clawed fingernail across his throat, splitting it wide open, and stop at the window. Blood drips down the pane of glass just as the rain outside falls.

‘They're on the move,' I tell Shaw, seeing the cloaked witches begin to make their way down the dirt path with their fire torches in hand.

Shaw leans over me to see for himself.

‘They're heading towards the same clearing that we rescued Pixie from.'

It hits me that that's the first time he said "rescued" and not "caught".

He turns to Bensen. ‘We need two robes.'

Bensen is trembling all over, looking at the blood bath around him. Limbs litter the floor. The cream walls are splattered red. Puke, piss and shit seep from the dead and dying. As well as organs and lots and lots of blood.

We made them suffer. My only regret was the time limit we had running against us.

‘You want to sneak in with them?' I ask.

Shaw strides across the room to the makeshift coven leader, who is catatonic after seeing five of his men obliterated right in front of him.

‘Robes?'

‘I-I-In m-m-my…'

‘Get your words out already,' I warn.

‘H-house…'

Shaw leans down so he's level with his face.

‘And which of these shitty shacks is your house, Bensen?'

‘D-d-d-down…'

Shaw growls, which only makes it worse for Bensen.

A smell fills the air.

‘He's just pissed himself,' I grimace.

‘You'll take us to your house.'

From beyond the window, I swear I see a flurry of winged creatures make their way over the tops of the roofs.

It could be bats.

Knowing our luck, doubtful.

We drag Bensen outside, leaving Pix's home a piece of artwork, and make our way to a much larger and nicer home.

We toss Bensen inside, and he slides around the stone floor, slipping on the mud and blood he's dragged in with him.

‘It's really coming down out there,' I groan, shaking the water from my hair and earning a huff from Shaw, who was standing too close. ‘Off you go,' I tell Bensen. ‘Two robes. If you run, we'll catch you. And you won't like what will happen when we do.'

He hurries up the stairs on his hands and knees, still unable to form a coherent sentence or apparently stand up straight.

Idiot.

‘Would be good if we had the backup of the creatures at the castle,' I tell Shaw, picking up some loose coins left on a table and sliding them into my pocket. I stop before a hideous portrait of Bensen and mimic his arrogant stance.

‘They ran away. We don't need cowards.'

‘You think Pix and Dorian are okay?'

‘I refuse to believe they are anything else.'

Bensen eventually returns with the clothing. We put on the robes, and I burst out laughing at the sight of Ronan Shaw, the General, the great witch killer, wearing an earth witch robe.

‘You better stop laughing at me, Arch.'

I try. I do. But my laughter continues echoing all around us.

‘I mean it,' he warns.

I need to rest my hands on my knees to stop my sides from hurting. I get a smack around my ear as he grabs Bensen and heads toward the door.

‘So what is this thing all about?' he asks him. ‘Your Athir celebration. You all gather around the fire and what? Pray? Meditate?'

‘W-we align ourselves with the earth b-below,' Bensen stutters back. ‘For two days and two nights to praise his bounty for the summer and then welcome his harvest for the winter food. And at dawn's break, on the second day, we eat, dance a-a-and…'

‘Fuck?' I finish.

He nods.

‘Then let's go and have a dance, shall we?'

Shaw goes to open the door, still gripping Bensen by the scruff of his neck. Before he can, it explodes into splinters, sending them both staggering backwards.

A mountain of a monster with great, curved horns stops in the doorway. His body is elongated, and his arms hang an inch from the ground. His skin has black and red stripes, and when he blinks, two sets of lids moisten his one remaining white eye.

‘Not possible,' I breathe, looking at the creature I long believed dead.

I let out a nervous bout of laughter as he steps inside, his eye on nothing and no one but Shaw. A deep laugh rumbles from his chest as Shaw just looks up at him. There have not been many times in my life that I have seen the Dream Walker speechless or stunned to such a degree that he can't move. But the appearance of this living, breathing nightmare has him precisely that.

‘Sathick,' Shaw breathes.

Neve's favourite monster and a sick mutant of whatever the fuck he was before dark magic corrupted him. Man? Elf? Fae? I have no idea. But he's old. As old as Shaw, perhaps.

Dorian said Sathick lived in hell. They were both the blood goddess's creation.

‘Ronan,' Sathick drawls, taking another step inside and making the house tremble around him and the floors beneath bend. ‘It's been a while.'

Shaw quickly recomposes himself and returns to his feet. Bensen scurries to the side of the room, his mouth open in a silent scream, and he looks at the monster standing in his hallway.

‘Last time I saw you,' Shaw says. ‘You were bleeding out after we decimated the blood coven in the silver mountains.'

Sathick scoffs, flashing the many layers of razor-sharp teeth filling his mouth. I saw him use those teeth far too many times. His jaw dislocates, and his favourite meal is human flesh.

Particularly babies.

I try to hide the shudder as I recall the many piercing cries of those he devoured. At the sound of their wailing coming from inside as he swallowed them whole after shredding their skin as they passed his teeth.

Shaw killed him many years ago. Or so we thought.

‘And last I saw you, General,' Sathick sneers. ‘You had betrayed my queen and sided with human scum.'

‘In fact,' I add. ‘The last time you saw him was when he scooped out your left eye with that rusted old fork he found in a pile of horse shit. Bet that hurt like a bitch. It can't have healed too well, either. Bet you got a nasty infection. You know. From the rust.' I grimace. ‘And the horse shit. Horse shit in the bloodstream has to sting. Has to burn. I bet you can still smell it, too, huh? The horse shit.'

Sathick growls deeply.

‘Archie. Go to the coven.'

Shaw looks between us as I linger by the window. I don't look away from Sathick. For such a spindly and giant beast, he's quick, so doing so would be a dangerous mistake.

I don't care about the coven. I really don't give a single fuck. Let them all burn. Let them die.

‘Go!' he orders. ‘I've got this bastard. That's where she will go. Protect her.'

‘Don't die,' I warn him.

As I jump through the window, Shaw stands tall and faces the most lethal of Neve's followers.

Sathick. The devourer of babies.