Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-Four

I froze and my eyes widened. My first thought was the missing little girl. I scoured the area for signs of the brown-haired mouse but nothing could be seen. The sound came again, however.

“We need to find him,” Will spoke up.

I furrowed my brow at him. “Do you hear him this time?”

Will nodded. “I think it’s coming from our right and deeper into the woods.”

I examined my weakened companion and didn’t like the odds. “Do you have enough fire left in you to protect us?”

“Enough for one last blast but you would have to carry me back,” he warned me.

“Uh, how do you feel about being carried by our feet?”

“Not at all confident you could get me back. You’d have to leave me.”

I adjusted his weight and glared at him. “Then you’ll just have to save what’s left and use your own legs. Now let’s go see who’s crying.”

We shambled out of the blackened hole created by Will’s magic and into the woods. The sound soon grew louder and the woods opened into a small clearing of grass and leaves. A small boy sat on the ground with his back against a stone. He was huddled like the little girl with his legs tucked against his chest and his head hidden in his limbs. His whole boy quivered like a leaf in a windstorm.

This was starting to become an epidemic of abandoned children.

“Hello?” I called out as we approached the lad. “Are you hurt?” The boy’s sobs only grew louder and he shrank into himself.

“We’ve come to help you,” Will assured him as he eased himself off my shoulder and stood on his own strength. He opened his arms and hands in front of him. “See? We don’t mean you any harm.”

The boy let out a terrible wail and buried his face deeper into his knees. Will made to move forward but I set a hand on his shoulder. “You stay here. I have practice doing this, remember?”

He pursed his lips and inspected the open area. “I will watch our surroundings.”

I nodded and strode over to the quivering boy. His jeans and shirt were soiled and mud covered his arms. I knelt before the child and offered him my hand and a bright smile. “Hello there. What are you doing out-”

The boy lifted his head and his tear-filled eyes met mine. They were big and dark like those of the girl, but there was something about their depths that sent a shiver down my spine. My smile faltered and I drew my hand back a little.

The boy drew his legs beneath him and held out his hand. “Please,” he whimpered as his lower lip trembled. “Please help me. I’m lost.”

I inched my way toward the young man and kept both my wary eyes on him. “How’d you get out here?”

He sniffled. “I. . .I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.”

“Not even your name?” I questioned the kid.

He shook his head. “No.” The boy stretched out his hand to me. “Will you help me? Please?”

Every fiber in my being told me to run. Run and don’t look back.

“Rose?” Will called out and there was a distinct tension in his voice. “Is something the matter?”

“N-nothing, just talking to him,” I replied with more assurance than I felt.

The boy stretched out both arms and wiggled his fingers at me. “Why aren’t you coming to me? Please! I need help!”

The urgency in his voice pulled at my heartstrings but my head was screaming at me to back up. To run away. “I-I-”

“Please!” The timbre in the boy’s voice changed. There was something hideously vicious in those words that came from that child-like mouth.

I flung myself back and out of the boy’s reach, but his arms lengthened and expanded into those of a full-grown man. His hands wrapped around my throat and cut off my air, sending my brain into a panic. Things were made all the worse when the thing choked me hard enough to cut off my air supply.

A second pair of strong hands grabbed the first and wrenched them away. Sweet air rushed into my starving lungs and I scrambled back in the middle of a choking fit. I wrapped one hand around my throat and watched Will battle with the boy who was not a boy. The rest of his body changed to match his arms and he morphed into a man about Will’s appearance with short black hair and pale skin. That skin was covered in hard gray scales that shimmered in the starlight.

He shoved Will away and stumbled backward onto his feet. The man’s hideous yellow eyes glared down at me with a cold threat of death.

“Why do you not die?”

My mouth dropped open. “Why are you trying to kill us? We don’t even know you!”

A long, dark sneer marred his features. “No, but you knew my father. It is for him that I seek this revenge.”

I blinked at him. “Your-” My breath caught in my throat when the truth dawned on me.

The man slowly nodded, ever keeping his eyes locked on Will and me. “Yes. I am Corbin Baddock. My father was Simon Baddock, the man you murdered.”

I choked on my spittle. “Murdered? He was trying to murder me! ”

“Then you should have died for his cause!” Corbin insisted as his voice took on a sharp screeching pitch. “Instead he died! All that knowledge and memories destroyed by a heartless woman!”

Will stepped between us and balled his hands into fists. He had a determined look on his face but his legs slightly shook as he exerted immense effort to keep himself from falling. “You are a fool. Your father prolonged his life beyond what nature granted him. Whatever knowledge he had accumulated to do so should have died with him because such power should never exist.”

Corbin lifted his nose and narrowed his eyes at us. “Magic should be used to fight against the rules of nature.”

Will opened his fingers and small flames burst from his palm. The light cast long shadows over his face as he stiffened his jaw. “We will use our natural magic to fight and defeat you.”

Corbin threw his head back and laughed. The loud, sharp sound echoed all around us. “You believe you can stop us?”

I eased myself onto my feet as I dreaded the question I needed to ask. “Us?”

Corbin cupped his hands together in front of him and a small blob of darkness oozed out of his flesh. The shadows morphed themselves into the familiar hideous worms we had been battling. “I found this little friend of mine floating on the wind as I tried to find my way to the elven kingdom. He was so lost and lonely that I took him in and gave him nourishment.”

Will’s face twisted with disgust. “You gave your life energy to sustain its own.”

A long grin stretched across the man’s face as he nodded like a proud toddler. “Oh yes. You see, we both had the same goal in mind.”

“And after you are finished with your goal then you will be consumed by it,” Will snapped.

Corbin knelt and set the worm on the ground. “Oh, I think not. This little creature is quite useful in being able to boundlessly multiply but it isn’t very bright.” He gave the worm a push in our direction and the thing slithered toward us.

Will threw a fireball at it and the flames crashed into the creature. The worm gave a hideous shriek before it was consumed.

Corbin lifted his eyes to us and they were filled with malice. “You believe you can continue to exert enough power to destroy all of my children?” He lifted one hand and snapped his fingers.

Dozens of gray worms oozed their way out of the ground around us. I yelped as one brushed against my foot and I scuttled over to Will’s side. He backed up and we bumped into each other as the monsters surrounded us ten layers deep and all with one purpose: to destroy us.

Or worse.

“Go on, my children!” Corbin cooed as he straightened. “Go get them!”

I didn’t need an abacus to know there were too many of them. We were hopelessly outnumbered. Our only hope was for our friends to come to the rescue.

“And don’t think your friends can come save you,” Corbin warned as he stretched his arms out to either side of him. “My children are planted everywhere and without your hideous light they can do nothing but fight against the inevitable-”

“Bam!”

A small fiery explosion burst out of the ground in front of us, sending dirt and the remains of black worms flying everywhere. Will spun around and wrapped his arms around me to cover my body from the splattering of torn shadows and brown dirt. I still had a good view of the battlefield in front of me where a dust cloud floated between Corbin and us. The faint outline of a short figure emerged from the dissipating dirt.

My mouth dropped open when I beheld the little girl standing between us and our foe. Her hands were balled into fists and she glared at Corbin with a fierce determination.

“Don’t hurt my Mommy and Daddy!”