Collide and Seek: Act 4-5 (Bitter Ashes Book 2) (9 page)

“James and Diana?” Alaric asked as they ran, only sounding slightly out of breath.

“I don't know,” Sophie replied, “but I'm glad to be rid of them.”

“Don't we need Diana's help?” I commented, though my voice was strained from having my mid-section pushed against Alaric's shoulder.

Alaric and Sophie were both quiet for a moment, then began speaking to each other in a language I didn't understand. Great, just great. Not only was I going to either freeze to death or go to jail, I was also going to be left out of any planning involved in attempting to prevent either of those outcomes.

Alaric and Sophie continued talking like I wasn't even there, and I settled in to listen for signs of pursuit. I could no longer hear the sirens, but I almost thought I could hear the souls screaming back in the hotel for me to release them. The sound would haunt me until I died, which given my luck, would probably be within the next few hours.

Eventually Alaric and Sophie slowed and I was let down to my feet. My entire body ached from cold, and from being held over Alaric's shoulder for an extended period of time. Along the way, I had continuously replayed the entire hotel scene over and over in my mind, and still couldn't push the disturbing thoughts from my head.

By now, the dead Vaettir would have been put into body bags and carted away by the police. They would likely reanimate, and Norway would be awash with sensationalized stories about a zombie rampage.

Alaric and Sophie both paced, crunching pine needles under their feet. Sophie was the only one of us lucky enough to be wearing shoes, and she was fully clothed in her normal black attire. Alaric wore only his black jeans, leaving his dark hair to trail over his pale, bare chest. 

I crouched down to cover my legs with my coat, then glared up at both of them.

Sophie glared right back. “
What
?”

I sighed. “If you both are done ignoring me, I have some questions.”

Alaric stopped pacing and came to crouch beside me. “I'm sorry,” he said as he put an arm around me. “We didn't mean to ignore you.”

Accepting his body heat, but not his apology, I leaned against him. “What's going to happen when the dead bodies we left in the hotel room reanimate?” I asked.

“I'm sure their clan will take care of it,” Sophie said tiredly.

“Their clan?” I questioned.

“It's the whole reason we formed clans to begin with,” Alaric explained, “and why we are supposed to stay within the Salr. It is the Doyen's responsibility to make sure things like this don't happen.”

I closed my eyes against a budding headache. “But whose clan were they a part of?”

“That's the part I do not like,” Sophie commented. “They were not from Estus' clan, and James claimed that they did not belong to Aislin, either.”

I began to shiver, and it wasn't just from the cold. I didn't understand the world of the Vaettir like Alaric and Sophie did, and I was getting tired of being left in the dark.   “So what do we do now?” I asked, interrupting Alaric and Sophie's continued conversation. “If Diana thinks that the charm is somewhere near here, should we try to find it without her?”

Alaric and Sophie both looked at each other instead of me, like they were passing thoughts back and forth in front of my face.

Finally Alaric turned to me. “We never planned on finding the charm with her. We just needed her help to locate the exact area.”

My mouth formed a little “oh” of surprise that soon turned into a tight-lipped grimace. “You could have let me in on that plan at some point,” I chided.

“We didn't want to give Diana any reason to doubt your intentions,” Sophie explained, “but her obsession with you and Alaric has given us pause.”

I exhaled an annoyed huff of breath, fogging the air in front of me. “Stop talking like you're the
hive mind
. What do you mean her obsession with us?”

Alaric gave me a tight squeeze as Sophie explained, “Her obsession that the two of you be together. She would not do it for selfless reasons, and I highly doubt she's a die-hard romantic. She somehow wants to use that bond, and I do not like it. She's more invested in this than she's letting on. When we were attacked, she left us to go after you. She chose you over her own grandson.”

“B-but there are other executioners out there,” I stammered. “Surely I'm not
that
important.”

Sophie shrugged. “I have no explanation for it, but I vote we leave this place and forget all about the charm.”

“And hide forever?” Alaric countered. “I've no doubt Diana will do her best to hunt us down, as will Estus. Aislin is Diana's sister, which means we'll have the two largest clans among the Vaettir scouring the earth for us.”

Sophie glared at her brother. “We've hidden before . . . ” she trailed off.

I shook my head. “I agree with Alaric.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Of
course
you do. So what do you suggest, Madeline, since you seem to know everything?”

I would have been offended by her sarcasm if I couldn't feel the fear wafting off her like a cloying perfume. “I want to find the charm, and give it to Aislin in return for protection. Short of killing Estus, there is no other way to stop him from hunting us.”

Sophie snorted. “You don't even know Aislin. What makes you think that she'll keep her word?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” I countered.

We sat in silence for several minutes before Sophie said, “Fine, but we better get moving if we're going to keep ahead of James and Diana.”

I nodded and stood, though pulling away from Alaric's warmth and re-baring my legs to the cold took way more will power than I'd like to admit.

After a few minutes of me hobbling on the cold ground like a new-born horse, Sophie even gave me her boots and kept just her socks on, proving she was a much tougher woman that me, which I was more than okay with.

I had no idea how we would find the charm before anyone else found us. My hope was that Alaric or Sophie would somehow be able to sniff it out, but there was one fall-back option: The charm was sealed in place by the dead. If the spirits still remained within the burial mounds, I would be able to sense them . . . hopefully.

It was a long shot, but at least we would probably freeze to death before Estus or anyone else could kill us.

A
fter several hours stumbling through the wintery woods, there was still no sign of James or Diana. There was also no sign of the place we were looking for. My borrowed boots crunched over dead twigs and patches of snow haphazardly as I forced myself onward, feeling numb from cold and exhaustion.

I stared at Alaric and Sophie's backs as they each moved gracefully a few feet ahead of me. Neither had expressed worry about the implications of being lost in the freezing cold woods without food or shelter, and I had to trust that they would keep us alive. We had other more imminent worries anyhow.

I took a moment to lean against a tree and catch my breath, knowing that the lack of sound from my ceased movement was enough to alert my companions that I was no longer following them. I knew we needed to keep moving, but the cold air and altitude made my lungs ache, and it was difficult to keep up with Alaric and Sophie's pace. Sophie looked back at me impatiently while Alaric turned around and approached, ready to lift me up and carry me.

I was ready to let him, but something caught my eye in the air beside his head. A slight shimmer disturbed the still scenery. I was about to write it off as a hallucination, then my head was suddenly filled with faint whispers. I couldn't tell where the whispers were coming from, but it was obvious that Alaric and Sophie didn't hear them. They both watched my changed expression warily as they waited for an explanation.

“You guys don't hear that, do you?” I asked, wanting confirmation.

They both remained silent as they listened.

“I hear only the birds and the wind,” Sophie replied, “and my hearing is likely
much
better than yours.”

Alaric closed the distance between us and placed a hand on my arm. “What do you hear, Maddy?”

The volume of the whispers grew, and I crouched to the ground, pulling Alaric with me. As I suspected, the whispers grew louder still.

“I hear voices,” I explained distantly, feeling like I was in a trance.

Alaric met my eyes. “You know, that's what crazy people say . . . ” he whispered.

I bit my lip as I tried to think of a witty reply, then the air began to shimmer around us, distracting me. I inhaled sharply as I finally realized what I was feeling.
Spirits
. Or at least their energy. The air felt alive with it. It was clear that Alaric and Sophie still felt nothing, even as my own sense of things increased.

I began using my bare hands to clear the soil and dead pine needles from the ground around my feet. I still couldn't get a direct sense of where the voices were coming from, but I knew they were somewhere below us. I could feel their heavy presence reaching out to me. Alaric watched me for a moment, then began clearing the dirt as well, trusting my judgment. Sophie stood back and waited.

The whispers became almost unbearable as they egged me on. With a sigh to let us know how irritated she was, Sophie joined us in our digging. The pulsing energy was thrumming so desperately that it shook my bones as my hand ran across a small, metal ring amidst a clump of grass. I dug my fingers into the grass and pulled the loop free. It hinged upward in my grasp, with one end somehow attached to the ground. I attempted to tug on it as Alaric and Sophie came to crouch on either side of me, but it wouldn't budge.

With a look of wonder on his face, Alaric took the ring from me, then gave it a pull, using his knees to lift with more force than I had to offer at that moment. When it still wouldn't budge, I wrapped my hands around his arms while Sophie grabbed his waist, and the three of us pulled together.

We all fell backward as a large trap door pulled free from the earth. Righting ourselves, we moved around the now open door to crouch in front of the opening. I leaned over the edge and looked down, causing loose soil to fall into what appeared to be some sort of vast cellar. 

“How on earth did you find that?” Sophie asked breathlessly as she rocked back on her heels.

“I could hear them,” I replied cryptically, and now that the door was open, I could hear the voices more clearly.

Without a second thought, I reached my hand into the cavern, searching for some way to climb down inside. The trap door was wide enough for two of us to fit down at once, but the straight drop down made it a less than practical mode of entry.

I continued patting around the inner lip of the entrance until my fingers scraped across a bar of rough wood that revealed itself to be the top rung of a ladder. I turned around and stuck a foot into the darkness, ready to climb down, not thinking about the dangers that might lurk within. Alaric wrapped a hand around my upper arm to stop me, worry creasing his brow.

He opened his mouth to speak, probably to suggest he go first, when a black shape barreled into us. Alaric and I fell with our attacker into the darkness. Our impact on the ground below was followed by the loud slam of the trap door.

The fall couldn't have been more than six or seven feet, but I landed on the bottom of the pile. My breath left me and I couldn't move. For a moment I thought that I had injured my back, but then whoever was on top of me rolled off and I was able to slowly sit up.

I could hear banging and shouting above us as Sophie tried to get the door open again. The sound of her shouting suddenly moved away from the door, but I could still hear her, like she was shouting at something, or someone, else. I wanted to call out to her, but I felt paralyzed with fear.

“Maddy?” Alaric whispered urgently. 

“I'm here,” I called, wanting to move toward the sound of his voice, but the darkness was so complete, it held me immobile. Plus, whoever had landed on me might still be nearby, and I didn't want to accidentally run into them instead.

I jumped as a hand landed in mine.

“It's me,” he whispered.

I nodded, then realized he couldn't see it as he pulled me to my feet. Standing gave me an overwhelming sense of vertigo, and the smell of mildew and damp earth made me feel like I might throw up.

“Someone is in here with us,” Alaric whispered as he pulled me against his side.

“I know,” I replied in answer to his warning. “Whoever it was landed right on top of me.”

I became further disoriented as we began to move. Even with my free hand held out in front of me, I felt like I was going to run my face into something at any moment.

“What about Sophie?” I whispered. I could no longer hear any commotion from above ground, and I was worried that something had happened to her.

“Sophie can take care of herself,” Alaric replied. “Plus, I think she's probably safer than us right now. Now we should probably stop talking and find what we're looking for.”

We felt along the walls as much as we could, moving in our chosen direction because it seemed as good as any. At that moment, there was nothing we could do about whoever had pushed us into the darkness, so we would just have to move forward in the hopes that they wouldn't jump us.

“Do you think this is the place?” I asked, feeling suddenly too elated to just keep quiet.

“Don't you?” he replied. “Or did you have some other reason for pawing around in the soil, then trying to climb down here without even thinking about what might lie below?”

We entered what seemed like a doorway, and as we turned a corner we could see pale, yellow light in the distance.

“What is that?” I whispered, ignoring his sarcasm.

“There's only one way to find out,” Alaric whispered in reply, removing his hand from mine to place it at the small of my back.

We crept toward the light in unison. While the small amount of light eased some of my tension, the feeling of eyes on my back gave me chills. Why would someone push us into the cavern, only to hide in the dark?

The light intensified as we neared, revealing a hunched form with its back to us, sitting in a rocking chair in what looked like a rather cozy room complete with upholstered furniture, and a large woven rug. The cozy scene was thrown off slightly by the surrounding darkness. I couldn't tell where the light was coming from, but it should have touched that darkness. Instead the black was like a solid wall.