Feast (22 page)
Authors: Merrie Destefano
Thane:
I swung through the air, wings beating midnight, Veil slicing time into neat little quadrants. I flew, near invisible, a ghost-like wraith with a heart filled with vengeance and a belly that hungered. No one saw me as I swept through the field, grabbing humans and carrying them off. Not even the other Darklings were aware of my plunder, they were so engrossed in their own decadent revelry. They all gathered around the humans, feasting until one by one, the Darklings fell to the ground, drunk.
I slung two more children through my Veil, pausing for moment to admire my own reflection in the glimmering weave. It was the strongest I’d ever made, plaited from the silken thread that flows through dreams, that binds the human soul to its body.
Then I noticed movement on the other side—Madeline was wandering around inside the enclosure, fighting sleep.
I smiled.
Rest, my sweet. Save your dreams for me. For no one but me.
Then I soared away, close to the ground, listening to the dreams that scorched the near sky, dreams being harvested as I flew, some of them brushing against my skin, tempting me.
I thought about Madeline, skin like starlight, pale sparks that glimmered around her face, that shot from her lips when she spoke. And just below the surface—behind the waking thoughts that cluttered her mind—were her dreams. Like a vast unguarded playground, swings moved in the breeze and Ferris wheels sprang to life, sweet as spun sugar and just as fragile. Likewise, her boy had all the magic of a summer sunrise, of a breeze as it blew across a field of nodding poppies.
My nostrils flared, and deep in my belly, hunger stirred.
They would make a delicious feast—an appetizer and the main course. All I needed was dessert, maybe the whimsical dreams found in a little girl. I scanned the field, searching for just the right addition to my table when something caught my attention.
Maddie’s dog.
The beast stood at attention, ears up, staring back toward the line of distant trees. Listening. I glanced in the same direction, back toward my hidden enclosure, and suddenly I could hear it too, the boy was laughing and playing with Maddie. They were both awake.
A dull fear surged in my gut.
Then the dog was running, a black-and-tan streak across snowy field, one part dog, one part werebeast, feet pummeling earth faster than any animal alive.
I bristled. Now the dog was digging at the edge of the enclosure.
No! It was going to tunnel beneath the Veil and set them free.
I turned, cast wings to the heavens, ready to fight the beast, strength flowing through my limbs. I would win. Tonight I could defeat even a werebeast if I had to.
Then a mooncast shadow suddenly held me in place.
Fingers gripped me by the throat. A body appeared in front of me, materializing from the mists, Darkling flesh and broad shoulders, silver eyes that sparked like fire, wings spread wide as a midnight cloak. The fragrance of a forest and the rushing of wind through the leaves.
A growl rippled from my opponent’s chest and his lips parted, revealing sharp dagger-like teeth. “You were ordered to leave,” Ash said, his voice like a nightmare brought to life. Then with a claw-studded blow to the gut, the fight for Ticonderoga Falls and everything in it began.
Chapter 88
Half-Cast Enchantments
Ash:
We rolled and tumbled over icy ground, slammed against the edge of the junkyard fence, fists burrowing deep in flesh, claws leaving trails of blood. Half-cast enchantments sputtered from my lips, each stopped by yet another blow to the face. I rumbled with anger, a fierce heat radiating from my skin, scorching Thane with every blow.
Then the other Darklings began to surround us, attracted by the fight and by the high stakes. They left their humans asleep on the ground, then gathered in clusters to take bets, all of them drunk from the feeding. Twittering with coarse laughter, the crowd began to hedge us in, forming a circle of black wings, their crude enchantments glittering.
Time in the human world slowed down and the fight seemed unending. I felt like I was moving in slow motion, every punch, every kick exaggerated by the incongruent spells that were continually cast about.
And then, all the other Darklings began to dance and fly, chanting, singing, laughing, caught up in the wild fury. From time to time one of the northern barbarians would fly close enough to take a nip at one of us, then he or she would sail away.
Meanwhile, the fight continued.
I bit Thane in the shoulder and dragged him across the field. I tried to get away from the other Darklings but they refused to let us pass, hemming us in on every side. All the while, my adversary thrashed and screamed, sliced his talons through the air. Thane spun out of my grasp, shoulders and arms broadening for yet another attack. My cousin lunged forward, head down, kicking and swinging and screaming an ancient battle cry. The shriek of war then echoed around us, taken up by every accent and clan. Suddenly an unexpected punch caught me in the gut as Thane slammed his fist into the still-healing wound in my side.
I bellowed in pain.
Again, Thane had found my weakness—this time, no longer hidden by a Veil. He glared, opened his mouth in a wicked grin. He narrowed yellow eyes, tilted his head to the side as if studying me. I didn’t move, save a shallow breathing.
Thane crouched, got ready to pounce.
Then he soared the short distance between us, pummeled a talon-studded fist into my wound, ignoring the heat that blistered his skin, digging deeper and deeper: sparks flew in a shower all around us, until Thane’s knuckles shoved all the way through the hole and emerged on the other side.
A raucous cheer resounded. Now wings hid the sky, became a dome of black and gray leathery flesh that surrounded us.
I collapsed on the ground amidst the screaming and howling of rival clans, while other fights broke out like drunken brawls.
While my own blood stained the ground.
Maddie:
Samwise, sometimes dog, sometimes monster, dug furiously at the edge of Thane’s created stockade. He tunneled beneath the Veil, squirmed through dirt and leaves and twigs until he burst through to the other side.
And there, on the other side, Tucker hooted and howled, then grabbed the dog—for he was all dog now and nothing else—around the neck, kissed and hugged him, rejoicing as Thane’s enchantment began to fade when exposed to fresh air. The dog frolicked around the perimeter of the enclosure, big sloppy grin on his face, mud caking his paws and chest.
He was the hero.
He had saved the day.
I laughed too, then fell to the ground almost exhausted from trying to stay awake. I braced my arms on both sides of the hole in the earth, took a lungful of sweet mountain air, and with it I suddenly sensed a tension, a danger brewing outside.
It felt ominous, like the air pressure had changed and a tornado was brewing; I sensed a storm on the other side. A storm of Darkling against Darkling, supernatural power sizzling through night sky.
I sat back on my haunches, oblivious now to the antics of boy and dog, to the awakening of the crowd Thane had corralled. I focused on the words and the firestorm just outside, then widened the hole in the ground with bare hands so I could slide through. I pushed my head down inside, the smell of wet earth surrounding me; I wriggled through, feeling stuck but not giving in.
I didn’t see the appearance of two white transparent figures inside the enclosure, or how they each reached down to help the trapped humans scramble to their feet. I didn’t know that Nick and Pinch, my two darkest and most dangerous characters, had been mysteriously summoned, or that they were already pulling pranks, elbowing a few people and then tripping them on their way toward the exit.
Despite this, my chimerical villains were listening to me. For no one had ever loved them as much as I did.
They were watching me.
Ever faithful. Ever ready.
Just like they had been from the moment I first created them. Listening even now, ready to do whatever I asked them to do.
Maddie:
I pushed my way through to the surface, mud in my hair, on my face, fingers wet and dark with it. The scent of the earth clung to my clothes and skin; I pulled myself out of the narrow hole, then climbed to my feet and brushed my hair away from my face.
A black cloud bristled in front of me. Wings darting, talons gleaming, Darkling bodies merged together to form a great wall of negative and positive shapes, ever moving, a turmoil of hellish arms and legs and teeth. Screams and laughter filled the night air and the ground trembled. Something horrid was happening on the other side of this wall of Darkling flesh. Then a voice called through the hallways of my mind. The red-black blood on my hands burned again, blisters reminding me.
Ash.
Stay back.
He was trying to warn me.
Take your boy and leave.
Now
. Never come back.
Foolish creature. Foolish as any man I had ever known. As if I would leave now, knowing that he was in the midst of some vicious battle; after he had saved me, more than once. I glanced at the perimeter of the wall, saw three female Darklings trying to break through. One of them had tears running down her face as she repeatedly called out, “Father!”
Even they couldn’t save him.
Then I smelled Thane’s stench, spidery and moldy, like a creature you would find in an abandoned shed.
I’m not leaving,
I told Ash in a silent voice
.
A sigh circled overhead, wrapped itself around the field, seemed to caress me before it drifted off into the trees.
For a moment the moon turned bright, even brighter than the sun.
It smiled down. Narrow beams of light poured through misty clouds, glanced upon my skin and set it aglow. I felt suddenly stronger, like a surge of electric energy pulsed through my limbs, radiated from my fingertips. And behind me, though I didn’t see it, the field began to fill with the people who had been set free from Thane’s spell, all of them climbing through the hole, following the path I had forged. Nearly fifty people scampered through the narrow earthen tunnel, Tucker and Samwise at their heels. Until finally, they had all escaped and now stood behind me, poised and ready.
Among them were Nick and Pinch.
A transparent army of two.
Chapter 91
The Feast of Forbidden Dreams
Ash:
Incantations flew through the air, dangerous and heavy as weapons made of iron. One misstep and a jaw could be torn loose.
Stay back.
I knew that Elspeth, Sage and Sienna were trying to rescue me. I could feel their spells, delicate as a spring breeze, offering a light reprieve, just enough for me to open my eyes.
Leave this place. There are too many.
Those I loved would get caught up in the melee—they could be killed—if their enchantments broke through the wall and they tried to enter, but this fight was my choice, not theirs. My battle.
My sacrifice.
Thane laughed, withdrew his bloodstained fist from my side, then struck me across the face. He towered over me, pinning me to the ground, foot on my chest as he cast another enchantment.
A spell of silence.
Suddenly I was all alone, separated from my clan, unable to communicate through word or thought. Thane barked a command to those who huddled nearby.
“Guard the perimeter of the fight, see that no one enters, not one of his clan,” Thane said. “Not even the werebeast!”
The barbarians chittered and cackled, sent patrols to defend the ragged edges of the flock.
Thane leaned down, then whispered, “And now I shall take the dreams that should have been mine. I take from you all the hope, all the glory, all the life that you have stolen from others, I take it and claim it as my own.”
He began the ceremony of sacrilege, an act that left the surrounding Darklings incensed and amazed. No one had performed this rite in hundreds of years.
He was going to break our most sacred rule.
“Give me your dreams!” Thane cried then, conjuring magic that had been nearly forgotten, a spell so old he could barely pronounce the words. His voice carried through the crowd to the forest and the returning echo nearly shook him off his feet.
Thus the Feast of Forbidden Dreams began.
I trembled as each dream was siphoned off, each one like another layer of skin being ripped away. I clenched my fists, trapped in silence, cut off from the fragrance of the forest deep, hidden from the healing light of the moon, betrayed by one of my own clansmen, one I myself had invited. I wished I could see Elspeth one last time, wished that I would have been able to break through the barrier of fear within Maddie, that I could have shown her another side of myself.
But humans can’t accept Darklings—our worlds are too different. To them, I would always be a monster that needed to be destroyed.
My heartbeat slowed to the droning pace of a requiem poem. My blood thinned and my limbs grew cold.
I fought for a few moments more, holding on to that last dream, the one that had bloomed tonight in the midst of the Hunt—the dream that I could be forgiven for what I had done to the Driscolls. And that I might be able to love again. I hid this last dream deep in my heart, where the red-black blood still glittered and sparked, where a few beats still remained.
I would not give this last one up. I would keep it locked and hidden, no matter how fierce the battle with Thane, willing to take this one with me into the Land of Dreams.
When my soul was finally pried loose.
And that would be soon. Very soon.
Maddie:
I stood, bathed in silver light, head cocked to one side, listening to the battle, remembering the last bitter words spoken by Ash. A heavy silence now reigned. I couldn’t hear him anymore, couldn’t feel his heartbeat pulsing in my red-black hands, couldn’t smell his fragrance seeping through the horde of Darkling wings that surrounded him.
No. This will not happen.
You will not take him from me.
I clenched my fists, then ran toward the crowd of black and gray flesh that separated me from Ash. I raced across the torn and muddy field, leaping over those humans who still slept, anger replacing any fear I might have had. I struck the Darklings on their leathery backs, surprised when sparks tumbled from every blow.
“Let me in!” I cried, though none of them moved aside.
Instead, one of the beasts turned his head and snarled. He swiveled around until he faced me, his mouth open wide to reveal dagger-sharp teeth. He snapped and growled with a sinister grin, threatened to bite my arm if I dared strike him again.
Then, suddenly, two ghost-white creatures came between us, they grabbed the menacing Darkling and cast him aside, sent him tumbling into the distant wood.
I stared at the hovering transparent beings, who in turn looked back at me in silence. They glowed from the silver light of the moon, as if made of fire.
Nick and Pinch
. They came nearer until they stood at my side; they each bowed a knee to me.
“Send us in,” they said in unison, their voices rough as a winter storm. “All you need do is give us the word.”
Ash’s daughter was beside me, fists clenched, tears on her cheeks. She nodded.
Then I—Madeline MacFaddin, known to many as Mad Mac—turned and pointed toward the Darkling flock that would not move, that would not let me pass.
“Go!” I said.
It was such a simple command and yet both Nick and Pinch knew exactly what I wanted and were willing to do it. With hearts ablaze, my transparent creatures pushed their way through the growling horde.
And their magic was stronger than any the Darklings had ever seen.
