“You are whatever I say you are.” He growls before he throws her to the floor and vanishes into the darkness.
A heartbeat later white eyes stare through the night. Alistair's Strix. Scanning everything and not missing a thing. Alistair is perched high in the branches of a tree as the Strix returns to him. Showing him where Gwen and Seth are running to. He makes no move to chase them down. Instead, he sends the Strix back to watch them. This time when it returns it shows him a group of vampires on their trail. Three of them and the one at the front has red hair. Alistair curses before turning to smoke. He reappears just as the vampires reach their quarry. They surround Seth but don't attack.
Mum slips off Seth's back holding her hand to his neck for support. Seth slowly turns to look up at her. His eyes flash Amber and his teeth glint in the moonlight as he lunges for her throat. Gwen doesn't notice as her eyes are locked onto Alistair as he leaps from the trees and grabs Seth around the muzzle before his teeth make contact.
The vampire with Red hair plus another male jump onto Seth's back. One bites down on his throat whilst the female digs her clawed hands elbow deep into his rib cage. The choked scream that escapes Seth is agonising.
Alistair conjures a thick cloud, blinding them all of their senses. Stunned silence. Through the darkness I watch as Alistair conjures a wolf from blue fire and liquid darkness. He launches it at two of the unsuspecting vampires. It slices their throats and they fall to the ground. Dead. The red haired vampire stares around unseeing into the darkness and comes face to face with Alistair. His eyes grip hers in an unbreakable hold as he mutters.
“You couldn’t find the Nymph. Your comrades were mauled by a wolf that you finally brought down. Now return to Hades.”
She stares blankly then shoots off into the forest. Alistair lifts the darkness to reveal Seth’s mutilated corpse. Gwen is nowhere to be seen. He looks around the clearing and seeming satisfied, leaves in the same direction he sent the female vampire.
A few moments pass and Gwen steps out from inside a tree, tears streaming down her face as she goes to Seth. She drops to her knees and places a kiss on his cheek before closing his eyes. She strokes the fur around his ears then gets up and carries on running.
I’m dragged through the trees at lightning speed and come to a dizzying stop in a smouldering clearing. The ranch a smoking glow in the distance. There’re large metal cages with members of the pack inside seemingly unconscious. I spot a large dark brown wolf with a black ridge of fur going down its back. My dad. Blood drips from a gaping wound on his neck and both his hind legs are bent at unnatural angles. Burns also cover his body.
The few vampires that are here including the red haired women are all kneeling with their heads bowed. Alistair is stood in the centre of them. They’re all facing a tall male figureshrouded in darkness. His icy silver eyes shining through the cloak of darkness that swirls around him.
Sheer terror freezes me to the spot as I realise I’m stood mere feet from Hades. His presence oozes terrible power. The suffocating feeling of death and decay ebbs and flows from him like roiling, tar filled waves. Despair fills me at the onslaught of his aura. When he speaks his voice chills me. That soft, malicious lilting voice.
“You failed me. All of you.”
The coven cowers from him. Some are quivering and sobbing they’re apologies. Alistair simply stands still. His shoulders tense.
His voice is even when he says. “My apologies father. I underestimated the power she would have access to here.”
“I see. You disappoint me Alistair.” He sighs. “I will track her down myself.” He begins to turn away.
“Please father.” Alistair kneels down on one knee his head bowed. “Allow me to bring her too you. She will not evade me a second time.”
Hades contemplates then holds up a hand where an ornate dagger appears wreathed in blue flame. He throws it with perfect precision at Alistair. I gasp as it stops an inch from his face. Hovering level with his eyes. Alistair doesn’t flinch but stares at the dagger slowing twisting in the air.
“You will not fail me again.” Hades’s tone is low and filled with threat. “You will bring her to me or I will burn every drop of your blood whilst it pulses through your veins should you prove to be as weak and pathetic as you were today.”
Darkness engulfs me as I’m torn from the clearing.
Then I'm back in the woods, by Seth's body. Three figures emerge. All have a dead, zombie like appearance. They're skin is grey and torn revealing black, oozing flesh. They're decaying even as they move in struggling slow steps. Their eyes are hollowbut through them I see a never ending void. Like the abyss lives inside them. They crane their heads and stare straight at me. Then the scream that bellows from them threatens to tear the world apart. It's suffering, anger and sorrow all rolled into one blood-curdling screech that turns my blood to ice.
I feel myself screaming as well as I struggle to get away from the most terrifying beings I have ever witnessed.
I blink and I’m back in the glen. My hand braced against the old oak tree. I look up into its branches in wonder as my chest throbs uncontrollably.
“How?” I whisper to it.
A pulse of power into my fingertips is my reply.
“Why did you show me that?” I plead.
Another pulse into my hand but this time followed by a vision of a glowing white stag with deep black pools for eyes. The spirit of Gaia. Her voice echoes through my mind like a softly spoken message carried on a gentle breeze.
“Fall into the darkness to discover the light deep within its depths.”
Her voice still echoes through my ears as the power radiating from the oak tree recedes. The light and energy emanating from it ebbs away leaving the glen feeling empty and the old oak tree hollow.
I step away from the tree and stare unseeing at the ground as I try to process what I saw. The horror of Seth’s murder and the destruction of the ranch. Lukas crumbling to the ground. Alistair using power I didn’t even know he had. Conjuring smoke, liquid night and blue fire. And Gaia’s message. Fall into the darkness to find the light. Why does she need to speak in riddles? Just tell me straight! What darkness do I need to fall into to find the light in its depths? I need to be high to make sense of that one.
I look to Daphne who is pawing at the ground.
