Zera and Dusty snickered. Rissa looked as unamused as the day I’d met her. Enora still seemed freaked out, making me wonder if she’d ever fought a real demon in her life. MJ smirked at Oliver, looking close to taunting him. Matt almost appeared left out, glaring at Dusty. Only Ichi and Aspen ignored the antics, keeping their attention on our surroundings.
“Whatever you say?—”
I held up a hand. “Keep your mouths shut and your weapons and powers ready. If, for some reason, we need to distinguish each other, whistle. If you see a squadmate go down and they need help, whistle twice.”
We stalked after the Spinewalker, keeping distance and cover between us. It crept through the infected forest, slow and aimless. Sometimes it moved toward the uninfected trees, stopping once it got near as if there was an invisible barrier, then turning back toward the diseased ones. Maybe Zera had a point. Maybe the Spinewalker was confused.
Two loud thumps shook the ground as the Spinewalker stopped. Roots near its stumps speared into the earth, stabilizing it.
A deep sense of foreboding washed over me.
“Circle up and get down,” I hissed.
We crouched behind leafy shrubs and watched from a distance.
The infected came.
They stepped out of the Spinewalker’s body. One. Two. Three. Four. And they just kept coming until there were at least twenty.
This was it. This was our answer.
Were Ronen and his Dreads here? Did they see what we did? He had to. I could feel his anxiety. It was so potent I swore I’d feel his shock if he opened up to me.
“MJ,” I whispered.
“I see it,” she breathed.
“They’re harmless, Oliver. You’ll be stuck in their darkness forever, Oliver. Well, it doesn’t look like forever to me,” he snapped. “Fucking demon-regurgitating trees…”
Fog rolled across our boots. Rune growled, whipping around. Aspen and MJ shot up, and the rest of us followed, turning toward thesource of the fog. Toward the infected Damned slowly emerging from behind the trees.
One by one, they converged, stepping at the same pace, moving with the same eerie precision, eyes glazed and skin molting from their naked, oozing bodies. They surrounded us. Outnumbered us. And at the forefront stood an infected with intelligent eyes.
“Surprise,” he rasped. A bright red line slashed his face in half, stark against his black skin. His horns curled atop his head just as bright and bloody, and he wore a Dread uniform.
Not fog. Odorless smoke.
“Ridigar,” MJ hissed, notching a flaming arrow and releasing.
He luscelered to the side, and the arrow sank into the eye of an infected male on his right. Black gunk spurted from the wound, sizzled, then he fell back—the soul unconscious but not dead.
Ridigar grinned and turned his dark eyes on Aspen as the other infected souls closed in. “Anyone who brings me the Tenebrous Prince’s head on a platter can join us in the re-making of Hell.”
MJ, Oliver, Ichi, Rissa, and I stepped closer to Aspen, circling him in our protection. Rune and Hadrian snarled. Valarus and Zera only hesitated for a second before shifting, backs to us and weapons drawn on the infected. Dusty glanced at Matt for direction as Matt panned between the incoming infected and Aspen. The smoke thickened around us and thinned around Matt and Dusty, encouraging, seducing.
“Blood-banded are welcome as they are. They just need to be loyal, and they can have the same fresh start, the same power. Lead their own infected,” Ridigar added.
Dusty and Matt hesitated, considering. The invasive energy plucked the strings of my Infernus, and my skin stretched and itched. Before MJ or I could take them out, sweet, gentle music eased into my ears like a soft caress. It was beautiful. Nothing I’d ever heard before.
My Infernus sank back into my core, its music hushing in favor of listening to something lighter and soothing. The invasive force that had overwhelmed me slipped back into its cave with my yawn. My eyelids grew heavy as I turned toward the source of the unique melody.
Enora, the doe-eyed, shaking Archangel, sang—not at our enemy. At us.
Oliver, Valarus, Zera, Rissa, and MJ dropped to the smoky ground. Then Rune and Hadrian. Aspen and I swayed. It should’ve concerned me. But the music gripped my attention, wrapping around me like a soft blanket and sounding like my mother’s voice. I couldn’t stop listening. I didn’t want to.
Aspen slumped on top of Oliver, and a second before I followed, a sharp pain pierced my head. No. Not mine. Ronen’s. It disrupted the music in my ears, giving me a moment of clarity. Of panic.
What felt like an electrical shock jolted through my power and bonds, filling me with a different kind of music. More deadly. Vicious. Vengeful.
