A Call of Vampires (A Shade of Vampire #51)(64)

“Then why are you here now?” Jax raised an eyebrow, and Darius sighed.

“Your arrival here has inspired us,” he said. “I felt like a coward when you and your team simply decided to come here. Besides, you have a Druid. None of our little swamp witches’ spells are a match for that, except maybe for the interplanetary spell. It’s the strongest of the handful she left us. At least you are all powerful and trained individuals. We can work together and maybe yield better results.”

Jax then looked over his shoulder, checking Scarlett and me.

“Stay close. Don’t do anything I don’t sanction,” he told us. “Keep your senses hyped and watch your sides. Your backs are covered.”

Indeed, Darius’s guards were behind us.

“We’re ready,” Jax said.

Darius clicked his teeth again, and we followed, staying quiet as we entered the gorge. The giant stone walls came around us with darkness and the sound of trickling water. I instinctively held my breath, focusing my True Sight on the narrow path ahead, a plethora of trees and bushes making it snake its way toward the other side of the gorge, which even I couldn’t see.

Nocturnal critters and large hooved herbivores mingled with the darkness, chewing on tree bark and grazing along patches of grass, undisturbed by our group. I even ventured to think they were ignoring us, as if we were nothing but passing ghosts.

I looked up and saw two moons watching over us, one white, the other a pale orange. They seemed like they knew more than we did.





Hansa





The first half mile through the gorge was uneventful and worryingly quiet. I could see through the darkness—the large boulders, the smooth patches of grass, the tall trees all over the place, and the animals rummaging for food.

My senses were on high alert, with a constant feeling that we were being watched. I looked up and got glimpses of the starry sky and two moons between the tree crowns. I checked on my team regularly, making sure that Scarlett and Harper stayed close behind Jax, Patrik, and me, while Darius led the way and his sixteen guards watched our backs.

Then we all heard it. The tortured shriek of a young woman, closer than we’d heard it before, maybe four hundred, five hundred feet ahead. I instinctively straightened my back, one hand clutching the handle of my broadsword.

Jax and I glanced at each other, and he shook his head, quietly asking me not to do what I was so tempted to do—dash out and get to the source of that scream. My blood rushed, my heart thudding in my ears.

A second scream came, slightly closer, as we moved forward.

“Jax,” I whispered, already frustrated. My horse was getting restless, as if sensing my urgent need to help whoever that was crying out in the darkness from what sounded like horrific pain.

“Hold on,” Jax shot back.

Leaves rustled and branches cracked somewhere behind us.

Darius’s guards squealed and grunted. Horses neighed, their hooves shuffling on the hard ground. I looked over my shoulder and froze. I could see well enough through the darkness to observe some of the Exiled Maras and Imen being swept off their horses and swallowed into thin air, while the others drew their weapons, dread imprinted on their pale faces.

“We need to go back,” Jax growled, witnessing the eerily quiet massacre.

“We can’t go back. It’s too narrow,” Darius replied. “We need to move ahead—I have a feeling there’s an opening to another gorge. We can go through there and get back to the plain.”

Several of the Maras bawled in the darkness, and their swords and their saddles fell off as the invisible fiends dragged them away. Their horses went berserk and ran off. Some tried to go back but swiftly vanished, their ear-piercing wails making me shudder, while the others trotted off ahead, passing us with no intention of spending another second there. Whatever this was, we couldn’t see it.

The woman screamed again, this time louder. Closer.

“Run!” Darius croaked as he saw what happened to his men.

I didn’t wait for him to say that again.

“Let’s go!” I hissed, then nudged my horse in the ribs.

We shot through the narrow gorge, leafy branches slapping us along the way. Something thudded on the ground behind us, but I didn’t want to stop and see what that was.

“What the hell was that?” Scarlett gasped.

“I don’t know, but it’s definitely not out to make casual conversation!” Jax shot back, his horse keeping up with mine as we jumped over a cluster of rocks.

The scream came again, this time closer.

Only a few yards away.

I squinted and saw her then.

“Somebody! Somebody help me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs as she staggered between the trees, the air rippling around her. Something huge was there, prowling, ready to pounce.

“What the hell are those things?!” Harper exclaimed, her eyes wide, glimmering as she used her True Sight. “I can’t see what they are!”

“Help me!” the girl cried out as she saw us headed her way.

I clicked my teeth together, urging my horse to go faster. The girl tripped over a gnarled tree root and fell flat on her face, moaning when she tried to get back up. She looked like an Iman female, and a very young one at that, probably in her late teens.

I drew my sword, my eyes on her.