Chapter Twenty Four

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Chapter Twenty Four

The storm seemed to grow worse with each step Fey took up the mountainside. The wind tore at her from every conceivable angle, whipping her hair and fur around almost painfully. The rain pelted her like icy bullets. Lightning was coming more frequently now. More than once, a bolt would streak down out of the sky and explode against the craggy ground, and for a few seconds she would be showered by bits of hot, glowing gravel that sizzled in the cold rain. Each step brought her farther into the thunderbird's domain. One step closer to being detected, or simply whisked away by the storm.

But she had no choice but to retreat. Just like she’d feared, Gil was far better with his knife than he looked. He lashed out at her with it multiple times per second, and only by using every ounce of her animal instinct was she able to fend him off.

He thrust the knife at her, and she parried, the blade sinking into her spear. She’d been right to take it. Without the crude weapon, Gil would have killed her a dozen times over already.

“Leave us alone!” she yelled, spinning the spear, trying to yank the knife out of his hand. With almost inhuman agility, Gil twisted right along with the spin, keeping the knife’s handle firmly in his grasp. He yanked the blade free, which jerked Fey forward. Her goatlike balance kept her on her hooves, but she had to make a less than dignified skip backwards to keep him from ramming the knife into her side.

None of the others had come to help her. Zave was still too dazed from his fall to make the hike yet, and Clueless was tending to him. That was good. As the alpha, it was her job to keep them far away from dangers like this.

But why the hell couldn’t Ember and Norrin help?

Gil came at her again, and Fey leaped to the side. Using the wet rocks to her advantage, she slid a few feet and spun around, putting her squarely behind Gil’s back. She raised the spear and thrust it forward for the kill.

Gil raised his left arm and leaned to the right. When the spear passed harmlessly to his side, he caught the wooden shaft beneath his arm, pinning it against his body. Then he spun.

“No!” Fey yelled as it was yanked out of her hands, clattering noisily against the rocks before vanishing into the storm.

“DIIIIIEEEEEE!” Gil screamed maniacally, taking his knife in both hands and raising it over his head. Being higher up the slope than she was, he leaped for her, the blade reflecting Fey’s horrified face as lightning lit up the sky.

Fey’s hands shot up, and she caught him by the wrists. His knife stopped less than an inch from piercing her skull right between the eyes. They stood there, locked in a contest of strength. Despite throwing all of her weight against him, Fey couldn’t make his knife budge even an inch. Her only consolation was that she was managing to hold him at bay as well—if only barely.

“Just…give…up!” he growled, and brought his knee up into her gut.

Pain exploded all through her torso, and Fey crumpled to her knees. Gil tore his knife away from her, then grabbed her by the hair with one hand. Yanking her head back, he pressed the blade to her throat.

“Evil always loses!” he yelled into her face. “Always!”

“No hurt Fey or Zave!” came a new voice.

“Wha—” Gil exclaimed, but was interrupted when a golden blur came rocketing out of the darkness. “Angel?”

“Clueless, no!” Fey screamed, visions of the poor pup being eviscerated already flashing before her eyes.

Clueless grabbed Gil, and to Fey’s complete and utter shock, he didn’t immediately stab her.

“Angel, get out of the way!” he yelled. “You’ll get hurt!”

“NO HURT FEY OR ZAVE!” she shouted again, even louder.

“You’re not evil, Angel,” he protested. “I’ve talked to you! I know you! Why are you defending it?”

“NOT…HURT…”

Fey could only stare as Clueless lifted Gil off the ground until she was holding him over her head.

“Angel, please! Stop!”

“MY FRIENDS!”

With that, she hurled him back down the mountain. Gil hit the ground, and Fey saw his knife go spiraling out his hand until it vanished behind the curtain of rain. Down, and down, and down he went, bouncing, sliding, rolling, until she lost sight of him too.

“You hurt?” Clueless asked.

Fey looked up to see the dog-walker, her wet fur plastered against her body, extending a hand to her.

“You…You saved me!” Fey exclaimed in shock.

To her surprise, Clueless grinned. “Am good girl!”

Fey smiled back and took her hand. “The best girl!”

The two of them made their way back down the mountain as fast as they safely could. Zave was near the base. Somehow, his spear had managed to roll near enough for him to grab it, and now he was using it as a crutch. The moment he saw her and Clueless, he hobbled over as quickly as he could.

“Are you two okay?” he demanded. “Fey, I’m sorry, I tried to stop her from going, but—”

Fey hugged him, and he shut up. “We’re both fine. In fact, she saved me!”

“I save Fey!” Clueless confirmed, hugging him from the other side. “Save alpha!”

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Fey said. “If that maniac had done anything to you, I don’t know what…”

“He came rolling past us just a minute ago,” Zave said. “Is he…you know…dead?”

Fey let go of him, scowling. “If he knows what’s good for him, he’d better be! Nobody threatens my pack!”

Gritting her teeth and clenching her fists, Fey marched the rest of the way down the mountain. Gil would be lucky if he was already dead. If by some miracle he was still alive, she was going to make him regret leaving whatever godforsaken comic book store he’d crawled out of!

She passed Ember and Norrin, who were standing almost exactly where she’d left them.

“Are you—” Norrin began.

“You don’t get to talk to me right now!” she snapped.

Fey could see Gil’s body a little ways further down the slope. She estimated that she had been roughly a third of the way up the mountain when Clueless arrived, meaning that Gil had fallen close to half a mile down the mountainside. He had to be dead. As skilled a fighter as he was, he was still only human.

He sat up.

Fey froze, horror seizing her in its icy grip.

It wasn’t the fact that Gil was alive that terrified her. It wasn’t even the fact that he was still able to move.

It was what he had become.

“What the hell is that?” Ember screeched, recoiling in disgust. "That's not a skinwalker, is it?”

Fey shook her head. “We would have sensed it if it was!”

“Then what is it?”

“I don’t know!”

Emerald green scales glittered in the dim light. While Gil had never been even remotely muscular, whatever this was looked downright skeletal by comparison. His height hadn’t changed, but a tail almost as long as he was tall—from his spindly, needlelike toes to his unnaturally pointed skull—extended from his back. Little spikes ran down his spine, and eyes as red as blood with black slits for irises squinted at them from its pinched snout.

"You won't win,” he snarled up at her. His voice still sounded like Gil’s, but only made the whole thing even more uncanny. "I'm not the only one here who can sense evil!"

Fey was tempted to ignore him. Whatever the hell Gil was, he was clearly a sore loser. But something in his tone gave her pause…

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

He cackled, pointing an accusing finger at Zave. "It's been after you this whole time! Ever since I destroyed its eggs, it's been—"

"You what?" Fey took a step backwards in shock.

To Fey's surprise, a flicker of guilt crossed Gil's inhuman face. Or, at least she thought it was guilt.

"I had to do it," he protested. "They were about to hatch. The whole country would have been flooded with thunderbirds! It would have been the apocalypse!"

Fey's knees felt weak. "No wonder it's been going ballistic if you killed all of its children!"

"Not all of them! There's one left. I was gonna do it too, but then the thunderbird came back to its nest and I had to hide. That's when it sensed him," he pointed at Zave again, "and flew off to crash your plane!"

A chill went down Fey's spine.

One egg left…

"And then it destroyed that town!" Gil mocked him.

It's about to hatch…

"And whose fault is that? Yours!”

And if Glenn is in its nest when it does…

Fey spun around with a gasp, looking up at the storm at the top of the mountain.

"Glenn!" she yelled.

But before she could move, a shadow darker than even the storm clouds passed above them. A gust of wind strong enough to blow her off her hooves slammed into her, and she was only able to stay upright because Norrin put a steadying hand on her back.

"You should have let me kill you!" Gil laughed. "I would have made it painless! But the thunderbird…"

The massive black-feathered bird swooped out of the sky, its majestic silhouette backlit by an equally massive bolt of lightning.

Gil spun his scaly tail around and bolted into the woods.

"EVIL ALWAYS LOSES!"

NEXT CHAPTER: 4/23/2025