Bait This! (A 300 Moons Book) (8 page)

T
he bird had disappeared
against the darkness of the sky by the time Hedda made it to the base of the mountain.

She strained her eyes to see its wings flash in the moonlight here and there, but the knot in her stomach already knew where they were headed. The bird was following the curve of the creek, past the little houses.

The air prickled with anticipation, as if the dark storm clouds were a just-spoken threat hanging in the air - and the water inside them was about to dash to the ground in terror.

Hedda ran steadily. She knew she should be tired, but mostly she was happy not to feel cold for a moment, happy the stretch of her muscles could distract from the panic in her heart.

They had reached the little town. The buildings loomed over the street.

For weeks after the population had left, the back-up battery on the security lights had glowed in the police station. But now even the station was dark as the tomb.

Please stop here. Stop in one of these terrible dark buildings,
she begged inwardly.

But the bird’s wings shimmered above, moving onward, past the station, past the library, past the drugstore.

When they finally reached the gravel drive and the chain link fence, Hedda began to feel almost relieved. The worst was happening. She might as well face it. Lane women didn’t back down.

A hastily hand painted sign on the fence read:

M
INE CLOSED

FOR YOUR SAFETY

DO NOT ENTER

A
heavy padlock
secured the gate.

She looked around, knowing she was being ridiculous. Of course no one was there.

Then she exhaled and stroked the padlock once, gently.

It opened in her hand.

A shame, it was one more portion of magic wasted when she might be fighting for her life in a moment. But there was no time to try to find another way in. The bird was already disappearing in the darkness of the night.

Hedda slipped inside and fought back the urge to wrap her arms around herself. It wasn’t the cold. It was the memory of what had happened here.

Steeling herself from this weakness, she strode around through the lot to where the foreman’s trailer sat empty.

Out of the corner of her eye, a shadow slipped off to the right, away from the entrance to the mine. It must be the bird.

That wasn’t right, was it?

But there was no time to think.

Hedda took off as fast as she could after it. There was no point in trying to stay quiet. Her feet pounded the ground, kicking up clouds of dust and raining gravel in her wake.

She lost sight of the bird quickly, but she closed her eyes and tried to catch its shimmering trail. It glimmered ahead of her in her mind’s eye, and she opened her physical eyes again to give chase, faster, more desperately.

At last, she sensed it slowing. She had chased it a quarter of a mile.

They were very close to the mine vent.

Every working mine must be ventilated, to flush out the dust and the toxic fumes, and also to bring in oxygen for the miners. The Copper Creek Mine vent and its fans and equipment were the subject of constant supervision and maintenance when the mine had been active. At the entrance to the mine, the big fans sent clean air into the shaft, where it was pulled across the working areas and at last back up here, at the exit vent, to be released.

Or, that was the way it used to work, at least. Now the fire that burned in the depths used the vent as a source of oxygen.

Hedda stared at the huge grate over the concrete tunnel leading underground.

Just above it, the possessed bird danced and quivered, its silken wings trailing outward and flashing oddly where the moonlight touched them.

Though she could not have said why, Hedda was physically repulsed. Her stomach knotted and cramped and she felt a thin film of cold sweat form at her brow.

She had to extinguish it. The creature could not be allowed to exist.

Almost without a thought, her hands filled with a ball of pulsating blue light, stretching and swelling toward the demon bird, awaiting her inevitable command.

Hedda felt the wild exhilaration building in her chest. Releasing the magic fully in this way brought pleasure unimaginable to anyone who hadn’t experienced it.

When she was wound up so tightly she could hardly breathe and the blue light in her hands radiated so strongly it was nearly white, Hedda aimed.

The little bird itself, however, neither fled nor cowered. It danced and cavorted before her, unafraid.

And that was what saved her.

The truth hit Hedda in the very last instant.

It wasn’t a demon possessing a bird.

It was a shadow demon shaping itself like a bird.

Which meant that she could not blast it. It could move out of the reach of her magic with a thought, unhampered by a physical body.

And it was hovering directly over a huge channel leading beneath the ground. She and her sisters had gone to great lengths to be sure all of the portals into the mine were sealed after the fact with as much magic as they could muster. Blasting the vent in like this would wipe all of that protection clean away.

The shadow demon was trying to trick her into helping it free the moroi below.

Which was good, in a way. It meant the protections were still in place. But then what had drawn the demon here in the first place?

With a Herculean effort, Hedda sucked the magic back inside herself.

The shadow melted out of its bird shape and jumped up and down in imp-like fury.

Then it dove for her.

“
P
rotegat
,” she cried, thrusting her hand forward and rolling backward over her shoulder.

A thin bubble shimmered around her. It had the delicate iridescence of dish soap and about the same surface tension. It wouldn’t hold long.

Sure enough, before she got to her feet, it popped into nothing.

The demon dove for her again. It was as thin as a strand of yarn and coiled back. She could feel its intention, how easy it would be to dive into her nostril and consume her with its own desires.

She glanced around wildly. There was no reason to do so. The only human in those woods was Derek, and she was damn glad he was not here to get himself into trouble.

Looking back at the shadow, she wrapped an arm around her face and began to chant a protective spell.

She peered out from behind her arm.

The thread of black smoke was twisted in on itself. Like a nest of rattlesnakes. It had a curious quality to its movement, as if it were fascinated with how she was keeping it at bay.

It observed her as if it could watch her all night long.

Hedda felt her voice weaken slightly. It had been a long day. She was cold and physically drained, she hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink since her morning tea. Even the chant was slowly nibbling away at her magic.

How long could she keep this up?

The shadow swayed, as if in answer. It had taken on a childlike shape, with long sleeves, trailing into smoke at the ends. The smoke swung slowly, hypnotically, as if to slow her rhythm.

No, no, no. There had to be a way out.

Repeating the chant mechanically, Hedda racked her brain.

If the shadow took on a physical form she could blast it. What if she drew an animal out of the woods with her charisma? Could she tempt the shadow that way?

She was running out of options.

Carefully, she maintained the chant as she closed her eyes and pushed out a circle from her body.

Her awareness slid through the area around the mine, through the trees, and died off abruptly when it hit a young raccoon.

Perfect.

She opened her eyes and nearly screamed.

The shadow child was an inch from her eyes, its cloudy face slanted inquisitively.

In her shock, Hedda stopped chanting for a moment.

Its mouth dropped slightly open and a tongue-like ribbon of smoke unfurled from within as if it was going to enter her through her eyeballs.

Jerking back to her senses, Hedda began to chant again, loudly.

The ribbon retracted, but the demon remained, floating inches away.

Hedda’s skin crawled at its repulsiveness. But she focused her mind on the raccoon as she chanted.

When her voice was smooth and steady again, she knew it was time.

Pushing on her magic was a huge risk. If she drained herself the demon would possess her instantly.

But if she didn’t do it now, she might not have enough magic left to attempt it later.

She reached within herself, and pulled.

At first there was nothing, but then came the sudden sweetness, like sucking the juice out of a popsicle and leaving the ice behind.

She felt the magic bubbling, warm under her skin, teeming at her scalp and fingernails, vibrating through her blood.

In the back of her mind she could hear her own voice chanting. The shadow child fluttered in confusion, forgetting itself and melting into a dark fog again. A rustling of leaves signaled the approach of animals from the woods. The trees themselves groaned as their branches reached out.

Hedda’s consciousness was wrapped up in the throb of the magic as it coursed recklessly through her body.

D
erek trembled
as the bear awoke within him. There wasn’t a peaceful stretch inside him, but a leap and then a flash of teeth and claws.

Something was wrong.

The bear tugged at him, pulling him in the opposite direction of where he thought he should go.

Derek turned immediately, following the bear’s instinct without question.

He was grateful now, he understood.

But the urgency of the bear’s demand had Derek on full alert. It could only mean one thing.

Hedda was in trouble.

He crashed through the underbrush, ignoring the scratches and scrapes from the branches and brambles. He had to get to her.

For once he and the bear shared a rhythm. When Derek let go a bit more he found he was running and bounding over obstacles with the same aplomb as his bear.

When he reached the creek at last, he felt it - a tingling in his skin, pulling him, calling him.

He put the pedal to the metal and ran fast and hard.

But the bear could run faster.

He offered the creature control but it nudged at his chest from the inside instead, keeping him focused on running. Odd.

They ran past empty houses and onto the pavement of a street.

Buildings lined the road, looming over him, staring down with darkened windows as he passed.

Hedda had been right, it looked like a town, but there was no one here.

He would have been spooked except that he was too desperate to get to her.

By the time he reached the gravel drive there was a ringing in his ears.

The acrid scent of burning began to irritate the bear.

At last he was close enough that he could see a tower of black smoke rising behind a tall chain-link fence.

A hastily hand painted sign affixed to the fencing read:

M
INE CLOSED

FOR YOUR SAFETY

DO NOT ENTER

T
he gate stood open
. Hedda must be in there somewhere.

Derek dashed, his feet kicking up gravel and dust, leaving a quarter of a mile of haze behind him.

He didn’t need to think about direction. Hedda was close now, pulling at him like a black hole.

He flung himself around a corner and stopped in his tracks at the sight.

Hedda stood, her dark hair whipping around her in a wind he couldn’t feel. Squirrels, rabbits and even a raccoon were pressed against her legs. Birds perched on her clothing.

As he got closer he saw bugs dragging themselves toward her.

The scraggly weeds poking up through the gravel stretched horizontally, their leafy fingers grasping toward her.

And circling over her head like a halo, a black shadow swirled threateningly.

Hedda’s mouth was moving, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.

She hadn’t seen Derek, yet, so she wasn’t talking to him.

But he didn’t need to hear the words to know she was in trouble.

H
edda despaired
without letting go of the chant or her magic. Lane women went out with a bang, not a whimper. But she knew this was the end. The thing would slip into her like she was a familiar piece of clothing. It would try to use her to open the portal. To free the evil she’d sworn to guard. Then it would feed her to the moroi, or just jump her off a cliff, launching itself into smoke at the last moment.

Her magic was running out. Her voice was fading. It was only a matter of moments.

“Hedda,” Derek’s deep voice cut through the static in her head.

She turned to look at him.

He stood before her, gloriously naked, his whole body leaned in as if he might be going to smack into her like a piece of metal in a magnet’s field.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She couldn’t stop her chant, but she raised her eyes toward the demon.

He looked up at it. Then his jaw clenched and his hands fisted at his sides.

The next thing she knew he was flying for her.

But it wasn’t the draw of her magic. Somehow she knew to her core that he was choosing to come. The connection she felt was pulling him in too.

He bent and she flew over his shoulder as he began to run fast around the air vent and back toward the gate where they had come in.

Hedda knew she should panic, but instead she found herself laughing into Derek’s back as he ran.

“It’s okay,” he reassured her, thumping her on the rear, and making her laugh even harder.

He probably thought she was losing her marbles. And maybe she was. But she relished the euphoric feeling of having been saved from her doom.

Because until that moment, nothing, absolutely
nothing
Derek had done would have given her confidence that he could handle himself in an emergency.

When she’d seen him appear, she’d been pretty convinced he would momentarily be referencing a life hack article about ghost hunting on his cell phone, while she tried to keep them both out of harm’s way. Not that he had anyplace to hide a cell phone, or anything else for that matter.

Instead, he had thought quickly, hopefully quickly enough to save them both.

And now he was proving himself capable of resisting her magic when it was at its most powerful. He should have been trying to take her, by force, if necessary. Instead, he was a total gentleman.

Though she couldn’t help but notice he’d kept his hand on her butt after patting her.

How was he not trying to ravish her? Could she have used up too much of the magic?

But the whole forest had been affected.

She reached out with her mind, encompassing the trees around them.