Hair of Gold: Just Right (Urban Fairytales Book 6) (10 page)

Gretel blinked in surprise at our reaction. “They are still human beings, it was not their choice to become infected by the curse. More and more communities have infected among them, and they are choosing their humanity over the beasts inside them. They lock themselves away every full moon so that they can do no harm. It keeps families together, and reduces the number of ferals and attacks upon those without the taint, who people are starting to call Clean Bloods.”

Oh. It was my turn to blink. A smile slowly spread on my face realizing that they weren't like the other infected I had met, who lived to spread their curse and create mayhem. The ones the Wolf Hunters were tasked to dispatch. These were just scared people, doing what was right, and protecting others when they lost themselves into their wolves. I was oddly sad for them that they had no control over their beasts like my brothers did.

I smiled at her and then she absently grabbed my hand and said, “Not all wolves are bad, just like not all humans are good.” I nodded, trying hard not to react at her hand in mine as she tugged me toward the little tavern. “Now let's get something to eat like Andrei says, and we can start our trek to the peaks.”

I looked around at my brothers in a mock plea for help as the smaller woman dragged me along. Then I couldn't help but smile as she released my hand and instead claimed my arm. Leaning into me. Then I snorted when she asked, “I wonder if there is time to get the smell of bear washed off of me.”

It was late afternoon by the time we ventured into Narcisa's domain. The trees were all sick and dying and were marked with various wards of power which I could feel as the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end.

When we had stopped for lunch earlier, Gretel had somehow talked the boys into telling her and Hansel embarrassing stories about me. To my endless embarrassment, the evil men were more than happy to oblige her. But I could live with it if the enchanting woman didn't let go of my hand and she kept laughing in her delightful lilt.

She had somehow weaseled out of me, my father's nickname for me. She seemed to think on it as she said it like she was taste testing a fine wine. “Volosy iz Zolota... Goldilocks?” I was determined to kill my smug looking brothers as she nodded to herself and brushed some of my golden hair from my face, causing gooseflesh to spread down my neck in excitement. “I like that... Goldilocks.”

After we broke camp and proceeded in our trek and found the first of the marked trees, Little Bear changed into his bear form to walk beside us “fragile humans.”

The forest was eerily silent. I realized that there were no insects chirping or clicking, nor any bird songs in the sickened boughs. The only warning we had of the first attack was the scent of sulfur on the breeze. It was the same smell that the werewolves gave off when transforming to human and back. Demon magics.

A shrieking winged demon that looked a cross between a wolverine and a bat the size of a horse came spiraling down upon us. Andrei saw something before us and shoved me aside, I saw the shadow on the ground that must have tipped him off to the aerial assault.

Big brother caught the beast in midair. It must have massed three or four hundred pounds, but my brother is no pushover even in human form. He barely staggered back as he took the brunt of the hit, holding the beasts deadly, curved claws at arm's length.

The beast snapped at him just out of reach with fangs dripping with a greenish-black ichor. It smelled of sulfur and bile, it would not take a genius to know that it must be some sort of poison. It roared at my brother as Gretel, Hansel, and I pulled our weapons in an instant, as Little Bear stood on his hind legs, baring his fangs.

Andrei smiled cruelly at the beast as it slowly started overpowering him, pulling slowly out of his iron grip. Then Andrei roared right back in the demon's face as he transformed, muscles bulking, clothing shredding, and face elongating as his roar turned into something that shook the valley between the peaks.

I saw something on the demon's face I never would have thought possible until that very moment, doubt and... fear? Then Andrei tore the arms off of the demon as it shrieked. Then swiped his great paw through the air, swatting the demon down as it tried to fly away, streaming black ichor from the gaping tears where its arms had been.

The blow was devastating, snapping a wing and tearing the membrane the entire length. The demon hit the ground and laid there stunned until I saw that fear again as it realized it had landed in front of another bear. Pavel came down on it with devastating force. Then he stepped back from the unmoving corpse and harrumphed at it.

I realized I had my arm across Gretel's chest in a subconscious protective gesture, keeping her behind me. I swallowed and smiled sheepishly at her then looked over to see that Vladimir had finished his own transformation. He had the sense enough to shrug out of his cloak and shirt first, though his pants were in tatters.

As my bears instinctively formed a ring around us, Gretel and I moved back to back, blades and her green magics at the ready. Hansel moved aside, keeping us out of striking range of his whip that was now slashing smoothly through the air above his head from side to side, poised to strike.

That's when all hell broke loose.

Ten men broke from the shadows of the trees downwind from us, tricky, they must have known who we were and... what, my brothers were. I caught the shadows on the ground this time as a flood of those flying demon things descended upon us.

We left the demons to the bears as we concentrated on the mortal combatants and my brothers moved to intercept the demons. That was still shocking and horrifying to me. Actual demons. They were not cursed like the poor souls with the Lycan Contagion. They were physical manifestations of true evil... and these men were willingly working with them.

The ground shook as my bears, and I bellowed our roaring challenges. I heard a whistling mixed into the commotion and instinctively grasped at the air in front of me and caught a black arrow, dripping with that demonic poison, just inches from my chest with my free hand. I stepped into the first of Narcisa's men and through his guard as they clashed with us and jammed the arrow deep into his gut.

I could smell his flesh burning as he screamed and bellowed as he fell to the ground. It took just a moment for him to die with a huge hole burned into his chest. I parried two blades coming down at me. Just as I deflected the second blade, Hansel's whip came down, cutting deep into the man's sword hand, causing him to drop his blade to grasp his hand which was stripped of flesh almost to the bone.

I twisted to the left to slashed across the belly of the second man as Gretel twisted around my right to slash her dagger across the others throat, finishing her brother's job. We were moving seamlessly together, the pressure of each other at our backs giving an indication of our moves so that we could anticipate and move together.

The swarming demons were driven back by the sheer ferocity my brothers could bring to the fight. They were slashing and snapping at anything that moved, crushing bone and rending demon flesh. Two short grunts from Little Bear and I was spinning toward him, blade at the ready as he struck a demon from behind, tearing a wing off of it and sending it tumbling through the air at me.

With my most powerful downstroke, I separated its head from its shoulders. I shuddered as it still twitched on the ground until a burst of green energy tore through it, and it ceased moving while I crossed blades with another raider.

I marveled at how seamlessly Hansel and Gretel had integrated into our fighting postures. It was like Gretel, and I had fought at each other's sides our entire lives. I took a blade to my left shoulder, and I think I surprised the man by stepping into it. The damage was already done so I took advantage of his overconfidence and stepped in to headbutt him then I slammed my injured arm across his throat, sending him flipping backward to the ground, coughing and gasping. He hadn't thought a woman would have such strength.

Vladimir stomped his chest in a sickening crunch as he rent the wings from the demon he was grappling with. I nodded my thanks to him as I slammed my elbow back into the gut of the man that Gretel had knocked aside with her magics. The man doubled over then was sent flying backward as a whip lashed around his neck and yanked him off his feet, I heard his larynx crunch and the bones in his neck crackle as it was snapped. His body landed in a lifeless heap.

I winced as blood flowed down my arm then ducked under another blade and slammed my fist, still gripping the pommel of my sword, into my new attacker's stomach. He gasped, and I drove my knee up into his privates as hard as I could. He went down grasping his groin and gasping for breath. He made a weak yelp as a bear paw slammed down and dragged him away.

I watched another man go down between an onslaught of green magics from Gretel and that deadly whip of Hansel's. Then we were back to back again, panting. It was eerily silent on the battlefield, the only sound being our heavy breathing and the grunts from my brothers.

I watched as the demon bodies seemed to decay and melt away into a blackish sludge before our eyes. We had won the field.

I tested my shoulder then I strode forward a step and pointed my sword toward the forest in front of us and bellowed out my challenge, “Narcisa, show yourself! We have come for you! Face my blade... or face my bears!”

An unhinged laugh filtered trough the trees, seemingly from all directions as an old woman's voice chuckled out, “Yes, they are finally at their peak. Time to harvest.” Followed by more of her cackling laughter. Then on the wind, like a fading dream she said, “Bring me my son's due whelp. We are waiting.”

I staggered, and Gretel grabbed me and sat me on a rock. She was pulling scraps of fabric from her pack and then reached up to tear my blood soaked tunic from my wound. She started fussing with it, cleaning it out and I tried to push her hands away, and she slapped my hand and said, “Stop fussing. You're losing a lot of blood, you daft woman.”

My brothers were crowding around, their big bear eyes wide in concern. She shoved Little Bear's nose away. “Get back, let me work.”

Then she looked up into my eyes and said, “This is going to hurt.” As she gathered power in her hand. I blinked when she leaned in and kissed me. I forgot about everything; about the battle, about my injury; as I melted into the kiss. Her lips were so sweet and wanting, I felt an inward sigh as my body heated up.

Then I bit back a scream as my shoulder felt as if it were on fire. She grinned at me wickedly as she pulled her hand away from my wound. She had cauterized it and stemmed the bleeding. I blinked, she had used the kiss as a distraction. I gasped. “You sneaky...”

She bit her lower lip as she grinned in mirth and asked, “What better way to distract you?”

I was at a loss for words. She looked supremely smug while she wrapped my wound with the cloth strips as she said, “That... we are doing again, once all this vrajitoare nonsense is concluded.” She turned her eyes, full of mischief, to mine and she grinned.

I just nodded dumbly reliving the kiss and realizing I had my toes balled up in my boots. I relaxed them and nodded, squeaking out, “Yes ma'am.”

Then I narrowed my eyes and looked at the chuffing bears around us. They quickly shut up and looked far too innocent as they looked away to imaginary things in the forest. I muttered, “That's what I thought.”

She exhaled loudly as she pulled back, inspecting her makeshift bandage then pulled my cloak back over my shoulder and nodded in satisfaction. Then she stared at my shoulder with a proprietary worry which I sort of liked, as she asked absently, “So, is this a typical day for you lot?”

The bears made keening sounds as they nodded while I shrugged, wincing at the motion, and confirmed, “Da. Pretty much.” This got a sardonic chuckle from both her and Hansel.

I took a second to catch my breath, cupped her cheek and smiled, then let my hand drop as I stood, sheathing my blade. “We need to end this.”

Her brow creased in concern as she looked around. Andrei and Pavel had injuries as well, but not bad, their bleeding had already stopped. Then she asked, “The three of you are injured, would it not be more prudent to withdraw for now?”

I chuckled and motioned toward my shoulder. “This? I have suffered far worse just wrestling with my bears. We need to put an end to Narcisa and Baird's senseless violence.”

She exhaled heavily shaking her head and muttering something about bullheaded people. This got me smiling. Then I softened as I looked at her profile. Even with her face creased in concern, it was a work of art.

It was my turn to exhale heavily, and I started walking deeper into the gap between the peaks, my brother's flanking me. I heard her quick footsteps as she hurried to keep pace. She shot a look over to Hansel, who just shrugged and grinned, tightening his grip on the stock of his whip.

She murmured, “You're all crazy.” Then she shot me a wink as she bumped shoulders with me. I grinned at her and silently welcomed her into our crazy band of idealists.

Our eyes were flicking around taking everything in, I saw Little Bear's nostrils flaring, taking in all the scents as Vladimir tilted his head, listening intently. For weighing close to a ton each, my brothers moved almost soundlessly, as I padded along, wincing at the crunching of Hansel and Gretel's footsteps in the dying forest.

My skin was crawling as the power built from the runes and sigils branded into the tree trunks. There were odd charms, talismans, and wards hanging from branches more and more frequently the deeper we traveled. Some had odd crystals in them that seemed to swallow the light. They beckoned with a sickening draw, begging to be touched so they could swallow us whole too. This was the draw of dark magics that had seduced and corrupted so many men and women.

We approached a crack in the very mountain itself, dark and foreboding, when energy arced from tree to tree around us, penning us in. It was a trap, and we had walked right into it. Andrei stepped close to the purplish-black energy which was crackling and seething like something alive. And he bellowed and moved back. His fur and flesh singed.

My bears all stood and bellowed as the ring of trees was surrounded by beasts from every man's nightmares that slunk out of the shadows. There had to be a hundred demons of all shapes and sizes. Some that were so hideous they hurt my eyes simply gazing upon them.

We turned back to the dark crack in the mountain when that unhinged laughter echoed out from it. An old woman and a man who looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties stepped out, arm in arm. It had to be Narcisa and her son.

If she were truly the sister of Alina, mother of the Lycan Curse, then she had to be ancient. How was she still alive? She spoke as if she were only half aware of the world around her, it was a madness that seemed to infect her very soul as she turned her mad eyes on us.

She smiled in a way that turned my stomach, and she hissed, “Yes. It is time to collect the debt that fool, Iosif Inanov, owed. He stole the power of nature from the feather of Perchta. It was my price, but he destroyed it after gifting it to his sons. I have watched your power grow, and now it is time to harvest it to give to my son.”

The demons parted, staring at her like they wanted to kill her but were somehow restricted from doing so. I understood a demon is bound in this world by the mortal foolhardy enough to have summoned them. They are all tricksters and try to manipulate the unwary into making mistakes that would get them killed so that the bond would be broken and they could roam the mortal realm, causing chaos unbound.

She turned her eyes to her son who had a glint of that same madness in his eyes which his mother had. I had no doubt that given enough time, Baird would be as insane as his mother, corrupted by the dark energies I could smell on them both, rank with decay and rot.

She asked like she were speaking to a small child, “Baird, sweetheart, the amulet if you will.”

He stared at us all with anticipation and excitement in his eyes as his deep basso voice boomed out, “Yes mother.” He released her arm and reached up to remove a heavy, tarnished brass chain from a leather pouch, and handed it to her. From it hung a brass amulet with the face of a Kodiak bear carved into it.

Gretel shot her hand forward, and her green energies slammed into the pulsating and arcing energy barrier. It crackled and hissed and started to force its way through it until the green energies started turning a sickly black, tendrils reaching back toward her, she released it before they could touch her. She sagged panting and sweating.

The vrajitoare cackled then licked her cracked lips. I thought she had looked worried for a second until Gretel stopped her attack. The woman said with a hiss, “Admirable attempt young one. But your druidic magics are tainted with the darkness of true power, you resist its call but your magics do not. Perhaps I will feast upon your heart to add your power to mine once my son possesses the power of the bears.”

I drew my dagger and threw it at the woman, it sparked on the barrier and in a torrent of crackling energy, and an explosion of light and sound, it was gone. The entire barrier glowed before settling, revealing it to be almost twenty feet high. Too high to vault. We were helpless, trapped. I growled in frustration, and my brothers echoed me.

The vrajitoare tilted her head at me at that. “What are you that you stand with the three monsters and defeat my men and demons? I feel no power, yet you fight with the strength of three men. Did the Scales send you, little morsel?”

I growled again, and she chuckled and said, “Maybe I will corrupt you for my own, or just eat your heart to see what you truly are.”

Gretel screeched and lashed out with her power again, to the same result, she ceased her onslaught before the corrupt magics could reach back to her. I laid a restraining hand on her shoulder, moving her slightly back behind me, protecting her as I said softly, “Save your strength, Gret.”

I narrowed my eyes at the vrajitoare, and she simply smiled, her eyes glittering with that madness. I looked around, even if we could get out of this trap, I doubted even my brothers could take on Narcisa's horde of demons. How had she amassed such an army of them? Then I thought of her sister and her pact with Styche the Trickster, a powerful over-demon. Were these women that powerful?

The madwoman looked over at her son, the man was looking at my brothers in an appraising manner, as one would a chicken hanging in a butchery. He was a tall and muscular man with long dark hair, I would have said he were handsome if it weren't for the overconfident air he had about him and that touch of madness in his dark eyes. You could see the power he commanded had already corrupted part of his soul.

She said to him, “Their power will soon be yours, my dear boy.”

A very wicked smile spread on his face that turned his rugged looks into something poisonous and vile. “Then let us be about it, mother.”

She nodded and held the amulet in her hands toward our group. I heard voices rolling on the wind from the demons who were looking on in anticipation. The words were just beyond my ability to make out, whispers of hate and loathing, of temptation and promises of power. They tasted foul and acrid on my tongue, and I feared that if I tried to make the voices out, it could quite possibly drive me out of my mind. I focused on keeping the whispers at bay.

She started chanting, and it was like the souls of the damned were drawn to her from the decaying forest around us, as a blackish fog started to gather. I felt all the hairs on my arms and neck stand, warning me of some foul working so heinous you would need to be bereft of your own soul to call it to yourself as Narcisa did.

The vrajitoare staggered as the insipid energies all around the clearing built to an almost crippling level. It was filled with a despair, anguish, and hopelessness that tried to worm its way into me. I fought off the weight of whatever was building and grabbed Gretel to support her when she faltered by my side. Baird reached out to lay his hand on his mother's shoulder and lent his voice to his mothers in the chant as the amulet began to glow brightly, I could smell Narcisa flesh burning where she touched it.

The man seemed to have just a fraction of the dark energies that she had, and they tasted different, almost like the druidic magics that Gretel wielded. I had a sudden thought. Could men not wield the magics of a vrajitoare? Was druidic magic weaker? Was that why Narcisa was trying to gain more power for her son?

My brothers bellowed a challenge then Narcisa thrust her hand forward with the amulet. It flared, and a flash of dark light lanced out as her chanting reached a crescendo. The black pulsating light ripped through the barrier and struck Vladimir in the chest, and it seemed to yank at his very soul and like a mist he was pulled away from us and into the amulet. Leaving only empty air and the smell of rotted swamp where my brother had been.

I stared in shock for a moment, blinking in disbelief and reliving my parent's death. Nyet, this couldn't be happening again. I can't be forced to helplessly watch those I love die for a second time. Why would the gods do this to someone twice?

My shock turned to rage as the woman smiled at us and kept chanting. I screamed “Nyet!” As Andrei's roar shook the mountain, small rocks and dust falling across the entrance to the cave beyond. And we charged the barrier. I screamed as it burned and bubbled the exposed flesh of my hands and face and I fell back with big brother, who's fur was singed badly.

The woman cackled and then said, “I think the big one next, he has fire.” Her chanting rose again, and her son was looking weak from the effort of supplying her more power. Then she thrust her hand forward, and I watched in horror as Andrei gave me an apologetic look then bellowed as he was pulled away into that sickening nothingness.

I was screaming “Nyet!” over and over as Gretel was pulling me further away from the barrier, trying to examine my hands. I snapped my eyes to the vrajitoare and glared. She would pay, I would be her end myself for killing those I loved.

The woman said to her son in a wavering voice, telling me she was almost at the end of her strength, “Once we have all three, then you can become one with the amulet, my boy.” She reached up and cupped his cheek almost lovingly.

The demons were all moving around the barrier looking in, their whispers excited and more incessant with anticipation. Like they were feeding on our despair and anger. Some couldn't seem to wait for the end and were trying to get at us through the barrier. One that looked vaguely like a huge scorpion threw itself at us and screeched as it fell back in a burnt heap, its carapace burned and cracked and it started dissolving into that black ichor in death.

I looked around desperately, there had to be some way we could get out of this cursed circle so that we could fight instead of being helpless on the inside. I drew my blade, wincing at the pain from my burned flesh, and looked at the top of the pulsating curtain of energy twenty feet above.

Narcisa's chant was building to a crescendo, the demon voices were almost screaming in my head now, and it was hard to think. I looked at Pavel, I couldn't lose him too. I yelled out to him as I pointed my sword at the top of the barrier, “Little Bear!”

He grunted and grabbed me with both of his platter sized front paws and thrust me upwards with all his might. I looked down in horror as he released me and that fetid light struck him and pulled him away from me, the demons screaming in a delighted fury... I was alone again.

I sobbed out an anguished cry as I arced over the barrier. Narcisa and Baird seemed to have forgotten all else as the amulet flared brilliantly, chasing away the dark fog. The man tore his tunic, baring his chest as the vrajitoare started to turn to him, holding the amulet out.

I twisted in the air and slammed down onto the woman, blade first, using all of my momentum and mass to drive it cleanly through her and sending us crashing to the ground, tumbling away from her son. I heard Gretel shouting my name.

We came to a stop with me on top of the crone. Her eyes wide in shock as she stared at her still outstretched hand, she muttered, as the light left her eyes, “No, you've ruined everything...”

I looked down to see her hand still grasping the amulet like a claw, the metal touching my chest at my collar.

I screamed in agonized pain as the amulet seemed to sear into me, past my skin and into my very soul. Every fiber of my being was on fire as threads of energy spidered out inside. There was so much power threatening to consume me from within from the contact point of the amulet on my skin.

The demons were all howling in excited glee. A detached portion of my brain wondered what happened to demons who were summoned into the mortal realm once the one who bound them had died. Did that release them into the world unrestrained like the stories told or did they go back to the underworld without that tether? By the fervent increase in the whispering in my head, it was the former. What had I just unleashed upon the world?

It was Gretel screaming my name that brought the world back to me. I turned my head toward her realizing I didn't hurt anymore, I couldn't feel the burns nor my injured shoulder, I felt. Good. Really good... and strong.