The Blood of the Hydra (25 page)

“I can’t.” Tears fell from my eyes as I tried to escape his grasp again, sizzling when they landed on Rachael’s poisoned skin. “She’s gone. I can’t bring her back.”

“Just shut up and try!” His grip tightened around my wrists, and then he lowered his voice and added, “I won’t believe you unless you try.”

I nodded, knowing he meant it, even though what he wanted me to do was impossible. “Okay,” I gave in, since that was the only way he would let me go. “I’ll try.”

His grip around my wrists loosened, and I breathed steadily, trying to calm down as I called on the white energy. It came to me as always, but when I tried to push it toward Rachael’s body, nothing happened. I might as well have been trying to get it to enter a rock. Instead of being absorbed into her, it simply left my body and re-entered the Universe.

“It’s too late for me to help her,” I told him again, pulling my hands off her body and wrapping my arms around myself. I looked up at him and met his eyes, desperate for him to believe me. “I tried. I really did. But I can’t… I can’t bring back the dead.”

Ethan stared at me, his gaze hollow. “You chose Blake over Rachael,” he said, his voice void of emotion. “Rachael was bitten first, but it didn’t matter. You went to Blake instead. You let Rachael die.”

“It wasn’t like that.” I backed toward the wall, unable to peel my eyes away from Rachael’s bloated body. “A stomach injury kills faster than a shoulder injury. I had to take that into account when I went to Blake first. If it hadn’t been for the poison, Rachael would have been okay. I would have been able to get to her in time to save her.”

“Maybe you could have, even
with
the poison.” His eyes gleamed with hate. “If you hadn’t wasted time making out with your boyfriend when Rachael was over here dying.”

His words cut like a knife in my heart. Because he was right. I hadn’t thought those few seconds would matter, but if I’d ran over to Rachael instead of kissing Blake, there was a chance she might have been okay.

This was my fault. And to make it worse, if I could go back and do it again, I still would go to Blake first. I wouldn’t spend those few seconds kissing him, but I would still make the choice to let Rachael lay there, dying as the poison burned through her veins, while I was healing Blake.

I also couldn’t ignore the relief that I felt while looking at Rachael—relief that this same painful death hadn’t happened to Blake. I was an awful person for feeling that way. But it was true. Now, my hands were covered in blood—Rachael and Blake’s blood—and I wiped them on my jeans, needing it off of me. And as I stumbled away from Rachael’s body, I was reminded again that I’d failed. I couldn’t keep my promise to her and Ethan to keep them safe. I thought I could, but I couldn’t.

And I would have to live with that guilt for the rest of my life.

I was still staring at Rachael’s body when a scream from one of the others—Kate—brought me back into focus. She’d tried to slash one of the hydra’s heads, but it snapped its jaws at her, its fang narrowly missing her leg.

Despite the tragedy that had just happened, I couldn’t stay here with Rachael, mourning how I hadn’t been able to save her. The hydra had four heads left, each of them snarling and snapping the air, ready to sink their poisonous fangs into anyone who came near. The others were using their weapons to hold it off, but none of them were getting close enough to slice off another head. I needed to help my friends.

I needed to fight.

So I grabbed my bow from behind my back and strung it with an arrow, zeroing in on my target. Then I unleashed the arrow, sending it straight into one of the hydra’s eyes. The hydra screamed, and blood poured out of the ruined eye, burning its flesh as it ran down its face. I did it again and again, each shot of the arrow releasing more of my anger, until every single one of its eyes gushed with blood. Now the heads flailed in the air, chomping madly, but aimlessly, and I knew it had worked.

I’d blinded the hydra.

“Nice job, Nicole!” Chris yelled back to me. The hydra lunged one of its heads toward him, and he jumped out of its way, leaving it to chomp on the air. Once sure he was out of its reach, he stuck his tongue out at it and raised a fist in victory. While he was celebrating, Kate snuck up behind one of the other heads and slashed it off with her sword.

The head fell to the ground and rolled to its foot.

“It only knows where we are now by hearing us,” Kate said, jumping out of the way of another head. “Since it’s blind, we have a huge advantage. We have to use that and sneak up on it quietly.”

Chris flew Blake up from behind, and he sent fire into the open wound. The other heads didn’t even know he was there until he was finished. It worked so well that they kept doing that—sneaking up and chopping off one head, cauterizing the neck, and then moving onto the next—until only the immortal, central head remained.

“Who wants to do the honors?” Chris asked, motioning to the flailing head.

“I will,” Blake said, turning to the hydra and raising his sword. “
This
is what you get for trying to kill me.” He swung the sword at the neck, but it clanged against it, like metal on metal, and the weapon flew out of his grip. He backed away as the hydra snapped its teeth where it thought he was. The monster snarled when it caught only air, and Blake tiptoed around it to retrieve his sword.

“Seriously?” Chris chuckled and swung his sword around, as if confident that he could do this. “I guess this is going to be left to me.” He snuck up on the hydra from the other side, raised his sword, and brought it down on the neck. But the same thing happened to him that had happened to Blake. His mouth widened as the sword flew out of his grip, and he watched it bounce off the wall and fall to the ground. “It’s like trying to cut through metal!” he yelled, running to retrieve his sword. He picked it up and examined it, as if searching for a defect. “It isn’t working.”

“Because that’s the immortal head,” Kate said. “It can’t be killed with mortal weapons.”

“If it can’t be killed with mortal weapons, then how are we going to slay this thing?” Danielle asked, pointing at what was left of the hydra. “The Book told us we had the weapons we needed!”

Before anyone could answer, another one of its legs forced its way out of the tree roots that had been restraining it, stretching once it was free. Only two legs were still secured. And judging by how the roots holding the back legs were cracking and popping, I doubted they would hold for long.

Once the hydra got loose, how were we supposed to protect ourselves against the immortal head, when our weapons were powerless to stop it?

We wouldn’t be able to. Maybe we could hold it off with our powers long enough to escape the cave, but then we’d have failed the task we’d come out here to complete. Everything we’d been through on this journey would have been for nothing.

We couldn’t fail—I wouldn’t let Rachael’s death be in vain. So I did the only thing I could think to do. I gathered as much black energy as possible by thinking about how much I
hated
this monster that had killed Rachael and had almost killed Blake, sprinted towards the hydra, and placed my palms on its chest—sending the darkness into its body and killing it on the spot.

The hydra let out its final breath, and I hurried out of the way as it collapsed to the ground. It crashed down legs first, then its shoulders, all its headless necks, and finally the immortal head. Dust poofed up from under it, and I coughed a few times, holding my elbow over my mouth to stop myself from breathing it in. Once the dust settled, all was silent.

“What was that?” Chris was the first to speak. “Nicole—what did you
do
to it?”

I stared at the body of the hydra, speechless. Because what could I possibly say? They’d all seen me use black energy. This wasn’t like with the harpy, where I could say that it was the stalagmite to the heart that had killed her, or like with the pirate on the Land of the Lotus Eaters, where everyone had been too focused on their own fights to pay attention to what I was doing. They’d seen the hydra die at my touch.

I had to tell them the truth.

“My power heals.” I kept my gaze focused on the hydra, afraid of seeing their reactions once they learned what I’d done. “But it can also do it opposite. It can kill.”

Blake stepped closer to me, resting his hand on my shoulder. “Have you done this before?” he asked, his eyes flashing with concern. “Because if you haven’t—if this was the first time testing it out—you never should have risked your life like that. If it hadn’t worked—”

“Yes, I’ve done it before,” I interrupted, and he relaxed, but not much. “I did it with the harpy, in the cave. It wasn’t the stalagmite that killed her. It was when I touched her afterward. And on the Land of the Lotus Eaters—I killed that pirate who was attacking me. Just by touching him.” My voice shook as I said the last part, fearful of what they would think of me now that they knew the truth. Would they think I was a monster, just like the ones we were trying to fight?

Blake didn’t pull away from me, but his eyes flashed with something else—betrayal. It hurt to have him look at me like that, but I supposed I couldn’t blame him. I would probably feel the same way if I were him.

“You’ve known this for a month, and you didn’t tell us until now,” he said, his voice so calm that it was clear he was holding back anger. “Why?”

The others were quiet as well, waiting for an answer.

“Because to heal, I have to use white energy.” I flexed my hand, thinking about the warmth of the white energy that flowed through me when I healed. “But to kill, I have to use…” I swallowed, dreading whatever reaction was going to come after I said it. “Black energy.”

“
Black
energy?” Kate repeated, her eyes wide. “But that’s illegal.”

“And black energy doesn’t kill,” Danielle added. “It tortures. I’ve never heard of a witch using any type of energy to kill. It shouldn’t be possible.”

“Witches have also never been able to heal, or to manipulate the elements,” I reminded her. “Why is this any less possible than what we can already do?”

“I believe you,” Blake said, his gaze still locked on mine. “But you still haven’t answered my question. Why didn’t you tell us until now?”

“Because it’s illegal.” I shrugged and glanced at the ground. “I thought…”

“You didn’t think that we would turn you in?” he asked, and his eyes widened when I said nothing. “We would never do that.” His jaw hardened, and he looked at the others for confirmation. “Right?”

“Of course not,” Chris said, and the others all echoed their agreements.

Once it sunk in that they meant it, I relaxed for the first time since killing the hydra, relieved that they were all on my side—and guilty that I hadn’t trusted them to begin with.

“Maybe
they
won’t say anything,” Ethan spoke up, still hunched over Rachael’s body. His eyes were dark—haunted—and focused only on me. “But I know how dangerous you can be. You killed the hydra with a touch. What’s to stop you from doing that to anyone who gets in your way?”

“I would
never
use my power unless it was absolutely necessary,” I told him, shocked that he would think otherwise. “The hydra was a monster. It had to be stopped. If I hadn’t killed it, it would have killed us first.”

“But you don’t only kill monsters,” he said. “What about the pirate on the Land of the Lotus Eaters? I lived with them for over two years—they’re all good people. It’s not their faults that they’re stuck there. None of them deserved to die.”

“He was attacking me,” I said, although guilt wavered in my voice at the reminder of the way his eyes had glazed over when I’d used my power on him. He’d had no idea it was coming. “I had no choice. If I didn’t do it, he would have killed me first.”

“We
all
killed back there,” Blake added. “We had to. What does it matter if we did it with a sword, or with our elements, or with black energy? The end result is still the same. And Nicole’s ability saved us in here. If it wasn’t for her, the hydra would still be trying to kill us. We owe her our lives.”

I squeezed his hand, thanking him for his support, and he squeezed it back.

“Except that Nicole killed one of us,” Ethan said. “When she kissed you instead of running over to save my sister.”

I looked down at the ground, guilt welling in my chest again. Because Ethan was right. I’d made a choice—a terrible choice—and because of it, Rachael had died a horrible death. And there was nothing I could say to make it better. Rachael was gone, and despite my promise to Ethan that I wouldn’t let anything happen to either of them, I couldn’t bring her back.

“Rachael was dead before Nicole finished healing Blake,” Danielle said, and I whipped my head up, surprised to find her standing up for me. “And she would have been fine if she’d stuck to our plan. Instead, she ignored it and ran up to the hydra, knowing that Blake wasn’t nearby to cauterize the neck. If she’d waited for him to finish, the heads wouldn’t have had time to grow back and attack her. She would still be alive.”

“You’re not seriously blaming her for
dying
.” Ethan stood up, his fists clenched, narrowing his eyes at Danielle. “Are you?”

Danielle flexed her fists, and I wondered if she was about to rain hell upon him.