Fourteen radiated the same grim joy and focus he had during the fight in the garage, but Cym was terrified—with good reason. The second Fourteen incapacitated the creature in front of him, a portal opened, releasing a fresh horror to take its place. Even seeing Jack come around the corner didn’t make Cym feel better since he had another monster nipping at his heels.
There had to be something Cym and Sterling could do to help.
“Can you do something? Anything is better than just standing here. Please!” Cym begged, grabbing his brother and shaking him like he could jar an arsenal of weapons from Sterling if he tried hard enough.
“I’m sorry, man. On a good day, I wouldn’t be able to defeat one of those things, and I’m fucking tapped out. Usually, only guardians are equipped to take on demons and nightmares.” He gulped as they watched Fourteen lop off the head of a creature with a rotting clown face and seal flippers. “And that guy too, apparently.”
“What about the holes? Can we get rid of them somehow? If we could cut off their reinforcements…” He knew he was stabbing wildly but couldn’t stop himself.
Sterling snorted. “Those are portals to the Demon Realm. That’s so far above my level of training, I wouldn’t even know where to begin, and right now I don’t know if I have enough magic to scare a mouse.”
“And anything I try to do is only going to make everything worse,” Cym growled, frustrated with their collective uselessness. Then something occurred to him. Something incredibly, unbelievably stupid. “You should get out of here and look for help. Maybe you could find more guardians and bring them here.”
If Cym was going to pull off his incredibly stupid idea, he didn’t want Sterling around. Now that he had his brother back, he had no intention of getting him killed.
“And leave you here to frolic with monsters and such? Not happening, dumbass. What if Hester comes back for you?” Sterling’s voice cracked hormonally, making him seem like the opposite of someone who belonged on a battlefield and more like the child Cym had once known.
“Pfft. Like she wants to tangle with me again. At best we’ll end up in a stalemate.” Unless Hester hit him with another rock. Cym rubbed his sore head and scowled. “Besides, you know where to go to find help and I don’t. And with this near-concussion, I’d be dead weight slowing you down.”
“The chapter house is over an hour away! Any help I bring will come too late.”
Clearly Sterling was going to be a pain in the butt about being sent to safety.
Cym abandoned his first attempt and moved on to the next. “What about the rest of the family? You said not everyone was in Hester’s pocket, where are they?”
“The main house has a dozen or so people tucked away in the panic room for their own protection. It’s what I was coming here to tell Mother—er—Hester. It was my job to oversee their safety if we came under attack,” Sterling said bitterly. “In hindsight, the people in there are all the ones who are less than enthusiastic about what’s been going on lately.”
“How was Hester able to keep them from running to the guardians for help? How did she hide this corruption from people?”
Sterling sucked in a hissing breath of air through his teeth and shifted his weight. At first Cym thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he sighed, and it was like the floodgates had opened. “I don’t know how much you remember from before you were locked up, but family loyalty has been shoved down our throats since I can remember. Things would have had to have been terrible for anyone to consider going outside for help, and until the past month or so, everything ran the same as usual, with the exception of random temper flares from normally calm people.”
Sterling turned his head away like he was embarrassed to look at Cym, even if it was too dark for them to see each other. “We all attributed it to you, to be honest. We just assumed they got too close to your building. Everyone was strictly warned to keep away from it. Of course, random mood swings are also a side effect of prolonged demon exposure, but none of us even considered it as a possibility.
“Clearly, some people in our family knew exactly what was going on. Astin is an obvious choice for demon bitch of the month because he’s been into some really sketchy portal magic lately. And the magic Stella used to get us away from your champion was probably demon magic as well. Gods, how could I have been so blind?” He threw back his head and shouted up at the stars.
“Beating yourself up isn’t going to help anyone right now! And yelling like an idiot is going to get us caught.” Cym tugged at his sleeve, but Sterling refused to turn toward him. “Sterling. I need you to focus. Can you get our family out of the panic room and to safety?” If he could convince Sterling he was needed, Cym might be able to get him out of the line of fire and far away from the incredibly stupid plan Cym was about to put into action.
Slowly, Sterling tilted his face down from the sky.
In the darkness, Cym couldn’t tell if Sterling was looking at him, but he chose to assume he had his brother’s attention. Cym might not be able to fix Sterling’s issues right now, but he could give him something else to focus on so Cym could accomplish his goal. “They need you, Ster.”
Silence stretched between them, but Cym could practically hear his brother thinking.
Sterling snapped his fingers, startling Cym. “With everything that’s going on, there’s a good chance no one is even thinking about the panic room.” He began to pace, a dark shadow weaving in and out of the underbrush surrounding them. While he moved, his words came out faster, as he gained confidence in himself. “I should be able to get them out, but you can’t go back in there. If someone recognizes you, they’ll either freak out or try to capture you, and that’s not going to help anyone.”
Now Sterling was doing Cym’s work for him. Perfect. “That makes sense. If I hide here I should be safe enough until you return.” Cym crossed his fingers behind his back, though it wasn’t exactly a lie—Cym probably would be safe here.
If he stayed, that is.
“Good. Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll meet you back here with everyone I can find. It’s dark enough that if you keep away from the group, no one will notice it’s you until we can get them to safety. After that, they can suck it up if they don’t like it.” There was relief in Sterling’s voice. Cym imagined he was probably congratulating himself on keeping Cym out of harm’s way.
Sterling thrashed his way through the woods toward the main house, and the second Cym could no longer hear his brother, he stumbled and tripped back the way they came. They both really needed to work on their forest skills.
Fortunately, Cym knew exactly where to go, because Stella and Sekt were a beacon of evil beating against his senses. If he couldn’t be of any help to Fourteen during a fight, perhaps he could go where he would be needed instead. Adelle had said some guy named Marshall would need his help fighting Sekt, so that’s where he was going to go.
It took longer than he liked to fight his way back through the forest. Snow had drifted through the thin defenses of the bare branches overhead and was making it impossible to walk. After falling for the third time, he resorted to crawling across the cold forest floor. It was fortunate Adelle had helped him heal himself earlier, even if he had immediately gone and damaged his head again. If he’d had to do this with a dislocated shoulder and a sprained ankle as well as a banged up brain, he would have quit right then and there.
Cym was cold, tired, and terrified. And starving. Gods, he would cheerfully maim someone for a taco right now.
Cym was one hundred percent done with this day. All he wanted was to be somewhere warm while he curled around a healthy and happy Fourteen. Everyone else could just fall right the fuck down a well, for all he cared.
But Fourteen wasn’t safe, and Sterling was only slightly less unsafe. He was going to have to soldier up and get this over with before he could have his well-earned and hopefully taco-laden snuggle.
By the time Cym made it to the edge of the forest—right where he could feel the demon—his bones ached with the cold, and his fingers were completely numb. He shuddered to think about how he would feel if Fourteen hadn’t thought to bring him more clothes.
He was about to take a short rest, but when he emerged from the forest, he saw a young man lying prone at the feet of his aunt. In the firelight, Cym could see his features twisted in agony as something bright tried to force its way into his body.
Time slowed as Cym raced toward the young man. Snowflakes pelted his cheeks and clung to his eyelashes. The wind shifted, and a wave of heat from a nearby fire melted them away.
Three feet from his destination, his ankle folded under him, and he slipped, skidding until he landed on top of the man. Cym braced himself on the stranger’s chest with one hand and put another hand up to push Stella and Sekt away. The man’s hand shot up to wrap around Cym’s wrist, and he was plunged into chaos.
Chapter 23Fourteen
Turn. Dodge. Strike. Twist. Kill.
So much killing. Fourteen had never been more in his element.
