Halflings (2 page)

Vine’s mouth dropped open, his white-blond hair falling forward. “
Entertainment?
” He shot a quick, questioning look to Mace. “Does that happen? I mean, are we sent to just
watch
stuff like this?” Trepidation clouded those naive blue-gray eyes.

Mace sometimes marveled at the fact Vine was only two
earth years younger than him; his innocence glowed like morning dew, quickly visible and quickly trampled into the mud.

Raven’s mouth twisted. “Our kind does it all the time.” No dew softened Raven’s stark features and face cut into strong angles. His eyes, once bright blue, had darkened to midnight in recent years, which didn’t bode well. “You know, earth girls are hot when they’re running for their lives.”

That was it. Mace dove for Raven, sick of his antics and, well, sick of him in general. Raven sidestepped and in an instant the two were nose-to-nose, fists drawn.

Mace cast a glance to Vine. For the first time, the kid looked like a warrior. Ready to step in if the two older boys came to blows.
Go, Vine.

Mace exhaled a long breath and lowered his hands. Adrenaline surged into his muscles and pulled every ligament into a tight cord.

Cool confidence oozed from Raven as he tilted his chin into the sun, as if daring Mace to strike.

“I won’t fight you, Raven,” Mace said.
Vine needs some sort of role model. Which he’ll never have if I keep getting sucked in by Raven’s games.
He forced his attention away from the Halfling and focused on the pitiful scene unfolding beneath them. A fist fight wouldn’t help the girl either.

Long hair floated behind her. Strands matted across her delicate face where her skin glistened with a silky sheen of sweat. She smelled like fear. The scent curled into the wind and rose on pleading wings, calling to him.

When she reached the fence, her golden eyes flashed relief. Mace watched a moment longer. “Raven, there’s nothing to learn. Look at her.” He gestured toward Nikki Youngblood and the hell hounds no longer chasing her. The four beasts whimpered,
trying to escape the Angel Song drifting around them. Nikki trembled at the gate to the football field, hands shaking when she spotted the padlock secured with a thick chain.

“She’s here for a reason, Mace. We have to find out what it is.” With a twinkle in his eye, Raven clapped his hands and the Angel Song died. “Time to party.”

Sometimes the worst part of being a Halfling was standing aside and letting events happen as they’re supposed to. Maybe that was the worst part of being any created being. Mace’s eyes drifted shut. Without the Angel Song to torture them, the hounds would once again be on the hunt. And Nikki Youngblood would be as good as dead.

“Come on,” Nikki pleaded, willing her hands to stop quaking. Her fingers bled where she’d slammed them into the fence. She jerked back and forth on the entrance, a vain attempt to break the lock, and hopelessness born of despair slipped down her body like deadwood slipping into the sea after a storm. She was trapped. Blood began to work its way through her veins but brought with it a new form of torture. Splinters rather than blood seemed to course through her while her head pounded rhythmically.

Then the wind song disappeared.

The dogs stopped groaning. The forest dropped to a dead, graveyard quiet. No little bunnies or squirrels rambling through the fallen leaves. Just stillness. Just the promise of death.

A rustle behind her evoked a fresh wave of nausea. Desperate hands tightened on the crisscrosses of chain link. If she had the energy, she’d climb. But fear and torment had stolen the last shreds of her strength, leaving nothing but a bundle of exhausted nerves.

She dropped her head to her hands and closed her eyes. A twig snapped, forcing her head up. She tried to swallow, but her mouth and throat were cotton.

As a breeze skirted through the trees, cooling the sweat on her face, Nikki cast a reluctant glance over her shoulder.

The lead dog-wolf moved toward her methodically, a long bead of saliva dripping from his mouth. She watched as each paw landed on the ground. Nikki frowned. He seemed almost … fearful as well. Was he scared of her? She turned, chin jutting forward. “What?” she spat, addressing the hound. “You afraid I might pop the cork on a bottle of screaming bell song again?”

Head dropping between his wide shoulder blades, he stared at her with those empty eyes. She hated that posture, that stalking, ready-to-lunge stance. Wolves at the zoo did the same thing and it freaked her out even though they were on one side of the enclosure and she on the other. She didn’t even like to see her dog Bo stand like that. It was too predatory, too anxious to kill.

“Oh man,” she mumbled.
What did I just do?
Her valor dissolved at her feet as the breeze moved again, this time pushing a rotten scent toward her. Nikki nearly gagged on the putrid odor.
Rancid meat has nothing on these wolves.
Years ago, some boys at her school had put a dead pig inside a car and locked it in a garage of an empty house. Weeks of scorching heat not only ruined the car, the house had to be demolished as well. When the vehicle was opened, the stench fetid animal threaded through several blocks of her neighborhood. At the time, she thought she’d never again smell anything so foul. She was wrong.

The beast growled deep in his throat and the sound invaded every cell of her being. Black lips curled back to expose yellowed
fangs. Round eyes grabbed and swallowed light into the empty, soulless pits that were its sockets.

She pressed her back into the chain links. Tears rushed to her eyes as the other hounds appeared from the woods, leaving no way to escape.

The hunt was over. This is where she’d die.

Wiggling on his back haunches, the wolf leapt.

She cupped her hands over her head for protection, watching through the crook of her arm as the animal attacked. Scarred paws stretched toward her, razor-sharp claws seeming to grow larger and larger as they filled her vision. Why wouldn’t the song return? Frantic, Nikki cried, “God, help me!”

A whoosh of cool air blasted her body and an explosion of light soared past. An instant later something solid slammed against her, shoving her to the ground. Her head thundered on impact. As she fought to take in air, white sparked above. She could hear voices, and the wolf’s growl, but remained unable to focus her eyes or attention.

White again. With it, the dog creature screeched. A sickening voice entered her ears, whispering, hissing like a hundred snakes. It referred to something as sons of God.

Was the wolf talking? She couldn’t see. White — white everywhere. Her mind whirred as an electrical current ran the length of her being: head to foot, foot to head, zipping through her, electrifying and depriving her muscles of movement.

Consciousness slipped away. As her eyes closed for the final time, a velvet voice soothed, “You’re safe now, daughter of man.”

A
nd why did you bring her here?” Will asked.

Their caregiver donned the fatherly posture he’d cultivated from watching family sitcoms. Mace, Raven, and Vine gathered near Nikki and awaited the tongue-lashing they’d expected since arriving back at Pine Boulevard and their new two-story, Victorian-style home for the moment.

“She’s injured,” Mace said.
It’s partially true, at least.
He glanced down at Nikki — passed out on the couch — and his heart flopped. Since encountering this girl, he’d been trying to figure her out.

It was a useless attempt. He didn’t
get
her. One second she’s shaking the gate with the full force of her body, hair whipping in an
S
pattern, the next she’s crying, and the next, she’s screaming at the hell hound in what he’d describe as a taunt.

Maybe hysteria did strange things to the brain — he could understand that. But when the hound leapt at her, she kept her eyes wide open and peered through the bend in her arm. She’d
actually intended to watch the attack.

“Did you
see
what we
did
?” Vine asked for the thousandth time. “That’s what I’m talking about! Those hell hounds were nothing. When do I get to face a wraith?”

Will groaned.

Mace cast a furtive smile to Vine.
Newbie
. He still remembered his first assignment, his first shot at hero work.
If only that excitement lasted forever.

Uncle Will — or so they called him — pursed his lips. Mace had to bite his cheek to keep his mouth straight. Though Will was over six foot five and built like a Mack truck, the deep dimples and puff of curly brown hair — as well as his animated, bright blue eyes — weakened the intimidation factor.

“Can we keep her?” Vine asked, voice lilting like a child’s.

“She’s not a pet, Bloom. She’s an assignment,” Will said. “And facing off with wraiths should be neither a desire nor a source of excitement.”

“I’m not the bloom. I’m the Vine!” He tried to frown, but a quick smile betrayed him.

Mace knew Vine loved the nick name he’d gotten from developing his power at an unprecedented young age. Nicknames were what families had for one another. Real families. Though Will tried his best, Mace often wondered what it would have been like to be raised by his real parents, instead of separated from them at birth as was the custom for beings like him — for his protection, of course.

His younger “brother’s” eager voice knocked him out of his thoughts.

“I’ve got a question,” Vine said. “Why would the Throne have sent us to protect some teenager? I mean, aren’t our assignments … you know, about important people?”

Will nodded toward the girl, who still lay unconscious. “Do you not consider her important?”

Vine rolled his blue-gray eyes. “Everyone’s important. But, I mean, she’s just a kid.”

Will smiled. “Like the three of you?”

“Yeah.” A frown furrowed Vine’s smooth brow. “Didn’t Raven have an assignment once where he protected some political dude?”

Raven gave a curt nod. “He was a world leader, and thanks to me he’s still alive today.”

Vine pointed at him. “Yeah, that’s what I mean. I expected to be assigned to, like, D.C. or New York or something.”

Mace took a step toward Vine, blocking Raven from his field of vision. He was still ticked at the brooding creep for baiting him in the woods. No, Mace was angry at himself for
letting
Raven bait him. Mistakes like that could cost lives. “Vine, we don’t always know why we’re protecting a person. This isn’t the Secret Ser vice. We’re not CIA or FBI. And our instructions don’t come from the limited knowledge of an earthly man.” He nodded toward Nikki. “It may not be about who she is right now. It’s possible that …” He shook his head and shrugged. “Maybe she’s going to be the scientist who discovers a cure for cancer.”

“Or solves world hunger,” Will added.

Raven scoffed. “Or maybe she’s going to do something really important, like figure out how to get the DVD player to stop flashing twelve o’clock.”

“Whatever it is, the enemy isn’t wasting any time.” Will lifted the girl’s arm, his giant palm swallowing her dainty hand. “You say she was being chased by hell hounds?”

The sight of her dodging the predators was forever carved
into his mind while the gratitude in her glassy eyes when he scooped her into his arms was imprinted in his heart. His pulse accelerated. “There were four.”

Will’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “Doesn’t make sense.” He examined the cuts and scratches on her fingers. “Hounds coming after a human. You’re sure?” A crystal-clear gaze questioned them, drifting from one boy to the next.

Mace crossed his arms over his chest. “Uh, yeah. We got an up-close, personal look at them. Rotting flesh with a sole purpose. To kill Nikki Youngblood.”

“Someone wants her dead,” Raven said, bending his fingers so they resembled a gun. He pointed it at the girl’s head and pulled the trigger by clicking his thumb.

Mace shot him a dirty look.

“What?” Raven’s voice oozed innocence.

“How’d the hounds get here?” Vine interrupted.

“The same way we got here, moron,” Raven said. “You know, the midplane? The safe zone between heaven and earth where all of us misfits roam? Someone hasn’t been paying attention in class.”

Vine’s lips pressed together, embarrassment splashed all over his face.

Mace’s heart ached for Vine. The first journey was always the toughest. Lost Boys, Halflings: no matter what you called yourself, you were still an outcast in both the heavenly and earthly realms. Who thought up
that
brilliant idea? An emissary of heaven to an earth you can never have.

Not that journeys were not important. Mace himself had been sent on several. He’d saved lives and had hopefully pushed himself away from eternity’s cliff edge named Scary Beyond
All Stinkin’ Reason. Quiet and peaceful eternity sounded
so
much better.

“This is a surprising card for the enemy to play. What does he know about this girl that we don’t?” Will stepped away from where Nikki rested. Hands on hips again, he searched the street beyond the bay window. “Four hounds pursuing one young girl?” he repeated. Sunlight streamed in and illuminated the side of his face. He pitched a glance toward the boys, gaze locking with Mace’s.