House of Slide Hybrid (35 page)

He shook his head while I held very still.

“Devlin used demons to take my soul?”

He exhaled. “I have no idea. He didn’t look like he’d been tainted. He stayed the same my whole life. When he took your soul, his soul didn’t look so good, but nothing like that monster we saw back there.”

“That’s good,” I said after a moment of trying not to laugh hysterically. “So you think that somehow I have these Hollow and demon abilities or associations in spite of me having a Cool father and a Wild mother?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in your family tree tampered with the forbidden or mingled with Hollows. It’s not unheard of.”

“Don’t you think they’d tell me about it?”

He shrugged. “You’d think they would, just to keep you from acting out, but maybe they don’t know. Sometimes skill sets skip generations. Maybe you had a great-great-great-grandmother who became a demon mistress and raised a horde of scavengers and feasted on the blood of innocents and Nether.”

I stared at Ash who seemed to view the possibility with interest but nothing like horror.

“That would explain it,” I said then shook my head hard enough that blue strands slapped my cheeks. “How far are we from the Hybrid camp? Can you tell?”

“Yeah. I think that we’ll be there soon,” he said with a relaxed smile.

I didn’t see how he could know where to go if he’d only had a few brief flashes of direction. With Aiden I’d gotten a detailed route, every step of the way to Lewis’s garage planted in my head. If Aiden hadn’t sent me to Lewis, would Lewis be safe somewhere without me? I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek against his chest, reassured that his heart was still beating, but worried about his lungs, the harsh sound that every breath made. His body and forehead were warm while the rest of him grew steadily colder, like all his heat built up around his head and heart letting the rest go.

I tried to take deep breaths, but by the time Ash began jolting along a bumpy country road I was almost hyperventilating. Lewis had to be okay. There wasn’t any other option.

With a lurch Ash pulled off the road and into some bushes that weren’t meant for parking. I watched him get out of the car, bouncing nervously while he looked around. He was tall, thin, like he’d been stretched out on a rack. What happened to the short stocky guy I’d met in Sewing class?

“Come on,” he said, giving me his hand, pulling me off of Lewis with more strength than I remembered. I hated leaving Lewis but it felt good to stretch my legs while I looked around the dark woods, noticing that it was warmer here than Sanders, but so bleak, gray and brown with mud everywhere. The sucking of the mud followed my footsteps.

“Look at that,” a voice said out of the woods, a voice that was terrifyingly familiar.

I crouched while I searched the dark woods for the voice. I knew the voice, and I knew that it didn’t belong to a friend.

“Little Miss Slide, what a surprise,” Aiden, the psycho Hybrid said shoving through the underbrush and stepping out into the partial shade where I could make out his bright, burning blue eyes that pierced me as much here as they had back at my uncle’s house. How could they burn that bright without him burning out like Lewis had?

I held my breath as I kept myself where I was, trying to keep my trembling under control. I’d saved his life, maybe I could use that if he was stable long enough to have a conversation. I licked my lips glancing at Ash. He gave me a small encouraging nod like I should know what to say.

“We’re looking for the Hybrid camp.”

Aiden threw back his head and laughed, a laugh that wasn’t as loud as it felt, but it slid through my bones like a snake through water, leaving me even shakier.

“You’re here to join the Hunters to fight demons? Do you expect us to believe that?” Aiden asked coming closer, so young and cocky that I had to fight off the urge to roll my eyes. He reminded me of Snowy’s little brother, only insane.

“I have a burned out Hotblood in the car,” Ash said calmly. “We’ve only narrowly escaped a demon man, and there are more behind us. If you leave us at their mercy, it will be on your conscience.”

“I’m a Hybrid; I can’t afford to have a conscience. Go back to your trees and…” he got a strange look on his face like he was struggling with something. “Don’t tell me that Axel burned out.” He swung around, ripped a small tree out of the earth and threw it very far through the trees leaving a trail of crashing as it hit others in the way. He stood away from us, breathing hard while I eased back towards the car, thinking that we’d have a better chance finding a city and some normal Hotbloods.

“We’re being followed by demon men and Wilds,” Ash said quietly. “We need help or he’ll die.”

Aiden shoved a hand through his brown hair then turned to look past me at Lewis where he lay limp on the passenger seat.

“Can’t take Axel to the camp like that. Can’t let them see him burnt out. And you,” he said swinging his burning gaze to me. “With your undone runes.” He studied me with those bright blue eyes of his and in spite of the fact that he didn’t look older than 15 with bad posture and acne, I felt like he was older than time and tired.

For some reason I reached a hand towards him, touching his shoulder. “Please help us. You know how to not burn out. I can’t lose him.” The words hurt so much to say, admitting the possibility that he wouldn’t make it.

He muttered something under his breath while I took my hand back, shocked that I’d dared to touch someone who’d just ripped up a tree, but what could he do to Lewis that I hadn’t already done?

“Fine. I’ll take you to a little place away from camp but still protected. If the camp finds you then you’re Hybrids from the central city, half-starved because you’ve been chased by demon men across the country and here to learn how to hold your own.” He gave me a skeptical up and down glance before he shook his head sadly. “As unlikely as that is.”

When Aiden opened the passenger car door, I forced myself to take a deep breath, checking Ash to see if he really thought this was a good idea. Ash gave me a reassuring smile and when I turned back Aiden had hefted out Lewis like he was a baby before he slung him roughly over his shoulder so Lewis’s his head dangled down Aiden’s back.

Ash put a hand on my shoulder, calming me with his reassurance. I didn’t like seeing Lewis like that, hated that I had to trust an unstable Hybrid with someone so vulnerable, someone I wanted so badly to be safe.

Aiden said, “Keep up. And don’t talk about your psychotic uncles here, not if you don’t want to fight everyone who hates Wilds. That would keep you busy for a month.” Then to Ash, “You’re a Cool who most people won’t look twice at except to think you’re useless.”

I said, “He can lean and cloak and…” Ash squeezed my shoulder and I closed my mouth, wondering why I felt like I had to defend him from someone who shared his blood, at least half of it. Aiden laughed, a penetrating sound that was like my dad only off, wrong.

Aiden stopped talking, and I tried to keep up as he led the way through the mud and trees, leading uphill and down ravines, sliding recklessly with Lewis in a way that made me cringe. I didn’t say anything though, not when there was no way that I could carry him. Aiden didn’t look like he could carry him, too skinny by far to be hauling around Lewis like he weighed nothing.

I bit my lip as I wished that I could do something, but however psycho and annoying Aiden was, there were worse things. I shuddered as the memory of the demon man, the black eyes and dark veins, the ravaging hunger and soullessness, and the scent of the burning black that was all that was left of him. The sooner we were somewhere safe the better.

We came to a stone aqueduct cut into the earth, the stones joined together in a complicated pattern.

“Blocks tracers,” Ash said nodding at it.

There was something strangely familiar about the way the stones were laid out. I stared at it while Aiden tightened his hold on Lewis before jumping the ditch, sending a bit of mud into the water where it sizzled and disappeared. I blinked at where the mud had been in the water, realizing that there was no way that a ditch would be clear enough to see the bottom of each stone however fanatical you were about keeping it clean. Ash followed with a look of slight panic then it was my turn. The ditch buzzed faintly, and between blinks I almost saw something, the way that the stones wove patterns in startling purple. It was like the runes bound to the walls of the tattoo parlor, some kind of purple magic that protected this place.

I jumped it, feeling the pull of it and barely made it to the other side without falling in. Ash caught my sleeve, pulling me after Aiden. We trudged through trees that thinned as the ground grew rockier, the slopes steeper. I tried not to look at Aiden because the longer he had his hands on Lewis the more I wanted to snatch Lewis away and run.

Aiden climbed down a gorge, following a narrow path that was invisible until we were on it and even then it was so difficult to follow that I wondered if this was his elaborate way to kill us all. We descended until the light was diffuse while walls of sheer stone rose up around us. Aiden moved through a crack in the rock that didn’t look big enough for him, much less him carrying Lewis, but somehow he fit. I followed, wondering if I’d be able to find my way out of the maze that kept descending.

“Is it much farther,” I asked.

Aiden only laughed, a crazy sound that made me want to cover my ears and scream. Finally, he stopped going down and instead we crossed a rocky scrabble, then came upon a house, tucked in between the sides of two nearly touching cliffs like it had been blown by the wind and gotten stuck there.

I wasn’t sure how we were going to get up to it, but Aiden didn’t hesitate as he climbed, one handed, with Lewis, up the steep slope, grabbing thin saplings to drag himself up, saplings that probably couldn’t bear his weight not to mention the combination of him and Lewis.

“I’m out of shape,” I said to Ash, wheezing a little bit as I struggled up the slope. Ash glanced at me then shook his head slightly.

“Don’t fight it so much. You’re part of the land; it will guide you if you listen to it. It helps if you can stop thinking.”

I sighed and tried to be Cool, but Aiden was getting away from me with Lewis, faster than I was in spite of the burden he carried. I slipped and Ash’s hand, reassuringly solid, grasped mine, where it stayed for the rest of the hike to the house.

Aiden had left the small, crooked door open for us, but it took some getting to because there was no porch, and the door was in the center of the house where it faced the gorge and cliff face. There was jumping involved which Ash did with no problem, leaping lightly to the door like he was made of leaves. I clung to the rock face before I managed to take a deep breath and jumped, glad when Ash’s fingers curled around my wrist as he pulled me inside.

The house was one room, but the details were intricate with wood fused to astonishing stonework. Aiden had already dumped Lewis on a stone slab on one side of the room that was surrounded by stone that arched above and around, carved into what looked like lace panels, a canopy above the bed. There were no windows at the front of the house, but light came shining through the stained glass that pierced the wooden part of roof, filling the room with a strange glow.

“So, you’ll stay here until he gets better. Right. Well, you have fun.” Aiden gave me a long look with that crazy grin as he moved to leave the house.

“Wait! You can’t just leave him here. What about his medicine? You said you’d help.”

His grin continued as he put an abnormally large hand on my shoulder, a touch that I froze under it was so unexpected.

“Don’t worry; I have no intention of letting Axel’s death rest on whatever’s left of my conscience. We’ll bring him back.” For a second I almost felt better but then he smirked before he turned and threw himself out the front door. I ran to peer out and barely had time to make out his figure below on the rock before he scrambled out of sight.

“That is one unstable Hybrid,” Ash said thoughtfully. When I looked at him he was frowning around the room, like he was trying to figure out where they kept the toilet. I followed his gaze and noticed other things besides the stone bed, like a big copper tub, wires and tubes that came out of the ceiling in odd places, a stairs on the side opposite the bed that seemed to stop at the stone ceiling. There were odd pieces of clockwork and metal shoved in a corner which contrasted with the elegance and beauty of another stone wall that had been carved and latticed around stone table and chairs across from me.

“This place feels Hollow,” I said. It was the combination of stained glass and stone floors plus something else undefined.

He nodded like that went without saying then moved to examine pipes that hung from the ceiling over the tub. I went to Lewis, drawn to him as his soul called me. I frowned as I looked at the careless way that Aiden had dropped him with his arm at an awkward angle. I touched his silky skin while I straightened out his limbs, smoothing his shirt into place, covering the flash of stomach, scars that I found fascinating and bewildering. It was cold on the stone. I curled up beside him, willing my heat to soak into him along with my strength.

Ash’s exclamation and the sound of rushing water made me sit up. Ash’s top half was soaked and he looked funny with the metal tube in one hand and his hair plastered to the side of his head. “So, I found water,” he said flatly.