Ignis (Book 2, Pure Series) (68 page)

           
I began to feel deeply uneasy.
 
Immediate physical danger had been my preoccupation before.
 
Now I began to think about the odds against us.

           
The hybrids would keep coming, and we were outnumbered.

           
What if I had doomed us all?

           
The shrieks from below continued.

           
Suddenly, there was a cry much closer at hand.

           
I turned to see a hybrid, its green-flame eyes burning with hatred, appear over the top of the parapet, angular smoke swirling around it.
 
The creature's large, death-pale hand was wrapped around the handle of an axe.

           
As I watched, the hybrid buried the axe deeply in the shoulder of a vampire defender.
 
The vampire dropped his crossbow and wrenched the axe out.
 
Then, he swung it in an arc, aiming for the hybrid's neck.

           
I turned away quickly.

           
Unfortunately, as I looked to the other side, I saw another pair of flame-green eyes rise up over the parapet.
 
A new hybrid bared his teeth in a feral cry.

           
I looked away again and spotted yet another hybrid.
 
This one also had an axe, and he began hacking away at the two vampires defenders on either side of him.
 
The hybrid was shot in the chest by a third vampire, and I heard him scream as he fell away.

           
But there were more cries from our circle of defenders, and more and more hybrids appeared over the parapet wall.

           
There were too many of them.
 
We were soon going to be overwhelmed.

           
The sounds of the fight continued to swirl around me, as I closed my eyes and hoped that I was wrong.

           
My eyes flew open when I heard an ear-splitting shriek close by.
 
I twisted around.

           
One of the hybrids had successfully made it over the parapet and was now standing on the roof.
 
Angular smoke was swirling around him in a thick haze, and I remembered that I was the only one who could actually see the smoke.
 
It was one of the gifts I had been given as a result of my heritage.
 
I could track the smoke generated by the kost, but the smoke served to distract others—like vampires.
 
The smoke was a defense mechanism of the kost—a field that could jam an enemy's senses.
 
I realized with horror that the smoky haze generated by the hybrids was having an adverse effect on the vampire defenders.

           
For his part, the hybrid that had attained the roof of the keep was standing over a hapless vampire, hacking at his neck with an axe.
 
The hybrid shrieked in triumph.

           
I turned away.

           
A moment later, I cried out when someone grabbed me by the arm and hauled me to my feet.

           
It was William.

           
"I'm getting you out of here," he said.
 
"Now.
 
No arguments this time."

           
William dragged me through the trapdoor, and we ran down the spiral staircase in the darkness.

           
William pulled me out of the keep, and then picked me up.
 
He ran toward the front of the keep, and then down the hill.
 
We were heading toward the ring of pale trees at the end of the clearing.

           
As William ran, I squeezed my eyes shut against the sight of several headless hybrids that continued to struggle toward the keep.

           
William stopped suddenly, and I opened my eyes.
 
We had just reached the trees at the edge of the clearing, and someone had stepped into our path.

           
It was Timofei Mstislav.

           
It struck me once again that he was much as he had been in life—he was still sleek and superficially handsome.
 
There were changes in him, of course, which I had glimpsed elsewhere in these same woods—his eyes now burned with an unholy flame, his skin now had the intense pallor of death, and there was something else—an added sheen to him, an unhealthy glamour that all of the hybrids had.
 
They were both beautiful and terrible.

           
With angular smoke swirling off him, black where it touched the white trees, Timofei stared at me now, his eyes burning with hatred.
 
William set me down and interposed his body between Timofei and me.

           
Timofei was lost to my sight.

           
William had slung his crossbow over his back earlier, and he now brought it forward and raised it.

           
He fired several times in rapid succession—it seemed that the crossbow had the capacity to hold more than one disc at a time.
 
And then when he was out of ammunition, he reached into the armor that he wore.
 
It turned out that the leather garment wasn't armor after all—it was really a place to store the lethal discs.

           
William reloaded the crossbow with lightning speed and prepared to fire again.

           
A large, dark figure suddenly hit William from the side, knocking him to the ground.
 
The figure then wrenched the crossbow away from him.
 
By the light of the trees, I could see that the attacker was one of the still-intact hybrids.

           
With William's body out of the way, I could see Timofei Mstislav once again.
 
He smiled malevolently and started toward me.

           
William jumped to his feet and grabbed me by the hand.

           
"Run!" he cried.

           
We flew through the woods with William leading the way, and we moved so fast that the trees become a white blur.
 
We ran on and on, and I realized that we must be close to the edge of the Pure Woods.
 
We would soon be out in the Wasteland.

           
I began to believe that we could make it.

           
Then something snaked around my ankle and held it fast, and my hand was pulled out of William's grasp.

           
I fell to the ground heavily, and suddenly I found myself being dragged backward along the forest floor with terrifying speed.

           
I tried to grab onto something, anything that would stop the dragging, but I couldn't find any purchase on the frozen ground.

           
There was a sound of splintering wood, as William rushed after me, and I felt a jolt as my backward progress came to an abrupt halt.
 
I was jerked suddenly to my feet and held in an iron grip.

           
I knew without looking around that Timofei Mstislav was the one who held me.

           
"Stop!" cried a harsh voice right next to my ear.
 
"Stop or she will die."

           
Icy fingers wrapped around my neck, and William skidded to a halt just in front of me.
 
He stared me for a moment, and then took a step forward.

           
"Stop!" Timofei cried again, and he gave me a shake.
 
"Or I break her neck."

           
William froze.

           
"Move back," Timofei ordered.

           
William took a step back.

           
"Let her go," he said.
 
His voice was full of cold fury.
 
"Let her go, or I will tear you apart."

           
"You threaten me?" Timofei asked.
 
His voice in death had a strange metallic quality to it.
 
"I am no dumb brute.
 
I am not to be ordered around like an ordinary kost.
 
And you killed me once before, remember?
 
You can see how effective that was."

           
"Let her go," William said furiously.

           
"I have captured the girl they all want," Timofei said triumphantly.
 
He gave me another shake.
 
"The girl who helped you to kill my father.
 
The two of you are responsible for his death and mine.
 
And for that I will have my revenge on you both.
 
You, I will kill tonight.
 
The girl will be killed later.
 
But you will both die.
 
And you, William Sursur, will come with me now.
 
You will walk just ahead of us.
 
You will stay where I can see you."

           
Timofei gave my neck a painful wrench, and I was forced to walk forward.
 
William, his eyes bright with anger, turned and walked ahead of us.

           
The cold from Timofei's fingers spread down my neck and ran through my body.
 
I couldn't fight off an involuntary trembling as Timofei forced us to walk on.

           
Timofei pushed the pace so hard that I stumbled and fell.
 
He pulled me to my feet with such force that I cried out, and William started back toward us.

           
"Stop!" Timofei cried, squeezing my throat.
 
"Stop!
 
Or I'll kill her right now."

           
William stopped.

           
"Turn around and walk," Timofei commanded.

           
William obeyed.

           
"Fall once more," Timofei said to me in a harsh whisper, "and you will die."

           
The three of us marched grimly onward.

           
I soon realized that we were headed back toward the keep, and I felt the fear that filled me escalating.
 
Timofei wanted us to be surrounded by hybrids.
 
He wanted to ensure that there would be no escape.

           
William and I were trapped.

           
After an eternity of walking, my body slowly freezing from contact with Timofei's icy skin, we reached the keep, where the fight between the hybrids and the vampires raged on.
 
But instead of leading us toward the hybrids, Timofei forced us to walk along the edge of the sheer drop that fell away from the back of the keep.
 
I glanced over the edge of the drop.
 
All I could see was darkness.

           
"Keep moving," Timofei commanded.

           
I tried to control my trembling, but between the cold from Timofei's grasp, and our proximity to the edge of a dangerous drop, I shook even harder.

           
I feared I would stumble.

           
And if I stumbled, either Timofei or the fall would kill me.

           
Then the unthinkable happened.
 
William stumbled, falling over the lip of the drop.

           
"William!" I screamed.

           
"Get back here, William Sursur!" Timofei shouted furiously.

           
Timofei dragged me over the lip of the drop, and I saw with a faint measure of relief that there was actually a broad ledge near the edge.
 
William was lying face up on the ledge.
 
Beyond the ledge, the ground fell away sharply into the deep, black valley.

           
"Get up!" Timofei shouted.

           
But William did not move.

           
Timofei pulled me toward William's motionless body.

           
"Get up!" Timofei shouted furiously.
 
"Get up now!"

           
With blinding speed, William launched himself at Timofei, somehow missing me completely and knocking Timofei to the ground.

           
"Run!" William screamed at me.
 
"Run!"

           
I stumbled backward a few paces, but I was unable to leave William.

           
I couldn't just run and leave him to die.

           
William held Timofei pinned to the platform of the ledge for a few moments, then Timofei, his eyes burning with hatred, threw William against the wall of the drop.
 
Timofei lurched to his feet, grabbed William, and sent him flying back over the top of the drop.
 
William was propelled into a tree, hitting it with such force that the tree cracked and began to rock on its roots.