Terra's Victory (Destiny's Trinities Book 7) (3 page)

Every time he remembered that humble scene, he could hear the sweet piping of the voices of children long since dead and his gut and heart would tighten.

As he walked along the path toward the gentle span of the Gapstow bridge, he passed dozens of families strolling the paths, their breaths frosting the clear, fresh air. Because of the time of year, there were far more parents with kids than the usual solo business people walking the trails.

The sight of all the happy families didn’t help his frame of mind.

He pushed his hands deeper into the heavy coat and hunched his shoulders, as if he was cold. It hid his face and his sour mood. He didn’t mind the rest of the world thinking it was the absence of those he’d once loved that made him look this way. Only, if Beth were here, she wouldn’t let him get away with it. She wasn’t here, though, and she didn’t need to be. After four years of watching her look at the world with a direct and uncompromising gaze, he found he couldn’t let himself settle for the easy answer.

It was Lindal’s predicament that was chewing up his juice, making his heart run far more than it should and making his head throb in a way it hadn’t done for over two hundred years.

When he saw Aubrey’s long figure ahead, leaning on the heavy stone parapet, Zack was relieved.

Aubrey straightened up as Zack came alongside him. He was a tall man, almost as tall as Lindal, with pure white hair and a white beard and sharp green eyes that missed very little. He had been turned in the seventeenth century, in the middle of England’s civil war. He had once told Zack that war, rebellion and troubled times had defined his life.

Now Aubrey looked at him with a small smile. “This is not good, if my habits allow me to be tracked down by anyone.”

“Only those who have known you for a very long time could do it,” Zack assured him. “It is only friends who know you come here every Christmas Eve to feed the birds and watch the skaters.” He leaned on the parapet and nodded toward the skating rink, visible through the gap the little creek made in the trees. It was a lovely view. A peaceful one.

Down below, on the ice, were gathered wrens and sparrows and ducks, their necks all craned to watch for the next bread crumb to fall.

Zack picked up a small handful of the stale bread chunks and dropped them down and watched the birds peck at them and at each other, fighting for them.

Aubrey leaned back on the stonework, next to him. “Something troubles you.”

“These days, that’s just about everything.”

“So what was it among the everything that made you seek me out?”

Zack sighed. He had come looking for his maker, to talk and see if there was some way out of this mess, so there was no point in holding back. He told Aubrey about Baralathor’s visit and the political dilemma it created.

Aubrey absently dropped pieces of bread, his gaze far away. “The Elves have ever been insular and untrusting of anyone but themselves. It is not in their nature to accept help, especially not from our kind.”

“Only they
did
accept help. They gave it, too. The prophecies convinced them we had to work together,” Zack pointed out. “Now, just when we’re getting down to the wire, they’re trying to pick up their toys and go home.”

Aubrey gripped his hands together and glanced at Zack. “It is precisely
because
we are drawing toward the end of the war that they speak of hiding away. Now is the time when desperation rises like stench from a sewer. Both sides can see the end coming and neither wants to lose. The Elves are no different in this. Their fear makes them question their allies’ strength.”

“They have never trusted the blood,” Zack said. “Now, they’re back to not trusting us to pull it off. Yet we
can’t
win if they don’t help us.”

Aubrey didn’t look at him as he spoke. “If Lindal takes up his rightful place as heir and king, his influence will ensure the elves will stay and fight with us but you will lose your mate. If he does not go, we lose our strongest allies.”

Zack’s insides jumped. He hadn’t specifically spelled this out to Aubrey. The wise old man had spotted it, anyway.

“What is it that you want me to say?” Aubrey asked. “Do you seek to ease your heart, or win the war?”

“Both,” Zack said flatly.

Aubrey’s smile was more of grimace.

“I know,” Zack agreed. “Not one of the choices.”

Aubrey blew out a breath, letting it fog the air in front of him and watched it evaporate. “Have you considered that this isn’t really your choice to make, in the first place?”

Zack gripped the rough edges of the cold stonework. “I can’t stand the idea of just…waiting. I had to do something.”

“So you came seeking advice from a man who can give you no answers.”

Zack grinned. “It’s doing
something
, anyway.”

The low, belly deep growl came from behind him. In reaction, the hair on the back of his neck tried to stand up, in a painful prickle. Zack spun to look toward the bare trees and dark evergreens on either side of the path leading to the bridge. There was nothing to see. However, the people on the path were looking into the undergrowth nervously.

“Oh, shit….” Zack breathed.

“Was that a dog?” Aubrey asked.

“A kind of dog-wolf thing,” Zack breathed, watching the shadows under the trees, looking for proof. His hand curled around his cellphone, inside his pocket.

“The hounds from Canada,” Aubrey said quietly. “If we go, will they leave these people alone?”

The question underlined the clarity of Aubrey’s thinking, which was one of the reasons why Zack had sought him out this morning. Aubrey was thinking of the safety of the humans, first.

“I don’t even know it’s the hounds, yet,” Zack replied.

Aubrey’s hand gripped his shoulder, turning him. “We do, now,” Aubrey said, pointing to the other end of the bridge.

Moving out of the sparse coverage on the edge of the path was one of the huge hounds that Zack had last seen in Canada, surrounding Declan, Cole and Zoe’s ranch house. This one had the same baleful red eyes, small and mean, yellow teeth and fur that was matted, tufted and worn away in places. There were scars across the thing’s face and hide.

The shoulders were as wide as a man’s and nearly as high. It was five hundred pounds of muscle, sinew and evil.

People began screaming. Parents scooped up kids and ran back down the path. The panic spread as the creature padded over to the start of the bridge, blocking off that route of escape.

As more screaming started up behind them, Zack turned to look at the other end of the bridge. A second hound had emerged from the trees and was moving toward the bridge. It was moving faster than the first.

Zack pulled out his phone, pressed the speed dial and listened to it ring…and ring.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up!” he muttered, watching the second hound, waiting to see if it would step onto the bridge or if it was here to box them in, as the first one had done.

“Are you armed?” Aubrey asked. He was quite calm.

“Knife only.” What he would give to have his sword in his hand….

“Me, too, alas.”

“Zack?” Beth said in his ear, breathless.

“Gapstow Bridge, Central Park. Hounds! Hurry! There are people everywhere here!”

He hung up and dropped the phone back into his pocket and pulled out his knife, as the hound walked onto the graceful curve of the bridge, still moving fast.

Zack stepped into the middle of the bridge, mildly happy that the structure wasn’t very broad. He could cover the width and stop the hound from getting through. He hefted the knife, let his heart slip from his control and beat as it needed to. He would need the blood supply over the next few minutes.

He didn’t bother looking behind him. Aubrey only
looked
old. He had been in his sixties when he had been turned, yet the turning had given his body the energy and strength of a man in his prime. Zack didn’t need to worry about his back. Aubrey had it covered.

The hound broke into a run, drool trailing from its mouth. It came straight at Zack and he braced himself, anticipating the leap for his throat. He could duck under it, if it leapt high enough, or step to one side of the snapping jaws and deal with it from that angle, if it didn’t.

Only, the thing didn’t leap.

At the last minute, when Zack realized it was coming straight at him at a dead run, he tried to adjust, mentally groping through his surprise to guess what the thing intended.

At the last second it swung its head aside, ducking it. Its shoulder slammed into Zack’s upper thighs, taking his feet out from under him. He fell forward heavily and threw out his hands to save himself. His knife went flying and his palms shredded themselves on the rough surface of the bridge. His shoulders took the impact of his fall, creaking under the strain.

He scrambled forward to pick up the knife and got to his feet, whirling back to face the hound.

Both of the big animals were attacking Aubrey. Aubrey had his hands around the throat of the one he had been facing and was trying to squeeze the life out of it. Aubrey’s long knife was lying on the ground by his feet and there was black, wet stuff showing high on the back of the hound.

It was biting at Aubrey’s face with wet chomps, the teeth coming together with loud snaps.

As Zack turned, the second hound, the one he had been supposed to stop, leapt for Aubrey’s back. Zack saw the powerful jaws clamp onto Aubrey’s neck at the base, where the big artery ran.

The hound shook its head, like a dog gnawing a bone.

Blood spurted. Aubrey’s heart would be working just as Zack’s was. The arterial blood, bright red and hot, drove into the air, covering everything, including the hounds and Aubrey, too.

Zack threw himself at the hound, which didn’t seem to give a damn that he was behind it. He rammed his fist in between its neck and Aubrey’s back. He drove his arm underneath the neck then hauled backward. He didn’t need much room to get his knife in there. Just a couple of inches would do.

The power of the thing! Zack had become complacent about his own great strength over two hundred years of being the strongest creature in the vicinity. Yet the hound resisted him. It was growling almost continually, the deep, rumbling snarl blotting out all other sounds. At the same time, it was snapping its teeth, biting at anything it could reach, including the back of Aubrey’s head. There was more blood spoiling the pure white of Aubrey’s hair, laying it against his skull.

Zack gathered himself and heaved, pushing against Aubrey’s bloody shoulder for leverage. Slowly, the hound peeled away.

It must have sensed Zack was winning, for it gave up biting at Aubrey. As Zack got his knife under its throat, it turned its head, quick as a whip, and sank its teeth into his forearm.

The pain was immense. The hound closed its jaws around his arm, biting down with the strength of a vise wound tight.

Zack’s arm immediately numbed, from the shoulder to the tips of his fingers. He felt the knife start to slip out of his useless grip.

Desperately, he shoved himself up against the back of the creature to give his other hand further reach. He thrust his free hand around its throat and caught the knife as it fell. The movement ground the hound’s teeth against the bones in his forearm and he cried out.

He had the knife, though. He turned it in his fingers, facing the blade edge upward, then slashed, using every last skerrick of energy he could muster.

Hot liquid gushed over his arms, soaking into his coat and dragging his knife hand down with the weight of it.

That should have ended the hound’s fight, only the thing was driven. Even as the life was draining out of it, the hound let go of his arm and threw itself backward. Its weight shoved Zack back, too. He fell heavily, the stones and pebbles on the path ramming into his flesh through the coat, biting deep. Zack threw up his arms, both of them, fending off the hound, which had flipped itself in the air like a cat. Now the bloody jaws and feral eyes were coming at him. The black blood was spraying over his chest, soaking him with heat and foulness. The flow was already lessening.

Zack got the knife up, shielding his face and throat.

The hound didn’t go for either, again defying his expectations. With the last of its strength, it turned its head and tore at his thigh.

This time, Zack screamed. The pain was astonishing, stealing his thoughts, his vision, even his hearing for a muffled, silvered moment.

The heavy weight laying over him didn’t move and he gasped, trying to sit up. The hound was dead, sprawled over his lower legs, the red in its eyes gone. The eyes were just black, now.

Zack pushed it off, trying to move fast. Aubrey was still struggling with the other hound. He was on his knees, which would give the thing leverage.

Finally, Zack was able to lift the carcass high enough to get his legs out from under it. The wound on his thigh felt deep. He didn’t look at it. He’d find out how bad it was later.

He got to his feet and his wounded leg buckled under him, sinking him back down to the ground, where he propped himself up on his hands.

Aubrey had lost too much blood. He was weakening and the hound clearly knew it. As Zack watched it seemed to grin, showing all its teeth. It tucked its snout into the side of Aubrey’s neck, the jaws working.

With a rending of flesh that Zack would never forget, the hound tore at Aubrey’s neck, severing his head.

“No…” Zack breathed. He had no strength left to shout his protest.

Aubrey’s body fell forward.

“Zack!” It was Lindal’s voice.

Strong hands were under his arms, lifting him.

There was a swish of a blade and a grunt, followed by an odd whimper.

“Quickly,” Beth said, her voice coming closer.

“Aubrey, too?” Lindal asked.

“No time.”

Zack could hear sirens and shouts, very close. Human police and other authorities.

“They’ll see him disintegrate,” Lindal said. He had Zack on his feet, now. He turned him in his arms, holding him up.

“It can’t be helped,” Beth said shortly. “For now, I want anyone still capable of being questioned moved out of reach of human authorities. That includes you and me.”