Vera Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

Vera crouched at the tree line and watched the light drain from the sky. The demon paced inside the lair. Chained to the far wall sat a girl, thin and shaking, no older than the boy from the shed. Nightfall would come soon. The creature would feed. If Vera charged now, it would tear the girl apart before she crossed the floor. Silas knelt beside her, still in his black coat, still calm. He had walked with her for days now, always with a plan she couldn't trust. She hadn't forgotten what he wanted: her marked, her bleeding, her used as bait. "You can't free her and fight it both," Silas said. "So don't try. Let it come to me instead." Vera turned. "You want to bleed for it now?" "No. I want it looking the wrong way." His eyes stayed on the doorway. "It hunts the wounded. It nearly took you this afternoon. So give it a wounded thing to chase, far from the girl. While it runs, you cut her loose." It was a good plan. That was what she hated. "And who plays the wounded thing?" "I do." For once his flat voice held something else. "You're faster with a blade. I'm not. But I can run and scream well enough." She studied him the way he always studied her. She still didn't know his true reason. But the girl was shaking, and the dark was almost here. Vera nodded. Silas slipped along the tree line. Then he stumbled into the far side of the clearing, hunched and limping, dragging one leg. He let out a cry, small and broken. The demon's head snapped toward the sound. Its red eyes fixed on the stumbling shape. It sniffed, tilted its head, and lunged. Vera ran the other way. She hit the doorway as the demon crashed into the brush after Silas. The girl flinched from her. "I'm here to get you out," Vera whispered. She drove her blade into the chain's weak link. Once. Twice. The iron cracked and fell. She pulled the girl up. "Go. Straight through the trees. Don't stop." The girl ran. Vera turned to follow. A roar split the woods. The demon had lost the limping shape in the dark. It wheeled back toward the lair. Its eyes found Vera in the doorway, blade in hand, no ash on her face now, no shuffle in her feet. It knew her. The girl was gone into the trees, safe. But Silas did not come back out. Vera stood alone in the doorway. The creature bared its broken-glass teeth and came for her at a full charge. She had saved the captive. Now the thing that ate children knew her face again, and there was no disguise left to hide behind.