The Beast Below - Part Three
Sep 20, 2024The Order of the Occasionally Occult or Arcane
Episode Three: The Beast Below (Part Three)
“I have to tell you something,” Aurora said, scrambling around the cabin and pulling on sweaters, coats, and all manner of things to keep her warm. Jasper didn’t know how she planned to help Rohan – it was nearly daylight, so her ability to channel starlight would be null and void, and she was far too small to do much damage on her own. However, she didn’t listen to his protests and kept dressing herself for a trek through the snow.
“I didn’t want to tell you, because you’ll just turn me into the Order, and I can’t have that. There’s too much at stake that you don’t understand, and I don’t have the time to explain it all yet. So you’ll just have to trust me and promise that you won’t tell a soul if I tell you. Not until I’ve had the chance to tell you everything.”
Nonsensical as it all was, that wasn’t nearly as alarming as the fact that she was entirely serious about going outside. Jasper admired her determination, but if Rohan, a Fae male who was more than double her side, was in trouble, he doubted she could do anything about it.
“What do you need to tell me?” Jasper asked, completely bemused at the strange sight before him. Aurora had donned articles of clothing from all over the human timeline, bits and pieces acquired throughout the ages. Mismatched woolen socks and gloves and a hat the ugliest shade of orange Jasper had ever seen – and the rest of her clothes seemed patched together, too. For the first time since he’d met her, she finally looked like the renegade creature Barty alleged that she was.
Aurora hesitated, her nerve faltering. When she did speak, Jasper’s mouth fell open, and not a single sound came out.
“I’m athrúbhán,” she said.
It would have been less shocking for her to get on her knees and confess her love for him – although at that moment, she was likely feeling more murderous than not (it was always difficult for Jasper to understand the complicated emotions of other people; he’d learned over time to simply not try to interpret them). Simply speaking, that admission made even less sense than the entirety of their previous conversation.
“You can’t be,” Jasper returned. “They’re all dead.”
Aurora let out an impatient little snort and stamped her foot. “Clearly not,” she snapped. “Because I’m one of them. Think about it. Who saved you from the falling gargoyle? Who got you out of the tower in Ravenscroft? Who pulled you out of the land-in-between when you were very nearly gotten by Umbraxis? It wasn’t the unsufferable members of your team.”
So she had an opinion on Orion and Zephyra, then – he stowed that away in the recesses of his mind, useful for a later date. His thoughts directed him back to the way Aurora had sat on the foyer floor at Ravenscroft, blood on her hands. Then they led him diligently to the wound on his upper arm – the three puncture wounds from razor-sharp talons – and the still-pink scars there twinged in remembrance.
“If that’s the case,” Jasper persisted, “then why did you try to fill me with holes?”
“That was a mistake. I’m rather out of practice.”
Jasper shrugged. “Alright. But what am I to do with your identity as an athrúbhán?”
There was plenty to do with that fact, although she wasn’t supposed to know about it. They’d been wiped out for a reason, and trying to stage an international coup in the Fae realms was only one of them.
“Come with me,” Aurora pleaded. “If this creature is what I think it is, it will take all of us to stop it.”
Jasper looked pointedly at his leg. “I don’t see how.”
“I’ll carry you,” she answered.
That was an unsavory thought, and he blanched. “You certainly won’t,” he replied, spine straightening. His leg ignited in pain again, as though to remind him just how not-in-the-position-to-bargain he was. He could fight a monster with his magic, and he’d be necessary if that was truly the case, but trekking through shin-high snow with a leg that wouldn’t bend or bear his weight would be a nightmare (if not completely impossible).
Aurora tapped her foot impatiently again and said, “He’s my dearest friend, Jasper. And your team – what will you tell Barty if you let them die?”
That they should have known better, was what he thought, but she was right. He grasped the chair on either side and pushed himself out of it.
“If you drop me – “ he started, but Aurora cut him off.
“I won’t drop you,” she said. “But don’t pull out any more of my feathers. That was extremely unpleasant last time.”
Dragging his leg behind him and hopping on the one that would bear his weight, Jasper hobbled rather ineffectively out of the little cabin and into the snow. It was brutally cold; colder than he’d noticed upon arrival, likely due to the adrenaline that had left his system by now. The Mustang sat dolefully under the canopy of trees, now cool and frosting over. It wasn’t quite dawn yet, but the sky was starting to lighten.
Aurora gave him a look over and said, “Put your arms out. Like a tree.”
“Don’t poke me full of holes,” Jasper replied, as it settled over him what he’d just agreed to. She only nodded, turning on the spot.
All of Jasper’s memories contained magic of some kind. He wasn’t incredibly gifted with charms and spells like others in the Order, but he’d been around it long enough that he was rarely surprised by the strange and wonderful things the other Fae could do. All things considered, he was completely unprepared for the transformation that took place before him.
What was in one moment a perfectly ordinary (albeit uncommonly attractive) Fae female became something completely alien in the next: she tripled in size, sprouted wings with a span larger than the cabin, and donned an incredible covering of snowy white feathers. Her eyes, which had been owlish in her Fae form, looked perfectly natural now, large and unblinking, on either side of a wickedly sharp beak that had replaced her bow-like mouth. Jasper stood before the athrúbhán of legend: a four-legged owl with the paws and strength (and size) of a grizzly bear.
“Aurora – “
He only had her name in his mouth before she launched into the air.
The shockwave of her launch nearly knocked him over, but he was saved when she dived again, her razor-sharp talons closing gently over his extended arms and pulling him into the sky.
The effect sent his stomach into a spiral, lurching so that he worried he might be sick. Nothing could have prepared him for the force of such a takeoff, and even though she was gentler with him than the last time, he was still keenly aware that she could gore him in a matter of moments if she truly wanted.
With strength and power like this, why on earth (or in any of the realms) would she need someone like Rohan?
The amulet in his pocket pulsed with warmth as she flew, and he guessed this was how she located their companions in peril. Although he couldn’t puzzle out where she’d stored her clothes or belongings during the transformation, she must have still had them, because as the amulet grew warmer, she turned, following it over the terrain.
Aurora circled a large, frozen lake for several heartbeats before she dived again. She released Jasper into a snow drift, then tried to land herself, which ended with a loud crash into a copse of trees.
Jasper struggled to pull himself out of the drift. The cold aside, he was increasingly reminded of his immobility as he tried to stand, repeatedly flailing until he rolled onto a somewhat flat stretch of ground and managed to prop himself up on his elbows. He heard Aurora’s commotion as she recovered, and her voice carried over to him in a shrill whine of foul language even he scarcely uttered aloud.
Cheeks very pink, she appeared out of the trees, digging pine needles out of her dirty-matted hair.
“You’re not very good at that, are you?” Jasper remarked, watching the frustrated way she yanked at her locks. He almost wanted to help her but stopped himself.
“Like I said, I’m out of practice.” She stomped over to the edge of the lake and peered out. “I saw something – the amulet says they’re here.”
But they weren’t here. No one was here. No people, no ghosts, no Fae. No animals, either. The world around them was still as stone.
“Aurora – gods, what are you doing?”
Aurora took one step onto the ice, and then another; paying very little attention to whether or not it would hold her weight. Years and years of instinct and training had taught Jasper to never trust ice, even if it appeared thick, but she (clearly) hadn’t had the same instruction.
“The amulet says they’re here,” she insisted. The frenzy had returned to her voice. Jasper realized it too late, realized that he’d come out here with a Fae female who’d completely lost her mind.
“Alright, so they are,” he agreed. “But we have to be smart about this. You can’t just – “
Too late. Much too late. He heard the crack before he registered what it meant. He saw the panicked look on her face and then a dark, fur-covered hand reached up from beneath the ice, and in a matter of moments she’d been dragged under.
And Jasper moved.
It happened without thinking, without feeling. It was like the time he’d heard her screaming in California, the way something deep inside him took the wheel and kicked his executive brain to the back seat. The other let out a snarl of protest, snapped the bindings on his injured leg, and threw his body at the lake.
Jasper simply watched, like an outsider to his own body, as it happened.
Aurora went under. Shadows gathered and filled his mind, his vision, his lungs – then icy water hit his skin as he dove.
Deep, deep, deep – the shadows propelled him forward through murky water. He went numb almost instantly, and if his limbs had been replaced with foam at that moment he wouldn’t have known the difference. Too cold. Much too cold. His heart hammered in his throat, trying to warm his vital organs, even as his lungs began to burn with the urge to inhale. Yet his body wouldn’t answer, the other insisting on following until he saw what it had: a dark shape hurtling through the water.
His shadows lunged for it, grappling on. Jasper heard nothing but the water in his ears, the edges of his vision going black, the thing towing him through the depths at incredible speed. Next thing he knew, it had angled down towards the bottom of the lake.
They were both going to drown. Fae could drown – that was one of the ways Jasper had forgotten about on his previous assignment – and it was quite an effective way to kill them if one had the time. The problem with drowning Fae was that their dying brain kept regenerating over and over for some time until it finally gave up on itself. Human beings could drown in a matter of minutes, but Fae sometimes took much longer. Either way, as Jasper felt himself drifting off into oblivion, he considered it to be one of the more unpleasant ways he’d imagined.
At least it was less humiliating than being eaten alive by sirens – there was always that happy idea.
Then, however, the creature did something completely unexpected: it changed course, shooting for the surface. In a few moments, it burst out of the water, dragging Aurora and Jasper with it. Jasper’s awareness came back slowly, but he did notice the way his body slammed against the wall of a dark, frozen cave, every joint popping as he landed on the ground. Winded and choking, he tried to move but found he’d been paralyzed by the cold.
He lay there, stiff and still, and watched in the darkness as the thing dragged Aurora behind it deeper into the cave. Jasper willed his muscles to contract, demanding his lungs to pump oxygen, but it wasn’t until she was well out of his sight that they responded to his call.
Slowly, each movement an agonizing barrage against his willpower, he got to his knees.
The creature hadn’t noticed him, then. At least there was that.
Jasper’s mind had begun shutting down in those few minutes under the frozen water, and his normally reliable thinking took much longer than usual as he sat here. Then came the shivers, violent and unhelpful; then came the rational brain, his executive tentatively returning to the driver’s seat. The other had gone.
I could use you now, he growled at it internally, realizing that his body was quickly diving into hypothermia and that a dose of irrational power for the other would likely propel him toward his captive companion. If only she would scream, or yell, or do something to rile it up again –
Strip. There it was, the executive, returned from its inconvenient hiatus. You’ll freeze to death like this.
And Jasper let out the tiniest groan.
The thought was accurate – getting out of wet, soggy clothes was the next logical step, even in a cave as dark and cold as this one. That didn’t make it palatable.
Despite the way it made him want to rage, Jasper began the arduous process of stripping away his rapidly freezing garments. First came the coat – torn as it was from his previous mission, he’d be unlikely to miss it. Next came the embroidered vest. He was attached to this one; he’d had it for as long as he’d been in the Order, and though it was bloodied from Ravenscroft, he couldn’t find it in himself to get rid of it. Then followed his shirt, which was nothing special in its own right, other than it was the only thing that kept being in the world completely unbearable.
The lower half was more difficult. Jasper had no qualms traipsing around in his underclothes if the choice was that or hypothermia – but the other had rudely discarded his splint, and navigating the acrobatics of removing his trousers without disturbing his swollen injuries was akin to torture.
Finally, after an embarrassing length of time that suggested he’d never learned to properly dress himself, Jasper stood in the cave mostly unclothed but beginning to dry. He stuffed his feet back into his soggy boots, tossed his clothes into a pile, and made a mental note that if he didn’t die of humiliation first, he’d come back for them before this venture was over.
For that alone, he was going to kill this creature.
Rage propelled him forward, mingling with indignation unmatched by anything Barty had ever put him through. Jasper was not ashamed of his physique (all Knights of the Order were fit – that was simply a prerequisite of employment) but the idea of making his way through an unknown cave, where a monster may be waiting at any moment, on a leg that was broken in two places while also naked as a babe left him a little queasy. Fortunately, his shadows still answered, which made it unlikely that this had anything to do with the Shadow Man. So step after agonizing step, each after inch, Jasper found his way through the dark.
He could see some of the cave. It was enough that he only tripped a few times as he made his way down a long, sloping tunnel. Jasper focused less on seeing and more on listening, picking up even the slightest noises in the cave.
He rounded a corner and the tunnel widened a little, flattening out into a room. Jasper came to a halt as his eyes adjusted to a strange, sickly light filtering into what appeared to be windows in the rock. He remembered this light – he’d seen it in Ravenscroft when he came down from the Southern tower.
Jasper realized then that they weren’t windows. This was the light from the land-in-between. As approached the first gash-like hole, he reached out a hand and felt…nothing.
Not a hole. Not in the rock, at least – but one in space and time.
A riftgate. Here? In a cave below a lake in Denmark?
As Jasper turned, he made out more than one – five, six, seven such holes. They looked as though something had taken a knife and hacked away at the barrier until it had torn free.
Or…a claw. Umbraxis had such claws; so did the creature, according to the glimpses of it Jasper had seen. But the creature was not the same as Umbraxis, or surely it would have started taunting him by now.
Jasper peered through the hole in the air. The other side was a mirror to his own world, only cast in shades of green and grey. In the strange light, notes of bioluminescent green drifted in the air. Jasper took a breath and nearly choked on it – there was something sick about it, something that made his lungs feel tight.
He staggered away and coughed; his movements clumsy from the cold.
Ever so carefully, he continued his progress down the tunnel, leaving the strange gates behind, even though his curiosity begged him to look again. As he moved, oscillating between waves of numbness and agony, he began to smell something different. Something familiar. Something earthy, and…warm.
Fire. Jasper caught the keen scent of pine boughs burning, the air suddenly sweet with it, the deeper he went into the tunnel. The idea of fire – of warmth – sparked something hopeful within him. His pace quickened the slightest degree. He pressed a hand to the wall to help ease his passage and finally found the source of the smell.
There was another cavern, this one wide and large enough that it housed a small lake in the center. Jasper stopped at the entrance to collect himself, winded at the sight that met him.
Hundreds of people, staring up at him.
No – Jasper shook himself. Not people. Ghosts. Hundreds of souls, gazing up from the floor of the cavern, watching his approach. They whispered to each other: what is he doing here? Where are his clothes? What is he going to do? Jasper tried not to indicate that he saw them, if only because he’d left his flask behind and the last thing he wanted was to deal with a horde of angry ghosts completely sober.
On the floor of the cavern, there was a small fire. Jasper quickly found his companions, too – hanging from the cavern walls by thick ropes around their wrists and ankles. They were bloodied and their bodies stiff, nearly frozen, but he didn’t see their ghosts amidst the varying souls, so he assumed they were alive.
And then he saw…the creature.
It was a huge, monstrous thing; though its back was to him, Jasper made out its skin stretched thinly over its wretched, jagged spine. It was a pale greyish brown, hairy in places and completely bald in others. Its limbs were long and gangly, with talons on its hands and feet, but despite all of this, it had a strangely human appearance. It had, Jasper realized, started the fire; and was slowly roasting something over a spit.
At its feet lay Aurora.
Jasper’s heart skittered at the sight of her. She was limp, unmoving, hair askew, but as far as he could see, intact. Blood dribbled from her hairline and Jasper imagined the thing had likely hit her over the head when she’d started to fight back. So far as he could tell, the creature still didn’t know he was there.
Jasper wrapped himself in shadows and faded into the back of the cave. He longed for the fire, for the tantalizing warmth there, and warred against every instinct to draw closer. As he circled the beast, he was reminded of an old Danish story that, if he was correct, would have started to circulate about now.
Grendel. They had called the monster in that story Grendel.
And it was a monster. Despite its human proportions, when Jasper reached a point where he could make out its hideous face, he realized that beyond its limbs there was next to nothing human about it. Huge, bulbous eyes protruded from a malformed head, jagged teeth forming its wide mouth – like a deep-sea fish. And it was huge. Gauging from the limbs folded beneath its crouched body, he guessed at least eight feet – maybe more fully extended. A beast of strength, agility, and reasonable intelligence, guessing by the fire.
Jasper found a rock and crouched behind it. He was cold and starting to shake and perhaps going into shock, but he could see the entire cavern now, and the thing still hadn’t seen him. That meant he had time to plan.
Old reliable brain, he said to himself, dragging wet hair out of his face and taking in deep breaths to stave off the shivers. What are we going to do now?
Orion’s shoulders had been dislocated when the monster had hung him on the wall, and through a haze of pain, he struggled to stay awake. He wanted to drift off into oblivion, but then it had gone again, and he thought he might have a chance at saving the others.
Then it had returned, with Aurora, and he realized that they were truly doomed.
This thing was smart. And cruel. And it had seen them beneath the lake and lured them in one by one. Through the bitter cold, it had dragged them here and strung them up, and then made them watch as it tore the limbs off of one of its other victims.
Zephyra had tried to fight, and she now hung limply with a gaze in her head. The thing’s talons were sharper than steel and it had a temper.
Rohan had done…nothing. For someone of his size, he’d given in quite easily. And Orion had never stood a chance.
He was well aware that he was the weakest of the three. His powers weren’t always available, and he’d never gotten the hang of them the way the other two had. Barty had reminded him of that quite thoroughly during their last conversation.
Something moved just beyond Orion’s line of sight. Through frost-covered eyelashes, he spotted a shadow on the far side of the cave. He squinted – and nearly laughed.
There was Jasper Nightingale, in nothing but his skivvies, staring back.
Clever Jasper, brilliant Jasper – heaven knew how he got down here, but there he was, reliable as always. Orion knew they’d all get an earful when this was done, but Jasper was here, and that was what mattered. If anyone could get them out of this mess, it was him.
Perhaps he was getting delirious; it was hard to say. Orion found almost everything funny these days. Jasper’s skin was so white that he stuck out against the darkness of the rock, even with his cloak of shadows, and outside of this particular context, he would have made a joke about needing to see the sun. But Jasper saw him, and that was what mattered. Intensely blue eyes met his own and he was hit with that familiar shockwave of being seen all the way through.
Thin, like paper. That was how he felt. Thin, and if he wasn’t careful, Jasper would see….everything.
He can’t read your mind, Barty had said – so why did it feel that way? And why did Orion hope, at least a little, that he could?
Just tell me what to do, he thought, as loudly as he ought. Tell me how to fix this.
How to fix everything. It had started in Northern California; that was when their team had begun to fracture. It had unraveled in Ravenscroft. And now, thanks to him and Zephyra, they were at Jasper’s mercy again.
Tell me what you need me to do.
Jasper still couldn’t read minds. He was looking for something, eyes traveling all over the cavern. Orion wondered what he saw. Ghosts, maybe? He’d always wanted to know what that was like, and if it really was so horrible it drove him to drink every day, or if there was another reason his teammate was rarely sober. Did Jasper remember, and simply lied about it? If he did, why didn’t he say something?
Orion’s (albeit derailed) train of thought came to a staggering halt when he realized that Jasper wasn’t looking, but directing a long arm of shadows towards them from the other side of the cavern. He saw the snake-like thing moving over the rocks and wondered with some amusement what, exactly, Jasper was planning to do. Then it reached his feet and he felt it travel over his ankle. It had the same physical presence as a hand, except it was very cold and left a strange, electric after-sensation that wasn’t entirely pleasant. Orion met Jasper’s gaze again and recognized an impressive level of concertation as the hand began to untie the knot.
Pride welled up inside him and then relief. Jasper must have seen that he was awake, and even if Orion didn’t know the plan, it insinuated that Jasper had one, and that would be enough. Whatever Zephyra’s grievances were with him, Orion was satisfied with simply following his lead.
When the rope came free, the hand traveled up the wall and began working at Orion’s wrists. Orion winced and the touch became gentler, something completely unexpected from their notoriously uncaring teammate. He was almost overcome with gratitude – then, however, the ropes came free and he fell, hitting the damp floor of the cave with a sharp crack.
Orion gasped as his bones slid back into their joints, and the noise startled the creature in the middle of the cave.
It happened quickly: Jasper retreating into the shadows, moving awkwardly on his injured leg; the monster turning its ugly body to face Orion completely; the other two waking at the sound of its strangled roar echoing off the cave’s walls. Jasper disappeared completely. Orion, too stunned to move, simply watched as the thing rose to its full height, its scabby head scraping the cave’s ceiling, and showing all its rotting teeth.
The roar was accompanied by a hair-straightening stench that nearly plastered Orion to the wall. Dimly, he considered doing something about it – could he harness the sun’s power, even at the bottom of a lake? – but remembered how it always irked Jasper, because their abilities directly opposed each other, subsequently ruling each other out. Unless Jasper was somehow able to communicate the plan –
Crack.
Beside Orion, Rohan woke. Blood streamed down the side of his head, where he’d been bludgeoned by the thing in the cave. He yanked on the ropes holding him up and they instantly snapped, and he landed on his feet beside Orion. Blearily, he looked around, just as the creature charged.
With Orion free, Jasper’s attention turned to the unconscious female at the feet of the monster. He didn’t know what Orion would do and hoped it wouldn’t be too dramatic, but it was the distraction he needed, and Orion was the perfect Fae for the job.
And his plan worked splendidly.
Orion distracted the monster, and the Rohan woke. When it charged at the two of them, Jasper shot another band of shadows forward and wrapped them around Aurora. He’d never tried to move an entire person before (his abilities weren’t always predictable; shadows, it seemed, had a mind of their own) and found that in his half-frozen state, the effort was almost too much to bear. The ghosts around him whispered mischievously as he tried to pull her out of the center of the room, and in his periphery, he watched Rohan grab a hold of the monster’s claw-like hands and wrestle it down.
Jasper had very nearly succeeded when, to his dismay, another force joined the chaos in the room, completely throwing his balance and concentration.
The ghosts, it seemed, had decided to join the fray.
The others would not know what had caused it, but Jasper could see them as they began to climb up and down the walls, swarming around like bees in the center of a hive. Though they were varying levels of tangible, they all seemed to have one objective: to bring the ceiling down. The cave began to rumble, the creature’s ugly head swiveling around at the noise, and even Zephyra woke when the walls began to groan at the assault.
“What are you doing?” Jasper yelled at them, forgetting the danger completely, and thinking only of the discomfort of being buried alive.
Although none of the ghosts deemed to answer directly, he heard their vicious noises as they scurried over the walls and gleaned that they hated the creature, wanted it to die, and didn’t mind who they killed in the process. Orion worked to free Zephyra, and Rohan took advantage of the creature’s distraction to sock it squarely in the jaw – but even it seemed to realize that its priorities would need to change.
It stumbled backward and then turned, disappearing into a tunnel at the opposite end of the cave.
“Jasper!” Zephyra snorted when she spotted him on the far side. “What on earth are you doing?”
“We have to get out of here,” Orion said, ever skilled at stating the obvious.
The only thing Jasper could think to do was point aggressively at the ceiling and shout, “Ghosts!”
The point was delivered effectively all the same – because large rocks began to fall from the crumbling ceiling of the cave. Then, to Jasper’s horror, tiny ribbons of icy water started streaming into the cave. They were out of time.
Rohan was the only one with the mind to do anything, and he lunged for Aurora, scooping her off of the ground even as she began to wake. She flailed in protest, groaning unintelligibly. Jasper, rightly assuming that his companions would follow, began the arduous process of dragging himself in the direction the creature had gone.
He wasn’t fast enough. The ghosts rushed by him in their fury, raking their fingers through the icy walls as though it was soft as peat. Their hissing filled his ears in an angry mantra: kill, kill, kill.
On an impulse, he shot out an arm and grabbed one by the shirt. To his surprise, it stopped, turning to look at him with wide, empty eyes.
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded. “You’ll kill us all, too.”
The spirit’s expression, if Jasper could even begin to describe it, was something akin to incredulity. “He broke his promise,” the spirit said. “We’re all dead because of it.”
In his shock, he let it go.
The walls continued to rumble, stones falling and water trickling into the tunnel at his feet. His companions had caught up and then passed him, and only Zephyra waited, turning when she realized he was standing there.
“Jasper, you have to move,” she said, her voice pitched and agitated.
He had to – but he couldn’t. Jasper had reached the limits of what his body would do. He was cold, shivering, aching all over, and at the rate the water rose into the tunnel, he didn’t know he could even move fast enough to get out.
Zephyra clapped her hands and a great gust of air rushed against his back, pushing him forward. She turned and began to run, towing him along. It wasn’t comfortable – she didn’t look back to make sure he didn’t slam into things or drag his injured leg over the icy ground – but it was a force he couldn’t fight. The water continued to rise, reaching his shins even as the tunnel began to climb. When it leveled out again, they met with the others, all staring into the surface of a pool.
“This is where it went,” Rohan said.
At the rate the ghosts swarmed into it, Jasper had to agree. The idea of plunging back into the water, however –
“Stay close to me,” Zephyra said. “I’ll get us out.”
On a place such as Earth, where magic was unruly and scarce, Fae were regularly cautioned against using magic unless it was impossible to avoid (hence why Jasper so rarely glamoured the Mustang). Zephyra’s actions reflected a wild disregard for this regulation, as she extended a magical limb to each of them, wrapped their heads in a bubble of breathable oxygen, and proceeded to provide it from her own person as they slipped, one by one, into the pool.
It was Jasper’s turn (again) to be useful. He kept them close together as they followed the creature’s trajectory: into the pool, down another tunnel that plunged into the lake, and then, when the cave walls fell away behind them, up to the surface. It was a great expense – his strength began to fail when they approached the ceiling of ice floating overhead. Then Rohan pushed himself ahead, pounding a mighty fist through the surface of the ice, and he pulled himself out of the water.
Rohan fished them each out, one by one, and when Jasper wouldn’t let Rohan help, Rohan ignored his protests, grabbed him by his fraying waistband, and threw him onto the ice. He slid several feet before dragging himself up and crawling onto solid ground.
They were all cold now; too cold to think and much too cold to speak. For the first time in that entire mission, Orion found a way to be useful: he brought down a great ball of sunlight and used it to warm them up and dry them off, and while they stood there (or sat there, in Jasper’s case), they began passing back and forth theories about where the creature had gone and what to do about it.
They’d lost it. It had somehow gotten away in the chaos, but Jasper didn’t have the energy to chase it, and his leg protested violently if he so much as twitched his big toe. He lay flat in the snow and stared up at the overcast sky, thinking dismally of the walk back to the cottage, the ruined Mustang, and the tattered remains of his career.
For once in his life, he didn’t have a single idea of what to do next.
The argument started the moment Orion said, “What if we just say it’s gone, so we can go home?”
Jasper decided he didn’t want to speak to any of them ever again. They made it back to the cottage sometime later (it was a miserable trip that Jasper wanted to pretend never happened, as it involved an excruciating level of intimacy between himself and Rohan, who’d carried him most of the way), and he sat wrapped in a blanket by the fire. His hair had finally thawed, his leg had been re-splinted, and he was finally drunk enough to no longer feel completely demoralized by the whole situation. Although there were plenty of issues that needed his attention, he decided then and there that he no longer cared.
This entire day had been a nightmare.
Zephyra snarled in response, “Orion – you did nothing in the cave. You did nothing to help us, and it got away. If we go back now, I’m telling Barty the entire thing was your fault.”
It probably was, all things considered. He took a drink of vodka and swirled it around in his mouth for a long time before swallowing.
Orion sputtered back, “I didn’t know the plan, Zephyra. I didn’t – ”
“It’s going to keep killing,” Rohan said, unhelpfully. “And you’ve made it angry. By the code, you have to find it and bring it back to Barty.”
Zephyra rounded on the large male. “That’s another thing. How do you know Barty? How do you know the code?’
Jasper felt the eyes on him, like little spots of warmth growing on his cheekbone. Aurora was sitting on her cot, chin on her knees, watching him.
He could tell she wanted to talk to him. There was more to her story than they’d had time to discuss, and there was still the issue of her being a wanted criminal to resolve. Jasper didn’t want to talk, though. He wanted to dissolve into his chair. Better yet, he wanted to crawl into the backseat of the Mustang and listen to Radiohead until his ears bled and he forgot that he was alive.
Perhaps the radio would still work – that was something he hadn’t considered until that moment. After everything that day, Jasper would accept the cold if it meant he could fill his head with music and not the senseless arguing of his idiotic team. Zephyra was right about one thing: they’d only made the situation worse since they’d arrived, they’d failed to stop the monster, they’d failed to close the rift, and if they returned to Barty now as Orion had suggested, they’d all be in trouble.
The decision practically made itself.
Jasper gathered the momentum to stand and did. He was only on his feet for a few moments, however, when the world tipped, and he briefly registered Aurora’s panicked face before he fell into a deep, never-ending blackness.
Rohan didn’t know what was louder – the thud as Jasper’s body hit the ground, or Aurora’s scream as it happened.
He didn’t register it at first, watching without understanding as she clawed her way across the room, a sound like a banshee ripping through her throat as Jasper began to convulse. Jasper’s mouth began to foam, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, and through the disorientating sound of her mangled voice, he made out what she was saying: not again, not again, not again.
The athrubhan – the owl-people of the North – had that horrible, piercing yell, that battle cry of legend, and she used it now to summon Jasper’s spirit and demand that it stay.
It hadn’t worked the first time though, had it?
“What’s happening?” Zephyra said, over Aurora’s piercing shriek. “Don’t touch him – “
Aurora placed her hands on both sides of Jasper’s deathly pale face and continued to scream, her face filled with terror. She continued to yell in that horrible tone: come back to me. Come back to me. Not again.
It was a sound that summoned armies and leveled battlefields. A sound he’d heard only once, a sound that challenged death itself.
Aurora fumbled with her clothes for the amulet. Rohan knew she would, knew what would happen when she touched it to her lips and didn’t move when the hole opened in the floor beneath her and Jasper. They fell through and the hole closed itself, and Zephyra and Orion let out indignant noises of disbelief.
The sudden silence left a tinny ringing in his ears.
“Where did they go?” Orion breathed, eyes wide.
Zephyra rounded on Rohan with an expression that was much more severe. “What,” she seethed, “just happened?”
The decision meant compromising everything Rohan had given so much to protect. It meant compromising Aurora, compromising their plans, and putting Jasper, even, into greater danger. Rohan felt for his amulet and held it as he said, “I know where they went. But I can’t take you.”
“You have to,” Orion said. “He’s part of our team. If he dies – “
That was the thing, wasn’t it? The thing they didn’t understand.
“You can’t convince me that you care about him,” Rohan said. The words felt like sand in his mouth. “Wouldn’t it be more merciful to let him go?”
Zephyra’s eyes flared. She knew. She had to. It was impossible that she didn’t. Even if Barty had removed her memories of him, she had to know that Jasper wasn’t what they thought he was.
Orion shook his head. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“We won’t turn you in,” Zephyra said, without breaking her stare. “But you have to take us to him. And he has to come with us.”
“Aurora stays with me,” Rohan insisted. “You can’t have her. Barty can’t know she’s here.”
Zephyra stuck out her hand. “You have my word, as a Knight of the Order.”
It was not a word he wanted. Rohan knew the Knights of the Order and what they would do to complete a mission.
“Swear on your life instead,” he said to her. Her hand faltered.
Disgusted, Rohan turned. He touched the amulet to his lips and conjured the image in his mind, the villa, the kind face that waited for him –
“On my life,” Orion said. “Just take us to him.”
Rohan sighed, though he wanted to groan. An old injury in his leg began to ache at a deeply buried memory. He looked back at Orion.
“So be it,” Rohan said. “Take a hold of my coat.”
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