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The crowd at my feet began to yell and back away in horror. I stopped screaming long enough to see a naked creature crawl out of the woods like a spider, and through the fire. It was skeletal with leathery tan skin, saggy breasts, and a bare scalp. A smile stretched across its gruesome face, as it crawled up the platform and stood next to me. I knew as soon as she locked her black eyes on mine that this was the goddess.
This was the being we had so faithfully prayed to every Sunday. She was the one who required the sacrifices and the blood of innocent animals. This gruesome creature was the reason I had been strung up on this tree like a Christmas ornament and set on fire.
The goddess gave me a slight nod and then lowered her flat face to my arm. She sniffed it like a dog, pausing at the soft surface of my upper arm. A fleshy purple tongue slid out of her mouth and brushed against my skin, leaving a thick slimy residue behind. I shivered in disgust at the sight, pulling away with all my strength. With her bony hand, she trailed a finger over my collarbone and sliced the skin with her dirty nail, drawing a line of blood.
I couldn’t concentrate on the screams of the townspeople or the heat of the fire. All I could feel was her tongue as she lapped at my blood, squirming with delight while I fought to move out of her grasp. If I’d thought dying in a fire was bad, it was nothing compared to what could happen if this monster took me. In her face, I saw nothing but evil and death.
It didn’t take her longer than a second to break through the ropes that bound my hands behind the tree. She flung me over her shoulder as if I weighed nothing more than a rag doll, and stepped into the fire. The flames swirled around her skin, not leaving so much as a single burn mark. I kicked and struggled, but nothing I did could break the strong grasp of the goddess. She was going to take me and there was nothing I could do about it.
Out of nowhere, something smashed into us, throwing me to the ground in a hard tumble. There were more screams, more shouts. I lifted my head from the ground in time to see my green eyed demon standing above me, the knife I’d nearly used to slice his throat held firmly in his hand.
He stared at the goddess standing only feet away on all fours, a scowl on her ugly skeletal face. She turned her head almost halfway around her neck, and her scowl turned into a leer. All the nightmares I had as a kid, all of the scary movies Kate and I watched during sleepovers, couldn’t compare to the horror of watching the goddess smile at us. With an unearthly screech, she charged forward and bared a mouthful of razor sharp teeth. Gabe met her part way, lunging forward with the knife.
I scrambled to my feet and ignored the blood that had begun to trail from the scratches along my legs. Even with Gabe’s speed, the goddess was on top of him. She wrapped her long fingers around his arms and sunk her sharp talons into his skin. He managed to twist in her grasp and plunge the knife into her belly, turning it as he pulled it out. She shrieked, but maintained her deadly grip on his limbs.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Granny run forward with her shotgun. She laid the stock of the gun on her shoulder and aimed at Gabe’s bare back. Normally, I would’ve cowered at her feet. It was what I’d done my whole life. But now, a fiery rage burned through my veins.
She’d tried to sacrifice her only granddaughter. She didn’t deserve my respect and she didn’t deserve my love. I dove at her feet, throwing her to the ground just in time. The gun went off above Gabe’s head in a fiery blast.
The sound of the gun startled the goddess and she pulled back, black blood oozing from her stomach. She gave me one last hungry look and took off into the thick brush that surrounded the campground, disappearing in the dark forest. Granny had already begun to reload her shotgun. If we didn’t get out of there soon, I had the feeling I knew exactly where she was going to unload it.
A pair of strong arms pulled me up from the ground and cradled me against a hard chest. I looked up to see Gabe’s eyes staring down at me. He held me tight against him and burst into a sprint, putting as much space between us and the campground as possible.
By the time he slowed down, the sprinkle of rain had become a downpour. All around us, the forest sang with the sound of raindrops falling through the leaves. Lightning cracked above our heads, illuminating Gabe’s face for only seconds at a time. He wore a serious expression that didn’t falter even as he occasionally looked down at me.
There were no words exchanged between us. I wasn’t even sure what I’d say if he tried to get me to talk. Instead, we stayed silent and listened to the storm pick up around us.
Gabe kept us going in a southern direction. I didn’t know where we were going and I didn’t care. All I could do was lean against him in my soaking wet dress and listen to the steady beat of his heart as I began to sob.
Chapter Eleven
I awoke to the sound of whispers buzzing like annoying flies. My head was heavy, like my brain had been replaced with a fifty-pound weight. A heavy blanket was draped over my body, relieving the aching cold in my limbs. The smells, the sounds, and the feel of this place were so unfamiliar. As my head cleared, a sudden shock of alarm went through my body.
“It’ll never stop searching for her.”
“We’ll double the gatekeepers. Find it and kill it before it can get to her.”
“What if it attacks the manor with more ferals? Do you really want to risk our lives for hers?”
“Shhhhh, she’s awake.”
I tried to pry open my eyelids, but the bright lights of the room were too much. Instead, I focused on adjusting one eye at a time, until I could finally open them. Looking around, the room I laid in was nothing spectacular. There were a couple of sitting chairs and the couch on which I’d been dropped. A fireplace across from me housed a few lit candles of differing sizes and colors. Above the fireplace was a mantel with old black and white photos in frames displayed along the cherry stained oak.
What drew my eye was the small group of people standing behind the chairs. All four of them stared at me now as if I’d just woken from the dead. The first was a tall man with salt and pepper hair and kind pale blue eyes. If I had to guess, I would’ve placed him at around fifty years old. He stood with his shoulders back and chin up, the muscles along his arms tense.
The second person was a similarly aged woman, with matching straight salt and pepper hair that fell to her elbows. A sprinkling of freckles and age spots dotted her face and the bridge of her nose. Only inches shorter than the man next to her, she too held herself straight and rigid as she stared at me with curiosity.
When I made eye contact with the third, the alarm that was already blaring in my head got suddenly louder. A handsome blond man not much older than me stood next to the woman, his blue eyes like ice. In those cold eyes I saw a combination of hatred and mistrust. His entire body tensed at the sight of me, as if he thought I would lunge at his throat. I shuddered and swept my eyes to the last person in line.
The sight of him made my heart skip a beat. Gabe – my rescuer. His hair was still soaking wet from our run through the forest, but he’d put on a t-shirt since we got here. Around his waist was a belt, and as I ran my eyes down him, I realized he’d added something else since we got here. A sword and a dagger hung from his side once again, acting as a silent threat to anyone that dared make a move against him.
“We need to test her,” the blond haired man said through gritted teeth. “I swear, Luke. If you let her in without taking the test, I’m gonna...”
“You’re going to what?” Gabe stepped closer to him, his hand on his sword. “You’re going to what, Adam? You’re not touching her and that’s the end of it.”
Adam puffed his chest and returned Gabe’s threatening pose. The two of them stared each other down until the woman stepped between them.
“Enough,” she said. “This isn’t a debate. Luke will make the decision that’s best for the community. Besides, you’re scaring the poor child.”
