I grasp the buckskin pouch at my neck and bid one last plea to my ancestors, begging them to come to Leftfoot’s aid. Then after looping it around Jennika’s neck, I look at her and say, “I know you’re not a Santos, but you were once deeply loved by one. The power of Django’s Bear resides in this pouch. He’ll come to your aid, but in order for that to happen, you’ve got to believe.”
She folds her fingers around it, her gaze settling for a moment on Gabe’s lifeless body with the grotesquely twisted head, before she turns to me. “Daire—I’m not joking. If you don’t do it, I will. You have a duty to protect us—or have you forgotten?”
Though the words are spoken like a question, one look is all it takes to tell me she’s already decided I’ve failed them. That I chose love over duty. That I can’t be trusted to save them.
I turn away. All too aware that time’s running out. That I need to handle this before someone else decides to complete what Jennika started. I follow the trail of blood
and destruction Dace left in his path.
THIRTY-SEVEN
DAIRE
For something so large, the beast moves lightning fast. And with the Lowerworld plummeting into a state of complete devastation, it gets harder and harder to discern his tracks.
Trees are toppled. Shrubbery flattened. While once-beautiful flower beds have been crushed by numerous upended boulders and rocks. And with Eagle long gone, combined with Raven’s continued absence, I’m left to rely on the ring, hoping it will lead me to the Richters where I’m sure to find the beast.
I hold it before me, making a careful study of its glimmering facets, the subtle shifts of hue that seem to change with my escalating anxiety. Trying to get a feel for just who’s controlling this thing, though, the truth is, there’s no way to know for sure until I put it to use.
Going on the assumption that it’s working for me since it once permitted access to the Rabbit Hole while remaining undetected by Leandro and Cade, I engage in the opposite version of the hot-and-cold game. Every time the stone grows hot, presumably leading me to safety, I change course until it cools and I’m (presumably) moving toward the enemy. Figuring that, either way, we’ll end up face to face. I just hope it’s on my terms, my way.
Though after roaming for what feels like miles with still no sign of them, or anyone else for that matter, I’m about to give up and try something else, when the stone grows notably cooler and I stumble upon a haphazard trail of mutilated demon carcasses bearing damage so severe only a beast could’ve caused it.
With my athame missing, and my buckskin pouch now with Jennika, I’m down to the blowgun still stashed in my boot.
Same blowgun Dace left in my care, making me promise to use it on him.
A thought that’s as inconceivable now as it was then.
Despite what he’s done, I refuse to abandon him.
If he really wanted to kill me, he would’ve done so already.
He could’ve easily crushed my windpipe, spiked a talon straight through my heart. And, as soon as that was done, he could’ve ripped both Leftfoot and Jennika apart.
So what stopped him?
Certainly not Jennika’s dart.
No, Dace is still in there. Exerting whatever control he has left.
Question remains—how much longer can he keep the beast contained?
All along, Dace understood the nature of the beast far better than I did.
Held no illusions to the sort of power it would wield.
Then again, he’s lived with it for much longer than I first realized. Making its debut on New Year’s Eve, when Dace connected with the snakes and convinced them to attack Suriel. Which, in effect, turned out to be his first kill. The one that served to whet the appetite of what’s grown into an insatiable bloodlust.
With each dark deed, the darkness inside Dace increases. Like fertilizer, feeding and strengthening a beast that’s meant to destroy us.
And now, with Gabe dead, Dace’s initiation into the dark arts is secured. Next time we meet, he’ll be fully transformed.
With a terrain of charred earth underfoot, a blazing red canopy of clouds drooping overhead, and the agonized screams of sprit animals and guides called to battle, I follow the trail of carnage. Reminded of the story Paloma once told me about the day my father was buried—how the funeral unfolded under a crimson-scorched sky.
Funny to think I may end under similar circumstances.
With the stone nearing the point of freezing, I better my grip on the blowgun and push my legs harder, until I’m sprinting up a grueling trail littered with random switchbacks and bends that grows increasingly narrow and steep with each passing turn. Ultimately leveling off to a place where the atmosphere thins, the clouds that once drooped overhead now sag below, and the dirt gives way to a slab of rugged red rock.