I heard the flesh tear as the Faulty squealed. It was my cue. I reached him and bit into the other side of his neck, drinking as much blood as I could before he remembered to put up a fight. He was absolutely stunned and utterly confused by what was happening. I managed to take in a quarter-gallon before he clawed at my stomach.
I moved back just in time. He only managed to cut through my leather combat suit and scratch my skin. But the effect of his blood, already racing through my system, was immediately noticeable.
“What the hell did you do?!” The Faulty snarled, then came at me with his claws out, sharp and eager to slice me.
I was significantly faster and lighter on my feet—which, given my preexisting nature as a vampire sentry, was extraordinarily impressive. Rose literally flashed past him, cutting him with her sword. His blood sprayed out and soaked me.
He cried out in terror. I went the other way and ran my blade through his stomach.
The Faulty stilled, his eyes bulging. That was the fatal blow.
He coughed and gurgled blood, then collapsed on the ground and gave his last breath.
Upon turning around to see what the others were doing, Rose and I found ourselves smiling.
Nevis and Ben had already killed the first horned Faulty. The second took more work, but eventually came down in two parts. Zeriel’s sword did not forgive, and Vesta had already delivered a couple of devastating hits before that. Kailani had trouble with her opponent, as he moved too fast, making it difficult for her to target him with an attack spell.
Rose jumped in, moving like lightning as she slashed the creature’s ankles, severing the tendons. He fell flat on his face, crying out in agony. Kailani then dropped to her knees and clutched his head with both hands. She muttered a spell under her breath, and the effect was instant and chilling.
The creature’s veins turned black. He choked on his own tongue and eventually died.
As Kailani looked up at me, I realized what the change in her was, more specifically. The swamp witch magic apprenticeship was definitely taking its toll on her, both physically and emotionally. But it had also unlocked some pretty terrifying secrets, such as an ability to grab someone by the head and kill him with a few words.
“Well, that’s new,” I murmured, staring at her.
“Yeah. Tell me about it,” she breathed, surprised by her own powers.
Hunter and Dmitri grappled with the fourth horned Faulty, when Rose cut in with her temporary lightning-speed. She cut into the side of his knee, just as the werewolves moved back to give her the space she needed.
She then swerved around and drove her sword through his right hip. It wasn’t fatal, but it crippled him. Rose motioned for Hunter and Dmitri. “Hold him down!” she said. “We need him alive!”
Kailani shot to her feet, instantly reacting to Rose’s request. She put her left index and middle fingers out, pointing them at the surviving Faulty. She whispered a spell, and then the air rippled as a pulse shot from the tips of her fingers and smacked the creature right in the chest.
He coughed, then fell backward, landing with a heavy thump. He was paralyzed, unable to move. He struggled, desperately, as he broke into a sweat and looked at us with newfound horror. He was down, and he was ours to do with as we pleased.
We’d just captured our first Faulty.
Kailani
Everything had happened so fast that the magnitude of what I’d just done was only beginning to set in. I’d killed a Faulty with a simple, spoken spell. I had no idea where the words or the energy had sprung from—though, if I were to be honest, I could’ve bet on the Word and easily won. Something was definitely happening to me, and it couldn’t really be categorized as good or bad. Just strange and incredibly powerful.
Stunning the remaining Faulty was just as surprising, but it wasn’t my first attempt. It was just the first successful one.
“Well done, Kale!” Ben gasped, awed as he looked at me.
“How did you do that?” Elonora asked, her slim brows drawn into a faint frown.
Deep down, I felt a little guilty because I couldn’t tell her everything I’d been experiencing since my sensory deprivation session in the liquid pod back on Calliope. It would’ve made a lot more sense to her as I gradually came into my own using the purest forms of swamp witch magic. Everything that GASP had been using from that triple tome rescued by Draven during Azazel’s reign was child’s play, compared to what I was becoming capable of.
“I… I’m getting better at my craft,” I murmured, hoping she’d get the point I was trying to get across. I breathed a sigh of relief when she gave me an understanding smile and a brief nod.
“Think you’d be able to kill like that again?” Rose asked, her cheeks flushed.
Both she and Elonora were still under the effect of Faulty blood. They were panting and slightly hyperactive, making me wonder how long it would last, given that this wasn’t Perfect blood.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe,” I replied. “It came to me pretty naturally, but I was under duress, too. Plus, I have no precedent for this. We’ll see, I guess.”
“Either way, again, well done!” Ben said, then nodded at the surviving Faulty. He lay on the ground, grunting and breathing heavily, covered in a slick sheet of sweat as he struggled to move. He couldn’t. I’d paralyzed him. “Now, what do we do with you?”
The Faulty growled at him, baring his fangs in an aggressive manner.
“Oh, please. You’re screwed already,” Nevis said, resting his hands behind his back. “You might as well make your life a little easier.”
“Why? You’re going to kill me anyway!” the Faulty said, looking away.
There was a dull sadness lingering in his gray eyes. He obviously disliked captivity, but there was something else beneath the surface. It took me a while to figure it out, until I remembered that he was one of the rejected Faulties, just like Kallisto. He, too, was hurting and weighed down by abandonment issues.
“We didn’t say that,” Rose replied, raising an eyebrow. “I told you before you jumped us, we mean you no harm. Obviously, you attacked us, so we defended ourselves. But we won’t kill you unless you give us no other option.”
The Faulty thought about it for a second, then sighed deeply.
“I don’t think there are others close by,” Hunter said, sniffing the air again.
Using her True Sight, Elonora was able to confirm that, partially. “Coast is clear for about two hundred yards, but there are Faulties hiding in the woods, closer to the center of the island,” she replied.
“Good thing we have you with us, then.” Dmitri chuckled, giving her an appreciative nod.
I couldn’t help but smile, until I noticed Nevis glowering at Dmitri from behind. Oh, there was definitely some kind of spark between Elonora and the Dhaxanian prince, though neither was willing to face it. Granted, with everything that had been going on, I had a feeling that romance was the last thing on their minds.
Even I’d practically forgotten about my own issues regarding Hunter. We’d been in survival mode for over a day, now.
“So, are you willing to help yourself and us at the same time?” Ben asked the Faulty.
“What do you want?” the creature replied, his voice strained.
“Information,” Ben said. “We had a dragon with us. There was a melee with some Perfects, and he landed somewhere around here. Did you see him? Hear him?”
The Faulty looked at Ben, then shifted his gaze to Rose, frowning. “You’ll let me live if I tell you what I know?”
Rose smirked, then lowered herself into a crouching position, so she could be closer to his level. “What’s your name? I’m Rose,” she said.
“Toris,” he answered, keeping his eyes fixed on hers.
“Toris, you don’t know us, but there is something you should know,” she said. “We always keep our word. It’s part of our ethos. I don’t know what kind of creatures you’ve dealt with before, but when I say I’ll let you live
if you help us, I’ll let you live. Emphasis on ‘if you help us,’ though. If we let you go and you come for our heads again, I will bleed you dry and rip your head off. Am I making myself clear?”
Rose had spoken with such calmness that I was downright petrified. This was a side of her I had never seen before—I’d only heard stories of Rose in a dark mode. And this was as dark as it could get. Her parents were most likely being held captive by Ta’Zan. At least one of her immediate family members might’ve been on the fleet that the Perfects took down. Rose had no time to waste and plenty of blood to shed in order to get to the bottom of this. Frankly, I couldn’t blame her.
But still, she creeped me out.
Toris nodded slowly. “So, the one who fell in the water here… is a dragon?” he asked, his voice shaky.
“He fell here? By this island?” Rose replied.
“Yes. We heard you from up in the trees,” Toris said. “You were definitely on to something when you spotted the drag marks. We were here when he fell, too. But we couldn’t get closer.”
“Why not?” I asked.
He looked at me, then pressed his lips into a thin line. He seemed irritated.
“Come on, Toris. Speak up,” Rose urged him, rolling her eyes.
“Amane took him,” he finally said. “She was quicker than us to react. She saw him go down and went after him. Once she had your dragon, we couldn’t touch him. Nobody messes with Amane and lives to tell the story.”
“Wait, who’s Amane?” Ben replied.
“One of us.” Toris sighed. “Well, she’s the only one of us who chose to leave Ta’Zan. Foolish girl, we all said. Why would you ever want to leave your father, your creator? We think she’s crazy. We know she’s vicious. She’s cut some of us down with little difficulty since we’ve been out of the pods.”
“Amane left Ta’Zan voluntarily, unlike you and your brethren, who were left behind,” Elonora concluded, staring at Toris as she crossed her arms. “That’s interesting.”
“It’s ridiculous, that’s what it is!” Toris spat. “We’re all just trying to get back to Ta’Zan, yet she was foolish enough to leave him. That ungrateful beast!”
“Whoa, define ‘beast,’ though. Is she as big as you?” Dmitri inquired, seeming somewhat disturbed by the prospect of going against some kind of behemoth-sized Faulty. We were barely getting a grip on defeating the likes of Toris, and we were nowhere near ready to deal with bigger game.
Toris lifted his head so he could get a better look at Dmitri, then grinned. “She would eat you for breakfast,” he said.
“Do you know where she took our dragon? If he was still alive?” Rose replied, drawing him back to the core of our inquiry.
“Amane wouldn’t trouble herself with corpses,” Toris said. “Though I’m not sure what she wanted with your dragon.”
“What did you want with our dragon, then?” I asked. “You said you couldn’t get to him because of Amane, which clearly indicates your intention to grab him, in the first place. Why?”
“If we catch one of you, dead or alive, we can bring you to Ta’Zan. It’s just a common thought we’re all expressing among ourselves, that if we bring our father the likes of you for his work, he’ll let us back into the fold,” Toris explained, staring up at the palm tree leaves above us.
“Even after he kicked you out, you want to go back?” Rose murmured. “Kallisto said the same. I don’t get it. Ta’Zan doesn’t want you back. Why would you ever go to such lengths to get to him, if he’s rejected you?”
Toris chuckled. “Kallisto. Now, that’s a loon,” he said. “Listen, you wouldn’t understand. Ta’Zan is our only hope. Our creator. The only one who gives meaning to our lives. I don’t know how to explain it, but we’re just savages without him. I just want to go back under his guidance. I don’t like squatting in these jungles.”
Hunter cleared his throat. “So, what you’re saying is that Amane took our dragon, who was still alive. Otherwise she wouldn’t have taken him. Why, though? If she left Ta’Zan, why would she take our dragon? To bring Ta’Zan a gift? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course it doesn’t make sense, because that’s not why Amane took him,” Toris replied. “I think she’d rather die than go back to Ta’Zan.”
“Then why?” Hunter said, still quite confused, much like the rest of us.
“I don’t know. And, honestly, I’m not sure I want to find out. Nobody wants to go anywhere near Amane. She’s powerful and deadly to many of us,” Toris mumbled.
Rose motioned for me to get him up. I nodded, then whispered a manipulation spell I’d had swirling in my head for a couple of hours now. A pulse shot out from my hand, then vanished inside Toris’s chest. I moved my fingers, as if manipulating a puppet on strings, and held my breath as Toris was brought up into a standing position by invisible forces.
My whole crew stared at him, then at me. Needless to say, the Faulty was equally stunned. He was also unable to do anything against my spell.
That was the weirdest thing about my communion with the Word. It was constant and just beneath the surface. Depending on the circumstances, various words trickled into my ears, forming strings of chants in a language I’d yet to fully understand. I knew what everything meant, though. I knew what kind of spell I was casting, and, depending on the amount of adrenaline and the intensity of my emotions, I could deliver some pretty powerful stuff.
But I couldn’t really explain how it all worked. It just did.
Also, it kept evolving. It was as if I’d been connected to a live circuit. I could feel the energy buzzing through me, eager to be released. Whenever too much got bottled up, it got on my nerves and made me irritable. From what I was able to tell so far, the more often I released a spell, even a minor one, the farther away I got from the edge.
My psyche and my emotional wellbeing were intrinsically connected to the Word. There was no doubt about that. Just tons of questions regarding how it all worked, and a lot of frustration because I couldn’t share any of this stuff with those closest to me—especially Elonora, who’d definitely noticed the changes in me.
“Look at you, puppet mistress,” Elonora murmured, her eyes wide as I continued to move my fingers and forced Toris to walk around a bit, just so I could get better acquainted with his physical form under my control. It was a lot like mastering an actual puppet, in fact. I needed time to make his movements seem more natural.
For now, however, it didn’t matter that he stalked around like a sentient stick doll. What mattered was that he was moving and that he was under my control.
“Kale, where is all this stuff coming from?” Hunter asked, equally stunned.
I sighed. “You know I can’t say anything.”
“Do you have full control over it, though?” Rose replied, watching as I forced Toris to stop and turn around to face us.
“I guess. I mean, right now I do,” I said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it again.”
It was difficult to explain that I couldn’t remember the incantations, since they were in a strange language. I only uttered them when I heard them in my head. It was as if the Word was alive inside me, and it spoke to me in specific moments, urging me to say these weird words and cast spells. But, because I didn’t understand any of the gibberish, I had trouble saying it again on my own, in different circumstances.
It was weird, and I loathed the uncertainty. However, I was determined to get the hang of it and do it on my own. I just didn’t know when that would happen.
“Okay, Kale’s weird swamp witch spurts aside, what next?” Zeriel interjected, sheathing his sword.
“We get Toris here to take us to Amane,” Rose replied. “I’m sure he knows where we can find her.”
Toris snorted. “Right. Because that’s what we do out here, in the wild. Keep an eye on Amane.”
“Of course,” Rose said, her eyes shrinking to a pair of cold, soul-cutting slits. “You’re all afraid of her. You make it your business to know wh
ere she is, so you can keep your distance and not set foot in her territory.”
Toris blinked several times. “You’d be foolish to go looking for her. She’s very difficult to track and impossible to approach. Not without losing a limb, anyway. You might as well kiss your dragon goodbye.”
“Toris, maybe I didn’t make myself clear before. You either help us find Amane and our dragon, or I will have no problem ripping your throat out,” Rose hissed. “What’ll it be?”
The Faulty’s shoulders dropped. He nodded to his left.
“She’ll be deep in the woods, to the northwest,” he muttered.
“How do we know if he’s telling the truth, though?” Elonora said. “What if he takes us into a trap, like Kallisto did? How can we trust him?”
We all thought about it for a few moments, before Nevis spoke up. “You can keep your True Sight on at all times,” he said. “Besides, Toris is under Kailani’s control,” he added, then looked at me. “If you die, will the spells you put on him go away?”
I shook my head. “Nope. He’ll be stuck like that, paralyzed, food for any predator nearby.”
“Therefore, I doubt Toris would be stupid enough to draw us into a trap, given that his survival depends solely on us,” Nevis replied. “On top of that, we know better than last time. We know what the Faulties are and what they can do.”
“Nevis is right,” Ben said. “Conditions have changed. We’re not going in blind, like before, not knowing what to expect. It doesn’t make it less risky, of course, but at least we have a clue as to what lies ahead.”
“I’ll take you to Amane.” Toris sighed. “I promise. Just like you promised to spare me if I help you. I expect you to keep your word, just like I will keep mine.”
“Fair enough. Lead the way,” Rose replied.
Toris then looked at me, shooting thousands of daggers with his grayish eyes. “Think you can loosen the leash a little bit? Just enough so I can walk by myself and guide you all?”