Wicked Gods Read online

  I tried to jerk my hand away, and she looked old enough to fall if I blew at her hard enough, but she didn’t let go.

  “Excuse me, I—”

  “Blood,” she whispered, making me freeze again.

  “What?”

  “There’s blood on you. All over you.” Her bony fingers tightened around my arm. I tried again to move away, but there was nowhere to go. Too many people around us, too close.

  “Let me go, now,” I said, trying as hard as I could to mask my fear. She wasn’t someone I couldn’t take. If I fisted her real hard in the nose, she was going to fall back for sure, but I didn’t want any trouble.

  Then Millie stepped in the middle of us and grabbed her arm. “Let go, lady,” she said, but the woman didn’t even turn her head.

  “It’s all over you. Blood—blood, everywhere,” she said to me again. Her black teeth were certainly going to come back to me in a dream.

  Like a fool, I looked down at myself, afraid she was right and somehow I’d ended up with blood on my clothes, but I was clean.

  “Listen, if you don’t let go of me right now, I’m going to—”

  “Blood!” she shouted, making my heart skip a beat. “Blood all over you! Everywhere you turn, everything you touch!”

  “There’s no blood on me!” I shouted back. It might have been the fear speaking.

  “She’s blind as a bat,” said Millie and pushed her hard enough so the woman finally let go of my arm. Damn it, she was strong. My arm was definitely going to bruise, but it didn’t matter. She’d let go of me now, and I wouldn’t give her the chance to grab me again.

  “Let’s go,” I said and turned away, no longer interested to see the fight. They could all kill one another for all I cared—we were out.

  “Blood! Covered in blood!” the crazy woman shouted after us, but we were already out of the crowd and ready to run away as fast as needed.

  “What the hell was that about?” said Millie, breathing heavily as she and Sim ran after me to the nearest building.

  “She was blind. She thought she saw something she didn’t,” I said, racing to catch my breath. Why the hell had that woman gotten to me?

  “They say the blind see better than the rest of us,” said Sim, not nearly as concerned as me.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” My fists were ready. Sim wasn’t an old, blind lady. I could beat the hell out of him without batting an eye.

  “Just a saying.” He raised his hands in surrender. He was testing me; I knew he was. I just didn’t know why.

  Lucky for him, I wasn’t about to fall in his trap and lose my temper. We were already late.

  “Why aren’t you freaked out, Sim? That was…” Millie’s voice trailed off as she looked back at the crowd who’d started cheering again. Maybe the fight had already started.

  “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.” I pushed Sim forward so he could lead the way.

  The old lady stayed with me for the whole day, and even if I forgot about it, Millie would remind me when I’d catch her looking at every inch of my body—looking for blood to magically appear on me. We steered cleared of cities and towns as well as we could, with Sim’s guidance, and when night fell, we stopped in a woods between Micco and Jorugen to get some rest.

  The bad feeling in my gut hadn’t gone away like I’d hoped, even when I closed my eyes and surrendered to sleep.

  I knew the sound of footsteps, even in the woods. It was unmistakable, even among the sounds of animals running and birds chirping, even the sound of the falling leaves. Slowly reaching for my bag, I closed my eyes and focused for one more time. My father had always been better at shutting down all his other senses and focusing only with his ears, but he never let me give up, no matter how many times I failed to hear his movement with the blindfold on. He never gave up on me, and to this day, I can’t tell you why. He saw something in me I had yet to see in myself, but for now, I tried to put his lessons to use and focus all my being in my ears.

  Yes, footsteps. Someone was coming, and though they were trying their best to stay silent, the ground of the woods made that impossible. Broken branches, tree roots, leaves—it was all a dead giveaway.

  “Sim, Millie,” I whispered, opening my bag. My weapons were all there, together with the food I’d brought with. My knives, my most valuable possession, were the first thing I’d had to teach myself how to use, and I’ll be the first to admit that my father as a much, much better trainer than I could ever be. Eventually, though, I’d gotten there. Three years was a very long time.

  The handles of the knives were made of wood, which wasn’t very practical, but it was the best I could afford. It was the blades that mattered, anyway. They were about six inches long, thick at the base and extra thin at the tip. Sliding them in was easy, but the real damage came when they were all the way inside a body. It was hard to kill the creatures of Alfheimr, but not impossible, and I was up for the task.

  “What’s going on?” Millie whispered when she sat up, and I put a finger in front of her face. Sim was already looking around the woods, knowing something was up.

  “Gather your things and start walking, as silently as possible,” I whispered, and after tightening my holster around my hips with all my seven knives in it, I strapped my backpack to my back and I pointed for them to move east. I had no idea who was coming, but there was a chance that they weren’t after us. Yeah, I was choosing to be an optimist for once. Let’s see where it gets me.

  Just like the strangers in the woods, it was impossible for us to keep silent, too. I didn’t know the territory and I had no idea which was the right way to go, but we moved in unison, and neither of us said a single word. Dawn was close, and maybe we had a better chance with some light to guide us. I’d gotten a few good hours of sleep, and hopefully that would make this easier on me.

  Unfortunately, my being optimistic didn’t actually result in my being right. What a bummer. Whoever was after us, they were fast, and judging by the sound of their footsteps, they were heavy. Not a very good sign.

  “Run!” I shouted at Millie and Sim. No point in keeping quiet now. They knew where we were, could hear us just as well as we could hear them, so our best bet was to try and outrun them. We were rested, had eaten two squirrels—courtesy of Sim—the night before, and we had stamina.

  My heart was in my throat, half my mind trying to drown the thoughts of the other half, which insisted on making me envision all the ways those strangers were going to kill us when they caught us. All I knew was that they weren’t nightwalkers because sunlight broke through the branches and they continued to chase us.

  I tried to look around, to see if there was anything we could use to hide in until the danger passed, but the trees were too dense and I couldn’t make out shit. The fear had yet to take hold of me completely, but all that changed when I heard Millie screaming.

  She and Sim were a few feet ahead of me. I’d kept a distance from them on purpose, knowing that if we got caught, I might be able to give them some time by trying to stop the people chasing us, but now, it felt like a stupid mistake. A thousand thoughts crossed my mind at once.

  Then my mind emptied completely.

  I hadn’t noticed that the woods ended literally three feet away from me until it was too late. I stepped out in the open, right behind Sim and Millie, and my heart skipped a long beat. Ahead of us was a town full of one-story, wooden houses, and the people staring at us didn’t exactly look surprised to see us. They were all big and dressed in what looked like pieces of fur from afar. Their skins were darker than what I was used to seeing in Vanah, almost like these guys had found a different sun to sunbathe under all day. The houses were small, their roofs made of hay, but the things standing between them, and every couple of feet in the open street to the side were what caught my attention. They were…monsters. Monsters frozen in place.

  Holy fuck, I’d never seen anything like it. The monsters were big, at least two feet tall, all covered in brown fur with whit
e claws at the tips of their fingers, big enough to perfectly make out from a distance. Their heads looked like a cross between a wolf and a bear, only grosser.

  That’s when I realized that we were in a shifter town. An old shifter town.

  The need to grab Sim by the hair and break his fucking nose was overwhelming, but I held myself back. I shouldn’t have let him guide us—I’d known that much from the beginning.

  We were reminded that yet another group of people were coming after us when we heard the footsteps behind us in the woods. With two knives in my hands, I turned to the tree line and slowly stepped back together with Sim and Millie. For whatever reason, I’d decided that the people of the town were less dangerous than the ones chasing us, which was a mistake. Because when they stepped out in the open under the sunlight, too, I saw that they were one and the same.

  Fur covered their torsos and hips, and just like the people of the town, these four men kept their hair cut above the shoulders—all the same style. Through the corner of my eye, I tried to search for an exit to the sides, through the woods or through the houses, but the crowd had only grown until it seemed everybody in town was there to greet us.

  Then, one of the four men who’d chased after us in the woods stepped forward and raised his hands to the sides.

  “Welcome to Timoke,” he said, his voice very close to a dog’s bark. They were definitely shifters—or used to be. And those stuffed animals in the town? Probably shifters who’d died in their animal forms a long time ago. “I’m sure you realize that there’s no need for those.” The giant pointed at my knives.

  “Oh, really?” The high-pitched sound that left my lips made even me cringe. “You were chasing us in the woods because you wanted to welcome us?”

  The man stretched his lips in what I thought was supposed to be a smile, but he looked like a hungry lion instead.

  “You’re in our territory, human. We were merely making sure that you’re no risk to our people,” he said. The whispers around us started, and I was pretty sure I caught a laugh or two from the crowd. This guy had bullshit written all over him. We needed to tread very carefully.

  Slowly, against every instinct in my body, I lowered my arms but kept my knives.

  “In that case, I’m sure you realize that we aren’t,” I said with a nod, hoping I at least looked less afraid than I felt.

  Another step forward, and the man clapped his hands so hard, my ears whistled. “Excellent. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a human, let alone two.” His eyes moved to Millie quickly. “My name is Horace, and I’m very glad to have you here. Please, make yourselves at home.”

  At home? No fucking way.

  He raised his arms and waved his hands at the crowd around us. The whispers grew louder, but one by one, almost everyone turned around and walked away from us slowly. Horace smiled at me and nodded as if to say, see? We mean you no harm. I didn’t buy it for a second.

  Stepping closer to Sim and Millie, I cleared my throat. “All right, then. We’d like to be on our way, if you don’t mind.”

  Raising his brows, which could pass for one if he’d had just a couple of more hairs between them, Horace feigned surprise. “Nonsense! We don’t have many visitors lately. It would be a shame to let you go without giving you a proper meal first.” The gleaming in his dark eyes intensified. It sucked the breath right out of my lungs. This guy was bad news, and we needed to get away from him as fast as possible—as well as his three other buddies who hadn’t left with the crowd but were analyzing every inch of us carefully. Almost like they were planning to attack us any second now.

  “And we appreciate that, but we have a lot of ground to cover, so we will leave now.”

  Sim grabbed my arm and squeezed lightly, like he wanted to tell me something, but when I looked back at him, he refused to tear his eyes from Horace’s face.

  “A lot of ground? May I ask where you’re headed?” Horace folded his hands in front of him. He was so at ease, like he was the ruler of the world, not a town I’d never heard of before.

  “Away,” I said under my breath. “Far away.”

  “Which is…?” he pushed.

  I smiled despite my turning gut. “We’ll keep that to ourselves, if you don’t mind.”

  Raising his hands, he stepped back. “Of course, of course. Just wanted to see if we could be of any help, that’s all.”

  Help, my ass. “Have you met your, uh…friends?” I pointed behind him at the three shifters standing as still as statues behind their boss.

  “Oh, don’t mind the boys. They take their jobs too seriously, I tell them. Nothing to worry about,” Horace said, but I didn’t miss the way his smile faltered or the way he clenched his teeth at the end.

  “Great, then. Thank you for your offer. We’ll be on our way right where we came from.” The wooden handles of my knives threatened to slip from my sweaty fingers and the wood was too smooth for me to dig my nails in it. I held onto them anyway and pictured how I could bury at least one in Horace’s neck if they attacked us. Taking in a deep breath, I nodded for Sim and Millie to go back to the tree line through which we’d come. We’d go around if necessary to avoid running into more people.

  I walked backwards, my eyes on Horace, who for some reason was as amused as if he was watching me fight in Sennan’s cage. But freaking out now wasn’t going to help anyone, so I held myself and stepped back until the shade of the trees fell over us.

  “Turn around slowly and walk as fast as you can,” I whispered to Sim and Millie. We would go back for a while and then figure out the best way to get to Jorugen—and through it before the day was over.

  But before I could turn around and follow the others, Horace raised his arm as if to wave at me but didn’t. Then, he winked. That wink must have been made in Hell because it covered my flesh in goose bumps and my forehead in sweat. My heart pounded against my chest, and I didn’t dare turn my back on him—not yet. And when I could no longer see him, it felt like a thousand pounds were taken off my shoulders.

  “Walk and don’t stop, not for anything,” Sim said under his breath, his hand connected to Millie and his head down as he walked as fast as was possible without running.

  “They’re not following us.” I couldn’t see their faces, but I could see their silhouettes now that I knew where to look. Horace and his three friends were still there, watching us, though I doubted they could see us.

  “They’re the Timoke shifters,” Sim said in a way that made me think he might’ve swallowed his tongue in the process.

  Timoke shifters. “Yeah, so?”

  His eyes widened, and I could see the word idiot written in them. “I can’t believe it. You don’t know?” He was genuinely surprised, which pissed me off and scared me even more.

  I stopped walking and grabbed him by the arm. “Know what?”

  “They’re hunters. It’s their tradition to invite strangers, feed them, and let them go so they can hunt them for the fun of it. How did you not hear of this?” he said, a dumbfounded smile on his face.

  My blood turned to stone. I might have even called bullshit on this ridiculous story, but the fact that those shifters had just let us go was way too good to be true. There was a catch. There was always a catch.

  I turned around and scanned the woods, feeling more hopeless by the second. I had no idea where we were or which way to go. My gut said south, and I didn’t think twice. There was no time for that anyway.

  “Run,” I whispered to Millie and Sim, and the three of us took off as fast as was possible.

  A million thoughts crossed my mind, most of which involved how the Timoke shifters were going to catch us, easily, and then tear us apart limb by limb just for the heck of it. I should have known. That look on Horace’s face said it all if I’d just stopped to look hard enough. Now, no matter how fast we ran, they were going to come after us. They were shifters—hunters who could probably pick up our scent anywhere, even if they couldn’t see us. There was no point in even t
rying, but we did anyway because stopping meant giving up, and I wasn’t about to do that again, not while there was still breath left in my body.

  Sim stuck right behind me, but Millie was having trouble keeping up in the rough terrain, so I had to slow down for her more than once. The erratic beating of my heart didn’t let me hear anything. I couldn’t tell if the shifters were already after us or if they’d given us a head start, and every time I turned around to look, I saw nothing but trees and shadows. They could be anywhere, all around us, coming from all sides, and we wouldn’t even know it until they were right in front of us.

  I lost track of time, trying to focus on one step at a time, not to fall, to make sure Millie was behind me, to make sure we weren’t running into any shifters while we ran. Stopping was not an option, but my muscles were screaming, ready to let go if I just gave them a split second’s chance. How long could we keep this up?

  And if we stopped to rest, what were the odds that the shifters would lose us in the woods?

  Slim. Very slim. Like I said, they could pick up our scent easily. I doubted anybody else was there in the woods running from them.

  Unless…

  My ears seemed to adjust to a different frequency, completely ignoring the loud beating of my heart, and focused on something else they could hear. It was the closest thing to magic I was ever going to believe in. I stopped running, and my body slammed against a tree trunk twice as wide as me. I held my breath because I needed to make sure that I wasn’t just hearing things, that hope wasn’t making me see an oasis in the desert.

  But it was there. It was there, closer than I’d first thought. The sound of flowing water filled me, like someone had thrown a bucket of it over my head. Water could help erase our scent. The shifters wouldn’t be able to pick it up if we crossed whatever was ahead of us.