Chapter 22: Snakes in the Grass

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I like him better this way.

I don’t think of myself as a very superficial woman, but there’s something about Lucas Hallowsworth that doesn’t really do it for me. I mean, surface-level, yeah, I’d do him. Or I would have, if I didn’t still have nightmares about him stabbing me. Still, if pressed, I’d have to admit he’s not really my type. He’s untouchably perfect, magazine good looking, and I suppose if you get right down to it, I look at him and assume he’ll have all the baggage that comes with those things.

Is it fair? Probably not, but I’m being honest here.

This version of William, though. It’s not that he’s not attractive. He is. He’s got the kind of full face that makes him more expressive. He has a smattering of freckles across a straight nose that flares a little at the end, and when he smiles, I notice that there are dimples in not one, but both of his cheeks. Bright red hair hangs in an unkempt bundle around his ears - ears that I notice look almost pointed at the tips. What do they call that again? Other than looking elfy. I think it starts with an S.

This is Hallmark boy next door material. I can work with this.

“Lydia?” He says again. He looks worried, and he steps further into the cave towards me, sinking down to a knee and pressing his hands to my shoulders. “Lydia, what happened? Are you alright?”

“None of us are going to be alright if we don’t get out of here soon.”

I peer past him. Samantha is blocking the exit now, standing with her arms crossed over her chest, scowling to beat the best of them. “What have you been doing in here?” she asks. “I could feel you from a mile away. You’re practically sending up a beacon to anything keen on killing you.” She grunts. “And trust me, in here? That’s a hell of a lot of things.”

I lower my head, feeling ashamed, even if I’m not even sure where ‘here’ is. “Sorry,” I mumble.

“Lydia.” William gives me a shake. “Are you alright?” He glances down at the flute in my lap, brow furrowing.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I mean. I’m tired, but I’m alright.” I clear my throat, struggling to get to my feet. It’s only then that it hits me just how exhausted I am. I’ve become accustomed to being tired, but this is something else. My legs give out before I even manage a modest crouch, and I topple to the side, my eyes suddenly heavy. I feel William grab me, yanking me upright before gathering me into his arms.

“M’fine,” I mumble.

He ignores me. Which is fair, as I’m very clearly not fine.

“Can you lead us out of here?” he asks.

Sam doesn’t answer right away. I can see her staring down at the bones on the ground, a look of intense concentration on her face. She turns that look to me, and I see more than a little distrust there. She’s looking at me like I look at bacteria under a microscope. Alright. Why aren’t you what you’re supposed to be?

“Sorry,” I say. I don’t know what I’m apologizing for, but I mean it. It occurs to me that I also look pathetic at the moment, dangling in William’s arms. This woman shot that eldritch horror thing in the goddamn heart. She has a flamethrower. She’s awesome, and she probably thinks I’m trash.

I feel the urge to insist William put me down, but my legs have gone numb now. It’s childish, but I find myself frustrated that they couldn’t have shown up a few moments earlier. I would have liked them to see me necromance Echo to life. Just point and be like, yeah, see that dead faun over there? That was me. I’m a badass.

But no. Now I’m useless again, and he has to carry me like some glass-eyed doll. I hate it.

Come to think of it, where is the faun? Well, his corpse. They’re not acting like they saw a decapitated head when they walked in, and I’d figure someone would comment on that. I squint into the darkness of the cave, but I don’t see Pan’s body. Nothing. Not a hint of fur, not a single glint of golden blood.

Fucking figures. As a final insult (and with a mental apology to the instrument, just in case,) I shove the pan flute into my waistband. No way I’m leaving it here. It’s coming with me.

“Come on,” Samantha says, snapping out of her thoughts. “Let’s get out of he-”

A deafening crack resounds through the air. It’s so loud that I jolt in William’s arms. It’s a good thing he has a firm grip on me, because otherwise I’m sure my flailing would have landed me directly on my head.

“What was that?” I ask. I’m whispering by reflex.

“Sh,” comes Sam’s short reply. Slowly, she edges closer to the mouth of the cave. We watch with bated breath - or at least I’ve got bated breath, I’m sure William’s used to this sort of thing. She pokes her head out and surveys the night outside.

I see her stiffen, and I mirror her. My nostrils flare, and in spite of my fatigue, I suddenly want to break out in a run.

Again.

So much running lately.

“William,” Sam whispers, looking towards him. “That thing got through the door.”

His lips twist as if he just bit into a lemon. “Is that normal?”

“No.” Her expression is grave. “It shouldn’t be able to seep through to other realms like that. Especially not one like this. This place…” She looks around, studying the walls of the cave. “It’s old. Very, very old. And there’s power here. Enough power that it should have been held at bay.”

She peers at me again. “Unless, of course, somebody did something extremely stupid.”

My mouth goes dry. “Uh.” I scramble to think of something to say. “I mean, I didn’t mean…”

She cuts me off with a sharp downwards slash of her hand. “Now isn’t the time. Explanations later, movement now. It’s still near the opening close to those tunnels - I can sense it.” She licks her lips nervously. “It’s. It’s like an absence more than a presence. It’s.” She shivers, and though I wasn’t sure what she was talking about before, I know now.

It’s that thing that tried to drag me into the mud.

It’s still following us.

“No, Lydia,” William says softly. “It’s following you.”

I look up at him, bewildered. “…What?”

“He’s right.” Samantha’s already taken a step outside, and she motions to us vigorously, waving us on with a look of increasing impatience. Voice still low, she continues: “I saw the way it was pressing up against that door. It ignored us, Lydia. It’s chasing after you.”

The details of that horrible encounter hit me full force. It had felt personal at the time, yes. That sense of being waited for. Of expectation. But I’d set that reality aside for the moment, in a pocket, to be taken care of later. And since they’d found me, I’d layered it with the belief that it was just some monster I was unlucky enough to find. It just got in my head. It would have done the same to anyone else.

Damn. I only got to hold onto that delusion for about ten minutes. I could have stood to have it a bit longer.

“Stay close to me,” Samantha murmurs. Then she leaves the protection of the cave fully, and we follow after her.

William is still carrying me. I should be walking, I know, and put a hand on his arm, working up something to say.

“No,” he says, simply. “You’re too weak. I can feel it. You’re staying right where you are.”

I scowl. “If that thing chases us, I don’t want to slow you down,” I hiss.

He gives me an amused look, glancing down at me. “Lydia.”

“…What?”

“You’re a waif.”

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I bristle. “No I’m not!”

“I’ve carried sheep across my shoulders that weighed twice as much as you.”

“I am not a waif!”

“You are.” He looks forward again, eyes fixed on Samantha, lips twitching in a smile he cannot hide. “I could carry you one-handed, but that seems rude.”

I’m building up a retort when I follow his gaze. Sam has turned her head to glare at us, and she cuts a hand across her throat in a decisive motion that renders us both mute.

I still glare at William, though. And I know he notices it, because I can feel his chest jerking slightly. Suppressing his laughter.

I try to hold back my own smile, and I only manage with partial success. Much as I hate being a burden, I have to admit, it’s nice having him hold me. Everything has felt so out of control, so wild and chaotic. Being in his arms makes me feel more grounded. Even if I barely know him, at least he’s been there since the beginning. And he hasn’t hurt me yet…

He murdered two people.

I clench my eyes shut and lock that thought away. Not now. Not right now. I’ll deal with that later. Now isn’t the time.

I glance up at William, and I can see the set of his jaw. I know he heard that thought. There’ll be some talking to do once we’ve escaped.

Samantha comes to such an abrupt halt that it instantly puts me on edge. She raises a fist in the air, and William must know what that means, because he stops and puts his head on a swivel. Trouble. I can sense it. I can practically taste it. It’s bitter on the tip of my tongue, bitter like the mud, rank and foul and slithering down my throat.

I shudder, barely suppressing a gag.

When you’re in a forest, everything sounds bigger than it is. Especially when there are dry, dead leaves on the ground. It all gets magnified tenfold. Hell, a squirrel dropping a nut to the ground is enough to startle you if you aren’t paying attention. The squirrel itself graduates to sounding like a charging deer.

So none of us miss it when the slithering starts.

I hear it behind us at first, off to our left. It’s crinkling through those leaves, stirring them about. I see a flash of something dark and almost iridescent underneath, sifting its way through all the decay. Searching. It’s a tendril, a part of the whole. The first sniffer-dog seeking prey.

I look up at William again, my fist clenched in the back of his shirt. ‘You should put me down’ I mouth.

He meets my eyes. ‘No.’ His grip gets tighter.

Samantha isn’t looking at us. Her gaze is fixed on where she can see the leaves stirring. She’s got sharp eyes, sharp ears - I get the sense that she’s more aware of where it is than even we are. Raising a hand, she curls her fingers in a beckoning motion, then points downwards. Slowly, carefully, she begins picking up her feet and setting them down. It’s as if she knows where trip wires have been placed, and she’s helping us navigate around them to avoid setting off a bomb.

William begins to mirror her movements. He does it with perfect precision, only stepping in the small depressions her feet have left behind. Sam barely makes a sound, scooting her steps artfully, shifting the dead underbrush to leave hollow spaces for the demon. I get the distinct impression this isn’t the first time she’s had to move silently.

Without warning, Samantha stops moving again.

I can tell by her body language that something is wrong. She’s not wearing her jacket anymore, and the muscles in her shoulders are tensed like she’s ready to spring. I can’t see what she’s looking at at first - it’s so dark, even with the light of the moon slipping through gaps in the leaves overhead. But the longer I look, the more I notice something strange.

There’s a single black line running up from the ground. It’s as if someone has taken an eraser and simply removed some of the color from the scenery. My heart begins to hammer as it starts weaving back and forth, and I’m reminded of what a snake looks like right before it strikes.

But it doesn’t go for Samantha. It whips by her and heads straight for me.

William springs into action. I’m suddenly pressed so hard into his chest I can barely breathe. I hear his heart beating wildly, and I can’t help but think how strange that is. Is anything here even real?

The ominous black line lashes out, tearing a hole through one of the nearby trees. Before my eyes, the tree begins to rot along the newly made seam. No, not rot. Something else. It simply begins to deteriorate, the color fading out of it, the life retracting into it. In the blink of an eye, the tree goes from a healthy, living thing to a mottled gray stump, even the leaves turning to dust that drifts lazily down and vanishes before it hits the ground.

It touched me. That thing touched me.

Why am I not dead?!

Whatever this thing is, it recovers quickly. I don’t get the impression that smashing into the tree did anything to hurt it. It whips towards us, and I can hear other things slithering through the underbrush, coming at me - and by association, at William - full speed.

Thankfully, William is pretty fast himself.

In fact, he’s absurdly fast.

When he moves, I find myself wrenched so hard into his collarbone that I’m pretty sure it’ll leave a bruise on my cheek. We’re zipping back and forth, weaving without a care for the sound we make - the time for stealth has obviously passed. I lose sight of Sam - I wouldn’t blame her if she just wised up and ditched us - but William seems to know where he’s going. Or at least I hope to god he does.

Because I think this thing is corralling us.

It’s not subtle about it. I can tell by the way the circling William is doing gets smaller and smaller. He’s running out of room to maneuver. Every time he leaps over a tendril, every time he turns a corner, more of those black lines of death have snaked over branches and under roots. Seeking us. Seeking me.

Me, I think. It wants me. It wants whatever light is in side of me. My soul, my essence, whatever the hell you want to call it, that’s what it’s after. It’s like a moth, and I’m some kind of irresistible porch light. It found us even though we made no sound, even though we were slinking through the dark, because it can sense me.

And it hits me. An idea. The worst idea I think I’ve ever had in my goddamn life. I must be suicidal. I must be stupid.

“Drain me,” I say, the words trembling in spite of my best efforts. It occurs to me it’s the first order I’ve given him since finding out he was bound to do what I say.

William pants, flashing me a look of confusion. “What?”

“It’s chasing me because it can sense me. You drain people, William. Don’t bother denying it. I know.”

The muscles in his jaw move, but he doesn’t answer.

“Drain me and we might be able to lose it.”

“No!” The word is so vehement that it startles me. “What would be the purpose to that?! We came here to save you, not kill you!”

“So don’t kill me.” I swallow, feeling my heart lurch and then drop into my gut. I press on anyway. “Just take a little off the top. Listen, I’m pretty sure I don’t have enough juice to drive it off like I did the first time - even if I knew how I did it.”

“I can’t!” His voice sounds strained. “Lydia, you’re out of your damn mind! I…”

“If we don’t do something,” I say, my voice still quivering, “It’s just going to kill all of us. I don’t know what it is, not exactly, but…” I suck in a breath through my nose, smashing my chin into his shoulder as he leaps over a fallen log. “…it’s bad. It’s really bad. And we can’t let it get me, okay? Besides, given the choice, I’d rather you do it anyway.”

The incubus looks down at me, horror on his expression. I can tell the request itself is tearing at him. He hates the sheer idea of it, let alone acting on it.

One of the tendrils snags at his ankle. He cries out, then snarls, stumbling but managing to wrench himself free. For one awful moment, I think he’s going to drop me. His skin feels cooler against me, and when I peer up at him, I swear his outline has grown dimmer.

“William,” I say, the words choking in my throat. “William, please.”

The plea pains him more than the order. I hear him swear under his breath, see him scan our surroundings wildly. Maybe he’s looking for a way out. Maybe he’s looking for Samantha, hoping for backup. But she must be hiding, or she left us. I hope she gets out of this alright.

The slithering sounds are getting louder. It’s like a hundred - a thousand of those black tendrils is charging towards us, most of them unseen. Angry vipers with a couple cornered mice, coming in for the kill.

William looks down at me again. I can see blank terror in his eyes, and I sense that it isn’t because of the thing bearing down on us. Then he swears - it’s a word I don’t recognize, cnag - and abruptly veers to the side. We roll deftly, his movements astonishingly smooth even with the bite it took out of him. We come to a stop beneath some dense undergrowth, and for a moment everything is silent.

I hold my breath, listening.

‘…William…’

The crinkling of leaves starts again. Slow. Tentative. Probing. I can see pain in William’s eyes as he peers down at me, searching my face. He’s perched on top of me, his form pressed against mine.

Then he sets his jaw and presses his palm flat against my chest.

I remember the grimaces of death on the corpses in the mobile home. It’s gonna hurt like a bitch, I’m sure, but I can’t make any sound. So I clench my jaw, squeeze my eyes shut, and force the breath out of my own lungs.

I feel nothing. A precious second ticks by. Another.

Then every nerve in my body lights up like a firework.

I couldn’t even begin to describe it. Orgasmic, maybe? That’s the closest I can get, but it goes beyond sexual. I damn near swallow my own tongue. I let a strangled sound out of my throat. William clamps a hand over my mouth, and my eyes pop open, wild and bewildered. He’s looking at me with such an apologetic expression I almost feel the urge to laugh.

‘Sorry.’ Then: ‘Stay still.’

And it starts again.

My eyes go wide. I choke, but William keeps his hand firmly over my mouth. One of my hands digs into the dirt beneath me, and the other claws at his tunic. ‘Whatthefuck?!’ I think, unintentionally blasting him with the thought through our link. I would have expected him to look playful. Flirtatious, even. But William’s face is grim. It’s so tense with concentration that there’s almost pain on his features.

At least, there is at first.

I see a shift in his expression as he continues. His lips part, and a distinctly familiar gleam begins to radiate from his eyes. Red. Bright red light, and I get an eyeful of it before the black eclipses it. His breathing becomes ragged, and the look on his face is one of hunger. Ravenous, uncontrollable hunger.

The sensation intensifies further, and my mind goes white with pleasure. I know I must have groaned, muffled as it was. On some level I’m screaming at myself. I have to make him stop - otherwise I know he’s going to kill me. I need to get control of myself. I’m making this weird. I’m making this…it’s…

Another pulse shoots through me, and I arch up off the ground, crying out. My vision blurs around the edges. I feel lethargy seeping into every limb. Pleasant, easy lethargy. I could sleep. I could just drift off, and everything would be okay.

It won’t, comes the thought. No, it won’t.

I look up into William’s face. His features look colder than they did before, as if the hunger has sapped the warmth from him. I feel my eyes water, not because I’m afraid of him, but because I can feel him. I can feel him struggling. He’s trying to fight it. He’s trying to pull himself away.

‘William.’

He takes a shuddering breath.

‘William, you can do it. You can…’

He leans down and presses his lips against mine. The contact isn’t rough. It’s soft. So gentle. Tender, and it lingers for a moment. He’s tensed over me, taut as a bowstring.

Then the sensation hits me again, and my world erupts in sparks of light. I feel myself tumbling backwards, falling towards oblivion, fingers desperately grasping at nothing.

The last thing I feel before I fade away is William’s hand lifting off my chest.