Chapter XV (15)

  Holly tried several times to call Theo back, but the boy ignored her.

  Short of Mitsuko manhandling him, they had no choice but to follow after him as he entered the gray forest surrounding the town.

  “You should go back and tell the villagers,” Mitsuko said. “You can find me with divination magic. I’ll continue following and watching him.”

  Holly shook her head. “I’ll never catch back up. Not at this pace. My legs are too short. It’s all I can do to keep up right now.”

  “Can you set up a spell to pull me back towards your location?”

  “Yes….” Holly hesitated. Then she looked over at the boy as he scrambled over a fallen log. She lowered her voice. “But I really don’t want to be left alone in the forest with him.”

  “You’re scared of him?”

  “I can’t swing a sword around like you. That boy was completely numb to my illusions earlier, as if unable to comprehend them. Powerful magical creatures like Kitsune or Blood Lords can penetrate my illusions, but he didn’t see through it. Just never acknowledged it. Just sat there the entire fight, begging to be let outside.”

  “Perhaps he’s in shock from his mother’s attack?”

  “Maybe.” But Holly didn’t sound convinced.

  Mitsuko stuck with her friend.

  Soot stained Mitsuko’s pants as they continued chasing after the boy. The foliage they ran through rubbed off on her clothes and even the skin of her hands. But she got off far better than Holly, whose stature resulted in her entire body transforming from multicolored and bright, into drab. Gone was her bright purple hair, replaced now by a thousand shades of gray. Holly looked like she’d now fit in perfectly with Theo and any other children back in Ashen Island’s town. But, far worse than a cosmetic change was the cough she developed from constantly inhaling soot.

  “I’m fine,” Holly croaked after a fit of coughing. “Just need some water and I’ll be good.”

  But there wasn’t any water. The one stream they passed by was a dark gray shade. The town likely relied on an elementalist to separate the ash from the fresh water. It was a simple spell. But one that neither Holly or Mitsuko could perform. And Theo didn’t seem to even notice the problem as he continued to barrel forwards. But, then again, the boy appeared to be permanently colored gray from his life on the island. He was likely used to breathing in the soot.

  Then they broke through the trees into a clearing and arrived at Theo’s destination. Mitsuko’s heart missed a beat.

  The pyramid was exactly like in her vision.

  “You have arrived,” a voice softly spoke into her ear. “Come.”

  Mitsuko took a step back. But Holly followed after the boy, fascinated by the architecture. She was saying something but Mitsuko couldn’t hear the words through the pounding of her own heart.

  Theo stumbled up to the door. His body slumped, as if at peace. Then he turned to look back at Mitsuko and his eyes changed. The gray irises, white sclera, and black pupils disappeared, all replaced by a single shade of scarlet.

  “You’ve returned,” Theo said. But not in the voice of a child. The juggernaut spoke through him. “I will have your heart.”

  Mitsuko instinctually flicked her wrist as her footing shifted into a stance. Returned. The word made her mind race. How did it know? Was it connected to the vision from before? Could it remember her like she did it?

  The boy swayed, as if a puppet controlled by loose strings. He gripped a knife in his hand. It looked like it belonged in a kitchen chopping carrots. He must have taken it and hidden it under his shirt before they left his home. For a few seconds he stood there, slackjawed and his head tilted to the side.

  Then he attacked.

  Theo was faster and more viscous than his size and frame gave him any right for, but Mitsuko still dodged to the side with practiced ease. But instead of following through with his momentum and stepping forward, something unseen swung his body around and he struck at her again in a looping swipe of the knife.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Holly called off from the side. “There’s some sort of magical residue on him. Like a curse. I’ll see if I can undo it.”

  Mitsuko obviously didn’t want to kill the boy. Theo was innocent. And she’d rather die herself than become the kind of person who killed children.

  Sadly, nonlethal attacks were not her forte. If she had healing potions on hand she could afford to be a bit less careful, but her supply had gone down with their ship along with everything else she had brought to the archipelago.

  Theo’s attacks were swift and becoming more and more difficult to dodge as she backed up, putting distance between the two of them.

  Mitsuko wasn’t particularly tall, but Theo was still a child. At his height, he wasn’t quite able to reach her neck or head, so his strikes were primarily aimed for her gut. As she processed that fact, her mind connected to the most obvious solution.

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  She twisted her blade and used the flat as a shield. As metal met ice, she flipped it, sending both of their blades flying. But instead of creating a new sword, as she would against a different foe, she caught the boy’s wrist in one hand and slammed her elbow down on his forearm with a crack.

  Better a broken arm than a dead body.

  Then she tackled Theo.

  Wrestling wasn’t something she practiced often. She had decent muscle mass, but not the superior weight or height to use against most human opponents. And she lacked the magical ability to enhance her strength. Of the little training she had, most was focused on escapes. Thankfully, the possessed Theo wasn’t particularly skilled in the art of wrestling either.

  He squirmed against her, head lashing about as he tried to bite her. She held his arms pinned while she tried to come up with a solution that didn’t involve choking a child into unconsciousness.

  Holly screamed.

  Mitsuko’s attention snapped away from Theo to her friend standing off to the side. Holly rarely screamed. That alone was an anomaly. As a master diviner, few things caught Holly off guard.

  Several divination circles were sketched out in the dirt from Holly’s attempts to identify the spell affecting Theo while Mitsuko fought him. But a new threat rushed at the gnome.

  “Champion,” the juggernaut’s voice said. “You have slain me, the guardian of this island. Now die at the hands of my acolytes. Let this end now.”

  The voice came not from the child this time, but instead the father from the lifeboat. Now with scarlet eyes that pulsed malevolently. Hideo held a big piece of driftwood that he wielded like a club.

  They’d left him behind on the beach. And whatever had corrupted Theo, had gotten to him as well. Mitsuko remembered that in her vision she’d seen the tracks of someone chasing all the survivors into the pyramid.

  Holly ducked and dove under the man, narrowly avoiding a kick to her head. Mitsuko’s weight shifted as she prepared to spring forward.

  And then Theo wrenched his small body out of her grip and buried his teeth into her wrist. He grinded his incisors against her veins, blood drenching his cheeks and chin.

  Mitsuko clenched her jaw and quivered at the pain, but slammed her elbow against his bloody face. Again and again. When he released her, she grabbed his throat with her good hand and squeezed. Children, with their still developing bodies, normally needed to breathe more than adults, but it still took a minute before he fell limp.

  For the moment, Holly continued to avoid Hideo. But the fact was that he had longer legs. Much as Mitsuko had a physical advantage over Theo, Hideo held a height and weight advantage on Holly. And Hideo wasn’t held back by the morality of killing someone smaller than him.

  Holly couldn’t outrun him. Several half-dismissed illusions of Holly spread throughout the beach. Hideo ignored all them, likely whatever controlled him tracked her by her soul. Divination magic could conceal her, if she had the time to cast the necessary spells.

  With Theo now unconscious at her feet, Mitsuko stepped over the boy to face the other foe. She flicked her bloody and mangled wrist four times before her ring activated and created a new blade. Pain radiated from the wound and her blood-slick fingers slipped on the blade’s grip. Blood from her wound froze around the hilt of the sword, giving it a scarlet sheen at the hilt. She walked forward, swapping the sword to her off-hand.

  Hideo might have been distraught before about his son’s death. She had sympathy for the tragedy. But he had also been incredibly annoying. Every interaction she’d experienced between herself and the man had been a negative one. She felt a lot less bad about injuring him. Killing him? Not unless absolutely necessary. But lopping off a necessary hand or foot? Okay, that was still bad, but she’d done worse for less. She would exit any maiming with minimal guilt.

  He spun around to face her, instinctively aware of her presence. Holly used the distraction as an opportunity to scurry off to a hiding spot.

  Unfortunately, her hiding spot happened to be…inside the pyramid. Before Mitsuko could call out a warning, she passed through the doorway and disappeared inside.

  “Damnit!”

  Cold clenched Mitsuko’s insides. But it would be fine. She’d deal with this idiot first then chase after her idiot friend.

  Hideo attacked, his assault wild and far more powerful than his frame should allow.

  Mitsuko back-stepped, feeling the whoosh of air as his club narrowly passed her stomach. Then she stepped back in and sliced a crescent across the back of his hand. Not a deep cut, but enough to loosen his grip. The best she could manage at the moment while wielding her sword with her wrong hand.

  When he swung the club again, Mitsuko raised her blade in a parry, reinforcing her sword’s stability by pressing the blade’s flat end against her right forearm. Blood drenched her sleeve from her wrist wound, but the muscles in the arm as a whole remained reliable.

  If he had more raw strength, he might have still knocked her over. But her stance held and the weapon slipped out of his hand.

  Mitsuko pivoted and kicked the large driftwood. As she did, her toe flicked up, from under the weapon, sending it flying. It cracked into a tree, sending down a shower of ash from the leaves above.

  Hideo lunged at her, trying to wrap his arms around her. She ducked under his grasp and repositioned behind him. Then she hesitated for just a fraction of a second. But not long enough for him to capitalize on the delay. She sliced at the back of his legs, cutting through skin, tendon, then scraping the bone. Even with her off-hand, she cut deep.

  He collapsed on the ground, his legs no longer able to support his body’s weight. He struggled on the ground, crawling after her, but she simply stepped out of his reach. The fight was over.

  Assuming he didn’t bleed out, a proper healer could probably get him on his feet again. She’d ask Wan to pay for one when she met with him. They needed to determine what possessed him. Doubtlessly Wan would find that knowledge alone to be worth the cost of a healer.

  Before chasing after Holly, Mitsuko quickly went over to the forest and pulled down a few vines. She looped it around Theo and tied a few quick knots. A full grown man could probably still rip free from the vegetation, but Theo was still a child.

  Theo moaned, on the verge of regaining consciousness, and over to the side, Hideo screamed nonsensically at her. But Mitsuko had no time for either of them. She dashed off and opened the pyramid’s door.

  “Holly!” she yelled into the dark doorway. “Get back here!”

  No response.

  She called again and again. Nothing.

  Mitsuko looked back at the two defeated opponents. Then she picked up a stick and wrote a few quick characters of the Universal Script in the gray dirt. If someone tracked their trail to find Theo they should be able to see the message and know she and Holly were inside. It was a stretch, but the only lifeline she could think of. Every second of delay was one where Holly might die to that juggernaut.

  “Enter,” the softer voice beckoned.

  “Fuck you.”

  Mitsuko sprinted off into the darkness.

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