The Bitterwine Oath Read online

  Or at least, not for a hundred years, I thought.

  When he opened them, he looked straight at me. Something was different about his eyes. They hadn’t changed in appearance, but they seemed hooded somehow. Dark.

  Shadowed.

  In the middle of chewing, he smiled at me.

  I quickly glanced away. Vanessa let out a quiet gasp. I felt nauseous.

  Grayson squished himself onto the edge of our seat, shoving me so close to Levi that I was practically sitting on his lap. “Is this the first time you’ve seen Ryan since he got an Extreme Makeover: Weirdo Edition?” Grayson asked.

  I couldn’t find the will to reply. Faith started throwing out theories for why Ryan had decided to switch things up: he’d committed a crime and was dense enough to think nobody would recognize him with a haircut and some new clothes; he’d done it impress a girl; he was thinking of joining the military and was trying to clean up his act.

  “Is everything okay?” Levi asked me, his breath minty and cool against my ear.

  “Mm-hmm,” I said, and took a sip of water.

  Levi shifted in his seat and rested his arm on the back of the booth, almost around my shoulders. I wondered if it was just a way to reclaim some space, but then he secretly played with a strand of hair behind my back.

  “Can I squeeze out?” Faith asked abruptly. Vanessa stood up. Faith shoved past her and scurried toward the bathroom.

  “Is she okay?” Grayson asked.

  I elbowed him and said, “Move and I’ll go see.”

  I took the long way around to avoid passing Ryan, who watched me without blinking. Whatever was happening there, it would need to get back to the Triad as soon as possible. But I had some ruffled feathers to smooth first.

  “Faith, wait!” I said, catching her arm as she passed the dart stalls. When she turned, there were tears pooling in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She sniffled an angry sniffle, if there was such a thing. “Can we play darts so it doesn’t look like I’m upset?”

  “Sure,” I said, with a peek over my shoulder at Ryan.

  Faith snatched the cup of darts and started throwing. She was almost bad enough to be a safety hazard to the people in the stall next to us. “I thought I would be okay with it,” she said.

  “Okay with what?”

  She dabbed at her tears with the back of her hand and gestured vaguely in the direction of our group. “Seeing you act like a couple.”

  I blinked at her, clueless, until the truth dawned on me. “Faith, do you like Levi?”

  “Maybe.” She stomped over to retrieve her darts, most of which had barely hit the board.

  “I’m confused. You told me to make a move!”

  “I know!” she cried, hands flailing. “I meant it, and I still do.”

  “Then why are you upset? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  The cup of darts shook under my nose. “Play with me so I don’t look as upset as I am.”

  “You mean so you don’t look like you’d rather be throwing those at a picture of my face?” I asked with a nervous laugh, picking out a couple of darts. Faith couldn’t help but giggle through her tears.

  “I’m upset because first of all, you didn’t tell me you were dating him,” she explained, serious again. “Levi did. It made me feel like our friendship was slipping, that leaving at the end of the summer will mean we’re not in each other’s lives anymore. You and Lindsey have both made me feel that way.”

  “I’m so sorry, Faith. I should have told you. I’ve just been—”

  “I don’t want to hear the excuses,” she said. “Just let me talk. The second reason is that even though Levi told me about you two, seeing it is a lot harder than I thought it would be.” She gestured from me to him. “If you had answered any of my texts and told me you were coming, then I could have…I don’t know…prepared myself!”

  I sighed. Having offhandedly sunk two darts in the bullseye made me feel worse, and I purposefully threw my next shot at the outside ring. “I’m so sorry. If I had known…” I trailed off. I didn’t know what would happen if I had known. I would have told her about the kiss last summer. I would have tried to avoid Levi for her sake. But she still would have nudged me toward him. She was unshakably selfless.

  “Don’t be sorry, at least not about dating him,” she said, stern and sincere. “I didn’t say anything because I knew it would be weird. I mean, we treat him like our brother one minute, and then Abbie flirts with him the next.…” She rolled her eyes. “But that’s a whole other fish to fry. The bottom line is that if Levi had ever liked Abbie or me—which would be weird, don’t get me wrong—he’s had a million chances to make that clear. I read his poems when they were first published. It’s you, Nat.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked, desperate.

  “Nothing. I just thought I’d be able accept this before it was thrust in my face.” She hiccupped out a laugh. “You know, like taking poison in small doses to immunize yourself.”

  “Can we talk outside?” Vanessa interrupted, tussling her way through the crowd toward us. By her fierce grip on my elbow, made even fiercer by her half dozen rings, I knew it was urgent. I looked to Faith for permission. I couldn’t afford to fail her as a friend again.

  She chewed on her lip. “I feel like we still need to talk. At least until things feel normal again, right?”

  “Yes,” I said, and turned back to Vanessa. “Can we—?”

  “It’s an emergency.”

  Faith scoffed. “Do you need a tampon or something? What else would be so urgent?”

  Vanessa snapped her lips shut, at a loss for words.

  “Okay, fine! Just go!” Faith said, and turned back to the dartboard, muttering under her breath.

  “Faith, we’ll talk soon,” I insisted.

  She threw her last dart and stormed off to the bathroom without another word.

  “Come on,” Vanessa said, tugging me away.

  Thankfully, I hadn’t taken off my mini shoulder purse holding my wallet and phone, so I didn’t need to swing by the table and make excuses. Lindsey was already gone. Levi met my eyes through the crowd, looking concerned.

  “Where are you going?” Abbie asked, intercepting us.

  “Vanessa’s not feeling well, so we’re taking her home.”

  Abbie nodded, but it wasn’t a supportive nod so much as an indication that she saw through my lie. “We may be going off to college soon, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to be shitty friends.” She turned to leave.

  I gripped her wrist. “Abbie.”

  “What?”

  I’m trying to protect this town, sat at the tip of my tongue. “There’s just a lot going on. It’s hard to explain.”

  “That’s what friends are supposed to be for.” She stalked away.

  Defeated, I followed Vanessa through the crowd and out into the stifling summer night. Lindsey was waiting for us by the car. “What’s the deal with Ryan?” she asked.

  “The Shadowing has started to change him,” Vanessa said.

  “Do you think the Woodwalker is already in there?” I asked. “Is it too late?”

  Her curls bounded as she shook her head. “No, I don’t think it’s too late. But I don’t get it. Why didn’t our grandmas warn us about this?”

  “Maybe it was different last time,” Lindsey said. “Maybe the Woodwalkers are getting better at this.”

  “That’s not good,” I said, the understatement of the century. They were getting stronger, while our magic diminished with every generation.

  “What if he’s some kind of scout?” Vanessa said.

  “You think he’s keeping an eye on us?” Lindsey asked.

  “Not on us. He was there before we showed up.”

  “So, you think he might be looking for victims?”

  “He could be waiting for boys to leave by themselves so he can lure them into a trap. It’s easier than waiting for their prey to come to them.” Vanessa whipped o
ut her phone and typed furiously. “I’m texting Bryce to come out here. I want to drop him at his house and tell him to stay there until after the anniversary. At least it’s surrounded by wards.”

  “Ness, you can’t do that,” Lindsey said, reaching for Vanessa’s phone.

  “Why not?” Vanessa ducked away from her. “Why do I need to obey the Triad when they’re clearly keeping things from us?”

  “We don’t know that they are. Besides, you’re the one who just said that we can’t afford to raise any suspicions. If we stop the Claiming but not the murders—”

  “You’re the one who just said that wouldn’t happen!” Vanessa argued.

  “He could be stalking Emmy,” I said, only half listening to their argument. “She’s a sitting duck, right? Draining her of her magic would make them stronger for the Claiming.”

  Vanessa hushed us when she noticed Levi leave the restaurant. He was looking for us under the yellow parking lot lights. Ryan Ashland followed him and caught his attention. We ducked behind the car to watch. Their voices were indistinct rumbles. Ryan whipped out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and took a long, satisfied drag.

  “We have to tell the Triad about him,” Lindsey whispered back.

  “And we have to tell the boys to stay away from Ryan.” Vanessa proceeded to text Bryce. Lindsey was about to try to stop her again when a distant pop sounded. We looked up to see a red flare sparkling across the sky to the east.

  “The distress signal,” Lindsey said. “We have to go.”

  As I hopped into the back seat, I grabbed for my phone and texted Levi. STAY AWAY FROM RYAN. LOSE HIM, TAKE EMMY HOME, AND STAY THERE UNTIL I CALL YOU.

  Lindsey peeled out of the parking lot. Levi looked up and watched us go. Through the back windshield, I saw him slide his phone out of his pocket and hurry back inside. I loosed a breath of relief knowing that he had seen my warning.

  “That signal looked like it could have come from the cabin,” Lindsey said as we jerked the wrong direction down a one-way street.

  “Brianna,” Vanessa breathed. “She and Kate were on their way out

  there.”

  “It’ll be okay,” Lindsey assured her, slamming down the gas pedal.

  Vanessa called her grandma to alert the Triad about the flare in case they hadn’t seen it. Adrenaline bubbled through my veins as I strapped on my revolvers and tucked my orange flare gun in its separate holster.

  The dirt road was even rougher at high speeds, and I had to grip Lindsey’s seat to keep from smashing my head against the window. At long last, we found Kate’s car parked in front of the gate at the end of the road.

  “Oh my god,” Lindsey breathed.

  Pressed up against the other side of the fence like a barricade were countless mangled carcasses emanating a putrid odor. Some were dismembered, others left to decompose somewhat intact, blood matting their fur. I caught sight of a pet tag flashing on a bloody collar and had to look away.

  The outline of the cabin appeared ghostly in the moonlight. There was no movement in the nearby trees, not that my enhanced night vision could catch, anyway. All was quiet. Feet light on the dirt, we climbed the gate without a sound. Lindsey lost her footing and fell back on a gaggle of bony limbs. She made a noise of disgust as I helped her to her feet.

  Vanessa picked her way over the carcasses and into the trees, staying low as she circled around to the back of the cabin. We caught up and found her crouching in the undergrowth, motioning for us to stay quiet.

  It was a hard command to follow once I saw what was happening for myself.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Three human figures were on their knees, bound by their wrists, barely conscious: Kate, Brianna, and Heather. Their necks and faces were smeared with dark blood.

  In the moonlight I counted twelve ragged outlines of bone and sinew. Antler tines and horns towered up from decaying skulls: deer, cow, coyote, goat, human. Frayed, bloody ligaments stretched over spindly shadow forms. Weapons lay scattered in the grass.

  “What’s happening?” I whispered.

  “It was a trap,” Vanessa said.

  One of the Woodwalkers wore another human skull. Had the one Lindsey and I fought attacked someone else? Dug up a fresh grave? I shuddered to think that every time we proved victorious, they had to scavenge again. But we had no choice. We had to keep them at bay.

  The human-skulled Woodwalker loomed over Kate, parts of it as wispy as a phantom, others as mangy as a starved woodland predator. It yanked her hair, forcing her to look up while it opened its jaws wide and sucked in a breath.

  The shadow form grew, filling the bony outlines of the creature. The Woodwalkers were bleeding our fellow Wardens so they could feast on their magic uninhibited.

  My right hand traveled slowly down to my revolver. Lindsey jabbed a finger from Vanessa to herself, then made a semicircle with each hand to signal that the two of them were going to flank the scene. She mimed a whistle to tell me to wait for a signal before shooting. I nodded.

  After they snuck away, I cocked my right revolver, took careful aim at the Woodwalker with the human skull, and waited.

  The sound of speeding wheels on the dirt road distracted me. I hoped for Warden backup but feared it would be Jason or one of his deputies on patrol.

  I didn’t have time to assess the threat. A whistle pierced the air. I braced my arm and pulled the trigger.

  My bullet broke off the bottom jaw of the humanoid Woodwalker. The monster snapped toward me and uttered a shriek that made my insides squirm with fear. Lindsey took the opportunity to dive at him with her knives while Vanessa launched off a fallen tree and buried her hatchet in the skull of Brianna’s attacker.

  She pulled the weapon out as the broken creature screamed its egress from battle. The rotten corpse it left behind dropped to the grass.

  Lindsey fought the one with the human skull tooth and nail, making it hard to get another shot to take it down. Three others advanced on Vanessa, so I diverted my focus back to her. We alternated hatchet strikes and gunshots, graceful choreography in a violent play. We took two down before I ran out of ammo.

  My hands were steady as I switched guns. Bullets burst a skull and pierced a heart and another and another, until six Woodwalkers remained standing and it was time to reload. I emptied the cylinder but didn’t get a chance to slip in fresh cartridges before a Woodwalker with the head of a goat charged me.

  One of its eyes was still intact, glaring at me with a wicked-looking stripe of pupil. I noticed the glint of Brianna’s hatchet on the ground between us. Without enough time to reload, I jammed my revolvers in their holsters and scrambled to claim the weapon, brandishing it at the creature closing in, lashing at me.

  Its claws were short and curved like a wildcat’s, ideal for hooking into flesh and ravaging it from the inside out. I ducked and dodged, barely evading a strike that could have torn the skin off my bones. Finally, I plunged the hatchet just under its shoulder, where the sinew was thick and bare. The creature’s bowed legs bent farther, bringing the skull within reach. I ripped the hatchet from the dead flesh and came down on the indent between its horns.

  The bone crumbled and cracked. I planted the heel of my boot against its spine and yanked the dense, ridged horns in opposite directions. The skull split down the middle and the corpse released a screeching shadow form that fled deep into the abyss of the woods.

  Lindsey had taken out another. Four against three.

  But I watched, horrified, as one of them dragged Vanessa across the grass, leaving a trail of blood. Her assailant, an appalling creature so incongruously assembled that it had no distinguishable animal or human traits, yanked her arms behind her back and bound her wrists with a ragged cloth. It drew a long claw along the side of her throat, bringing forth drops of blood.

  Someone sprinted around the side of the cabin and onto the battlefield, but it wasn’t another Warden joining the fight. It was Levi, and he was running straight for Vanessa’s attacker. He may
not have been able to see the Woodwalker itself, but he could see enough to know she needed help.

  I tightened my grip on Brianna’s hatchet and got there first, hacking gracelessly at the creature until blood from the fresh kills it wore sprinkled over my face. The Woodwalker ejected itself from its mangled body and vanished, leaving a portentous silence in its wake.

  Movement in my peripheral caught my attention. There were three Woodwalkers left. Lindsey fought one, another with a deer skull advanced on me, and the one with the human skull watched Levi. If empty black eye sockets could show hunger…

  I landed a sound hit to my attacker’s chest and crushed several ribs, leaving the heart vulnerable. But another seized me from behind—the one Lindsey was supposed to be fighting—and forced me to kneel on the grass, the pricks of its claws sharp on my shoulders as I struggled to no avail.

  It sliced along the side of my neck. I gasped and felt warm blood trickling out.

  I pressed on the wound, my knees wavering. My vision blotted black and gray. The Woodwalker would do to me what it had done to Nora Langford: plunder the magic and life from me and leave me nothing but an empty husk.

  I found Lindsey to my left. Her hair had fallen loose from its tie and stuck to the scarlet blood that streaked her cheek like war paint. Her staunch gaze locked on mine and her nostrils flared with rage. We couldn’t let them win.

  Bolstered, I rolled onto my back, grabbed the hatchet, and took to my feet. I swung my weapon up at the one that had cut me, knocking its skull clean off. It landed near Lindsey, who toed it toward a nearby rock and smashed it to bits with the heel of her boot. The other one I decimated in a furious blur.

  When I looked up, I saw Levi cutting Lindsey free with one of her knives. The Woodwalker with the human skull—the last remaining—towered over Levi while he was blind and oblivious to its presence.

  A roar of infernal rage tore out of me, but the Woodwalker had already stepped into Levi, its ghostly form passing through him like a knife through butter. Levi shuddered. His eyes went dark. The moon wasn’t bright enough to show a second shadow, but I could see the air around him changing, blackening, darker than a hole in the universe.