The Survivors: Point of Origin (book 2)

Ava Bientrut, pt. 2

            

 

At the end of the lane, Madeline straddled a decapitated body.

 

I cried out.

 

"Relax," Patrick said. "It was the draugr. He was hiding in here, and I was tired of chasing him," Patrick said. "Polly, can you take care of this?" he asked Mark. Grotesquely, he tossed the head toward Mark the same way you'd toss a set of keys, but before it reached him, Mark flicked his wrist and set the head on fire. Flaming, it landed on the ground and was quickly reduced to a pile of ashes. "Did he have any powers, love?" Patrick asked, hopping to his feet.

 

"None!" Madeline growled, clearly aggravated that their chase had resulted in nothing.

 

I must have looked horrified. The Winters, on the other hand, were true to their warrior nature and were entirely untroubled by the scene. I didn't want to think about that.

 

"Sorry for the distraction," Patrick said, smoothing his clothes and then sliding his hair back out of his face. But he quickly froze. Only his eyes moved, surveying what was around him. "Do you hear that?"

 

"Are there more draugar you need to behead?" I asked, likely rude from my wracked nerves.

 

"Not draugar. Breathing. It's in there," he nodded, indicating the house we stood in front of.

 

Tired of surprises, I flung open the front door with such force that it ripped off its aged hinges. Then I let out a startled cry. She screamed back.

 

My confederates stormed the room in moments and surrounded the figure hunched in the middle.

 

But she just laughed.

 

"Go ahead and try," she croaked, the wry words razor-edged in regret. She had ashen-brown skin that looked like the bark of an oak tree, and her hair was a coarse, ratty mixture of black and grey pinned back behind her ears. Her voice was smoky — dusty, even. "You'd only do old Ava a favor," she smiled, a sullen smile revealing rotted black teeth. As she cleared what sounded like centuries of grit from her vocal chords and wheezed out her words, I heard that her speech was colored with an accent I couldn't place. Perhaps Creole, or a Caribbean of some kind, though she spoke English clearly. She was also impervious to my mind-reading abilities. I hadn't heard her outside the house, and I couldn't sense her now.

 

"Back off," I said, calling off the guard. The woman was covered in shawls and sitting in a rocking chair. Aside from speaking, she had been completely still. "You're alive," I breathed.

 

"Perpetually," she sighed.

 

"But all the others..."

 

"Dead," she said knowingly. "Of course they are. He killed them all. He kills everyone he meets. Terrible trait in a person."

 

"Who?" I asked.

 

"Now, now," she said. "We're getting ahead of ourselves. First, you tell me who you be."