Grimmer (Sequel to Kailin)

Chapter 22: Sides To Be Taken

I was midleap, snarl-faced, shoulders tensed, when another body came into my view.

The grimmer was attacked on two fronts -- from the right, me, and from the front -- another dark body, in a way that pushed us not only backward but back and to the side. The grimmer was dead -- my jaws shut on its neck and another maw shut across its eyes. When we hit the ground, the other wolf fell over my shoulder, scratching my right side, and somehow we tumbled in an unorganized heap that ended with my snapping at the bared, furry neck the split second before it crashed onto its own side.

I scrambled to my feet, not wanting to mess with the massive brown furball whose teeth had just barely shut in realization before they snapped my foreleg.

I took the next grimmer by the thigh, crunching metal between my teeth, and allowed some newly produced, unfamiliar silver dagger to sink into the meaty neck. I looked up and snarled through the muscle of the thigh when I recognized the face of the brown wolf.

Maybe I shouldn't have come, after all.

So I ran south. Directly south. Where the group seemed to have come from, and where a handful of smaller grimmer hung back. I lunged for them, ignoring the out-of-place, slender form in the middle.

After downing the first, I flipped off to shift and land on two feet, Sireth drawn in my hand only a moment before digging into flesh. Alone, I dropped another three, as one had held me from behind and attempted to present me for another, not realizing that I had teeth, too, and I could bite his arm. I was pretty sure the scratch marks on my shoulder were dripping blood, but not enough to stop me.

I went to stab at the next figure before stopping mid-swing.

Shadow.

It wasn't even looking at me.

They'd told me what it would look like, but even if they hadn't, it couldn't have been hard to guess.

A Black Knight stood there.

For a second I wondered if anyone was in the suit. But then the red slits turned in my direction, and the eery breastplate rose and fell with a shallow breath.

The narrow depression in which the red flames of eyes sat stared me in the face. And did not move.

I wanted to call out to someone, but I didn't know to whom I would call.

Sireth began to shine bright in my hand, as if eager to slip into the shadowy gap that separated collar from jaw in dark nothingness.

But I noticed something else as my eyes drifted down and up the body again.

It seemed thinner than Gail had ever been.

Suddenly the black, horned head snapped forward again to the commotion that was the quickly ending ambush between rows of buildings; it blinked once, and then I thought I was seeing things -- the figure vanished.

The cold shadows that swallowed it in a split second licked at my arms, a splash of red thrown into the mix as a bright light carried through darkness for the trail of energy to hesitate. It all seemed to collapse into itself, and I was staring at nothing. Just horizon.

Sireth dropped to the ground, dull as ever.

The sound of two running pair of boots behind me pulled me out of my shocked state. I turned to stare at Chris and Shayn, eyebrows pulled together, mouth still probably open a little bit.

They gave me looks that demanded no explanation.

"Shit, Chris, what are we supposed to do now?"