I knew he was right. The stubborn streak inside of me just didn’t want to admit it. I still couldn’t believe that we had been so resoundly hammered into submission. Bloodfire welled up inside me yet again, seething its way into an angry boil. I took a deep breath and forced it back down. I had to stay calm. Getting pissed off and letting my emotions rule me yet again was not going to help this situation. I blinked in acknowledgement and Corrigan’s grip loosened.
“Okay,” I said, finally relenting. “Just give me a minute, alright? I’ll meet you back down at the car-park soon.”
Corrigan watched me warily. “I’m not sure…” he began.
I reached over and pressed my finger against his lips. “Please. I won’t be a long.”
A muscle tensed in his cheek, but eventually he nodded, and turned away, striding out of the clearing. I waited until he had gone, then I knelt back down again, beside the first dryad’s body.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, reaching over and gently closing her eyes. “I promise you that I will get your revenge. I won’t let this go unpunished. Not if it’s the last thing I do.”
I moved back over to the other dryad and did the same, repeating my promise to her. Then I stood back up. A branch to my right creaked and every muscle in my body tensed. When I saw who it was, I relaxed again. A tree nymph hung there, sadly watching me. Even in the darkness, I could still see there was an unhealthy pallor to her skin. Anger re-lit inside me.
“We will take care of them,” she said softly.
“Are you alright?”
She nodded. “We will be.” She looked off into the direction that Corrigan had disappeared in. “He is right. There was no choice. We thank you for your efforts.”
“Yeah, they weren’t good enough though, were they?” I said bitterly.
“They will be.” Her eyes turned downwards. “The humans are here now. They will prevent the development from moving further forward.”
“It was only ever just a ruse to hide what he was really planning.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgement. “Still, I believe we are now safe. Again, we thank you.”
I didn’t think I had ever felt less deserving of those words. With nothing further to say, however, I raised my hand to her in dejected farewell then gave the two dryads one final glance, before turning and heading after Corrigan.
I was halfway to the carpark, when Max caught up to me. “The humans are all good,” he said, “safe and sound in their little encampment. I think they are planning to start building their tripod thingies at first light.”
“Great,” I responded, not massively caring.
“Your weird bloodsucker friend won’t leave though.”
“Huh?”
“He refuses to leave. Says he can’t until you come and find him.”
I cursed inwardly. Part of me was tempted just to leave Aubrey where he was. Did I really care what happened to him now? I felt the responsibility of the compulsion I’d laid on him, however, and nodded briskly to the mage. “I’ll sort him out.”
I changed direction, heading cross country back towards the protestors instead. Even before I got there, the sound of their singing was clear, drifting through the trees. It was vaguely familiar. As I got closer, I realised that it was a remarkably tuneless version of Big Yellow Taxi. The words ‘they took all the trees and put’em in a tree museum’ made me wince. I supposed that at least the protestors’ cloud of ignorance about what had really happened this night would mean that they would indeed happily stay to put a spanner in the works of the ridiculous campaign for holiday homes. I thought of the piece of paper that I’d found tangled up in the branches of the trees; the company behind the development was called Endorium. No prizes for guessing where that name came from then. I supposed that if I’d not shown up then what would have happened would have essentially been the same. Endor would have used the development as an easy cover to cut down the trees and smoke out more dryads so he could leech more power from them. It would probably have just ended up being a longer and more drawn out process, that was all. I fervently hoped that somewhere he was having a painful power surge that was causing an overload and a shortage, as he’d so casually phrased it. Unfortunately, I doubted that was really true.
Before too long, the tents came into view. There were small clusters of people sitting around, still humming that bloody Joni Mitchell song as I approached. Aubrey was at least easy to spot thanks to his isolation. He was sitting to one side, carefully watching the trees. My battered plastic bag with my few belongings encased within was propped up carefully against his side. When he saw me coming, he sprang to his feet and beamed.
“I told them! I told them you’d come for me!” He peered at my face and his smile faltered. “What happened? You look upset.”
“You don’t want to know,” I said tiredly.
Aubrey looked hurt, but I couldn’t summon the energy to worry about his feelings. He painted on a sullen pout, and handed out his phone to me. I stared at it for a moment, uncomprehendingly.
He waved it in my face. “Your friend has been calling. Over and over again. He really wants to talk to you.”
It took a moment to work out who on earth Aubrey was referring to. Then realisation dawned. Alex. It was a bit late now for whatever information he had to give. I supposed I should at least be glad that he was alive and hadn’t gotten himself into any trouble for asking questions about Endor on my behalf. As confident as I’d been before that it would have been no problem, I was now starting to realise that the last thing I should be placing any faith in was my own confidence. I muttered a thanks at Aubrey and took the phone from him.
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
He beamed at me, although there was still an edge of concern to his features. I ignored it and instead turned the phone on, hitting the button to return Alex’s last call, and started walking back through the woods.
“What do you want, Vlad?”
I was somewhat taken aback at the vehemence in Alex’s voice. “Er…Alex?”
“Mack Attack! It’s you! Where the hell have you been, dude?”
I couldn’t face telling him the sad story right now. Instead I prevaricated. “I’ll explain later. I need you to stay away from that shop now though, Alex. Do you hear me? Don’t go anywhere near it. Go home and stay home.”
“Eh?” he sounded surprised. “I’ve been in already. You were right, there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of in the slightest. In fact,” his voice took on a confidential tone, “I also take it back about the Batibat being hideous and scary. She’s actually rather charming.”
“Um, okay. Still, go home now and don’t go back there again.”
“If that’s what you want. You want to hear what I found about the shop owner or not though?”
Pain glanced through me. “Yeah, Alex, I guess so.”
“Well, you could sound a bit more enthusiastic, Mack Attack. This is a dude we need to be scared of. Apparently his name is Endor. Even without the info from the Batibat, you know what that means.”
“Not really,” I said, suddenly pausing. Was this really more Otherworld general knowledge that I was completely ignorant of? Would knowing whatever Alex was about to reveal have meant that this night’s terrible events could have been avoided?
“Oh,” he said, somewhat deflated. “I guess you didn’t go to Sunday school then. The witch of Endor is in the bible. She’s a medium who King Saul calls up to contact the ghost of Samuel. Needless to say, bad things happen as a result.”
I shook my head frustratedly. The bible? That was hardly up to date, of the minute information. “I don’t see what this has to do with our Endor. He’s not a woman.”
“You’re missing the point, Mack Attack. The witch of Endor could call upon ghosts because she had the power of the dead. The Endor here and now is using her name because he’s using the same power. He’s a necromancer. It’s serious black magic, dude. He’s a nasty nasty guy.”
No shit. That explained why he had been so keen to kill the dryads, I supposed though. The more dead dryads, the more dark power he could glean.
“That’s useful information.” Sort of. Not really. It wasn’t exactly surprising.
“Wait, there’s more!”
My heart sank and fingers of dread clutched at my heart. How much worse was this likely to get? “Go on.”
“The Batibat came across some stuff in the back of the shop. She doesn’t like her boss very much. Apparently he’s using her to look after things there so he can make some money and keep his other operations going. She’s not very happy about it. I think he’s using various Batibats to do his evil bidding, or else.”
Yeah, I thought, or else he’ll suck the life out of them.
“Anyway,” Alex continued, “she found this thing that was ripped out of some book. She reckons it’s his plan to get more power. It seems that he’s looking to harness the four elements in order to boost his own strength. That’s…”
“Earth, air, fire and water,” I filled in.
“Yes. Mack Attack, you have to understand, that’s crazy. First of all I have no idea how you would even go about doing such a thing. Second of all, it makes no sense. Those elements don’t have anything to do with necromancy. Thirdly, can you imagine how powerful someone would be if they really pulled that off?”
I stopped walking and closed my eyes, resting a hand on a nearby tree. Fuck. “Did she mention whether she knew if he’d been successful at all?”
“Nah, Mack Attack. She reckons he’s pretty much delusional. I’d say the same as well to be honest. I don’t see how anyone could do it.”
There was a moment of silence as I absorbed all of Alex’s intelligence.
Eventually he filled the void. “So? Did I do good? I gotta tell you, I’m really proud of myself. I mean, I don’t believe much of what she said. It’s a lot of pie in the sky stuff, but maybe I actually have a bit of a calling for this, you know?” He deepened his voice dramatically. “Alex Florides, the super spy.”