Page 20 of At the Mercy of Midnight
“Are you…alive?” Amelia asked awkwardly, heart pounding, her free hand hovering over his chest.
He blinked open his eyes and then sat slowly. He flinched, sucking in a sharp breath, hand shooting out to grip at his right thigh.
Amelia held the torch over his leg, and she saw it. The torn fabric of his pants, the blossoming blood oozing from an open wound. She swallowed uneasily.
“It had me by the leg, started to drag me away,” he said, voice strained.
She swore shakily before looking wildly around, as though they would come back to finish off the job.
Silas shook his head. “I take back what I said. I don’t want to see those things.”
“Can you stand?” Amelia asked with a grimace.
He breathed out slowly through his nose, then gave her a nod and started to push to his feet. Amelia stood and moved to offer a hand, but Silas staggered upright without her help. He hissed in a harsh breath when he put weight through his right leg but looked to her with clenched teeth and nodded again.
“We have to get back. One more blast of wind, and that thing is going out,” Silas said, gesturing to the torch in her hand. His own torch lay useless and cold on the ground.
Amelia agreed quickly and picked up the bag of crystals. She gave him a brief, assessing look before asking, “you ready?”
“As I can be.”
They moved slower this time, Amelia forced to match pace with Silas, who limped his way back towards the fire ahead of them.
It was an astounding relief for Frank to materialise out of the darkness, safe in the glow of the campfire, and then they were back with the group.
They descended on Silas to get him sat on the ground while Amelia stood still for only a moment, making sure he was okay, before twisting away again to face the darkness. Herheart stuttered in her chest as she heard those things shifting and writhing among the shadows, but without second-guessing herself, she gripped the torch tightly, tucked the crystals against her chest and stepped back out into the darkness.
“Wait—” Frank said, but she was already jogging quickly in the direction of where she thought an arcane lamp stood.
“Winslow!”
It was Silas shouting after her with alarm. Though it confused her, the horror she could hear in his voice.
Amelia ran across the shifting sands to the outskirts of the camp, trying her best to ignore the scraping and screeching noises around her. A tent manifested from the darkness by her elbow, and it gave her a renewed sense of direction. A lamp should be just up ahead.
A sharp pain erupted on her calf, something snagging her pant leg and bringing her tumbling to the ground.
She cried out in shock, one hand sinking into the sand, the other bringing her torch whipping around to shove the fires’ light into the face of the shiny creature.
It shrieked and disappeared quickly.
More panic-laced shouts from near the fire, calling out her name.
A shot echoed through the night air.
She breathed unsteadily on the ground, chest vibrating from the pace of her heart. Swallowing against a dry throat, she pushed to her feet, turned, and kept running on shaky limbs, ignoring the pain in her calf.
Amelia was surprised when she almost walked straight into the lamp she had aimed for. Breathing heavily and shaking uncontrollably, she pulled open the bag and took out a crystal before reaching for the lamp. She could just see the shattered remnants of the crystal that had once glowed inside and brushed the shards away. Amelia slotted the intact crystal intothe small space before she hurriedly whispered, ‘animatus’. The word brought to life the inscription on the crystal, igniting its connection to the North Monolith and the magic it exuded.
The crystal hummed above her head, pulsing with a weak light, and then burst into life. Screeches all around her mingled with the sounds of hundreds of spindly legs fleeing across the sand. Amelia turned in a full circle, revelling in the light that protruded from the lamp, so strong and clear. She could see the campfire and the cowed group of people.
Frank stood slowly from his knelt position, gun finally lowering to his side. She couldn’t make out expressions from the distance, but their body language was clear. Profound relief.
Her knees felt an onset of weakness that threatened to bring her to the sandy ground, the relative safety of the arcane lamps’ light leaving a weariness in her bones. The task complete, Amelia simply wanted to sink to the ground, close her eyes, and rely on someone else to keep her safe for a little while.
SIX
As the night settled, Amelia walked the boundary of the campsite, slotting crystals into the remaining lamps.
