Page 8 of The Tracker's Revenge
“Josh, Josh, say something, please,” he pleaded as he removed the horrible stains of his disease.
But Josh was completely immobile, and there was nothing we could do to find out if he still lived. No breath rose up and down in his chest. No heartbeat pulsed in his neck.
Aaron cast the blanket aside. Josh’s handsome face was obscured by the dark smears left behind as he continued to lay still, quiet, void of life.
Eric made a small grunt in the back of his throat, something that sounded like“it’s a shame it didn’t work.”
Rocking back and forth, Aaron glanced up at me, his anger spent. I expected to see hatred in his eyes, but all I found was resignation. Without the elixir, Josh would have died all the same. And maybe this way, at least, he had been spared some pain.
I opened my mouth to beg his forgiveness, when, suddenly, Josh sat up straight, his eyes wide and rimmed with black. He coughed and coughed, then began panting for breath, taking in huge gulps as if there wasn’t enough air to fill his lungs, as if he needed it.
When the fit passed, he blinked up at Aaron who knelt next to him, looking as utterly shocked as I felt. With a sound between a laugh and a sob, Aaron seized Josh in his arms, crushed him into a fierce embrace, and cried tears of joy.
“I love you, Josh. I love you so much. Thank the witchlights you didn’t leave me.”
Chapter 4
“For a moment, I didn’tthink it would work,” Rosalina said from the passenger seat of Eric’s car. This time, I had snuck in the back, forcing her to sit in the front with Mr. Grumpy.
“You and me both,” I said. “It was nerve-racking.”
Eric was driving, both hands on the wheel, his eyes vigilant as we headed toward our next destination: Liliana’s house. She wasn’t expecting this, didn’t know we had a cure for her. We’d tried to contact her, but she’d never answered. In fact, we didn’t even know if the number we’d found on the Internet was correct.
“You should have never doubted,” Eric said. “Damien was a damn exceptional mage.”
That sobered us up, and we were quiet the rest of the way, though the tension was back, and we kept checking for pursuers that might get in the way of fulfilling Damien’s last wish.
When we got to Lindenwood Park, where Liliana lived, according to an address Eric had found in an agenda Damien had kept in his desk, Eric parked in front of a bungalow-style home with a well-kept yard. We all got out of the car at the same time, bodies tense, ready for anything. But our vigilance was wasted. The street looked calm and—
A crashing sound and a scream came from the house. Before I had time to blink, Eric had used his preternatural speed and had disappeared into the house through the front door, which he found unlocked.
Rosalina and I exchanged a glance, then we ran down the walkway, Rosalina pulling a gun out of her holster and holding it next to her face, the muzzle pointing toward the sky.
We awkwardly knocked into each other as we both tried to get through the door at the same time. Rosalina took a step back and let me through first. When I walked in, a horrible scene took shape before me.
A huge creature stood in the middle of the living room, a terrible clawed hand wrapped around a woman’s throat. Her face was frozen in terror, her mouth forming an “O” as if a scream had gotten stuck in her throat. She was staring at Eric, who stood crouched in front of her, his own clawed hands ready at his sides. The woman’s dark eyes were pleading, begging for deliverance from the monster that held her.
