If I thought the sounds the women made were ugly before, they were damn near satanic now. Kiralee and Flora muttered dark imprecations over the backdrop of humming from the other women. Arelia came forward, placing her hands on her child’s shoulders. I knelt down and pushed Rick’s chin back, knowing somehow what was coming. The blade darted down like an arrow from heaven, slitting his throat, the blood spurting black in the darkness and quickly pooling on the concrete below us.
I wavered, then stepped back, feeling suddenly empty. My head felt too big and too full to be supported by my neck. But I didn’t have to.
Strong arms went around me, holding me up as I collapsed, taking the burden from me.
I watched as the circle broke and men surged in from everywhere, moving as one to take the scraps of Rick, then carrying them forth. The gates that were always locked were flung open, and a long, long pathway lead towards a point of light in the distance. There were people all over the place as I was carried along, pouring through the gate, spreading through the trees that filled the cordoned off area. Huge Tirians that apparently lived in this fenced off area poked their heads out from between the foliage.
“They’re the ones who cannot shift back,” Noah said when I stared. “Sometimes trauma…it keeps them in Tirian form, and they live here. We care for them.”
They were skittish, flinching away if people got too close, but eventually, they joined the procession as well.
They walked and I was carried until finally, the brightness resolved itself. Looking like a doorway of standing stones within its irregular arch was a pool of blue light, and beside it stood two people.
“Lou and Allen,” someone near us murmured. “What are they…?”
They didn’t answer, just stood there waiting, their faces and colouring so close as to appear like identical twins. Impassively, they accepted the remains of Rick’s body, nodding to us, then each other, before they tossed it through the glimmering gate.
The crowd cheered and clapped, the freaky fucking mood of the night fading away until it was just night time and I was bone tired. But I got Peter to put me down so I could stand on my own two feet.
People stood around, gossiping and discussing what had happened for a bit, and we were forced to share what we could about what we had seen and done, though all of us were closed lipped about Lonan and Sen.
“How are you all?” Ophelia had asked when she’d approached. “That was tough, Flick, but worthy. Beasts like Lonan feed on sadism and pain. He used your ex-husband to do that, then hoped to use Sen.”
“You saw that?” I asked. She nodded. “So the matriarchs did as well.”
“There will be some blowback from this, but I will deal with it. Go home, be with your son and each other, then come and see me in a couple of days.”
I groaned at that.
“You didn’t think you’d get off that easily, did you? Family therapy this time, I think.”
“What school of psychology do you—”
Noah’s question was cut off by a great crack at the gate, the blue light within it bursting outwards, forcing everyone back. But as it died away, there he lay. It appeared the gate had reciprocated our gesture, thrusting a man back through the gate. Quite a different man, he had long black hair and didn’t seem to be wearing a whole lot, sprawled out onto the dirt as he was.
“Father!” a childish voice called out, and Kiralee weaseled her way through the crowd, her mother hot on her heels.
“Sylvan…?”
Arelia’s face contorted as I watched. Pain, need, and disbelief all wrestled with the main player—fear. Finally settling on hope, she crouched down, placing a hand on the fallen man’s hair. He groaned in response, a soul deep sound of pain.
“I must go,” Ophelia said. “But congratulations are in order. You’re free, Kade is free. You have your whole life ahead of you now.”
I looked around at my pack, my eyes tugged to each and every one of them, and smiled.
“Let's go home.”