Chapter 7: Part Two
Hollow Road
Chapter 7: Hollow Road (Part Two)
“Stop! Stop!” Wendell called out after the woman.
In a second, she was completely out of sight.
“No!” Wendell groaned.
Screaming for her to come back wasn’t the answer. If she was under the crocotta’s spell from a distance, once she was fully in its lair, she’d be a goner. Wendell knew that for sure.
He paced in place, shifting from one foot to the next.
Wendell owed nothing to this monster hunter. It’d serve her right to get eaten by the crocotta. Nothing was stopping him from leaving her to her doom and finding his way out of the cave.
“She didn’t listen to me,” Wendell said, trying to justify leaving.
But no matter how he spun it, he knew it was wrong to cut and run, even though he knew if their roles were reversed, the woman would leave him without a second thought.
Groaning again, he straightened his shoulders and marched quietly down the tunnel.
The whispers from the fake Cayden and fake Aurora stopped, probably because the crocotta was focused on its prey.
Wendell’s chest tightened as he navigated the serpentine tunnel, zigging and zagging this way and that. As he got closer to the end of the tunnel, he braced himself for a crunch and screaming. Instead, there was silence.
It was even more unsettling.
Taking the final turn, the narrow tunnel stretched open into a cave as large as the one that was flooded with water and moss. This one was dry and had a strange, almost meaty, smell.
The tunnels branching out from it alternated between collapsed and boarded up with wood. The passages seemed long ago sealed. In the middle of the space was a wolf-like den that was low, deep, and dark.
Something snapped and crackled under Wendell’s feet. He looked down to see bones. Bones, bones, bones, and more bones. There were scraps of clothes, abandoned shoes, and other remnants of the crocotta’s victims scattered all around. Wendell fought back the urge to vomit.
“I’m here!” The woman cried out, her arms flung open wide in an embrace. Wendell watched in horror as the creature unhinged its massive, grotesque jaw and began to lunge for the woman.
Wendell threw his fingers up to his mouth and whistled as hard as he could. The crocotta snapped around to look at him.
Dazed, the woman continued to stand with her arms outstretched, completely unaware of what was happening around her.
“Oh god,” Wendell moaned. I didn’t think this through!
The containment spell he knew was only for demons, and he had none of the items he needed for it anyway.
I can’t trap it, Wendell thought in panic. It’s after me now, and I have no way to stop it. With his asthma, there was no way he’d be able to outrun the crocotta.
“I’ll have to try,” Wendell said firmly. He’d lead the crocotta away from the woman. He had no other option.
Turning his back on the creature was the last thing he wanted to do, but running while facing it would be next to impossible.
Run, run, run, RUN!
Legs pumping, he zig-zagged back the way he came.
He’d have to figure out how to trap it. There had to be a way to stop it without attempting to hurt it.
Foe’s Folly likely applied to all beings in the caves. And Wendell didn’t want to take his chances attempting to touch the crocotta in any way.
He heard it running behind him, its panting and the way its paws pounded and echoed in the tunnel.
He was passing the collapsed tunnels. In any second, he’d be passing the tunnel that smelled like birthday cake.
Then it hit him.
Just because I can’t trap it doesn’t mean something else can’t!
Leading the crocotta to the tunnel with the fairy trap might backfire, but it also might be the one way of getting rid of the thing.
Wendell sprinted for the warm, fragrant tunnel. He threw a hand up to his nose and pinched his nostrils shut.
He threw a look behind him and saw the creature.
The ravenous look on its face mingled with something like bliss.
Wendell rushed to the wall and put his back against it, hugging it in reverse.
The crocotta’s eyes weren’t fixed on Wendell, but instead on whatever lay ahead in wait at the end of the tunnel. It sprinted past Wendell.
“It worked!” Wendell cried to himself in relief. “It really worked!”
Heart racing, chest heaving, he waited and waited, bracing himself for the creature to make its return… but it didn’t.
Convinced it was gone for good, trapped in whatever fae land was at the end of the tunnel, Wendell backtracked. As he rounded one of the tunnels, he nearly crashed face-first into the woman.
Stumbling, she blinked and rubbed at her eyes. She stared at Wendell for a long minute before finally saying with a strained expression, “You saved me.”
“The fae saved you, technically,” Wendell said with a weak grin. “But I helped. Now let’s get out of here, yeah?”
The next series of intersecting tunnels were mostly clear.
The woman continued to shoot questioning looks at Wendell.
The tunnel that looked like it was closest to bringing them back to freedom had a layer of rocks and rubble partially obscuring it.
“I think this is the tunnel we need to take,” Wendell tapped the toe of his sneaker against the thick layer of rock. “My nose finally stopped bleeding,” he said in relief.
“We can shift them together,” Wendell said, going for the smaller rocks first. With the woman’s arms, they’d clear it in time.“Do you have a name, by the way? You already said mine and my brother’s.”
“It’s Violet,” she said, for the first time not looking guarded.
“Are you finally going to tell me what you think I did?” Wendell appealed.
“You saving me doesn’t change anything. Someone put in word that you, Wendell Batty, or should I say, Wendell Howley-Kirkwood, have been luring lone wolves and lyc-chaser humans to this area, promising them a place in your pack on the night of the super blood moon.”
“What!?” Wendell squawked. “None of that is true! Who told you that?!”
“My sources are private,” Violet said sternly, shifting the last of the rocks.
They pressed on ahead down the mostly cleared tunnel.
“Well, whoever went to you is lying. There have been lone wolves in the area, and I do suspect lyc-chasers are close behind them, but I’m not a part of any of it. I’m being framed, and Violet, so are you.”
“I’m being framed?” Violet said skeptically. “What happened to that thing that was going after me?”
“I told you. I led it to the tunnel with the fairy trap. But don’t change the subject, Violet. One of your silver bullets was fired through my therapist when I was in session with her, and another one of your silver bullets blasted through a sick and starving lone wolf on the Wolfinger-Hedlund packlands.”
“That wasn’t me,” Violet said firmly.
“Which is why I said you’re being framed too. Someone also killed my DONHE case manager. Innocent people are dying, Violet, and they’re connecting back to us,” Wendell said. “This isn’t okay.”
“That’s something we can both agree on,” Violet said.
“Not all werewolves are killers, Violet, look at me,” he widely gestured to himself. “I hate dogs, I have a cat named Mary Shelley, and I’ve been a vegetarian since birth.”
Violet gave Wendell the stink eye at that.
“Well, not during my moonsets,” Wendell sighs.
“We have that in common,” Violet admitted. “Not eating animals. I work at a vegan bakery. Ugh, I don’t know why I just told you that.”
“So you slay vampires and frost cupcakes?” Wendell asked skeptically.
“Something like that,” Violent said dismissively. “This place is getting into my head.”
“Look, when I was turned into a werewolf, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t become another tragedy and cautionary tale. That I wouldn’t become another one of the millions of dead werewolves. I’m not going to try to change your mind. That never works, monster hunter or not. But I am going to tell you something. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to become this. It’s not all I am. I was a human before I became a werewolf. And I’m still a human,” Wendell said, trudging ahead.
“Not to me, werewolf,” Violet said bluntly.
“I’m not a werewolf by choice, Violet. That lone wolf who bit me? Who gave me this? He saved my life. A pack of werewolves slaughtered my Boy Scout troop. I watched all of my friends, and the boy I loved, die. If that lone wolf didn’t bite me, I would’ve died too. And that lone wolf? That pack killed him for turning and saving me,” Wendell said passionately.
“There are monster-hunting families that aren’t as ethical as mine, by the way,” Violet warned.
“Thank you for your humanity,” Wendell said sarcastically. “Let me guess. One, monsters killed your parents, and you’ve dedicated all of your thirty-something years to destroying every monster you set your sights on. Or, two, you were shamed, abused, and pushed to your limits by your perfectionist monster-hunting parents who accepted nothing from you but the most exceptional slaying.”
“First, let’s set this straight. I wasn’t shamed, abused, or put through hellish training. I’m not an orphan, and no, I’m not doing this to play out some revenge fantasy,” Violet drawled. “Both of my parents are retired. They’re living in some storybook village in Ireland with four fat cats and a village square that they walk to daily to buy their bread and soap. They’ve earned it, and I’m happy for them. I don’t know why I just told you that,” Violet groaned again.
It looked like Foe’s Folly wasn’t just enchanted to disarm killers by ruining their weapons, but it also seemed like it broke down their mental inhibitions and made it so they’d talk openly and honestly, even if they didn’t want to.
So contrary to how she was behaving, Violet Sword wasn’t raised on a diet of hate and rage. Wendell was surprised.
“So you do have a heart, Violet Sword!” Wendell said passionately, “So why are you doing this?”
“Werewolves are an invasive species!” Violet snapped.
“Okay, there’s that,” Wendell said awkwardly. “I meant, why are you hunting people like me?”
“You mean monsters like you?” Violet smiled. “I was raised with purpose, pride, and the drive to do real good.”
“The Boy Scout slogan is to do a good turn daily, so we have that in common, too,” Wendell chimed in.
“I’m here to continue to carry on what my ancestor Valiant started. She, yes, she, she wasn’t a man, contrary to the misbelief, and her fight for goodness is what the Sword family continues to stand and fight for. Me, my sister, and my brother, protect humanity.”
“Well, you’ll be reunited with them in no time. I think we’re almost out,” Wendell said.
“It looks like we can climb up this,” Violet kicked her boot on a set of stones that were set into the wall like steps.
They were steep and high, and Wendell pressed onwards, hopeful. “Your weapons,” he said as he climbed. “Once we get out of here, we can divide and conquer to round them up. I have great night vision.”
“Don’t bother,” Violet said. “I have extras in the room I’m staying in.”
If Violet could lose a whole arsenal of weapons and not bat an eye over it, Wendell shuddered to think what the armory in her hotel room looked like.
“I’ll miss Freya, though,” Violet sighed.
“Freya?” Wendell asked.
“My crossbow. She was my favorite one.”
At the top, freedom awaited. Wendell scampered up the rest of the steps and whooped. He could already feel his chest getting looser and his throat relaxing.
As Violet stepped out of the cave next to him, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.
“You had that with you the whole time!?” Wendell cried.
“It wouldn’t turn on… but now it is,” Violet said gleefully.
“Can I, um, borrow it for a second?” Wendell asked shyly. “My friend Aurora is going to kill me.”
If you’re enjoying following along with Wen and his friends and could take a second to click the heart to “like” this chapter and leave a comment, it’d make my WEEK! 🤗
A Monday post! 🤩