Chapter 16

Esther Burns woke up next to her husband and rolled her eyes. He was snoring like a bear. She glanced out the window from her bed. The sun was already up. Figuring she'd never fall back asleep through his snoring, she went ahead and got up.

She walked the short distance from her bedroom to that of her children and slowly pushed the door open to see how they were doing. She smiled. Both beds rested motionlessly, two lumps under the sheets. Her children.

Knowing that her kids would just complain if she woke them up, she went over to their beds to give them each a kiss. She was a doting mother, but she had no intention of changing. With a smile, she reached down and pulled her son's sheets down to kiss his forehead.

Martin Burns woke up to the shrieking of his wife from the next room over. He flew out of bed and ran to her. As he ran to her, he could hear screams echoing through the village from every house. What on earth could be happening?

He ran into his children's room and knew immediately why everyone was screaming. In the beds were no children. His children were gone and in their place were the mutilated, bloody corpses of young animals. Esther lifted her hands into the air in horror, the blood of a slaughtered baby goat on her hands and in her son's bed.

"What the hell?" Martin asked, knowing full well his wife didn't know what was happening.

"Where are our babies?" She asked desperately.

Martin walked over and hugged his wife. "I don't know." He said gently, tears running down his own cheeks as his wife wailed in misery.

Marina Vale followed a haunting tune through the woods. It didn't take her long to locate the source of it all. She spotted, ahead of her through the thick of the forest, a dark fairy. Following the wicked creature were the children from the village. They were dancing and laughing as if they hadn't a care in the world to the eerie song of the fairy. It sounded like the howling of the wind through the hollow of a dead tree in the most entrancing and melodic way. As much as she hated the song, she also enjoyed it. The realization made her nervous for her own sanity. The last thing she needed was to end up like one of the children.

She followed knowing what she needed to do: save the kids. With her crossbows ready in her hands, she took careful aim. Fairies were small and quick. They were probably one of the most difficult things to hit, and to make matters worse, there were children dancing and parading all around him. If she missed, it could be fatal for someone's loved kid.

Just before she could fire, a large demonic dog creature pounced her. It was bigger than she was and tackled her entirely to the ground. She glanced over to the fairy and his entourage. He was continuing on his way as if nothing was happening. It sickened her, but she had to ignore him for now. She was about to die and she couldn't save any children if she was dead.

As the large demon's mouth filled up with a very evil feeling lightning, she shot bolts into each of his paws that were restraining her. The pain made him buck and she took the moment to roll out of under him before his paws came crashing back down onto the ground.

Immediately, the beast spit out a deadly electrical breath, like poison, toxic-looking lightning bolts through the air, right at her. She dove out of the way, desperately hoping that it missed her. She'd seen a lot of demons in her life, but this was a new one for her. She had no idea what his breath was capable of.

Once she had gotten back to her feet, anger and discipline driving her, she unleashed a torrent of bolts with the speed and accuracy of something almost inhuman. It was the skill of a woman who had trained in one thing her whole life: killing.

The demon wasn't prepared for his target to be someone as skilled as Marina was. The bolts hit him hard and injured him in a various obvious way. Blood began to stream steadily out of his body as he snarled and grew carelessly aggressive. He was a dying dog and was determined to take her down with him.

Marina saw the glint in his eye. The desire to kill her. And she was not about to let that happen. As the monster charged her, she jumped into the tree as quickly as a monkey could and dodged from branch to branch as the beast toppled each tree with its body weight. "You don't stand a chance." She taunted it. She knew the more work she could make it put out, the faster it would bleed to death.

As she dodged, she took each spare moment to lodge another bolt into the monster's gory flesh. Anything to speed up the beast's death. Time was not a luxury she had if she wanted to save those kids. She had no idea where the fairy was taking them.

She glanced over to try to catch a glimpse of the fairy from her vantage point in the tree, but saw nothing. He was gone. As she was distracted, the monster knocked its body hard into the tree, sending it toppling to the ground, Marina in tow.

Marina hit the ground hard and cried out in pain as she scraped her legs on broken tree branches in the mess. Not even her leather armor could defend against everything. The monster locked onto her with a fire in its eyes that made Marina actually nervous, a feeling she hadn't felt in many years. Whatever this monster was was no joke. It was stronger than anything she'd ever faced before.

It charged at her like a Beast from the Fields of Misery. She forced her body up as quickly as she could, but it wasn't fast enough. The monster pinned her to the ground as she screamed out. She braced herself for whatever would come next. A horrible bite? Claws? Lightning?

She waited, but nothing. As she inspected the beast once her mind had settled a bit, she noticed that it wasn't moving. It had died upon her. She let out a heavy sigh of relief. Luck like this didn't come too often and she certainly would never become reliant on it. But for today, she was grateful! Somehow she had survived.

She forced herself out of under the demon and stood up. She found her crossbows on the ground and latched them onto her back. With the exception of some bruises and cuts, she was remarkably, okay. She looked around in every direction for the fairy and children, but didn't see or hear them. In fact, she didn't recognize anything about where she was. She knew it, but hated to admit it. She was lost again. Unable to determine which way the fairy went or which way New Tristram was, she decided her best bet was to simply head in a direction. She had better luck searching than if she just sat still. Neither the fairy nor the village was coming to her. She'd have to find them.