Chapter 5

I stared out across the clearing, looking to where Violet had disappeared, as the sun crested the mountain.

As the light shone over the graveyard, my eyes began to water. The night vision spell wasn't meant to be used under any true light, and I hastily whispered, "Sanya," returning my sight to normal. I blinked away the tears as I looked over the ruined graves.

"Woody," I heard Anya say tentatively from somewhere behind me. I turned, and saw her standing behind the grave marker I stood atop. She leaned against it, looking up at me.

"Are you okay?" I asked as I hopped down, my feet faltering as I landed. My body was still recovering from the electrical shock it'd received, not to mention the beating it had taken from the Hound. Having been closer to the wizard, Anya had received worse than I had.

"I'm fine," she said with a slight grimace. Even though she didn't look it, I knew she probably was. As a White Court vampire, she could draw on her reserve of power to heal herself. She'd be right as rain in no time.

She'd zipped up her jacket at some point, and I saw that her handgun had been re-holstered. One of her swords was missing, and I saw it discarded near where she must have landed.

I headed that way, and saw Penny sitting against a tombstone, her face in her hands as she cried. As I approached, a shifting of shadows drew my eyes to the tree-line. I looked up, and my steps wavered as I spotted a pair of crimson eyes high up in the trees. Shadows shifted around them, impossibly dark with the dawn shining toward them. The eyes blinked, and then they were gone, as the sound of birds taking flight reached my ears.

I shook my head, and Anya looked to me in confusion. I looked back to the trees, but there was nothing there. Maybe there hadn't been. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me after a long day and non-existent night.

I finished walking to the girl, who's shoulders were shaking. "Are you alright?"

"Rai," she sobbed softly, pulling her hands away to wipe at her tears. "They took Rai."

I was assuming that was the name of the boy I'd seen. "I'm sorry," I told her.

She sniffed to hold back more tears, and I saw her tore some grass away from the ground. There were burns on her skin from where the energy shield had struck her, and I watched as she split the grass between her hands and pressed the foliage to the wounds.

A mumbled incantation escaped her lips, too soft for me to hear, and then the girl tossed the grass away. I noticed as she did that the previously green blades were now brown and shriveled, and her wounds looks somewhat improved. She repeated the process several times, until there was hardly any trace of injury left.

The sound of approaching footsteps drew my attention, and I turned to see two others arriving beside us. They were the two I'd seen dueling the older wizard.

The first was the older of the two, looking to be in his mid-thirties or so, with short dark hair and a darker look as he eyed me on approach. He was about my height, but had a lot more muscle than me. While I tend to be more on the lean and wiry end of the spectrum, this guy was closer to body builder. His muscle didn't balloon out like the gym rats I'd seen over the years, but he wasn't going to lose many arm wrestling matches.

His clothes were pretty normal, save for the ripped sleeve revealing what I took to be a magical arm. It would have to be, seeing as it was made of metal.

The entirety of his left arm, from fingertips to shoulder, was like something out of a comic book or movie. It was shaped like a normal appendage, and moved like one, but was decidedly not. The dark metal had markings etched into it from top to bottom. As he walked, the bands of steel on the appendage rippled like skin flexing over muscle.

Trying not to stare, I turned toward the second wizard. He was younger, probably about my age. A few inches below six foot, he had long dark hair and a well-kept beard. He also had one of those awkward tans, where he was clearly wearing sunglasses too long, leaving the skin around his eyes paler than his cheeks.

My eyes trailed over his fingers, recalling what I'd seen earlier. Sure enough, the guy was wearing half-gloves, which left his fingertips exposed. There were some interesting rings around each finger, and I could faintly see traces of metal wire interlinking them and running across the backs of his hands. Something trailed up the sleeves of his dark coat, but I couldn't make it out.

The only other notable thing was the backpack he wore; the hardshell kind, which for some reason seemed out of place.

"Rai?" the older one asked of Penny as they approached, his tone curt as he looked down at her.

"They took him," the girl whispered in reply, keeping her head down.

The man's jaw tightened, as did his left fist. I know, because I couldn't take my eyes off the metal appendage. Which is why I had such a good view of it as it suddenly lashed out into a punch that snapped my head around.

The blow spun me in place, and I ended up flat on my ass as I grabbed for my jaw.

"The fuck?!" Anya shouted as she blurred into motion, one hand drawing a pistol. It was almost lined up with the man's head when that same metal hand that had clocked me rose, and I felt an odd thrum in the air. As he turned his wrist and lowered the arm again, Anya's own hand froze, before bending back down, leaving the gun barrel pointed harmlessly at the ground.

I saw Anya straining to lift the gun back up, but whatever held it in place was too great a force for her to overcome. Instead, her free hand moved, going for the second gun.

While she was still moving, the man's right hand — flesh and blood, I noted — whipped up, and an invisible wall hit Anya hard enough to send her flying back into a tombstone. The stone cracked under the force of the blow, and she slipped to the ground, stunned.

The gun she'd previously held floated in front of me, suspended in mid-air by whatever power the wizard was wielding.

"Enough, Serg," the third man said as he limped over. It was the one I'd seen Violet attacking right before she and the others had departed.

"How can you say that?" the older man growled, his brow furrowed as he glared down at Anya. "They got Rai killed."

"The hell we did," I spat while massaging my jaw. My pulse was on fire after seeing him fling Anya about, but I knew I didn't stand a chance against his power. Even with my all my tricks, I was no match for a wizard.

"Your interference got our teammate killed," the man whispered harshly, a furious glint in his eyes as he swiveled his gaze to me.

"Enough, Moretti," the third man urged, putting some authority into his tone as he glared at the larger man from behind. "Stand down."

The metal-armed brute looked like he wanted to argue, but instead he turned and stormed off, his shoulders tense. Anya's gun dropped to the turf with a thud as he departed. I saw him lash out with the steel hand as he passed a tall tombstone, and the blow shattered the marble, sending pieces flying.

As mad as he was, he was at least in control. If he'd hit me that hard, my head would have looked a lot messier than the stone.

"Sorry about that," the third man said grimly. He was the same height as Moretti and I, but his lean build was more like my own than the former. His tan scalp was visible beneath some short stubble; it looked as if he might regularly shave his head, but had gone a little too long between treatments. His clothing was normal, save for a long beaded bracelet wrapped around his left wrist.

He offered a hand to me, while the guy with the backpack did the same for Anya.

I accepted the offer for assistance, while the punky vampire did not. She was up in a flash, taking a step back to separate herself from the wizards. "What the hell was that about?" she demanded.

Baldy glanced over his shoulder, watching Moretti depart, before turning back to us. "We saw you from across the way, taking aim at Salvago and Peña. When the dog jumped you, we came out of hiding, to try and help."

"Nobody asked you—" Anya began, but stopped when I turned slightly to her.

"We're sorry," I said, turning back to the man that was clearly in charge. "We had a bead on them, and thought we'd take the shot."

"Wouldn't have done you any good," the second guy with the backpack said, shrugging slightly when I looked to him. "Salvago had an air shield up around them."

"Oh," I said dumbly.

Of course a wizard could do that. Because they're wizards.

The guy gave shot me a chagrined smile, as if he felt sorry for me. Which was okay, because I felt sorry for me too.

"Simon, why don't you take Penny and go check on Sergio?" Baldy asked, less of an order than when he'd been talking to Moretti.

Simon nodded, his long hair bobbing. "Right. I'll check in with Vaccaro, too; let him know about Rai," he added grimly as he held a hand out to Penny. The waif of a girl took his hand, and when she was up, they walked off after the other.

Baldy turned back to me. "So, it seems you're after Salvago, too?"

"I have no idea who that is," I said with a tired shrug.

My words caused him to frown. "Then what were you doing here?"

I started to reply, but thought better of it.

"Look, why don't you give us a minute to gather our things, and then we can compare notes?" I asked, looking back to Anya. The punky vampire gave me a slight nod.

"Alright," Baldy said, looking between us, his eyes narrowing slightly.

I bent to retrieve Anya's gun, the weight of it with the large drum causing me to groan slightly. The aches from the fight were taking their toll on me, and after her encounter with Moretti, Anya was looking rough as well. I handed her the gun, and she slipped it into her thigh holster after securing the sword she'd discarded.

The two of us made our way back over to the tree line where we'd left Sal. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw that Baldy was watching us as he went to join the others.

"How you doing, buddy?" I asked as I looked down at the salamander.

The little guy looked better than he had when we'd left him earlier. While we'd been playing Whack-a-Mortal with the wizards, he'd been nomming down on half the forest. I could see where he'd dug out a small fire-pit, and the remnants of several branches lay in the middle. Sal was chomping on the cinders and ash, the nourishment for his kind when a Morton's steak wasn't readily available.

Sal gave a little belch of fire that let me know he'd be okay, and I sighed in relief as he scrambled up my leg and headed for his pocket. As he went, I stomped out the last of the sparks from his fire, and withdrew my box of cigarettes. It was made of snakewood, just like Sal's own box, and I quickly withdrew two cigarettes and a cinnamon stick.

Seeing the stick, Sal climbed back out of his box and up to my shoulder, where he sat back on his tail so he could happily take the stick into his webbed front feet. Feeling too tired to bother with the spells needed to light the cigarettes on my own, I held them aloft, and the fire-breathing salamander obliged me with a small fireball before starting in on his cinnamon stick.

With the ends still burning, I put one cigarette between my lips, and passed the other to Anya.

"So what do you think?" I asked her after I'd inhaled deeply, watching her as she watched the wizards across the way.

"I think I should call the family, and get Laura to send a missile cruiser to bomb the shit out of all of them."

I rolled my eyes. "What do you really think?"

The punky vampire looked at me, as if reasserting her statement. Seeing that I wasn't going to agree, she shrugged one shoulder, causing the silver tattoo running up the right side of her face to glint in the light. "Maybe kill the one, and work with the others?"

"I don't think they'd approve," I replied. "Especially considering we already got one of them killed."

"You don't believe that shit, do you?" Anya asked, her eyebrow quirking up.

"I don't know what to believe," I said with a sigh. "I think we're way the fuck out of our depth. And had they not acted when they did, I'd be dead, and you with me."

I thought back to the feeling of the Hound on my chest. The weight of him crushing me. The feel of my broken and cracked ribs, one of which had most likely pierced a lung, as the beast had hurtled into me faster than I could comprehend, or hope to defend.

And I recalled seeing it dip its head into that boy, and withdraw something I didn't want to think about.

"We need help," I said softly, unconsciously rubbing at my ribs beneath my leather jacket. "And Rose won't be back until the sun sets. Which means we either work with them, or we work alone."

Anya stared off for a moment, smoking her own cigarette and thinking. I did the same, feeling the edges of despair creeping into my tired mind. I'd already been up for a long day before Rose had arrived, and then our journey through the tunnels had added hours to it. Even if we'd arrived moments after our departure in the real world, the trip had taken its toll. Not to mention the abuse from the Hound and the wizards, piling physical trauma onto the emotional turmoil I felt at being helpless to save Violet.

It was a somber moment of self-doubt, only somewhat lessened by the gleeful trills and pleasant crunches as Sal worked on his treat.

"We don't have much choice, do we?" Anya finally said as she finished her cigarette.

"Not really," I agreed.

"Alright," she said, turning back to retrieve our bags. "But I can't guarantee I'm not going to kill that Moretti guy."

I turned to look for the gun I'd dropped when the Hound had hit me. "I can't guarantee I'd try to stop you."

After gathering our things, we went to join the others, who had set up shop a few dozen feet from the graveyard.

Simon was sitting Indian style on the ground, one half-gloved palm holding up a small, smooth black stone. Baldy was crouched beside him, and had two fingers placed onto the top of the stone. Both sat there with their eyes closed, seemingly doing nothing.

I eyed them, and then looked to Penny. Moretti was back in the graveyard, looking over the area.

"Communication stone," the girl said softly, answering my unspoken question. It looked like she'd recovered from her initial shock at losing her friend, but was still unnerved by the fight.

"Who are they talking to?" I asked, just as the two of them both shifted, their eyes opening simultaneously.

"Someone back home," Baldy said as he stood up. He brushed his hands off on his pants as Simon tucked the stone away out of sight.

"Vaccaro?" Anya asked, which elicited a slight frown from Baldy.

"Yes," he confirmed. "He's the warden that was acting as the Communications Officer for the Salvago Strike Team."

"I'm not sure I understood any of that," I admitted, crossing my arms. Doing so hurt, but I did my best to keep it off my face.

"Why don't we start off with an exchange of information, then?" Baldy said. "You tell us what you're doing here, and we'll tell you what we can about our mission."

"Alright," I said warily as Moretti wandered back over. "This is Anya."

"And this is Woody," the punky vampire said, nodding toward me. We'd heard that wizards could use your name against you if heard from your own lips, and decided to prevent that however we could.

Baldy nodded. "My name is Nelson. This is Simon," he said, formally introducing the kid with the ringed gloves and backpack. "And Penny, and Sergio," he added, indicating each.

"Nice to meet most of you," I said, casting a dark look toward Moretti. Rather than replying, the man just returned the look.

"Oh," Anya said suddenly, looking toward Moretti with sudden recognition. "Sergio Moretti, the White Council Warden out of New York."

"You've heard of him?" I asked, surprised.

"Word gets around up there," she said, re-appraising the man now that she knew who he was. It didn't look like that knowledge had improved her opinion.

"You're from New York, then?" Nelson asked calmly.

"I grew up there," Anya replied.

Nelson glanced toward Moretti, who shrugged slightly. "Sorry, don't know her. You can't expect me to know the name of every monster in my territory."

"Excuse me?" Anya said, bristling.

"Sorry, did I hurt the vampire's feelings?" Moretti asked sardonically.

"Enough," Nelson and I said simultaneously. We shared a look, and then Nelson nodded.

"Alright. How about we focus on the current situation?" he said, shooting a warning look at his own teammate.

"Fair enough," I said, trying to calm my temper. "I was hired by someone to resolve a situation for them. Based on what I saw earlier, I think it's this Salvago person that's causing trouble."

"Who was it that hired you?" Simon asked. I glanced at him, but his tone was curious rather than accusatory. A band of sunlight was breaking through the trees at just the right angle to blind him, so he pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pitch black jacket and donned them.

"I'd rather not say at this time," I replied with an apologetic shrug. "All I can say is that my job involves the Hound and the girl."

"The Hound," Nelson repeated, frowning. "What was that? I've never seen anything like it."

"From what we were told, it's a Hound of Hades," I informed them.

"A hellhound?" Penny whispered, surprised.

"I've been told that there's a difference," I corrected her with a shake of my head. "Couldn't tell you what it is."

"I see," Nelson said, his frown looking thoughtful. "Our intelligence said nothing about it."

"My source told me that one of your kind went rogue," I continued. "A team was dispatched to take him out, and they failed. The Hound was sent to shepherd his soul to… well, wherever he was bound."

Nelson looked around, as if realizing where he was. "Ah. That explains it."

"It does?" I asked.

The man nodded. "Spiritually speaking, the different religions all have their own basis in reality. I'd hesitate to say that all of them are real, or even remotely accurate. But my understanding is that when you die, your spirit is claimed by those who, for lack of a better term, hold jurisdiction over you."

"And that explains the Hound how?" Moretti asked, leaning against a tree a few paces away.

"The Hound of Hades," Nelson corrected him. He gestured to the forest around us, and the land in general. "We're on Chios, in Greece. Salvago is from here. His family must have worshiped the old ways."

"Alright," Moretti said. "So the Hound came for him. Why is it working for him?"

"That's what I need to figure out," I explained. "From what I was told, he subverted it to his will. Which shouldn't be possible."

"I see," Nelson said again, still looking as if he was pondering the deeper aspects of what he'd learned. His hand absently fiddled with the bead bracelet, and I suddenly realized that they were prayer beads of some sort. Combined with his look and his calm demeanor, there was a little bit of Kwai Chang Caine about him.

"What about the girl?" Moretti asked.

"Similar situation," I said, a little chill entering my words as I glanced at him. "Leave her to me."

"Uh, what?" Simon said, his eyebrows riding up over his sunglasses. "I don't know if you saw her in action, but she had Nelson on his heels." At a soft frown from the monk, Simon quickly added, "Which isn't easy to do."

"She's our business," I repeated. "And she's not to be harmed."

"Great," Moretti muttered. "A freakin' monster lover."

My quick retort was cut off by Nelson's own. "Serg."

"What?" the man barked, pushing off from the tree to scowl at his partner. "The guy's running around with two monsters, and talking about sparing another."

"Two monsters?" Penny said with a frown, just as Sal started growling at Moretti.

"His pet vampire and his familiar," Moretti said, flicking a wrist absently.

Penny looked to Sal, who was still on my shoulder. She was frowning, but it didn't look like it was because she shared Moretti's opinion. It was more that she hadn't considered just what Sal was.

"Seriously, man, chill out," Simon said to Moretti, looking up from where he sat on the ground. "We need to work together."

"Why?" Moretti shot back. "So they can get more of us killed?"

"I'm sorry about your friend," I said quietly, if not softly. I looked around at each of them. "I'm sorry he died helping us. I'm sorry we put you in that position. But that wasn't our intention."

Moretti looked like he wanted to say something else, but a glare from Nelson kept him silent. "That's alright. We understand," he said, more to Moretti than me. After a moment he turned back to us. "But we're hoping Rai might still be alive."

"Really?" I asked, glancing to Penny.

"They took him with them," she said softly, averting her eyes. "Maybe Salvago's going to do the same thing to him that he did to the others."

I thought back on what I'd seen. I couldn't say I shared their hope, but I didn't know enough about magic to know one way or the other. So I kept my mouth shut.

"Can someone explain who this Salvago guy is?" Anya asked, clearly frustrated.

Nelson looked up to the sky, and the sun that was beginning its march across the sky. "Let's all find a place to rest, and we'll fill you in on the way."

"We don't have transportation," I said as the others started moving.

Nelson looked back to us, obviously trying to add up everything he'd heard. "Then I guess we'll all squeeze in."

The four of them started walking through the woods, cutting across to a path I hadn't seen. Moretti kept an eye over his shoulder, as if he wasn't ready to turn his back on us. Which was fair, as I wasn't ready to do the same to him.

Anya and I shared a glance, and then trailed after them, wondering just what we'd gotten ourselves into.