34 Bloody Hands
Sharp whistle pierced the air as Ley recovered from the sudden interruption of her conversation with Old Bertie. From looking at her expression, Ley surmised that Old Bertie knew that this was going to happen. Her opening words earlier now made sense.
"Who are they?" Ley asked quietly while she ambled towards the window to look at the situation.
She didn't see Gale outside which meant that he went into hiding somewhere after sending out a signal with that whistle. They weren't in the clearing yet but Ley can sense that both parties were aware of each other's presence.
"My frequent visitors. They like to scare me from time to time," Old Bertie muttered as if it was just insects that were making trouble outside.
"I thought they left you alone after making sure you can't engrave anymore," Ley asked with suspicion.
"They enjoy tormenting me slowly or perhaps treat me like a bait designed for people like you to find," Old Bertie answered calmly but her eyes were grim.
Ley glanced away from Old Bertie for a moment when she heard some rustling outside. Finding nothing, Ley turned back and got caught in surprise at Old Bertie's bewildering actions.
She was controlling her things with magic and sending them all inside a bag swiftly but quietly. Every space she passed would be cleared out immediately though Ley noticed that she only took her engraving tools.
"What are you doing?" Ley slowly said.
Old Bertie rolled her eyes at the question and answered sarcastically, "What does it look like? I'm moving houses."
"You should've escaped long ago. Why bother now?" Ley continued to ask, ignoring her sharp tongue.
"Ha! You think they would leave me alive after finding your presence here?" Old Bertie reproached her.
"How would you escape then?" Ley raised her eyebrows, not liking where the situation was going.
Old Bertie pointed at her matter of factly, "You'll be providing the distraction."
Ley wanted to bang her head in exasperation at Old Bertie's response but chose not to comment. She had other plans involving the elder lady whoever it needs to be executed subtly.
Another howl rang out which made them both look outside. Ley strode towards the door and left Old Bertie alone to her manic packing.
"Guess they can't wait any longer," she murmured with a smirk gracing her face.
She opened the door and got welcomed by a bull shifter, judging by the horns, rushing headlong towards her direction so she sent a kick to her eager attacker as a return gift. She could've chosen an easier way to deflect him but it felt more satisfying this way. She stalked to where he landed but was suddenly grabbed at the back with a chokehold.
A distinct smell wafted towards her nose which her animal side quickly identified as someone from the canine family.
"Looks like we've got our howler here," she grunted past the choking and flashed a deranged smile.
She ran backwards towards the direction of the house and slammed him against the wall. Ley felt the air whooshed out of him and delivered successive abdominal jabs to get out of his hold. Ley was trying to catch her breath when Gale landed in front of her from the roof.
"What is this?" Gale questioned while he sent a forceful chop to the neck of the wolf that was trying to recover. This time the wolf stayed down.
"We have the most awful timing," she sighed as more people emerged from the trees and from the looks of it, they didn't come with good intentions. Ley guessed that this must be the reason why Gale was here.
She and Gale took on the attackers side by side. Ley deflected the attacks with ease and just focused on incapacitating but it was taking some time since there were a lot of them.
Looking at the shifters who came from nowhere distracted her, she realized that most of them look crazed and attacked without thought or strategy. There's a few who looked clear-headed but the manic ones were a hindrance to them with their recklessness. It was certainly a weird scene. It was like a hastily made group still trying to get used to each other. Purposeful but awkward.
Crunching sounds suddenly emerged which made Ley look around in confusion. That's when she noticed her attackers getting sluggish as if they were dragging their feet so she immediately looked down and saw vines around their limbs. She abruptly turned back and saw Old Bertie chanting behind them. Old Bertie had conscience, after all, was what Ley thought.
Ley presumed too soon.
She finally located where those crunching sounds were coming from. At the side where there are some unconscious bodies, the man-eating flowers swayed about. The one from her visit with Landon today actually looked cute compared to the monstrosity she was seeing now.
As if the flower felt her gaze, it turned it's humongous head which only contained a gaping mouth to her direction. Blood eerily dripped from its gleaming teeth as it swayed about innocently with its stalk bulged with its non stop gorging. Watching the flower brought a strange daze to the clearing. The attacks stopped coming as their enemies also gawked in its direction for a few seconds before they realized what was happening.
All hell broke loose.
They tried to get rid of the bloodthirsty plant but it was popping all over the place as soon as they cut one. That was when they saw Old Bertie chanting without break with a crazed smile on her face. They changed targets in a heartbeat and she and Gale were swarmed trying to defend her while the flowers created havoc in support.
Ley was so focused that she didn't notice the appearance of a magick right under their noses until it was too late.
Unadulterated energy magic without the embellishment of spell zoomed towards Old Bertie's direction as Ley shouted, "GALE!"
Fortunately, Gale wasn't far from her location so he was able to maneuver himself and shielded Old Bertie with his body. The burst of magic hurtling towards their direction vanished like a bubble as if it encountered a wall a foot away from Gale's body.
Ley was wrong.
This was the reason why Gale was here. He was the only person who could have managed to do it perfectly in this situation. Nullify an incoming magic in a second without conscious thought. He was one of the many random variations of taboos. He could shapeshift but he cannot cast magic like the others. The only thing he could do was nullify them.
A strange hush fell over the clearing as everyone absorbed what happened. Gale flashed a peace sign at her direction and as she looked back she realized that they would see someone they thought of as a shifter before, with retractable talons that spoke of its falcon ancestry, nullified a magic with ease.
That was when Ley knew that she couldn't let them leave the clearing alive. The fox that woke up who knows when inside her echoed the sentiment but Ley didn't appreciate its opinion as the animal was a heartless bitch who doesn't follow any rules.
The silence was broken when one shifter shouted, with unmistakable glee, 'taboo' and pointed to Gale. Ley closed her eyes and stopped thinking altogether. Her claws flashed out and she responded towards their frenzied attacks with just one goal - to eliminate them all.
Between the three of them, it didn't take long for the clearing to turn bloody with not one attacker alive except the barely alive shifter she's holding on to pry some information.
"Speak or I'll throw you to that man-eating flower over there?" Ley demanded.
He laughed fearlessly instead, "Taboos. . . He will find all of you and take control. The New Era will come!"
Ley's gaze darkened at his words and she immediately slit his throat before throwing his body to the man-eating flowers. It was futile to interrogate them because of their blind belief but she had to try. It was undeniable that they wanted Taboos for some reason she can't fathom.
Were they some sort of cult?
Drawing a blank, Ley found herself staring at her hands caked with dried blood. It was unpleasant and disgusting but she'd do it many times over just to preserve and protect them. She gazed in front of the house where Old Bertie watched her own blood fall to the ground which continued to power the man-eating flowers. It was a powerful enchantment which allowed her to control the vicious flowers with blood as the offering.
Ley went over to her side while she did a small cut enough to let out a few drops of blood to her hand. She grabbed Old Bertie's hand and casted a basic healing spell to close the dripping wound and end the enchantment.
"Why did you do it?" Ley asked, wondering about Old Bertie's motives.
Her eyes flashed with hatred and uttered the words that seemed to have been buried deep in her heart, "I have nothing left. They took it all from me. Do you think I'd let them walk away just like that?"
Ley had no words to refute Old Bertie. She was one of the top engravers among the magick community. The way she made the ocarina itself was pure genius. Now, she was reduced to this state because they cut her hands effectively ending her engraving career.
"You still have something left. Your sins. You need to pay for them. No matter what your motives in making the ocarina, it's a fact that the enemies are using it with bad intentions," Ley said.
"What are you getting at?"
"Come with me and maybe you can find something worth living for again."
Without waiting for Old Bertie's response, Ley went to Gale and pointed at the bodies littered on the clearing, "We need to get rid of all this."
Ley tried to think of the best way to remove the evidence but her conscience kept acting up as she looked at the bodies she killed.
"You did the right thing," Old Bertie said behind her.
Ley gazed at her as she sized up Old Bertie's meaning.
Old Bertie continued with a resigned expression, "You'll be eaten alive just like them if you don't wise up. We all have things to protect. The only difference is how far will you go to protect them."
