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"Fuck, son," Halstad breathed. "You really did it. I'll be Godsdamned!"
Hisashi let out a nervous chuckle. "Oh, I did it all right. And it's taking every ounce of strength I have, so let's hurry this along." He shot me an apologetic look over his shoulder. "I have a feeling yanking you all in here with me was the easy part."
Shifting Oisin to a more comfortable position in his arms, Hisashi squared his shoulders and closed his eyes. After a breath or two, a glowing trail appeared on the ground, leading off into the mists. "Stay on the path. Don't let go of me, no matter what. And just...ignore them when they try to get your attention. They're like stray dogs—feed them and they'll follow you home." He shuddered. "And they don't make good pets."
We all shuffled along with Hisashi, who went at an agonizingly slow pace. I wasn't sure if he was moving like an old man so we could all keep up, or because he was barely holding on to whatever magic he was doing. I prayed like fuck it wasn't the last reason.
The light here was different here, a sort of diffuse dullness that came from nowhere in particular. It made the whole place seem colorless and made me feel like I couldn't tell up from down. I tripped, clutching Hisashi's tail so hard he hissed at me to ease up. Glancing back, I saw a long, pulsing tendril of mist had snaked across the trail to trip me.
"Uh, Hisashi," I said glancing to the side to see faces leering at us out of the gloom, wide, black eyes reflecting us back like mirrors. "Are they...like actively trying to get us to freak out and leave the path?"
He didn't answer that. "Just don't go off the path."
A glowing lantern appeared by the gray outline of what looked like a pub. Warm laughter filtered out. It was so enticing, I almost stepped right off the Godsdamned path. A cold hand trailed over my neck, and I jerked my gaze straight ahead.
Don't meet their eyes, Gesa, you fuckstick. I hoped like hell this creepy puppy wasn't following me home. A sudden chill shook me, and I huffed out a breath, watching it puff like smoke in the cold air.
"It's getting colder," Con breathed, his teeth chattering. "Why is it getting colder? Is that a bad thing?"
Hisashi stopped, tilted his head, his eyes still closed. "Shut. Up. All of you."
I didn’t think Hisashi was talking to us. I shared a glance with Con. The rest of us were a bit hardier, but Con could only take so much cold. And I didn't know what Halstad's tolerance was—if having magic protected his basically human body or not.
We shuffled along a bit more, then turned suddenly and veered off in another direction, the glowing path lighting up then fading, lighting up then fading, as if we had a faulty signal.
My fingers were growing numb with cold and Con's teeth were audibly chattering when Hisashi stopped and didn't start up again. "Fuck," he whispered, going rigid.
"Just breathe," Halstad said, patting Hisashi's back with his free hand.
Hisashi growled at him. "I lost it. I fucking lost the path." He held Oisin tighter, burying his head in the crook the fae's neck, and I feared he might crush him.
"Hisashi?" I said tentatively, knowing I was not going to like the answer to the fucking question. "What do you mean you lost the path?"
He threw back his head and howled, making the creeping creatures in the mists startle, then start howling themselves. "I mean," he said through clenched teeth, "I've yanked us all over here to save our lives but now I can't find the fucking way home!"
Con leaned against me, his hand still gripped claw-like around Hisashi's tail. "S-s-sooo cold."
I put my free arm around him. I was still fucking naked. Kai had been wearing Con's coat, but she draped it around him awkwardly with one hand and she was as naked as I was. Any colder and we wouldn't have to worry about nipples anymore. They’d fall off.
"You're not actually cold," Hisashi said softly. "It's soul loss. This place is draining you all." He sent out a soft wave of his own magic and I felt instantly warmer as it swirled over my skin.
Hisashi closed his eyes again and I could feel him seeking, pouring his own spirit energy outward in search of home. "If only I had listened and tied myself to a fucking shrine. At least I'd have a Godsdamned anchor right now."
I sighed. "If you'd tied yourself to a shrine you wouldn't have been here to kill Oisin's dad or help us escape a bunch of rabid fae and their dogs...we were going to be toast either way." I let out a bitter laugh. "Although Popsicles seems more likely right now."
Kai laughed. No one else seemed to see the humor in my words.
Another cold hand ghosted up my thigh and I shook it off like a mosquito. My legs suddenly felt weak. "I need to sit," I warned Hisashi before my knees buckled. We all crouched together, like some sort of weird choreographed interpretive dance.
Con was shivering again, and I held him against my side, hoping maybe he could steal a little of my innate magic. Halstad sank down on my other side. "Well, this really wasn't how I thought I'd die. A million other weird-ass situations I could think of, and it comes down to death in the otherworld, surrounded by a bunch of over-sexed idiots."
"Thanks," Hisashi muttered, caressing Oisin's pale face, his own vulpine features sad and wan, stark white in the odd lighting. He looked like a ghost himself, like he belonged here, king of the ethereal, smoky assholes.
I chuckled at my thoughts, and it slowly built to a wheezing, belly laugh that left me in tears.
"What the hell's wrong with her?" Kai asked softly. "Gesa, honey, you've finally lost your little bird brain."
I couldn't stop laughing. My fingers started to slip from Hisashi's tail, and he grabbed my hand. "Hey! Don't let go of me, Gesa. Seriously."
Halstad patted my back. "S'okay girlie. Just delirium from the power drain. You don't have power like the rest of us...you just are power. That's what a shifter is. Big 'ol mass of unstable atoms."
I squinted at him, still laughing. "What?"
Kai leaned into Con. "I see sparkles," she whispered. "So pretty. So bright."
Halstad nodded seriously. "Yes. Because you're a shifter too. Even if you're old as fuck."
Halstad pushed his goggles back on his head and blinked his blood-crusted fae eyes. "Doesn't matter though," he muttered. "I'll be joining you in loopy land too in five...four...three...two...one...." He grinned. "Ah, fuck that's good. I feel like I'm floating. Who needs magic when you can just feel like this for a little while before you die?"
I shook my head. "You're talking," I said intelligently. "You never talk about anything but telling people what to do. Or how much you hate us."
He grinned, swaying drunkenly to the side. "That's cuz you all act like family is a real thing, and not some made up word. You're idiots."
I shoved him listlessly, feeling like the world was spinning as this place leeched away my essence. "Fuck you. It's real. It is."
He snorted. "Lot of good it's done you lot, huh?"
I shrugged. "Good while it lasted."
Hisashi tipped forward on his tiptoes, curling over Oisin and pressing the heel of his hand into his own forehead. His claws were out, and he curled them into his scalp, like was trying to tear his own skin off. "They've all lost it. What the fuck am I going to do?" he whispered to himself. A sob escaped him. "I've killed them all."
Con sat up beside me with a little lurch. He fumbled with a numb hand, reaching up to rub his belly. "Uh...guys...I don't feel so great," he whispered. "I feel like—"
I blinked when Con seemed to waver around the edges, going see-through. Then he was ripped from us. One moment he was there. The next he was just...gone.
"Con!" I screamed, standing to leap off after him into the gloom.
A pair of arms wrapped around me, one burly and rough, the other long and slender, but capable of crushing the life out of me in a blink. "Gesa!" Kai shouted.
At the same moment, Hisashi shouted, "don't you fucking dare let go of me, gryphon!"
Con...Con was gone. I hit my knees again, letting out a rough sob as desperate sadness poked through the fog in my mind. Con. My sweet Con.
Then Kai squeezed me harder. I met her wide, panicked blue eyes. "Gesa?" she whispered.
"No...no, no, no." I clutched her tighter as she faded, blinking in and out of sight. Then she was gone too, leaving behind the memory of her crushing embrace.
"No!" I screamed. This wasn't fucking happening. How did we get here? There had been nothing we could do this entire time. Every turn, we were fucking slapped around by fate. But my pride....
"Ah hell," Halstad said in a resigned voice. "Been nice knowing y'all—"
Then he was gone, his stolid, grumpy presence at my side replaced by a cold void.
"Hisashi," I gasped, feeling a tugging sensation in my middle, like being yanked backward on some ride at the county fair. "What's happening?"
His silver-rimmed blue eyes were overflowing with tears. "I don't know, Gesa. Gods, no!" He managed to wiggle one hand free from under Oisin and gripped my upper arm. But I couldn't feel the force of his hand on my skin.
Goodbye pretty fox. Gods, it wasn't fair that he was going to be left alone here. But I couldn't stop the force that tugged me out of existence.