The Witchstone Amulet Read online

  “You would never have noticed it was gone. For years, probably.”

  “Because you were so careful how you ransacked my apartment.”

  “That amulet is important. It has a greater purpose than sitting in a box in your bedchamber.”

  Amulet. A dim memory from his youth blossomed in his mind. His mother had called it that too.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” He stomped closer, fists clenched. He was losing his patience and was ready to start pounding on him, regardless of that knife he carried. He’d take his chances. In the past, most people had the good sense to look concerned or step back when Hunter was like this, but the thief didn’t even seem to notice. “Start answering my questions, thief.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  The thief, looking almost bored, paused his search to look at Hunter. “Fine. We needed the relic returned. It has powers that—”

  “Powers?”

  “Yes, powers.”

  Hunter’s brow tightened. “As in magic?”

  “Call it what you will.”

  He was right. Hunter didn’t believe him. “Look, I may not be in line for any Nobel Prizes, but if you think I’m going to fall for—”

  “Look around you,” the thief snapped, his patience with Hunter clearly thinning. He kicked the head of one of the creatures. “Do you have these in your world?”

  Hunter was stunned into silence for a heartbeat. “My world?”

  The thief stared at Hunter with a slow shake of his head. “Zefora’s hammer, you are dense. You obviously saw the portal hole yourself because you jumped through it. And you ended up here.” The thief leaned in and raised eyebrows at him, as if waiting for Hunter to connect the dots. “If you are not going to believe your own senses, I cannot help you.”

  The cold weight of conviction landed in his gut. His logic fought against it, trying to cling to any shred of rationality, anything that might explain this in some other way. But he had nothing. He opened his mouth and somehow managed to force words from his constricted throat. “How do I get home?”

  The thief turned and put his attention on the contents of a crate. “You don’t.”

  “Excuse me?’”

  “There is no way home for you.” His voice tempered, lost some of its edge. “Two portal stones. That is all I had. One to get me there; one to get me back.”

  “Then find another one of those stones.”

  The thief closed his eyes as if mining for patience. “Not that easy. Even if I could find another portal stone, it wouldn’t matter. It’s too late for you.”

  Too late? What did that mean?

  Hunter’s hands began to shake. The thief’s casual indifference to how Hunter’s entire life was now in shambles made his vision blur with rage. He could no longer restrain himself. He sprang for the guy’s neck—but again, the thief was faster than Hunter. He twisted aside with ease, and this time the sharp edge of the blade was pressed against the side of Hunter’s neck.

  “Try that again and I will not stay my hand,” the thief said quietly.

  Hunter shoved the thief’s hand away and stepped back, his insides roiling.

  “I have no desire to kill you,” the thief added. “But I will not hesitate if you interfere in my mission.”

  “What mission?”

  The thief ignored him. He returned to his search of the campsite, and piece by piece threw items he found into a canvas sack. He acted as if Hunter was not even there.

  After a few minutes, he tossed the sack at Hunter, who caught it against his chest.

  “We don’t want to be in this region when it gets dark,” the thief said. “Let’s move. I’ll explain what I can as we walk.”

  “What makes you think I’m going anywhere with you, thief?” Hunter growled.

  “Because if you stay here, you will die.” He picked up a leather pack and hung the strap over his shoulder. “And the name is Dax. Not thief.”

  6

  “GRAB THE mace,” Dax said. He glanced down at the creature with the smashed-in skull. “Seems like a weapon you can handle. And you won’t slice your finger off trying a sword.” Adjusting the position of the pack, he marched off into the trees.

  “Hold on a minute,” Hunter called out to him.

  Dax ignored him.

  “I’m supposed to trust you? Just like that?”

  “You have a better option?” Dax replied. “And put that tunic on. Your pallid skin will be easily spotted.”

  Tunic? His T-shirt?

  “How about you give me some answers?”

  But Dax was vanishing into the trees, silent as a deer. In moments, he’d be gone. Hunter pursed his lips. He didn’t have any other options. And as much as it chafed him, if he was ever going to get his mom’s broach back, he had no choice but to stick with him. Hunter pulled on his T-shirt and with a grunt of irritation, snatched the mace from the ground. He grabbed the sack with his other hand and jogged to catch up before he lost him. He fell in behind Dax as he wove through the trees.

  Dax threw an annoyed look over his shoulder. “Move quieter.”

  Hunter never wanted to punch someone more. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ll attract more of them.”

  How was he supposed to move any quieter?

  Dax released an exasperated sigh as he shook his head. He made no noise as he walked, as if his boots hovered over the ground.

  Hunter thought about jumping him from behind. He could tackle him, throw him to the ground—that was something he was better at, certainly. He’d then wrestle the amulet back. But the fucker was quick. And seemed to anticipate any move Hunter made. Hunter had no doubt that Dax would stab him in the neck just to take it back again.

  He had to be smart. Wait for his chance.

  “Look, about what you said back there. How can there be more than one world?” His head was whirling, unable to focus, and his brain pushed back on the idea each time he attempted to consider it. Despite everything he’d experienced, he simply wouldn’t allow himself to believe. There had to be another explanation. “And what did you mean I wasn’t supposed to be at home? And what is so important about that broach?”

  Dax kept on as if he hadn’t heard.

  “You can’t ignore my questions all day,” Hunter pressed.

  Dax spun about. “No. But I can stab you in the leg and leave you behind for the wolves.”

  Wolves? At least he’d be killed by something he recognized.

  “Stop talking,” Dax added with a pointed look. “I will explain what I can when I feel it’s safe. Right now, it’s not.” He spun about again with an audible huff and resumed his march.

  Clenching his jaw, Hunter took a few breaths to fight down a retort, then followed. He tried to emulate Dax’s movement, even stepping directly where Dax did, but the effort was pointless. It didn’t matter where he put his foot, there was dry twig underneath it. He gave up even trying.

  The land sank down to a lively creek. Dax waded through the water in his high leather boots, undeterred. His movement barely made a ripple. Not wanting to soak his gym shoes, Hunter attempted instead a leap from rock to rock. Halfway across, a stone rolled under him and slipped him into the creek with a splash. Cold water flooded the shoes and socks in an instant to bite at his toes. Jeans soaked from the knees down, he slogged the rest of the way to the opposite bank.

  Dax was already up the incline on the other side. Hunter hurried to catch up. Every time he stepped, his saturated shoes now made high-pitched squishy noises as water squeezed out. Dax, ahead of him, shook his head.

  Dax stopped. He held out his palm toward Hunter and lowered down to one knee. He brushed aside leaves to expose the black soil and investigated the ground with his fingers. Hunter squeaked closer and leaned in to look over Dax’s shoulder. A large indentation was pressed into the soft loam of the forest.

  “Eight hours old,” Dax said. “Maybe ten.”
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br />   The track had been half buried in leaves. How had Dax even spotted it? “Same ugly bastards as back there?”

  “Yes.” Dax rose back to his feet. He scanned the trees around them, eyes narrow. “Could be from one of the same ones we killed. No way to know for certain.”

  “What were they?” Hunter asked, keeping his voice low.

  “They call themselves the kug’ra. Which means ‘manslayer’ in their tongue.”

  “Charming,” Hunter replied dryly.

  “They may be daft and ugly, but do not be fooled. They are brutal and pitiless against our kind.”

  “Our kind?”

  “Human. And they are faithful to their overlords, the Henerans.”

  “Henerans?” Hunter was beginning to wonder of Dax was making these words up on the fly. Or maybe this was all part of Hunter’s own psychotic break.

  “Something we’d be wise to avoid. Which we won’t if you keep blathering on.” He glanced down at Hunter’s wet shoes. “And making unnecessary noise. This is their territory, and we are trespassing. That alone is enough to have us killed.”

  “Why’d they have you tied up, then?”

  “They were debating about the best way to torture me when you showed up.” He rose back to his full height and dusted off his hands on his pants. “Somehow, I was known to them. They wanted information.”

  “You could understand them?”

  “Some,” Dax replied. “They believed I was a spy.”

  In the distance, a noise cut through the silence of the forest. A horn. Three blasts.

  The sound was unnerving. Hunter felt the direness of it in the bottom of his gut. He glanced at Dax, who scanned the trees around them with a tight frown. His dark eyes betrayed his unease. The entire forest seemed to hold its breath.

  “No more talk,” Dax told him. “Stay quiet.”

  This time, Hunter only nodded. He adjusted the sack higher onto his shoulder and followed in Dax’s wake. He had a million questions still sticking to his tongue, but he reluctantly agreed that for now they’d have to stay there.

  They traveled on in silence for the remainder of the afternoon and into the evening. As the sun sank toward the horizon, the trees gradually thinned, and then segued into a band of saplings and brush. Beyond that, another great ocean of yellow grasses similar to what he’d left behind that morning.

  Dax made an unexpected change in direction and plunged into a thicket of scrub and hunkered low. Hunter pushed in after him, wondering if Dax had spotted something around them. Inside was a shielded little den of foliage. Dax, calm and unconcerned, slipped the pack from his shoulder and sat cross-legged on the ground. He rummaged through the pack, pulled out a small bundle wrapped in burlap, and set the package on the ground between them.

  Hunter lowered to one knee as Dax unwrapped it. A hunk of bread, a wedge of spotted cheese, and some strange pieces of fruit that looked like blue apples.

  Hunter’s stomach twisted at the sight. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he food was right in front of him. How long had it been since he’d eaten?

  Dax tore the bread in half and dropped the other half back on the burlap. Elbows on his knees, he tore off bits of his share and popped them into his mouth. “Sit down,” he said, as if granting Hunter permission to remain in his presence. His voice was curt and low and barely above a whisper. “Eat. We have a long way yet to go.”

  Hunter reluctantly took a seat on the ground across from him. It felt strange—oddly congenial—sitting across from the man who’d robbed his apartment and was now offering up his food. A part of him wondered where the food had come from, if it came from those kug’ra. He wasn’t sure he would trust eating any of it. He decided it was better to not know. He grabbed the bread, then tried to not shove the entire piece into his mouth all at once. He tore off a piece. It was dry and rubbery and made his jaw pop as he chewed, but it tasted wonderful. Maybe the best bread he’d ever had. But that might have been the hunger talking.

  Dax next pulled a water skin from the pack, removed the cork stopper with his teeth, and tipped it against his lips. He drank for what seemed forever, then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tossed the skin over.

  The skin wasn’t filled with water at all, but a weak honey beer. While Hunter drained the last of it, he looked up through the foliage. The sun was low, close to the horizon now, drowning the landscape in warm gold. An evening wind formed gentle eddies across the surface of the field. It was the same sun, he realized. The one he’d experienced his entire life. And the same sky. Whatever this place was, it had parallels with what he knew. It would be so easy to shove the other stuff aside and pretend he was still back home. Back in his own world.

  His world. His heart felt the stabbing loss of it like an arrow to the chest. Everything he knew, everything he loved, gone.

  How could this have happened to him?

  He tossed the flaccid water skin aside and leaned in. “What did you mean by it’s too late for me?”

  Dax, about to bite into the fruit, closed his mouth, and his eyes shifted up. Hunter could tell he was perfectly content with the dense silence between them. Hunter had broken it, and he could feel Dax’s irritation.

  Hunter didn’t care. He wanted answers. Any danger they were in was now secondary to that.

  Dax held his eyes on Hunter. He seemed to weigh whether to even respond. In time, he lifted his chin and said, “What season was it before you jumped through the portal?”

  A cold wave walked down Hunter’s spine. It was not the response he expected, but it was a detail that had nagged at his gut all day.

  “Winter, yes?” Dax said when Hunter didn’t respond.

  “Early spring.”

  “Here, it is clearly summer.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Everything,” Dax replied. “Your world and this world are not aligned.”

  “Aligned? What are you talking about?”

  Dax took a bite of the blue apple and wiped the juices from his lower lip with a forefinger and thumb. “Think. Why would the seasons be different? Time runs different here.”

  “Ridiculous,” Hunter grunted. “Time is time.”

  Dax shrugged and took another bite of the fruit.

  A wave of unease blossomed in the pit of his stomach. Dax’s matter-of-fact posture seemed to bear a cold veracity that Hunter couldn’t ignore. “Okay, then. How different?”

  “Impossible to say. But I’d assume a month has already passed in your world.”

  Hunter’s chest went hollow. A month? His brain was whirling, and his head throbbed behind his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to steady his breathing. “That can’t be.”

  Again, Dax lifted his shoulder. A sign he didn’t care if Hunter believed him or not.

  Hunter tried to image what was happening back home. Were they still searching for him? Was he presumed dead? He imagined Darren talking to the police when they arrived at his apartment. He ran after the thief, officer. I don’t know what happened to him after that. Hunter’s mouth filled with saliva, heralding that his stomach might empty.

  “I need one of those stones.”

  Dax’s eyes shifted up to lock on to Hunter’s. “A portal stone?” He made a sound that might have been a chuckle. “Those cost us nearly all of our resources. Even if you managed to acquire one, which is improbable at best, it would take years.”

  Which meant Hunter would have been missing from his world for decades.

  His eyes dropped to his hands. Everyone he knew would be old, perhaps even dead. The world would have changed beyond recognition. How would he ever explain his absence? How would he ever be able to pick up the threads of his life again?

  His vision was closing in around him. He couldn’t take it in, and his brain was shutting down. He was stranded here, in this insane forgery of his world. One by one, things lost to him forever paraded through his mind. Regrets chewed at his insides. Inane thin
gs. Shows that were still on his DVR that he hadn’t watched. An upcoming match he would have missed. None of that mattered—but it cluttered up his brain.

  The team. All the work he’d done to gain their acceptance. And now….

  Something in him pushed back against the rising despair. No. He had to believe that there was a way back. There was a way around this. There must be.

  If people could travel between worlds, there must be a way to travel through time too.

  In the silence between them, a question occurred to him, a part of this that still didn’t makes sense. “I entered the portal right after you. Why didn’t we show up together?”

  “I was warned the gateway could be… unstable. The exit point must have shifted between the time I went through and you followed. Dumped you in one location, and me in another. It’s how the kug’ra grabbed me, actually,” he added. “Landed right near their camp. The only way they’d ever manage to capture me alive.”

  Something unreadable passed behind Dax’s eyes. He looked as if he was about to say something more, but he stopped, head tilting and eyes lifting. Hunter opened his mouth but before he could form any words, Dax extended his palm to silence him.

  Hunter strained to listen too. Carried on the whisper of the wind, he heard something, distant and faint. Voices.

  Dax lifted slowly to peer out from their haven of thick brush. He grunted and dropped again. “I knew your ungainly clomping through the forest would lead them right to us. They know we’re here.”

  Hunter swallowed back a robust protest, deciding it wasn’t the time to have thin skin. “More kug’ra?”

  “Worse. Henerans.”

  7

  HUNTER CRANED his neck to peek out across the field. Against a backdrop of a fiery evening sky, a small group of the same kind of bulbous creatures from back at the campsite lumbered through the grass. Four in all, still some distance away. Kug’ra. They were spread out in a line and beat at the grass with their clubs, occasionally calling out to each other in their grunting language. But there was another figure with them.