Eric Linnaeus | Book 3 | Chapter 13 - What Lives in the North? (Patreon)

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𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕃𝕚𝕧𝕖𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕙?ᴄʜᴀʀʟᴇs ᴡᴀʟsʜ: ᴍᴀʏ, 𝟸𝟶𝟶𝟶. ʀᴇᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: ᴀᴘʀɪʟ, 𝟸𝟶𝟶𝟶.

─── .✦········· ───

It was a rare night when everyone was at dinner together, and it felt strangely alright. Fruits, nuts, pastries, and meat overflowed the table. The twins argued lightly amongst themselves over which dessert was better. Eric and Calla were quiet unless talking to me, and Markos watched with mild horror as Claire finished two entire plates worth of food. I don’t know where she put it all either.

These people were monsters, sure, but maybe they weren’t as much as I had thought; and with time, I almost forgot what they were. In fact, it was sort of how I imagined a real family dinner would be. Dinner at my own parent’s house was always a strict, quiet affair, so I kind of liked this better.

“Don’t eat too much of the fruit,” Calla cautioned softly, grabbing my hand to stop me. I knew I shouldn’t eat too much; both Eric and Claire had warned me prior as well, but I was grateful for Calla beside me when I found myself absentmindedly reaching for another serving.

“It can’t be that bad, can it?” I joked.

“If you eat too much, you won’t be able to stop, and you will gorge until your stomach bursts,” she explained in monotone.

“Right,” –that made it significantly less appetizing.

“Don’t worry, no one will let you eat that much,” Eric assured from across the table. It was unusual that Calla and Eric weren’t sitting side by side. Even more so as I realized they hadn’t spoken to each other all night; I wasn’t even sure they had looked in each other’s general direction. Were they having some kind of fight?

I thought about that slowly as I chewed. Eric hadn’t shown up to any training sessions since the night we’d returned from our last job, and he seemed somehow distant. I had thought he was busy or that maybe he was distancing himself from me, given what happened on our trip. But now I wondered if it was Calla that he was avoiding.

The more I contemplated, the less I could come up with as to why. I’ve been spending some time with her lately; she’s quiet and doesn’t show any sort of emotion, but she’s not bad. Actually, I appreciate her calm nature—my daydreaming was interrupted by the clink of metal on stone, and I looked over, confused.

It seemed I wasn’t the only one lost in thought, for when Nathaniel placed a hand on Eric’s arm, he startled and almost stabbed the fairy with a butter knife. He dropped the blade before it contacted, and they both looked equally surprised as it clattered to the ground. Good to know I wasn’t alone in triggering Eric’s reflexes like that.

“Don’t just grab my arm without warning,” he muttered, annoyed.

“You didn’t hear me when I spoke to you,” Nathaniel replied calmly, picking the knife up off the floor for him.

A moment of stillness passed, as if there was some kind of understanding between them, before Eric calmed. “I’m sorry, Nathaniel. I didn’t mean to… What were you trying to say?” he asked with apologetic softness.

“It’s fine, nothing of importance. I’ll tell you later,” he assured without malice as he returned his attention to his brother. I think that I might have been the only one who had noticed Achaicus and Markos’s shared glance of displeasure. It was like they knew something about Eric but weren’t telling Nathaniel, and I’m not sure why that made me nervous.

In the past weeks, my anxieties have faded a bit. Achaicus is surprisingly friendly, and Nathaniel’s not that bad either; his training is helping with Ronové. So, I don’t feel like a walking time bomb anymore. But I was still somewhat nervous when he caught my attention after dinner.

“May I speak with you?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Come to my office in a few minutes,” he instructed before disappearing. That was cryptic, I thought with mild apprehension.

─── .✦········· ───

Nathaniel’s office was neater now that his brother shared it; paperwork was sorted into piles, and books were put away. It wasn’t half as cluttered as it had been.

“What did you want to talk about?” I asked as I closed the door behind me and took a seat when he gestured for me to do so.

“I got you something.”

“Is it going to bite me?”

“Regrettably, no,” he mused, tossing over a small bottle. I recognized it right away; it was my prescription bottle refilled.

“How did you..?”

“Compulsion.”

“Right,” I shouldn’t have asked. “Thanks, for getting this for me.”

“Don’t thank me too soon. It’s not for free.”

I should have seen that coming, “If I owe you my soul or something, you can just keep the pills.”

He laughed, but it did little to reassure me, “Not your soul. I only want to know if you know what’s wrong with Eric?”

“What do you mean what’s wrong with him?”

“He’s behaving… unusually…”

“Unusual, how?”

“Tonight at dinner… and twice now he has woken in the night unsettled. In all the time I have known him, it’s rare that his dreams should disturb him. When I asked him about it he dismissed my concerns. So I wanted to know if something happened when you last went with him for work.”

Now I understood what he was asking and wasn’t sure what to do:

In the days prior, I had gone out on a hunt with Eric. It had started as nothing out of the ordinary; we caught word of some strange sightings and missing hikers in a rural town to the north that warranted investigation. He didn’t think it was anything in particular, but I knew as well as he did that this was exactly the kind of thing he looked for…

“It’s probably something territorial getting upset that humans are walking in its area,” Eric explained as we left Dunkel.

“Do you think it’ll be bad?”

“Nothing we can’t handle.”

We had taken Nathaniel’s car, and Eric drove while I watched the scenery. It was a long trip on winding roads. We were traveling northwest, and I spent most of the time half asleep. So when we crossed a barrier and the air shimmered, I startled.

“What was that?” I asked, alarmed as I turned back in the seat to look behind us.

“Nothing to be concerned over. We’re almost at the end of Nathaniel’s territory; that was the inner barrier.”

“We’re not in fairyland anymore?”

He smiled slightly, “We are, but only barely.”

“Do you usually leave it?”

“Not often.”

“What’s outside of fairy territory exactly?”

“It depends. To the south, there are more Fae but a different group. East is water species, sirens mostly. West is shapeshifter territory, witches, and the like. The ghouls were wedged between Dunkel and Leúchtend until Nathaniel expanded.”

“And North?” I asked, curious, given that’s where we were headed.

A long silence passed as he deliberated, “We won’t be going that far north.”

“But what’s up there?”

“It doesn’t matter. We won’t leave the protection of the fae, so we should be safe.”

Safe? Safe from what? I thought uncertainly. “What if people up there needed help?”

“If anyone that far north needs help, their best option is to leave. We can’t save everyone.”

That was the first time I had ever seen Eric unwilling to help someone, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. In my eyes he was fearless, he didn’t even so much as flinch at horrific monsters, let alone back down from a fight.

‘He’s afraid,’ Ronové commented.

‘No one asked you,’ I responded in my thoughts as Nathaniel had taught me.

‘Want to know what he’s afraid of to the north, Charlie boy? The same thing all humans are afraid of; the Old Gods.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about; you know that, right?’

‘Before we were forced to detach our souls and lay dormant, we all knew well not to stray too far north, for the creatures that reside there would gladly tear a witch apart,’ Ronové continued regardless.

He had explained to me once before that when humans focused their attention on the Witches, their species was almost exterminated. Most chose to detach their souls and attach them to objects instead as they waited for the turmoil to pass. But many of the ones who were supposed to perform the revival rituals perished, and so witches remained trapped in various cursed objects all over, waiting to be released. Ouija boards, dybbuk boxes, charms…

The knowledge only served to make me more deeply regret touching a cursed object.

‘You’re not scared as well, are you, Ronny?’ I taunted. If he wanted to tell me terrifying things, the least I could do was belittle him.

‘There’s nothing wrong with healthy caution.’

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

Ominous warnings from Ronové meant very little more often than not, and, truth be told, I wasn’t that worried. I was curious, maybe, but not half as concerned as I should have been. That was probably my mistake. I’d begun to believe there wasn’t any problem Eric couldn’t handle.

We saw the smoke rising from a distance, and I dismissed it. From the highway we were on, it was more to our right, and I hoped it was unrelated to our destination. Of course, I was wrong, and as the road inevitably curved north, we neared the smoke trail.

No other traffic passed us on the way and as we approached the atmosphere seemed somehow heavier. The sunlight filtering between the white summer clouds dissipated, and the area darkened. Small flakes of ash landed on the windshield, and when asphalt gave way to gravel, we rolled to a stop.

The town before us was unnaturally still. Abandoned personal belongings littered the streets, blood stained the dirt, and piles of charred remains still smoldered. The smell of burned human flesh hung in the air, and I nearly heaved as the odor permeated the car. It had been a small rural settlement; the population couldn’t have been more than a few hundred, but that thought brought little comfort.

Buildings were reduced to rubble, and occult symbols were carved into every surface. We waited in silence until Eric eventually stepped out of the vehicle. He left the door ajar, and his expression betrayed no emotion, but I could sense the weight of his thoughts echoing my own as we thought the same thing: whatever had happened, we were too late.

I trailed behind him, enveloped in a heavy silence broken only by the crunch of dry gravel beneath my boots as the totality of the situation hit me. The desolation was palpable—nothing stirred. There was no flicker of movement, no distant call for aid, not even the hum of electricity running through power lines.

Ravens gathered to pluck at the bodies, and their quiet bickering became the only sound. They stripped flesh from one of the victims, and I flinched as the skin stretched and snapped. “They’re dead, Charles; they can’t feel it,” Eric stated without compassion.

I ignored the comment as I turned away from the dead. “What could have done this?” I murmured.

A breath of air crossed the street, stirring the dust and jolting the smoke trails as Eric deliberated. I was beginning to wonder if he was going to answer when he spoke, “…This shouldn’t have happened here, not in Fae territory… We need to leave,” he said at last.

“Shouldn’t we at least finish checking for survivors?”

“There’s no point, there are none.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I just know.”

“You’ve seen this before..?”

“A few times, long ago… It’s nothing we could have prevented. Believe me, it’s best we leave now.”

“…Okay,” I agreed with hesitance.

However, as we turned to go, a scream erupted from somewhere deeper in the town, “Help! Please help me! She’s going to kill me, please help!” The voice that spoke was female, clear, and utterly desperate. I’d heard disjointed voices before, but this wasn’t one of those. It was a person, a real person, and I immediately ran to help.

“Charles!” Eric shouted after me; I hadn’t intended to move faster than him, and I’d failed to notice that he was momentarily stunned. Maybe if I had, I would have understood that he recognized the voice, and I wouldn’t have tried to be such a hero. Instead, I made it to the center of town to see a woman was waiting.

She stood with her arms folded, leaning back against a motorcycle that looked suspiciously like Eric’s stolen bike, and when she noticed me, she looked distinctly amused. Her long chocolate hair swayed with the breeze, and she was in no way harmed or otherwise in need of help.

Our eyes met, “Hey there, handsome,” she smiled.

I swallowed nervously, completely at a loss for words. She was beautiful, and looking into her ice-blue eyes, I felt an unsettlingly familiar instant attraction. But it was the way she looked so much like Eric that unnerved me. I almost wondered if he had a sister he hadn’t told me about.

Eric caught up a moment later, but I already knew I had made a mistake. “Eiríkr! So nice to see you~!” she chimed.

“It’s Eric,” he replied bluntly, though she ignored him as she continued.

“I told the boys I could find you ten times faster than they could. Kári is going to be so pissed; he bet against me, now he gets to do my laundry for the next five years. Hrafn probably won’t be all that pleased either, now that I think about it—he wanted to be the one to find you first. Since you killed his sister and all-…” she was still talking as Eric pushed me back.

“Charles, go back to the car.”

“You know her?”

“No.”

“She sure seems to know you.”

“Doesn’t matter. We need to go-”

“..-I like your bike, by the way; I think I’m going to keep it-” she stopped abruptly, “Go? Eiríkr, whoever said you could go?”

She moved toward us then. Eric’s magic ignited further up the length of his arm, and I followed suit, letting Ron’s energy burn through my veins, ready for use. This woman was in no particular hurry and walked with the confidence of someone self-assured in the outcome of whatever was about to happen.

On her thumb she was wearing a ring with a sharp point, and to my complete shock, she used it to cut the jugular veins on either side of her throat. It was a precise action, and blood spilled out, rapidly soaking down the front of her clothes. I didn’t know what to think; this woman had just killed herself in front of us, but why? Out of instinct, I moved to help her, to stem the bleeding, something. Anything.

Eric grabbed my arm as I moved, dragging me back with force. “I said go back to the car!” he snapped venomously. He was drawing his sword as he spoke, and that made even less sense.

She would die of blood loss before she even reached us; what exactly was he preparing to fight? The woman stumbled not far from us, and her eyes fluttered for half a second. She was dead, she just hadn’t quite hit the ground yet, I thought. Then her eyes snapped open, and she regained her balance instantaneously. I must’ve been wrong about what happened because she wasn’t even half as dead as we might have hoped.

The wounds on her neck healed over, and the underside of her jaw darkened. Black lines extended upward over her cheeks. The energy that swirled around her was unlike anything I had seen before: a radiating, inky darkness that moved like a thick cloud of smoke around her. I didn’t even need Ronové’s magic to see it. The energy was tangible and blocked light so completely that it was hard to tell the difference between what was magic and what was its shadow.

Her fingernails turned charcoal, and her eyes glowed brighter. In her hand, she held what looked like a metal cylinder. It extended out into a full-sized staff with a small pulse of energy before she rushed us. The woman was quick, or at least as fast as Eric, and they met head-on. I’m not sure which one of them pushed me back, but sword met violently with staff in a whirlwind of dust and energy.

From there, almost every movement was too swift for me to keep track of until she had him pinned to the ground. Her fighting style was different from what I’d been learning; it was more like quick strikes and wrestling combined. She almost looked unskilled with her weapon, as if she preferred hand-to-hand combat.

I regained myself and moved to help him. My guns were still in the car, but Nathaniel had taught me enough that, with some concentration, I could make basic weapons using Ronové’s energy. Taking a deep breath in I focused on visualizing what I wanted: nothing fancy, something I could throw, a spear. Just like Ron had used when we fought Eric. I thought it was simple enough, but it took more effort than I would have liked and was harder to aim than I expected.

When I threw it, the spear missed. It shattered uselessly against the ground, bursting into a bright array of red energy beside them. Fortunately, it was enough to surprise her and in her distraction Eric slipped away, creating a buffer between them.

With her positioned between the two of us, I caught Eric’s attention for a brief second, and he nodded. We could beat Calla most times together when sparring two vs one, and we’d practiced it enough that I thought it could work. Just like in training, I told myself, and we moved instantaneously.

Eric was quicker and struck high first while I hit lower, catching her with a blast of energy that temporarily unbalanced her. She gave a small sound of irritation, choosing to retreat rather than be knocked to the ground, “A witch? Or a human? No matter. I’ll tear you apart just as well,” she sneered.

Her priorities switched, and she targeted me over Eric. I hadn’t realized what I’d gotten myself into, or how vastly outmatched I was. When she came at me, it was like getting hit by a brick wall. I didn’t even have time to move as she knocked me to the ground and pressed the staff against my throat until I saw stars. Eric intervened then, and she was forced to leave me gasping for air in the dirt.

“You fight like a fairy with that sword, Eiríkr,” she taunted, pushing his sword back toward him as he blocked her attack.

“Stop calling me that,” he hissed in response, irritated. It was clear then that she was struggling to hold him as his blue energy began to push back her inky magics.

“That fairy magic won’t hold up against me. Why don’t you use your real power?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No-?” she began but stopped as his energy flared, and in response, her own magic expanded. Smothering his like dye in the ocean.

I was only just beginning to stand again when she switched from low gear into high, and her energy engulfed the entire area, covering both Eric and I. The weight of it pinned me back to the ground and crushed my chest so that I struggled to breathe.

“Enough games,” she said casually holding us both in place with her magic.

I understood then that she was toying with us, fighting like an adult facing children until she’d had enough, and now she was going to kill him. Eric wasn’t far from me, and his expression was even more devoid of emotion than usual.

“With such a serious face like that, you look just like your father you know.”

His energy hissed as it flared, “Shut up.”

She grinned, taking the sword from his hand and throwing it away as he struggled to break free.

“Well, anyway, this has been fun. But it’s time for us to go home now, Eiríkr. The rest of the family is just dying to see you again.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“I’m not giving you a choice here, Sweetheart.”

“It’s not like I have a choice in the first place,” he stated calmly as he lifted his chin up. It took a moment for me to understand; he was showing her the marks on his throat, and she hesitated. “You wouldn’t want to steal from the Fae now would you?”

Realization dawned on her, and she looked annoyed, “That’s clever,” she admitted.

“You can’t kill me, and you can’t take me. You’ve lost.”

“No,” she responded just as calmly, “You’ve just made the game more interesting.”

The pressure holding me to the ground receded, and she stepped away. The darkness under her throat and in her fingernails was fading, although I couldn’t tell if that was purposeful on her part or not. “Tell me, ‘Eric’. Do they know what they’ve got? Who they’re crossing to keep you? Because I can guarantee if they knew, they wouldn’t protect you.”

“You won’t, can’t, do anything to me,” he repeated bluntly.

“Alone? Here? Now? Maybe not. But now we know where you are~. So, I’ll give you a choice: break the contract and come back to us, or we’ll come to you. It looks like you have more to lose than we do.” Her gaze moved to me as she spoke, and I understood she was threatening me, along with anyone else he might know.

Eric said nothing more, but her magic didn’t release him until well after she had left. It faded away, dissolving with the wind like a mist as I approached him. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Did she hurt you?” he answered calmly.

“No worse than I get in training,” I assured before I couldn’t help myself anymore, “Who was that?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Well, she sure as hell knew you,” I used the same tone of voice with him that I did with Claire when I knew she was keeping something from me, and he scowled.

“I said I don’t know, and I mean it. They all look the same, and it’s been a long time; how am I to recognize which one she was? Valeria, Karyna, Elissa, Naenia, Jóra, it could have been any of them.”

“Who are they?” I reworded the question in hopes.

“No one, Charles. Now get back in the car. We need to go before she changes her mind.”

─── .✦········· ───

We drove in silence for a long time until Eric pulled over down a plain gravel road. Surrounding us was nothing more than an endless expanse of farmland. Cattle grazed in the distance, and the wind bent the grasses in gentle waves. There were no houses or any other signs of civilization for miles, and as I glanced around wondering why we had stopped, Eric exhaled before reluctantly getting out of the car.

He made his way to the passenger side and opened the door for me. “Are you okay? Do you want me to drive?” I asked, confused.

“No. I want you to get out of the car,” he ordered without any explanation, and I hesitated.

“Why..?”

“Just… do as I say,” he stated more firmly, and I slowly obeyed.

He shut the door behind me and stood in front of it. His expression was odd, conflicted, as if he was making some kind of decision.

“Are you alright?” I prompted gently.

“…You can’t tell Nathaniel, or any of the Fae about what just happened. Do you understand?” he murmured.

“She threatened them, didn’t she? Shouldn’t they know?” I hadn’t planned on telling them because I assumed he would.

“Charles,” there was something in the way he spoke; he was unusually tense. “I know you spend more time with Nathaniel than you should. So I mean it when I say you can’t tell him about this. Not a word. Not even if he asks. I need you to agree.”

“Okay, yeah, sure… if it’s that important to you.”

Eric exhaled slowly, “Thank you.”

He opened the door for me to get back into the car before returning to the driver’s side without another word, and it slowly dawned on me: I think… he intended to leave me there?

─── .✦········· ───

I swallowed hard, remembering as I looked back over to Nathaniel. I had no idea how long I had paused for, hopefully not too long. I didn’t know what to do. Should I tell him the truth?

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