Аполлион

Aiden shook his head, but kept on trekking up the narrow path. Eventually the walkway faded, overgrown by brush weeds and itchy grass that clung to my cargos. A prickly feeling skated across my neck and down my spine as we neared the foundation of the church. I wanted to look behind me, but I seriously expected to find a horde of brain-eating zombies standing there.

I edged around one lonely-looking tombstone and stepped beside Aiden. We were no more than a foot away from the crushed stone.

Aiden straightened the straps on the bag as he cocked his head to the side. “So, you see anything—?”

Suddenly, the wind stopped. Like, completely.

An unnatural stillness permeated the air, raising the tiny hairs at the nape of my neck. Under the black thermal, tiny bumps stole across my flesh. A stale, musky scent seeped in from nowhere. I let out a ragged breath and a small, frothy white cloud formed.

“Okay,” I whispered, tightening my hold on the blade. “Not normal.”

Aiden’s breath lingered in the air, too. Holding a hand between us, he nodded toward the thick stand of trees crowding the remains of the church. Two darker shadows stood a few feet in, almost indistinguishable among the foliage.

My muscles tensed. Guards? Ghosts? I wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Showtime,” Aiden said, silently slipping off the backpack. He placed it near a rickety stone cross.

I nodded. “Yeppers peppers.”

The two figures drifted forward. They were hooded and shapeless, and I realized that their feet—if they had feet, which was up in the air—didn’t touch the ground. Their dark-red robes trailed an inch above the grass.

Slowly, their arms rose and the material slipped back. A weird creaking noise followed the motion. Slender, pale-white fingers reached for the hoods, drawing them back.

Oh… oh, wow.

Under the hoods were nothing but bones. Pale white bones and empty, vast blackness where eye sockets and nostrils would’ve been. The mouths… the jaws hinged on loose joints, so the mouths gaped open. There was no skin, no meat or hair. They were skeletons—floating, freaking skeletons.

Not as frightening or dangerous as zombies, but still, they were creepy.

I stared at them, wanting to look away but unable. It was eerie… their eyes. They were just holes, but the longer I stared at them, something… something moved deep inside them, teeny, tiny dots of flickering light.

My fingers loosened around the sickle blade. “I could just… blast them with akasha.”

“Your idea has been noted and discarded.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Using akasha tires you out, right?” he said evenly, keeping his eyes on the things. “Why not use it for something other than a bag of bones?”

“Oh. Good point.”

Those “bags of bones” reached into their robes at the same moment.

I arched a brow. “I hope they don’t flash us. Really don’t want to see a skeleton pe—”

And then they withdrew two thick and shiny handles. Wondering if they were going to chuck the handles at us, I admitted I was quite disappointed by the guards. No wonder mortals had discovered the gateway when all that stood between them and the portal were two walking Halloween decorations.

“Alex,” Aiden murmured.

My chin jerked up, just as sparks flew from the handles, bright and intense in the darkness. Fire spread rapidly, fiery red and powerful, each forming a shape of a long, deadly blade.

“What the…?” My eyes widened.

They flew at us, bones rattling and knocking in a gruesome chorus. Aiden ducked under the first burning blade. Pivoting around cleanly, he planted a foot in the back of one skeleton.

The other lurched toward me, swiping the blade so close to my neck that I felt the heat. Darting to the side, I swung the sickle in a wide arc. The deadly sharp blade sliced through the robe and bone.

In a flash of light, the sword fizzled out and the bones collapsed into a smoldering heap. Taking a step back, I caught the sight of the same thing happening with Aiden’s opponent. The fire-sword disappeared, and then nothing remained but bone and wisps of smoke.

I waited for them to get back up and do something, maybe even an entertaining jig, but nothing. Lowering the sickle, I frowned. “That was way, way too easy.”

Aiden stalked toward me, his eyes darting over the landscape. “You’re telling me. Stay close, because I have a feeling they were just meant to distract us.”

A low growl rippled through the silent cemetery, and my stomach dropped all the way to my toes. Together, Aiden and I turned. I don’t know who reacted first. Whether it was Aiden’s explosive curse or my groan, it didn’t matter.

Crouched in the ruined remains of the church was one big, mean, ticked-off-looking hellhound.