Free Dead Time Series by Jason Wilcox Page B

escape. Stupid. I should’ve run when I had the chance. He
couldn’t see anyone else, but he could sense that her followers were all
around. She moved toward him with a sweet smile on her face. Obviously, there
was something she wanted, or he would be dead.  
    “What
have you been doing in my woods?” the ancient, but young looking witch asked.
    Tagen
stood there listening for noises.
    The witch
kept talking. “It must be pretty important for you to risk your life.” There
was silence as Tagen stared at her. He wasn’t about to reveal to her that
Mauldrin was back. If they knew, they would be relentless to kill him before
Tagen could get him.
    “You have
two options,” she said as she slowly circled behind him, her soft silk dress
brushed against his leg. “You can tell us and we’ll let you go peacefully.” Her
small white hand clasped his shoulder. “Or you can make it challenging to
discover the information.” Her nails dug into his shoulder, releasing a dribble
of his black blood. He tried to break from her grasp, but felt sluggish and
weak.  
    Something
crawled through Tagen’s body as it made its way down his abdomen and into his legs.
The feeling stopped just above his ankles. When the witch loosened her grip,
Tagen immediately tried to run for it, but the second he lifted his leg
something ripped through the skin of his calves and feet. Large brown roots
shot out of his limbs and pulled his feet to the ground. He screamed in pain
and struggled to move.
    Black
blood oozed from Tagen’s torn flesh. With all his might, he tried to release
himself, but with every move, more roots ripped through him, shooting into the
ground from his stomach and hands. His face slammed into the dirt as more came
through his cheeks. A few patches of grass quickly turned brown from the touch
of his skin.
    A thud
landed behind Tagen. He could feel the vibrations, which caused more pain. Stupid
demons. I’m not gonna be able to sweet talk my way out
of this situation. He clenched his teeth, grinding them together as another
root shot out from his gums. The demon behind him let out a low-pitched
growl.    
    The witch
called out to the beast in a calm voice, “Apparently he’s not going to talk or
he would’ve by now.” Tagen caught a whiff of the witch’s sweet intoxicating
smell of wild flowers, which made the pain more bearable. “Do what is needed to
secure his information. If he doesn’t talk soon, destroy the sinful little
creature like the others.”
    The
others? Had they been slowly killing off the other dark souls who had been
patrolling the edges of their woods? It wouldn’t be hard since Snyp had turned
the patrols into skeleton crews. His anger
raged with Snyp’s incompetent decisions. He had to be taken out.
    “It’ll be
taken care of,” the unseen demon grunted.
    A strong
pain shot through Tagen’s head and then everything went black. He wasn’t sure
how long he had been out when he came back around. His body ached and his
vision blurred. Voices could be heard, but his head was spinning so much that
he could barely make out what they were saying. Pain swam through him and he
closed his eyes. The voices said something about Domblin, and Tagen tried to
focus on the conversation.  
    “I have
this creature telling me Mauldrin’s back and now you’re telling me you found
signs of Domblin down with the humans in their city? Where’s Kaz? Why isn’t he
with you?” the witch said in the distance. Tagen gasped. He had given up
information on Mauldrin, but at least they didn’t have him. If he got out of
this alive, Triaad would need to know that Domblin was back.  
    “He
stayed behind to keep looking for-” The demon’s voice stopped. Tagen heard the
ground crunch as a demon walked over to him. Crap. He tried to breathe
normally, keeping his eyes closed to look like he was still unconscious.
    “He’s
awake. Wait, he’s the one I ran into when we left the woods. The one that gave
me these