In the Arms of the Beast (Kings of Hell MC 5)

“Now burn it!” Beast yelled, stepping even farther away to avoid the splash.

He tripped and fell when another rumble shook the ground under his feet, but as soon as he opened his eyes, a flaming branch descending from the tree above made Beast frantically roll over the dry moss. Like the paw of a dying monster, it fell with a loud thud but didn’t follow Beast when he froze, looking at it while his brain tried to cope with the magnitude of the danger he’d avoided.

The ground shook again. He didn’t even want to imagine Laurent driving in these conditions. Alone. Frantic. With no one to support him. But the truth was that he wouldn’t have been any safer here, no matter how much it hurt Beast to admit his own ineptitude.

He’d sent his men off to the other trees and could only hope that their desperate attempts to halt Baal’s plan would at least give Laurent and Magpie more precious time, but that was all he could hope for. Without answers or guidance, Beast was lost and slowly succumbing to the realization that he might not live past this day.

The roots, thick as elephant legs, bulged to the surface, but Beast’s mouth dried when he realized how far they reached. Deep gashes ran in all directions, emitting the sickening blue glow as far as in the distant woodland that hid the clubhouse. The loud echo of sirens blaring from Brecon proved how much damage must have already been done.

The ground was all rubble and crushed remains of the picnic, which had been swallowed during the heavy tremors shaking the entire area as if the plates deep under them were about to clash until the Earth itself cracked open.

Beast held his breath when Jake breathed fire on the gasoline-soaked branches, circling it in the air like a fighter jet on steroids. Beast wished he could turn his head back and run. Be with his family. But instead he watched the symbol of destruction emit more light in the blurry smoke.

The tension in his body was so unbearable it felt as if his tendons were about to snap when the tree let out the screech of a wounded monster and moved. Its branches shook in fury, sending down a rain of burning gasoline. Beast couldn’t move any faster, yet he still dropped like a log. His brain rattled in his skull, and it took him precious seconds to realize that one of the roots had emerged from the dirt and grabbed his leg. Like a tentacle of a kraken, it wouldn’t let him go out of scorn, because nothing about this action could help the tree extinguish itself.

The pebbles scattered all around Beast rattled like seeds being toasted in a pan, like a prelude to… what exactly? A scream tore out of Beast’s throat when the ground right next to him cracked open, and he tried crawling away, his elbows digging into the soft flesh of rotten black apples.

But the tree wouldn’t let go and pulled him with the ease of a cat playing with a captured mouse. No matter how he twisted and how he dug his hands into the dirt, the wooden tentacle pulled him into the crack and toward an invisible mouth that surely had several rows of teeth.

Blue light flashed into Beast’s face, and he pulled out his gun, shooting into the crevice that was to swallow him whole, but as stabbing heat flowed into his lungs from beneath, so close to roasting him from the inside, he was thinking his goodbyes already, the monster below gave a choked cry, and the root loosened its grip on Beast’s limb.

Shocked that the bullets had worked, Beast rolled back to the surface, catching his breath as he stood up and opened his eyes once again, only to freeze at the image before him.

The clouds above were dispersing as if God’s hand had pushed the fast forward button, and the sun that had been obscured by a red fog was once again sending its rays to lick his face. The tree twitched. It moved like a stabbed animal before hunching forward in an avalanche of dry black leaves that fell off its branches in one shocking moment.

Jake landed nearby and spoke in his inhuman voice, eyes focused on Beast. “Did it work?”

Maybe.

But Beast wasn’t sure. Everything they’d done so far managed to anger the tree rather than hurt it, but now it was drying at a rapid pace. Was it possible that at any of the other trees someone had shown virtue so pure that it countered the wrath exposed during the murders?

The black wood flaked into the wind like ash. The blue light dispersed, but the many fractures that now crisscrossed the ground weren’t still yet. Hair rose at the back of Beast’s neck when the one closest to him gave a gurgle. When black lava rose to the surface, he stepped back with a strangled cry. But it didn’t spill out, nor did it chase him, instead filling the crack and solidifying into matte-black rock.