General Mannix.
I swallow hard, noting that his pointer finger—the one that acts like a gun—is pressed against the back of Stryker’s head. Magical cuffs glow silver on Stryker’s wrists as he lifts gold eyes to me and tries his best to smile.
“Well, it was pleasant while it lasted. Farewell, Oz, the Great—”
Before Stryker can finish his sentence, Mannix fires off another shot that goes straight through the wizard’s skull, splattering me in blood. The projectile flies through Stryker and into me, burying itself in my right thigh before it explodes out the other side, lodging once again in the trunk of a tree.
The wizard’s body slumps over into a pool of blood as I feel myself collapsing to my knees. My ears are ringing and I’m numb with shock as Mannix makes his way over to me, twisting the metal tip of his finger back into place, and then carefully replacing his glove.
“That’s it?” he asks, looking down at me like I’m dog shit on the bottom of his boots. “That’s all you have to offer? A great storm wizard like yourself.” I open my mouth to respond, but no words will come.
I’m bleeding. Again.
Only this is so much worse, and I wish like hell that I still believed this was a dream.
Because now that I know that it’s real? It’s a fucking nightmare.
“What a shame.” General Mannix bends down low next to me. He’s a lot younger than he first looked, but that doesn’t make his empty eyes and indifferent expression any easier to deal with. He’s not angry, just cold and cruel, like staring death straight in the face. “We were hoping for more.”
He glances back at Taavi, still entangled with the other barghest. The man doesn’t seem at all concerned for his ally’s wellbeing, turning back to me and rising to his feet as I look down at the blood welling from the wound in my leg. My vision is already blurring as I struggle to stay sitting upright.
Footsteps pound through the underbrush behind me as the general moves back a step and draws an infinity symbol in the air with one finger. Glowing silver cuffs appear on my wrists, and with them, I feel the energy leached from my body like it’s being siphoned out.
Even if I weren’t already wounded, I wouldn’t have been able to stay conscious.
“Take them back to the city,” Mannix commands, his voice dripping with authority. Here’s a man who’s used to having his orders followed to a T. “And whatever you do, don’t piss off any faeries on the way.”
He takes off into the woods as my heavy lids finally close, and I collapse into the jewel-toned grass of the clearing.
The Not–So–Wonderful City of Oz
Nightmares that I haven’t had in months come rushing back, filling my unconscious mind with memories that I’d rather were left buried. Mom’s face, smiling at me as we board the boat. My little sisters begging for ice-cold sodas from the snack bar. My brother slumped on a bench with his ear buds in, playing on his phone.
The storm.
The lurching of the boat.
The cold water.
The darkness.
The silence.
With a gasp, I sit up straight in bed, soaked in a cold sweat and so disoriented that I can’t remember if I’m in Seattle or Kansas or that weird blue-domed Munchkin house.
But as I blink through the horrors inside my head, I come face to face with the ones outside of it.
I’m sitting in a dark room, lit by a single candle on an ornately carved dresser. Both the flame and the candle itself have a greenish tinge that makes me question if I’m actually conscious or still stuck in a strange dream.
“It can be disorienting, at first,” a girl says, lounging on the end of the bed. She’s so still and quiet that I didn’t notice her until she spoke. She leans forward, just enough that her face catches some of the light from the flickering candle. Even her skin is tinted green, her eyes too shadowed for me to take note of the color.
“Disorienting?” I whisper, my voice a husky shell of its former self.
Now that I’m awake, and the nightmares of that day on the lake are fading, I remember other, more recent nightmares.
Stryker is dead.
Taavi is likely dead.
I took a bullet to the right leg.
“The glasses,” she says, reaching up to point at her own face with one, long-nailed finger. I notice as she tilts her face more toward the light that she’s wearing a pair of thin-framed spectacles with big, green lenses. Reaching up my own hand, I find that I’m wearing them, too. Only mine are big and bulky, and when I run my fingers along the edges of the bands on either side, I find that the entire contraption is quite literally locked onto my face. My fingernails trace a keyhole on the back of my head, and my stomach turns over with nausea. When I attempt to push the glasses from my face, pain strikes through me like a hot iron. “Don’t bother,” the girl continues, lounging back on the bed and throwing herself into shadow again. “They’re all locked on, for Dorothy so ordered it when the city was first built, and I”—the woman lifts up a chain that’s dangling around her neck, pulling it out from inside the bodice of her gown—”have the only key that will unlock them.”
“You’re not Dorothy?” I ask, my voice still a shadow of a whisper. But I keep it strong and steady, and I’m goddamn proud of that. Stryker is dead. The thought hits me hard, but I swallow past the lump in my throat. I don’t have time to mourn an acquaintance I barely knew, not when Taavi is missing, when I’m trapped in a strange room with an even stranger woman, when Aunt Em is missing somewhere in this craziness they call the land of Oz.
The woman laughs, and the sound is pleasant enough, but I don’t trust her for shit.
“I’m Dorothy’s guardian.”
“You attacked Taavi.” It’s not a question. This woman, she’s the little black dog from the woods. How she managed to find us, I’ll probably never know. I exhale sharply, forcing back tears. Luckily for me, I’m good at that, keeping the tears in check. “Is he dead?”
“Dead?” the woman asks, tilting her head at me, very much like a dog. “You truly are an awful wizard.” She points down at the floor near the bed, and I scramble out of the blankets, only to come to a grinding halt when pain tears through my leg. Looking down, I see that my thigh’s been bandaged, but it still hurts like a bitch.
I move a bit more carefully, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, only to find Taavi sleeping peacefully on the green rug—as a German shepherd, that is.
“Taavi?” I ask, unsure if I should be putting weight on my leg. When he doesn’t stir, I grit my teeth and try again, more forcefully this time. “Toto,” I snap, and those prick ears of his swivel in my direction.
Lazily, the dog lifts his head and yawns before standing up and stretching the way he used to do every morning when my dad would call him out of the living room for his walk.
“Toto?” the girl asks, looking aghast as she puts a hand to her chest, right over that gold skeleton key of hers. “You call your guardian slave?” I ignore her as I pat the bed, and Taavi jumps up to join me, curling up near the pillows and panting heavily.
“Are you okay?” I lean forward and he licks my face happily, like he didn’t just shift into a giant faerie dog and tussle with the bitch sitting at the end of my bed. “Dude, you’re freaking me out. Do your shifting thing for me.”
“I’m afraid Taavi won’t be able to utilize his abilities for the time being,” the girl says, sliding off the end of the bed. Her green hair is in pigtails and when she smiles, her teeth are green, too.
Must be these awful fucking glasses.
I bare my own teeth.
The expression only makes the girl laugh.
“You may call me Tuala,” she says, tilting her head to one side and smiling at me. “Make yourself perfectly at home, and if you wish for anything, ring the bell. Dorothy will send for you tomorrow morning.”
“What have you done to Taavi?” I demand, forcing myself to stand up, even though the wound on my thigh throbs in prote
st. My hands are curled into fists by my sides, but that crackling energy I’ve been feeling in my fingertips over the past few days is gone.
I feel oddly powerless, almost naked, without it.
“Until we can be assured that the two of you will act with civility in the Emerald Court, we’ve had to take some precautions. Surely you can understand our need for caution?”
“What have you done with Stryker’s body?” I ask, feeling my body quiver with barely suppressed rage. As nice as this room is, as friendly as this girl—Twah-luh—seems to be, I will never forget that sight of Stryker’s head exploding into red mist.
“Stryker, the Vain and Arrogant?” she queries innocently, her dress made up of emerald green stripes and paler green stripes that I imagine would be white without the strange glasses locked onto my head. “You need not concern yourself with him. Rest well, and tomorrow you will be given the honor of meeting with Dorothy, the Small and Meek, herself. It is an honor given to few wizards.”
Tuala heads for the double doors at the far end of the room. There’s a wild, angry part of me that wants to pick up the green vase with the green flowers from my bedside table and smash her over the head with it. But at least the logical bit of my brain chimes in to remind me that this girl can turn into a giant dog with fangs as long as my fingers.
Instead, I wait for her to leave the room before I turn to Taavi. He sits patiently on the bed, black triangular ears perked up on the top of his head. His pink tongue lolls as he watches me expectantly, awaiting command.
“You might not be able to shift, but can you at least answer a question of mine? Like say, if I asked you to bark three times to let me know you understand me, could you do that?” Taavi sits up, like he can sense that I’m asking something, but doesn’t know how to respond.
I grit my teeth, but I don’t know enough about this world to puzzle my way through this. Maybe, if I’d spent more time in the last few days taking everything seriously instead of blaming it all on a coma, I’d be a bit more up to speed.
My heart begins to race, and I feel beads of sweat pooling on my lower back. I’m still not over the shock I felt when that plant bit me, when I bled, when it hurt.
Glancing down at my arm, I see that the wounds are gone, healed over without a trace. Frowning, I reach down and hike up the emerald green satin nightgown that I’ve been dressed in, noticing as I do that I’m still wearing the silver shoes.
Underneath the gown, there are green (probably white without the glasses) bandages on my thigh, covering up the bullet wound. Slowly, carefully, I peel them off and gape at what’s left of the injury. There’s a shallow pool of red with some shiny pink scar tissue around the edges, but nothing more. It looks like a scraped knee after a mild fall off a bike.
Glancing around the room, I spot a mirror on the wall and hobble over to it. When I look over my shoulder at the exit wound on the back of my thigh, I see that it’s in similar shape.
“How long have I been asleep?” I whisper, voice quivering as I look back up at Taavi, also dressed in a pair of those ridiculous glasses. It’s odd, to see a dog in spectacles. My faithful German shepherd yawns, turns around twice, and curls into a ball, but he never stops watching me.
Clearly, he’s not all there. He looks even less coherent than he did back home, when all I ever considered him to be was a normal dog.
“You’re supposed to be my guardian,” I snap, tearing the rest of the bandages from my leg and throwing them on one of the plush rugs that line the floor. Running my fingers through my hair, I look around the room, taking in the large four-poster bed with the green silk sheets, green bedspread, and matching curtains. There’s even a tiny fountain in the center of the room, shooting a spray of green perfume into the air that falls back into a beautifully carved green marble basin.
Beautiful green flowers stand in the windows, and there’s a shelf with a row of little green books. In the wardrobe, there are dozens of green dresses, made of silk and satin and velvet; disturbingly, all of them seem to be made in my size.
It’s hard to tell what color everything might actually be. Even looking down at my own hands, I see that my skin is tinged with green. Reaching up, I run my fingers along the band that holds the glasses in place, teasing the keyhole with my finger.
“How the fuck am I supposed to play a game when I don’t know any of the rules?” I ask Taavi. He just keeps panting happily as he watches me try the double doors—locked, of course—the windows, a single door in the corner that leads to a luxurious bathroom.
I’m surprised to find that when I turn the tap, there’s running water. There’s even a toilet that flushes. I’d sort of been under the impression that this place was like, medieval or something. Every fantasy novel I’ve ever read, it’s the fucking middle ages, I swear to god.
But not Oz.
Not a land whose name I share.
From the moment I arrived here, I’ve had Taavi by my side, watching my back, guiding my hand. Panic surges through me, but I tamp it down. Panic never helped anybody. Instead, I try to imagine what my older brother, Norman, might do. He was a Dungeons & Dragons obsessed nerd—but in a good way. His imagination always intimidated me; it was limitless.
“What would Norm do?” I murmur aloud, walking around the room, fingers dancing over the surfaces of dressers, the green-marble top of a vanity, the carved designs on the front of the wardrobe. There’s a lion, a scarecrow, and a man with a tin can for a head.
Appropriate motifs, I guess.
I pause near the perfume-fountain, the sickly-sweet smell of it making my head spin. On impulse, I reach out and try to push it over, but it doesn’t move. It’s very clearly bolted to the floor.
Hmm.
“If my wounds are healed, then I’ve been asleep for a while, haven’t I?” I ask Taavi, glancing back to see that he’s finally laid his head down and fallen into a sleep of his own. Thanks for all the fucking help, buddy, I think with a long sigh.
There’s a knock at the double doors, but before I can call out to the person on the other side, both of them open and a green-skinned girl with pixie wings moves into the room, her diaphanous skirts wafting around her slim legs.
She sets a tray of food on a table near the door, bows to me, and retreats. If I thought to charge her or overpower her, the idea is chased away by the guard standing just outside the door, dressed head-to-toe in shiny green armor—a guard with green butterfly wings on her back.
The serving girl retreats, and I'm left to stand there with my stomach rumbling, a tray of green cheeses, meats, crackers, and jams in front of me.
“Fuck.” I run my palms over my hair again to smooth it back, fingers bumping the cool metal of the glasses. I can't for the life of me puzzle out why I'm wearing them, what purpose they might serve. How could I? I don't know shit about this world or anything in it.
Turning back to look at Taavi, I find him only slightly more interested in the situation now that food's involved. Fantastic. My only real ally, the only family I have left in the world ... and he's got the mind of a dog.
At least I know I still don't have to question his loyalty.
“Do you think this is poisoned?” I ask, pointing at the tray and knowing full-well that I'm only talking to myself. “Because in any of Norman's D&D campaigns, it would've been. In any of the books he read. The video games he played.”
But then I figure, if these people wanted me dead, they've had plenty of opportunities.
The image of Stryker's head exploding fills my mind's eye against my own will, and I shiver.
“Well, it was pleasant while it lasted. Farewell, Oz, the Great—”
Bile comes up in my mouth. You'd think I'd be used to death, considering my entire family drowned in an ice-cold lake during a family vacation. At some point, when Taavi was propelling me to the surface, when he was letting me cling to him like a life raft, my brothers and sisters, my parents and grandparents … they were all dying around me.
I grab the tray of food and head back to the bed with it, pretending like my hands aren't shaking as I slather a cracker with jam and shove it in my mouth.
If it is poison, then fine. I don't care. Let it take me.
But that's just a lie I'm telling to make myself feel better. If I didn't care about dying, I wouldn't be shaking so hard, I wouldn't be eating this food and trying to figure out how to wake Taavi up from whatever spell or curse or enchantment he might be under.
My family died, but Taavi saved me.
The question now is … why?
And what the hell does Dorothy, the Small and Meek, want with me?
The next morning, after breakfast, the green maiden comes to fetch me, begging my permission to dress me in one of the prettiest gowns, made of green brocaded satin.
“I can dress myself, thank you,” I say, crossing my arms under my breasts as I study the glasses locked onto the girl's petite face. Even Dorothy's guardian, Tuala, was wearing them. “Can't you come back in twenty minutes or so?”
I'm not happy. Sometime last night, after Taavi and I finished off the tray of food, I fell asleep. I didn't mean to, but I was beyond exhausted, with the same sort of heavy melancholy that I haven't felt since the accident. It was the green serving girl who woke me up, placing a tray of fresh fruit, boiled eggs, and pastries at the foot of the bed.
As soon as she'd left, I scrambled out from under the covers and over to one of the windows flanking my bed. Last night, it'd been too dark to see anything, but today …
Even with eyes protected by green spectacles, I was dazzled by the brilliance of the city. The streets were lined with beautiful houses, all built of green marble and studded everywhere with sparkling emeralds. The streets were paved with the same marble, and where the blocks were joined together, there were rows of stones, set closely, and glittering in the brightness of the sun. The windowpanes were of green glass; even the sky above the city had a green tint, and the rays of the sun were also green.
Very Bad Wizards Page 11
