Skunk Man Swamp

by P. D. Workman

Reg shook her head. But his question gave her pause. Why hadn’t Damon shown her a picture of the wizard? She understood that he wasn’t part of the Wilson family and did not have any of Wilson’s personal possessions for Reg to focus on, but why didn’t he have a picture? There should have been posters and social media posts all over the place with his picture on them.

  “Even if I knew his name,” Tybalt said slowly, “I don’t remember everyone I meet. I do tours with multiple people almost every day. Sometimes, several different tours. That’s a lot of people to remember. When did he go missing?”

  “I don’t know. Uh… not long, I don’t think. There’s a reward…”

  His eyes glittered. Did goblins care about money? He must have some reason to do tours. If his lair were any indication, he didn’t have a lot of expenses. He lived like an animal; what did he need money for?

  “That is why you and the witches are looking for him,” Tybalt said. “You want to build your hoard.”

  Reg shrugged.

  “Would you recognize this Jeffrey Wilson if you saw him?”

  She wasn’t about to tell him that the only thing she’d seen of the missing wizard was a brief vision. “Yeah… I think I would recognize him.”

  He stared down at her for a few minutes, considering. Then he reached down and pulled her up, off of the bed, depositing her on her feet. Reg’s stomach tied in a knot. What was he thinking? What did he want from her?

  He marched her into a dark passage that branched off from the cave she had been kept in. Reg resisted, her body reacting automatically to being taken into such a dark, close place, where she couldn’t see very far ahead of her and didn’t know what she was going to find. But Tybalt was strong. He didn’t care that she resisted; he just hauled her along, like an adult might pull on the arm of a two-year-old who had been naughty. With her ankles bound, she could only take shortened, shuffling steps, and he dragged her most of the way.

  He led her to another room. No door on this one either. It was as dark and dank as a tomb. Tybalt let go of Reg and strode into the room. He lit a match that flared and lit up his face in gruesome grimaces until he applied it to the wick of a lantern. The lamp glowed and lit the room.

  Reg wondered if she should have run while his attention was on the lamp. But how could she, when she was still tired up? She looked down at the bonds on her wrists. Not metal shackles or plastic zip ties, just ropes. She should be able to do something about ropes.

  Tybalt raised the lantern and moved it toward the wall to Reg’s left. There were rows of shelves, floor to ceiling. At first, she couldn’t see what was on the shelves. Jars of preserves or pale gray pottery?

  But then the light got close enough and Reg’s eyes focused on row upon row of grinning skulls. She reared back, an exclamation escaping her mouth.

  “Well,” Tybalt asked, an answering grin of his own. “Do you recognize him?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Reg choked and coughed, overwhelmed. She backed out of the doorway of the cave as quickly as she could with her bound feet. Tybalt was making that horrible wet laughing noise again.

  “They are my friends,” he said. “Don’t you like my friends?”

  How many of the people who had disappeared in the Everglades had disappeared into Tybalt’s lair? Reg’s whole body was shaking as she struggled to get away from him. She had to find a way to escape and get away from him. She wasn’t going to stay and entertain him, wondering just how long she could last before he tired of the game and decided to kill her. Did he eat his victims? She assumed by his stench that he must. The smell of rotting flesh that imbued his pores… She should have known it when they were in the boat. She should have known what that smell meant, but she had doubted herself. She had thought that Corvin and Damon must know better than she did. They were older, more experienced about the creatures that inhabited the world that she was still finding out about. They must have known the habits of goblins and how to recognize them. Corvin especially. He said he had known goblins before? Was Tybalt a different breed? Or only part goblin? How had he been fooled?

  “There is no need to be afraid, Reg Rawlins.” Tybalt advanced toward her. Slowly, stalking her. The veneer of civility had fallen away, even though his voice was still polite and cultured. She was no longer fooled into thinking that he was something other than gobelin.

  Evil spirit.

  He had told her himself and she had thought it was just the prejudice of humans, believing that anyone different was evil. That everything society judged as ugly must also be bad.

  Reg’s heart pounded hard and fast. Not just in fear, but in anger. He had stolen her. He had come into her campsite, stalked her, and taken her away. She hoped that Corvin and Damon were still alive and unharmed, but she didn’t have any confidence that they were.

  Did she really think that Tybalt had told her the truth about anything?

  “There is no point in trying to get away from me,” he pointed out in a rough voice that was probably intended to sound soothing but which grated on her nerves like fingernails on a blackboard.

  He took another step toward her. Reg tried to keep the distance between them, hobbling to escape. The stupid ropes. If she could at least be free of her bonds, she’d have half a chance. Trying to run away from him when she couldn’t take a step of more than two inches at a time was futile.

  She directed her anger toward the rope binding her feet together. She burned it with her mind, tightly focused on getting it off. In seconds, a flame sliced the cord into pieces and she stepped out of them. She looked down at her hands, forming a fire between them. She made it grow, feeding it with her anger.

  “A nice party trick,” Tybalt said, recalling their earlier conversation.

  “No,” Reg said. “I am a firecaster.”

  He looked uneasy. “You said you had no magic.”

  “Did you tell me the truth about everything?”

  “I told you no lies.”

  She let the fire play between her hands, let it nip at the ropes around her wrists until they too fell away.

  “No!” Tybalt growled, lunging toward her to keep her from escaping.

  A fireball burst from Reg’s hands, flying away from her like a cannon and hitting Tybalt square in the chest. He fell backward into his mausoleum.

  Reg turned and ran, going back the way they had come, back to the half-room where she had been held.

  She decided she hated the Everglades. It was dark and spooky and slimy. Everything was green and dripping. The trees themselves seemed to be melting, forming weird shapes that threatened to cage her.

  She pushed through the grasping branches, leaving Tybalt’s lair behind her. She looked around, trying to get some sense of direction. There was nothing but water before her, and she didn’t know how deep it was and whether it was infested by crocodiles or alligators or some other kind of monster. Corvin had said that there were sharks, snakes, and who knew what else? Everything in the Everglades seemed to be a predator.

  She skirted the shore, trying to stay on dry ground. Or at least, ground that wasn’t so wet that she sank past her ankles with every step. The thick mud stank and the long grasses cut into her legs like needles despite the fact she was wearing long pants. She would be leaving a nice wide blood trail behind her for Tybalt to follow.

  She continued to circle Tybalt’s lair, looking for a way to escape to civilization and dryer ground. But there didn’t seem to be anywhere to go. She was out of breath, moving as quickly as she could, knowing that he must be right behind her.

  If her fireball hadn’t killed him, he would find a way to follow her.

  Reg looked around her frantically, gasping for breath and stumbling into every puddle and depression in the ground. She was sure she was right back where she had started. Were they on an island? Maybe that was why Tybalt hadn’t seen the need to lock her up, feeling perfectly comfortable with leaving her in the half-cave. As long as she was bound, she couldn’t get away, and even now tha
t she wasn’t, she didn’t know how to escape him.

  There was only one way, and that was to venture out into the water. It was her only option. And in her circuit of the small island, she hadn’t seen any sign of his boat.

  It wasn’t that Reg couldn’t swim. She just didn’t like the look of the dark, murky water. There was no way to know what lurked beneath the surface and how big it might be. Reg didn’t know where she was and had no idea which way to strike out in order to find her party or civilization again.

  But there was nothing else to do. She struck out, keeping Tybalt’s shelter behind her and walking straight into the water. Corvin had said that the water was only a few feet deep in most areas, which meant she didn’t need to worry about drowning.

  There was an angry growl behind her and running footsteps. Reg moved more quickly. Tybalt wasn’t disabled. He had just been hanging back, waiting for his prey to wear herself out or give up on being able to escape her confinement.

  She used her arms to pull herself forward through the water. Her feet kept getting stuck in the thick mud under the river, and despite its shallowness, Reg flopped over on her belly to try to crawl through the water. With her body at the surface instead of trying to wade through mud, she was able to move more quickly.

  The grass was cutting her even more with her face so close to the surface. Death by a thousand cuts.

  Come on. Get moving. She knew she could move faster than he could. She could still escape.

  But he seemed to be gaining on her. She didn’t know how he could be making such good time through the swampy waters. He was a goblin. They probably had webbed feet and skin as thick as armor to protect against the grass.

  She felt a hand close around her ankle.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Reg gave a shout of surprise and anger and kicked, trying to escape his grasp. Tybalt responded by lifting her foot up. Gravity compensated by dumping Reg’s face and head under the surface of the water. Reg struggled and arched to get her face back out of the water. Now she was really angry.

  Really, really angry. She thrashed to escape him, then curled her body around to bring her head and hands closer to Tybalt. He hadn’t been expecting that and wasn’t quick enough to escape. Reg grabbed him on both sides of the head, hands clapped over his big, pointed ears, and she squeezed like a vise, not letting go.

  Tybalt shouted and released her leg, reaching instead for Reg’s hands on his face and trying to peel them off. Reg drew herself even closer to him. His smell was so foul she could hardly bear it. He didn’t smell good, like Damon or Corvin. Getting them into the water would feel completely different. She closed her eyes for just a moment, visualizing it, thinking of how comfortable and complete she would feel if it were one of them that she had in the water.

  But she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted by pleasant visions. She had a terrible creature to take care of, and he was strong and an accomplished predator. Just look at the number of lives he had taken in the swamp. All of those grinning skulls. How could anyone ever discover where they had all come from?

  Reg had no intention of being caught like they had been. She was going to be the top dog in this fight.

  She readjusted her grip on Tybalt, moving her hands down from his ears toward his throat. She had no desire to hold him close to her body as she had with Corvin. With her siren senses triggered, he was so foul she could hardly bear to touch him. She twisted, trying to push him under the water. He struggled. He was very strong. He had killed many other creatures, pushing them under the water and holding them there until their struggles ceased. But he had never before wrestled with a siren.

  The water was not as salty as the ocean, but it was enough to bolster her strength. She longed for the ocean. There, she could just drag him under the water and dive to the bottom, where she would keep him until all of his struggles had ceased. He would become one with the ocean, and it would take away his foul stench and his years of killing. In the swamp, he could get his feet under him and use them as leverage to push back against her and to keep his head above the water.

  Reg squeezed more tightly and again tried to twist him to get him under the water.

  Was it even possible to drown a goblin? Or did they have gills like a fish or breathe through their skin like some amphibious creature? If she couldn’t drown him, then she would have to use another method. She explored his neck with her fingers, looking for the warm pulse point where she knew it was in a human. But despite his similarity in appearance, Tybalt’s circulatory system didn’t seem to be designed the same way. She could not find the warm, throbbing artery she was looking for.

  She dragged him along with her, farther away from the shore of his island, even though the water didn’t seem to be getting any deeper.

  Reg heard something in the tree above her.

  She froze. What was it? She turned her head and tried to see what was up there, but there were a lot of shadows cast by the thick canopy and she couldn’t see well enough to make out what it was. Another goblin? Corvin had said that there were swamp goblins, not just one goblin terrorizing the swamp like a troll under a bridge. Tybalt might have a mate in the tree above her. Or a child or pack brother. Did goblins live in packs? She had no idea. She had always supposed that they were solitary creatures, but she had made a lot of wrong assumptions about other magical species. She couldn’t trust modern fairy tales for the straight goods.

  Tybalt struggled. She pressed him again, trying to get him under the water.

  The noise in the tree changed from something making its way through the branches to a low, sustained growl.

  Reg would have sworn aloud, but was too afraid that it would draw the animal’s attention if it weren’t already hunting her. So she kept it in her head and probed Tybalt’s consciousness, trying to learn what he knew about the swamp and its dangers. What was in the tree, and just how much of a threat was it to her?

  A snarl made Reg jump and look up, and loosened her hands just enough that Tybalt was able to wrench free from her grip. She looked at her hands in shock. How had he gotten away? Shouldn’t she have suckers or microvilli on her hands to be able to keep a better grip on a slippery prey? Something that had been lost by too many matings with humans, she supposed.

  Tybalt splashed back toward his cave, frantic. He was quick and, even with her siren powers, Reg found it difficult to keep up with him. If she were out in the open ocean, she would have been his match and more. But in the swamp, she was out of her element and he was in his.

  She watched him stagger up onto the shore out of the water. She didn’t want him out of the water. She didn’t want to have to track him or overcome him on the land. It would be much more difficult that way.

  Reg saw a shape separate itself from the tree above her and fly through the air toward the goblin. She caught her breath, eyes wide, as it resolved itself into the shape of a cat. For a moment, she thought illogically of Starlight, about how more than once he had taken it upon himself to attack a being that he felt threatened her, even before she knew there was a threat. This time she was aware there was a threat, but she had no idea where the cat had come from.

  She watched, silent, as the cat shape and the goblin shape wrestled and warred, tumbling over the marshy ground until the goblin shape was still.

  The cat shape sat up and began to groom. Reg moved slowly back toward the island for a better look. She stayed in the water where she felt safe, but she wanted to see and thank this new being who had come out of nowhere to help her.

  She watched from the water as the big, beautiful panther groomed itself like a house cat. It took her breath away.

  After a few minutes of seeing to his face, teeth, and claws, the cat turned his attention back toward her, as curious as she was at this new creature inhabiting his swamp.

  Reg tried to push her feelings of gratitude toward him. He wouldn’t understand the words, but, hopefully, he would understand the emotion. And hopefully, he had no interest in at
tacking her. She was in his territory. He didn’t appear to have killed the goblin out of hunger. He sat away from the body and showed no interest in partaking of the stinking goblin flesh.

  Reg splashed water on her face and rubbed her hands together, trying to get Tybalt’s smell off of her. She didn’t want to carry it around the rest of the day. The cat watched her.

  After a few minutes, he started to prowl around. Reg worried that he wouldn’t be able to get off of the island. He had jumped down from the canopy, but he wouldn’t be able to jump up that high, would he?

  In answer, he ran up the trunk of a nearby tree, easily scaling it until he sat in a branch that was far overhead. Reg closed her eyes and thought a message. She wasn’t sure he would be able to help her. Even to understand her. She needed to know how to get out of there. How to get somewhere she would be safe. Back to civilization. She knew there were many other dangers in the swamp, and she didn’t want to escape one to be eaten by another.

  The cat stood stretched out long on the branch, looking down at her and blinking sleepily. Eventually, he started to move again. Reg tried to follow in the water below. He was much swifter than she was, being hampered by the mud and the grass and other thick vegetation. But he kept an eye on her and slowed and waited when she became entangled or had to take a rest.

  Night began to fall, and it was getting darker and more challenging to see him up above. She lost sight of him and reached out again with her mind and senses, trying to locate him and impart to him the message that she could not see in the dark. She heard again Ruan’s sarcastic “oh, blind one.”

  She could hear and sense the panther moving out of the tree to the land. He mewed softly several times. Reg moved toward him, dragging herself up onto the land and feeling like she suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. It was so much more effort to move on the land. Something touched her hand and, at first, Reg made a noise and jerked away, startled. Then she realized it was the cat, trying to guide her in the darkness, and she rested her hand on the top of his head and trusted him to lead her into the night to somewhere safe.