Love Croakies

by Sam Cheever

  Sadie warbled again, her eyes glowing with pretty aqua light. Multi-hued illumination sifted along her body, fading to white as it slid off the tip of her tail.

  I gave her a smile. “Hobs, Wicked, and Slimy are in the library stalking dust bunnies. You should go surprise them.”

  Sadie took off toward the door with a cheerful little trill. I sent a ribbon of Keeper magic to open it long enough for her to fly through.

  A cleared throat behind me made me jump, my eyes going wide. Bat boogers! I’d forgotten about my visitor. I spun around, praying the tall man with the mean eyes was magical. If not, he’d just gotten an eyeful of stuff he wouldn’t understand and shouldn’t have witnessed.

  “Can I help you?” I asked again.

  I sent out a wave of keeper energy, looking for a magical signature. The magic flared into the space between us and condensed again, forming a wavy gray ribbon that circled his feet and wound its way up his legs to his torso. He had a faint magical aura that was unfocused but didn’t seem overtly hostile.

  The man’s shoulders came off straight for just a beat, rounding slightly. “Yes. Do you by any chance have tea?”

  “She does,” Rustin said, grinning wickedly. “But trust me when I tell you that you don’t want her to make it.”

  I bit down on my tongue to keep from sticking it out at him.

  “I’ll go fetch Sebille,” Rustin said, sauntering toward the door through which his little dragon had disappeared.

  I moved books off the small table at the front of the store and motioned toward it. “Please, sit. I think I have some…” I lowered my voice. “…brownies.”

  He frowned. “Why did you whisper?”

  “Hobgoblin,” I told him by way of explanation. If the man knew hobgoblins, he’d know that nothing made of chocolate or sugar was safe. The only way anybody else ever got a sweet treat in Croakies was to hide and sneak.

  I picked up the empty cookie plate from that morning and took it along with me into the kitchen. It had still been full when Sebille and I had left to go see the ogres. Clearly, Hobs had been hungry.

  “I didn’t catch your name,” I said as I moved some glasses in the cupboard and opened the hidden compartment in the back, expecting it to stick as it always did. But it opened smoothly, surprising a smile out of me. Sebille must have finally fixed it. We’d argued for two days over who should do the repair. She’d begrudgingly given in when I reminded her that I almost always mutilated some part of my body when I tried to work with tools.

  Not that she’d jumped right on the repair. It had been a week since we’d had the argument.

  I felt around until my fingers found the fat bundle I’d hidden there earlier, pulling it out. The sweet scent of chocolate assailed my nostrils and my mouth watered.

  “Lovelace,” the man said from just behind me.

  I jumped at the sound of his voice so close. Spinning on my heel, I nearly dropped the package of brownies.

  “Lovelace Cupid,” the man said.

  My eyes went wide. “Cupid?”

  And then he shot me with a tiny bow, sending a teeny arrow into my throat before I could even think about moving.

  And the world went black around me.

  5

  Heartily Sick of Pink

  I woke up in my worst nightmare.

  No, not the Jurassic era again. This was arguably worse. I was also not surrounded by monsters or stuck inside a really bad black and white TV show. But it was even worse than those situations had been.

  “Ugh!” I groaned, feeling the ground around me and shoving myself upright. The residual magic from the tiny arrow caused my head to pound and my stomach to roil. Or it could have been pink overload.

  The entire room was pink, occasionally spotted with white hearts.

  Pink shag carpet, pink walls, pink draperies, pink chairs, and a pink table. The only thing breaking up all the pink was the occasional slash of white lace and white hearts of every size. There was even a pink comforter on the pink postered bed.

  “Triple ugh!” I groaned again, shoving to my feet. I grabbed a slim pink post on the bed to steady myself when the pink world went wonky around me.

  When the dizziness passed, I looked for a door or a window or anything I could use to get out of there before angry Cupid returned.

  There wasn’t so much as a portal or a trap door.

  “You can’t leave,” a disembodied voice said with a tinge of smugness. “Not without my help.”

  I jerked my gaze in the direction of the voice and found crabby Cupid draped over the pink heart-splashed bedspread. I narrowed my gaze on him. Had he been there before?

  I didn’t think so.

  To my chagrin, he’d exchanged his nice suit for an ugly pink cardigan, matching pink slacks, and a pink bowtie with white hearts dotting its ugliness.

  Goddess in a girly phase!

  “You really should consider adding a few more colors to your pallet,” I told him. “This ‘all pink all the time’ thing you’ve got going on is hysteria-inducing.”

  He glanced around in surprise, his eyebrows lifted into his hairline. “I couldn’t. This is my family’s signature.”

  If that was true, he had a strong argument for divorcing his family.

  “I’d have thought red would be your color,” I said. “I mean, actual hearts are red, not pink.”

  “Do you know that to be a fact?” His tone was smug as if he knew something I didn’t.

  Had somebody changed the color of real hearts without telling me? Was pink the new red in the organ world? I shrugged. It wasn’t important. What was important was that I was stuck in heart-Hades with crotchety Cupid.

  I’d prefer to deal with happy Cupid. The one wearing a diaper and sporting rosy, cherubic cheeks.

  “What’s going on? Why’d you kidnap me?” I demanded.

  “Kidnap you? Don’t be absurd.”

  “Absurd? Me? Don’t be obtuse.” I barely resisted putting my thumbs under my armpits in oversized pride. Yes, I do get a daily Word of the Day email, and I’m not afraid to use it. Color me smug.

  Crusty Cupid blinked. “I simply wanted to discuss an important matter with you.”

  “We could have discussed it at Croakies with a lot less drama, headache, and pink.” I grimaced.

  “But then I couldn’t have shown you this…” He performed a dramatic sweep of an arm. In the space of a single blink, we were outside the horrible room.

  Standing in a wasteland of grayness and rot.

  The air was moist and cold and I suddenly wished I had on more clothes. Squinting against the wind, I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to figure out where he’d taken me.

  I was pretty sure I’d never seen the place before. I’d have remembered it.

  We were standing in some kind of courtyard. At least that’s what I assumed it had been. Once upon a time. The concrete fountain in the center was cracked and slimy with dead vegetation. The cupid in its center was missing large chunks from its cutesy form.

  The bricks beneath my feet had crumbled into tiny pieces, red dust puffing up with every step. The trees that had probably once provided shade for the area were blackened, dead husks, their branches reaching to a steel-gray sky like bony limbs with clawed, gray fingers.

  Small stuccoed homes surrounded the fountain square, their lines and coloration offering vague shadows of what had probably once been cute and cozy little cottages in pretty pastels. They’d sunk into broken and cracked corpses of homes, with roofs that had collapsed and windows without glass that resembled vacant, hopeless eyes staring back at me through the gloom.

  “You see what we’ve become?”

  I jerked at the sound of his voice. The place held such a note of sadness and loss, it had grabbed onto my full consciousness for a beat and I’d forgotten there was a world beyond what I was seeing. “What happened here?”

  He sighed. “My brother happened.”

  I frowned. “Your brother?”

&
nbsp; He nodded, motioning me toward a castle at the end of the broken brick avenue. “There were the three of us. We were all that was left to keep the family legacy alive. But he left. And now there’s this.”

  I eyed the castle. The structure had once been white, its walls no doubt stunning under a bright sun and blue sky. But it had suffered whatever malady had taken over the rest of the little town. Though I could see that some effort had been made to keep it from falling into complete disrepair. It was likely Surly Cupid’s home.

  Small figures moved around and atop the huge building. I thought they might be people, but they were too far away to know for sure.

  “What exactly is the family business?” I asked.

  He looked astounded. “Why, love of course. We fan the flames of love in the human heart.” He said it as if he was repeating something he’d once read in the company manual. Not like he even knew what it meant.

  As if seeing the doubt in my eyes, he shrugged. “My sister mostly takes care of the business end of things. I take care of all of this.” He waved his arms around the rotting town. I winced. If it was me, I’d never admit that any of what I was looking at was my handiwork.

  He sighed. “I’m not very good at managing things. My brother used to keep the town and townspeople happy and healthy. But after he left, all the people left too. And the town fell to disrepair.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe the earthly dimension.” He shrugged again. “I think he got married.”

  I had so many questions I didn’t know where to begin, so, I asked the most obvious question. “What do you want from me?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “I want you to get that serum back. He’ll kill everyone with it.”

  I blinked at Lovelace Cupid, my thoughts a tangled mass of confusion anchored only by more questions. Serum? Kill? He?

  And then it hit me.

  The toxic magic vault! I hadn’t had a chance to inventory the damages and figure out what was lost. But Peevish Cupid’s words suddenly made sense. And I knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “No…” I breathed.

  “I’m afraid so,” Cupid said. “He’s gotten hold of the love serum. And he’s not afraid to use it.”

  “But why?” I asked, horrified.

  “He’s bitter about the family and wants to ruin us.” Lovelace’s homely face turned sad. “As you can see, he’s doing a good job of it.”

  His manner bothered me. He didn’t really seem to believe what he was telling me. It was as if he were just repeating something someone else had told him. “That serum had already been misused,” I said. “A previous Keeper had it locked in my vault for a reason. Even if I find your brother, you won’t get the serum back.”

  “I am well aware. But he’s using the serum to create hate and death. There will be no love left in the world when he gets done with it. That is a situation our family and this town cannot abide. We are already dying because there’s not enough love in the world. The rot you see here will continue to spread until it consumes all of our world as well as all of yours. You must stop him. You must get the serum back and lock it safely away.”

  “I need to go home. You have to take me back!” I said, my heart racing and my mind spinning with concern over what kind of damage could be done with even a single drop of that serum in the wrong hands. I mentally berated myself. I should have been more careful. I should have known there would be magic ward-cutting tools. I should have…

  “It’s too late, I’m afraid.”

  His words ripped me from my thoughts. My gaze jerked up to his and then toward the sky, where a veritable army of little cherubs winged their way toward us, bows cocked and a nasty gleam in their eyes.

  Chubby cherub cheeks! “What are those?”

  Lovelace sighed. “Those are the beginning of the end.” He reached for my hand and grasped it before I could pull away. “The whole world is counting on you, Naida keeper.” Lovelace tugged something from behind his left ear. “You have to find that serum and stop him.”

  Then he stabbed me in the palm with a tiny arrow.

  And the world went black. Again.

  I opened my eyes to chaos.

  “Watch out!” Sebille screamed just before a sizzling stream of sprite magic seared the air, mere inches from my nose.

  “Hey!” I yelled, but nobody was paying any attention.

  Something shot past me on the heels of that energy jolt, and the sour scent of rot, not unlike what I’d just experienced in Loveland, filled my nostrils.

  I was sprawled across the rug where I’d been standing when Lovelace Cupid took me. Shoving hair out of my face, I gave a quick look around to make sure I was back in Croakies and it wasn’t a dream. It was all the same, except for the battle going on right in front of my nose.

  The small round table where we ate and did the books was toppled, a form crumpled over its broken bones. Was that Grym?

  “Miss!”

  My gaze shot to the top of the front shelves, where Hobs and his two companions huddled behind an oversized book of spells. The hobgoblin’s eyes were wide and his skin was bleached from fear. Before I could move, an acidic stream of a blood-red substance hit the front of the book and sizzled, burning through the hard cover.

  With a squeal, Hobs dropped the book.

  “Take Slimy and Wicked out of here!” I yelled at the hobgoblin. Hobs grabbed the frog and reached for Wicked, but my obstinate feline leaped away from his reach, sailing off the fifteen-foot high shelves.

  “No!” I screamed, shoving to my feet as pictures of him broken and dying on the unforgiving carpet filled my head.

  Wicked landed so softly he seemed to float the last couple of inches to the ground. Of course he did. And he ran through the melee to fling himself into my arms.

  Another blast of acidic goo slashed in our direction. I jumped away from it and dove behind the sales counter.

  Sebille buzzed over in her sprite form.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as a roar filled the air. One end of the store was shrouded in yellow fog. The roar had come from there. “What’s happening?” I repeated when Sebille didn’t answer.

  She shot skyward and sent a jolt of energy into the tin ceiling, leaving a large char mark along the once pristine tiles. For just a beat, her energy bolt burned away the yellow fog clinging there, and a cherubic face peered down. Then two tiny fists emerged, a small bow clutched in fat little fingers, and an arrow burst out of the acidic goo, slashing toward us.

  Sebille threw up her hands, and a wall of sprite energy took the hit. “That baby thing with the scary teeth is trying to kill us. I have no idea why.”

  A snarky thought shot into my brain before I could stop it. Of course, it fell right out of my brain and onto my tongue. “Maybe it saw what you did to Hobs and Slimy and has a burning desire to avenge them.”

  “Har!” Sebille said, then shot skyward and filled the air with several bursts of energy. The fog dissipated under the assault and the cherub slammed backward, hitting the wall just beneath the ceiling and sliding bonelessly to the floor.

  Another roar filled the air.

  “What in the name of the goddess’s favorite sushi restaurant is roaring?”

  Sebille popped into full size and hurried over to the downed cherub. She tugged the bow away and flipped it over, encircling its pudgy wrists with her fingers and leaving behind a set of magical cuffs. “It’s Rustin.” She straightened, arching a single red brow at me. “He’s…” she shook her head, seemingly without words to describe what the ghost witch was.

  “He’s what?”

  Another roar shook the glass in the window, and another cherub flew out of the fog, slamming hard enough into the bookshelves to make them wobble. The cherub slid to the floor, eyes closed and harpy-like teeth pressed against its pink lips.

  Something moved in the fog, and Sebille grabbed my arm. We forgot all about the second cherub as something huge pushed through the quic
kly dissipating mist and lumbered toward us on enormous, clawed paws.

  “Mythical,” I breathed out, answering my own question. Rustin was mythical. I turned to Sebille, a smile finding its way onto my face despite the terrifying aspect of the creature standing not twenty feet away.

  “He’s a Chimera?”

  Sebille nodded, her grin matching mine.

  I was five feet nine inches tall and the Chimera was easily twice as tall as I was. Its wings were massive, as well they’d have to be to carry the enormous creature through the air. The living myth moved closer, smoke wafting in fragrant streams from its leonine nose. The nostrils flared and a hollow chuff sounded, the thick golden mane quivering with interest. The eyes were golden too. They were intelligent eyes, but not in any way human.

  The thing’s leathery dragon wings had curved claws at the apex of their bony frames, and the back paws sported long, deadly-looking claws that could rip a human apart in a single slash.

  His tail was thicker than a lion’s but had the same general shape, with a ball of fur on the end like the big cat’s.

  The thing that was supposedly Rustin moved closer, his steps ponderous in the relatively small space. The glass in the big picture window rattled with every step. The nostrils flared again, the leonine head stretching closer as if to scent us. He threw back his head and roared again. Sebille and I scuttled backward with matching yelps.

  “Are you sure it’s Rustin?” I asked, my eyes popping wide as the enormous mouth opened and an annoyed huff escaped, along with thick coils of pale gray smoke.

  “It’s him. But I don’t think he changed on purpose and he might not have full control over this form yet.”

  The Chimera lowered its head over the cuffed cherub, nostrils flaring again. Rustin bellowed, stamping an enormous paw near the fallen creature. His wings lifted, waving lazily on the air.