Love Croakies

by Sam Cheever

  A sudden whip of power shot from Eddie to me where he had hold of my wrist. It tore at my insides, ripping and scalding. My back bowed on the front edge of that phenomenal power and my lips and eyes went wide. But the scream shredding the back of my throat never emerged. It was weighted down by his power, snagged on the sharp edge of the energy passing through me and emerging from my palm. It was as if Eddie had used me like an electric cable, sending energy to his mother through me.

  I felt as if I’d had ten thousand volts of energy ripping through my flesh.

  The power shooting from my palm bowed Narina’s back as it had mine, but her screams tore free in the face of it.

  With a pop of displaced air, Narina’s arms came free of the twisting core, and she shot backward, slamming into the anomaly’s clear wall.

  She ripped me away with her. For a beat, my arms were nearly yanked from their sockets as Eddie held onto me.

  Then, with a tight jaw and gritted teeth, Eddie forced his fingers apart and I hit the ground, skidding toward Narina.

  The anomaly’s rotational pull fell away with a sigh. The world outside its walls stilled.

  Osvald’s book slammed to the floor with a decisive thump.

  The buffer between us and the world disappeared, leaving behind the rich scent of earth and the sweet smell of broken vegetation. My flesh felt the cool softness of grass beneath it, and the tension in the air disappeared.

  We all lay perfectly still for a beat, panting and wide-eyed. My limbs were so heavy I didn’t think I’d ever be able to move them again.

  “Well then,” Osvald said in his snotty, English professor voice. “That’s better.”

  Something sounded different about the good professor. But I was too weary to look at him. “No giggling in the anomaly,” I murmured. “Got it.”

  A deep, rumbly sound thrummed the air.

  Laughter?

  I dragged my head off the ground to find the source of the rumble and felt my eyes go wide. “Professor Osvald?”

  The man standing a dozen feet away from me laughed joyfully, his black eyes alight with happiness. “In the flesh.”

  That he was, I realized with a start. All six and a half feet of him.

  Professor Osvald had regained his body.

  Well, I’ll be a trail of slug snot.

  19

  Thar She Be

  I was so surprised it took me a beat to realize there was an enormous black castle behind Osvald. The circular peaks of Dacara’s ugly castle rose high into the gray sky, disappearing into the low clouds that were a regular feature of the place.

  The previous time we’d been there, Archie had speculated that the stormy aspect of the sky above the castle was caused by residual energy from Dacara’s magic.

  A daunting thought. It would take some serious magic to create storms in that large an area around the magic-user.

  Someone groaned behind me. I turned to find Sebille wrenching herself off the ground. “How could I have been hit by a train in The Enchanted Forest?” she asked, holding her head. “There are no trains here, right?”

  “The Hagwarts Express?” I asked, earning myself a glare from the sprite.

  Archie appeared at my shoulder, his face filled with awe. “Osvald, you’re whole.”

  The professor’s grin spread across his homely face, Making him look almost not hideous. “It’s a miracle.”

  “Yes, it certainly is,” agreed Narina, joining Archie and me.

  Osvald placed his palms together in front of his face, pressing the tips of his fingers against his mouth. His black eyes glittered with tears.

  I blinked. I’d never seen the man as anything but angry.

  “Bless you, Wind Sorceress. You’ve returned my life to me.”

  Narina looked uncomfortable under his declaration. “Uh…”

  Eddie wrapped an arm around his…our…mom’s shoulders. “You saved us all, Mums.” He kissed her temple.

  I looked on, feeling like an outsider again.

  “I hate to break up the celebration,” Sebille said. “But I suggest we get into the castle before those things decide to attack.” She pointed toward the sky and the gray, tattered forms riding the air currents high above our heads.

  Wraiths.

  I glanced quickly around and realized we’d landed on the back side of the castle. At least, I assumed it was the back side since there was no sign of the cliff face we’d had to climb to get to the castle the first time.

  That was probably why the wraiths hadn’t immediately attacked. I doubted most visitors came over the mountain to the castle. Most would come from the forest side.

  But as I watched the terrifying dark forms dip and circle above us like large, ugly black birds, I realized their movements were becoming more frenzied.

  Had some of them dropped lower in the sky?

  “We need to go,” Archie said. “Now!”

  We started to run, just as a strident scream tore the sky above us.

  I shot past Osvald, who was paging quickly through an enormous red-leather book with a golden lock engraved in the dust cover.

  He walked quickly rather than running, fingers flicking through the pages in a way that reminded me of the Book of Pages. The screams in the dark sky had multiplied. They also sounded closer. Without looking up, I knew the wraiths were descending on us. And coming fast.

  A gust of wind spun the leaves on the nearby trees and sent the branches to waving.

  The screams of the wraiths turned more shrill.

  I looked up in time to see them rolling away from us in the sky, some of them slamming into the rocky face of the mountain behind the castle.

  I panicked, remembering how the wraiths consumed any magic used against them and became stronger from it.

  I opened my mouth to warn Narina, but she’d turned and was running toward the castle again. The wraiths regathered, some of them slower to rise, and I realized they hadn’t consumed her magic.

  Maybe earth energies didn’t affect them the same way. Wind magic was one of the four core elementals: Air, fire, water, and earth. That made sense.

  We headed for the nearest door. Eddie reached it first and tried the knob.

  It wouldn’t open.

  “It’s warded,” my brother told us, running his open palm over the lock to assess its components. “Blast! All four magical elements were used.” He looked over our small group. “We don’t have the energy needed.”

  A wraith screamed and dove from the sky, its horrible claws raking the air near Narina. I shoved her sideways and punched the thing as hard as I could in the area covered by its hood. As soon as my skin touched the shroud-like cloth, ice flared over it, burning and digging beneath my skin to freeze my bones.

  Narina whipped a hand out and blew the wraith back. It hit the ground several yards away and rolled, tattered shroud whipping in the residual drafts.

  Another wraith dove toward Sebille. She popped out, turning into her sprite form and evading the raking claws with a quick burst of movement.

  Eddie’s hand came up and a blob of something flared from his fingertips. It was an unruly mass of energy that absorbed whatever it touched and kept on rolling. The chaotic energy caught the attacking wraith and two more that were dropping down from the sky in a giant splotch of roiling shapes and colors. As it carried them away, the magic fractured the wraiths into a Picasso-like mix that left them screaming silently from mouths that were in the wrong place and trying to claw free with limbs that faced the wrong direction. It was nightmare-inducing.

  And it couldn’t have happened to more deserving creatures.

  I watched in delight as the bubble captured more and more wraiths and then frowned as it interned a huge tree, decomposing it immediately into the fractured shapes inside the bubble. “Will that thing just keep going?” I asked him, starting to worry. I didn’t want helpless people and animals to get caught up in the magic. Though that two-headed snake was on its own.

  “No.” He resp
onded.

  I relaxed.

  “It’ll eventually blow up,” he said.

  Oh. Gulp.

  “Step aside,” Osvald told Eddie, flicking his long fingers in my brother’s direction. “I’ve got this.”

  Eddie did as he was told, watching his fractured blob consume more and more wraiths as it moved toward the mountain top. The wraiths seemed unable to avoid the thing as it pulled them into its orbit and sucked them up.

  My eyes widened. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the train wreck of a magic bubble. It had grown as big as my car and was still growing. “When will it explode?”

  Eddie shrugged. “Pretty soon, I think. That mountain’s going to be too much for it to consume.”

  My lips flapped like a fish’s. “It’s going to eat the mountain?”

  “It’ll try,” he responded, watching his handiwork with as much fascination as I was.

  A loud click preceded a gasp of sulfurous air. The ward was broken. “There!” Osvald said, his tone self-satisfied. He turned the knob and pushed the door open, stepping back and giving a bow and a flourish. “After you,” he told Archie.

  Archie squeezed Osvald’s shoulder. “It’s good to have you back, old friend.”

  A happy light came into the ugly professor’s eyes. “It’s good to be back, old friend.”

  With an impatient sigh, Sebille pushed past the two men. “Join a knitting circle, you two. Geesh.”

  I laughed softly at the looks on their faces and followed the sprite inside.

  Eddie was on my heels, followed by Narina, who was chuckling, and then Archie and Osvald.

  Our smiles didn’t last long. In fact, they dropped dead as we stepped into a large, well-apportioned kitchen. Killed by the scary-looking woman wearing the scarlet robes covered in pink hearts.

  “Thar she be,” I said, channeling my favorite deceased pirate parrot. I’d know that clothing color scheme anywhere.

  The demon princess, Desiree.

  20

  Is There a Book for That?

  “Well, well, well,” the princess said in a condescending tone. “What have we here? An assembly from that busybody Lovelace, I presume?” Her smile was mean. “Or simply a group of the love-less?” Her laughter was husky, the sentiment behind it mean.

  Archie stepped up behind me, Osvald loitering near the door.

  Narina and Eddie took up places at each of my shoulders. Their presence felt like a buffer against the evil I could feel coiling around our hostess. Or, should I say, Dacara’s visitor. Taking strength from my family surrounding me, I notched my chin upward. “Where’s Dacara?”

  Desiree’s head tilted slightly, reminding me of a curious bird. Her waist-length, mahogany hair hung in glossy waves around her face, slipping past her plump shoulders to curl around her waist. She wasn’t slender by any stretch of the imagination. In another time she would have been called Rubenesque. The demon princess set her pale, beautiful features into a pleasant mask. Her skin was flawless, her cupid’s bow lips red, and the purple of her eyes was so dark they looked black when the light wasn’t hitting them.

  I could feel the rage and malevolence pulsing on the air around her, along with a phenomenal magical energy. She was a very powerful creature.

  In that moment, I wished I’d left the only artifacts I’d found in that castle intact. The Ferryman of Hades’ scythes, used to ferry the dead across the River Styx, would have come in handy about then.

  “The dual sorceress is…resting. She wasn’t in the mood to be helpful so I’ve given her some time to think about it.”

  “Helpful?” Narina asked. “With what?”

  The princess looked down her nose at my mother, her lip curling just the tiniest bit. “That’s my business.” Her gaze slid to Eddie and she smiled. The sight of that smile made my bowels twitch with fear. “But since the inspiration for that business is standing right there…” She licked her lush lips.

  Archie, Narina, and I all moved closer to Eddie.

  Energy flooded from my brother at the feral look on Desiree’s face, biting at my skin.

  I rubbed my arm and forced myself to hold my ground. If Desiree wanted to hurt Ed, she’d be going through me, my uncle, and my mom. And judging from the page flipping sounds behind us, Osvald too.

  “Stand down, peasants.” Desiree laughed. “I have no desire to dominate the handsome sorcerer, though I would enjoy playing with his scrumptious magic.”

  Eddie tensed, his power level rising until my hands were rubbing frantically against my arms.

  He glanced at me, frowned, and said, “Sorry. I’m a bit tense.”

  Fotunately, he tamped his energy down a few ticks.

  “I merely wanted to question the Dual Sorceress about the devotion magic she’s been working on. I understand it’s quite powerful. Not as good as love, of course, but good for a start.”

  I frowned. “Devotion? Why would a demon love princess need that kind of spell?” Unfortunately, I knew why Dacara thought she needed it. She’d likely been creating it to use against my brother. Dacara had always wanted Eddie for her own. Or at least she’d wanted his magic. After experiencing even a small amount of that magic, I could understand why.

  “That, also is no concern of yours. A much better question is, why are you here?” Desiree demanded, her dark-purple eyes narrowed in obvious anger.

  “We’ve come to take back the serum,” I said, fighting to keep the wobble out of my voice.

  “Serum?” Two lines dented the pale flesh between Desiree’s slender, arched brows. “What serum?”

  A soft, derisive snort sounded somewhere above me.

  I stilled, hoping Desiree hadn’t heard the sprite. As before, Sebille had come into the castle incognito and in sprite form, so she could be our backup plan in case things went mammaries up, as they tended to do when Sebille and I went on an adventure together.

  Desiree’s gaze narrowed, lifting toward the sound, and I spoke quickly to distract her. “The love serum. It belongs in the vault at the artifact library. As Keeper of the Artifacts, it was under my protection. You removed it from the library. I’ve come to get it back.”

  Desiree’s expression turned mulish. “That serum belongs to my people. We created it. We’ve used it at our wish and will for millennia. You have much nerve coming here and demanding my own property from me!”

  Energy thickened on the air, biting against my skin. Around me, my companions shifted and twitched, rubbing at their skin as the magic feasted on it. The disgusting stench of rotten eggs pulsed within the magic.

  Sulfuric, dark, demonic magic.

  My own energy burst to the fore without my even calling it, a primal directive fed by my survival instinct. A sultry, lazy wind floated around our small group to form a protective, living wall, its gentle force making Desiree’s scarlet robes dance around her ankles. Near the door at our backs, I could hear the sound of pages flipping, as Osvald no doubt used his power over the written word to search for a way to neuter the demon.

  The air behind the demoness thickened slightly, a thin black line dividing it at its center like a metaphorical zipper. Archie was creating a void.

  Next to me, Eddie’s body had gone very still. I risked a glance toward my brother and gasped. His blue gaze had fractured. Random shapes and colors flared and roiled and shifted within his eyes like shattered glass filtering a kaleidoscope of light in a thousand different directions.

  A thin sheen of multi-hued energy slipped over him, snugging itself to his skin like a micro-thin wetsuit. Chaotic waves of energy roiled and spun away from him like starbursts, alternately shifting space and then sucking it back only to turn it upside down with a soft moan of air bumping up against unnatural energy. I’d never seen magic like Eddie’s. It was powerful and disordered and it had me fascinated.

  What exactly was my brother?

  Standing next to him felt like snuggling up to the front edge of unbridled nuclear power just before it blows. To say that it was di
scomfiting would be an unsatisfying description.

  It was life-changing.

  Desiree’s energy sharpened, its stench thickening as it pulsed against the wind barrier my mother had thrown. A roiling red miasma poured from her spread fingers and pooled near her feet. I watched it form a misty river of power and flow toward us, the energy creating ice along the floor before it bumped up against our protective energy.

  Eddie’s unruly magic thrummed on the air. It pulsed around him, throbbing painfully against my skin. I turned to Narina. “Is that going to be all right?”

  My mother looked past me to her son and winced. “Probably not. It might be best if we…”

  She never finished that statement.

  A hollow, echoing boom imploded on the air, the power so impossible in the restrained space that it sucked back into itself, forming a spinning globe of barely-restrained power in the center of the room. The magic globe began to spin, whirling faster and faster and pulling the demon’s sulfurous black energy toward it in a glittering black stream. When it could hold no more of the ugly energy, it gave a final throb, like the last beat of a dying heart, and then popped. Chaos exploded outward in a wash that would have blown us out of the room if it weren’t for a thick, purple wall that had somehow popped into place at the last moment.

  Desiree was blown out of the room, her lush form crashing through the wall behind her and skidding across the shiny dark floor of the room beyond. She crashed against the wall and went slack and unmoving.

  The silence that followed was startling. We all stared at the pretty purple wall and blinked. Then, as if we all reached the same conclusion at once, we slowly turned our stunned glances to the tall man standing by the door.

  Osvald’s black eyes were wide. His ruddy cheeks paled as we turned our questioning gazes his way, and then he slowly grinned. “Well then. That worked out quite nicely,” Osvald said. He released the slender tome with a sparkly purple cover and snapped his fingers. The book disappeared into thin air before it hit the ground.