“I thought I did, but I realize I didn’t. Maybe I never had a heart to begin with. Maybe it was never there for you to destroy.”
“Or maybe it’s just that she’s pretty and nothing more,” I say.
“Quiet yourself,” she snaps, and I roll my eyes again as I shake my head at her cockiness.
“Dorothy is right,” Nick says. “You were shallow before you lost your soul, what you had of one that is. I feel sorry for you for having lost the little you had, but you are not too different from what I see. Over the years, I have had some distance, and I see you would have never married me, and I would have been fine without you. Now I know I never loved you. I never did.”
“You lie.”
“I did lie to you. I told you I loved you because I wanted to sleep with you. Even with the women I was with, who you fed on, every one of them had more depth and gave me more pleasure than you ever did. I did not love you. But I also did not love them. I have never loved before. I see that now.”
“You are heartless, like they all say of you,” she says, fuming.
“I am. For years, I blamed you for it, but I realize now it is just what I am. Perhaps that will change when I get to Emerald City,” Nick says and they both laugh.
“You will never get there. You will die, today, both of you,” Fyter says.
“Do you have any last words?” I ask, and they laugh more while Nick readies his axes, one in each hand, getting into a fighting stance. I rise to my feet.
“Perhaps I will turn you instead, if I can resist draining your sweet blood. I like you. You’re feisty,” Fyter says, his eyes gleaming with a sexual mischief that gives me the willies. I shudder at the thought of hooking up with him.
“No,” Nimmie demands.
“Jealous?” I taunt. I couldn’t resist. She’s so irritating. Her eyes narrow and I can’t help but laugh at her. She hisses at me, ready to attack, her vampire fangs on display.
As she lunges for me, my boots cover me in silver armor head to toe, only my face revealed, sharp stakes shooting from my fists and feet. Fyter gasps a squeal at the sight of me and she stops dead in her tracks, shaken, her eyes widening as I attack her right back.
I kick high, slicing her throat, following with another kick to her temple, knocking her head right off her body as I spin through the air. When I turn to Fyter—who looks on shocked and terrified, his jaw dropped—a high-pitched scream escapes him before he bolts into the woods he came from.
Nick throws his axe at him, hitting him in the center of his back, sending him face first into the ground. I rush over and with a leap into the air I crash into the ground beside him, the stake in my fist punching straight through his back into his heart. He’s done. They both are.
As I stand, pulling Nick’s axe from Fyter’s spine with a crunch, my suit of silver armor shrinks back into my boots.
When I turn to Nick, who sits back down on the log we were on, I hand his axe to him and say, “Nice throw.”
“Thanks,” he says, unfeeling as ever.
“It’s okay if that was hard for you, you know.”
“It wasn’t. That’s the problem. Perhaps we were good for each other. She may have been with other men, but I was also with other women,” he admits.
“Sounds like a bad relationship,” I say as I sit beside him.
“It was.”
“Did you have other relationships before her?”
“No. She was my first.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” I say as he stares into the fire.
“Or maybe I am heartless.”
“Maybe,” I say with a shrug, “But I doubt it. You just got started out wrong. At least I hope that’s it. For your sake.”
“As do I.”
“Things will get better, Nick. I believe that for you. When you get to the City of Emeralds, you’ll see. If you give it time, you’ll see.”
“There is a possibility the Wizard may not let me stay. Not just anyone can live there. If they could, everyone would have gone already.”
“Yeah, well, I have these boots. I’ll make him let you stay,” I tease.
“He is even more powerful. Those boots will not intimidate him.”
“Maybe he can help me get them off and I can trade them for passage home for me and so the three of you can stay there. I bet he’ll want them.”
“If he has use for them. But keep them if you can. Although getting them off seems imperative.”
“It’d be nice.”
“Thank you, Dorothy. You are a true friend.”
As he speaks, the earnest look in his eyes differs from the looks he’s given me so far. That may be the sincerest thing he’s said to me. When I smile at him, he smiles back and the energy between us shifts to one of friendship. There is no undertone of lust anymore. Anything sexual between us has left his eyes. Maybe he’s being honest with me now. Maybe somehow I’ve earned his friendship and treating me as a warm female body he can use for pleasure no longer interests him. Or maybe it’s because the dead bodies of his ex-fiancé and his cousin lie only a few feet away.
“The bodies—” I say and he cuts me off.
“Is there, by chance, holy water in your bag from Gayelette?”
“Yeah,” I say and rise, go over to the bag, and open it up, taking out the large bottle of holy water and handing it to him.
The holy water is curious considering General Boq had never heard of hell. If they don’t know what hell is, then I’d assume they don’t have the same religions. Holy water is a Catholic thing, isn’t it?
“If you guys haven’t heard of hell here, I assume you don’t have Christianity, so how do you have holy water?”
“I am not sure what you are talking about, but I know holy water is rare. It comes from another realm.”
“My realm.”
“Perhaps,” he says, stands, and walks over to Nimmie’s body.
Her shocked head lies beside it. He appears unfazed as he opens the bottle. With a small tilt of the jug he drops a tiny amount of the holy water onto the head, then the body, and she fizzles away in an instant. He walks over to Fyter, drops more onto him, and the same thing happens. Right then, a light breeze comes by and the ash lifts into the air, fluttering away in the wind. Nick walks back over and hands me the bottle. I cap it before putting it back in my bag. When we sit back down, this time he sits across from me instead of at my side.
For a long while, we sit in silence, staring at the fire, and when I look away from the flames and watch him, he looks pensive, deep in thought. What just happened affected him even if he won’t admit it. Or maybe he’s being honest when he says he feels nothing. Maybe that is what he is ruminating on.
There is so much I want to say, like how walling up his heart, forcing himself to not feel for the sake of survival, doesn’t make him heartless. He may think he is cold, but I don’t believe he is. He’s just screwed up. Who wouldn’t be living the life he has?
Survival is the top priority for most of the people in this realm, and I imagine the ones who don’t think of survival first end up as fodder or monsters. While he chose to be brave and fight a relentless battle, so many others chose to become a shifter or a zombie. To preserve his humanity, he sacrificed his heart. Now he’s taking this journey because he wants his heart back. That’s admirable, and I wish I could tell him, but it’s not the right time. After watching his fiancé die a second time, I’m sure of it. So I stay quiet and give him the time he needs to think.
An hour passes before Ardie, the Werelion, and Toto return with a dead deer. Nick gets up and they take it away from the fire to break it down for roasting, skinning it, and gutting it, then cutting it up. It grosses me out to think of, but that is what it is to eat meat. It’s something I should be okay with considering I eat it, and I live on a farm. Uncle Henry did all that. He made me take part once, and I hated it. It didn’t stop me eating meat though, but the thought of it still makes me sick.
Ardie takes the head and eats its brains while Ni
ck roasts it in pieces, giving the Werelion the stuff we won’t eat, and he eats it raw. I’m not a huge fan of venison, but it’s better than nothing. Ardie was kind enough to bring back nuts and berries for me he found in a tree. I assume a squirrel gathered it, and I feel bad taking a squirrel’s food, but I take it anyway.
After dinner we all camp out, sleeping under the stars. Ardie stays up and keeps watch through the night, standing far away from the fire. As I try to drift off to sleep with Toto cuddling up to me, I stare at the night sky lit up by more stars than I have ever seen.
Atmospheric dust billows in polychromed glitter above me, the vibrant, shimmering haze decorating the blue-blackness of space, and its luminous, variegated hues remind me of the one wish I made on countless stars since my parents died—I wanted to live in a world of colors, where I could travel to bright and exotic places, where I could see and do magical things. Well, here I am in the most exotic of places, in a world of vivid radiance, with magic all around me. How was I to know the countless times I made that wish I should have specified that those places be free of evil monsters? Whatever force there is out there in charge of granting wishes seems to have a wicked sense of humor, or at least a vindictive streak. You want to travel to colorful, exotic places? Well, here you go—wish granted. Welcome to the exotic and colorful land of hellish monsters who want to suck your blood, eat your brains, or just eat you altogether. Oh, you didn’t mean this kind of place? Guess you should have been clearer. Suck it, Dorothy.
From this distance, the sky looks so clear it’s as though my eyes are functioning like a high-powered telescope, the kind in fancy observatories you visit on class field trips, and I wonder if it’s the boots enhancing my vision or if it’s just different here. Maybe it’s even a different planet altogether—I still haven’t ruled out that possibility. Even with the glow of the fire in the pitch-black forest, the stars shine brighter than I have ever seen stars shine. How is it possible to see the sky in such vivid detail with the naked eye?
My boots cover me in their silver armor at my thought, showing me the answer to my question. Now the sky is even more vivid, even more detailed than before, and I know it’s the boots that make things clearer. Too bad my vision is the only thing that’s clear. Since these boots showed up on my feet, I’ve felt numb in so many ways. It’s as though they’ve hardened me to death, to violence, to fear. Although with feelings of attraction and love, I’m a confused mess. But part of me wonders if the boots are the only thing giving me any resolve with Nick. Perhaps if I didn’t have them, I’d have slept with him already. Not that I have ever jumped into bed with a guy I just met, but he is that tempting.
I’ve never been so drawn to anyone. Desire struck me the first moment I saw his face, even with the rage in his enrapturing green eyes as he struggled under me. Ineffable moments hang between us that percolate and overwhelm me to the point of nausea. He says to just let it be a fling, but it is already more than that for me and it’s only been two days. Maybe it’s a chemical reaction, because even though it feels like I know him, I don’t. He says he feels nothing but sexual attraction toward me. He says it’s not personal but that he’s heartless and takes comfort where he can get it. But my heart doesn’t seem to care about any of that.
My desire for him only compounds and spurs stronger emotions with every passing moment despite knowing we won’t have a future. The sentiments he evokes come from not only how good-looking he is but also because of who I see behind all the literal and figurative armor he wears. I know it could be me filling in the blanks with what I want him to be, but I’m sure he’s so much more than a man hardened by the pain of his past, so much more than the walls he builds around his heart. He pretends he’s hollow, but that’s nowhere near true. Behind his gaze, it’s as though there’s a macrocosm of rich complexity as dark and colorful as the sky I’m gazing at now. These stars remind me of him—mysterious, dazzling, and still radiant even when submerged in darkness. Yes, he lied, tricked me, and he says he’s heartless, but it’s because of what he’s been through and what his life is like.
My heart aches for him. Tragedy has marred his life. He killed his own dad and his girlfriend who he was planning to marry. For years, he has lived alone in a small house with no furniture, sleeping on a pile of leaves. He’s alone, and it makes my heart break for him. It makes me want to heal him, to help him, comfort him, take the broken pieces of his heart and put them back together. I want to gather all the shattered parts, the pain and strength and bravery, everything he has ever been through, and form a brand-new heart for him—a beautiful mosaic of intricate light-filled love. But I cannot forget I will leave him behind to return to my realm, and I don’t want to add to his pain. He already has so much of it.
Even though he tells me he doesn’t have feelings for me, that there would be no point to getting involved that way (and he’d be right), I can’t deny I already have strong feelings for him. I could continue to deny it to myself but what would be the point of that? Maybe it’s the boots that are making things so clear because I’m not sure I could have admitted any of that to myself before. But my logical brain also knows I don’t know the guy. What I know of him is what I’ve seen and what he tells me, and he’s told me not to think there’s more than the physical between us. But then he’ll look at me, his penetrating stare gripping my heart. When that happens, I fill in the blanks with a narrative of my own, and I must remind myself it may be only my imagination. My thoughts about him, about who he is beneath his words, could be what I wish he were and not what he is. But even if it is who he is deep down, even if I’m right about it all, I’m not the one he wants. His words are clear—he doesn’t want me for more than a fling, and I shouldn’t want him for more than that either.
Tonight, I was ready to let go of my reservations and start an affair with him, but then in place of my resolve, fate had its word and brought back the ghosts that have haunted him for who knows how long. Years ago, losing Nimmie made him heartless. Tonight, when he lost her for a second time, he stopped pretending with me and the walls around his heart I was sure were crumbling erected all over again. I understand why—what he went through tonight was awful. It may not last, but something in me is telling me his advances toward me will cease from here on out. Part of me is grateful, but a sense of loss lingers in my chest despite knowing he was never mine to lose.
Two falling stars shoot across the sky in an arch and I gasp. I saw one before, once. When I did, I wished the wish I always wish. Every birthday, every dandelion, every first star I see at night, every time there’s a wish to make I wish for the same thing, and now I know I should have been more specific. This time I get two wishes. The first is that Toto and I make it home safe and in one piece, and the second is for true love, a love of my life kind of love that is soul-deep, so passionate, and reciprocal—the kind of love that will last forever for us both. Hope washes over me, and I relax enough for my mind to quiet. After too many hours filled with too many thoughts, a soft serenity perfuses my mind, and I drift off to sleep.
10
The Journey to the Vampire Free Zone
A deep, dark ravine divides the brick road, as though the wrathful land cracked in two, severing any prospect of traveling beyond this macabre forest. I assess the canyon before us and with one look I know it’s too steep to climb down. Even with my enhanced vision, it’s too wide to see where it ends. Sharp jagged rocks jut straight up from the bottom like giant knives, making it even more impossible to cross.
After everything it’s taken to get here, it looks as though our journey has ended. I’ll never get home. These boots will remain on my feet for the rest of my life, and that may not be long with the scores of predatory monsters at every turn. I’ve been lucky so far, but if I sleep too hard one night that could be it for me.
This morning when we woke up with the sunrise and got started on our way, I never expected after only an hour of walking we would reach a crack in the road this large with no bridge to
cross.
“What now?” I ask, desperate not to give up but at a loss for how to fix this.
“I do not know,” says Nick before he presses his lips into a grim line.
“Until we decipher how to cross this gorge, we must stop where we are,” Ardie says with a grumble.
The Werelion appraises the ditch before us and says, “I could jump over it.”
“Could you jump over with us on your back?” Nick asks.
“I can try,” Werelion says with a shaky breath, mustering up the small amount of courage he has.
“I will go first,” declares Ardie, “for if you found that you could not make it over, Dorothy or Nick would die, but if I am on your back, it will not matter so much, for the fall cannot kill me.”
“What about me?” the Werelion yelps, growing more fearful, but then he takes a deep calming breath and continues, “but I suppose there is nothing to do but try. We will make the attempt.”
Nowhere near as worried as I am, Ardie sits upon the Werelion’s back before the gigantic shifter walks to the edge of the gulf and crouches down.
“Perhaps you should run and jump,” Nick suggests, as worried as I am. Werelion only looks over his shoulder with narrowed eyes, making me giggle. The seething look on his sweet, furry face verges on farcical.
“That isn’t the way we Werelions do these things,” Werelion says with a haughty humph.
“Pardon me,” Nick says, holding back laughter.
Werelion faces forward with Ardie on his back hanging onto his mane, and with a look of determination he springs up, shooting through the air. In an instant, he lands on the other side. When his feet touch the ground, I cheer for them, so happy and relieved they made it. Nick’s eyes widen at my acclamation. A glimpse of embarrassment creeps in, but whatever, I’m thrilled right now—I’m not stuck here.
Once Ardie gets off his back, Werelion springs back over the ditch and lands beside us.
“You go next, Dorothy,” Nick says.
Dorothy In the Land of Monsters Page 13
