by Lila Dubois
“And why don’t you like humans anymore?”
Kiron stared at the remnants of the burger in his hand, “I was blinded by the pleasure and fun of humans in those places. Their laughing, talking and fighting were as potent to my brothers and I as the drink they served. But soon the novelty wore off, and I began to see humans for what they really are.”
“And what is it you think we are?”
“Selfish. Humans know and understand nothing unless it relates directly to them, and their pleasure. They kill the forests for the pleasure of a soft cloth to wipe their nose and rake fish from the seas with nets for the pleasure of a single meal. Their short lives have led them to be selfish.
“I might say it is the way of their race, a flaw in all humans, but the older centaurs say they were not always this way. There was a time when all sacrificed themselves for the common good, worshiping those powers that are now and forever beyond them.”
“We still have faith—”
“Don’t speak to me of your petty religions that strive to make the world small.” Kiron looked up, his dark eyes bright with conviction. “It is selfishness, the need to be sure that their own way of life is just and true. Humans selfishly delighting in their imagined dream that only they and their brothers in faith will find peace in the world beyond.”
“There is great good in the world,” Moira said calmly, eating another fry.
“There is greater evil, and no one is fighting against it.”
“I am!” Her outburst took them both by surprise, and Moira dumped the half-full container of fries back into the bag at her feet.
“Tell me,” Kiron said, his gaze on her face.
“No.”
“Then tell me why we went to that club. Why you let a human sip blood from your breast.”
“I needed information.”
“About what?”
“About those pages missing from my book.”
Quicker than she would have thought possible, Kiron rolled onto his feet, hooves ringing against the concrete as he stomped to her hay bale. Seated as she was, Moira was eye level with his legs.
After seeing him in human form she’d thought to find his full centaur body less intimidating, but that was not the case. He towered over her, and she was afraid.
Kiron bent forward, his front legs dipping slightly, and grabbed Moira’s arms, hauling her to her feet so she stood on the hay bale. Moira curled her bare toes against the prickle of the hay and swallowed back her fear, raising her chin defiantly.
“You are not telling the truth.”
“I am.”
“Then you are concealing something.”
“It is better if you don’t know.”
“Better for who?”
“For both of us. Trust me.”
“How can I? You do not trust me.”
“How do you expect me to trust you, when you have made your contempt for me, for all humanity, more than clear, when you have railed against me for my ‘enslavement’ of you.”
“If I wanted to cause you harm, I would have let you fall to your death in the woods.”
Moira’s mouth dropped open, his simple statement robbing her of speech. Satisfied, Kiron released her arms, moving back to the rubber mat he rested on and folding himself to the floor once more. He pulled the last burger from the bag and slowly unwrapped it.
Moira sighed and settled atop the hay bale.
“I’ll tell you what I can.”
“You will tell me everything.”
“No, everything is not relevant to why I need your help. I will tell you what I can.”
“Proceed.”
“I need to find a book. It contains some information that will stop my enemies from hunting me.”
“Who are these enemies?”
“I don’t know, and that is the truth.”
“This book, it contains a spell?”
“Maybe. All I know is if I can read the book I’ll know how to stop them.” Moira shifted uncomfortably on the hay bale, worry pulling her face into a frown. “There is a lock on the book, and the key, an amulet, is not kept with it.”
“Do you know the location of the key?”
“No, and there’s more.”
“Of course. Quests are never simple.”
“Quest?”
“Is this not a quest?”
“I guess it is, I just never thought of it that way.”
“Tell me what other things we face.”
“The book I want is one of a collection, and I don’t know which one it is I want. Therefore I don’t know which key I need. I can’t get the book until I get the key, and can’t get the key until I know which book I want, and no one seems to know much about the collection.” Moira watched him as she spoke, hoping she hadn’t given away too much.
“Is there any information that you do have?” Kiron was completely calm, polishing off his last hamburger and then reaching for a pouch of fries.
“Well, there is a piece of art, in a museum in Chicago, that lists all the books in the collection. If I can see that list, maybe I will be able to put a name to the book I want. From there I can search for the key. Once I have that I’m going after the book.”
“All while being hunted by massive stone beasts.”
“At the very least.”
“And we will have to travel a long way?”
“At least to Chicago, that’ll take days.”
“An impossible task, based on faulty information, looking for a book of unknown name and content.”
“Uh, yea, that’s pretty much it.”
“What is the next action?”
Moira opened her mouth to respond, but instead a sob escaped.
“What is it? What is wrong?” Kiron leaned forward, brows drawn together in concern.
Moira dragged in several pained breaths, regaining control before the crying jag could overtake her. “I’m sorry. This has been a very hard time for me. For months I haven’t had anyone else to talk to about this. It’s just a relief to be able to talk to someone.”
“No living thing is happy when alone. It is not the way of our world,” he said gently.
Moira nodded in response as she practiced deep breathing to ease the aching need to cry. When she was under control, she answered his question.
“The next step is to get to Chicago. I need the name of the book.”
“Then the amulet, then the book.”
“Yes.”
“You have not answered the most important question of all, and I sense that you will not answer it now.”
“What question is that?”
“Why are they after you?”
Moira rose to pace barefoot across the cold warehouse floor. She’d lost her slippers to some mice while squatting in a cabin a few months ago.
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“I have an idea, but nothing more, no real facts. That is what I need, facts.”
“You know something.”
“I know that there are many of them, all with different powers, and I know they do not mean to kill me.”
“That stone beast almost killed you.”
“No. You killed it, caused it to fall from the sky. All it was sent to do was to pick me up, bring me back to them.”
“They mean to make you prisoner.”
“Yes.”
“Does it have anything to do with the fact that you are not human?”
“I am human.” She bit off each word.
“You are not.”
“I know what I am.”
“If you know the truth, then why are you lying to yourself, and to me, by calling yourself human?”
“Does it make you feel better to pretend I’m not human? Do you truly hate us so much that you force yourself to pretend I am something different before it is all right to help me?”
The tendons in Kiron’s arms stood out as he clenched his fists. At her sides, Moira’s own hands formed balls so tight her
short nails dug into her palms.
“It is nearly light.” She pushed the words out through gritted teeth. “I want to be on the road by midafternoon. Do you need anything?”
He shook his head, refusing to look at her.
“Fine.”
Moira spent some time packing her trunks, leaving out an outfit for tomorrow. The grimoires went back in their hidden compartment, and the various personal mementos were placed in a plastic bag and then wedged in with her clothes.
When she’d first gone on the run it had been with enough stuff to fill the back of her SUV. The SUV, and most of the things that had filled it, were now gone.
She’d finish packing tomorrow, and purify the space before she left. The simplest way would be to burn the building down, but Moira had no idea how many other people, just like her, were out there, living in the other abandoned warehouses. She would not risk the fire spreading and killing someone. She would burn everything she’d touched, eliminating the possibility that any trace signature magic could be left behind.
When she’d done all she could, wasted as much time as possible, Moira curled up on her makeshift bed. Just before she lay her head down, Moira peeked over the trunks and saw Kiron, head resting on his folded arms. He appeared to be asleep, his massive chest rising and falling in accordance with the bellows of his lungs. Curling an arm beneath her head, Moira whispered a small spell, sending herself to sleep.
Chapter Eight
They came at dawn.
Dawn light arrowed in from windows high in the east wall, one square beam of light falling across Moira’s sleeping form. When something moved to cover the window, blocking the light, Moira, who’d been swimming towards wakefulness due to the light, sighed and slipped deeper into sleep.
They came through the windows, the glass dissolving like sugar rock candy beneath licks of their acid-coated tongues. Great webbed feet clung to the walls as they slithered in through the empty window frames.
The sound of their breathing woke Moira. The fetid water, which dripped from their bodies, woke Kiron. The cold drops hit the centaur’s shoulders, sliding down his back and beneath the strap of the sword he’d chosen to sleep with.
He woke gagging, the foul stench of the water cloying and dead.
Instantly awake, he pushed away from the hay bale he’d rested his torso on and shot to his hooves. He looked up, to the source of the water.
Crawling along the ceiling and around the upper edges of the walls, were six black beasts. Their long bodies looked like those of lizards, but the ends of their tails were decorated with vicious spikes. Their scaled skin was shiny with water and had a glossy sheen like oil. The one directly above Kiron opened its mouth, exposing short, jagged teeth.
“Moira!”
“I see them. What are they?”
“Beasts of the water, but I have never seen anything like them before.”
“Can you talk to them?”
“Woman, why would I be able to talk to swamp beasts?”
“It was worth a shot. Don’t call me woman.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Yes.” Moira appeared at Kiron’s side, her black and green hair tousled around her head. “I’m going to try and stun one and see what happens.”
“What if the other five attack?”
“Let them eat me. The spell will break, and then you’re free.”
He could tell she meant it to be funny, but there was a hitch in her voice. When he turned her to face him, she had that same glazed look of fear she’d worn in the forest.
“We will not die today,” he told her sternly.
His words calmed her, and she smiled. Kiron answered her smile and reached down to smooth her crazy hair. The moment was broken by the rattling breath of one of the beasts, which burst into a fit of hacking coughing. Moira covered her ears.
“What’s wrong with them?”
“They are of the water, they do not want to be out here on land.”
“Are they dying? Can we wait and see if they just die?”
“Whatever magic has driven them out of the water will keep them alive.”
“Damn. Well, then.”
Moira picked the coughing one, who was perched high on the wall. Its continued rattling coughs shook the wall so that the metal vibrated with a sound like thunder. Raising her right hand she cupped it between her breasts. Power, green and pure as golden sunlight through leaves, spilled from between her fingers. Her lips moved, the words to a spell, but giving no sound. She pulled her hand away from her chest, and Kiron could see a clear ball of atmosphere cupped in her hand. The ball dissolved, sucked into her hand, becoming a part of her until she chose to cast it.
Moira looked up at him, and Kiron slipped the sword from its sheath, turning to face the other beasts, preparing for the worst.
Moira threw up her hand, the spell propelled from her body by the will of magic. It struck the water monster, sizzling against the beast’s wet hide. For a moment it seemed that nothing had happened, but then the beast began to thrash, screaming in high broken notes.
Moira’s hands came up to cover her ears.
“No! Cast your spell again.”
“It didn’t work!”
“It did.”
As if to prove Kiron right, the beast gave one last violent shudder and dropped from the wall, landing in a heap on the concrete floor. The other monsters all screamed, a terrifying clacking sound that rattled the walls and bounced off the concrete floor.
A second ball of atmosphere winged through the air, striking one of the monsters who clung upside down from the ceiling.
This time it didn’t work.
The monster thrashed about for a few minutes and then shook off the spell, which evaporated into the air in a puff of green smoke.
“Damn. It wasn’t strong enough.”
“Make them stronger, pull from my power.”
“I don’t want to hurt or weaken you.”
“Isn’t this why you called me?”
“Yes.”
“Then use me.”
The cuff glowed with light as the monster Moira had tried to fell slithered across the ceiling to the nearest wall and then made its way down. The rattling breath grew louder as it approached, long body awkward out of the water, each step taken with care. If the monsters had been swifter, they both would be dead by now. As it was, Kiron had more than enough time to take a few practice swings before the beast moved within striking distance.
The smell was awful, bringing tears to his eyes, and when the beast flattened its body, lowering its head and hissing, the stench from its breath was almost enough to send Kiron back a step.
The water monster lunged and Kiron reared up on his hind legs, dancing to the side. He brought his front legs down on the creature’s neck. He felt the bones snap, and the body went limp, though the head continued to thrash for a moment.
A ball of magic shot through the air, eliciting a cry as it hit the third one.
“Are you stunning them or killing them?” he yelled over the screams of the newly hit monster.
“I don’t know!”
A fourth ball whizzed past Kiron, less than a foot from his shoulder. Wheeling around, he barely got his hind end out the way of a falling monster. It thrashed and twitched, the barbed tail ripping gashes in the metal wall of the warehouse and even scoring scratches into the concrete floor.
“Watch where those things are falling!”
“Sorry.”
“I thought you said they weren’t trying to kill you?”
“I didn’t think they were. This is new. Behind you!”
Kiron wheeled on his hind legs, bringing the sword into play. The blade sliced through the neck of the monster that had leapt at him, sliding through muscle and tendons before sticking into a bone of the neck.
Kiron stumbled as the dying animal’s weight fell onto the sword, pulling his arms down. The still-twitching head thrashed a bit, spittle flying from between its teeth. The
flecks of spit splattered across Kiron’s arms and chest, hitting like drops of acid.
He dropped the sword, the monster’s body crashing to the floor. Bright red welts appeared where the monster’s venom had splashed, and blood soon flowed as the acid began to eat through his skin.
“Kiron!”
He stumbled back from the fallen monster, pain distorting his face into a grimace. His legs shook beneath him, threatening to collapse. Moira pushed towards him, but one of the remaining two monsters dropped from the ceiling between them. Its tail flashed, the spikes headed for Moira. Kiron tried to cry out, to warn her, but his teeth were clenched tight in pain, each breath agony.
Moira whirled her hand over her head, lips moving, and the spikes crashed into the shield she erected. The monster screamed in rage, backing up and coming at her again. The spiked tail crashed into the thin shield of magic she held, until thin cracks, like a shimmering spider web, blossomed in the invisible shield.
Moira cupped her hand between her breasts, forming another of the stunning spells. As she worked, the monster she battled raised its head, letting out several short, barking cries between the rattling breaths. The final monster slithered up behind Moira.
She didn’t see it. Kiron felt her pull on him, on his magic, but she was facing the monster at her front, with no idea that there was an enemy at her back. He tried to cry out once more, but there was no air to form words. He looked down at his chest and arm, long trails of blood slithered from dozens of deep punctures. He would not be able to stand much longer. He turned and staggered to the wall, leaning against it. His rear legs finally gave out, folding beneath him.
The monster behind Moira stalked closer, body twitching side to side.
She lifted her hand from her chest, the spell complete. She dropped her shield just as both monsters leapt. Moira turned as she dropped to a crouch, throwing out a hand to each of the monsters. Twin balls of magic shot from her palms, striking the monsters. She’d put so much force behind the spells that it threw them, tipping them onto their backs, exposing a sickly beige underbelly.
Moira jumped up and ran towards Kiron. He shook his head and lifted his uninjured arm, pointing at the monster with the sword sticking out of his neck. She hesitated for a moment and then ran for the monster. Planting one foot on its neck she jerked the sword free.
