“Boyfriend,” he said again, this time not questioningly.
Just as Maria was about to protest what she had said and cover her slip-up, Joe spoke again.
“You don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to hear that from you, Maria.”
Her heart stuttered. Suddenly, everyone else in the back room vanished. It was just Joe and her. Him on the stacked bags of sugar, her standing right in front of him, both of them looking at the other with goo-goo eyes.
“Really?” Maria asked. Her voice sounded echo-y in her head.
Joe took her hands in his.
“Really.”
“Come, come,” Gramps said, his voice cutting in from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. “Let’s give them some privacy.” The sounds of chairs scraping across the linoleum distantly filled their ears. Somewhere in that lovely haze, Claire made kissing noises, and Sherlock made vomiting noises. But Maria didn’t care; nothing mattered at that moment. Not the impending war, the hidden dragon, the prospect of death…none of it.
“I think we’d better make it official, though,” Joe said as the rest of the wanderers exited the back room.
“What do you mean? Like Facebook official?” Maria asked.
Joe laughed. He still held Maria’s hands, and she hardly noticed the nervous sweat transferring between them.
“No,” Joe said. He got up from the bags. “Maria Apple, will you officially be my girlfriend? It would be a great honor to be your boyfriend.” He smiled, and Maria knew she had already fallen in love with that smile.
But the happiness quickly vanished as she remembered all of the responsibilities in her life—the magic, the fate of the Dominion villagers. It would always be in the back of her mind, no matter how happy she was.
It was good while it lasted, Maria thought regretfully.
As if reading her mind, Joe gave her hands a gentle squeeze. “Maria, I understand. Well…not really. I don’t think I’ll ever understand, but you know what I mean. I understand that you are somehow magical—wow, never thought I’d say that and literally mean it.”
“I never thought I’d be able to talk to my dog, or perform magic, or ride a dragon—”
“You rode a dragon? No fucking way. Oops, excuse my language,” Joe said, his face going slightly red.
“Oh, I don’t fucking care about cursing,” Maria assured him and laughed. “But yes, I rode a dragon. It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you another time. I think you can only handle so much shock to your system at once.”
There was a silence as Joe contemplated this, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
Maria finally broke it. “And to answer your question…yes!”
“You mean it?” Joe asked. He did his patented back of the neck scratch.
Maria smiled, leaned forward, and kissed Joe full on the lips. She felt his smile beneath her own. It was a magical moment if there ever was one, and Maria knew all about magical moments.
The door between the shop and the back room swung open, and three or four bodies spilled out onto the floor.
“Dammit, Sherlock!” Tabby said.
“Yeah, why did you have to do that?” Claire added.
Maria turned around to see Sherlock, Claire, Tabby, and Gelbus piled up, their arms and legs twisted at odd angles.
I couldn’t hear! Sherlock shouted.
Of course, none of them heard it. Maria laughed and turned back to Joe, kissing him again. She didn’t mind. They were all, bound so by magic and fate, one big family. There were no secrets.
“So, you really are magic,” Joe said, mostly to himself. “That is some crazy stuff.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Maria assured him.
Joe put his arm around her shoulders as they walked over to the pile of twisted limbs and reached in to help them up.
“Thanks,” Claire said. “And sorry about spying.”
Maria shrugged. “I expect no less.”
Claire, finally standing, hugged Maria tight. “Aw, you know me so well. You truly are my best friend.” She turned and stuck out her hand for Joe to shake.
Just as Joe reached for it, Claire withdrew her hand and threw her arms around him, drawing him close in a hug. “Welcome to the family, Joe!”
Tabby joined in, and even Sherlock got in on the action.
Muffled, Joe said, “This just keeps getting crazier and crazier.”
Agnes, Salem, and Gramps came back into the room.
“Welcome, young man,” Gramps said. “The craziness has just begun.”
“He ain’t lying,” Salem added.
Chapter Two
The Widow smelled fear. It was a sweet smell, one she relished…usually. Not tonight. The smell was ripe, overtaking the stench of the piled bodies below her. She brooded in her web, her green eyes bright in the rising smoke from the fire.
She heard footsteps a mile away.
The Arachnid soldier, Jinxton, arrived shortly after. The Widow bared her fangs in a venomous smile. She’d let him wait for a moment while she gauged his emotions; besides the fear, there was an odd mix of excitement.
He was excited to tell her news. That meant it would be good news. She picked up another emotion from the soldier as well—what is this? She shifted on her web, leaning her massive body forward to get a better look at Jinxton.
He jumped at the sound of her movement.
She was the biggest living Arachnid, but not the biggest who’d ever lived. Her king was lost in the world in between, feeding off the darkness, brooding there between the worlds, getting bigger and bigger until no purgatorial place could contain him or his only-slightly-smaller guards.
It had been said that the lair was built around the Widow. It had also been said that she had entered the lair the size of a normal Arachnid, but some odd magic had tainted her DNA, causing her to grow twenty times the size of what she should’ve been. Whatever the answer, it didn’t matter. She was huge and she was in charge.
“My Queen,” Jinxton said, bending at the knee and craning his head up to see the massive gossamer web that covered much of the lair’s walls and ceiling.
“What news do you bring me?” She sniffed deeply, taking in all the fear, all the excitement, all the…despair. Oh, but that was not good. “Why do you despair so?” Her voice climbed, both getting louder and more menacing.
The Arachnid soldier paused helplessly below that massive web. Why must I bring her the news? How fast can I pull my blade free to defend myself?
Neither of those questions would ever be answered; they were just passing thoughts. To a soldier like he, the Widow was his God. One did not defy their God unless they planned on burning in the eternal flames of the punishment.
That was not Jinxton’s intention.
“What news?” the Widow demanded again.
Stammering, Jinxton answered. “The news I bring you is not good, my Queen.”
“Not good?”
She had read him wrong. Fear was prominent in any soldier that made their way down into her lair, but Jinxton’s was more than a basic fear of her.
It was a fear of death.
“No, my Queen. The Orcs have lost. They were driven out by a Rogue Dragon.”
The Widow’s eyes lit up, and she barked laughter as she descended her throne of webs.
“Rogue Dragons? Not likely.”
“I only relay the information given to me by the Orc King. If he is spreading false information…”
“He must be. The Rogue Dragons have not been on Oriceran in many millennia. So long, in fact, my dear servant, that they’ve become legend.” She reached one meaty leg out to the wall and pushed into a loose bit of stone. The wall pivoted around as a hidden door gave way to her touch. Beyond the door, was a Blood Tree: its trunk white and ashy, the leaves the color of freshly spilt human blood. “Like my tree, Jinxton. Legend.”
“But your tree is real, my Queen. What’s not to say the Rogue Dragons have not risen again? Our intel tells us of their
devout worshippers. The Dragon Tongue have grown in numbers in recent years, as if preparing for…something.”
“They are nothing but fools who could no better raise a dead Gnome than raise such a majestic and feared beast as a Rogue Dragon,” the Widow answered. With another meaty leg, she waved away Jinxton’s comment. “No, I fear our ally has turned out to not be so.”
“So he’s a liar, then? You have seen it?”
Jinxton was challenging the Widow. It was hardly noticeable, but she could sense the spike in his blood pressure and the quickening of his heart rate, and see the doubt in his eyes. She did not like to be challenged, and rarely did it end well for those who challenged her.
“I have not seen it for I have not yet looked, Jinxton. But I need not to. The Orc King is a master of deception, and a failed ally as he is a failed king.”
Jinxton nodded his agreement, all eight of his red eyes blazing in the muted and hazy light.
“We will sever our ties with the Orcs; we must look for new allies. What of the dark witches in the north?”
“Little to none left, my Queen.” Not to mention they hate us. But they can learn to like us…
“Shame, shame,” the Widow answered. “What has happened to our once great world?”
“That I don’t know,” Jinxton replied. He bent down on one knee again, bringing up his six other arms—or legs, depending on how you looked at it—and crossed them at the wrists. This was a symbol of worship from the olden days—the days when the Widow’s king ruled by her side, and the Arachnids were feared all across the land. The days of glory. “But I do know that you shall make this world great once more,” he concluded.
Seeing Jinxton give this sign brought up both admiration and loathing within her. Jinxton was not part of those days; he had not been there when the traitors took the fortress by siege, nor when the Widow came back with the Blood Tree and the music box. What right does he have to bring forth the sign? Then again, how honorable of him. How brave. Those who presented themselves before her were often too scared or too awe-stricken to do much of anything. Jinxton was different from her other followers.
“Rise,” she ordered.
Jinxton rose.
The Widow turned to the Blood Tree. “Come up here,” she said.
Hesitantly, Jinxton moved forward. It was not often that the Widow invited her soldiers up the few broken steps to the large platform from which she ruled her measly kingdom. Or ever.
Jinxton mounted the steps, taking them slowly. He stared into the Widow’s green eyes with fear; she could see it clearly.
Once he reached the top of the platform, the Widow’s massive shadow swallowed him up, and she pointed to the Blood Tree.
“Turn,” she commanded in a flat voice.
As much as she liked him, as much as she respected him, the Blood Tree required a sacrifice.
The Widow had played favorites in the past, and it had gotten her nowhere. Malakai had proven to be worthless in life, in death, and in resurrection. The Orcs were cowards; the Orc King the biggest coward of them all.
It was time to take matters into her own hands.
She did not believe in doing the same things over and over again when the results never changed—especially in this business of death and conquering.
“Please, my Queen,” Jinxton’s voice shook.
She ignored his request.
“On your knees,” she pressed.
With a struggle, she lifted herself up, her massive body a couple of feet from the surface of the dais, and pivoted to face Jinxton and the Blood Tree full on.
The dirt that the tree was planted in was dry and dusty. The trunk itself was as papery as the corpses of the Widow’s oldest victims across the lair. Looking at the tree, seeing its stark whiteness in all the black, its red leaves shining like dragonfire, gave the Widow an uneasy feeling in the bowels of her stomach. But she knew the Blood Tree was of ancient power. Whether it was on her side or not didn’t matter, because she had it; she had stolen it from the mountains, ripped it free of the rocky earth, roots and all. It was hers, and she tended to it.
It had starved long enough.
“I have done nothing but serve you,” Jinxton said, his voice pleading.
“Yes, and I am quite grateful for that, Jinxton. You have proven to be one of my top soldiers.”
“So keep me, my Queen, please.”
“Do not beg, Jinxton. There is no reward in it. Go out of this life as a warrior, not a coward. Cowardice takes you to the black beyond; bravery will take you much farther.”
She slid her massive body toward him. Her shadow stretched and stretched until it covered the Blood Tree, but the dratted thing would not be consumed by her own darkness. It shone bright and triumphant in all the darkness, mocking her.
She had no choice but to take it. The mocking was a small price to pay, compared to the powers that the Blood Tree offered. It was the Blood Tree that gave her sight; allowed her to see across the worlds, to stick her leg in one portal and feel it come out another, where her enemies traveled.
Her left front leg stung at this thought. It was that leg—well, the spirit of that leg—that had traveled through a portal to search out Ignatius Mangood and his bitch of a granddaughter, Maria. The young one had hacked at the arm as if it were a weed, cutting it from its host. The Widow had screamed so loud that her voice shook free the dust on the rows of columns lining her lair. She had been snapped out of the trance that the Blood Tree had put her in, and she’d looked down at her leg to see it all there. That witch hadn’t chopped it free; it was only a dream. But the mental damage it had inflicted on her was as real as anything.
Still, the Blood Tree had allowed her to see where they were then, where they were going, and, most importantly, it had allowed the Widow to travel the portals and hurt Ignatius Mangood. She knew it was nearly impossible to totally incapacitate the wizard, for he was quite strong, but it had slowed him down, and that went a long way.
Still, the Orcs should’ve been successful—a hurt Ignatius or no.
The Widow looked down at Jinxton, and he held his head high. Death was on the horizon, but he wouldn’t let that knowledge get the best of him. His burst of begging aside, Jinxton was the most honorable warrior that the Widow’d had the pleasure of having in her army since her king and his warriors had been lost.
Still, what had to be done had to be done. She needed someone to blame, and Jinxton was there while the Orc King was not, and the Blood Tree’s roots were thirsty—so thirsty.
“I will make this as painless as possible,” she said.
They both knew that meant nothing; dying was always painful. It was the act of passing through to wherever death might take you that was sweet.
Jinxton spoke very slowly, with pain in his voice. “Thank you, my Queen. It is my hope that I may die honorably for you.”
“You will, my son. You will.”
The Widow bared her fangs. They were long, black, and dripping with semi-gelatinous venom. She would make Jinxton’s death quick. She could practically hear the Tree’s roots, screaming out like hungry pups awaiting their mother’s milk.
Her mouth opened, jaw cracking as it unhinged bigger and bigger. Saliva dribbled out and splashed on the stone floor, sizzling and sending curls of smoke up into the death-thick air.
Jinxton’s muscles tightened, though he made no move to defend himself.
The Widow closed all of her sickly-green eyes. She did not want to see Jinxton die before her. It was her duty to kill him, but unlike with the others—now a pile of bones and discarded flesh in the far corner—she would take no joy in it.
Jinxton bristled at the hot breath on the back of his neck. He smelled the stench of rotten meat, pieces of the Widow’s lost victims long forgotten between her protruding teeth. He prayed to any God that would listen.
I know I’ve not been the best soul, but I’ve done everything purely out of survival. Please. Forgive me and accept me through your gates, whe
re I will be your servant for all of eternity.
That’s how it went. Jinxton was a servant in life and he would be a servant in death as well. He knew this; he accepted this. But who he would serve, he was not sure.
He cried out as the Widow’s fangs brushed his flesh. Squeezing his eyes shut, he thought of the life he could’ve had if he didn’t serve his Queen. Long ago, there was a woman. She was beautiful beyond words, and Jinxton thought he would marry her—this was before the idea of marriage was outlawed in the Arachnid kingdom, when the Widow was just a mad woman by the King’s side, instead of a mad woman in charge. Jinxton had fallen in love, had wanted a marriage, a family, the whole deal. It was only meant for royalty among the Arachnids, though. His bride-to-be ran away, fleeing with most of the saner Arachnids, as the Widow began to lose her mind and turn their kingdom into a dictatorship. Many were cut down in the wake of their exodus; many by Jinxton himself, but he had never seen his beloved.
As the Widow’s fangs bore into the hard, chitinous armor around Jinxton’s neck, he held onto the notion that he would meet his beloved again. If it could not be in life, it would be in death. All things must die, all reigns must end, but through it all, true love had to prevail.
He gritted his teeth and dug his claws into the palms of his many hands until cold, black blood squeezed out from between his knuckles.
“What?” the Widow said suddenly, raising her head away from Jinxton’s neck.
The hot breath no longer touched his flesh. A coldness took him—one so sweet and pure, he was reminded of the first time he laid eyes on his beloved.
Jinxton turned his head toward the entrance. It was dark, barely lit by the Widow’s peering green eyes, but Jinxton could see red orbs floating, floating, floating, until their owners broke the threshold of shadow and revealed themselves: the two guards who watched the lair’s entrance. What their names were, Jinxton was unsure. Nor at that moment, did he care. Names or not, the burning love and admiration he felt for them at that moment was too much to put into words, to put into a name.
In front of the guards, their heads lowered and postures stooped, were two Orcs. Their clothes were singed by fire—Dragonfire? Jinxton wondered—and there was dry, crusty, black blood on their faces. Upon closer examination, one of the Orc’s eyes was gone. The wound looked fresh, as if someone had pried it out just moments ago. Jinxton thought that maybe the guard had done it. He wouldn’t put it past them.
Midwest Magic Chronicles Box Set Page 62
