“Are there alligators here?” I ask suddenly, my gaze darting around the ground for a snout posing as a log.
“Nah,” Remy says casually. “The Penumbra beastie would eat them.”
I try to halt, but my feet sink even worse, so I'm forced to keep moving. I'm traipsing around a bog in fairy land looking for the teeth of a creature that can eat 'gators. This was not on the bucket list at all.
“What sort of god awful fairy world is this?” I groan and take another heavy step.
I focus on my feet again, trying to mimic Remy's movements. It just throws me off balance. I catch myself against a tree, only to find my hand swarming with what appears to be green bugs forming a mass. I pull away and keep moving, while studying the congregation. It's not bugs; it's rapidly growing mold.
I really hate this place.
With my other hand, I rip off the patches of green fungus, thankful my skin doesn't go with it, and throw it to the bog water where it just sits like a little island in the muck.
“What, exactly, does this bog beastie look like?”
“Never seen it,” Remy says like we're discussing some cliché 80s movie. “I think it's like a snake.”
“More of my least favorite things,” I reply.
A few silent moments tick by, and then Remy says, “It's here.”
I nearly scream, and I tense up not to pee myself. My gaze darts from side to side, then front, and farther. There's a lake up ahead, but nothing is moving along the surface.
I swallow hard. “Where...?”
Then I look over to where Remy is standing next to a small johnboat. A giant set of propellers, like a fan, sits on the back.
He was talking about the boat, not a beastie.
“We'll just take it across the lake and get out on the other side,” he says with the same measured ease that makes me want to throttle him.
I take a deep breath, then clomp-squish over to the boat, step inside—ignoring how it teeters on the water—and plunk down onto one of the seats.
“Aye, Captain,” I say dryly.
He grins, climbing in next to me, and bends down to start the ignition. The fan purrs up into a roar, and within no time, we're loose on the water, Remy at the controls.
I look back as the shore becomes increasingly farther away. The opposite shore is in the distance, but visible, and I take some comfort from that. At least I won't be in the middle of the water with no sense of direction or too far to swim back when the boat dies. And I'm sure it will.
I study the ripples the boat makes in the water and shudder. Swimming in the murk would probably be worse than just staying on board and starving to death. Hopefully, I won't have to make that choice.
“What happens if the barrier comes back up while we're in here?” I ask.
Questions just pop out of my mouth now that I'm in the middle of a bog in some kind of alternative made-up, but entirely real, world.
My words, however, are lost in the sound of the fan. So I lean over to Remy and speak louder, in his ear.
He pushes me back with a start.
“I don't know,” he shouts. “Never thought of it.”
So we're headed deep into a bog to face some kind of beastie neither of us knows anything about, in order to get the treatment Remy needs in order not to kill me at random. But at least there aren't alligators. That has to count for something.
The ripples build up, expand. Then I realize they aren't coming from us—they're coming at us.
“Uh, Remy. . .”
Something shoots straight up out of the water. The boat rises and falls. In front of us, a tower of flesh and skin and scales. The long shadow diminishes our boat to a speck.
Remy is yelling and pulling at the boat levers. I assume he wants to stop the engine before we crash head first into the beastie.
I lean back and stare upwards as the beastie's head bobs from left to right. To call it a snake would be a sore misrepresentation of everything serpentine, at least where I'm from. In Normal Land.
This beastie has large sheer fins along its body that jut out of the water, and what can only be fungus hanging like stalactites off its squared, protruding face. The mounds of its nostrils bounce as it seems to be taking in the air, probably investigating our scent before it decides to eat us.
The boat comes to a halt deep in the shadow of the snake-thing.
“How do we get teeth from it?” I whisper to Remy. Who knows if this monster can understand spoken language.
“It's not the Penumbra beastie,” he says, just as quietly.
I glance at him. “What?”
“The Penumbra beastie has a guardian. Just gotta get around this thing,” he says, and the steady tone makes me seriously question how much awful this fairy land doles out on a daily basis. “Hold tight.”
I groan and grab my seat as he rips the engine. The fan spins up and we're off, straight toward the beastie. Remy guides the boat in a slow arc, aiming for the light beyond the shadow. The beastie's head dips and sways like it's the dragon costume in the Chinese New Year parade. Then, totally unlike said costume, it rears back and strikes at the water. Its face hits beyond us, its body a curve above our boat. We propel under it like it's a tall, fleshy, moving bridge.
The body undulates through the water as the snake turns around to face us. We're out of its shadow, back into the filtered sunlight. The ripples build up again, hitting our boat with enough force it throws us around. Motion sickness washes over me, heavy and non-negotiable. I wrap my arms around my body as I lean over the side of the boat and wretch.
Remy scrambles for me, grabbing me by the arm and neck and pushing me down to the bottom of the boat. I scream as the snake sails over us, head followed by body. The strike missed, but he's already turning back around.
I wipe the back of my hand over my mouth, daring to peek up from where I'm huddled with Remy in the bottom of our glorified raft. The snake body comes around to the left side of the boat, the front of the beastie near the back. It's encircling us.
“Turn! Turn!” I shriek, shoving at Remy.
He scurries over to the controls and yanks it to the right. The boat veers sharply. My heart stalls in my chest; the boat is tipping.
Water splashes me in the face, tasting of dirt and other things I don't want to consider. I reach for the seat, clutch onto it. The boat slams back down on its bottom. My head crashes into the base of the seat. Wide pain spreads across my skull. I'm thrown to the front of the boat.
“Get out! Get out!” Remy yells, tugging at me.
I try to find my bearings, but he's already hauling me over the side and onto wet land. I flop down into a pile, unable to find my limbs. My head throbs, and my stomach burns with acid. I lean forward just in time to prevent from puking on my own lap.
“Get! Up!” Remy practically forces me onto my feet.
I stumble around, then realize I'm on land, the lake is behind me, and that snake beastie could very well be amphibious. That's enough to get my legs moving.
Remy and I take off through the trees, shoes slopping in the ground. As much as I want to get away from the serpentine Goliath, I'm terrified to know what else is lurking among the swamp. Alligators would be easy. I would take alligators.
We dart farther, no sense of direction—at least, I don't have any idea where we're headed. I don't know how we will get back, either, but that's on the list of things I can't deal with yet. For now, I have to keep moving and hope that the snake isn't actively pursuing us.
I steal a glance behind me to confirm, though I probably would have heard if it had, or seen the shadow drop over us again. We're free and clear, but I can't find it in me to slow down.
Not until a looming structure appears up ahead. As we near, it develops into a stone bridge fit for a castle, arching high between two mossy cliffs with enormous vine-wrapped pillars holding it up. The rails are intricately designed, craftsmanship that belongs to elves in the movies, not fairies.
If I didn't hate th
is place so much, the bridge would be beautiful.
Remy halts with me next to it. I'm afraid to take the first step, as if it will break the illusion and I'll find I'm really just in a dirty swamp full of horrific creatures. When Remy heads out onto it, I gently tug at his jacket, then let him go. He makes it several feet before I follow after.
Small lights raise up from the ground like thin spotlights, and we turn to take in the scene. The bridge is almost as high as the trees and from our view, the swamp water is patched with green, forming its own atlas. Rocks jut up as if mountains, their peaks draped in fallen white blooms. The thin trees hold up a canopy, sheltering the beloved inhabitants wandering among their lower limbs and the brush below.
The bridge shakes, just once. I would believe I imagined it, but Remy's face drains of all color. Before I can open my mouth to ask if it's the snake again, the sloppy turf contorts. I'm riveted as the ground in front of us raises and takes shape, the resting giant awoken.
It sits back on thick haunches, long muscular arms folded in multiple joints in front of it. The round body could be a moss-covered boulder, but its face has distinct eyes peering behind a hard black mask.
This has to be our bog beastie. Joy.
It stares at us, and I study it in return, trying to determine its disposition by its body language and expression—only to find it has neither. Remy doesn't seem to have any idea what to do with this creature, either.
I take a stupid-brave step forward and lean over the rail to shout, “We came to talk to you!”
A tail whips out from behind it and comes at us. Remy and I flee in opposite directions as the tail slams down on the bridge. A crack slithers between my shoes. I look up, heart racing. Small screeching creatures billow around us as an enormous crunching sound echoes in the air. My feet slide backward; I grab for the railing, but it's no longer where it should be.
My screams can't compete with the roaring of the collapsing bridge. I fall face first, catching my chin into the ground. The taste of blood fills my mouth. My fingers dig at the stone, my fingernails bending back too far. Belly down, I slide feet first without any means of stopping. Then the scraping on my face and ribs releases—I'm free falling toward mossy wet ground.
The bog beastie lunges at me.
6
I wake with goosebumps, and my teeth start chattering. I can only feel it; the world is either dead silent, or I'm deaf. Unmerciful cold presses through the back of my jacket and against my ass. My tailbone aches in a way that makes moving seem too painful, except I need warmth.
My hearing fades back in. Someone is shouting my name far beyond any place I can reach. Somewhere. . .below me? That doesn't make sense. I kick my feet to stand in the same instance I realize the sound is coming from below me. I'm suspended in the air.
My eyes pop open. The face of the bog beastie is an arm's length away, fixed on me. I scream, scrambling in his giant hands. My foot slips, and I wrap around his arm. He doesn't react.
He's also coated in ice.
The familiar freezing seeps through to my front and the inside of my thighs. I steady my breath as I stare up at the beastie. He's unflinching, unmoving. I pry one of my arms from around his wrist and reach up with a trembling hand to touch just below his chin. It's like tapping an ice cube. He's frozen solid.
My attention returns to the yelling below me, and I avert my gaze to where Remy is standing on the ground. He has his hands cupped around his mouth as he shouts up at me.
“Ember! It won't hold forever! Get down!” He makes some gesture that seems more like he's having a seizure than actually conveying anything.
My gaze flicks to the figure standing next to him, whose only distinguishable feature from this height is a red three-pronged headdress. Before I can formulate any thoughts about who that is, I realize why Remy is frantic: the bog beastie is going to defrost with me still in its hold. Not exactly where I want to find myself, but the ground is far away and I can't just let go. Well, I can, but the subsequent broken bones don't seem like any better idea.
“Climb down!” Remy calls up, like the idea is brilliant and not completely overlooking the fact I'm not a monkey.
I try to glare at him, but it's difficult to do anything while clinging onto a cold frozen bog beastie. Not like Remy could really see even if I managed to crack the horror stricken expression on my face enough to shoot him a dirty look.
Either way, I need to get down and in a hurry. My fingers are like little frozen fish sticks, my elbows ache with the coldness, and my legs are taking all the weight of my body in this awkward position wrapped around the arm of the bog beastie like a bangle.
The woman in the red headdress shoots out her arm like a snake striking. My brain takes a minute to catch up to what is happening: snow piles up around the bog beastie. First just to the top of its ugly clawed feet. Then to its ankles, and climbing up its haunches. The woman—surely another witch—is building a mound of snow.
For me to fall into.
Well, then.
Remy's frantic hand motions finally convey something as he gestures me into the soft white goodness. I take a deep breath and let go. Not that it's difficult to convince myself to release the giant bog ice cube freezing me to death.
I land on my back, making an oomph sound. Remy flounders through the snow toward me. Before I can find my feet, he has pulled me to them. My teeth chatter harder, and I'm so wracked with shivers that I hunch over. I find myself leaning into him, not for balance, not for comfort, but for his fireplace-like warmth.
He wraps one arm around me and helps me from the mound, kicking up little flurries as we go, until we're back on the frozen turf. I turn to look at the bog beastie, and he's like an ice sculpture at an elite fundraiser, except when he starts to melt, he's going to eat me.
“How did. . .” My voice trails off as I look between the bog beastie and the pile of snow. Obviously, the red-hatted witch saved us.
I reel around to take her in: under the headdress is a girl of maybe thirteen, with long black hair trailing in tight curls down her shoulders, and bright eyes that shift between brown and green, but don't stay either long enough to be hazel.
She smiles at me. “He doesn't like his sleep interrupted.”
I look at Remy, opening my mouth to ask when he had dozed off, then I realize she means the bog beastie. “Oh. Well, I suppose he should have left the barrier up.”
Now that I'm alive and starting to thaw, I'm annoyed with the situation again.
“The ward? That,” she says with a laugh, “that's me, not the Penumbra. But it has been faulty since the shadows came.”
Relief creeps up me, then gets stomped on by fear. Not only does she have control over snow and ice, but she can also put up a barrier to keep us out. Does that mean she can put up a barrier to keep us from leaving? Is she more powerful than the other witches?
“Why would you block people from the swamp?” I ask, less interested in her answer and more concerned with leading her into admitting she's diabolical and we should smack her on the head with a rock and run away.
“To protect the Penumbra beastie,” she says as if it's common knowledge, though judging by the scowl on Remy's face, he doesn't understand what she's talking about, either. “I used to leave it up all the time, but it's much more taxing these days. It's like the shadows want the beasties to roam freely.”
I take less comfort than I would have anticipated in knowing that she can only trap us for periods of time and not indefinitely.
“Protect it from what?” I ask, turning back to face the still-frozen giant.
First, this bog required outrunning something that could eat alligators. Now that I've found what that is, there's something even more sinister lurking in the swamp. This place keeps getting better and better.
“From people who want to harm him to make the elixir,” she says, narrowing her eyes onto me as they darken to black and remain so.
“I'm sure it can survive without a couple of t
eeth,” I say, feeling less brave than I sound. She could probably just waggle her fingers and turn me into a toad. “We need them more than he does.”
“No one is touching the Penumbra beastie,” she says with resolution.
Defiance brews in me. Who is she to tell us what we can or can't do with the bog beastie, anyway? She doesn't even know what she's talking about, what happens when we run out of the elixir.
Remy squints one eye at her. “You're protecting a monster that can, and probably will, eat you?”
I step back, thankful he's handling this argument. It's his world, after all. I'm doing as well as someone who took French 101 and then tried to write the next Les Misérables.
The witch-girl spins around, anger flashing across her face.
“My family has been looking after him for generations, and not once has he harmed us! Get out of my swamp!” She shoves Remy's chest, but he doesn't budge.
He grabs her wrists, one in each hand. “How is it that the shadows have just come, and yet your family has been guarding the Penumbra for decades? What else was he hunted for?”
“Nothing,” she says with a huff. “He's unique, and it was only time before someone came for him.” Her voice quivers, but her expression is solid.
“I can guarantee that snake back there,” Remy says with a nod of his head, “isn't found anywhere else, either. Why aren't you protecting it?”
“It's a. . .” She slams her mouth shut, then twists her arms but Remy doesn't let go. “Release me, or I'll turn you into an iceberg!”
“Yeah, and that's another thing,” Remy continues. “Where did you learn that spell? An ice spell?”
“My family has practiced bog magic longer than you peasants knew it even existed,” she snaps. Something tells me—probably the rage on her face—that her magic battery is at yellow, or she would have used her powers to seal Remy's mouth by now.
He leans down until they are face-to-face and snarls, “I don't trust you.”
“Your people will die from the shadows, just like the stories said you would.” Her voice matches the warmth of her sorcery.
Wicked Legends: A Dystopian Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection Page 29
