I told him no. He needed to give a message to the next hero. But if he delivered the message—and my special gift—then she would vanquish him from this earth.
“What message?”
“She must fear Death.”
He smiled. He’d sawed off his horns but it was plain enough to see that he was a demon from one of the darker fairy tales. Those blasted Brothers Grimm and their monsters.
“Why should she fear Death? She will be in his company for the rest of her life, the moment she picks up the magic pen.”
“I’ve seen what she is capable of. In my visions. She’s special.”
“Why not let the rabbit warn her?”
I was surprised he knew about Briar. But word travels even among the Corrupted. “Because in my visions … I can’t quite see what role the rabbit will play.”
“So be it. If that’s what it takes to end my miserable life, I’ll gladly pass along the message.”
I left, aware that I was making far too many deals with Corrupted than I should. If not for the strength of my visions, I never would have done it.
But in my visions I can see so much. Alice Goodenough will avenge my death.
October 3
Briar was confused about the white snake.
“Surely something a little less poisonous would suffice?”
“No.”
He watched me close the basement door, then use the pen to erase the door altogether.
“Cute trick. Did I teach you that? I don’t remember teaching you that.”
“It’s just something I discovered.”
We were in the basement of a library in a suburb outside Milwaukee. One I’d seen in my visions. It smelled like old books and mold. I’d taken the liberty of unclogging the storm drain between the L and M bookcases. Just in case there was a flood. Some of the books on these shelves were special. It was always better to be prepared, a lesson Briar would no doubt teach Alice as soon as possible.
Provided the Corruption didn’t take him first.
I looked at him. His ears drooped slightly. “What is it?”
“Nothing, mi amigo.”
“Juliette …” His whiskers twitched. “I know it doesn’t matter much, but I’m sorry for what happened to your family. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it.”
I sighed and scratched him between the ears. “The next hero …”
“… Will be special, yes, yes. You’ve already told me half a dozen times. Must you leave now? Must you do this next thing alone? Maybe the visions are wrong! Maybe there’s a way we can beat this guy!”
I blinked away tears. If Briar only knew how ready I truly was for this to be over … he might have tried even harder to stop me. But the truth is that the dark shadow that has clung to me ever since the death of my loved ones has drained me of all my willpower. I’ve sought revenge for so long, running from those same bony hands that always seemed to be holding me.
But in the end they were my own hands, holding me tight. And I was in a tunnel, and all I ended up doing was traveling deeper into a pitch-black tunnel. Un túnel with no end.
And I finally see a way out.
I will enter this young man’s mansion armed with a single dagger, just as I saw in my visions. If I can stop him, I will.
If I can’t, then so be it. Alice will kill him. Alice will do a great many things. Maybe she’ll manage to save us all.
Rosa, I am coming for you.
A Dance With Death: Part 1
Chapter 1
It was kind of like traveling down a slide.
A waterslide. And not the half-pipe kind, either … more like a covered slide that was pitch-black inside. And so I was traveling down, and every once in a while I felt my body jerk to the left or right. I was afraid, but the only reason I knew I was afraid was because my mind seemed to be moving even faster than my body as I soared through the darkness. The darkness was taking me somewhere.
No sound. Just a void, all-encompassing.
Then I saw the light up ahead. I traveled toward it at an insane speed and held out my legs, as if I could slow myself down. The light grew bigger and bigger until it swallowed me whole, so bright that I had to shut my eyes.
Thump.
I landed on the ground at an intensity somewhere between “gently” and “roughly,” my butt hitting the soft grass. I let my body go limp, just as Briar had always instructed, and rolled to a stop after a few turns. I sat up, absently brushing blades of grass off my bare arms. I felt … OK. Not different in any way. Not “dead,” which was kind of what I was expecting when Death swallowed me into the darkness underneath his cloak.
Sam Grayle sat beside me. He used one hand to smooth out his hair, blinking a few times. His gray suit had split at the elbow during the landing. He looked at it, frowning. “I’ll need to find a tailor at some point.”
“This place …” I looked around. We were sitting at the base of a hill, which gently inclined; at the top were a handful of trees—they looked like oak trees from a distance—and a backdrop of blue sky with little puffy white clouds hanging lazily in little herds.
“Is this earth?” Sam asked. “It looks like earth. And there’s a road.”
I scooted around, aware of the creeping numbness in my legs. My entire body seemed to be coming out of a deep sleep, my muscles not quite reacting as quickly as normal. The effect was wearing off at a slow pace. “Yeah,” I said. “A stone road. Old-school.”
No concrete here. No asphalt. Just a path paved with flat gray stones, good enough for horses and carriages and probably not much else. The ancient Romans had used roads like this to transport armies, and then trade followed. So were we somewhere in Europe? Or …
“It’s morning,” Sam said, groaning as if he’d just taken a look at his bank account and seen how much he’d spent on gray suits over the past month.
“OK, so what?” I asked.
He pointed up. I looked, rubbed my eyes, then looked again.
A giant moon hung in the blue sky. It looked like earth’s moon, only it was too large. Waaaaaay too large. “Definitely not earth,” I whispered. No, it was somewhere else. But where?
“I haven’t seen a moon like that since the very first day I arrived on earth. It was like that a few nights, and then it shrank to normal size.”
“Maybe we went back in time.”
“I’m sore,” Grayle murmured, crawling to his knees. His little fingers dug into the soft green grass, disappearing between the pencil-tall blades. “But … I’m glad to be alive. In some sense. Wherever we are.”
“Save those positive vibes for when we find Agnim,” I said, standing up. My legs were still wobbly, but they held me up at the very least. “There’s no reneging, Grayle.”
“I know that,” he snapped, trying to stand. His knees buckled and he fell over. He sat up again, brushing grass off the front of his suit. “I agreed to this, didn’t I?”
You did. But that doesn’t mean I can’t hate you.
“We need to find Seth.” I scanned the area, hoping an answer might reveal itself. We were surrounded by hills with ankle-high green grass. To our left, underneath the large moon hanging lazily in the sky, was another much smaller hill. Straight ahead was grassland with a few tall trees with bright green leaves and farther ahead was a vast forest with dark green foliage. To our right was flatter land peppered with tall trees with umbrella canopies of bright green leaves.
And the stone road. It made a straight line for the horizon, gradually climbing over a rolling hill.
“We should follow the road,” I decided.
“That’s a horrible idea.”
I turned to Grayle. He’d finally managed to stand and was glaring at the road. It was the kind of look he’d often given me after I’d outwitted him. “Care to explain?”
“Someone built that road,” Grayle said. “We don’t know who. You said the boy was in trouble, which means this place is dangerous. Need I spell it out further?”
&n
bsp; “No,” I said acidly. “But we’re still taking the road. We need to find him as fast as possible.”
“I strongly recommend going that way.” He pointed left, toward the fat moon whose ghostly pale crescent had begun to disappear into the blue sky as the sun rose higher.
“Why?” I asked, following him.
“Because my entire body feels great,” Grayle said. “And it’s been more than a hundred years since I’ve climbed a hill and I very much want to climb a hill. And we don’t know who built that road. And we don’t know where we are.”
“We take the road. OK?”
He sighed and gestured for me to lead the way.
We walked on the stones, away from the disappearing moon hanging above. I stepped beside him, unable to shake this weird fear that he might just up and run away. To where, Alice? You’re being paranoid. You don’t trust him … that’s good. You still want to kill him … that’s understandable. But for now, there are other things that need to take precedence.
“This place is strange,” Grayle said. He licked his lips. “My lips are dry. My legs are still a little numb, but they feel better than they ever did on earth. I can feel the warm air on my skin and I’m starting to sweat a bit. This place can’t be some illusion. It’s a real place, at least as real as anything else I’ve experienced.”
He was right: the air was warm, and while I’m not as comfortable sharing so many details regarding the activity of my sweat glands, Sam was right about one thing: this place felt just as real as earth. So what was it? And where?
“I don’t suppose you have your pen.”
I searched the pockets of my pants. “No.” No magic Juniper seed, either. I reached under the collar of my shirt—no magic vial.
At least you have clothes, Alice. Be thankful for that.
“Well,” Grayle said with a tight grimace. “At least we’re both dressed respectably.” He tapped his pockets. “No wallet. No identification of any kind. Not that I’m entirely sure we’re going to need something like that here.”
We continued walking, passing a tree along the road that looked a lot like a maple. It had a fat, circular canopy with trademark five-lobed leaves. It was a maple. It had to be.
We reached the top of the hill and both stopped. The view was breathtaking: a valley with a large town nestled at the bottom, surrounded by farms with brick barns and wooden fences holding in massive brown-and-white cattle. There were crops, too: potatoes and something smaller with dark green leaves. Trees with delicate pink flowers dotted the landscape and lined the main road running through town.
“Those are cherry trees,” I said. “And over there,” I pointed left of the town, where there were more trees packed together, surrounding small wooden houses with stone roofs, “those are apple trees.”
“And?” Grayle asked impatiently.
“And both trees are native in the lower Saxony region of Germany,” I said. “This area looks like Germany.”
“And it feels like Germany … but it’s not Germany. Is that what you’re saying?”
I don’t know. No—don’t let him know that you don’t know, Alice. Don’t put that much trust in him. “We need to figure that out.”
Grayle’s calculating stony expression returned.
I frowned. “What?”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you know what Germany is like without ever having been there. You couldn’t have come this far without a sharp mind.”
I’m not perfect. I couldn’t save my best friend. I almost destroyed North Dakota because I couldn’t control my grief. I shook my head, clearing the thoughts. “It doesn’t mean diddly squat unless we can figure out where we really are. Come on.”
We began walking down the hill toward the town, which was a good mile away. Another road ran through the town, intersecting our road in the center. To the left, it cut through the massive grove of apple trees, climbing over another hill with tall grass. To the right, it disappeared into a thick forest whose dark leaves danced in a gentle breeze.
I could feel the warm sun on the bare skin of my neck. I could feel the strain in my calf muscles with each awkward step down the hill. What I couldn’t feel was the soreness on the ball of my left foot. Or the cuts on my back. I let Grayle get ahead of me, then tugged on the collar of my t-shirt. Yup, the scars were still there on both shoulders. But the fresher wounds from my fight with the donkey were gone.
“Wait,” I said. “Do you hear that?”
Grayle turned, looking first at me and then over my shoulder. His eyes narrowed. “I think we’re about to get more answers.”
I turned around. There, at the top of the hill, were five men on horses. Scary, not-too-friendly-looking men wearing blackened steel armor and helmets with slitted visors. From a distance, the visors almost had a bird-like quality: long and pointed with narrow rectangular eyeholes. One of them clutched a wooden lance, its black flag flapping and snapping in the breeze. The wind picked up, straightening the flag and revealing its insignia.
A golden dragon. Both claws reaching out. Mouth open. Long tail. Wide wings.
A bad feeling crept over me. I knew that insignia. I’d seen it before.
On a coin.
“Run,” I whispered.
“How can we—”
“Just run!” I shouted, spinning him around and pushing him off the road. He kept up for a few paces, then quickly fell behind. I glanced just once over my shoulder, seeing Grayle stumble and disappear as he face-planted ungracefully in the long grass.
“Wait!” he called out.
I slowed. The beating of horses’ hooves thundered in my ears. The five soldiers were bearing down on us, their horses peering through pitch-black metal armor that covered their faces and gave them a terrifying mechanical look.
Run! Leave the dwarf! Leave the murderer behind.
No. You’ll never outrun them. You wanted Grayle’s help for this … don’t abandon him now.
My feet dug into the grass. I hurried back to Grayle, clutching his wrist and pulling him up. He gave a yelp but I ignored it, tugging him in the direction of the village. The horses were only a hundred yards away now.
“We can’t make it,” Grayle huffed.
“We can try,” I said, pulling him harder. His feet barely touched the ground. The muscles in my arm strained, burning like fire. My lungs ached and each breath felt sharp and painful. My vision bounced with each heavily imbalanced step. Finally, Grayle found his footing and then he was running neck-and-neck with me. He ran faster; I followed.
The village seemed to be creeping away from us.
“Alice,” Grayle said, but even as he spoke my name I could see two of the horses in my peripheral vision, galloping past me. Then two more. The ones in front circled, stopping in front of us. The horses glared down from behind the plate armor strapped to their faces, warning me against trying to slip past.
I stopped, letting Grayle go. He landed on the grass with an “Ooof!” and then pushed himself to his feet.
Sunlight reflected off the steel-clad men. They stared at us through their visors. Or, I assume they did; the dark interiors of their helmets made it hard to tell. It was unsettling to be unable to look them squarely in the eye. Willing myself to stay calm, I inhaled through my nose and focused on the hint of sweet cherry blossoms that permeated the air.
Then one of the horses ruined the scent.
“Lovely,” Grayle muttered. “Well? What say you, then? Let’s parlay.”
The knight holding the lance shifted in his seat, then turned his head. I turned around. There was just one man behind us, taller than the others and wearing a golden dragon medallion on the collar of his black cloak. The sides of his helmet had small dragon’s wings. The chest plate was old, worn, scraped in places as if someone had raked a sword across it multiple times.
Intimidating, in other words. I turned to Grayle and gave him a nod, more than happy to see if his fast talk could get us out of this.
Or at
least get us some answers.
“I take it you’re the leader?” Grayle asked the one with the golden dragon pin. “I’ll have you know I’m a wealthy man. We seek only an escorted passage to that village there.” He pointed over his shoulder. “You’ll be richly rewarded for it.”
“That village?” the knight with the golden dragon pin said, pulling his sword from its sheath and pointing. It was a dangerous-looking sword with a wide, nicked blade. But it was heavy, too—I could tell by the way the knight was struggling to keep it up.
“Yes,” Grayle said, smiling in a friendly way that stretched his goatee. “An easy enough task.”
“Easy to get there,” the knight said. “But a foolish place to go.”
“Why?” Grayle asked cautiously.
“Because,” the knight said simply, “I plan on destroying that town and enslaving all who reside within.”
His voice came through muffled, metallic, but somehow familiar. “No,” I said in a low voice. “No way …”
The knight raised his visor. I gasped. Those piercing eyes. The dark eyebrows. The pallid, sunken face.
Edward.
He smiled. “Today is my lucky day, boys.” He pointed his sword at me. “For you? Not so much.”
Chapter 2
“I killed you.”
“Yes,” Edward said, “you did. Bravo.” He turned his head slightly so that I could see his little hint of a smile. His helmet’s visor was pulled up, but had begun slipping back down with each vigorous step of his horse. He sat tall in the brown leather saddle, one gloved fist clutching the pommel while the other rested comfortably on the hilt of his sword, sitting in its black scabbard and bouncing off the flank of his horse.
He looked like a knight. The intimidating Lord of the Rings kind of knight. Definitely a style change from when I’d known him. He’d bound my hands with a rope and tied it to his horse, forcing me to keep up or be dragged. The horse moved quickly, ignoring the road in favor of the grass; the tall blades made it harder to keep up; I wouldn’t let Edward have the satisfaction of seeing me fall, though.
The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 4 Page 14
