by Неизвестный
“You may speak,” she said.
“Zara.”
“There you go. Don't bother trying to move, but you can speak.”
“Zara, let's talk this through,” Edwin said, his voice sounding strange from the near-paralysis of his face. Though panic gripped him, he reminded himself he had the skills to stay calm under intense pressure.
In dealing with people who had overdue taxes, he'd found it of utmost importance to act like everything was completely normal, giving a sense of oh-these-things-happen, no matter how dire the situation was. People could come to grips with how much chowder they were in later, when he wasn't within striking distance.
Zara cocked her head and gave him a look of pity as she stroked his forehead.
“My sweet Edwin, you know there'll be plenty of time to talk once we're married.”
He hated lying, but he did it anyway. “Zara, sweetie. I was a fool to have not noticed you. But let's give our love some time. Let it blossom, naturally.”
“We will have time. Plenty of time.” She pulled a tiny glass bottle from a pocket within her robes and held the opening over his lips. “Now, open wide.”
“Wait,” he said through his teeth, keeping his lips close together, like a ventriloquist. “What is that?”
“A little tonic to cleanse your head of bad thoughts.”
“No,” he said.
In the silence, he heard the muffled cries of the elder witches who'd been tied up. They were conscious now, and witnessing everything.
“Ignore them,” she said. “They like to make rules and follow them. That's all they're good at. They're jealous of people who have creative ideas.”
“Stop, think it through, Zara. You can erase my memory, but what about all the others tied up over there. Do you have the skill and enough potions to erase all their memories too?”
“No. That's why we're leaving here, tonight, and getting on a boat.”
“Before we're married?”
“We're not going on the boat for a honeymoon cruise. We're going to the mainland, to start our new life together. This place is too stuffy.”
“But my family is here,” he said.
“I'm your family now,” she said, and she pulled his jaw down forcefully and tipped the bottle, pouring the dark fluid into his mouth.
He fought her, and tried to spit the stuff out, but she only laughed, and poured more in.
After a moment, she tipped her head and said, “That's odd.” Her eyes fluttered shut and she slumped forward, falling across him on the bench.
Edwin still couldn't move anything but his face, and he kept spitting, the dark fluid streaming down his cheeks and into his ears.
A familiar face appeared within his view. Max.
Max said, “I shot her.” She rubbed the side of her head. “I hope I shot the right one. I was out cold there, because someone clocked me a good one. Did I shoot the right witch? All three of them are down. That must be good, right?”
Edwin said, “Is Zara dead?”
“I should think not. I shot her with a tranquilizer dart, the only thing I'm authorized to carry. Though if you want to put in a good word to Council, I wouldn't be against an upgrade to bullets.”
Edwin realized with a shudder that his body was now free, and he quickly pushed the unconscious girl off him, then grabbed a nearby watering bucket and rinsed his mouth, spitting repeatedly into nearby plant pots.
The squirming, tied-up mass of witches nearby made a muffled sound like a hive of angry bluebees. Edwin said, “Hey Max, want my knife to untie those folks?”
Max affixed a plastic cable tie to Zara's limp wrists, then flashed her own blade at Edwin. “Got my own.” She pulled the tiny tranquilizer dart out of Zara's shoulder and dropped it into a nearby plant pot, then brushed off her hands. “I'll have everyone loose and giving me chowder for whatever I did wrong in the course of this investigation, in a manner of minutes.”
“Things are back to normal?” Edwin grinned.
Max used her knife to slip through the vines on a few of the witches, then handed one of the elders the knife to free the rest. They were in no mood to talk to Max, so she crossed the rooftop garden back over to where Edwin was gazing at the unicorn statue.
“I've never been up here before,” Max said.
“Me neither, obviously. The gardens are quite lovely,” Edwin said. “Do you think this statue looks like Gumdrop? My head feels funny. Why do I feel like I'm forgetting something?”
“There is the matter of the daemon,” Max said. “Where's the dead daemon? Is it in pieces? Can I see it? I'm assuming it went down with the blast.”
“Oh!” Edwin smacked himself on the face with both hands. “Where's Opal?”
“I thought she was with you.”
Edwin said, “Let's ask Carly. She was saying something to me earlier, about sensing where people were.”
They walked over to Carly and Edwin cut the vines off Carly's mouth.
Carly coughed, then said, “I can't tell you where she is, but she's not in the castle.”
Max said, “Maybe she went home.”
Carly held up her hands to get the vines removed. “We're pretty sure Opal took the orb, because it's gone as well. It will lead the daemon right to her, or her to it. The orb does both, I think, though nobody's used one in centuries.”
Max put her hands on her knees and shook her head. She said, “I thought when that blast went off and we all got knocked down, I thought that was the spell to take care of the daemon. You mean it's still out there? Eating things? Eating people?”
Carly looked down, her shame visible. “The spell was to stun everyone so Zara could get the orb, and then we were going to go after the daemon, the three of us, together.”
Edwin gasped. “Hey, where's Zara? She's not on the ground. You tied her up, didn't you, Max?”
They quickly checked the vicinity, around the bench and big potted plants, but didn't find her.
Max turned to the group of witches, who were strangely silent, their eyes flashing with anger.
The witch with the white-blond hair stepped forward. “One of our own has committed a crime.”
Behind her, the others muttered as a chorus, “A crime, a crime.”
The woman, whose name eluded Max's throbbing brain, continued, “Zara cast forbidden spells, and when someone's life force was taken by action of the spells, the imbalance brought forth the daemon, who burrowed up from Hell. Zara should not have done such a thing. The crime is… unforgivable.”
Max said, “Great. Yeah, I get that, but where is she? The law states she must get a fair trial. I realize things seem pretty obvious and clear-cut right now, up here on the roof of a damaged castle in the middle of the night, all of us with bumps on our heads and potions in our mouths, but let's hold off on the judge-jury-executioner schtick until the clear light of day.”
The woman smiled. “The girl is gone. Just think of the tax dollars saved.”
Edwin said, “Oh, no you didn't. That's a crime. You didn't just zap her away, did you? Now you'll go on trial. And won't that type of magic just summon up another daemon, according to your rules?”
“Different spell,” the woman said. “This one was a closed circuit.”
“But you can't do that,” Edwin said. “You broke the law.”
The woman said, “She must have done it herself. I didn't do anything.”
The women behind her said, as a chorus, “Nor did we, nor did we.”
Max said, “So, the unconscious witch I took down with a tranquilizer dart that would put a big man under for six hours, that girl cast some sort of closed circuit spell and disappeared herself?”
The women turned as a group and began to leave the roof. One of them called over Carly, who ran to them and disappeared into the group. The witches filed through the doorway one at a time, pausing briefly as a very confused-looking Ocean came running out past them.
Ocean said, “What happened? Is it over? Aw, I miss eve
rything.” He rubbed his head, fluffing his blue hair. “My brain feels like it's made of soup.”
“Mine too,” Max said.
Edwin picked up a still-unconscious-from-fainting Delilah and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. “Now what?”
“I feel like we're forgetting something,” Max said.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Opal stood still, holding up the orb, lighting the creature that was inside the cave with her.
This was not the shadowy human-shaped thing she had seen twice before.
This thing, this daemon, was mottled with all the colors of the forest, ocean, and sky, in sparkling scales. It loomed above Opal's head, with spots of glowing red where eyes should have been. A thousand appendages, like arms, or tentacles, writhed along the side facing her. The daemon didn't have ears or a nose or hair, or even a facial expression, but it had teeth. Oh, it had teeth. The grinding sound she had been hearing for hours had to be emanating from its teeth, row upon row of them, metallic-looking, gnashing against each other.
The tentacles writhed as something darted in around the side of the creature—a chocolate brown goat, and then a smaller, yellow goat. They positioned themselves between the daemon and Opal, their little heads lowered bravely.
New holes opened in the daemon's face, above its mouth, and the tooth-grinding noise stopped as the nostrils flared, sniffing the air. The red spots glowed brighter.
Opal whispered to the goats, “What do I do? I have this orb, and it must do something. Talk to me, guys, do I throw the orb or keep holding it?”
The daemon moved further into the cave, but not by stepping. It slithered in, as a snake would, its red eyes rising as it became taller. Opal imagined how long the snake-like creature was, considering it had attacked the giant owl above the treetops. Assuming it couldn't fly, that would make the beast much longer than a tree, at least. The red eyes stopped rising when the top of the daemon touched the ceiling of the cave. Loose pebbles rained down.
Its nostrils flared again, and the mouth opened. A fetid smell like sulfur filled the cave, and Opal coughed.
It advanced, the body behind it coiling to seal off the opening of the cave. There would be no escape, not the way they'd come in. The goats backed up, but did not flee.
Opal shook the glowing orb while shouting, “Get back! I'm warning you. I'm a witch!” That seemed to give the creature pause, but did not halt its slow, deliberate movement toward her. “Begone, daemon! I send you back to Hell!”
Still, the daemon did not stop.
One of the goats, the chocolate brown one, charged the daemon. The goat bounced off the scaled body, as though repelled by a force field. The yellow goat charged next, and this time Opal saw a spark of light from the spot of impact, about a foot away from the scaled body of the creature. The daemon seemed to be surrounded by a boundary, an impenetrable force field.
The orb in her hand pulsed brighter, and she got the overwhelming urge to throw the orb, so she drew her arm back and lobbed the orb at the great beast. It caught the orb readily in its gaping maw of a mouth, and ground the orb to dust. Noisily.
Everything went dark and quiet. Hope fluttered in Opal's heart. Surely the orb would do something. It had to, or they were all dead.
Though the orb was shattered, now a pale, glowing fog surrounded the daemon, providing some light. All the better to see its fearsome face.
Opal checked over her shoulder again, hoping to see a new door suddenly open in the cave walls, or for reinforcements to arrive from the castle, but she was alone, except for the goats.
She turned her head back just as the creature dove forward and wrapped its mouth around the yellow goat.
Opal screamed, and the thing bolted up suddenly and looked down at her, its horrible mouth curved up like a smile, as a wriggling lump moved down its body.
The daemon turned toward the brown goat, who was stamping at the ground with his front hooves, challenging the beast that was so much larger.
“Don't!” Opal yelled at the goat, but the goat didn't listen, and charged the beast. His head connected this time, with a smacking sound, and the daemon shook and made a new noise, different from the grinding of its teeth. It growled, the suffocating scent of sulfur and decay filling the cave.
The goat backed up, shaking his head, and the daemon rose up fully, as high as it could within the confined space of the cave, and spread its jaws wider and wider. More loose rock fell from the top of the cave.
Opal's elbows struck the wall behind her. She was at the very back of the cave now, with nowhere to go. She picked up the pointed stick she'd waxed. The daemon was coiled, mouth open, about to consume the brown goat. She charged the beast. She had no idea what organs or weaknesses it had, but she could see those glowing eyes, round and red like a target, so she plunged the stick into one of them.
The daemon shook from side to side and howled.
Opal picked up the other stick, the one that was only partially waxed, and went for the other eye without hesitation.
A fist-like tentacle knocked her down, and her stick snapped in the middle, where it had not been waxed.
The daemon growled again, and then sucked in air with such force, her hair flew forward in the wind. One red eye was faded, but the other was brighter than ever.
Bigger now, impossibly huge, it filled the cave from one side to another. The gigantic mouth opened wide and tall, taller than Opal, and it inhaled again.
She slipped and skidded on the loose pebbles and straw, being drawn into its mouth, closer to those teeth.
The brown goat reared up and bleated, distracting the daemon from Opal for an instant.
Opal picked up the broken stick, turned the pointed end away from herself, and ran at the daemon. She crouched down at the last step, angled her body to the side and leaped, as though jumping over the high jump bar at a track and field competition.
She thrust the stick into the bright red eye. The head whipped to one side, throwing her against the wall of the cave. She crumbled to the ground.
A horrific stink filled the cave, and the daemon seemed to shrivel in size.
Opal pulled herself to her feet. A narrow gap appeared at the opening of the cave, just a sliver. She pushed the goat and said, “Come on, run for it. Run! Now!”
She led the way, and as they squeezed through the space at the entrance, she realized something had changed.
The daemon was deflating. Melting. Disappearing.
The pale, glowing fog that had surrounded the daemon lifted up to the sky.
Something twitched behind her, and Opal looked around the cave's opening for loose stones, or something else to use as a weapon. She scooped up a pointed piece of rock that had fallen from the cave's opening, and turned to attack once more.
The movement wasn't the daemon at all.
The little yellow goat stood, alive but looking annoyed, in a dark puddle. The goat shook herself off and ran to Opal, where she gave her a loving headbutt on the knee.
The two sharpened sticks, one short and one long, lay in a pile of shiny slime.
“Is the daemon dead?” she asked the goats. “Is it over?”
The yellow goat seemed to nod, though Opal couldn't be sure, in the moonlight.
A breeze chilled the sweat on her chest and arms, turning her flesh tight with goosebumps. She had a deep-looking cut on one arm, but most of the blood on her was from the owl. The goats seemed uninjured. She looked back at the cave, where it was warm, and considered resting there for a bit, then she took another sniff at the melted daemon and decided against staying.
“Should we go back to town?” she asked the goats.
They turned and trotted in the direction of the road, under the branches marked by Max's pink ribbon.
In the other direction, a great number of trees lay in ruins, knocked down and, by the looks of it, chewed up by the daemon.
Opal gazed up at the leafy trees that still stood, wondering why they weren't raining
down, soaking her.
She started to walk, following the goats through the dark forest. The rain began—warm, then tepid, then cold, then warm, then ice-cold.
“Everything's back to normal,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Opal followed the goats through the Wetlands, then through the desert of the Drylands. She avoided eye contact with the snakes.
When she reached her bike, in the shed, the sun peeped over the horizon, and in the warm, golden light, she felt the spirit of her grandfather. Whether he was alive or not, on the island or far away, he made her heart feel full as she began to pedal the bike he gave her for her birthday.
Shortly after they entered the regular forest, the goats disappeared into the brush, to do whatever it was they did. Though exhausted and slow, Opal pedaled the rest of the way into town without incident.
When Opal arrived back in Ystad, the place felt like a ghost town, like a pioneer village at a museum, outside of visitor hours.
“Hello?” she called.
Nobody answered, but it was still early in the morning. She wondered if the blast they'd experienced at the castle had knocked out the entire island. She wondered if she'd live out the rest of her days there, alone. She was scared, but too tired to worry.
She was drawn forward, to the boot-shaped building, the chapel where she'd first met Edwin and then Max, before being taken in for questioning. The night of the fireworks felt like a lifetime ago.
She parked her bike in the middle of the empty street and looked up at the building, spotting the stained glass windows now that she was looking for them. Something called to her. Opal had never been the praying type, though her grandfather had taken her to church a few times, just to let her know she had those options.
She went to the boot and entered through the door near the heel.
“Hello?”
A few lights were on, but nobody was around.
Opal walked over to a low table covered with white candles.
She knelt down and used the nearby matches to light one candle for her grandfather.
