“I… that’s my job.”
She continued to look at him. Her serious expression softened. “Paul, you’re a nice man.”
Then she leaned over and kissed him on the lips.
Paul hadn’t seen that coming, partially because he had been staring at his lap, but mainly because he had never expected any girl to want to kiss him. For a moment, he couldn’t think. So many new feelings raced through his brain and scrambled his thoughts — for it is well known that a good kiss can do just as much damage as a sip of flitter nectar can — but before he became completely lost in the moment, he took her by the shoulders and gently pushed her away.
“Why don’t we get you to bed,” he said gently.
“Good idea.” She giggled. “See? I’m swooning in your arms already.”
She clung to him like a child clinging to its father as he settled her on a nearby mat. When he started to get up, she didn’t let go. There was confusion on her face.
“Don’t… don’t you like me?”
“Of course I do,” Paul said.
“Then why…”
“Things will look a lot different in the morning,” he replied.
Again he tried to leave.
Again she pulled him back.
“Cold…” she said.
Paul sighed, eased down beside her, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Content, Laura snuggled against him and closed her eyes.
Paul watched her for a moment then tenderly brushed the hair from her forehead. His fingers lingered on her cheek. He had to admit, she really was quite pretty.
And… she had kissed him.
A smile spread unbidden across his face.
She’d kissed him.
His lips tingled at the memory.
Turning to stare out the window, he caught sight of the waxing moon and suddenly found himself snapped back to reality. He pulled his hand from Laura’s cheek and pressed it against his eyes.
“Full moon tomorrow,” he whispered. “Gods, what am I doing?”
As if in response, thunder rumbled across the night sky.
30
THE PRINCESS IN THE WHEELBARROW
After spending several hours of its relatively short life cycle buzzing through the halls of Seeboth’s Shadowkeep, a small black fly finally chanced upon a room from which the most exquisite smell emerged.
Although the door was closed, a window slot at the top allowed the smell to escape and the fly to enter. The insect swooped down along the curve of the aroma, following it to a wheelbarrow piled high with the most beautiful mound of food the fly had ever seen.
It landed upon the peak of the moist mountain and rubbed its front legs together in anticipation. Its long hunt was over! It had food! It had a magnificent bed on which to lay its eggs!
It could finally fulfill its destiny—
POOPF!
Something large and silky and solid abruptly sat upon the fly and crushed its tiny dreams.
Princess Luscious had reappeared in place of the manure pile, and she looked furious. The stench of her prior incarnation still lingered in the air of her cell.
“He did it.” She fumed as she clambered from the wheelbarrow. “The fiend actually transmuted me!”
The moment her feet touched the floor, she swooned unexpectedly. Grabbing the handles of the wheelbarrow for support, she found her face flushing. The experience of transmutation had left her body momentarily swirling in confusion, and she had to admit, the sensation was not entirely unpleasant.
“Oh my, that felt… interesting,” she said. “Perhaps… perhaps he has more masculine organs than I gave him credit for…”
But the feeling soon passed, and the reality of her situation came crashing down upon her just as her bottom had come crashing down upon the fly.
“Oh no, the moon is nearly full!”
Folding her hands so tightly that she squeezed the blood from her knuckles, Princess Luscious began to pray. “Jahalael, please send my prince. Send him soon. I don’t have much time.”
Something crunched under her foot — a long, thin finger, one of the fallen skeleton’s bones. As she looked at it, a desperate idea took shape in her mind, and another desperate prayer formed on her lips. “But in case he’s late, could you bless this lock pick, too?”
She grabbed the finger bone from the floor and ran over to the door where she immediately jammed it into the lock and jiggled it around.
The finger bone snapped.
No problem, I have nine more, she thought as she plucked another and went back to work.
31
NEW YORK CITY
TWO DAYS FROM NOW
Peeking over the city skyline, the morning sun filtered through the smoggy haze. Traffic grumbled along concrete valleys, the endless parade of cars and taxis stabbing at each other with their horns. Scowling people strode to work armored inside business suits and shielded behind their phones.
The city stretched itself awake.
Somewhere at the back of an out-of-the-way alley, a leather briefcase plunked down on the hood of a car. A serious man wearing a black suit opened it to reveal bags of something illegal.
A second briefcase plopped down beside the first. This one was opened by a thuggish man wearing a stocking cap, and his case contained stacks of hundred-dollar bills.
The two men exchanged the briefcases and carefully checked their respective contents. Behind them, each man was accompanied by his own group of dangerous-looking associates who watched the other man’s group of dangerous-looking associates very carefully.
Apparently, the dangerous-looking associates would not need to become involved in the negotiations, because the two men closed the briefcases and started to leave.
That was when the wind began to pick up.
Papers swirled about the alley and tin cans clattered against the walls.
Jagged fingers of electric light cracked and popped about the area.
The air above the alley twisted open and a very large pair of demonic feet dropped through the swirling portal. They landed on top of the car and crushed it, blasting its windows outward in sprays of glass.
Worrt the Demon, slightly dazed, surveyed the scene around him then fumbled out his map in confusion. “Is this Earth?”
The two men, armed with their briefcases and their groups of dangerous-looking associates, stared in disbelief at the unexpected newcomer, but they did not stare for long. As one, they pulled an array of weapons from their belts and opened fire, blasting Worrt off the car.
“The cops!” they said.
“Waste him!” they yelled.
“Get outta here!” they shouted.
“It’s a Terminator!” they cried.
Worrt ran for cover as the bullets continued to ricochet off his demonic hide. The men ran for the street, only to find a bunch of police cars screeching to a stop, blocking their escape.
Bullets flew in every direction.
Worrt crouched in the crossfire, frantically consulting his map.
“This can’t be right!” he said.
Ripping open a trans-dimensional doorway in the opposite wall of the alley, Worrt dodged the hail of bullets and lunged through. The portal winked shut behind him.
There were some places in the omniverse even Demons feared to tread.
32
HERO TIME
Jack’s limp body floated through the air. Four of the Fierce Flitterling gang carried him, one flying at the end of each limb. They allowed his head to loll backward, drooling saliva across his unconscious face.
Jack was no longer under the influence of flitter nectar, but following the previous evening’s binge, his body would be spending the next several hours trying to reassemble his personality, like a cocoon reassembles a caterpillar.
As they passed through the mushroom town on their way to the beach, Sheriff Levondyth waved at Paul from a distance, but when Flicker waved back, he hastily inchwormed away. Flicker seemed to be enjoying the wide berth t
he local Flitterlings gave her and her gang.
Laura guided Jack’s hungover body aboard the Sargasso Sphinx and helped the Flitterlings settle him in his cabin. Back on the deck, Blink the Poxie circled Paul in ceaseless orbit while the prince bid farewell to Flicker.
“Take care of yourself, my lord,” the Flitterling warlord said. “We do have our interests to protect. And a world to topple.”
It did not take long to launch the ship. The pier dove under the sea the moment they removed the mooring line, and soon they were sailing away from the dancing island with its smiling sun.
In their haste to depart, no one noticed the mysterious figure watching from the shadows of a giant mushroom, nor did they see the red carnation in his lapel.
Once the Sphinx had sailed beyond the magical influence of Saraan-Vishta and the ocean no longer resembled pink lemonade, Paul took Demog’s strap from his pocket and presented it to Blink. The little Poxie sniffed the strip of leather, tested the air with her finger, and then knifed ahead of the ship like a tiny star.
Paul spun the wheel to follow his gleaming green and purple guide. He remained at the wheel for hours, never taking his eyes from Blink, never allowing himself to deviate from his course, never thinking about what would happen when he reached his destination. The merest inkling of a hint of a thought about what might shortly happen turned his stomach into a raging cauldron, so Paul didn’t think about it. He watched the Poxie and nothing more.
Laura approached him with uncharacteristic shyness. When he didn’t acknowledge her, she hesitated then retreated to the stern of the ship and pretended to find something very important to do there.
Blink streaked ever onward.
The sea gradually shifted from a brilliant blue to a grungy green.
The Sphinx passed a seedy island outpost known as Vanguard, little more than a rock just big enough to hold a shabby tavern called The End of the World.
Laura helped Jack up to the helm. He draped himself over the rail and stared longingly at the receding silhouette of the island. “Great,” he said, his voice hoarse. “We’ve passed The End of the World, and I needed a drink.”
Paul ignored him, just like he was trying to ignore everything else, but his body became more and more tense as the Curse began to smell blood.
And then it was time. The Sphinx finally plowed through a wall of mist and the imposing shaft of the Shadowkeep loomed before them, the hovering Shadowship still tethered to the platform high above.
Blink darted back to Paul’s shoulder, shivering uncontrollably. Apparently she was not as tough as she looked. When Paul pulled alongside a rotting dock and a monstrous roar echoed from the cave below the Shadowkeep, poor Blink could take no more. With a little squeal, she arrowed back into the mist.
The reality of the situation descended on the group, but no one felt it more devastatingly than Paul. His insides burned, sweat boiled from every pore, and he was certain he would be sick at any moment.
He was also certain he would be dead at any moment.
He glanced at the faint glimmer of the retreating Poxie and dearly wished he could go with her. But… he couldn’t. He hopped down to the dock below.
“I think she’s got the right idea,” he said. “I… I can’t ask you to come.”
Jack staggered to the helm. “That’s good, because I don’t think I can.”
“This is suicide,” Laura said. “You can’t go in there alone!”
Paul offered her the weakest smile of his career. “You said it yourself, I’m a Prince Charming.”
“This is a stupid, ridiculous system!”
“It’s my job.”
“Well… it may be your job, but it’s still my fault.” Laura jumped onto the dock beside him, and the aged, waterlogged wood groaned in annoyance. “I’m coming with you.”
Paul’s eyes opened wide, and he couldn’t make them get small again; his concern for Laura wouldn’t let him. “No you’re not. This is serious. I cannot guarantee your safety.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
They stared at each other. The concern they felt was mutual. Paul’s eyes finally allowed him to close them slightly in order to produce an expression of resignation. He looked up at the Sphinx. “Jack, take the ship out to deeper waters. You’ll be safe there until I call for you.”
“Yeah, don’t you worry, I’ll be heading for deep waters all right,” Jack said. Then he muttered under his breath, “May the gods smile upon you. Or whatever it is they’re supposed to do.”
With that, far quicker than Paul had hoped, Jack was gone, swallowed up by the mist.
The time had come.
Paul and Laura headed toward the cave below the Shadowkeep, a cave that yawned at them like the biggest, hungriest mouth in the world.
“Umm… about last night…” Laura said.
“It’s all right.”
“No. I want to… in case… I’m afraid—”
“What?”
“No, never mind. This isn’t the time,” she said quickly.
“This might be the only time,” Paul said. “Tell me.”
Laura couldn’t look at him as she spoke. “I… I just wanted to tell you… maybe you’re more of a Prince Charming than I thought, and… and to say that I… I think I—”
“Help me!”
A woman’s voice echoed from the cavern mouth. A moment later, the woman herself followed it.
Laura couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Luscious?” she said.
The radiant princess sprinted across the beach and slammed into Paul’s arms. The emperor’s daughter was even more beautiful than Paul had imagined. Her fragrance clouded his mind with thoughts of kissing… thoughts of Laura’s kiss. He tried to focus.
“P-Princess?” he stuttered.
“Oh, thank the gods!” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck and sending a wondrous thrill through his body. “Please sir, I beg of you! I’ve escaped an evil wizard and his minions, but they’re right behind me—”
“Um, okay… I have a ship.” Paul tried to sound as manly and commanding as he could. He grabbed her hand that he might lead her to the dock, but then she saw his face and pulled away.
“Wait,” she said. “Are you the Prince Charming they sent me?”
Confused, Paul said, “I… yes. The Lottery sent me—”
She shoved him away with utter contempt, leaving the timid prince standing stunned. Laura ran up beside them.
“Luscious? What are you doing?!”
The princess ignored the handmaiden, turning the full fury of her scorn upon Paul. “You pathetic toad — did you think someone like you could sweep someone like me off my feet? I’d rather be sacrificed!”
Every one of Paul’s fears surged from the base of his feet to the top of his head, every failure he had ever imagined becoming reality in that one terrible moment, every fate worse than death about to become his very literal death.
“I… I… I…” He was completely and utterly frozen, everything he had ever known, every word he could possibly say, shoved aside and replaced by this one, calamitous moment.
That’s when Princess Luscious jammed her hand into his face. Before anyone could react, her hand melted into a mass of slithering shadows that poured into his eyes.
“That’s not Luscious!” Laura screamed rather obviously.
No, it was Fear Incarnate.
Laura charged forward to help Paul, but a shadowy tentacle burst from the back of the Fear-Luscious entity. It slithered forward and restrained the handmaiden in its coils.
Paul clawed at the shadows over his eyes like a drowning man claws at the surface of the water, all to no avail. He slowly went limp.
But his nightmare was not over.
Out of the blackness that filled his mind, figures began to take shape. They resolved from the gloom, wearing sparkling crowns and silken robes and long mink capes. Hundreds of glamorous princes and princesses surrounded Paul, the very people he’d always wi
shed he could be.
The people this Quest was supposed to impress.
The people who began to laugh at him.
He tried to run from their mockery, from their leering faces, from the horrible sound of their ridicule, but no matter where he ran, they were always there to shove him back. Unable to run any longer, he finally fell at the feet of a wickedly beautiful Princess Luscious.
“We don’t want you,” she sneered. “You’re not good enough to be one of us, and you know it. You make us sick.”
Paul sagged as the power of the Curse swirled around him and dropped him down a bottomless pit of jeers. He bowed his head in finality as if laying it upon the headsman’s chopping block.
Laura could see none of this since it all took place in Paul’s mind. She saw nothing but Paul standing frozen with the smoky-black hand of Fear-Luscious streaming into his eyes. She saw his Singing Sword fall to the ground.
At the moment, the Sword could sing nothing but the words, “Wake up wake up wake up wake up!”
Like something out of a nightmare, Fear-Luscious’ other arm rippled until it had transformed into a long black blade.
Laura couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t end here, not like this, not so quickly, not without a fight.
“Paul…?” she started to call out.
But it was too late. Fear-Luscious plunged the shadowy blade straight through Paul’s heart.
“No!” Laura cried. She would have collapsed if not for the tentacle holding her up.
Paul convulsed around the sword in his chest.
Laura screamed and tried to pull free, but only her tears managed to escape.
Fear-Luscious ripped the blade from the prince’s body as her own body dissolved into a seething mass of shadows.
Paul folded to the ground, his dead eyes wide in shock.
A fierce clap of thunder rolled across the sky.
Demog emerged from the cavern, two brass buckles undone over his chest cavity. As he crossed the sand, his Fear Essence swirled back inside him. He took possession of Laura before the tentacle retreated into his chest as well. While he refastened his buckles, Laura squirmed in his grip and ferociously bit his hand. Rather than releasing her, the Terror shoved it even farther into her mouth.
Happily Ever Awkward Page 14
