Something shimmered just to Squire’s left, and he glanced over to see the ghost of Dr. Graves standing there, arms crossed, studying him with obvious disapproval. The hobgoblin knew that Graves had lived a life of adventure and danger, but half the time, he had trouble believing it. Graves could be the ultimate buzzkill.
“She’s beautiful,” the specter said.
“And naked,” Squire replied.
The ghost sighed and nodded slowly, as if talking to a slow-witted child. “Yes, Squire. She’s also naked. Do you think you could set aside your diminutive lothario act long enough for us to keep Eve alive?”
The hobgoblin blinked several times. “Act?”
“Squire.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, raising his hands in surrender.
“Jeez, Doc, give a guy a break. You put something that yummy on my plate, I’m gonna salivate, right? Ask Pavlov. Just can’t help it.”
“Pavlov worked with dogs,” the ghost replied.
“Your point?”
“Eve is your friend.”
Squire nodded. “Evie loves me. She’s also gorgeous. Though not naked nearly as often as this chick, from what I gather.”
The ghost of Dr. Graves shook his head and started toward the broken-down mill. Squire smiled. More than anything, he missed Eve because most of the other members of Conan Doyle’s Menagerie were so fucking serious all the time.
Once in a while, he just couldn’t help busting balls.
But maybe Graves was right. The sight of Jelena naked like that, with her olive skin and that long hair, half made him forget his name—never mind what it did to other parts of his body. Squire figured he owed Eve more than that. He had been telling himself that everything would be all right. Now, the time had come to turn that prophecy into truth.
“Squire!”
He looked up sharply. Conan Doyle stood just beside the mill’s door. It hung open, now. Ceridwen, Clay, and the shewolf must have already gone through, and even now, he saw the phantom figure of Dr. Graves slipping through into darkness.
Magic had to be involved, because as off kilter as that door had been, there was no way it could just open. He hadn’t figured the she-wolf for a mage, but some bits of magic didn’t require much mastery—just the right words at the right time. Hell, there were a thousand kinds of magic in the pandimensional worlds. It just made him feel a little hinky when he didn’t know the person dabbling in sorcerous acts.
But if Conan Doyle trusted Jelena, he figured that would have to be enough.
“Coming, boss,” he called, hurrying toward the mill.
The river that ran behind the wooden structure grew louder as he approached the door. Then he realized the rushing sound came not from the river but from the darkened doorway, and he faltered a bit.
“Hurry up, damn it!” Conan Doyle snapped, his jacket flapping in a sudden breeze that kicked up. “It only stays open a minute or two!”
Squire felt a tremor of fear pass through him—not fear of any danger to himself but of being left behind, of not being there to help Eve—and he ran toward the door. Conan Doyle stepped aside to let him pass.
Without further hesitation, the hobgoblin ambled through the warped frame and into the darkness. His feet splashed in cold water that soaked through his shoes, then hit wooden floor. Blinking, he saw light ahead, in the shape of another warped door, and the silhouettes of figures waiting beyond it.
A few steps later, and he found himself standing in another forest, in another world. So much seemed the same, but also different. The trees were taller and thicker, ancient things whose branches spread imperiously overhead. The stars were a vast field, their multitude seemingly even greater than anything he’d ever beheld. The moonlight shot through the branches and fell across the forest floor in shafts of liquid gold, giving an odd, ephemeral hue to everything.
The others had arrived before him, all except for Conan Doyle, and that strange glimmer shone upon them all, giving the weight of myth to their presence. They seemed like ancient heroes. Olympians. Titans. In that moment, knowing he was one of them, Squire believed that the Menagerie was capable of almost anything.
Clay and Graves stood side by side in a clearing of ragged, wild grass. The she-wolf lingered at the edge of the clearing, peering into the trees, her entire body rigid with attention.
She had tied her wolf skin around her throat. Squire felt certain that if she were in her wolf form, instead of just wearing the fur like a cloak, her ears would have been cocked.
Ceridwen seemed to emerge from shadows off to his right, and he had the idea she’d been down by the river. The elements of any world spoke to the Fey sorceress, and Squire had seen her in action enough times to know she would want to establish a rapport with this world before attempting any magic here.
Now, though, her expression was stern. “We’ve no time for hesitation or daydreams, Squire,” she said as she approached.
The hobgoblin grew irritable. “I get it, okay? We focus on the nightmares. Let’s move on.”
“Indeed,” came a voice from behind him.
Squire turned to see Conan Doyle emerging from the crumbling mill through what appeared to be that same skewed door.
He closed it behind him. The mill looked precisely the same in this world as it had in the other, but otherwise their surroundings had altered. The forest and the now-rushing river all seemed primeval. This made sense to Squire. If you couldn’t get to Eden by way of a world where the wild still ruled and nature grew unhindered . . . well, hell, it just felt like they were closer, here, than they’d been in the human world.
“Jelena?” Conan Doyle asked.
At the edge of the clearing, the she-wolf turned. Even partially hidden behind the fur that hung across her back and shoulders, her body was gloriously rounded, arms and legs taut and sinewy. The golden glow that suffused this world gave her the presence of an animal, even though she presently wore human skin.
Ceridwen stepped in front of him, blocking his salacious view. He glanced up guiltily, trying not to notice the curves of Ceridwen’s body beneath her thin, silky dress. He expected her to be glaring at him, but found instead that she gazed at him with gentle, caring eyes.
“You worry me, Squire,” she whispered. “Please do try not to get your head chopped off because you couldn’t keep your mind on the job.”
He grinned. “I’ll do my best.”
By then the others were already moving out. Conan Doyle and Jelena had evidently had some kind of conversation about their destination. They started off through the forest, picking their way among the trees. No path existed here, but there were places where the Wildwood was thicker than in others. Jelena led the way and chose for them the easiest available route.
Conan Doyle and Ceridwen followed the she-wolf together.
The tension between them shimmered almost as brightly as the moonlight. Squire felt pretty confident that it was an ephemeral thing—it would pass. They loved each other enough to fall all over again when they had gotten back together after so many years apart, and pissed off. Whatever chemistry the boss had with Jelena, Ceridwen had to know it wouldn’t go anywhere.
Unless it already did, way back when, Squire thought.
He would have to keep an eye on all of them.
Clay hung at the back, watching their flank. Squire wondered why he hadn’t shapeshifted into some animal form to blend better into the Wildwood, or into his natural form to seem more formidable. He made a mental note to ask later, but a fragment of insight occurred to him; perhaps Clay didn’t want the denizens of the Wildwood to perceive him as some kind of pretender. If he took animal form, it might be seen as some kind of insult.
Then again, maybe not. Squire had never been all that perceptive when it came to social niceties.
“Do you see them?” the ghost of Dr. Graves asked.
Squire flinched and turned to find the ghost striding along beside him. Or pretending to stride, in that ghostly, never-touch-the-
ground sort of way.
“Doc, could you please not do that? You’re gonna give me a fuckin’ cardiac arrest here. I don’t wanna be flopping around like a drooling simpleton in front of everyone—especially not the hot wolf chick. And I really don’t want to die here. If I’ve gotta go, it ought to be in the arms of my one true love—Angelina Jolie—after hot and sweaty sex.”
If ghosts could twitch, Graves did. One of his eyes closed halfway, and his upper lip curled in a sneer of disgust.
“Is there some kind of curse on you, Squire, that requires you to vomit up a certain amount of profanity and vulgarity in any given hour, or some dreadful fate will befall you?”
The hobgoblin grinned. “Nah. I’m just a pig. Normally, Eve gets to hear all my cleverest bon mots, but since she’s otherwise engaged, you’re the lucky benefactor of her absence. Oh, and check it out, I can talk like I’m uptight, too. It just sounds so fuckin’ silly coming from me.”
Again, Graves scowled, but Squire thought he caught sight of a slight grin on the specter’s features as well.
“Anyway, what were you saying?” the hobgoblin asked.
Dr. Graves gave a nod, indicating the forest off to their right. “I wondered if you’d seen our new companions. We appear to be attracting more and more attention with every step.”
At first Squire didn’t know what the ghost was talking about. He studied Jelena, Ceridwen, and Conan Doyle, who were making their way through the trees ahead, then glanced back at Clay. But when he turned to look at the ghost again, he saw something dart among the trees. His view was obscured because the glimpse he’d gotten had been through the translucent form of Dr. Graves himself. But then he understood what he was looking for.
All around them, branches swayed and underbrush rustled.
A fox dashed behind the splintered stump of a lightningstruck tree. A pair of large owls hooted softly, eyes alight in the darkness. A dark form lumbered along to their left. At first, Squire thought it was a bear, but then it shifted and the moonlight splashed across the figure and he saw that it was a massive, savage-looking man wearing the head and fur of a bear like a shaman’s garb.
No, Squire realized. It wasn’t a bear or a man, but a creature like Jelena. One of the spirits of the Wildwood. Perhaps every one of the beasts that paced them as they made their trek through the forest was one of those woodland spirits.
“Cool,” Squire whispered to the ghost. “As long as they don’t decide to eat us.”
Graves actually did laugh, then, though softly. “Jelena is our guide. I suspect they will defer to her in this. At least for now. I wonder, though, if Arthur had more than expediency in mind by passing through this place on the way to the Garden Gate.”
“Like what?” Squire asked, furrowing his leathery brow.
“I’m not sure. But we’ll need allies in the days to come. Knowing Arthur, nothing is by accident. A display like this will alarm them, let them know that there’s trouble brewing, and that we’re on the case.”
The hobgoblin glanced at him. “You think this is all a show?”
“No. But I’d be willing to bet the show is no accident.”
Squire thought about that. Maybe Graves was right, but that didn’t make Conan Doyle’s intent malign in any way. If he wanted a little sturm und drang to rally the troops, where was the harm? They were certainly going to need all the help they could get when the Demogorgon finally reached the human world. That ugliness would spill through a hundred dimensions. Could be none of them would be safe, then. Any creatures in these pocket realms who thought they’d be safe—that the destruction wrought by the Demogorgon would only touch the Blight—would be fooling themselves.
The ghost’s tone made it clear he didn’t like the way Conan Doyle manipulated situations to his own advantage.
Squire understood why. Graves had been manipulated by Conan Doyle himself, even though the mage thought he’d been doing the ghost a favor, saving him from a truth too painful to endure. But then Graves had learned the truth, and he’d endured. And had it really been Conan Doyle’s business?
Not at all.
But Squire knew Conan Doyle’s mind—his cunning—might be the only thing standing between survival and destruction when the Demogorgon arrived. If that meant a little propaganda, Squire was all for it.
“What about the Fey?” he asked. The people of Faerie had been on his mind a lot, recently. Ceridwen had been visited by messengers from her uncle’s kingdom, asking her to come home. Trouble was brewing there. Maybe even war. And the creature who’d attacked her—who’d been working with Eve’s abductors—had been an old enemy from that world.
“What about them?” the ghost asked.
“They’ve got problems of their own. I don’t know why all these sprites and fairies and trolls and shit want to beat the crap out of each other when there’s an enemy on the way that’d like to scrape them all off the ass of the world. You think they’re going to lend a hand when it all gets ugly? When the Demogorgon hits town?”
“We may find ourselves with all manner of surprising allies,” the ghost replied.
Squire nodded. “I hope you’re right.”
His stomach grumbled. He hadn’t had anything to eat in hours, and with no hope of chocolate, Doritos, or any of his other favorite junk foods on the journey ahead, he had started to feel even more irritable.
They marched through the forest. More and more of the creatures of the Wildwood accompanied them.
“Feels like we’re following the freakin’ Yellow Brick Road,” Squire muttered to Graves.
The ghost arched an eyebrow. He didn’t get it.
Squire only sighed and kept on. Another twenty minutes of hiking, and they came to a small hillock—maybe an ancient burial mound or something, from the look of it. In the distance there was only more forest, nothing but the Wildwood. But obviously the spot had some kind of arcane significance for Jelena.
The she-wolf turned to face them all. Squire couldn’t help being mesmerized by her naked form, cloaked in fur. He shook himself and tore his eyes away. So he couldn’t have candy or Cheetos and he couldn’t stare at the extraordinary rack on the stunningly gorgeous naked wolf chick. What was the point of living?
“This is where the walls between worlds are thinnest,” Jelena said. “There is no door into the limbo place you seek, but you have powerful magic. You will get through.”
Conan Doyle took her hand, a gentleman’s courtesy.
“Thank you, Jelena.”
Ceridwen’s eyes flashed, and she raised her elemental staff. The wood seemed darker than Squire had ever seen it.
The sphere of ice on the top gave off a cold mist that glowed in the moonlight, and within the ice, the flicker of fire turned to a tiny, raging conflagration.
“A traveling wind will carry us there,” she said.
Clay had kept back, watching all of the wild creatures who had followed them. Now he snapped his head around as though he’d heard a gunshot.
“What? I told you an hour ago I wasn’t doing that again?”
Conan Doyle gave him a hard look. “Eve awaits. You can accompany us, or remain here.”
The shapeshifter narrowed his eyes. Squire didn’t think he’d ever seen Clay pissed off at the boss before. The guy had lived since the beginning of time—he was literally older than dirt—and usually it seemed to give him perspective. Not tonight.
“Make it swift, then. I don’t like being cast adrift like that.”
Ceridwen nodded. “Swift it shall be.”
Jelena stepped toward her, pulling the wolf skin around to cover her nakedness. “I would come with you.”
The whole forest seemed to hold its breath.
“I’m not sure that’s—” Conan Doyle began, glancing worriedly at Ceridwen.
“The best news I’ve had all week!” Squire declared, grinning broadly.
They all turned to stare disapprovingly at him.
“Oh,” he said. “Did I say that aloud
?”
Jelena glanced from Conan Doyle to Ceridwen, her proud gaze somewhat softened. “I would help you, if I can. For my people, and for the Wildwood. If you seek to stop the Demogorgon, then I am with you.”
Ceridwen stared at her a moment, then looked at Conan Doyle. Some unspoken communication passed between them.
From what Squire could tell, it wasn’t pleasant. Conan Doyle reached out and touched the Fey sorceress’s cheek, and Ceridwen nodded.
“We would be honored.”
Squire blinked in surprise, then glanced at Dr. Graves.
The ghost didn’t look at him, focused instead on the strange trio at the peak of the burial mound. Squire glanced at Clay, who had his arms crossed, watching with interest.
Politics, the hobgoblin thought.
Whatever issues caused the tension among those three, the survival of their worlds took precedence.
Wonderful. This oughta be loads of fun.
Ceridwen began to whisper to the elemental spirits, calling up the winds, blowing leaves across the ground and making branches sway. The traveling wind had come.
Squire took one last glance around, but except for Jelena the creatures of the Wildwood had departed.
The Menagerie were on their own again.
10
EVE felt addled and exhausted, her body one enormous bruise. Nothing seemed to make sense to her. She stared at the creature standing in front of her, the shapeshifter who wore Clay’s face.
“You’re not him,” she said again, repulsed by the creature’s masquerade.
Over the years they had known one another—and especially recently—she and Clay had grown close. They were friends. It sickened her to see her friend’s face on this monster.
Eve mustered the strength to stand, feeling the talons of her hands elongate with indignation. The vampires leaped upon her like the vermin that they were—her own offspring, down across a thousand generations of leeches—and they forced her to her knees in front of the impostor. Palu, the ancient Samoan bloodsucker who’d always despised her, held her wrists behind her back in an iron grip as the others laughed and snickered among themselves. They relished the sight of the one they most feared humiliated by their efforts.
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