by Ren Ryder
The Monster’s in the Details
Gaslamp Faeries Series, Book Two
Ren Ryder
Illustrated by
Tom Edwards
Derek Edgington Productions LLC
Copyright © 2020 by Ren Ryder
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-One
22. Endnote
Chapter One
“You have to wake up Kal, you have to! Wake up, wake up, WAKE UP!”
What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point? WHATS THE POINT? WHATS THE POINT? WHATS THE POINT? WHATS THE POINT?
I want to die. I want to die. I want to die. I want to die. I want to die. I want to die. I want to die. IWantToDie. IWantToDie. IWantToDie. IWantToDie.
IWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDieIWantToDie.
My body felt far away, distant, like a house left vacant through the seasons. Something drip, drip, dripped into my slack-jawed mouth and onto my tongue. I cracked open my eyes, but there was nothing to see besides the pitch-black.
It made me feel claustrophobic. My heart jumped into my throat. I wheezed and choked, dying for the slightest whiff of fresh air.
Everything zoomed into focus all at once. Velvet pain wracked my body, wrapped me up in a cocoon of silk and held me fast. Scratch that, I was being cradled by a delicate weave of wind. Like a cool balm, I could feel the elemental magic pressing against my skin. The mix of pain and pleasure made me twist into knots, uncertain.
At first I thought the darkness complete, but a tiny mote of silvery light caught my eye. Looking at even that tiny source of light was like jabbing my eyeballs with needles. After my eyes adjusted somewhat, the dull light coalesced into the form of a winged sylph I knew all too well.
I coughed and spat blood to clear my windpipe. “Bell,” I croaked.
Blood?
Bell was perched on my good shoulder, the right one, the one that wasn’t a mess of scars piled one on top of the other. Her usual mischievous demeanor was gone, replaced by a serious expression that looked glued in place. The sylph's green skin was as pale as I’d ever seen it, white and splotchy in places. Bell’s eyes shone dully, and she looked through me without seeing me.
My chest burned. I craned my neck to see Bell’s personal sigil pulsing weakly in the center of my chest. My body ached. I felt like one giant bruise. Something sickly-sweet landed on my tongue.
I cleared my throat violently. “Bell!”
Bell’s eyelids fluttered and she jerked her head towards me. “K-Kal… is that, is that really you?” Bell’s tinkling laughter filled the enclosed space. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”
“What? No, of course you’re not dreaming.”
“Oh, good~”
Bell’s whole body went slack with relief, looking like I’d told her it was finally okay to set down a truly heavy burden. The sylph’s eyes sparkled once, then fluttered closed.
The soft weave of wind holding me in place snapped, and I felt an instant’s relief as I regained control of my limbs. A sound very much akin to the popping of a soap bubble, only louder, shredded the calm.
Water flooded the enclosed space with the force of a god’s slap. Bell and I were ripped apart by the eddying currents. The suddenness of it all caught me unawares and with only half a lungful of air. Precious bubbles escaped my lips as I released a half-strangled scream into the dark, watery depths.
My lungs burned.
I tried to orient myself. Which way was up? A splotchy ray of light shone down from the surface, twenty feet away, easy. There. As I cast my eyes about frantically in search of Bell, I tried not to think that the distance might as well be a mile.
I panicked.
I can’t see her, it’s too dark! I can’t find her!
I felt faint, but I forced myself to close my eyes and regain some semblance of calm. I sought out our connection, the ties that bound our lives together. Just like that, I knew exactly where Bell was.
Below me a few feet, on my right.
Swimming down to Bell, I grabbed her and held her tiny body tight against my chest. I clawed my way towards the surface, limbs screaming.
I was out of air. My lungs convulsed. My vision shuddered. I felt like I was being torn apart from the inside.
I gathered the last reserves of my strength, held tight to Bell, then shot a bolt of wind hard into the water beneath us. Like a fish with wings, I shot out from underneath the water and landed with a heavy thud on the nearby embankment.
I lay there gasping, trying to catch my breath.
“That was… close,” I said.
Concerned, I looked down at Bell. She looked as dead as I was supposed to be. Paler patches of skin that spotted her body made her seem like a fresh-made corpse. Only the gentle rise and fall of her chest made me think she was even alive at all.
I grasped the Father’s cross, looked down and patted myself experimentally. My faded green shirt and brown trousers were riddled with holes. The shirt seemed to have gotten the worst of it, but Thorn’s hammy-downs had seen better days. My boots seemed to be in pretty good shape at least.
Only the gods knew where my cloak was or what condition it was in; probably it was lost at the bottom of the river. That wyrm had really done a number on my wardrobe. I shook my head in mute wonderment at the sight, then shucked off my boots and set them upside-down to dry.
With a clinical air, I categorized the wounds all over my body. I traced the wide scars on my wrists and ankles, the flesh seared by iron. My left shoulder was a mess of scars. Puffy raised claw marks from the wyrm sat atop my chipped collarbone gifted to me by the hunter’s blade. I was messily sewn back together on my right side just below the ribs where a nasty hole had been punched into my gut from the pistol shot. The thin line drawn on me when I was nicked by the hunter’s throwing dagger paled next to such a grievous wound.
I barked a coarse laugh in dark amusement. It was a wonder I was still alive.
How am I still alive?
I studiously ignored the sharp ache in the dead center of my back and chest, where I’d been stabbed. Every time I moved the scarred skin stretched uncomfortably. Sammie’s face flashed through my mind, but I ripped the image up and tossed it away before it could embed itself in my thoughts. I rammed the heels of my hands into my eye-sockets, trying to dispel the vision.
Struck by a sudden thought, I dug around in the remains of my trousers. The faery stone I expected to find somewhere about my person was gone. Spent or not, I would have liked to keep the stone in remembrance of the fae queen
that gave it to me.
Nothing had worked the way I’d intended, in the end.
The world felt darker. I bowed my head low.
When I did look up, though, at odds with how I felt, I saw a world bursting with life and ruddy color. A gentle wind caressed the side of my face, and I leaned into it. The air smelled sweet and tasted clean. Thin rays of light filtered through the trees to land on my arms and upper body, warming me.
Amongst the tall grass, wildflowers bloomed. A thin bed of leaves and sticks had fallen to the forest floor, highlighting the turning of the seasons.
I looked back at the river. A dozen or more merpeople floated serenely in the currents, as if to say that the flow of the water affected them only when they wanted it to. Their glassy blue eyes blinked at me as I looked back at them, serious and knowing. Like a stone settling in my gut, I was struck by a deep foreboding.
One of the merfolk spoke. “Bring us a bouquet of moonflowers before Samhain’s last harvest, and we shall consider our deal done. Fail in this and our work will be undone, your blood will turn to poison and you will die for certain.”
“What even are those?” I asked, confused.
“That wasn’t the deal! Your price was paid!” Bell yelled.
The merrow’s representative spread his webbed hands. “That was to save a life. If you want to keep what you’ve gained, now that is a different price.”
“Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eaters!” Bell screamed.
Most of the color had returned to Bell’s skin. She had a vigor about her that made me believe she was going to be okay.
“You seem better,” I said.
Bell splashed through the shallow waters on the embankment. “I. Am. Not. Okay! Okay?!” She looked mad.
She flapped her wings experimentally, taking to the air and buzzing around me like an angry fly. After a few fast circuits around my body, she alighted on my shoulder, seemingly satisfied.
In a pained whisper, I demanded of her, “Why’d you have to go and save me?”
“You dummy, of course I did,” Bell croaked as she cracked open a single eye to look at me.
“What was the price?”
Bell held out her hands in justification. “They wanted your elementals. So I fed ‘em to them, that’s it— easy peasy.”
“What do you mean, that’s it!” I stared in shock at my hands, noticing too late that the seals for my elementals were gone.
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. It was do or die. You’re lucky I didn’t let you croak so I could have you spitted and roasted. At least I wouldn’t be so hungry.” Bell rubbed her stomach, a look of pain flashing across her face.
Startled by the revelation, I stared in utter incomprehension at Bell. My blood, bones, everything, maybe my very soul, would all be hers if she had sat by and just let me die. I’d always thought Bell would be the first to hasten my death, given the chance. So then, why?
“Forget not the moonflowers,” The merfolk representative repeated before disappearing back under the water.
“I know, I know, you’ll have them,” Bell promised, her voice full of bitter regret.
Faint, but noticeable, the sounds of song and laughter drifted to us on the wind. Somewhere not too far from where we were, there was something afoot.
I scratched the back of my head. “How are we supposed to get what they want? I don’t even know what moonflowers are, or what they look like, let alone where to find them.”
“Don’t worry about it. Now, come on, we have to make it for Samhain’s kickoff party, or it’s all for nothing!”
Between breaths I began to ask, “What—”
Bell cut me off, “Not now! No questions, just run!”
I grumbled and cursed, but did as she said.
With Bell taking point, we set off at speed on a trek through the forest. I had all sorts of questions to ask her, but she was in a mood and blew me off whenever I tried to pry. So I pushed down my questions and followed along behind her, lost in more ways than one.
I felt, off. Beads of cold sweat formed on my forehead and dripped-stung my eyes. The muscles of my calves felt like they were tearing further open with every stride I took.
The soft crunch of leaves beneath my boots was loud in my ears.
An old growth forest possesses a magic in and of itself, but the Otherworld was magic. Dense mana flows brushed against me wherever I walked, electrifying my skin. Natural energy lattices grafted onto a framework of interconnected roots and branches, forming an immense network of organic mana. In a way that I didn’t quite understand but I could feel in my bones, the Otherworld was alive.
Bell waved grandly at our surroundings. “Welcome to the Wildwood, Kal. Dayside’s paradise. All flora and fauna grow free here, free from human taint. Humans and their Industry will never rape these lands for profit as they do yours.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, I meant it.
Eventually we reached a path, or the makings of one. The trail wasn’t paved, but the dirt was well-trodden, if no less circuitous as it wove around trees and rock formations like a drunken sailor. If it hadn’t been double the width of my wingspan I might have dubbed it a game trail, but no game I knew of possessed anything close to the sheer size and girth required to force aside so much foliage.
Chapter Two
We followed the sounds of merriment until we arrived at the clearing playing host to a feast unlike any other.
An enormous trunk of a fallen tree had been converted into a massive dining table that stretched from one end of the glade to another. The bark had been stripped and its wood polished, and its heartwood pulsed rhythmically with warm light. Flowering wreaths of oak, hawthorn, and ash had been strung together to create living displays.
Part of the fallen trunk spanned a small pond that glistened and sparkled with reflected light. Dense coils of vines hung high above in the branches of the surrounding trees, supporting globes of glittering blue faerie fire.
Plates of moss and leaves sprouted from the trunk itself, and were heavily laden with fruits, mushrooms and various delicacies from the forest. Steaming haunches of venison, wild boar and other less recognizable meats lay in cuts strewn across the table. Foaming mugs of ale and honey-mead outnumbered the guests at a glance, and remained full no matter how much they were drank from.
And everywhere there were creatures of myth and legend.
Several giants were arrayed around the outskirts of the clearing, eating delicately from tables as high as twenty or more meters in the air. A golden dragon laid with its glittering wings at rest in an out of the way corner, one great eye fixed on the festivities as its tongue tasted a barrel of ale.
Pixies crowded the airspace, leaving streaks of color and tinkling laughter as they passed. My nose tickled from all the faerie dust. Djinns and will-o-wisps cavorted with glowing elementals midair.
Gangly little green goblins feasted beside satyrs and trolls, imps and ogres, dwarves and harpies, banshees and silkies, gnomes and pucks, brownies and leprechauns. I even spotted a solitary unicorn stomping its hooves alongside a preening phoenix.
Little sprites that looked like flowers and bits of shadow or soot darted across the trunk, leaping up and over reaching hands, some others sat with bloated stomachs inside foaming mugs.
Even wild animals were in attendance with no regard for predator-prey hierarchy. Wolves, birds, and badgers all ate beside one another while upholding the peace of the glade.
The pond’s inclusion made it possible for the forests water-locked residents to attend in comfort. Schools of sirens, undine, kelpies, nixies and merrow commingled with enthusiasm, although a solitary boggart floated aimlessly and managed to look left out despite the hubbub.
So too were there a surprising number of humans present. Both genders were dressed resplendently in flowing gowns adorned with live flowers and bits of gold and silver filigree. Neither did their dress leave much to the imagination, exposing whole swaths of toned legs, voluptuous hips
, stomachs, and shoulder blades all glistening with oil.
Nymphs clad in bits of silk stretched over their privates glided across the glade with mesmerizing movements, dancing to the entrancing music sung by a makeshift group of banshees and sirens.
A group of sylphs circled us once, twice, three times before Bell dispersed them with a bolt of wind that set my longer-than-usual hair aflutter.
“Yeah, and don’t come back! Vultures and tattletales, the lot of ya!” Bell called after them.
I snorted. Bell didn’t seem to recognize how what she said may reflect on her.
A gallant figure rose above the assemblage on a podium of living wood. He was dressed in white trimmed with silver, and from his head sprouted antlers decorated with gold leaf and sparkling jewels. He had fine, angular features and wicked sharp teeth. Power and self-assurance emanated from him in waves.
“That’s Oberon,” Bell said.
“Who’s he supposed to be, some big shot?” I asked.
Bell grimaced. “He’s a king by right, Lord of the Sunny Valleys, and Titania’s doting husband to boot.”
That shocked me silent.
Oberon raised his hands, and the hubbub died down. “Welcome, welcome. Tonight we feast and make merry, regardless of affiliation and station, for tonight we celebrate the last harvest, Samhain. Samhain is the cup of life, the green in our world, our everlasting youth and flourishing woods. Each cycle at this last harvest, we raise up a queen from amongst us, but every seventh cycle is special, for it is when we must band together to crown a king.”
At Oberon’s words, a melodious chorus of cheers wove across the clearing. Mugs of ale, berry-wine, and honey-mead clanked together.
