by K. C. Cross
“See,” Tomas finally says. “That’s why I don’t want you to kiss me. It’s exactly like he says. I’m not real. This is a shell. I’m a stinking, filthy fucking dragon who has been chained in the dungeon of Saint Mark’s Sanctuary for over two thousand years. They didn’t make this place to hold Pell and his ilk. They made it to hold me. All the other monsters just ended up here because the prison was already made.” His head lifts up and his eyes find mine. “So. Now you know. And I’m the loser, not you.”
I lean over, place one hand on his handsome face, and bring my lips up to his. He sucks in a breath just before we make contact. Like he’s truly afraid of what comes next. But I whisper, “I don’t care what you look like, Tomas. We’re friends now. Looks have nothing to do with that. And this kiss has nothing to do with Pell, or this game, or the smoke, or the magic. This kiss is just me and you.”
He’s looking down when I say all this. But at the end, when I get to the part about us, his gaze meets mine. “You say that now—”
But he doesn’t get a chance to finish. Because I kiss him.
He’s stiff for a moment, his lips unresponsive. But then they soften and mold against mine. His mouth opens first and his hand slips up to my head, his fingers twisting around my hair. He pulls it into his fist as our tongues tumble into each other.
Then there is a pause. A moment when we’re deep into it, but also thinking about the consequences. About Pell sitting a few feet away, watching. About who he is, and who I am, and how we fit together.
We don’t know.
So the kiss ends. But it ends slow, the way it started.
We’re looking at each other when I draw away out of his personal space and back into mine. Then we sigh.
“So,” Pell says. “Was it everything you thought it would be?”
I look for malice in those words. I look for jealousy and anger. But there’s nothing to find there. The question is genuine.
Tomas must think so as well, because so is his answer. And it comes with a smile as he plops backwards onto his velvet cushion. “It was better.”
I blush a little, unsure what to do now. Unsure who I belong to. Which is a stupid thought because obviously, I belong to no one. But we all say that, right? It’s something we say. We are our own person.
And we mean it, but…
But. Don’t we all want to belong to someone?
And I want to belong to Pell.
Maybe I didn’t know that before today, but I sure do now. He doesn’t believe in us, but I saw it. So whatever his memories are, they’re wrong. I didn’t make that stuff up.
“Helloooooooo!”
The call is both distant and surprising. It comes from somewhere deep inside the cathedral.
“What the fuck was that?” That’s what I’m thinking, but it comes out of Pell’s mouth.
Tomas jumps to his feet. “There’s the door!” He laughs. “My kiss gave us a door!”
“Shut up, monster.” Pell gets to his feet and then he does something unexpected. He crosses the small distance between us and extends his hand to me.
I look up at him and he gives me a little shrug. That shrug says a thousand things. It’s my fault. I’m sorry I made the dare. Did you like it? Do you like him? Do you like me? What have I done?
And I answer every single one of those questions simply by taking his hand and allowing him to pull me to my feet.
I am his and he is mine.
The kiss between Tomas and me was… something else.
“Hellooooo! Is anyone here?”
“Who the fuck is that?” Tomas is enraged. “Who the hell is inside our home?”
And then he is through the door. Pell takes my hand and we follow. But when I come out the other side and find myself in the upper hallway, just a few feet from the stairs that lead down to the lower great hall, I am me again.
My horns are gone. My fur, my hooves, my cool hind legs—all gone. I’m wearing my classy blue sweater dress and knee-high boots. And despite my earlier claim that they were comfortable, and the fact I wasn’t even wearing them for this whole time, my feet are so achy. I think I have blisters.
Interestingly, Tomas stays the way he was. A dragon chimera. Of course, Pell doesn’t change. He’s just himself.
“Helloooo! Pie? Are you here?”
“Ho-lee fuck,” I gasp. “It’s the fucking sheriff.”
“How did he get in?” Pell asks.
“How should I know? But I told you! I freaking told you the other day that he walked through the gate.”
“He’s bloodline,” Tomas whispers. “He has to be. That’s the only explanation.”
And just as that last word leaves his mouth, my ring—the very thing tying me to this place and this curse—slips off my finger and falls to the floor with a sharp clink.
“Pie?” Russ Roth calls. “Is that you?”
How did he hear that? There is no way he could’ve heard that.
I quickly pick up the ring, but don’t put it back on. “Russ!” I call down. “I’ll be right there.”
When I turn to look at Pell and Tomas, they are both pale. And they are both looking at the ring in my hand. Slowly their eyes migrate up to meet mine and neither of them needs to speak for me to hear their questions.
Now what? Will you leave? Stay? What will you do with this choice you’ve been given?
I don’t know, so I don’t answer. I just turn away and start down the stairs.
Pell whispers, “Go after her,” to Tomas.
“Like this?” Tomas whispers back.
“Change.” Pell’s words are both a growl and a command.
But that’s all I hear, because I’m practically jumping down the stairwell and then there he is. Sheriff Russ Roth in the flesh. Standing in my lower hall like he’s allowed to be here. Hat in hand, smile on his face, looking super fucking hot and emitting those damn cupid pheromones. I can sense them from all the way across the room.
It’s not me. It is him making those attraction smells.
“Sheriff,” I say brightly. “What brings you out this way?”
He cocks his head at me, still smiling, but it’s a look I recognize. His look says, Are you fucking kidding me? But his mouth says, “You… kinda left our date in a sudden and unexpected way. I was worried.”
“I’m fine. As you can see.”
He smiles. Nods. Calls me a liar in his head. “I can see that. And I’m not trying to make a big deal about this.” He puts up a hand. “If I’m not your type, that’s totally fine. But… Pie. Come on now. Your exit was unconventional and, maybe this is just the lawman in me, but it was also suspicious.”
I point at myself. “You’re suspicious of me?”
“Not you.” He looks up and around, his eyes landing on the left stairwell, then the right. He sees it. He understands it instinctually. They don’t belong here. “This place,” he finishes. “There’s something…” He taps his head with his hat like that’s his thinking gesture. “Something not right here.”
I don’t want to get too close to him. I don’t understand what he is or what his weird power is doing. I don’t even know for sure that he’s aware of the way he affects me. But I don’t need to understand any of that stuff to know I can’t be near this man. And he needs to go. Like… now.
So when I reach the bottom of the stairs, I simply turn to the center stairwell and begin climbing back up.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m working, Sheriff. I have things to do and they are all up this way.”
I don’t look back to see if he’s following me, but what else can he do? Just stay down there by himself?
He follows. And he comes up those stairs fast, taking them several at a time. So fast that I have to stretch my legs and hoof it to keep the space between us at a reasonable distance so those sex pheromones he’s shooting at me can’t catch up.
When I get to the top I head straight to the front door. I know he’s not going to leave without so
me kind of explanation, but the closer I can get him to that exit, the easier it will be to push him out.
“Miss Vita,” Russ calls. “Are you running away from me?”
“Nope.” But I am, and we both know it.
The door is open and even halfway across the room I can see through it. I can see the outside. I don’t have the ring on, but I can see the wall, and the gate, and the Granite County Sheriff’s Department SUV parked out front.
This is when it hits me—I can leave.
I can drop my ring on the floor, walk out that door, and then…
And then what?
What the hell am I going to do? Steal his car?
This is why Grant needed to take me down to the caretaker’s cottage that first day. He couldn’t leave by the front door either. His car was on the other side of the sanctuary. And I’m not all up on the magic surrounding the lake and the forest down the hill, but if Pell’s remarks the other day were true, then they are hidden from outsiders. And I probably wouldn’t be able to find my Jeep again. I’d have to walk out of here with nothing.
I’d have to walk out of here without Pia too.
What would that life look like?
I don’t care about the Jeep. I don’t care about being so poor, I can’t even feed myself. I am a survivor. I can find a way. I always find a way.
But a life without Pia—or, rather, a life without magic—what would that be like?
What would it be like to be normal?
To not be the crazy girl who talks to herself?
To not have a real imaginary friend sitting on my shoulder or hiding in my pocket?
I slip the ring back on and turn to face the sheriff. “What exactly do you want from me, Sheriff?”
He stops in the middle of the great hall. The day is nearly gone. I couldn’t even begin to guess how much time we spent up there in the hallway rooms. But there’s sunlight coming through all those magnificent stained-glass windows and it’s backlighting Russ Roth, making him appear as a black shadow.
He’s still got his hat in his hands. He’s still smiling. “I would like you to tell me exactly what the heck is going on here.”
“Or what?”
“Or—” He pauses. His smile drops. His eyes narrow. “Or… I’m gonna start taking a special interest in Saint Mark’s. Because you know what?”
“I couldn’t even begin to guess.”
“I just remembered something about this place. And that’s interesting, you know? That I would forget something like this, and then all of a sudden it pops back into my head.”
We both pause. The silence hangs there, making the air around us feel heavy and thick.
“Well, you gonna let me in on it? Or you gonna make me guess?”
“I remember my granddaddy telling me a story about this place. This was a long time ago. I was maybe… eight, nine. And he said, ‘You stay away from that place, Russ. You stay clear of it. Or those monsters up there? They’ll come getcha.’ Of course, being eight or nine, I wasn’t about to stay clear of this place. Me and all the boys from town came up one day. Hiked through the woods for hours following the train tracks. And we came out by a lake. Which is very strange, now that I can remember this. Because there aren’t any lakes up here, Pie Vita. Not a one.”
“Is that so?” My voice is trembling. I think I know what happened. Grant put a spell on him. Maybe the entire town. And now that Grant is gone, that spell is wearing off.
That’s part of it, at least.
How he got in here? I don’t know. But Tomas is probably right. He is bloodline.
He is my bloodline?
Am I part cupid?
“That is so. I was never able to find it again.” He puts up one hand. “Hold up. Let me correct myself here just so we’re all understanding. I never looked for it again because I forgot about that trip up here. And do you know why me and all the boys forgot we found a lake up here at Saint Mark’s all those years back?”
I say nothing.
“Because a young man named Grant—”
Here it comes.
“—he put a spell on us, Pie. That’s what’s going on here, isn’t it? Magic.”
I force a laugh. “Sheriff—”
“Don’t.” He growls his word. His smile is long gone. His amicable, aw-shucks demeanor never existed. He is hard, and he is serious. He is the law of this land, and he knows this. “Do not tell me I’m crazy, girl. Don’t even try it. I don’t know why those memories just came back to me the other day.”
The other day! He set me up. He asked me out on that date as a setup.
“But,” he continues, “they are back. I know what this place is because my granddaddy told me. The monsters live here. The monsters of Saint Mark’s. And you, dear girl, are the new caretaker. Tell me I’m wrong.”
I… am… speechless.
“Hey! Sheriff!” We both turn to find Tomas—regular, old, hot-as-fuck Tomas—just coming up the stairs. “Long time, brother.”
The sheriff takes a step back. Which is actually a step towards me. And then he draws his gun. It’s not some little pistol, either. It’s not some six-shooter like you’d imagine a sheriff would carry. It’s not even one of those compact modern types. It’s fucking huge. Even I can tell this is no ordinary gun and everything I know about guns, I learned from old-ass TV shows. “Stay the fuck back, monster. I don’t know who or what you are, but you had better stay the fuck back or I will blow a hole in you so big, we’ll all be able to see out the other side!”
I don’t think this is an empty threat, either. I think that gun of his has many hidden talents and blowing big holes in people is one of them.
“Sheriff!” I yell it.
And then Russ Roth turns towards me, aiming that big gun at my face. And I don’t really know what happens next. Tomas is moving towards us and a bird comes swooping down from the ceiling. Pia! She passes over the top of my head, straight towards the sheriff and then… BOOM! My hands fly up to my face, trying to shield myself from the incoming bullet.
But everything is suddenly slow motion and swarms of beautiful wood nymph moths are fluttering up out of my palms. Exactly the way they did in the hallway forest dream.
They circle around the sheriff like a gorgeous twister of destruction out on the plains. Spiraling around his body until I can’t even see him anymore. There’s a sharp twang on the floor at my feet, and when I look down, there is a slug. The remnants of the bullet that never hit me.
I look back up. The sheriff is stumbling backwards, towards me, past me.
And there is fire.
Everywhere.
Shooting out of Tomas like a flamethrower.
Russ runs. He’s through the door, outside, and it slams closed in his face with such force, the entire building shakes. I look over my shoulder to find Pell, palms up, one of his limited magic talents in progress. The door is closed and locked. But we can hear the sheriff pounding on it. Demanding to be let in.
In that same moment, Tomas disappears and my moths fall to the floor at the threshold of the door, dead.
And then I drop to the floor too.
Unsure if I’m dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - PELL
I see it all from across the upper hall—the gun, the moths, the man, the girl, the dragon boy, my hands coming up to slam the door closed with a finality of an eternal curse—and I don’t understand a single second of it.
But Pie is unconscious.
I rush over to her, not wanting to step on the lifeless bodies of the beautiful wood nymph moths, but unable to help myself.
A groan from deep below the sanctuary reverberates up from the floor and I know that is Tomas. Spent. Hurting from his fire display. He will need time to recover from this. Lots of time.
But Pie also did magic, and she is spent too.
Tomas—I can’t do anything for him. I can’t even get close to him. He is not himself down there. But I can help Pie.
I pick her up in my arms and
carefully carry her down the hallway near the stairs to the steam cave. Once inside, I remove her clothes, then step into the water with her in my arms and hold her as the mineral water brings her back to life.
She is not dead. It doesn’t literally bring her back to life. But this spring is special, and soon she is squirming in my arms.
“What happened?” Her voice is weak and shaky.
“Magic,” I say. It’s the only answer I have.
She sighs, turning her body in to me. And I settle on a rock ledge, leaning back and letting the moment just exist.
She’s still and quiet for a little bit. But then, slowly, she comes awake again. “Pell. Where’s Tomas?”
“Don’t worry about him. He’ll be OK. It’ll take a few days, maybe. But he’ll be OK.”
“What will happen to us? Will the sheriff come back? Will he bring others? He can let them all in!”
“Shhh,” I tell her. “Don’t worry about it. I think your spell and my door lock will hold for a little bit.”
“What spell?” She struggles to sit up. And even though I don’t want to allow this, she doesn’t give me a choice. She sits in my lap with her head on my shoulder. “I didn’t do a spell.”
“Oh, you did. You most certainly did. Don’t you remember all those moths?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t do that. They just appeared from my hands. I wasn’t in control—”
“Pie, you need to face facts. You’re… well, I don’t know what you are, but you’re not human. Not completely, anyway. You did do a spell. I have a feeling it was a warding. To keep him out. And it seems to have worked. At least with all three of us participating. You bound him up, Tomas pushed him back, and I closed him out. It should hold. For a little bit. But we’re gonna have to come up with something better than that. Grant’s wards were strong. Very strong. But they’re obviously wearing off. We need to do them again.”
“How?”
“That’s a talk for tomorrow. You need to rest. And eat. We all need to rest after that. We were stuck in the magic all day. Hell, maybe longer than a day. That’s enough to give us a hangover. But getting rid of the sheriff will have pushed us to our limits. We need to recover first.”
