Witch, Warlock & Vampire Box Set 2: A Vampire Romance Series (Witch, Warlock & Vampire Box Sets), page 82
The genuine pain I saw lancing through my little hellion’s eyes made me ashamed of my flippancy. “Or maybe you’ll be asleep for weeks or even months. You remember how long I was out when we did that little operation with Jolie?”
I opened my mouth to deliver an apology but the bus, having disgorged all the passengers, picked that moment to crank over the engine rather loudly. It was followed by a disagreeable roar of noise pollution as it slowly pulled away from the station, making even more of a ruckus in the process.
A stabbing pain in my stomach reminded me of another urgent need, this one more urgent than the apology that sat on the tip of my tongue. I faced the frog. “Chevalier, I am feeling quite famished after our long trip. Perchance you could treat us to a meal from that quaint establishment across the street, seeing how you are quite possibly the only one among us who has any funds?”
The frog viewed Sadie’s with a critical eye. He seemed to be weighing the chances of a decent meal against the possibility of food poisoning. My little hellion took that moment to jump in with, “It’s not like we have any better options right now and I’ve got to admit that I’m pretty hungry myself. Damek?”
Damek gave her a smile that was far too young for his face. “I’d like that too.”
“So if you’re buying, Dureau, I say let’s grab that hot meal before we see about finding our way to Highway 84,” she finished.
The frog still seemed dubious but after deducing how outnumbered he was in this instance, he nodded his agreement, albeit with a small sigh of misgiving. Bloody dandy.
***
As it turned out, the fried chicken proved to be quite enjoyable. Becoming human again was almost worth the pleasure of eating it… almost. The spices in the batter were uniquely blended, and the meat practically melted in my mouth. Before long, my belly was sated and full. That said, the side dishes of green beans and corn were less enthralling. And contrary to what my little hellion tried to persuade me, tea has never tasted good cold. However, it was far cheaper than the sodas we would have otherwise ordered.
Inevitably, the time came for us—or rather, the frog—to settle the bill. Our waitress, a woman in her mid-fifties with peroxide-blonde hair who was obviously quite a fetching beauty in her younger days, presented us with our check. Dear Bryn took that opportunity to ask the most important question now before us. “Do you know where Highway 84 is from here?”
“Sure, honey,” our waitress replied, her accent and voice evoking heavy reminders of Klaasje. “Just keep following the road straight into town ‘til it T-bones right into 84. Y’all headed north or south?”
“Whatever direction to the Big Inch, madame,” I said.
That resulted in a delighted cackle from our waitress, which sounded like a torch singer’s voice, equal parts velvet and raw. “I like the way you talk, mister!”
I gave her an amused smile and an indifferent shrug. I had heard plenty of variants on that statement and quite often in this part of the world, although I never really understood why.
“Well,” our waitress went on, “since you’re going that way, you’re definitely gonna want to head north. That means you’re gonna have to hang a right at the T-bone. Go up there long ‘nough and you’ll see that marker for the big ol’ pipe right there on the left.”
“Thanks for the information, ma’am,” Chevalier said, handing her a substantial number of dollars.
“Oh, it’s all right, honey. I’m used to steerin’ tourists wherever they need to go. Got to say, though, that this here’s the first time anybody wanted to go see the Big Inch. Ugly ol’ thing ain’t worth a dime, never mind all that oil they’re pumpin’ through it.”
“We’re going to a friend’s house,” Damek blurted out. “He lives right next to the Big Inch.”
“Well, y’all have yourselves a great time.”
As soon as our waitress left our table, my little hellion gave Chevalier a concerned look. “You sure that was smart? Big tips stand out.”
“But she was extra nice to us,” Damek countered.
“Even so, I do see Bete Noire’s point,” I told my student as I rose from the table. There are advantages to being seated at the end of the booth. “Like most small municipalities I’ve passed through in my time, people can and do talk about the unusual, particularly when it is a town as… rustic as this.”
“Well, it’s done now,” Chevalier said, sliding out of his own seat in the opposite booth. “I think you can agree that taking it back would cause even more of a stir.”
“Maybe if we can get out of here fast enough, nobody’ll notice?” Damek suggested with the naïve hope that only youth can convincingly pull off as sounding sincere.
“Guess now is as good a time as any to find out,” my little hellion said, finally sliding out of her own seat.
***
We began yet another long, tedious walk. Thankfully, this particular road only had about a mile-and-a-half in length to traverse, making this leg of the journey nowhere near as long as the previous. Eventually, we arrived at the so-called “T-bone” intersection that our gracious waitress mentioned. Along the way, we observed a bit more traffic than what we experienced in the wilds of Louisiana. But the only real difference between our former location and this one was the stark lack of vegetation as far as I could see.
Another quarter mile brought us face to face with the East Malone city limits sign. It made me idly wonder if West Malone were any bigger or more prosperous. I hoped it was nicer than this slowly dying township we were gradually putting behind us. The landscape beyond the sign revealed nothing but flat, dry plains dotted with rocks and the occasional tumbleweed. It looked remarkably like the topography of the area behind us, sans a few buildings and houses.
Drawing from my long experience of traveling through uncivilized places, I kept a wary eye out for whatever passed as local law enforcement. It was perhaps a tribute to the area’s safety or possibly its crumbling land value but I saw no such constables about, no matter how far we walked. The rest of my companions were just as watchful, although perhaps they were on the lookout for different hazards. A half mile after we passed the marker of the sole settlement in this area, I finally broke the silence.
“When we do arrive at Al-Jafar,” I began, “How are we going to enter it?”
“Through the front door?” Damek suggested, much to my exasperation.
I scoffed at him. Naïveté is one thing but that statement was unalloyed stupidity. “A front door that is likely sealed, barred and practically impervious to the efforts of outsiders to open it?”
“Don’t be an asshole, Sinjin,” the frog said, rushing to my student’s defense. “All the boy did was answer your question.”
“And it happens to be quite a terrible answer for all the reasons I have just outlined, Chevalier.”
“Doesn’t mean you need to be cross about it,” Damek muttered with a pout that I had seen many times.
I remained unrepentant. “If I fail to correct you whenever you go astray, you cannot improve the areas you need to.”
“Maybe that applied when he was a battle virgin,” Bete Noire chimed in. “But he’s gone through enough battles now. Now Damek deserves to be treated just like the rest of us.” She faced me with an irritated expression. “So stop talking down to him.”
“I was not speaking down to him,” I insisted.
Damek looked at me with a frown and drawn brows. “Yes, you were.”
“No,” I started.
“You owe Damek an apology, Sinjin,” Bete Noire announced.
“Yeah,” Damek seconded and I glared at them both. “Apologize.”
“Bloody hell,” I grumbled, intent to prove my point.
Darkness curse him, but Damek was looking at me like a little boy who had lost his dog.
“Sinjin,” Bete Noire chastised me.
“I apologize, Damek,” I said at last.
The boy beamed from ear to ear. “Apology accepted!” he nearly sang before his brow furrowed again. “Okay, if the front door’s off limits, how do we get in?”
“There are a number of alternate routes we could take,” the frog told him. “Typically, such fortresses have less defensible gates and entrances. There may also be an escape tunnel we could search for and follow back to the fortress itself.”
“And that’s just if the place is intact,” the princess chimed in. “If the place has fallen apart, we might be able to locate all sort of nooks and crannies to crawl through.”
“Nooks and crannies?” I repeated, eyeing her askance.
She smiled at me. “Some English speak for you, Sinjin.”
I just frowned at her as Damek interrupted.
“Do you think Luce has any scouts out here? Or do you think he’s keeping them close, like they were back at the camp?”
“That would ultimately depend upon what numbers remain in his army,” I asserted, glad the conversation returned to more important matters. “Assuming the latest assault deprived Luce of most of his precious hybrids, I would venture to wager the latter scenario is more likely.”
Damek looked at me in his usual confusion. “What does a ladder have to do with anything?”
“He means the second situation you talked about,” my little hellion explained. “And I really hope you’re right about that, Sinjin.”
“As do I,” Chevalier said with uncharacteristic soberness. “It’ll make the job we came here to do much easier.”
I sighed with deep regret. “Well, I suppose there is nothing we can decide yet either way. All we can do is be prepared as much as possible for whatever awaits us.”
We lapsed back into silence as everything of importance had already been said.
FOURTEEN
Bryn
The closer we came to the pine trees I remembered from my dream, the louder the Flame roared inside my head. As usual, the Flame didn’t use words—I doubt such a force of nature even knew what words were for—but there was no denying that it was trying to tell me something. The only thing I sensed was that this something was extremely important. But despite how close we were, nothing in that little copse gave me a clue about what the special something could possibly be.
Sinjin was the first to notice the sweat on my brow as we approached the Highway 84 sign. “Is anything the matter, Bete Noire?”
“Is it the Flame?” Dureau asked, guessing the correct answer.
“Yes, I just…” I started and then shook my head because I didn’t know how to explain the way I was feeling.
Damek ran over to me and wrapped his arms around me tight. “It’s okay, Lady Bryn,” he said and his voice broke.
Beads of sweat rolled off my forehead as I looked at the sweet boy who held me so close. “You’re not, though…” I started as I pushed him away. “Not if I combust while you’re still holding onto me.”
Sinjin held onto Damek when it seemed like the boy was going to come close to me again.
“It’s for your own good, Damek,” I said, barely able to get the words out. I just felt suddenly exhausted. And I couldn’t explain why.
“Princess?” Sinjin started as he took a step toward me but I shook my head.
“Are you unwell, Bryn?” Dureau asked.
I didn’t respond but kept stumbling towards the highway signpost ahead of us. Whatever the Flame wanted to show me was just past that little road marker. And it was forcing me in that direction.
Behind me, I heard Sinjin coolly say, “If you have any proprietary information that could explain the upsetting and frankly unpleasant situation before us, Chevalier, now would be the time to share.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what’s happening,” Dureau said and the sincerity in his voice meant he wasn’t lying. “If I did, I would enlighten you.”
“Would you? Or would you cling to those ancient oaths you prize so much, knowing that what you say could well be the difference between my little hellion living or dying?”
“Your little hellion?” Dureau scoffed. “As if she means nothing to me?”
They kept talking but I wasn’t listening anymore. The Flame turned up the volume on its message and started to drown everything else out. It was even making it harder to walk and I fell to my knees as soon as I approached the sign. Fearing the worst, I threw my backpack to the side to keep it from getting damaged by what I expected to happen next.
“What are you saying?!” I yelled out, slapping both my hands on either side of my head. I started rocking back and forth while fear and panic combined with the power inside me. A wave of dizziness hit me all of a sudden and the world around me began to grow bigger.
“Noooo!” I cried out, fighting the shrinking spasm while trying to maintain my natural size.
“Lady Bryn!” I heard Damek cry over the ceaseless pounding in my head. Rapid footsteps followed.
I channeled the Flame’s control of my size by setting myself on fire. The flames on my body started off ruby red before becoming blue, the color indicating that I was in control of the Flame. I turned around to see all three of my party—and, as I expected, Damek in the lead—coming to a halt after witnessing my non-spontaneous combustion.
“Stay back!” I yelled to reinforce my message. Then I concentrated on the Flame and tried to sense why it suddenly chose this spot to go berserk. Ironically, letting the Flame burn all over my body seemed to calm it down.
I took a couple of deep breaths and felt an inner force guiding me to touch the signpost. Without understanding why, I figured there was a good reason for it, so I did. The minute my hand gripped the metal pole, the blue fire sloughed off my entire body, exiting through my fingers. It ran all the way down the signpost like it was water before forming a fiery stream that shot a winding course towards the pine trees to the left. A few feet short of the tree line, the blue fire started rising again, creating an elaborate design as it wound its way up. It eventually turned into an open arch and the flames stayed lit as if it were waiting for us—or maybe just for me—to step through.
Damek approached the arch while Dureau and Sinjin flanked either side of me. “How do you feel, Bryn?” Dureau asked while both men helped me to my feet.
The pounding in my head was slowly diminishing but I marveled at the sudden dryness and stickiness inside my mouth. “Thirsty.”
“Yes, I should think so after that rather stupendous conflagration,” Sinjin remarked, digging into my fallen backpack to pull out a water bottle. He handed it to me and I greedily drank it down with the urgency of a dying person in the middle of the desert. I was only partially hydrated when I finished, something Dureau must have anticipated because he offered me a fresh bottle.
“More?” he asked, taking the empty bottle out of my hand.
I nodded when Damek called out. “Umm, everybody, you might want to look at this.”
Both Sinjin and Dureau studied me closely as if I were still in danger. I gave both of them an impatient expression. “I’m just dehydrated; I’m not crippled.” Then I waved them away. “I’m fine!” I insisted.
Dureau backed away from me. When he noticed that Sinjin remained, he gave the Lord Protector a curious look. “In case you missed it, Lord Protector, the keeper of the Flame has ordered us to leave her alone.”
“Might I remind you that I am not deaf, Chevalier,” Sinjin asserted, holding onto me while we all walked toward the arch. “However, I prefer to assume the risk of unpleasant consequences.”
Because my mouth was filled with water, which I couldn’t get into my system fast enough, I didn’t have an immediate reply. But once I swallowed it, I told Sinjin, “I could easily push you away if I wanted to.”
“And do you want to in this instance?”
I wanted to say “yes” because I was in a mood but his protective arms made me feel better. I leaned more heavily into him, which earned me a genuine smile. Dureau looked at us with more than a little annoyance.
“Should the Flame decide that your presence is unwelcome, Lord Protector, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he finished.
Sinjin’s smile turned sardonic as he gave our fae companion a mock half-bow. “You have performed your due diligence, good sir.”
I pulled away from Sinjin because I didn’t want to make Dureau uncomfortable. Sinjin looked at me with a curious expression on his face, as if he understood exactly why I’d done what I just had.
“Guys!” Damek called out, pointing urgently toward the center of the arch.
On the distant horizon, within the flaming arch, I glimpsed the spires of Al-Jafar. It was the same vision I had in my dreams like a picture from The Arabian Nights. The sight of it made my heart swell with unbridled accomplishment… and my head swelled too, which preceded a slight dizzy spell.
However, when I grew larger this time, I only gained enough inches to be as tall as the men around me, which was just fine. I carefully walked around the flaming arch to look at it from the other side. The only things I saw from the back were my three companions and the road we just traversed. The strange scenery returned to my view when I came around to the front again.
“We found it,” I said with an awed whisper. My size began to slip away but I barely noticed.
“But what, pray tell, are we looking at precisely?” Sinjin asked, sounding just as awed as I was. He wasn’t talking about the vision of Al-Jafar, though. Instead, he was staring down at the ground.
At first glance, I didn’t see anything spectacular. With one weird detail. The Big Inch pipeline, which was covered by the ground during our entire walk, was now uncovered and fully visible. It looked like a ditch was purposely dug around it. On closer look, however, it wasn’t a ditch. I could just make out some stone or concrete on the sides, barely visible from underneath the accumulated dirt. It was a tunnel.
Dureau glanced down the road past the pines before taking another look inside the arch itself. “My best guess? This is probably a seven-league tunnel.”
“What’s that?” Damek asked, since the rest of us wanted to know the answer too.
