Croakies Monster, page 12
I was pretty sure I was asleep and didn’t know it.
“Good morning!” the sprite chirped happily.
My response was a glower, followed by a glare, frosted with a scowl. She was never happy. Especially not in the morning. And most especially after only four hours of sleep.
She was tweakin’ me. Wringing my last nerve.
Why I oughta…
The door jangled happily as Rustin walked in. Goddess bless his bright soul, he was carrying a greasy box filled with something that smelled like an extra inch or two on my hips.
I held out a hand, grunting like a zombie. “Gimme!”
He laughed, dropping the box on the table in front of me.
Like a plague of locusts, the living and breathing inhabitants of Croakies descended on the box. There was a whir of movement, some shuffling and growling, and then the locusts went their separate ways.
I looked into the empty box, wondering if I could wring some energy from the grease spot.
Rustin silently held out a bag. “I got your back,” he said, smiling.
“Marry me,” I responded. I grudgingly offered him a donut from the bag and then perused my choices before picking the biggest, most chocolatey pastry. I bit into it and moaned with pleasure. The burst of sugar and fat gave my weary system an immediate jolt.
The door jangled again, saving Rustin from having to respond to my ill-advised proposal. After all, he was a man without a body and I was a sorceress without sleep who would probably die over the next few hours. What kind of future would we have?
Did it even matter if there were donuts available?
Hmmm, deep thoughts. Too deep for so early in the morning.
Walking into Croakies, Grym nodded at Rustin, eyeing the bag I was jealously guarding. After a moment he sighed. “I guess you don’t need these?” He pulled another greasy box out from where he’d been hiding it behind his back.
The locusts swarmed again.
Grym stumbled back under the attack, yanking his hand away at the last moment to check if all his fingers were still intact.
When it cleared, my cat bounced away with a glazed donut between his teeth. Hobs spun back toward the library with his arms full of chocolate donuts, and Sebille clutched the biggest pastry I’d ever seen in one hand.
With a grin, she offered it to Grym. “It was the only way to save you one.”
He took it gratefully. “I guess I’ll learn someday not to bring a box of donuts into this place without packing some serious protection.”
Sebille chuckled, glancing at Rustin. “Where’s Sadie?”
“I left her at home until I hear what we’re doing. I thought she’d be safer there.”
The sprite nodded in agreement. “I’ll make tea.”
Once Sebille was seated and we all had tea, Grym asked the obvious question. “So, what do you need from us today?”
I wished I knew. “I’m afraid you’re going to be fighting another monster.”
“What kind of monster?” Rustin asked. “I’ll need to prepare.”
Grimacing, I looked at Sebille.
“According to Archie, we won’t know what the abyss is going to send us until it’s here. But he said the monsters will keep getting worse each time one arrives.”
“So we need to make sure we get this shut down,” I told them, frowning. “I can’t imagine anything worse than the Naga.”
A grim silence fell over the room.
As if on cue, the door opened again and Archie Pudsnecker stood there, looking every bit a Sorcerer of the Voids. He was dressed in a thick, black cloak with oversized sleeves that hung past his elegant hands. His dark blue gaze shone with emotion and his stride when he entered the room, was brisk. “Are we ready to get started?”
“No,” we all said at once.
He blinked, looked from one to the other of us, and then frowned. “What’s the problem?”
Grym laughed. “What’s the problem? Where do I start. To begin, if we don’t know what kind of monster we’re going to be dealing with, how can we prepare?”
Rustin nodded. “What kind of protection will Naida and Sebille have inside the book? They don’t know where they’re going, or how they’re going to fix the breach and there’s a dangerous witch in the abyss. How are they going to protect themselves against Jacob Quilleran?”
The way Rustin spoke of his uncle, I realized he’d cut any emotional ties he’d had with the man. Probably a good idea. “Can Sebille and I take any kind of weapons with us?” I asked, thinking of the gun we’d gotten from the wizards. That particular artifact would definitely come in handy in the abyss.
Then I blinked, thinking of the two men we’d sucked up with the gun. Would they be waiting for us when we entered the abyss too? “Um, how big is the abyss?”
Everyone looked at me, varying degrees of “you’re kidding, right?” written across their faces.
I shrugged. “It’s not as stupid a question as it sounds…” I started to say.
“Yes, it is,” Sebille told me. “The abyss is endless.”
Archie shook his head. “It’s both endless and extremely contracted.”
“Explain,” Rustin said, as if asking a professor to give more detail on a homework assignment.
Sighing, Archie held up his hands. “The best way I can explain it to you is this. Think of it as neighborhoods. Each of us has ties to a section of the abyss. Our neighborhood, so to speak. And when we interact, we tend to interact with our own neighborhood. But when dealing with the Book, that effect is muted somewhat. The Book touches all segments of the abyss. Its power spreads across the entire thing.”
Okay, then hopefully Jacob wouldn’t be an issue. But the wizards… I saw no way around it. I had to fess up to what Sebille and I had done. “We went looking for an artifact last night,” I told the three men. I received a variety of reactions to my statement, from impatience in the sorcerer, to immediate suspicion from the gargoyle, to concern from the ghost witch.
I hurried on. “It was on the south end of Enchanted.”
That shoved suspicion off Grym’s face and replaced it with concern. The sorcerer still looked impatient.
“When we got to the location where the artifact was located, there were two wizards blocking the door.”
Grym shook his head. “I keep telling the Chief that we need to do something about those gangs.”
I nodded. “I tried to avoid confrontation by using my power to call the artifacts in the area.” I grimaced. “We got back a lot of weapons. Several knives, some brass knuckles, a stun gun and some mace…” I slid my gaze to Archie. “And a gun that sucks the bad guys into the abyss.”
Archie’s face paled. “Let me see if I have this right. You sucked two combative wizards into the abyss last night?”
I nodded. “My question is this. Will we bump into them when we go in to fix the breach?”
Archie sighed. “Most certainly. Unlike the Book, any artifact you use to put someone into the void would send them into your neighborhood there.”
“But we don’t know the Book will send Naida close to her neighborhood,” Rustin argued.
“No. We don’t. But the global touch of the artifact only applies to specific requests. If you specifically request a certain place or person, the book will take you there regardless of where in the void it is. But if you don’t specify…”
“It will pick your neighborhood,” Rustin said, looking a bit gray around the gills. “I need to go in with them,” he finally said.
Archie shook his head. “I don’t advise it, son. I know you’re worried about the two young women, but I assure you, if I didn’t think they could handle this, I wouldn’t send them inside.”
I chewed on my lip, wishing I had half the confidence in me that the sorcerer had.
“We’ll take Wicked,” Sebille said. “And Hobs.”
The exterior door blew open and a tiny rainbow shot through, wings beating the air rapidly as she hovered before Rustin, chittering emphatically.
I couldn’t understand a word the little dragon was saying, but the gist of her message was clear. She was mad at Rustin for leaving her behind.
Rustin chittered back in an attempt to plead his case, but the little dragon would have none of it. She blew smoke in his face and flew over to land on Sebille’s shoulder.
Rustin sighed. “I guess you’re taking Sadie too.”
Sebille was torn between happiness and worry.
I settled my gaze on her. “Remember what Kanish told us. Sadie’s not a baby. And she apparently has prodigious magical power.”
Sebille touched the little dragon’s snout with her nose. “Okay. We’ll take her. If nothing else, she’ll be a nice surprise for those wizard jerks if they try anything.”
“Good,” Archie said. “Then, we’re ready to get started.”
Grym held up a hand. “I need to get my people here.”
“No humans,” Archie said, shaking his head.
“They’re not human,” Grym told him. “And it’s not up for debate.”
Sighing, Archie flipped a hand toward the gargoyle, dismissing him. Grym left the store, already speaking on his phone as he closed the door behind him.
Then Archie focused his full attention on Sebille and me. Rubbing his hands together, he said. “Let’s find that breach, shall we?”
The book sat on the table in front of me. My palms were sweating as Archie cast it in silvery mist, his eyes closed and his palms open above it as if reading the contents of the thing without even cracking the cover.
I didn’t know what he was doing, but I gathered it had something to do with trying to pinpoint the approximate location of the tear in the Book’s magic so Sebille and I wouldn’t have to search the entire abyss looking for it.
Sebille and I were stuffing supplies into two canvas backpacks. Bottles of water, protein bars and stuff for our critters and Hobs. We’d even stuffed a couple of blankets into each pack, just in case we ended up having to sleep in the abyss.
Goddess forbid.
The thought made me shudder so hard that my teeth clanked together.
Archie’s eyes snapped open and I was afraid he’d heard my teeth clanking, but he stepped back from the book and rubbed a weary hand over his eyes. “That should do it. According to my assessment, you’ll enter the abyss no farther away than a mile or two from the tear.”
That didn’t sound very close to me. But I guessed if the void was endless, two miles was a very small area. “How will we know which direction to go?”
Archie poked his own chest. “It will be here. This is your magic to call, Sorceress. Embrace it, infuse it into your cells. It’s every bit as much a part of your strength as your domination of the artifact library is.”
I nodded, not really understanding but trusting that the sorcerer knew what he was talking about.
“Before we start,” Archie told me, a new tightness in his gaze. “Please be aware that we will widen the breach just by sending you inside the book. While you are inside, it will be wide open for anything nearby to pass through.”
I felt my eyes go wide. “You mean more than one monster might come through the opening?”
He inclined his head. “I will do what I can to limit access. Hopefully, that will be enough. But the longer it takes you to find the tear and repair it, the harder it will be for me to hold.”
Galloping gargoyles! “No pressure there,” I murmured unhappily.
Grym came through the door a moment later, looking like his name. “My people are ranged along the front of the store. They’ll help us contain whatever comes through.”
My heart beating hard against my ribs, I nodded. My friends would be in danger while I was in the Book. And the longer I took, the more danger they’d be in.
I was standing so deep in dragon dung I’d be plucking it out of my ears for days.
“Ready?” Archie asked.
I barely bit back a denial, nodding even as my stomach twisted with dread.
He jerked his chin toward the book.
I stepped forward and stopped, looking at the sprite, the dragon, Hobs, and Mr. Wicked. The cat was on the table, along with the frog. I hadn’t seen him arrive there. “Mr. Slimy can’t come.”
“Yeow!” Wicked slashed a half-extended claw over my hand.
“Ow!” I frowned at him. “He won’t be safe there.”
Slimy hopped toward me. You’ll need me there, Naida.
I stared down at him. He looked so squishy and helpless sitting on the table blinking up at me. The perfect victim. But Wicked knew more about how magic worked than I did. He was better at it than I was too.
Still. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” I told the frog. Or worse.
You need me, he insisted.
“Why?”
His squish rippled in a froggy shrug. I don’t know. I just know you do.
“Day is burning, Naida keeper,” Archie nudged.
I sighed and scooped up the frog. “All right, frog. But if you get yourself hurt, I’m not going to be happy.”
Like it will put a crimp in my day to have you ticked at me. It would just be business as usual, sayeth the frog.
“Nobody likes a snarky frog,” I told him.
We shrugged on our backpacks and gathered near the table. Sebille moved close, grabbing Hobs’ hand. Wicked pressed up against my belly. Sadie chittered happily in Sebille’s ear. The little dragon was happy no matter where she went. I envied her that. But it was a little harder to be mindlessly happy when the fate of all your friends rested on your narrow, drooping shoulders.
I took a deep breath and reached out to touch the book. At the last moment, Archie touched my hand and said a couple of words.
The magic shot out of the Book of Pages and wrapped around us like a blanket, twisting us in a painful coil, and jerking us away from everything comfortable and safe.
15
A Little Abyss…A Little of That
During our journey through the Book, we bumped up against something big and stinky. The unhappy critter roared into my face, painting me with hot, fetid breath that smelled like butt. I got the sensation of giant, snapping teeth before it disappeared.
I hit the ground and rolled to a stop, the ground beneath me much softer than I’d expected, though something was digging painfully into my back. After a moment’s contemplation, I realized it was my backpack. I sat up and looked around, aware of Sebille’s groans nearby, and the plaintive yowling of my cat.
I found Hobs a few feet away. He leaped to his feet as if someone had set him on fire, and Mr. Wicked crawled to his feet in the spot where Hobs had been. The hobgoblin had landed on my cat.
Ouch! “Is everybody okay?”
Sadie flitted over to me, her wings beating the air behind her as she went vertical, telling me a rapid-fire story in her native dragonish that went right over my head and got lost in the void.
Sebille pushed to her feet, moving slower than usual. “She’s fine.”
I looked at my assistant, assessing her for obvious wounds. She brushed grass off her purple dress and looked down at her green and white striped socks, grimacing at the grass stains polluting her knees. “You understood her?”
Sebille looked up, frowned slightly, and then smiled. “I did.”
I nodded. “It was like that for me with Slimy on Plex.” Slimy! I shoved a hand into my pocket, afraid of what I’d find there.
It was empty!
“Slimy? Where are you?”
“Ribbit!” I found him a few feet away, crouched next to a tall bunch of weeds, tongue happily snapping up crickets.
I shook my head. “You always land on your feet, frog.”
“Ribbit.”
‘Nuff said.
Wicked trotted over and rubbed his silky head against my calf. His purring was loud enough to draw unwanted attention, even in the void. I kissed my cat between his twitching gray ears and scooped up the frog, glancing around. The area was very similar to Enchanted Park, with lush tree cover and wide expanses of thick, green grass. In the distance, I even saw the familiar shape of the pavilion where we’d defeated a scary goddess and fought bunnies and squirrels to get Maleficent’s staff back.
Yeah, my life is pure chaos. All. The. Dang. Time.
The spot where we’d landed clearly represented the park. It wasn’t the same, though, because everything was muted behind a constantly moving wall of gray mist.
When I’d gone into the Book to speak to Rustin beneath the clock tower the first time, I’d assumed the mist was part of the place where I’d landed. With the enormous tower hanging over our heads and the roiling mist, the place had a historical London vibe, and I couldn’t help thinking of Jack the Ripper’s misty nighttime terrors in England’s most well-known city.
But I was starting to realize the mist might be more a part of the abyss and less a component of any individual place there.
I filed that useless bit of information away in my brain and looked around, wondering if the “neighborhood” we’d be exploring in the void would be laid out like the area in Enchanted it represented.
“So. Where to, oh great breach tracker,” Sebille asked.
I glanced her way and raised my brows. Sadie was sitting on top of the sprite’s head, her bright gaze glowing eerily through the mist.
Sebille shrugged. “She says she can see better up there.”
I bit back a laugh. “Right. Okay, so…” I spun around again. Looking. Looking. Spun again. Looked some more. Spun. Looked…
“You’re making me dizzy, Naida!” Sebille barked.
I jumped and grabbed my chest. “Don’t yell. We don’t want to attract those wizards if we can help it.”
“Then we should get moving, shouldn’t we?”
I rubbed my chest, indigestion making it hurt. The sprite’s cranky brand of brutal common sense was not sitting well at all. “I’m trying, Sebille.”
“Meow!” my cat said. I turned to find him jumping on an oversized grasshopper and chowing down.
I grimaced. “Okay.” I waited a beat, sensing nothing.
“Okay?” Sebille said, arching a bright red brow.
