Croakies Monster, page 8
He held my gaze, his own sincere when he said, “I have not heard of a monster-creating artifact.”
The way he said it, so carefully specific, warned me he might be withholding information from me. “Have you heard of an artifact that’s in any way associated with monsters?”
His deep-set gaze skimmed away from me. “There might be something. But it’s very loosely related. Probably not what you’re looking for at all.”
“We’d like to take a look,” Rustin said. “If you don’t mind.”
Theo didn’t sigh, but it was a close thing. He jerked his head toward his home artifact. “I’ll have to find it.”
Ugh! I thought.
Sebille and I shared a glance. The sprite rolled her eyes.
We were going to be there a while.
I tried not to grin at Rustin. The ghost witch was perched on top of a chair seat, slightly crouched, with hands out to his sides and gaze constantly sliding around the space.
He had a giant knot on his temple, and his previously tidy jeans and white button-down shirt were rumpled and covered in dust.
I didn’t think it had been the flying bottles, which had rushed across the room to greet him and clocked him in the head that put him on the defensive. I was pretty sure it was the California king-sized bed that had rushed him, hitting him behind the knees and then pummeling him with pillows until he couldn’t breathe that had put that twitchy look in his gaze.
Unashamed, Sebille and I had taken full advantage of his pummeling distraction to make it across the room without being attacked by Theo’s over-friendly furniture.
Still, I’d suffered a blow to one knee from a harmless looking stool embroidered with kittens and puppies. And Sebille was still picking pencils out of her long, fire-red braids.
The sprite and I were sitting on top of Theo’s enormous desk. It seemed to be a safe zone of some kind because once we threw ourselves on top, the well-meaning artifact furnishings ignored us, turning their painful love on Rustin.
The ghost witch eyed us with jealousy, no doubt because we were relaxed and happy while he feared for his life at every moment. “Scoot over and make room for me,” he said, dodging sideways as a small painting flew at his face.
“Not a chance. That lamp over there has its eye on you. If you head this way, it might come after you,” I said as Sebille tittered happily.
“Come on!” Rustin whined. “I thought you were my friends.”
“Stop whining, Rustin,” Sebille said, examining her nails, which didn’t bear examining since they were battered and torn. “It’s so unattractive in a man.”
Rustin yelped as a thick, leather-bound book slammed into his belly. “I’ll give you unattractive,” he wheezed.
Across the room, stuff was flying into the air above Theo’s bent form. He was muttering to himself as he searched through the endless piles, stacks, trails, and columns of stuff.
I glanced at my watch. We’d been there for over an hour. It was time to feed Wicked and Slimy, and I was pretty sure Hobs would start gnawing on my chocolate-scented candle if I didn’t feed him something dark, sweet, and gooey pretty soon.
That gave me a terrible thought. I turned wide eyes to Sebille. “What if Hobs decides to try baking again?”
She snorted out a laugh. “I’m pretty sure he overloaded the wand last time, so I don’t think he’ll be able to use it again.”
I sighed, “It looks like we’re going to have more songbirds.” My shoulders slumped with despair.
“Look on the bright side,” Sebille said. “At least the spider will disappear faster.”
I gagged, covering my mouth to hold it in.
Sebille snorted happily.
“Eureka!” Theo turned with excitement and held up an old wooden clock with carved wooden figurines on the front. As he held it up, a small figurine slid out through a rounded wood door and it chimed the hour, repeating the action five more times before it stopped. I glanced at my phone. Six o’clock. Perfect time. “Is that it?” I asked the giant.
He nodded. “An original Grimm clock. From the fairytale brothers.”
I felt my eyes go wide. “You had the original Brothers Grimm clock buried in a pile on your floor?”
Theo tenderly caressed the wood. “Held in the gentle embrace of my loving home. Besides, it’s one of six clocks they built. Not many historians know the Grimm brothers were talented clockmakers. They were much better known for their dark fairy tales.” He held it up in one oversized palm. “This particular clock is entitled, Dance of the Monsters.”
Rustin forgot his fear and leaned forward, his expression rapt. “I’ve heard of that clock. It’s really a valuable artifact.” He glanced my way. “I’m surprised you don’t have an order for that, Naida.”
I shook my head. “There could be one in the pile. It’s growing every minute. I have no idea what all’s in there.”
Rustin opened his mouth to respond. He never got the chance. A roller-skate flew into the air behind Theo, dodged around the giant’s head, and shot toward Rustin, hitting him in the chest.
Rustin grunted in pain and started to topple backward, arms pinwheeling. He lost the battle for balance a beat later and crashed to the floor, his arms clutching the roller-skate like an ardent lover.
10
That’s Three Days in Stomach Years
I stared at the tiny monster inside the rounded door. It looked exactly like the Winter Monster that had been at Croakies. The figurine stared back at me through eyes that seemed to glow with malevolence. I let the door close and looked the clock over, seeing none of the other monsters in the figurines on the clock. There was a small child, kneeling beside a patch of some kind of flowers. The only spider was crawling over the ground nearby, its nasty eyes red and its mouth open wide, fangs appearing to be dripping with venom.
But it was not monster-sized. Bigger than normal, yes. But not as big as the one lying dead on the floor at Croakies.
I glanced at Rustin, who was holding an ice pack in each hand. One was pressed on the knot at his temple and one against the bump on his sternum, a few inches below his chin, which, I noticed, had a new dent in it.
I couldn’t wait for Rustin and Grym to compare notes. When I’d brought Grym to Theo’s, he hadn’t fared much better.
“This has to be it, right?”
Rustin narrowed his gaze on the clock. “We can put it in the toxic magic room for a couple of days and see if any more monsters pop up.”
Despite his suggestion, I got the sense that Rustin didn’t believe the clock was our culprit. “You’re not buying it though,” I said.
He hesitated only a moment. “I’m just not sure. Like you said, there’s only one monster on this thing.” He pointed to the carvings covering the surface of the clock. “Those are of witches and children and feral animals. No monsters as we know them. Or, for that matter, as the Grimms with their phenomenal imaginations knew them.”
“I doubt even the Grimms could have conjured up a blue monster,” Sebille said, grinning.
Rustin snorted out a laugh. “You have a point.”
“Maybe the magic takes its own creative license,” I offered.
“It could,” he agreed. But I still didn’t get the feeling he was sold on the clock as our culprit.
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It just…doesn’t feel malevolent,” Rustin said finally.
He was right. It didn’t.
Theo finished up with a customer and came over. “You know I can’t give that to you without an order, Keeper.”
I lifted my brows at his distancing of our friendship though use of only my title. “I see how you are.”
He shrugged. “As Rustin said, it’s valuable.”
“I’m just going to put it in the toxic magic vault for a couple of days. If there’s no order to bring it in, I’ll give it back to you.”
Theo settled a shrewd look on me. “You’ll have to pay to take it out of the store.”
Sebille put a hand on his broad shoulder, her arm barely long enough to reach that high. He looked down at her, growing instantly pale. “You know, Theo, Birte really likes Kanish. Being with another dragon makes her happy. It would be a shame if we had to ask Kanish to come back to Croakies…” She let the threat sift into the ether for him to assimilate.
It didn’t take long. I hadn’t believed he could get any paler. Somehow he did. Finally, he turned to me. “I’ll need you to sign an agreement that you’ll return the clock if no order turns up within three days.”
“A week,” Rustin bargained.
Theo thought about it for a long moment. “Five days. That’s my final offer.”
Sebille patted his shoulder and turned away. “Kanish?” she called out.
“Okay, okay,” he glowered at the ruthless sprite. I was pretty sure any lasting dregs of his crush he’d been holding onto had just been extinguished. “One week. Seven days. And then you return it.”
“If it’s not our rogue artifact,” I clarified. “And if I don’t have an order for it.”
He expelled air in an unhappy gust. “Deal. I’ll go draw up the paperwork.”
We didn’t even make it back to Croakies. My cell rang as we were driving away from Theo’s. It was Grym. “There’s trouble at Vaped Delights. I need you here yesterday. Bring Sebille. She might need to talk Devard down off the ledge.”
“We’ll be there in five minutes.” I hung up, weariness bearing down on me at the thought of dealing with yet another problem. I turned to Sebille in the passenger seat of my little bug. Rustin was scrunched up in the tiny back seat. “That was Grym. He needs us at Vaped Delights.” I fixed a look on Sebille. “He needs you to, I’m quoting, ‘talk Devard down off the ledge’.”
She flinched. “I’m not sure I’m the right person to…” She stopped speaking mid-sentence, her long face going white. “Naga.”
All the blood left my face and I saw stars as I realized what she was telling me. “Snapping serpent sphincter,” I murmured.
“What’s going on?” Rustin asked, sitting forward to peer at us between the front seats.
“Devard’s magical form is a Naga,” I said, feeling as if I might throw up. I looked up and caught Rustin’s blue gaze in the rearview mirror. “An ancient snake monster.”
“Oh,” Rustin said. “Oh, goddess! That’s not good.”
“No, it isn’t,” I agreed. We not only had another monster, but it was one of our friends. We couldn’t just kill it as we had the spider monster.
And the Naga was particularly terrifying and hard to control. Even Devard had trouble controlling the thing, and he’d presumably lived with it all his life.
“It didn’t sound like the Naga had won yet,” I told my friends. “Grym was hoping Sebille could help Devard stay in control.” I glanced at my assistant.
She looked a little green.
That didn’t give me much hope that we could head the monster off at the pass. And if it came down to battling the ancient monster, we were all going to become snake kibble.
I wasn’t going down without a fight. I fully intended to make like a throwing star on my way down the thing’s long, long throat.
I parked in front of Croakies and Sebille jumped out. “I have to get something from inside. Tell Grym I’ll be right there.” She ran off before I could respond, and I had to bite back a swear. Rustin dug his way out of my tiny back seat and stood, groaning. “I’d forgotten how much work it was hanging out with you.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “Admit it, you were bored at Madeline’s.”
He shook his head, but I thought I saw a smile twitching on his lips. “What are the odds the sprite’s heading for the Canadian border right now?”
“Zero.”
He looked surprised and a little relieved.
“She’s much more likely to head south to Mexico. It’s just too cold for the sprite in Canada.”
Rustin blew out a breath. “I really hate you right now.”
I pinched his cheek, taking care not to bump the dragon-egg-sized knot on his temple. It had turned nearly black and stuck straight out from his head like a horn. “That looks like it hurts,” I said by way of showing compassion. I wasn’t my assistant with zero compassion. No, I wasn’t.
“Yeah. It hurts a lot.”
“Can I touch it?”
Rustin smacked my hand, barking out a laugh. “Derf. Let’s go see if we can wrangle us a snake, pardner.”
“I was really hoping somebody else could do the wrangling. I’m too tired to wrangle. And it’s been days since I’ve had anything to eat.”
He threw an arm around my shoulders and led me across the street. “So, I guess those three tacos you ate on the way to Theos two hours ago didn’t count?”
“You said it yourself. Two hours, Rustin. That’s three days in stomach years.”
We dodged around the cadre of police cars in the street, lights flashing and, in one case at least, doors standing open as if the cops driving them had flung the patrol car into Park and leaped into action.
Drama mama’s. The street looked calm. There weren’t even any gawkers yet. And I didn’t hear any blood-curdling screams that told me the snake was preparing a nice appetizer for its Naida entrée.
The front of the building exploded outward, raining glass, drywall and…tail…at Rustin and me.
We leaped sideways, each of us going a different direction, as the enormous scaly protuberance swung wildly from side to side, ripping the open door of the nearest cruiser right off the frame and flinging it into another car.
I hit the curb when I landed, the rounded concrete compressing my hip bones with an audible crunch that promised excruciating pain once the adrenaline eased away. I rolled to a spot beneath the police car nearby and watched in horror as the snake’s thick tail swept an entire car away and threw it onto its roof to skid ten yards down the street.
Rustin was back onto his feet and running my way. He leaped off the sidewalk, hitting the asphalt a few feet away from me and rolling to a spot behind the car.
Not that a little thing like a four-thousand-pound police vehicle would keep him safe. The car down the block, which was still wobbling on it back like a turtle, was proof of that.
“Okay, this is bad,” Rustin said. “How do we stop this thing?”
“It’s Devard,” I said, near tears. “We can’t kill him. Even if we knew how. Devard wouldn’t have wanted this. It’s not his fault, Rustin.”
The ghost witch shook his head. “We don’t have a lot of choices here, Naida. That thing’s beyond deadly. Not to mention, nobody’s going to believe the Naga is a parade float gone awry. Madeline Quilleran doesn’t have enough magic to make this look right to the human public.”
I knew he was right. But I had to think of some way to stop the Naga without compromising Enchanted.
A long, drawn-out scream of pain split the air and gunfire exploded inside the building. The moment of indecision had just passed. I turned to Rustin. “Go to that building there and find a woman named Rhonda.”
“Rhonda who?”
I realized with a start that I’d never gotten her last name. Or if I had, I couldn’t remember it. “I don’t know. Just stand in the hallway and yell for Rhonda. Tell her to stick her head out the nearest window and scream.”
I started toward the vapery, and Rustin grabbed my arm. “You want me to recruit somebody to scream at this thing? I’m pretty sure the guy the snake’s eating will do enough screaming to loosen our bowels.”
I grimaced at the visual. “She’s a Banshee. The snake will freeze when she screams. It worked before.” I took off running before he could stop me. Heading toward the alley between the two buildings, I found a big rock and threw it at the nearest window. Then I climbed the fire escape and broke a couple more windows for insurance.
I wanted to make sure the snake didn’t miss the Banshee’s scream.
I stuck my head inside and saw a hallway. Stepping carefully through the window to avoid the jagged edges of glass I didn’t quite clear away from the frame, I hit the carpet at a run and headed toward the sounds of fighting.
At the end of the hall was an elevator and a set of stairs.
No way did I want to ride an elevator down without knowing what I’d be looking at when the doors came open. I hit the stairs and descended them at as close to a run as I could, stopping at each level to peer through the fire glass. I didn’t see anything until I hit the first floor.
All I saw there was a wide band of dark blue. When it moved, I realized I was looking at the back of a cop in uniform.
I knocked on the door and waved when he turned. He glared at me. “Get out of this building!”
“Detective Grym called me. I’m Naida Griffith.”
Recognition lit the man’s gaze and he stepped away from the door, pulling it open. “I still think you should run. This thing’s crazy mad. I haven’t seen teeth like that since I visited gramma in the woods wearing my red cape.”
I snickered and he gave me a tight smile. “We have one cop down, and this thing’s determined to take more of us.”
I nodded, stepping around him. “Where’s Grym?”
He pointed toward the main room, which was almost completely blocked from view by the massive coil of the Naga.
Enraged hissing sounds filled the air as I drew near. The smell of too much reptile made my nostrils twitch. At the end of the hall, I pressed myself against the wall and looked around for Grym. He was in his gargoyle form, standing in front of two men who were hunkered down behind the shattered bar, their gazes glassy with fear.
Humans.
Just flippin’ awesome.
Grym was brandishing the top of one of the red vinyl swivel stools that used to range along the front of the bar, using it to keep the snake from getting hold of the men he was protecting. I looked up at the sound of wings throbbing on the air and almost screamed at the sight of the demon diving at the snake, claws extended to swipe at the monster’s snout on a fly by.
