“The Vain and Arrogant?” I ask, raising a brow as I study the man walking beside me in dirtied brown boots and blue slacks. Seeing him peel his own skin off was disturbing enough, but then he shed his pants, and stripped the flesh off his own cock … That was too much for me. I looked away.
“Every wizard has a title, Oz, the Great and Terrible,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders, pausing to pluck an apple from a tree. Stryker polishes it off on his jacket and then takes a bite. When I go to reach for an apple myself, Taavi grabs my wrist and pulls it away, handing me a piece of fruit from inside the duffel bag instead.
“You know who I am?” I ask, lifting a brow as Taavi snarls, baring his teeth at the newcomer.
“Fairies do talk, and I’ve been in that field for an awful long time.” Stryker takes another bite of the apple with his too-white teeth, and then turns to flash a grin at me. “You dropped a house on the Wicked Witch, huh? That’s clever, I must say.”
“What’s clever is how you peeled burned skin off and now you look like … well, that.” I gesture at his handsome form with no small amount of skepticism. The man just peeled his own skin off. I mean come on, that’s about as weird as it gets.
“A very carefully constructed spell,” Stryker says, finishing off his apple and then casually chucking the core over the fence. The scarecrows swarm it, swiping at one another until one of them swallows it whole. I shiver. He glances down at me, gold eyes brimming with mischief. “I’d tell you all about it, but a smart wizard never reveals his secrets.”
“A smart wizard would realize we saved his life, and that he owes us the information he promised. Putting yourself on the wrong side of Oz, the Great and Terrible, isn’t a very good idea.” Taavi slows his pace just enough for us to catch up.
We’ve been walking for a few hours now, right to the edge of evening. It’ll be full dark soon, and if those creepy zombie scarecrows are any indication, bad things come out at night.
Hopefully, we can find somewhere safe to sleep.
The road’s beginning to roughen, and the walking’s been getting so difficult that I’m starting to stumble over the yellow bricks. The path here is uneven, with bricks broken or missing altogether. The farms on the left side of the road aren’t nearly so well cared for like they were farther back. There are fewer houses, fewer fruit trees, and the more we walk, the more dismal and downright creepy the country becomes.
“Oz, the Great and Terrible,” Stryker says with a long sigh, the left side of his face covered in swirling black ink. His hair is longer in the front, shorter in the back. And when I say long, I mean long. While his bangs are feathered across his forehead, the hair on either side of his face falls nearly to his knees. Pretty sure it started growing the moment he peeled his skin off, and it’s kept at it since. “There are few sorcerers left in Oz, even fewer wizards. While your name sounds familiar, I can quite easily say we’ve never met.” He smiles at me, and it’s not in a very nice way. Lewd might be a more appropriate term. “If we had, I’d remember.”
“You’re demanding information from us?” Taavi asks, giving the wizard a look that could curdle milk. “When you have yet to offer us any answers to our own questions? That’s quite bold. If you’re not willing to elaborate, then you may as well find your way. We didn’t ask for you to travel with us.”
“Is your guardian always such a monster to deal with?” Stryker asks, addressing me instead of Taavi. “I’d never allow my own to speak in such a manner.”
“And where, exactly, is yours?” I ask, giving Taavi a look. I’m not going to let this guy walk all over us, but he did just peel his own skin off. I’m interested; I want to know more.
“Mm, that’s a question worth asking, certainly.” Stryker exhales and stretches his arms above his head, reveling in the freedom of movement. I wonder how long he was stuck up there like that? Or how long he might’ve survived if we hadn’t come along. “A Wizard without a guardian is bound to be bound, am I right?” He gives me a look, like this is a joke I should totally get.
Instead, I just cock a brow, and he sighs.
“If it’s worth asking, then it’s worth answering,” Taavi remarks with a curled lip.
“No sense of humor between the two of you. I figured that at the very least, the pretty wizard girl might have some.” Stryker gives me a once-over and smiles that come-hither smile of his again. A small flutter starts up in my lower belly, but I ignore the look, and he sighs. “Alright, fine. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that Stryker, the Vain and Arrogant, doesn’t help his fellow wizards. What do you want to know?”
“You said that Dorothy punished you to scare away the C.R.O.W.S—tell us about that,” Taavi says, and then he must catch the questioning expression on my face because he adds, “C.R.O.W.S. stands for the Central Regiment of Wizards & Sorcerers.”
“Pardon me for a second,” Stryker says, lifting up a hand and holding his palm out. Several small glowing balls gather there, and he tosses them up to float above our heads, casting enough light for us to see the craggy surface of the Y.B.R. My mouth is hanging open, but I snap it shut when he turns back to look at me. “You’re a Wizard, but you’ve never heard of C.R.O.W.S?”
“I’m not from here,” I say at a slight nod from Taavi, shrugging my shoulders. “To be honest with you, I’m pretty much convinced that none of this exists—except for in my mind, of course.”
Stryker stops walking for a moment, looking me over again, like he’s seeing me for the very first time.
“You’re not from Oz?” he asks, pointing a matte black fingernail in my direction and then tapping it against his chin. “Interesting. Tell me something about yourself and the country you came from, and I swear on my magic that I’ll truthfully answer any question you have for the next three hours.”
He extends a hand, and with a quick look at Taavi, I reach out and take it, my fingers tingling as Stryker slides his thumb across my knuckles. Slowly, I draw my hand back, feeling lightheaded and out of breath. He might be weird, but he’s charismatic as hell.
I feel drawn to him in a way I haven’t been drawn to anyone in a long time.
Is this my unconscious mind telling me to let go of the past? To make new connections and forge a future? Is this a subtle message from my inner psyche, begging me to try dating again?
Or maybe it’s just my body telling me to get laid?
Either way …
I tuck my hands in the pockets of the gingham dress, starting us off on our walk again. Stryker moves a bit closer to the blue fence, the glowing balls above his head casting light into the corn field. Crawly things skitter away from the light and back into the shadows before I can even get a glimpse of what they are; the scarecrows hiss and fall back, too, which is a relief.
The fence is starting to look a bit worse for wear, the paint peeling, a rotten post here and there.
“The Perimeter Fence fails soon enough. Best to be on alert.” Stryker runs his nail along the peeling paint and tsks under his breath. “Hopefully, the Munchkins will get a good witch to replace the Witch of the East. If not, the entire fence is likely to fail without repair. It’ll be a bloodbath.” He turns back to me. “Now, where were we?”
“You said you wanted me to tell you something about myself and where I came from,” I reply with another shrug. I decide to tell him about Kansas and how gray everything was there, how the cyclone carried me to this queer Land of Oz.
Stryker listens carefully, and then looks curiously in my direction.
“You want to go back there?” he asks, looking for clarification.
“There’s no place like home,” I respond with a sigh. I mean, I have to wake up eventually, don’t I?
“Again, pardon my intrusiveness, but I can’t understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas.”
“Maybe your head is too stuffed up with straw to understand?” Taavi quips, obviously on high alert. His muscles are
tense, and I know he’s on the lookout for someplace we could stop for the night. His casual mention that last night might be the only time I get a bed during this trip has me worried.
“Of course, of course,” Stryker says, holding up his hands in a placating gesture, one of them tattooed like his face. “If your heads were stuffed with straw—like mine apparently is—you’d probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It’s fortunate for Kansas that you have brains, isn’t it?”
“You’re a snarky asshole, aren’t you?” I ask, and Stryker smiles.
“I said I’d be truthful when I answered your questions, didn’t I? Well, the answer to that one is a resounding yes.” He pauses at a fork in the road, waiting as Taavi examines the wooden signs on either side. One road continues along the edge of the farmland while the other disappears into a great forest, the trees so big and close together that their branches meet over the road of yellow brick. It’s dark as hell in there, under the trees.
If such horrible things live in the cornfields, then what the fuck might be waiting in there?
“Where are you headed, Wizard?” Taavi asks, looking back at Stryker. “The left side continues to the west while the right fork takes us to Emerald City.”
“I’d rather the birds plucked my eyes from my face and ate them than set foot in that city again. However, I do have business this way.” He looks at me, unmistakable interest dancing in his golden gaze.
Whoa. This wizard dude would be pretty easy to get into bed, huh?
“Business besides us, you mean?” I ask, and he nods.
“I’m looking for my guardian, actually. He was taken by Dorothy and given to a faerie queen.” Stryker’s mouth tightens, and some of his good humor fades from his expression.
“You’re sure about this?” Taavi asks, sounding skeptical.
“I’m sure.” There’s little doubt in Stryker’s voice when he answers. He lifts up his left hand, extending his long-nailed fingers in the direction of the woods. “He’s in there, somewhere.”
“You can walk beside us for as long as your bargain to stay your hand is in place. But before the end of the three days, I want you gone.” Taavi strides forward confidently, like he has no trouble seeing into the deep violet shadows of the woods. Dogs can see in the dark, right? That must be it. I sure as hell can’t see shit, so I stick by Stryker and his glowing orbs.
“So, what’s up with you and this C.R.O.W.S organization?” I ask as we continue along the path and into the trees. Here and there, I see sparkles of light, little zips of color that remind me of fireflies. Off to the right, I see a circle of mushrooms. That’s a faerie ring, right? I decide to stay the hell away from it.
“I was a member until recently,” Stryker says as I marvel at the huge trunks of the trees. Once, my parents took all of us kids on a road trip from Seattle to Northern California, and we got to see the ancient sequoia trees—we even got to drive our car through the trunk of one.
But these trees? They’re bigger than that.
The one nearest me has a trunk the width of a fucking house. And by house, I don’t mean Aunt Em’s shitty little cottage. No, the seven bedroom/five bath place on the golf course where I used to live would fit easily inside this tree’s base.
“Why only until recently?” I ask as Stryker pauses and turns to look over his shoulder.
“Because Dorothy defeated me in her Ruby Trials, and set me on fire, that’s what. Now, is it just me or does it feel like we’re being followed?”
“We’re being followed,” Taavi says, and I notice that he’s turned around to face behind us. “Something sniffed us out at the crossroads.”
“Ah, did they? I only just noticed,” Stryker says, smiling like it’s no big fucking deal that something sniffed us out. How creepy is that?!
“Like I said, a head stuffed with straw,” Taavi growls as Stryker puts a hand to his chest.
“Ahh, it’s such an uncomfortable feeling to know one’s a fool,” he drawls sarcastically, sweeping his hand out in front of him and lining the glowing orbs up along the road. The light illuminates a cluster of scarecrows, hissing at us and baring their sharp teeth.
My stomach churns, and I take a wary step back.
Seeing those things on the other side of the fence was one thing, but now the only thing between us and them is a small, curved stretch of yellow road.
Not good.
“Every night, they came for me,” Stryker says, his eyes narrowing slightly, his mouth turning up in a sardonic smile. The humor in his expression turns dark, shadows moving in his golden eyes. His entire focus is on the scarecrows now. “Every fucking night, howling and circling my pole. If the Munchkins hadn’t used a bit of broken fence to make the base, they’d have eaten me alive.”
Stryker draws his right hand back and lifts his left arm up, so that he’s holding an arm out on either side, like he’s still nailed to that cross.
The fine hairs on my arms and neck stand up straight, and I feel that strange energy prickling across my skin. Magic.
“Well then, what are you waiting for?” Stryker asks as the scarecrows hiss and snarl at the light. It only takes a bit of circling and swiping at one another before one of them decides to brave the light, racing at the wizard with an uneven, loping gait that makes every basic instinct inside of me scream that I should run.
Stryker sweeps his hands forward and slams his palms together with a crack of sound, like a gunshot or a grumble of thunder. The bricks in front of him rise up, tearing the road to pieces and causing the charging scarecrow to stumble.
The wizard steps one foot back into a low lunge, and then swings his right hand out again, sending several of the yellow bricks flying. One of them smashes into the head of the first scarecrow, knocking it clean off. Straw comes out, sure, but so does blood.
It paints the remaining bricks on the road in red, but the sight and smell seem to make the other creatures more bold, not less. They come at us in a group as Taavi steps up beside me, folding his arms across his chest and grunting.
“Wizards are insufferable, but they’re also powerful.” He sighs and looks down at me. “Remember that, Oz, always.” I open my mouth to respond, but then my attention flicks back to Stryker and the charging scarecrows.
He might not be afraid of anything but a lit match, but I am fucking terrified.
“Pathetic,” Stryker sneers, throwing his left arm out and sending the rest of the bricks forward like bullets. They strike the scarecrows with alarming accuracy, knocking off legs, arms, and heads, soaking the forest floor in blood. “Is that all you’ve got, Isaac, the Just and Wise?”
Stryker stands up straight, dropping his arms by his sides as he watches the shadows just beyond his sea of light orbs. A moment later, a foot appears, cloaked in a brown boot. The man steps forward, pausing in a puddle of blood, like it doesn’t bother him in the least.
His hair is as yellow as the brick road beneath my feet, but his beard is gray, the skin on his face slightly wrinkled, his eyes a piercing blue.
“Stryker,” the man says, sounding resigned. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“And yet, I’m not,” Stryker says, crossing his arms over his blue military jacket. The bricks that were suspended in the air come crashing down, creating clouds of yellow dust that smell a bit like … piss? I look down at the ground beneath my feet and shiver. Taavi said I didn’t want to know what made them yellow, right? Maybe I really don’t. “But seeing as you’re here, I’m guessing you wish I were?”
“The Regiment has suffered because of your actions; Dorothy and her morality police have been crawling all over Oz looking for us.” The man turns to me and Taavi, the corners of his mouth turning down into a frown. “I don’t know who you are, Wizard, but if you’re smart, you’ll turn and continue on your way. This business doesn’t concern you.”
Stryker glances over his shoulder at me, and smiles. It’s a resigned sort of smile, tinted wit
h a deep-seated melancholy that strikes a chord within me. His face is the one I wore to my family’s funerals, this pretend smile meant for the world while inside … I just screamed.
“It’s been lovely speaking to you, Oz, the Great and Terrible. Safe travels back to dreary, gray Kansas.” He turns back around and uncurls his fingers, two blades of light appearing in his hands.
The man with the yellow hair and blue eyes does the same … except the single, long blade he creates is not one of light, but one of flames.
“Every Wizard has their weakness, and mine just so happens to be fire. If you have need to kill me, you know how to go about it.”
“Oz?” Taavi asks, looking over at me. I glance back and meet his eyes. It’s clearly my decision here, but it’s obvious what Taavi wants. “My recommendation is to leave. We don’t want to make an enemy of the C.R.O.W.S, or of Dorothy. And we don’t know what exactly Stryker did to earn their ire.”
Looking back at the pair of wizards, I see Stryker’s back and shoulders tighten. He’s preparing to die right now. And the man threatening his life poses no threat to us. It’d be best if we just kept walking, right?
Yet … that’s never been my MO, to just walk past something like this.
“What did he do?” I shout, cupping one hand around my mouth. The man with the yellow hair glances briefly my way, assured of his victory against Stryker. He knows that his weakness is fire, and he’s willing to use it. “To deserve to die, I mean.”
“He entered Dorothy’s Ruby Trials, and tried to kill her, bringing her wrath down on our organization. So many of us have suffered because of that, so many have died.”
“Dorothy’s a monster,” Stryker says, looking back at me again. There’s a bit of pleading in his gaze this time, but just a hint. I doubt I’d have even seen it if I hadn’t spoken up and gotten him to look at me again.
He thinks that Taavi and I can save him.
Very Bad Wizards Page 7