“Days?! Was I in a coma?”
“Kinda. I think. I don’t know. Honestly, Vic, I seriously thought I was never going to talk to you again.”
Seamus sounded like he was about to cry, or maybe like he had been crying for a while already. It was hard to tell. His voice was rough, at any rate, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. I wasn’t exactly feeling like this situation was made of win as it was, and if he had thought me as good as dead for a few days…
“Any idea what kind of spell they hit me with?” I asked, mainly to get us both thinking about something other than how screwed we probably were.
“No idea. I don’t have much experience with mages at all…. Now, if a giant were had mauled you, I could probably be of more help.”
I tried to laugh, but it hurt too much.
“Ow.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s good. If we don’t keep up a sense of humor, then we’re fucked.”
Seamus chuckled.
“Oh, good to know there’s still hope, then.”
“There’s always hope, Seamus.”
“Yeah. If you say so, Vic. Any chance you’ll be able to walk soon?”
I took a moment to assess. My right side was still alight with pain. It was an awful combination of the hot pain of a bad burn and the dull ache of a strong impact. I tried to move my right arm, but the immediate response from my nervous system was to abandon ship. I took multiple deep breaths to keep from passing out, then decided that I would wait a bit before I tried my right leg. I needed to rest up first.
“Not likely,” I replied, after conducting my little mobility test. “But I don’t really need to be able to walk, do I?”
Seamus didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Wherever we are, I can’t pull on my wolf form.”
“Well shit. I suppose there’s a null somewhere nearby, then.”
“Maybe.”
“How long did it take them to bring us here?”
“I dunno. Long enough that they stopped to let me pee once along the way.”
“So they brought us by car?”
“Yeah.”
“Weird. What did they do about me?”
“Can’t you smell yourself?”
Ugh… I couldn’t. Either because my nose was just used to it, after however long we’d been like this, or maybe because I’d been damaged somehow. Fuck. I hope I hadn’t lost my sense of smell, that would suck.
“I’m just kidding. You’re either super dehydrated, or they have a spell for that, or something.”
“You ass.”
“You said we needed to keep our senses of humor.”
“I hate you.”
“That’s fair.”
And then I tried to laugh again, and wound up almost crying, because it hurt so damned much.
“Owwww… ok. No more sense of humor, it’s going to kill me.”
“Vic, how do we get out of this?”
“I don’t know.” I thought about that for a long time. I wasn’t touching Seamus right now, so I couldn’t shift us both, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have tried anyway. Beyond the fact that there was a null somewhere nearby, which likely made it impossible anyway, I felt so wrecked by whatever had happened to me that, judging by how much energy shifting had taken from me in the past, I didn’t think I would be able to move the two of us for quite some time.
“This must be episode two,” I muttered.
“What?” Seamus asked.
“Episode two. You know, in episode one the plucky, brave underdog is pulled into a world he or she doesn’t understand, but manages to gain the upper hand somehow. In episode two, everything falls apart, and it looks like our hero is lost.”
“And then in episode three the plucky underdog takes it all back and wins the day?”
“Yep. Everyone’s favorite fiction trope.”
“Right… so, how do we get to episode three?”
“Close our eyes and wait for rescue?” I suggested, half-heartedly.
And with that, I did close my eyes, since having them open didn’t seem to make any difference anyway. Seamus remained silent too, and, eventually, sleep took me.
VICTORIA MARMOT
and the
SHADOW OF DEATH
Virginia McClain
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, governments, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Natasha Snow
Copyright © 2018 Virginia McClain
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1-9994612-3-2
To Cedar, for being a light in the darkness.
I WIPED THE sweat from my brow and tried, yet again, to roll the large block of granite up the side of the cliff, stopping it with my forehead when it finally reached head height, then lowering my wrists to lay against the boulder at my waist. My hands quivered, half with the strain of having pushed the block of granite into place, and half with trepidation. I took a deep breath, trying not to gag on the sulphur stench that permeated what passed for air here, and pulled my wrists as far apart as the manacles would allow. Then I pulled my forehead back, trying not to flinch. I really didn’t want to graze myself again. The thumb on my left hand was still numb from the last time, and I was sincerely hoping that my efforts would pay off soon, because if I didn’t get to a healer in the near future, I was pretty sure that gash was going to get infected.
The rock collided with the chain connecting the manacles, releasing an earsplitting crack that reverberated through the narrow canyon surrounding me. I almost cried as I felt my wrists fly outwards, the resistance from the steel chain that connected them finally giving way. Unfortunately, breaking the chain wouldn’t restore my ability to pull myself through space and time, or to pull on my snow leopard form.
Throwing a suspicious glance at the brooding purple clouds that hovered in the thin strip of orange sky visible from my narrow prison, I scrambled onto the boulder in front of me and began the slightly less cumbersome process of beating the shit out of the shackles holding my ankles together. At least now I could aim the rock with my arms instead of my forehead.
Consequently, I didn’t bash the crap out of my legs or ankles, or even tear up the skintight black jeans that had materialized the last time I’d shifted back into my human form (much to my dismay). Also, it meant it only took three good slams of the thirty-pound granite block against my ankle chains before they split.
Since my feet had been splayed as wide as they would go against the force of the chain, and now that force was removed, my legs went sprawling and I landed on my ass between the edge of the boulder and the cliff face. Luckily, I managed to drop the block away from me, so I wasn’t pinned by anything. And I finally had four limbs free.
“Fuck yeah!” I shouted, dragging myself up so that I could stand on top of the boulder again and start climbing my way out of this cursed fucking canyon. No more worrying about drowning in the flash floods that swept through here every night. No more dodging rockfall, as whatever huge-assed creatures stampeding along the top of the canyon fled who the fuck knew what. And NO. MORE. GWENDAMNED. SQUIRREL. DEMONS.
I didn’t care that half of my hand left hand was numb and useless, or that I hadn’t eaten in days, or that I was pretty sure the water I’d drunk from the pools left behind by the flash floods had made me hallucinate. I was going to get the fuck out of this canyon, magic powers or no magic powers. Help or no help.
I still didn’t know how I was going to get back to my own world after I got out of this canyon, but at least I wouldn’t be stuck in a place that tried to kill me five times a day. At least I would be able to use my hands and feet.
I was extremely grateful that the canyon wall was riddled with handholds from all the broken rock that periodically tumbled to the bottom. Honestly, the place was surprisingly crumbly for a ravine carved out of
granite. Generally that kind of thing was pretty stable, but… well, this wasn’t even Earth, as far I could tell, so what the fuck did I know about how rocks should work here?
Anyway, I had no shortage of holds for climbing to the top of this thing. Which was a huge relief, considering that I had about three hundred feet to ascend before I reached the top, and falling would make for a pretty horrific death. I wasn’t stoked about doing this without a rope at all, and with who knew how many unstable holds along the way. Especially considering how injured my left hand was. But my options were limited, and dying in a flash flood or getting crushed by rockfall really didn’t appeal. Since those had clearly been likelihoods at the bottom of the canyon, I had little choice. I’d already shuffled for days in either direction to try to find a likely place to crush the bonds that held me, hoping that I might also get lucky enough to find a way out that didn’t involve scaling one hundred meters of loose granite, but nothing had turned up except the literal rock and hard place I had used to break my chains.
I still didn’t know what the damned things were made out of, but whatever it was, they kept me from pulling on the magic (or dark matter, or whatever you want to call it) that I normally had access to. Believe me, I’d tried, and I’d almost knocked myself out a few times over the past few days attempting to access my abilities in order to get out of this place. Especially after the damned squirrel showed up…
Of course, you’re probably wondering how the hell I got here, and where the hell "here" is to begin with. The funny thing is: "hell" is my best guess for an answer at the moment. I really don’t know where I am, except that MOME dropped me here when they finally got tired of Seamus’ and my attempts to escape from the dungeon where they’d shoved us while I awaited my “trial.” That’s in quotes because I have no doubt that those asshats at MOME have about zero intention of giving me a fair trial. That was made evident on the very first day I regained consciousness in that shithole.
~~~
“You’re awake, Ms. Marmot. I’m impressed. I had rather expected to be trying a corpse.”
I blinked into the light pouring out of what appeared to be a headlamp. The voice that addressed me was female and southern.
This particular southern accent was muted, and had that cloying condescension that comes from some educated southerners.
“I’ve been told I’m full of surprises,” I muttered, still blinking, and wishing I could move my hands up to rub my eyes. My arms weren’t restrained, but one of them was asleep from having been pinned underneath me for days and the other hurt so much whenever I tried to move it that it may as well have been a button labeled “to wish for death, press here.”
“You’ll have to forgive me,” I continued, since I still couldn’t see. “I’m not exactly up to speed on the who’s who of douchecanoes employed by MOME. Do you have a name?”
“I was told you lacked manners, Ms. Marmot. I’m sad to discover it’s true. However, since you’ve asked, I’m Rebecca Dryer, attorney at law and Magister in the High Courts of MOME.”
“Well, how very pretentious of you.”
I had to admit, not being able to see the woman, despite all the light she’d brought down here, was starting to rub me the wrong way, and I was already irritable due to the whole trapped-in-a-cell-can’t-move-half-my-body-feel-like-I’m-about-to-die scenario, as it was.
I had just now confirmed the trapped in a cell bit, though I had suspected it for a while now. But neither Seamus nor I had been able to see anything since we’d been in here, and the headlamp that Rebecca had brought with her provided our first illumination of the steel bars that separated us from the stone passageway in which she smugly stared at a clipboard.
I could finally see enough of her to make out the smugness and the clipboard.
She had curly hair. I couldn’t really tell what color it was, because it was too short to fall in the direct beam of the headlamp, but something on the lighter side, I thought. And the rest of her features were too washed-out in shadows for me to be able to tell much about her. I didn't think it mattered. Whatever she looked like, I doubted she was here to trade fashion tips.
“Well, now that the niceties are taken care of,” she said, blithely ignoring my quip about her pretentiousness, “Victoria Marmot, you stand accused of assaulting an officer of magical law enforcement with the intent to kill. How do you plead?”
“The fuck. What’s going on?”
“You stand accused of—”
“I heard you the first time. What is going on here?”
“You are being tried for your crimes.”
“Oh, that’s rich. I bet it will be a fair trial and everything, too. Do I get representation? Do I even get to speak at this trial?”
“As I said, I had half expected to be trying a corpse. I’m sure that since you’re conscious now, we can accommodate that. Now, please answer the question.”
“Wait. You said that I stood accused of assault with intent to kill. That means he’s not dead. The man I shot lived?”
“I am not allowed to share any details of this case with you. Your own magistrate will—”
“But you would sure as shit be trying me for murder if he’d died. So that means he’s alive!”
“I can’t say.”
“You don’t have to,” I said, and I couldn’t help it. I was smiling.
“You sound pleased,” she said, after a pause.
“Look, that guy, whoever he was, is an asshole. But yeah. I’m glad he’s not dead.”
“Don’t think it will reduce your sentence, simply because—”
“I don’t care about the fucking sentence, lady. I’m glad he’s not dead. I didn’t want to kill him.”
“Then why did you shoot him in the chest?”
“He was going to kill people I care about.”
“Our officers only use deadly force in the most extreme circumstances. They would never harm an unarmed person who was in compliance with the law.”
Seamus and I both laughed, though there wasn’t humor in either of our tones.
“You tell yourself whatever you need to in order get to sleep at night, lady.” I wasn’t about to waste my breath convincing someone who was clearly going to be directly involved in whatever sham MOME had planned for my "trial" that MOME was the bad guy here.
“Listen here, young woman, you—a family member of a known convict, escapee from MOME’s southern holding facilities, colluder with known criminals, and class A fugitive—shot a man in the chest just because he opened a door, before he’d had a chance to say anything to you. So don’t you lecture me about sleeping at night.”
That angered me enough that I almost tried to sit up, and the pain of it winded me for a moment. When I could speak again, it was very deliberate.
“Try this on for size. That known convict, also known as my brother, was abducted by masked men driving a fucking unmarked white van when we were eight years old. Those men worked for MOME. And why did they grab a terrified eight-year-old boy? Because they thought he might turn into something unsavory when he finally made his first change. Then, when my parents tried to get him back through the courts, MOME told my parents they were lucky MOME had “let” them keep me (who they would happily have snatched too if my mom hadn’t physically fought them off). Then they pulled some bullshit to erase our memories and sent us packing. I spent my childhood thinking I was insane because I remembered a brother that my parents didn’t think existed. Turns out it was just that MOME’s magic wasn’t strong enough to erase him from his twin sister’s memory. Of course, I didn’t learn any of this until you assholes tried to meddle in my life AGAIN. Then, if memory serves, MOME followed me back to my home in Arizona in order to try to recapture my INNOCENT BROTHER, and in their attempts to do that they held my great-uncle’s granddaughters HOSTAGE and tried to kill me and my friends. From there I’ve been stalked, beaten, and threatened by MOME operatives all over the world. So, yeah, when a MOME operative opened the door with a
gun held to the head of my best friend’s mother and started threatening me--which I’m pretty sure counts as talking by the way--I fucking shot him. In the chest. So he would drop the gun, and let everyone go, and not kill anybody I care about.”
I took three deep breaths before I spoke again.
“So, I’m gonna go with not guilty, just on principle.”
~~~
“I don’t think you were supposed to say that kind of stuff without legal representation,” Seamus said, after Rebecca Dryer was long gone.
I sighed. Seamus might have had a point.
“It’s not like they were going to give me a fair trial, anyway. They’re just going through the motions. If they don’t, they just give their opposition more ammo to use against them.”
Rebecca Dryer had left without saying anything else, aside from asking me one or two questions about my injuries. Then she’d taken a minute to write a few things down on her clipboard. None of that had felt reassuring to me.
“Doesn’t that mean that they have to give you a fair trial?” Seamus asked.
“No. It just has to look like one. I don’t even know if the magical courts allow audiences, or what. Hell, all I even know about the U.S. legal system is from procedural crime shows. I’m talking out of my ass here.”
Seamus chuckled. “Ew. Gross.”
There wasn’t much conviction in his voice, though.
Still, I started to laugh, and then tried to stop myself because the pain was too great.
“Are you feeling any better?” Seamus asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not feeling any worse, but I still hurt all over. I’ll let you know if anything stops hurting.”
“It’s a shame you’re all beat up. This would be a great chance to have tons of sex.”
“Seamus, stop making me laugh.”
“I’m serious. It’s pitch black, there’s no one here, we have absolutely nothing else to do…”
Victoria Marmot- The Complete Series Page 26