by ST Branton
"Jonas?" I called in through the gap. "Jonas, are you there?" There was no response, and I leaned in further, sticking my mouth into the gap of the door. "Jonas? I need to talk to you. It's about Ally."
When there was still no response, I used my foot on the bottom of the door to ease it the rest of the way open and slipped inside. The first room of the house was a small living room. A couch, coffee table, and TV sitting on a stand were all that took up space. That was all I got to see. The rest of the house was incredibly dark, but I didn't want to turn on a light and alert anyone outside that I had snuck in.
Or leave fingerprints. But that was a thought I didn't want to dwell on at the moment.
I relied on my instincts and what I could sense around me as I moved further into the house, calling Jonas's name as I went. I turned down a hallway and heard rustling behind me. My breath caught in my throat as the hinges of a door creaked slightly. It could have been the wind coming through the front door and moving another one.
It also could have been a big drooling guy waiting for me around one of the invisible corners. Damn it, Ally. Why did she have to talk about the woodboogers? Of all the lovely wildlife living its life in West Virginia, she had to go straight to the foul-smelling, forest- and swamp-dwelling cousin to Bigfoot. Just what I needed.
I could have turned and run, but I was Sara Slick. That shit wouldn’t fly.
I kept going. My breath sounded loud as I made my way farther down the hallway while struggling to get my eyes to adjust to the darkness inside. I took another step, and the creaking hinges sounded again, this time right behind my head.
I whipped around to face the sound, and a dark figure bounded out of the room at me. It reached out to wrap its hands around my throat as I screamed and dove away.
My body smashed to the ground. I tried to scramble away, but a hand clamped onto my ankle and yanked me backward. A strong grip pulled me up off the floor.
"What are you doing here?"
I immediately recognized the voice.
"Holy shit, Jonas. What is wrong with you? I thought you were a woodbooger."
He set me on my feet. "Well, that's a colloquial one. I don't think they frequently wander into houses."
"And I didn't think people usually hung out in the pitch dark not answering when someone calls for them a million times. Yet, here we are. Can we turn a light on or something?"
He guided me back into the living room and turned on a lamp. "I'm sorry. I had my headphones on. I must not have heard you. What's going on?"
"It's Ally. I need your help."
Chapter Nineteen
“…and that’s when we were attacked,” I said.
“By who?” A mixture of fear and excitement laced Jonas’s voice. I didn’t want to tell him everything and was planning on explicitly not telling him the attackers were Farsiders. That would get into a whole other thing, and I didn’t have time for all that right now. But his eyes were full of questions, and he was particularly suspicious of me since he met me, and I wondered how long I could keep up the charade.
Hopefully, long enough to find Ally.
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a very good look at them, but there were a bunch of them, and they moved very fast. They knocked me out before I knew what was going on and when I woke up Ally was missing,” I half lied. Technically, all the elements of truth were there. They happened to be peppered by a couple of misleading words and one outright lie.
“We need to call the police,” he said firmly.
Fuck.
“No, we can’t.” Jonas stared at me like I had three heads for a second, then shook his head and blinked a few times, apparently trying to process why a woman who was attacked and her friend kidnapped didn’t want to call the cops.
“That has to be the most ridiculous thing you’ve said to me since we met, and you’ve said some ridiculous bullshit up to now.” He pulled out his phone.
“You haven’t heard the half of it,” I muttered. “Seriously, we can’t call the cops. It won’t help. There has to be a better way.”
“Than the cops? The people who investigate crime? Like assault and kidnapping?” His voice rose with each question. Then he sat heavily in his chair. A noise came out of him that sounded like a cross between exasperation and laughter, and he looked into my eyes before speaking again. “Who the hell are you? I know you aren’t a photographer. A Gumball? Really? Who are you? For real. No bullshit.”
“No bullshit?” He had no idea what he was asking. If I gave up the ghost on this character I was playing for him, it meant blowing the whole shebang open. It was a massive violation of the Pax Philosophia and could lead to him losing his shit and either calling the cops on me or assuming I was insane and kicking me out.
“I would like a very minimal amount of bullshit, please.” He crossed his arms in front of him, and I sighed heavily. Well, it’s not like they could do anything to me. What would they do, extend my life sentence?
“All right. The truth. Do you know what Fae are?” I began.
It took about twenty minutes of me talking, shushing him when he had questions, and allowing me to barrel through it. I explained the concept of The Near and The Far, and how I came from one to the other and back again, although I left out the whole ‘convicted of heinous crimes and a felon on the run’ stuff. For some reason, I felt like it wouldn’t exactly help my case. When I got to the part about the Vrya who attacked me, and how I needed to get to wherever they were hiding rather than call the cops and bring them into it, he was shaking his head in disbelief.
“So, you want me to believe you’re a human named Sara Slick who was trained by these Farsiders, and you’re investigating all this because you think it might be connected to some guy named Hobbes who wants to end the world?”
“Essentially, yes.” It was the Reader’s Digest version, but it was something.
“I thought,” he put his hands on the table and looked at me with the sternest expression he could manage, “we said no bullshit.”
“I promise you. There was a minimal amount of bullshit there.”
“I just… That’s insane. Everything you told me is insane. Why would I believe it?”
I reached down into my pocket, and in one motion, deposited Splinter on the floor. He scurried around for a second, then ran back up my leg and settled on my shoulder.
“May I introduce Splinter?” Jonas was no longer moving, his eyes wide and focused directly on my furry friend. “Splinter, go get me a pen and paper, will you?”
Splinter happily hopped down off my shoulder, ran up the leg of the desk Jonas sat at, crossed directly in front of his folded arms, and grabbed his pen. Looking up at Jonas for a second, almost seeming to dare him to say something, Splinter grabbed a sheet of notebook paper out of a notebook on the desk. As he tore it off, he maintained eye contact with Jonas. Then he ran back to me and deposited them both in my hand. I wrote three words on the paper and handed it to Jonas.
“Believe me now?” he read back to me. “I don’t know, Sara.”
“Slick. People call me Slick.”
“Slick. I don’t know. Either you have the most exceptionally trained rat I’ve ever seen, or there’s some kind of magic at play. Frankly, I have no idea how to tell the difference. I guess I’ll believe you.”
It wasn’t a resounding win, but it was a win nonetheless. Now I could get back to my original purpose of getting help for finding Ally.
“I’ll take it. Now, as for Ally,” I began.
“Right. What can we do?”
“We can’t do anything. I need you to help me by telling me where you think the Vrya compound is. If I can find where they are, I can get her back. The Vrya are a group of dryads. I’ve fought creatures like them before, and with a little luck and the element of surprise, I think I can get her back.”
He slowly nodded. It seemed like he wanted to argue, but he was out of his element, and he knew it. Instead, he took a moment, then put one finger in the air l
ike he thought of something. He stood and turned to a cabinet behind him, then rummaged until he pulled out what looked like a long, laminated piece of paper.
“I do a fair amount of hunting in these woods. Everyone around here does, but I enjoy getting out there and exploring while I do it, and I have noticed a few odd things.” He put the paper down on his desk. It was a giant map of the town and the surrounding area, but it was hand-drawn. It looked like the town and some of the outskirts were traced from an official map, but then the forest itself was all done by hand by a patient and extremely thorough person. Quite a lot of the woods were mapped out, but there was a giant section near the middle that wasn’t.
“Who drew this?” I was amazed by the detail. “It’s impressive.”
“I did,” he responded, not letting the compliment get to him. “Now, the terrain in this area where it’s blank is really difficult cliffs and thick underbrush. Without proper equipment, it might be tough to get around, and I’ve mostly avoided it in favor of exploring easier-to-traverse areas. But, as you can see, I have explored almost all of it, except for this area here.” He pointed at the map. “If they have a place out there, it would be here.”
“Can I take this with me?” I asked.
“Sure. I have copies. Just remember, this terrain is challenging, even for someone experienced with it. Bring supplies with you in case you might need to stay out there awhile.” He handed me the map.
“That’s fine. I’m about to go hunting there. Plus,” I tucked the map inside my jacket, “I know a thing or two about surviving.”
Chapter Twenty
I tried to keep myself calm as I marched deep into the woods, combing the area I explored with Ally and heading toward the mark on the map. It wouldn’t do any good to get overly upset or vengeful or emotional about them taking her. All it would do is make me less focused and possibly get one or both of us killed.
I needed to be vigilant, and I needed to be clever if I wanted to get her back safely and get out of there alive. I knew what it was like to fight dryads, and what I was in for was not a fight I looked forward to.
Leaves crunched underfoot as I crested the hill leading to the clearing where they snatched Ally. A lump formed in my throat as the thought of them hurting my best friend ran across my mind, but I tried to shove it down. Deep down. I couldn’t let it affect me, not if I wanted her back. I had to approach this like any other mission, any other situation, and let my senses and my instincts guide me. If I thought too much, I could jeopardize everything.
I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to shove the thoughts filling my mind away. After breathing a long, slow breath out through my mouth, I opened my eyes and set my focus slightly beyond the clearing. According to the map, there was a barely visible trail there, and it would lead to a dense area of the forest.
There was a natural pathway there, but downed trees, thick brush, and hundreds of tiny streams populated it. It was hell to traverse, which was why Jonas hadn’t yet done so in the search for what was out here, but I was determined that I would. I sipped the water in my flask and screwed down the top, then hung it back on my belt.
The belt was new. Archie suggested it when I told him what happened and where I was going. Having a few supplies on me in case I ended up lost or wandering in the woods for a few days wasn’t the worst idea in the world, and a belt was easy to shed if I ended up in a fight and needed the freedom.
A few other supplies were tied to it, or in various pockets, and it made me feel a little more confident. No matter where this place was, I was prepared to stick it out until I found it. It even had a pocket for Splinter. Granted, it was supposed to be a pocket for something else, but Splinter fit so nicely in it and loved being rocked to sleep on my hip so I couldn’t take it away from him now.
As I entered the wooded area beyond the clearing, it seemed like the world got darker and more sinister. The trees were lush and thick and covered most of the sunlight, so it only came down in jagged patches on the leaf-covered ground. The trail, such as it was, led a winding path deep into increasingly taller trees. I followed it, occasionally looking down at the map to mark my progress with a pencil.
I wanted to follow a direct path north through the woods first, right through the middle of the area Jonas said he had yet to explore while hunting. Then I could double back and cross it going east-west. If I explored the area in sections, always going in one direction, I could keep myself from getting too lost.
As the woods enveloped me and the trail all but disappeared under my feet, I put up the first of my markers. A stack of yellow paper I brought for the occasion, a few dozen nails, and a short hammer were my way of creating landmarks. I hammered the first paper in, drawing an arrow pointing south to the trail and kept going north.
Once the trail ended, the terrain got heavier, craggier and more difficult. Streams so small I could step over them in normal stride now gave way to ones requiring me to swim to get across. Hills that took only a few running steps to get up easily gave way to rock faces spanning for miles and required me to climb them to keep going. I was getting very close to the area Jonas had pointed out on the map. Only a mile or so away, and I would be there.
To whatever fight was waiting for me. If I couldn’t sneak in and escape with Ally, I would have to punch my way in or out or both. That could get tricky. I fought dryads before, back when I was in The Deep. Two of them. The Twins.
They arrived in The Deep about halfway through my stay and immediately caused havoc. They were big and dumb and brutal and fed off each other’s anger and hatred. Differing in size and shape from the tall, lanky ones that took Ally, these dryads were shorter and stockier with thick, round heads and ham-hock hands.
They could club you to death with them, and oftentimes, that was their favorite means of malicious mayhem. Their bark was dark, almost like it was wet and covered with mold. Grabbing it did nothing since it broke off easily and fell to the ground like driftwood. They beat other prisoners for nothing, just for fun, and targeted me one day because they thought I looked like an easy fight. They made a terrible mistake that day.
Solon had visited me earlier, and I felt sharp and hungry and ready for a fight when they came to me. They tried brute force, and if I hadn’t been trained and already tough from surviving as long as I had, they might have killed me right then. But I fought back, used their weaknesses against them, and killed them both.
The first had the unfortunate experience of being set on fire. Once a dryad began to burn, it was almost impossible to stop it. When he went up in flames, his brother panicked and tried to put him out. He grabbed a leaky bucket that some prisoner had put out to collect water dripping from the damp ceilings, and then tried to bring it to his brother. But I kicked the bucket as hard as I could, and it saturated him.
Dryad bodies soak up moisture quickly, and for a short time their bodies are so full of water it becomes easier to cut into them. I used that opportunity to slice his neck with the switchblade, and he died shortly after. As he died, he tried to crush me by grabbing me and squeezing me to death. He clasped my leg and squeezed hard enough that I likely had a shin fracture.
That was then. I wasn’t nearly as well trained as I was now, but there weren’t nearly as many dryads as there were likely to be here. There were at least a dozen of them when they took Ally, and although I had zero problems setting every last one of them on fire and dancing in the flames, saving Ally was far more important. I did promise myself that whatever they did to her, I would return to them twice over. That was enough.
Splinter climbed out of my pocket to scramble up the rocky cliff face before I did. He was good at that, and if something were waiting for me up there, he would either tell me or not come back. Either way, I would know to be careful. He was gone quite a while when I heard him squeak fairly far off. He had found something, but it wasn’t his ‘immediate danger’ squeak. I climbed up as fast as I could and followed him.
He was sitting behind a t
ree and peering through the branches. There was a brush of trees bending inward like an entrance, and two dryads guarding it. I need to get in there and see what they were guarding, but first, I needed to neutralize them. After sending Splinter along to one side, I picked up a rock and threw it in the other. One of the Vrya guards noticed the sound and went to investigate. That would give me and Splinter the chance to pull a trick we’d tried before.
Splinter ran toward the remaining dryad. Rather than screaming or yelling, the Vrya bent down like he was greeting a dog. Splinter leapt in the air and jumped onto the dryad’s face, chomping away at his bark-like skin. As he did, I came around and behind the guard and pulled out a small ax I brought for the occasion.
I sank the ax into the dryad’s knee. Before he could cry out in pain, I wrapped his mouth with a bandana, then pulled him back toward me and slammed his head onto a nearby rock. He fell unconscious. Maybe dead. Either way, I wasn’t going to cry about it.
I could try to sneak in now, but I knew the other guard would come back, see his brethren knocked out or dead, and sound the alarm. Instead, I went after him and found him with his back to me in the woods while looking for the source of the sound caused by the rock. I grabbed a large rock from the edge of the entrance and hoisted it over my head. Sneaking up on the dryad as quietly as I could, I made it to just behind him as he knelt looking for any sign of someone in the woods. I brought the rock crashing down on the back of his head, and his body sank to the dirt.
Splinter hopped onto my leg and climbed into his pocket again as I made my way to the entrance. Hopefully, it would be a while before the shift change, and I would have a chance at finding Ally and getting out before those two woke up. If they ever did.
“See, Splinter? No locket, no problem.”
Splinter didn’t respond. Impressing him was harder than impressing Solon, sometimes.