This Broken Wondrous World

by Jon Skovron

  “At least it’s a hybrid,” she said.

  I was glad the glamour had shrunk me a little bit, because otherwise the passenger seat would have been even more uncomfortable. Especially since we spent more time in the car than planned when we got lost on the way. Eventually, I had to ask Vi to GPS for us.

  “Why didn’t you ask me from the beginning?” Vi asked. “Turn left up here.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “It’s one of those gender things, love,” said Sophie as she turned the steering wheel. “Men hate asking for directions. It makes them feel weak.”

  “Turn right at the next light,” said Vi. Then, “Why does it make them feel weak?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “It doesn’t make me feel weak,” I said. “It’s just . . . I don’t know, I thought I could figure it out.”

  “But you know I could figure it out so much faster,” said Vi. “Take another right at this intersection.”

  “True, but you can’t depend on other people to do everything for you,” I said. “That makes you lazy and—”

  “Weak,” said Sophie.

  “Well . . .” I said.

  “Ha! Gotcha!”

  “Is it weakness to rely on others?” asked Vi.

  I was about to say yes, but then I stopped myself. Was it? I turned to look at Sophie as she drove. The afternoon sunlight shone through her curly auburn hair as she smoothly maneuvered us through the narrow streets of Lima. How many times had I relied on her or on Claire? How many times had they relied on me?

  Finally, I said, “It’s not weak to trust others or to ask for help when you need it. But you should trust yourself, too.”

  “Trust myself?” asked Vi.

  “Yeah. Trust yourself like you would trust your best friend.”

  “Oh, I quite like that,” said Sophie.

  “You have arrived,” said Vi.

  “I don’t know about all that . . .” I said.

  “No, I mean it literally. We’re here.”

  Sophie pulled over onto the shoulder that ran along the coast. The ship was still visible off in the distance. But Henri was gone.

  “That’s odd,” said Sophie as we climbed out. “It’s not like there’s anywhere he could have got to.”

  It was just a narrow highway. On one side was the rocky coastline. On the other side was a hilly area full of weeds and brambles. There weren’t any buildings or houses nearby.

  I stepped down onto the beach, smooth wet stones crunching under my boots. “Maybe he just took a walk along the water.” I looked down the beach, but it curved inland and a rocky cliff blocked the view about twenty yards down. “He’ll probably be back in a bit.”

  “But why would he do that when he was supposed to be watching the ship?”

  “Why does Henri do anything?” I asked. “Did he really think he’d be able to win La Perricholi over? She doesn’t seem interested in romance of any kind.”

  “Except when she saw Celebrity Edition Boy,” muttered Sophie.

  “You’re not jealous of La Perricholi, too?”

  “A bit hard not to be when she’s bloody undressing you with her eyes right in front of me.”

  “It’s not me she likes.” I looked down at my smooth, tanned arms and hands. “It’s the glamour.”

  “No, Boy. You don’t actually look much different. The stitches tend to distract humans a bit, but you’ve always been hot.” She raised one thin eyebrow. “Do you honestly think I’d date someone who wasn’t?”

  “Well—”

  “But what if now that she’s seen you like this, when the glamour fades, the stitches won’t be so distracting? What if she fancies you?”

  I cupped her pale, heart-shaped face in my hands. “She and Henri can pine together then.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, a slight smile forming on her lips.

  “Feel better?”

  “Nearly. I think I might need a kiss to seal the deal.”

  So we kissed, with the ocean at our side, wind blowing through our hair and pulling at our clothes. Her lips were still so soft and sweet to me even after all this time. Sure, a hostile army lurked in the distance ready to descend on us at any time, and my cousin had mysteriously disappeared yet again. But that just made this moment feel all the more important. I wasn’t sure when we’d have another like it.

  SOPHIE AND I waited for hours, lounging on the hood of the car and staring out across the glittering water as the fat red sun began to slide below the horizon. But Henri never came back. I was about to suggest we go look for him when Sophie suddenly sat up.

  “Shite, there, do you see it?” she said, her voice hushed.

  It took me a moment, squinting against the glare of the setting sun, but then I saw little boats spilling out of the ship like ants escaping from a flooding nest.

  “How many do you think there are?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Fifty or so? It’s hard to make out. The sun is right in my eyes.”

  “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” I muttered.

  “What?”

  “Never mind. We better call it in. Vi?”

  “Already on it,” said Vi. “Mozart says they’re on their way.”

  “What are the five of us going to do against all of that?” asked Sophie, her eyes wide.

  I took her hand in mine. “Sophie . . . maybe you should, uh, let Claire handle this part.”

  She looked up at me and the fear in her eyes was suddenly swept away by a strange sadness. “Oh. Right. Sure.”

  “I mean, I was just thinking—”

  “No, no. You’re spot-on. Just . . . uh . . .” She gave me a sudden, oddly uncertain look. “One last kiss, then?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  She smiled brightly then, all sadness gone. “You’re a prince.”

  She tilted her head up and I leaned down and pressed my lips gently against hers. She ran her cool fingers through my hair and leaned into me. I felt her mouth begin to change as her body shifted and lengthened. Then, suddenly, she grabbed a fistful of my hair and kissed me hard, pushing me back against the car windshield.

  “God damn it, you look good,” Claire said huskily against my neck as she pressed down on me. “Do you think we have time for a quickie before the others get here?”

  “Probably not.”

  “You’re probably right.” She grabbed my head with both hands and pressed one last kiss before releasing me.

  “Uh, hi,” I said, grinning.

  After a moment, she smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about that.”

  “Nothing to apologize for.”

  “Something must be wrong with me. This whole situation . . .” She gestured toward the slowly advancing boats. “It’s got me all worked up for some reason.”

  “It’s not wrong if it keeps us alive today,” I said.

  She grinned fiercely. “You can bloody well count on it. Because I’m taking a rain check on that quickie, and I plan to collect.”

  So we waited, ready to take on whatever came out of those boats. But it was hard to keep ourselves pumped up and ready to fight. The boats were so slow sometimes I wasn’t sure if they were making any progress at all. When Maria, La Perricholi, Mozart, and Laurellen arrived twenty minutes later, the boats hadn’t even made it halfway to the coast.

  “Where’s Henri?” asked Maria.

  “No idea,” I said. “He was gone when we got here.”

  She shook her head. “That boy . . . Well, we can’t go looking for him now.”

  We stared out at the small fleet of boats creeping closer.

  “How many do you suppose are in each boat?” asked Claire.

  La Perricholi frowned as she looked through the binoculars. “I can’t tell exactly what is on the boats. They’re pac
ked in so tight all I can see are the tops of their helmets. But it looks to be about twenty to a boat.”

  “How are we going to hold back that many?” I asked.

  “Ruthven is on his way,” said Mozart. “With what he described as ‘formidable firepower.’ So we only have to hold them back for a little while.”

  “Even still,” said Claire. “We’re looking at six against hundreds. Not great odds.”

  “I brought a few things that will help,” said La Perricholi. She opened the back of the van and pulled out a couple of big gas cans. “Pour these along the waterline. When they disembark, we’ll light them up so they’ll have to charge through a wall of fire.”

  “Wow,” I said, hefting a gas can.

  “That’s not the wow.” La Perricholi climbed into the back of the van. There was a harsh grating sound, like metal scraping against metal. “When they get through the wall of fire,” she called, “we take them down with this.” She dragged out a massive machine gun.

  “Okay, yeah, that’s the wow,” said Claire.

  We poured the gas, mounted the machine gun on top of the van, and spread ourselves along the beachline. Maria took the machine-gun station, with Laurellen feeding the belt. La Perricholi had her pistols, and Mozart had shifted into wolf. La Perricholi asked me and Claire if we wanted weapons. Claire accepted a gun, but I’d said no. I’d never used a gun and this didn’t seem like an ideal time to try something new.

  So then we waited some more.

  “This is just excruciating,” observed Laurellen as we watched the boats crawl slowly closer.

  “You’d think they’d fan out more,” I said. “Instead of staying all jammed together like that. Take advantage of their numbers.”

  “It is strange,” admitted La Perricholi. “Either whoever is leading them isn’t very smart—”

  “Or there’s another, less obvious plan in motion,” said Maria.

  Hot and cold flashes started traveling though my body. One moment I was sweating, the next I was shivering. At first I had no idea what was going on, but then I glanced down and saw flickers of stitches. The extra stress of waiting was burning up the last of the glamour. That was fine. I wanted to be my full size when I met this enemy. I wanted to look like myself. And by the time the boats hit the shore, I did.

  I still couldn’t tell what we were up against. It was dark now, and they were jammed so tight in their boats all I could see was a squirming mass of white, brown, and black fur dressed in army green.

  “Fire!” shouted Maria.

  La Perricholi shot a flare gun at the pooled gas by the water and the wall of fire lit up the night. I could hear animal shrieks on the other side. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Maria ready at the machine gun, waiting for the first ones to cross the line.

  Except they didn’t. I could just make out shapes climbing over each other to get away from the fire. But more boats were coming in behind them, pressing forward, knocking the ones in front back toward the flames. The air was filled with the shrill shrieks, but they didn’t sound like battle cries. They sounded like terrified animals.

  “Something’s not right,” Maria called over the noise. “Everyone hold your fire and stay back.”

  We waited as the fire slowly burned itself out. Finally, I could see them. They were about the size and shape of humans, but squashed under their army helmets were twitching little noses, long floppy ears, and innocent eyes. Rabbit people.

  “What the hell . . .” said Claire. “Are they dangerous?”

  “They don’t look it,” said La Perricholi.

  “Perhaps this was all an elaborate ruse,” said Maria. “But to distract us from what?”

  The rabbit people started to cautiously emerge from the boats and shuffle onto the beach. They looked around timidly, shivering. They were not armed. They didn’t speak. In fact, it seemed like they weren’t any more intelligent than regular rabbits.

  Mozart, still in wolf form, slunk closer to the large clump of confused-looking rabbit people, his belly low to the ground as he sniffed carefully.

  Then his lips peeled back in a snarl and he growled low.

  Stephen Hyde burst up from the cluster of rabbit people and grabbed Mozart by the throat.

  Mozart growled but it was cut short as Stephen squeezed, a manic grin spread across his face.

  The rabbit people started moving in all directions, falling over each other so that they piled up, making it hard to see Stephen and Mozart.

  “I can’t get a precise shot with this!” yelled Maria. “I might hit Mozart! Camilla!”

  La Perricholi nodded and took careful aim with her pistol, but a fleeing rabbit person bumped into her arm as she fired and her shot went wide. At the same time, Claire and I were trying to reach him, but the gunshot made the rabbit people panic even more. They swarmed the beach and we had to shove our way through a wall of fur and wide, frightened eyes.

  “You’ve been sniffing around too much, wolf,” said Stephen as he squeezed Mozart’s throat. “Best put an end to that!”

  Stephen held up a thin silver spike. Maria’s scream drowned out the squeaks of the panicking rabbit people and the sound of Stephen’s laughter as he plunged the silver stake into Mozart’s chest.

  We all hit the ground when Maria started to unload the machine gun, her face contorted with rage. Blood and fur sprayed everywhere as rabbit people fell. Stephen used one for a shield as he lifted Mozart’s limp body, now shifting from wolf to man, and hurled Mozart at her. His naked body crashed into the machine gun, knocking it off its stand and sending Laurellen and Maria over the side of the van. Laurellen landed flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him. But Maria landed on her feet in a crouch and drew knives from her boots as she stood up.

  “You will not live to see the sunrise!” she hissed between clenched teeth.

  “No, Maria!” shouted La Perricholi. She had been taking aim at Stephen, but now Maria was in the line of fire. “Fall back!”

  But Maria was past falling back, past hearing, maybe past thinking. She lunged for Stephen. He dodged her knife, then came in and playfully slapped her face so hard she reeled back for a moment. But she lunged in again.

  Claire and I struggled to get out from under the pile of dead and dying rabbit people. La Perricholi cursed, threw her guns to one side, and jumped into the fight to help Maria.

  “Ladies, I am honored!” said Stephen. “Two generations of La Perricholi? I will snuff out the entire stinking order in one fight!”

  As they fought it looked pretty clear that they’d need our help to take down Stephen. I saw now how much he had been holding back during our first fight. Not only was he faster, stronger, and more brutal, he seemed not to feel any pain. He let Maria stab him just so he could break her arm. As he twisted it, he twisted the knife in his own gut. He was about to tear her head off with his bare hands, but La Perricholi took advantage of the moment to come in with a roundhouse kick to his face. He only laughed as blood and teeth sprayed from his mouth, snatching her foot out of the air and flinging her across the beach to smash into the car windshield.

  Claire and I were free of the rabbit people by then and charged in. I got there first and took a swing at his head as hard as I could. He took it full in the face, and I could feel his entire sinus cavity cave under my knuckles. But he didn’t even stumble. Instead, he just balled up his fist and hit me in the gut so hard I threw up.

  I dropped to my knees, gasping for air, and Claire leapfrogged over me and took a swing at Stephen. This time he dodged, grabbed her wrist, and twisted it behind her back.

  “Here we are again, sweet sister,” he said from the broken mess of his face. “You know you can’t beat me. Because you refuse to do what I did. To take the strength from that useless Jekyll inside you.”

  Claire gasped and her eyes went wide. Then her body grew slightly bigg
er.

  “Oh, isn’t that cute?” said Stephen. “She’s giving it to you. How noble!” He laughed and blood sprayed out. “Yeah, Soph, do it! Make this fight a little more interesting for me!”

  “Sophie, stop!” screamed Claire. “Stop! I won’t take it! I won’t!”

  “Go on, take it!” said Stephen. “You know you want to. No matter how you fight it, you’re a Hyde through and through. You crave it.”

  “NEVER!” Claire shrieked. She started to convulse, then suddenly slipped free from his grasp. Stephen’s mashed face looked confused, then incredulous as she shifted into Sophie. It was a slightly smaller, more wan Sophie, but not nearly as bad as Robert.

  Stephen took a step toward her, then stopped and turned just in time to see me coming at him. This time when I hit him, he stumbled. But he still didn’t fall. Instead, he chuckled as he wiped away the thick stream of blood from his ruined face.

  “You still don’t get it, you fucking human-lover. You can’t stop me. Because the only way to do that is to kill me, and you’re no killer. I see it in your eyes.” I took another swing. This time he blocked and followed through with one of his own. “You’re pathetic.” He feinted in one direction, and when I fell for it, he switched and came at me from the other side. “You may not be afraid of me, but you are afraid of yourself. Of what you’re capable of. And that’s why you lose.” As I reeled from the previous punch, he took both hands together and slammed them into my chest. I saw the sky slide and felt the hard wet beach rocks under my back before I realized I’d fallen down.

  He stood over me, leering. “I’m bigger, stronger, and more ruthless than you’ll ever be.”

  Then the moon and stars disappeared from the sky as great wings stretched out directly above us.

  “Foolish Janus boy,” said the Dragon Lady, fire curling up from her scaly lips. “No matter how big a fish you are, there is always another in the ocean even bigger.”

  Stephen’s eyes widened, but not in fear. Instead, a smile stretched across his broken, bloody face as he watched her descend. “You made it. Mission accomplished.”