by T. J. Klune
I squeezed Morgan’s shoulder, glad for the distraction. There were more important things to focus on, and maybe if I was lucky, Randall would forget all about it by the time we were done.
Granted, I was never lucky about stuff like that, but at least it’d give me some time to make something up. I could bullshit with the best of them. It was a talent I’d picked up a long, long time ago, and it had helped me out of more situations than I cared to remember.
But that didn’t matter right now.
Now was about my mentor, and the fact that he was about to do something I didn’t think was possible.
Morgan compressed.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the fire began to writhe frantically like it knew something was coming. It whipped back and forth, and those little pulses of light became larger and larger, the ripples shooting across the surface until the outlines of the bubble became evident. I almost moved forward to touch it, wanting to feel the strength of it under my fingertips, but Morgan grunted, and I stayed by his side.
The arcane symbols were more pronounced, and even though I recognized some of them, I couldn’t make out what they meant. They were combined in ways that made no sense to me. This was a level of magic far beyond my comprehension, and the best I could do was to push into Morgan, the green and gold mingling and twisting through him. It felt… odd in a way it’d never felt before. It was like we were surging—
There was a loud crack, and the bubble shrank by half, compressing the fire inside of it.
Morgan’s shoulder tensed under my hand.
He closed his fingers further.
The bubble shrank again, the sound harsh and grating.
The fire had no place to move.
I had to squint my eyes against the brightness of it. The heat.
Another crack and it looked like the brightest star in the night sky, small and oh-so far away.
I pushed.
I felt Randall do the same.
Morgan closed his hands into fists.
The room shook around us, the ground tilting beneath us, and then—
The light burst, a shock wave knocking us off our feet.
That most certainly did not feel good against the bruises that already covered my body. “Gods,” I muttered without opening my eyes. “I am spending far too much time on my back recently.”
“You slut,” a voice said from the other side of the room. “You told me that Ryan was a big fat bottom. Why are you on your back? You know reverse cowgirl is racist.”
“You told him what?” Ryan growled.
I sighed as I opened my eyes. “I was drunk.”
“You lying sack of crap,” Gary said. “You were sober. Completely and utterly sober.”
I sat up.
Mama’s office was in disarray. Paintings hung crooked off the walls, books knocked off the shelves. Those little wooden spheres that Feng had hidden in the room were lying on the floor, fuses unlit.
Everyone had been thrown to the floor. Tiggy was helping Gary sit up in the hallway, brushing his mane back out of his eyes. Justin sat propped up against the wall near Mama’s desk. He looked slightly dazed but otherwise unharmed. Mama was spitting mad as she pushed herself to her feet, glaring down at one of her stilettos where the spiked heel had been broken. Letnia adjusted her eye patch, staring at the blackened form that had once been Feng. Morgan was brushing his hand over his beard, and Randall was brushing his hand over his eyebrows, trying unsuccessfully to bring some order to them.
Ryan was on his hands and knees, shuffling toward me. He had a small cut above his right eye, and I felt a dark twist of anger at the sight of him having been hurt. It was such a small thing, but I didn’t like it when he bled. He seemed to do that a lot. It was unacceptable.
“It’s fine,” he said, knowing that look on my face.
“It’s not fine.”
“Now you know how I feel every time you get thrown into a building or decide to explode things such as yourself. Which, by the way, why do things always have to explode with you?”
“It looks cooler that way,” I said.
“Right. Of course that’s the reason.”
“Please, you like it when I do magic.”
He rolled his eyes. “Maybe I’ve started to change my mind.”
I snorted. “Riiiiight. You’re telling me that you didn’t get a boner watching what we just did.”
He looked horrified as he started to blush. “Sam,” he hissed at me, eyes darting to Morgan and Randall. “Shut your gosh darn mouth.”
I grinned at him. “Dude, I love you so hard. You don’t even know.”
I could see him trying to remain stern, but then those little crinkles around his eyes appeared, as they always did when he was happy about something. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, even though we both knew that was bullshit.
“And I notice you didn’t deny the boner thing.”
“Sam!”
Mama stalked over to Feng’s prone remains, growled low in her throat, and gave a swift roundhouse kick to the side of his head. It exploded in a dark snowfall of soot and ash. “That’s what you get for fucking with Mama,” she spat down at headless Feng. “You bitch.” Then she squared her shoulders, brushed her hands down her corset, turned to me, and said, “Precious, we really need to talk about the things that seem to happen when you come here. My possessions certainly aren’t cheap. Though I suppose this is the perfect time to redecorate. Maybe something a little more modern.”
I gave her my most winsome of smiles. “I’m a trouble magnet. My bad. Sorry about that.”
But before she could say another word, there came the loud roar of a furious dragon that reverberated through the walls of the Tilted Cross.
I sighed. Of course it wasn’t over.
“That was Kevin!” Gary exclaimed, eyes wide. “Not that I care at all if he’s in trouble and possibly dying and crying out for me to come save him! But someone should probably help him. You know. Because it’s the right thing to do.”
I stared at him.
The skin under his right eye twitched.
I stared at him some more.
He took off down the hallway, bellowing loudly about how he had to do everything himself because he was surrounded by incompetent idiots, leaving a large trail of glitter behind him.
Tiggy ran after him, screaming his battle cry.
“Gods,” I said. “I love those assholes.”
I pushed myself up and ran after them, because I would follow them anywhere.
Ryan wasn’t far behind me.
Chapter 5: Getting Sucked Through a Hole
MOISHE RAN past us up the stairs, heading toward Mama’s office. I knew he’d keep her safe.
Tiggy and Gary had already burst through the doors of the brothel. Ryan and I followed behind them, skidding to a halt over the cobblestones, almost crashing into Tiggy’s back. The sunshine was warm and blinding after the low candlelight of the brothel. The people of Meridian City stood stock still, eyes trained toward the sky.
“What the fuck—” I started but was interrupted by another loud roar coming from somewhere above us.
I looked up in time to see Kevin flying over the walls of Meridian City, facing toward the Dark Woods. Bright lights burst around him, as if spells were being shot up from the ground below. They glanced off his scales, exploding like fireworks. He reared back in midair, his gigantic wings flapping, and I heard him take a deep, guttural breath.
“Uh-oh,” Tiggy said succinctly as people around us began to whimper.
A great blast of fire shot from Kevin’s gaping maw. It hurtled toward the ground on the other side of the wall, where it exploded in a fireball quickly chased by a black plume of smoke that began to rise toward the sky.
“I forget sometimes that he can do that,” Gary said faintly. “Do me a favor and please ignore my erection.”
“Gross,” I said. “And it’s hard to ignore when it’s right there.”
�
�Don’t look at it! You know I’m shy.”
“Bullshit.”
“Yeah, okay. That was a lie. Look at it all you want. Jealously, of course.”
“Maybe not the time,” Ryan pointed out.
“…he said jealously,” Gary muttered under his breath.
I took a deep breath and pulled my magic toward me, the green and gold skirting along the edges of my vision.
“Ungh,” Ryan said, eyes slightly glassy as he watched me. “I forget sometimes that you can do that. Do me a favor and please ignore my—”
“What the hell,” Gary snapped. “We’re obviously in the middle of a crisis, and you’re popping boners? Good gods, Ryan. Sam! Control your bitch!”
“I like all of you,” Tiggy said.
“Aww,” Gary and I said.
And then from above came an angry scream of pain. I looked in time to see arcs of blood falling from a ragged hole in Kevin’s left wing. I didn’t know how it’d happened, as dragons were impervious to most kinds of magic, but Kevin was struggling to stay in the air, his left wing folded against his side, his right one flapping strenuously. He was sinking lower and lower in the air, and I was pissed. I remembered his story about how men had come to try to take his blood, how a tattooed man had come for one of his hearts. He had been scared then, because he didn’t have anyone. He’d been alone.
But here he was, fighting for us, and he’d gotten hurt because of it.
That wasn’t okay. At all.
And apparently not for his ex-husband either, as Gary shrieked his name and took off down the streets of Meridian City, heading toward the front gates. Tiggy chased after him in wide strides, the cobblestones cracking beneath his feet.
Ryan had his sword drawn before Kevin sank out of sight on the other side of the wall. I was about to lead the way when Morgan and Randall came out of the Tilted Cross behind us.
“Kevin’s been hurt,” I told them. “Outside Meridian City. Gary and Tiggy are already headed that way. We have to—”
“Take Ryan,” Randall said to Morgan. “Make for the gate. Sam and I will flank them. Don’t tarry.”
“What?” I snapped. “We don’t have time to reach the back gates. It’ll take too long!”
“We won’t be going to the back gates,” Randall said.
“But we—”
“Sam.”
I shook my head, biting my tongue.
Ryan looked hesitant, but Morgan was already dragging him away before he could say anything. I waved him off before he could try to come back. He nodded at me, then turned and began to run through the city with Morgan. I liked seeing him go almost as much as I liked watching him come.
Randall was staring at me as I turned back toward him. “What?” I asked him, suddenly feeling defensive.
“We’re going to have a long talk, you and I,” he said ominously.
That… wasn’t good. “I didn’t do it, whatever it is.”
He cocked a massive eyebrow at me. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
“And I’d rather not, if I’m being honest.”
“Sometimes we have to do the things we don’t want to do. I am going to hold your hand.”
“Um. Excuse me?”
Randall sighed and rolled his eyes toward the heavens. He said something under his breath that I couldn’t make out, but I told myself he was giving me the best of compliments and just didn’t want me to know. “I’m going to hold your hand.”
“Oh. Uh. Okay? Are you… scared?”
“And we’re going to run.”
“I can keep up! You don’t need to hold my hand. I’m pretty sure I can outrun you. They probably hadn’t even invented running yet when you were born.”
“I regret the day you turned those boys to stone.”
“Lie,” I said. “You like me. Somewhat.”
He glared at me.
“Don’t even. Morgan told me you think I’m super awesome.”
“Really. Morgan told you that I thought you were super awesome.”
“Okay, he didn’t exactly say it like that, but he might as well have! There was intent behind being damned with faint praise.”
“Gods help us all.” Randall grabbed my hand and pulled me until we were running at a good pace. He moved fast for an old fucker.
“I have a boyfriend,” I said quickly. “So no funny business.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
“Oh, please. I’m a catch. If I ever tried to woo you, you’d be swept off your feeeeeeAAAAAAAHHHH—”
I had never been teleported anywhere before.
I would be okay if I never had to repeat that process in my entire lifetime.
Because it sucked.
One moment we were running away from the Tilted Cross and I was randomly holding the dry, wrinkled hand of the oldest person in the world while—for some reason—trying to convince him that I could totally bone him if I wanted to.
And then the next, everything was swirling around us like it had been caught in some kind of vortex. It felt like I was being compacted, my entire body being shoved into the tiniest of spaces as I was yanked off my feet. The wind was rushing in my ears and Randall’s grip was biting into my hand, but I couldn’t be bothered with it, given that I was screaming at the sucking sensation, like we were being pulled under or through the surface of Meridian City.
It only lasted a couple of seconds before the feeling reversed, like I was beginning to expand. I was unfolding, the sounds around us as loud as they’d ever been. Then my feet hit solid ground, and I took a stumbling step forward, Randall’s hand still in my own, even though I was sweating profusely, my palm slick in his.
We were outside the walls of Meridian City, the trees of the Dark Woods swaying in the distance.
“There,” Randall said, dropping my hand, wiping his own down the front of his robes. “As usual, you made a big deal out of nothing.”
I promptly threw up on his shoes.
“Oops,” I said, a string of bile hanging from my lips as my stomach clenched. “Sorry, dude.”
“Must everything about you be so vexing?” he growled at me.
“You just sucked me through a hole.” I paused, considering. Then, “Okay, I really need to work on my phrasing. But you get what I mean. Also, what the fuck was that? You could have warned me of the suckage!” I frowned. “That still didn’t come out right.”
“Funny,” Randall said, grimacing down as he tried to shake the vomit off his shoes. “Justin didn’t seem to have a problem with it. I guess that’s yet another thing he can do better than you.”
“Hey! Low blow, bro!”
“Yes, yes. How hard your life must be. Now, do you want to continue with your inane prattling, or do you want to help that dragon of yours?”
In the end, though, there really wasn’t much to be done. We rounded a corner toward where Kevin had fallen in time to see him bite the head off a Dark wizard, a gout of blood shooting up into the air. His injured wing was held gently against his side. Kevin’s lips pulled back in disgust before he spat out the head in a lick of fire.
Gary, for his part, was shimmering with copious amounts of glitter that swirled around him. A Dark wizard was running toward him, but Gary spun around quickly and kicked his back legs out just as the Dark reached him. Unicorn hooves collided with Dark wizard ribs, and in the end, it really wasn’t a contest, as the idiot flew back, skidding against the ground before coming to a stop, unmoving.
Tiggy was, of course, doing as a Tiggy did: smashing the ever-living daylights out of anything and everything that was threatening those around him. His fists were red, and he had a bit of gore on his face. He made a rather frightening figure. I was damn proud of him. And maybe a little jealous.
By the time Morgan and Ryan came running from the other side, the couple dozen or so Dark wizards that had apparently been waiting for Feng to bring me to them were burned to a crisp, smashed into a pulp, had met dragon’s tee
th, or were running screaming into the Dark Woods. I made to go after them, but Randall gripped my shoulder tightly, shaking his head.
And as much as I disagreed with him, I knew he had a point. It was better to have stragglers tell others what had happened. It might incite them, but it also could instill them with fear. And scared Darks were Darks who made mistakes.
And as a bonus, it would most likely piss off Myrin, who had now been essentially bested twice in the span of a few days.
“Wow,” I said so everyone could hear me. “I just came to the realization that we might be the most badass group of badasses that has ever badassed. I don’t know what to do with this information. I feel like there should be confetti. And medals. Can I have a medal?”
“You threw up on my feet,” Randall said.
“Oh. Right. Well, karma sucks, and all that. Still think I’d be okay if someone gave me a medal.”
Ryan gingerly stepped over what remained of the Darks (and almost put his foot on a liver) and made his way over to me. “You’ve got something gross on your chin,” he said. “How the hell did you get out here before us?”
I scowled as I used my arm to wipe the remains of my first time teleporting off me. “Randall’s fault.”
“Sam can’t handle my magic,” Randall said. “More’s the pity, I suppose.”
Before I could make his nose a dick, Ryan cupped my face, making me look away from Randall and at him instead. “You okay?”
I sighed. “I’m fine. Just… didn’t expect it.”
“I would kiss you, but you smell bad.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah. Thought you should know.”
“No, really. Thanks.”
“I do want to kiss you, though. I’m just not going to. Maybe for a long time.”
I laughed and shoved him away. “Bastard,” I said, sounding disgustingly fond.
“You love me.”
“Don’t even know why.”
“Gods, you guys are literally standing on top of the bodies of your enemies and have still found a way to make the situation worse with your flirting. There is a time and place for that, and it’s behind closed doors so none of us have to witness the travesty that is your relationship.”