by D M Fike
I couldn’t see the bastard burst into smoke, but I could taste it. Fried chicken rot. Gross. I broke out into another hacking fit.
A frantic clicking bore down on me. No time to waste. I grabbed my fire charm and drew the sigil to create a new flame with my free hand. I kept my gaze centered on my feet to avoid any direct eye contact with the last cockatrice. A flurry of scales and feathers advanced from one o’clock. I drew a sideways S in the nick of time and launched a wind gust at my enemy, knocking it to the side, before I sprinted farther into the cave.
As my torn feet padded across the cavern, I knew I was better off with only one vaettur, but now I had few pith reserves left: just earth and air in my charms. It should’ve been enough to banish the last ugly baby, but pulling off a banishment while avoiding its gaze would be an acrobatic feat. I couldn’t even look over my shoulder to gauge if it was gaining on me, which was how I clipped my shoulder on a stalactite, knocking me off course and sending me tripping over a lumpy knee-high object. I landed hard on my knees, screaming bloody murder as I dislocated one kneecap.
“Ina!” I heard Guntram’s faint cry as I writhed in pain.
It took me a few seconds to realize I’d splashed into a shallow pool of water. Gritting my teeth, I pushed my pain to the side and realized I could see despite not using my fingerflame. I cowered at the edge of an underground river, surging out toward a dead-end wall. Several cracks in the ceiling above allowed streams of moonlight to filter down toward me. One beam landed squarely on the object I had tripped on.
The mangled corpse of a decomposing sea lion.
I almost puked as its rotting smell hit me, its cold face gaping at me in agony. As I turned away, nose and mouth in my hand, a huge shadow emerged from the river.
At first I thought it was one of Ronan’s friends, coming to the rescue. I could just make out its spotted coat as it broke the water. My momentary delight melted away to horror as the seal kept rising, its whole body shooting straight upwards, clenched inside an enormous bird beak.
Mommy cockatrice had come home to roost.
My stomach churned as I scrambled away from her horrible gaze. Not that it mattered. I didn’t have the pith to take out a vaettur of her caliber. Without the energy of the storm I’d used on her partner, I’d never be able to banish her.
Then it hit me. The batteries I’d bought for Sipho! I would have smacked my hand against my forehead if I wasn’t frozen to the spot. I’d completely forgotten about their taser-powered energy after my run-in with Vincent. Although fainter than before, I could still feel their electric buzz in my pants pocket.
As the mother of all cockatrices dropped her dead seal prey onto the wet rock, I tried desperately to absorb that lightning pith through my pocket. Nothing happened for an awful moment, just a weird numbing sensation, similar to how it felt holding the fox dryant’s lightning in my hand. But then it sizzled into my thigh as the mother cockatrice clacked in a frenzy. I slowly expanded more into my core as I heard a rallying click behind me, the last baby cockatrice stalking me from behind to support its mother.
Time had run out. I kept absorbing lightning pith from the batteries but knew it would not be enough as her awful chicken skull soared toward my face. I couldn’t even shut my eyes as she snapped her neck forward to kill me, all beak and talons and that awful stench of death.
Then without warning, she stopped mid-strike. Her gaze lifted above me, and I could move again. I rolled away as the funk of banished vaettur smoke hit my nostrils. Grunting, I pivoted toward its source.
There, swirling frozen in the last tendrils of smoke, stood Guntram. He clutched his injured side, as if his fingers were the only thing holding his organs in. He’d banished the baby cockatrice and rose in defiance against the mother.
The mommy cockatrice lifted her head back in a mournful recoil. For the first time, it made a sound other than a click: the teeth-grinding sound of nails on a chalkboard. My skin crawled as she flailed about, clearly in pain, although not a physical kind. An emotional pain. The pain of losing a child.
Her gaze never left Guntram. He could not budge from his last audacious act. She surged forward, a new target, trapped under her earth solidifying gaze.
Guntram was going to die.
But I could move again. I thrust my hands into my pocket, threading my fingers through the waterproof pouch opening to make direct contact with the batteries. I zigzagged my finger over the battery to and fro, the way I’d seen the fox dryant shake her head. I sucked it clean of every last ounce of lightning pith. Crackles of lightning slowly formed in my palm, swirling, yearning to be released. My hand threatened to go numb under all that nearly uncontainable light.
The mother cockatrice made one final leap toward Guntram. “Take this, chicken lips!” I screamed as I released the lightning with a five-pointed star.
The cockatrice, surprised by the added light in the cavern, turned her gaze toward me. Our eyes locked, but lightning, if you haven’t heard, travels super-fast. She barely had time to release a single click before her body became engulfed in a blinding flash. She evaporated into a burst of smoke.
It took a second for it to sink in.
I had done it.
I’d banished mommy dearest with a pack of double As.
But lightning in a confined space is a tricky thing. It hit not only the banished cockatrice, but bounced around from stalagmite to stalactite, causing a chain reaction that shook the entire cavern. Rocks tumbled from the crevices above.
We weren’t out of the woods yet, so to speak.
I clasped my earth charm and drew a quick series of squares in the air, then redirected that energy to keep rocks from falling on top of either me or Guntram. I kept up an earth shield as I ran over to Guntram. He doubled over at the chest, the river water lapping up above his ankles.
“We have to get out of here,” I told him, throwing my arm over his shoulders to support him.
He tried waving me away. “Go on, Ina. The cave is collapsing.”
I brushed off his brush-off. “No.”
“I’ll be fine,” he growled.
“Sure you will, you and that seeping wound.” I flinched at the sight of old blood caked in his fingernails. “I’m getting you out of here, and that’s that.”
Easier said than done, though. With the falling debris, going back to where I entered the cave was no longer an option. The river wasn’t a much better second choice. I could absorb enough pith to create a new air pocket and swim my way out, but I had no idea where the water flowed. I’d probably drown in the dark waters before I found my way back aboveground. And that would go double if I attempted to drag Guntram with me, sharing very limited air.
A sharp bark caught my attention. Ronan bounced past me, the goofy way seals flounder on land. He had cuts and bruises, but appeared much healthier than before, given his land speed.
“You feeling better, buddy?” I asked him. “Think you could give us a lift?”
Ronan paused to cock his head in my direction. Then, before I could stop him, he plunged headfirst into the river.
He had just up and abandoned us.
“You ungrateful coward!” I yelled as his antlers sank underneath the churning current.
“Ronan can’t help us,” Guntram said. “His injuries are too severe.”
I flung a crumbling rock the size of a garbage can away before it crushed us. “He could have at least tried!”
Guntram threw me his best ‘I’m-the-teacher-here’ glare. “That’s because he knows better than to waste his life on us.”
Any last semblance of self-control I had snapped. I threw his previous hurtful words back in his face. “I get it, okay? I’m a waste, and you regret spending all your precious time being my augur, right?”
Guntram paled, this time not from his injuries, but from my vehemence. “Ina.” He sighed. “I am sorry. I did not mean to cause you pain.”
I refused to let him see me cry, reabsorbing the tears that spilled
down my face as water pith. It left a salty trail behind, but I couldn’t wipe that away without letting the cave debris bury us alive. I kept my tone as flat as possible. “You said I was a spoiled brat.”
I honestly expected an uplifting response. Instead, Guntram retorted, “Well, you are.”
That dried up any further tears real fast. “Thanks, Jichan.”
He sputtered into his beard. “You know I hate that nickname.” Then his expression softened. “But that’s not the point. The point is, I meant to say I failed you, not the other way around. If you are miserable and isolated as a shepherd, that is my doing.”
Then his own eyes started to well up. This caused me almost as much panic as the collapsing ceiling. I tried desperately to think of how to stop him from crying. My free hand whacked him on the shoulder a few times.
“I’m fine,” I reiterated. “Really, I am.”
He responded by throwing his free hand around my shoulder, pulling me into an awkward embrace where he favored his injury and I favored keeping several inches between us.
“I am not the man I once was,” he whispered in my ear. “I have failed before, but I vow I will do right by you.”
Then we pulled apart and I stared up at him, his eyes still teary but also full of something else. Laughter maybe?
I didn’t understand until he pointed out into the water. “Look, Ina.”
I followed his finger and found five harbor seal heads weaving in the water. They watched us without blinking, a creepy, silent audience.
I squelched a horror movie scream in response. “How long have they been there?”
“Since Ronan summoned them to aid us. Come.” Even severely injured, Guntram pulled me forward. “Let’s get out of here.”
I hesitated for only a moment. “I’m not sure if I have the water pith,” I admitted.
“You should have,” Guntram said with a smirk. “I just filled your water and air charms for you.”
I reached up and, sure enough, both charms had plenty of pith for me to create an oxygen bubble.
“You weren’t hugging me at all,” I accused as Guntram slid into the water. “You were just filling my charms.”
“Believe what you will, Ina,” Guntram responded enigmatically. Then he drew a line of Vs surrounding a sideways S and ducked underneath the water with two of the pinnipeds.
A rock narrowly missed smashing my skull. I had no time to contemplate Guntram’s drama queen exit. Instead, I grabbed onto the closest seal, relying on my charms to breathe as I sank beneath the depths.
EPILOGUE
AS I CROUCHED in the tree line staring at the Florence hospital, I finally admitted to myself that I had a bit of an impulse control problem.
It had only been a day since we destroyed the cockatrice nest. The seals had gotten us out of the cavern safely before it collapsed. Ronan had suffered decent trauma given his pith loss, but with two water charms wrapped around his flippers, he’d mend. I’d dragged Guntram back to Sipho’s homestead through most of the night, where we’d collapsed in the hot spring around dawn. We’d been so battered that we slept well past noon.
Guntram, of course, woke up first, and then proceeded to lay into me about the dangers of lightning pith. While he couldn’t deny the results, he still forbade me from using it again. He claimed we should study more of its properties first, but I knew that meant he just wanted me to forget about it. I tried to convince him that I’d seen the fox dryant again, but he scoffed at me, telling me it was probably a hallucination from allowing too much lightning into my pithways. He seemed more upset that I’d ventured out into the Bitai Wilds to train and ordered me never to do so again.
So much for any bonding moment we’d had at Thor’s Well.
I recovered fast enough, given our long hot spring soak. Guntram, however, would need a lot more time. He gave me permission to roam around the homestead, but not to leave past yelling distance. But then Sipho cornered me, and we discovered I’d completely drained the AA batteries I’d used against the mommy cockatrice. By her barely contained murderous smile, I knew I had to buy new ones soon before she lost her mind.
So really, I had no choice but to go out to get new batteries. While I was at it, I figured I might as well walk the extra hour and go into town to buy a new burner phone. I’d need to call my folks again at some point. And while doing that, I spotted a bakery nearby and popped in for a maple bar and chocolate milk. I’d just banished a vaettur that almost wiped me and my augur out. If anyone deserved a treat, it was me, right?
I found I could justify just about anything except standing outside of the brick hospital, wondering if Vincent was still there. Deep in my gut, I knew that’s why I’d come all the way to Florence in the first place.
I couldn’t believe I was thinking of exposing myself like this. Sure, I dropped into civilization now and again for creature comforts and to occasionally visit my folks, but this was different. I told myself I’d just check up on him, but as I approached the automatic glass doors, my mind recalled his parting words.
Let me know you’re okay.
I wished to follow through with this request so badly. I didn’t want him to think I was some awful poacher, killing the very animals I’d sworn to protect. But as the warm heat of the hospital lobby hit me in the face, I realized I’d risked a lot, exposing a stranger to the secrets of shepherd life.
Guntram could bind me for this.
That thought gave me pause. Sure, Vincent seemed like a sincere guy, but he’d also made it crystal clear on several occasions that he intended to arrest me. Perhaps the whole “meet me at the hospital” wasn’t a line from a concerned friend, but from a clever law enforcement officer. I turned on my heels, thinking to get out of there before I made a mistake I couldn’t reverse.
“Ina!” a bright voice cut through the lobby, causing several sets of eyes to whip in my direction. “Is that you, dear?”
I froze as a wrinkled face with red-rimmed glasses skirted around the information counter, bouncing gray curls and all. I still might have escaped if a nurse wheeling an elderly gentleman with an oxygen tank hadn’t blocked the path behind me.
“Hi, Sharon,” I smiled weakly as her pressed-on nails dug into my bare arm.
“Vincent said you might drop by again,” she said. I swear her voice echoed loud enough for the entire facility to hear her. “Let me escort you to his room.”
I hate that my heart skipped a beat knowing Vincent was nearby. I squashed it flat. “I can walk there myself,” I told her, trying to retrieve my limb.
But Sharon had the grip of a pro wrestler. “Vincent insisted that I show you the way. He didn’t want you slipping away like last time.” Then, to my increasing horror, she grabbed a walkie talkie from her sagging polyester pants and pushed a button. “She’s here.”
“Send her in.” Even through the static, I recognized the soft tenor of Vincent’s voice.
As she half-led, half-dragged me down the familiar hospital corridor, I knew I’d really screwed up this time. This had to be a setup. I couldn’t get out of this situation without using magic in front of a horde of people, probably all on camera. My life as a shepherd was going to end based on the iron will of a forceful receptionist. The poetic justice of it all was not lost on me.
I wouldn’t go quietly though. If I was going to ruin my life based on a whim, I would at least do it with some collateral damage. I decided to wait for my confrontation with Vincent to put on a show. My free hand grasped my air charm. I wouldn’t endanger the lives of sick patients, but I sure as hell would give every witness something to talk about for years to come.
I drew a sideways S as I crossed the threshold into room 19. I expected an ambush of cops, Vincent standing in the center. But as the air pith rustled at the end of my fingertips, ready to blast, I noticed a contradictory scene. There were no guns drawn, no handcuffs waiting for me. Just Vincent leaning back in a hospital bed with one leg propped up and a huge bandage on his cut temple.
This time his bed faced the door, and his tense shoulders relaxed as our eyes met.
“Hello, Ina,” he said softly.
I eked out a return greeting before the air pressure in my body became too much to bear. A gust burst out of me, sending Sharon’s curls a-flutter and knocking over a paper cup of water on a tray next to Vincent.
“Gracious!” Sharon exclaimed, grabbing her hair as if that would keep her grounded. “What was that?”
One side of Vincent’s mouth curled upward in a smile. “Just a stray breeze, I suppose.”
“Yeah,” I squeaked dumbly.
Vincent waved at Sharon. “Thanks for making sure she didn’t run off. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Of course, Vincent,” she beamed. Her expression faltered for a second as she glanced back at me. “Just make sure she signs the visitor log this time, okay?”
“I’ll make sure of it, Ms. Schmidt,” Vincent reassured.
Satisfied, she shuffled out of the room, leaving the two of us alone.
We stared at each other awkwardly.
“Are you…?” I began.
“Please…” he said at the same time.
We laughed, and he gestured for me to sit next to him in a stiff chair. When I hesitated, he coaxed, “C’mon, now. I won’t bite, and I certainly can’t cast any spell like you can.”
“You can arrest me,” I pointed out. “You’re a cop.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That would be quite the report. I’m not sure what the charges would be. Unlawful use of magic?”
My face reddened in spite of myself. “I really think I should go.” I turned to follow Sharon.
“Wait!” Vincent leaned forward, wincing when he twisted his leg a little too far to one side. “Look, I understand your hesitation, but I swear I’m not going to arrest you. This is not even an interrogation. I just want to talk, person-to-person.”
I snorted. “Oh really?
“Yes really,” Vincent said emphatically. “Not about the seals and sea lions, although it’s obvious you know everything that happened regarding that. No, it’s bigger than that. I’ve always suspected there was something else out there.”