“Okay, faggot,” says Fio, and Greg laughs.
The wit, it’s astonishing. And I’m starting to talk in my head like Svetlana talks out loud. I better get home and slip into her skin and an extra v. I walk faster.
Greg is after me like a shot. “Tung,” he says, grabbing my arm. He’s quieter now, speaking so I can hear him and Fio can’t. We’re about to have a friend moment.
“Dude, I can’t,” I say.
“You can,” Greg insists. “And forget Fio. He’s just being normal Fio. You’ll be home before your mom. I promise. Come on.”
I look past him at Fio, who is standing with Cheese and Weiner now. Actually, they’re standing near him, laughing, while he rubs the front of his body against a locker a few down from mine. I suppose he might know whose it is. I suppose it doesn’t matter.
“I don’t know,” I say. Fio is moaning now, ecstatically, “Oh, Jelly … Jelly,” and I’d rather just go home. I’d rather just go home, whisper Svetlana’s name to myself—one or two v’s, doesn’t matter—and run her around fantasyland.
But this is Greg, and he looks so pathetic, out here in the real world, away from the glow of his computer screen. His posture is about the same, but he isn’t a master of dual-wielding epic blades of agility. So I nod, just once, and say, “All right.”
He smiles.
“But no joke: I have to be home by six thirty at the latest. If we’re driving out there with Weiner, we’ll reek. I’ll have to shower and get my clothes in the wash before my mom gets home.”
“Fine, fine,” he says. “So you and me will take the bus back, okay? Whenever you want.”
“Okay.”
Weiner knows every spot along Hamline Avenue where his mile-long Oldsmobile can get air. There are more than you might think, as long as you’re willing to drive twice the speed limit through intersections with school crossings. Weiner is willing.
The windows are closed, and all three seniors—in the front seat—are smoking cigarettes. They’re also passing a joint. In the back, it’s me, Greg, and Fio, in that order, and I can’t open my window because Weiner keeps the windows locked at all times. There’s a story. I’m told someone heaved a full beer bottle through a store window once. That’s the short version.
“Yo, can I get a hit off that?” Fio says, leaning left and forward, so he’s shouting right at Jelly’s ear. She’s not answering, and the music—Lamb of God—is loud enough that Fio thinks she can’t hear him. But from where I’m sitting, I can see her rolling her eyes. They’re huge, or maybe they just look that way because of the makeup. It’s black and all around them, and under her right eye it seems to drip down to the corner of her mouth. I can’t tell if she looks ridiculous or sexy as hell. Probably both.
As for me and Greg, we don’t want any. We’re not stupid; we know someday we’re pretty much going to have to get high, and—if these three wasters are a good sampling—we’ll probably like it a lot. But for now, and at least for today, we’ll both be happy putting in our appearance at this little warped tour and getting home before our folks.
We hit Highway 5 like a four-door 1991 rusty POS out of hell, and then blast onto 494 toward the Mall of America. Weiner is doing ninety, easy, and has to slam on the brakes pretty good when he reaches the exit for the mall. We all jerk forward. Weiner puts out his arm to stop Jelly from going through the windshield.
“Spaz,” says Jelly, and I love her for it. None of the guys in this car—except maybe Greg—take crap from anyone. If a senior jock stepped up to Fio in the hall, he’d go ballistic. I’ve seen Weiner toss a kid against a locker, scream like a maniac, and then strut off quietly. Scary. Last year, two then-seniors said something about Cheese’s dead mother. He shouldered both of them into a stairwell, so they fell on their butts when they tripped backward on the bottom step. One of them knocked his head on a step and went to the emergency room. Got ten stitches. But when Jelly tells us off, there’s no question: she can, and she will.
Weiner heads to the top floor of the parking ramp on the west side. It’s close to the food court, first of all, and second, no normal people ever park that high up except during the holiday rush when they don’t have a choice. We pile out, three cigarettes spark, and we strut across the lot. Jelly walks fast, and she picks Cheese to hold by the arm. The rest of us hang back, watch her ass, and take it slow. Greg and I wear the same long black coat, open, so it flaps behind us like we’re both Blade the vampire hunter. It’s all role-playing, I think as we walk.
Jelly and Cheese—they’d make a good sandwich—are already inside. Weiner flicks his cigarette off the ramp as we reach the door. Jelly’s boots on the mall floor are like thunder. I’m watching her feet, her butt. I watch her lips—deep, dark red: bloodred—when she shouts back at Cheese. I don’t even know what she says. I don’t even care. She’s the sexiest woman alive.
When the seniors get in line for tacos, me and Greg and Fio silently agree on burgers and line up there instead.
“I’m telling you, Tung,” says Fio. “She’d definitely put out for you.”
I’m watching her, and I’m thinking about Svetlana at the same time. I’m putting them next to each other on a video screen in my brain. I’m lining them up, like a cop: I think Jelly’s a little shorter, but it’s close. Her hair is blacker than mine, blacker than a raven’s heart. Svetlana’s hair I’ve said enough about. Jelly’s mean, brusque, quiet, angry, and stoned. Svetlana is none of those things. She is sparkling light; she is shimmering sobriety. She smells like strawberries and honey. She talks too much and too fast.
I suddenly want to get close enough to Jelly to check her scent. It’s probably hot sauce.
So which one should I be lusting after? Jelly, obviously. While I’m standing there, waiting for my combo meal and staring at her, it occurs to me I can’t be into Svetlana anyway, because the two asshats I’m standing with right now wouldn’t let me.
We eat. Jelly laughs at a joke I make about Fio. Fio pretends to jump from the food court onto the floor of the amusement park two stories down. A mall cop gets in his face, so the rest of us bail on the food court. Cheese and Weiner announce they have to meet someone, and Jelly joins them, so when they head off, me and Greg find the bus. I’m home by five, and I remember I don’t have to lust after Svetlana. It’s not about lust. It’s about crawling into her skin again, and I spend the rest of the evening—with limited interruptions from Greg, Mom, and Dad—running around the land of imagination with a hunter called Stebbins and paladin called Dewey. And while I’m there, I am sparkling light, shimmering sobriety, and I smell like strawberries and honey.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
…………………………………………………………
CHAPTER 19
SVVETLANA
The elves step out of the blazing-hot sun of the wide, rolling desert and into the cool shade of the cave mouth. The priestess Svvetlana sits down and takes a long pull from a skin of water gathered from the dew-fed pools of her homeland. It fills her with light and brightens her spirit.
“Can you spare some?” says the hunter Stebbins. He sits next to her, and his cat curls up at her feet. It’s becoming a habit with these three—to sit and refresh together. Svvetlana is beginning to feel that the hunting cat is her companion as well as the hunter’s himself. She passes the skin and leans back. A moment later, the paladin Dewey jogs into the cave. He’d been finishing off a huge group of angry centaurs.
“Remember the rules, you two dorks,” he says as he cracks his knuckles and then pulls out his hammer and shield. “Stay back. Don’t aggro. Don’t pull. Don’t do anything.”
“We know,” says the hunter. The priestess is silent, as she usually is. She just stands up and casts a buff on the party to increase everyone’s stamina.
“Pulling,” says Dewey, and with a great battle cry, he charges into the cave itself. Before long, he is sta
nding in the midst of a dozen or more angry druids. They are bringing down upon him blow after blow of sword and staff and balls of fire and lightning. They cast upon him poisons and curses and spells to weaken him and slow him and fill him with dread, but they are meager foes to his vast skills and strength, and he is not affected. With each swing of his club, with each stomp on the earth, with each strike of his shield, another foe falls.
“Onward!” he shouts, and he runs deeper into the cave. Svvetlana, far behind, begins to understand the complexity of the task ahead of them. This is no simple cave; it is an underground world, with its own rivers and lakes and mountains, each section more dangerous than the last. Around every turn are monsters of every imaginable shape and design. There are druids—elves much like her, but with evil in their hearts—vipers that tower over even her and the hunter, great monstrosities of stone and earth, taller still, and even plants that walk like animals and fire thorns and poison that threaten her very life. If not for the powerful paladin leading the priestess and the hunter, they’d be doomed.
It’s a long journey to the heart of the cave, with its convoluted system of land bridges and tunnels and underground water passages. They must swim and jump and climb—and fighting, always fighting. The paladin, at the front of the small group in his gleaming golden armor, bearing his lion-faced shield of silver and huge stones of topaz and sapphire, attacks dozens at one go. The earth at his feet glows with the fire of justice. His foes collapse. They flee. They cast desperately, and to no avail.
Svvetlana and Stebbins—the cat has been dismissed, for it will be of no help—stay well behind, watching, gathering experience and gold from the fallen enemies. The trio finally reaches the first boss of the cave. He is a powerful druid, imbued with the animalistic magic of all druids, his beast of choice: the viper. The paladin bellows, his hammer high, and charges the fiend.
In a flash, a viper approaches from each side.
“Watch out!” Svvetlana calls, alarmed at the sudden addition of these two beasts. As she calls out, the druid himself transforms as well, into a viper even greater and more powerful than any they’ve fought so far. His skin is a lurid blend of red and green, shimmering in the sickly blue light of the fume-lanterns that flank his worship circle at the top of the path. His neck swells and contracts in the threatening manner of the lowly cobra. On a creature a hundred times a cobra’s size, this is far more intimidating.
The priestess moves closer to the hunter and says at his ear, “Will he be okay?”
“Of course,” Stebbins replies. He puts an arm around her shoulders and gives them a squeeze. “He’s done this a hundred times.”
Then he draws his bow and sets an arrow on the string. “Watch this.”
“Careful,” the priestess warns. “He asked us not to get involved.”
“Don’t worry,” says the hunter. “I can’t do enough damage to pull his aggro.” And he lets the arrow fly. It strikes the boss in the center of his reptilian belly, but Stebbins was right. It’s as if the druid didn’t even notice. His attacks continue to fall upon the paladin’s golden armor, and to no avail.
Svvetlana grins and calls down holy power from the makers. It channels through her body, filling her with lightness and joy, and then blasts from her outstretched fingertips. It collides with the giant viper, causing critical damage. Still, it is nothing compared to the damage done by the very earth the druid stands on, glowing under the paladin’s runic power.
She closes her eyes and focuses now on the paladin himself. Though she has trained as a healer, the priestess has had little opportunity to practice this selfless art. Now, as the paladin fights valiantly against these three colubrine monsters, she takes the chance. She presses her palms together, clasps her fingers, and mutters an ancient prayer. Her chest swells, and when she opens her eyes again, they are lit from within, silver and gold. The light blasts from her every pore, from her eyes and mouth, from the ends of her silver hair, and it blasts across the rocky, wet ground, surges into the paladin’s very being, and heals him of his minor wounds.
Suddenly the two secondary vipers pull up and find her with their red beady eyes. They slither quickly on the slick ground, hissing and spitting. In an instant, they are upon her.
“What did you do?” Dewey shouts as he runs after them, but the boss—still with a few tricks of his own—paralyzes the paladin with a blast of venomous spit. He is unable to assist.
Stebbins is at the priestess’s side, but with no pet to help him, he can do very little. The two vipers tear at Svvetlana’s body. They dig fangs into her shoulders. They spit poison into her wounds. They tangle around her long, muscular legs with their slithery tails, and she drops to the ground.
“I’m coming,” the paladin shouts as he falls upon the two secondary vipers, but he is too late. Svvetlana is weak and near death. One strike will undoubtedly—
“Ahh!” she cries, and she is dead.
“Crap,” says Stebbins.
“Why don’t people listen?” says the paladin. He casts a vicious area attack, killing the two vipers. Then he turns back to the boss. In seconds, the giant viper lies dead. He loots the body, finds nothing of value to anyone in the party, and then walks to Svvetlana’s prone corpse.
“I should make you walk,” he says.
“Don’t be a jerk,” Stebbins says. He is down on one knee beside the fallen elf girl. “It was my fault.”
“Why?” says the paladin. “Did you cast a heal on the tank and aggro the adds? No. She did.”
“I told her it was okay to join in,” Stebbins says. He closes his eyes and bows his head, and he mutters a prayer to the elf goddess. “Protect her soul,” he says, and the paladin laughs.
“Moron.”
“Just resurrect her,” Stebbins says, “so we can keep going.”
“She has to promise not to cast anything else,” says the paladin. He sits down next to the elf girl and pulls a bottle of wine from his sack. “We have a long way to go.”
“She promises,” the hunter says on the priestess’s behalf.
“Let her say it.”
“She’s dead.”
The paladin sighs. “Good thing she’s so hot, or I’d kick her in a second.” He stands, lowers his head, and begins to cast a spell of resurrection. The earth at his feet glows with his great power. But the spell never finishes. The cast simply continues.
“Hello?” Stebbins says. “Dewey, wtf?”
There is no response. The cast simply goes on, never finishing, for several tedious minutes, until the paladin himself vanishes.
“He’s gone,” the hunter says. “Look, you’ll have to resurrect yourself at the graveyard, Svvet. I’ll meet you there.”
Somehow, the soul of the fallen elf—perhaps because of the hunter’s words of prayer—can understand these instructions. An instant later, Svvetlana wakes. She is lying in the grass, surrounded by tall stones. Each, she realizes, represents the burial site of a fallen elf, and each glows with a tiny light—the evidence of an elven soul within.
She is groggy and dizzy. She sits up and shakes her head, hoping to clear it. This just makes her dizzier, and she has to lean over to throw up. With the help of the nearest stone, she climbs to her feet.
It is dark here, and wet. This is not the desert they’d traveled through to find the cave entrance. They must have traveled very far underground if this is the nearest graveyard.
“I hope Stebbins can find me,” she says, “for I’ve no idea where I am.” But she begins to walk, glancing now and then at the very incomplete map of this region she keeps in her pack. She’s never been here before, so the only location on the map she’s familiar with is the graveyard itself. Then it begins to rain.
It’s as if the sea itself has flipped upside down above the earth, and it falls down upon her in heavy sheets. She is soaked through her enchanted gowns to her very skin. Her meager sandals and the sliver of silver she wears as a crown, though powerful in granting her intellect and spiri
t, offer little protection against the elements. She runs from tree to tree, desperate for cover, not bothering to check her map or even look up to search the horizon for a familiar landmark.
She huddles against a tree, an ancient ally of her people, and peers out into the weather, hoping for any sign of her friend the hunter. When a figure appears in the mist, running across the grassy plain, her heart soars and she stands up and waves.
“I’m here!” she calls out. “Stebbins, I’m here!”
He doesn’t see her. Desperate for aid, she casts a simple healing spell on herself, knowing it will make her figure glow brightly, helping her to stand out in the grim weather. It works. The figure stops, and a moment later, it’s running toward her.
Smiling, Svvetlana steps out from the shelter of the tree. She walks out to meet Stebbins halfway, but soon stops. His gait is wrong. He doesn’t run with the strength and poise of an elf hunter. And shouldn’t he have summoned his pet, out on his own as he is now?
No, this isn’t Stebbins. This isn’t any elf, nor any human, and it’s certainly not a dwarf.
“Undead,” she says aloud in a sacred whisper. The forsaken clan of the opposing faction.
And just as the fear sinks into her chest and she casts a protective spell upon herself, the figure vanishes, for this is no hunter, either: it is a rogue, it’s seen her, and now it’s prowling nearby. She is vulnerable. She is alone. She is afraid.
Her spell will protect her for only a few more seconds. Then the bubble of protective holy power will fade, and she will be helpless. She fixes her grip on her staff. She takes a deep breath to keep her soul and mind clear and ready to defend herself. It’s not enough. When the sky flashes lightning, the rogue appears on her right. She turns, but he is faster—much faster—and his dagger sinks into her back. She tries to call out, but the world is black. She is still on her feet, but unable to move, unable to see, unable to cast even the simplest defensive spell.
His fist connects with her nose—she can feel that much—and she falls to her knees in muddying grass. “Please stop,” she says, but the undead fiend laughs. He steps quickly and lightly around her prone form, kicking her, stabbing her, blinding her with powders and poisons.
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