by M. D. Cooper
“And JuJubilee™ was never a villain,” Lashes added. “Even when she was a vampi—Damnit! Why can’t I stop saying ‘TM’?”
Ramsey let out a long sigh, shook his head, and walked away. “I’m going into The Dark Forest. Anytime you all want to come join me on the mission, that’d be great.”
Lashes rushed after Ramsey. “Wait! I have the map!”
“Then you’d better hurry up,” Ramsey replied over his shoulder.
Lashes caught up to the colonel as he slowed at the sign that sat over the road. It read ‘End of the Road’, even though the road clearly continued into The Dark Forest™.
A bear was walking by, licking honey off his fingers, and Ramsey called out to him. “Excuse me…sir.”
“Hmm?” the bear rumbled in response and turned toward them.
“I was wondering, why does this sign say that the road ends, when it doesn’t?”
“Oh? Well, look at that. So it does,” the bear said, and then shrugged. “I really don’t know. Maybe because it’s The Prince™’s road that ends here.”
“I could have told you that,” Vivia said as she approached, flying around Stick and BAMF, encouraging them to catch up, as BAMF tried to swat Stick’s tail away from her face.
“I don’t care whose road it is,” Lashes said. “This sunlight is a minute from lighting me on fire. Those trees look nice and shady.”
“I know what you mean!” Stick said. “Now I know why The Cat Woman™ works at night. Head to toe black latex in the sun is hot!”
“Peh,” the bear replied as it ambled away. “Try wearing a black fur coat.”
“How far to the Millinery?” Ramsey asked Lashes.
She checked the scale on the bottom of the map, and gauged the distance with her finger. “Looks like it’s about fifteen klicks.”
Ramsey nodded and strode under the sign. “Daylight’s wasting, let’s move.”
The team—still accompanied by Vivia, who fluttered about nervously—walked into The Dark Forest™, which really wasn’t too dark at first, much to Lashes’ consternation. However, the further they went, the taller the trees grew, and the more they loomed over the narrowing road.
After only half an hour, the road was little more than a well-trodden path, with the trees covering it completely.
“Oh, stars, this is so much better,” Lashes said, finally lifting the goggles from her eyes. “My skin was literally starting to crack in that sunlight.”
Ramsey peered at her and grunted. “Wow, it was—but it looks like it’s starting to heal up. How are they doing all this?”
“Mr. Ramsey, are you saying you don’t believe in magic?” Vivia asked. “I can call the Fairly Goodmother and have her come back.”
“Uh, no, not necessary,” Ramsey said. “I believe—I’m just impressed with the quality of your magic.”
“As you should be,” Vivia said with a nod.
“What was that?” Stick asked.
“What was what, Cat-Fool?” BAMF said.
Lashes crept forward, ears twitching and tail high. “I could have swwworn I heard something.”
“Why are you talking like that?” BAMF asked. “Your purring is disrupting my calm.”
“I’m not purring,” Stick said. “This is how I talk.”
“Is not,” BAMF retorted.
Stick whipped around and made clawing motions at BAMF and hissed. “Yes it is!”
“Shut up, you two!” Ramsey whispered loudly. “You’re right, Stick; I hear something, too.”
Lashes stilled her breathing and expanded her senses. She heard a rustling in the forest, a strange scraping, the snap of a twig, then more and more sounds.
“It’s coming from all sides; we’re surrounded!”
“Run!” Ramsey yelled.
The team took off down the path with Stick in the lead, followed by Ramsey, then Lashes, and finally BAMF. Lashes was surprised by how fast Stick could move in eight-centimeter heels. She wasn’t even fazed by the uneven dirt path.
Lashes saw Ramsey pull something from his pack and begin fiddling with it.
“What’s that, colonel?” she asked, surprised that the run wasn’t even making her short of breath. Maybe being a vampire wasn’t so bad after all.
“Gun,” Ramsey replied. “You didn’t think that I’d go on a rescue mission unarmed?”
“What?” Lashes gaped. “How did you get it past security?”
“In lots and lots of small pieces. I put some in all your packs. Fished most of them out last night while you were sleeping.”
“What!” Lashes exclaimed. “You came into my room while I was sleeping?”
Ramsey chuckled. “Yeah. Don’t worry, though; I won’t tell anyone about what I saw.”
Lashes looked away and flushed…or would have, if she wasn’t a vampire and could still blush. Another bonus for being a vampire.
She looked away from the colonel, who was sliding the gun’s magazine into place, and glanced behind the group to see their pursuers flood onto the road behind them.
“What the…?” she muttered, and turned forward to see another group of the enemy—which were enlarged Snark playing cards—burst through the trees ahead of them.
“Out of our way!” Stick yelled at the two-meter-tall playing cards. “We’re being chased by bandits!”
“We know!” the Head Card yelled back, brandishing a sword with its corner. “We’re the bandits!”
Stick skidded to a halt as the dozen card-soldiers blocked the road, and purred, “Seriously?”
The rest of the group stopped behind Stick, and Vivia wailed. “Oh, no, it’s The Dreaded Villains™ of The Dark Forest™!”
“Really?” Lashes asked. “They’re Snark cards…”
“Well, we were dreaded, but now we’re the Greatly Feared Bandits™ of The Dark Forest™!” the Head Card called out. “You will submit to us and turn over all your valuables.”
“Are you the ones responsible for capturing people?” Ramsey asked, brandishing his handgun at the card soldiers.
“Hey! Whoa! What’s that you have there?” the Head Card said, holding its corners high. “How’d you get a gun down here?”
“I’m the one asking the questions,” Ramsey said. “Have you been kidnapping people?”
“Mr. Ramsey, please, put the gun down,” Vivia cautioned. “We don’t condone violence here. Plus…the villains’ safety protocols have been on the fritz lately.”
“Uh…colonel,” Lashes said as more cards came out of the trees and up from the road behind them. “They may just be cards, but they do appear to have real swords. Maybe we’d best not antagonize them too much.”
“Yeah, don’t be antagonizing us—we’ve put up with a lot of crap. We’re freedom fighters, you know. The Prince™ has our queen in his dungeon, and we’re here to rob you blind to finance our resistance.”
“Is it, by any chance, The Queen of Hearts™?” Ramsey asked.
“What? No, not the Queen of Deer™; she’s in another forest, on the other side of The Endless Sea™—well, till the weekly fire, at least,” the Head Card replied.
“How is she on the other side of it if it’s ‘endless’?” Stick asked.
“It’s a metaphor,” the Head Card retorted with a scowl. “Seriously, how can you not get that?”
“Now, now,” Vivia admonished. “There’s no reason to be unpleasant.”
“We’re here to rob you. That’s the very definition of unpleasant!” another of the cards hollered.
“Let’s get back to the queen,” Ramsey said. “I said ‘hearts’, not ‘harts’.”
“Oh. You sure?” the Head Card queried. “I’m pretty sure I heard ‘harts’. Definitely no ‘e’ in there.”
“Are you kidding me?” Ramsey argued. “I clearly said the ‘e’. Heeearts.”
“Hmmm… I guess I kinda heard it that time. Yeah, the Queen of Hearts™ is our fearless leader, and we’re going to free her from the tyranny of The Prince™…at
some point.”
“Well, if you’re not kidnapping people, then we have no quarrel with you,” Ramsey said. “We also don’t have any money, so step aside.”
“Riiiight,” the Head Card replied. “Like we haven’t heard that one before. I’ll be the judge of whether or not you have anything valuable. I bet we could take the cat girl’s whip at least.”
“Cat Woman™!” Stick shot back.
Following Stick’s words, there was a moment of silence—until the sound of a gunshot shattered it.
Lashes gaped as she saw that the Head Card had a hole blown in the middle of his…card…and cringed as his body wilted slightly. Ramsey was holding his pieced-together pistol out in front of him, and watching the card over the top of his golden carrot.
“Well, that tears it!” the Head Card shouted. “Do you know how much tape it will take to fix this? Get ‘em, boys!”
The cards rushed the team, swords swinging, and chaos erupted. Stick unfurled her whip, cracking it at the cards and cutting into any it hit, while Lashes leapt forward, her fists and teeth hitting cards and tearing them apart. Ramsey fired a few more shots, before picking up a discarded sword and attacking the cards with a passion.
BAMF did what she always did, and before long, a dozen cards lay torn apart at her feet.
The battle had been joined for less than a minute before the cards fell back and retreated into the woods.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! This isn’t how this trip was supposed to go!” Vivia wailed as she flittered above them.
“They were going to rob us,” Ramsey said as he slid his gun into a pocket inside his jacket.
Lashes picked a rather heavy and sticky piece of paper out of her mouth and tossed it aside. “Gross…that paper almost tasted like meat.”
“That’s because cards are people, too!” Vivia exclaimed.
“Seems like it,” BAMF agreed. “They die like people do.”
Lashes wondered about that…would they die? Or had she just made an army of card vampires.
“Oh, the CSB is going to be very cross about this,” Vivia said in a trembling voice.
“Well, they should clean this place up. I thought it was supposed to be a vacation destination,” Ramsey groused.
“Well, I told you The Dark Forest™ wasn’t safe!” Vivia said as she waved her wand, and the remains of the card soldiers disappeared.
“Yeah, for them,” Stick said as she proceeded to lick her hands and wash her head.
“Another ten klicks to the Millinery,” Lashes said, trying not to worry about whether or not the cards were real people, or about why she liked the taste of their card-meat so much—despite what she had said.
“Then let’s go,” Ramsey said taking off at a jog. “I don’t want to run into any more of those guys…or get caught by the flying monkeys again.”
The team followed after Ramsey, continuing down the road. After a few minutes of looking impatient, Stick pounced in front of the colonel and ranged ahead—though she periodically became distracted by butterflies and fell behind.
While they ran, Vivia flew above, tut-tutting and oh-dearing until Lashes finally snarled at her to shut up.
Damn, she thought to herself, being a vampire is really starting to get to me. I sure hope I can keep it in check long enough—and that the Fairly Goodmother undoes this before we leave.
Nothing else untoward occurred before they reached the Millinery—the design of which surprised everyone but Lashes, and presumably Vivia, when it finally came into view.
“It’s a hat…a giant top hat,” Stick said with a perplexed look on her masked face.
“I thought a Millinery was a mill of some sort,” BAMF added.
“Oh, I guess none of you saw the map,” Lashes said and held it up. There, just within the vast expanse of The Dark Forest™, was a large top hat. “A millinery is a place where they make hats.”
“Your friend Ronnie was a guard at a place that makes hats?” BAMF asked Ramsey.
“I guess,” Ramsey shrugged. “It’s not like this place makes a ton of sense to begin with, you know.”
“Good point,” BAMF replied.
Stick purred at the group and her tail swished defiantly. “I think this place makes perrrfect sense. I always knew I was destined for greatness, and now I’m The Cat Woman™.”
“No, you’re the Cat-Fool ‘TM’,” BAMF muttered.
“There doesn’t seem to be anyone around,” Ramsey said, and cautiously walked toward the large hat, which was even bigger up close.
The top hat building was well over one hundred meters high, and more than fifty wide. Ramsey drew his handgun, and carefully stepped onto the brim. He waited a moment, and, when nothing happened, approached the double doors set into the hat’s tall band.
“I guess we’ll just see if anyone’s home,” he said and pulled at the door.
It opened without resistance, and the colonel disappeared inside. Lashes followed after, amazed at how bright the room was to her vampire eyes. Another positive for being a creature of the night.
Although…the colonel’s neck is starting to look more and more tasty. Maybe I should try to get some tomato juice or something soon. Or pig’s blood…mmmm. I wonder if those three little pigs I always hear about are around here somewhere…
The door slammed behind her, and she jumped, turning to see BAMF shrug as she entered the room.
“It slipped out of my grasp.”
BAMF’s graceful entrance brought Lashes’ mind back to the task at hand, and she looked over what was clearly a storefront for selling hats—though one that was dark, with no proprietor or salesperson in evidence.
“Keep moving,” Ramsey said as he approached a door behind the counter. “Seems like no one’s home, but there’s no dust anywhere, so the place isn’t abandoned or anything.”
“Sssounds like ssssomeone’s being sssssneeeeaky,” Stick purred as she slinked behind the colonel.
“Cut that out,” Ramsey said, “You’re giving me the willies.”
Lashes followed the two into the back, with BAMF close behind. The room beyond was a factory floor with all of the hat-making accouterments one would imagine: great spools of fabric, leather in racks along one wall, and dozens of low tables with hats in various states of creation. The far wall was filled with rack upon rack of completed hats. From simple caps to massive top hats—even to hats that appeared to cover a person’s entire body, with holes for arms and a face.
“I don’t see anyone,” Lashes said. “Or smell anyone, either.”
“Smell?” Ramsey asked.
“Uh…yeah,” Lashes replied. “I can smell your…your blood. I can hear your heartbeats, too.”
“OK…now this is really creeping me out,” Ramsey said. “How is this place even remotely kid-friendly, Vivia?”
No response came from their small fluttering companion, and the team stopped, looking around for the pixie.
“She’s not heerrrrre,” Stick said with a perplexed expression.
“I don’t think she came in,” BAMF added.
Ramsey shook his head. “That doesn’t bode well.”
“Bode, eh?” Lashes chuckled caustically. “Fancy word, Colonel.”
“I can say ‘bode’,” Ramsey replied, his eyebrows knitted. “It’s a perfectly good word. You’re getting a bit mean.”
“Hush!” Stick said. “I heard something further back. I might have seen something, too…white and fluffy.”
The team fell in behind Stick, but remained spaced apart as they crept past the tables covered in hats, until they passed under the racks in the rear and reached a small back door.
“OK…that’s not what I expected,” Lashes said as she looked down at the door, which only came up to her waist.
“Well, the sound came from beyond it,” Stick said as she pulled it open. “Let’s see what we see.”
“Dammit, Stick,” Ramsey said as he pulled out his gun and held it on the door. “Make sure we’re
ready next time you do that.”
“Colonel,” Stick purred. “I have the reflexes of a cat, I could have slammed the door shut in an instant if anything came out.”
“And if the thing that came out was a bullet?” Ramsey asked. “You that fast, Cat Girl?”
“Cat Woman™,” Stick corrected. “The Cat Woman™.”
“Well, The Cat Woman,” Ramsey said, gesturing to the door. “You first. Then you, Lashes; I don’t want your teeth behind me right now.”
“It’s not your ass that looks tasty,” Lashes said with a grin. “It’s your—damn. Not helping, is it?”
“Not even a little bit,” Ramsey replied. “In.”
Lashes got down on all fours and followed Stick in. “Dammit, Stick, can you hold your stupid tail still for a minute?”
“Nope!” Stick said brightly. “Couldn’t even if I tried. I don’t think; I really haven’t tried.” Stick stopped moving, but her tail continued to swish side to side. “Nope, I was right, can’t stop it.”
Lashes sighed and gave Stick some more lead room. Once through the door, they found themselves in a tunnel. Lashes could see a dull glow on the far end—though it was mostly obscured by Stick’s black latex body, slinking through the tunnel ahead of her.
How is it that she gets to be the sexy one, and I’m the vampire that no one wants to be near?
A few seconds later, Stick passed out into the murky light, and Lashes followed. They found themselves in a dark glade. The trees growing around it nearly blocked out all the sunlight, and thick vines hung down from overhead.
In the center of the glade was a long table, and at the end was a man. He appeared to be tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth.
“Ronnie!” The colonel called out as he exited the tunnel, BAMF grunting and huffing as she came out behind him.
“Careful, Colonel,” Stick said, holding out a clawed hand. “This smells like a trap.”
Ramsey pulled his gun back out and nodded. “If there ever was one. Sure would be handy if Vivia hadn’t buggered off; she’d be useful for recon.”
At the head of the table, Ronnie began to struggle and ‘mmmmff’ loudly.
“What is he saying?” BAMF asked as she scanned the glade.