by Kaye, Rainy
I hoisted myself up on the fence, trying to get a better look beyond the shade. A few pigeons picked at the dirt near the house. No signs of people, though.
Grunting, I lowered back to the ground and continued forward.
To my right, far up in the sky, a dark dot swooped down and back up. Hawk. At least it wasn’t a cockatrice, but didn’t hawks eat snakes?
I dropped my focus to the ground to watch for anything slithering around. I wasn’t afraid of snakes, per se, but there were worse times than others to be bit, and this would be one of those.
Fiona flanked my left, and her demeanor alternated between seeking protection and something that I needed protected from. She never did anything, though. It was just that weird vibe and the way her gaze sometimes darted about like she was some kind of predator now.
“Tally-ho,” Randall said in a low voice, coming to a halt.
I jerked my head up, stopping so quickly I nearly toppled forward.
Up ahead, something sloughed across the road, a thick brown ooze that brought with it discarded fountain drink cups and hamburger wrappers. A doll rose to the surface and then sank back down as the slime rolled on by.
“Is that, like…I mean, what is that?” I pointed even though we were all staring at it. “Tell me that’s what a jackalope is.”
“Pretty sure not,” Randall said.
As the garbage heap slunk onward, it picked up orange peels and broken twigs off the road. It dropped off the side, onto the dirt, and kept going. A bike tire bubbled up and remained for some time before the mess rolled onto itself and submerged the tire.
“Isn’t there a nuclear plant around here?” Sasmita asked, crouching to grab her knife from her ankle. “Maybe it’s some mutated…thing.”
“It’s alive?” I asked, goosebumps rushing across my arms.
“No way,” Randall said, breathless “That’s got to be some kind of sludge that’s rolling downhill or something. Even though it’s gone up an incline, that’s the theory I’m sticking with.”
I forced myself to blink because my eyes were stinging.
“Yeah…Hey, Fiona.” I nudged her. “Why did the sludge cross the road?”
“One way to find out,” Randall answered.
He strode forward, and we all followed after him. I gripped Fiona’s wrist to keep her close as we approached the oozing mass of garbage.
My soles crunched on gravel in the road.
The sludge halted.
“Oh, fuck,” I said, my heart dropping to my toes.
The sludge reared up. I took a step back as the monster grew higher and higher, like a tsunami, casting a shadow over us.
I stared up at it, unable to comprehend how such a creature existed.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Sasmita said, and then lunged at it.
I yelped, reaching out to stop her. She ducked around me and barreled toward the monster. I tried to draw up my magic, but it was gone.
Always!
I pushed away the thought that I had taken it once, when fighting Eliza Brown. The idea made me uncomfortable
I released Fiona and took off after Sasmita. She jutted out her knife and slammed it into the sludge monster. The knife went in with a pop. Her eyes widened and she tugged on the handle. The blade remained embedded into the monster.
The knife began to sink. Sasmita pulled harder, dropping into a crouch as she twisted on the handle. It didn’t give. Her fingers neared the goo as she continued to struggle for her weapon.
“Let go,” I yelled as I reached her.
I grabbed her shoulders from behind and yanked her free. The monster bubbled and swelled. An eruption filled my head as I flew backwards. My back slammed into a fence post, driving the air from my lungs.
It took a minute for my head to clear. I sat upright as Sasmita powered up.
The sludge monster unfurled a brown gooey appendage and swiped at Randall. He dropped to the ground and then sprang back up. Grabbing Fiona, he shoved her to the side, out of the monster’s path.
She stumbled off the road, and then looked between us, eyes darting back and forth, back and forth. She panted heavily.
I didn’t have time for this.
As the appendage shot out again, Randall pulled his knife from his hip and swung. It sliced through the limb. The end fell to the ground with a plop, and then melted against the asphalt and ran like rainwater off the road where the monster slurped it back up.
Randall looked at his blade and then the monster, reality clear across his face.
We were dead.
Sasmita glowed blue, and then she unleashed an electrical storm at the creature. The sludge monster writhed and hissed. Smoke curled off its surface.
Something snaked along the ground, toward her feet. I tried to yell, but the words cut off in my throat. Shoving my hands to the ground, I launched after her. I ducked low, colliding with her and tackling her to the asphalt as the appendage lashed out where she had been standing. We tumbled and slid. My shirt rode up and asphalt dug at my back. We rolled over the side and fell into the dirt and brush.
The appendage reared up. Randall brought his knife up in a swoop and cleaved the appendage in twain. The separated piece flopped around and then oozed back over to the mother.
That was where we were: not able to damage the monster, just keeping it busy reforming.
A gunky limb sprung to the side and grabbed a dead sparrow I hadn’t noticed tucked under a bush, and then pulled it into itself.
Somehow, the creature was feeding on trash and carcasses.
What had we stumbled onto this time?
I picked myself up off the ground, and then offered Sasmita a hand. She took it and I helped tug her to her feet. We stood side by side as we watched the monster shudder and reshape itself into something vaguely animalistic, like an upright bear or wolf, but not quite either.
Trash continued to roll along its body, coming to the surface and then submerging again.
“Fire,” I said, barely more than a whisper. I nudged Sasmita forward, toward the beast. “Use fire.”
She scowled at me. “Why can’t—”
Right. We’d never discussed the practical limitations of my magic.
“It’s a whole…thing,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “Please, try fire.”
She hesitated, and then apparently decided to put a pin in that conversation for now. Pursing her lips, she stomped forward. As she passed Randall, she put up her palms. Her skin shimmered yellow, and a moment later, fire erupted from her hands and lapped at the beast. The flames caught and the sludge monster silently went up in flames.
Not a howl, not a snarl. The monster sank to the ground and then reformed into another not quite identifiable creature and then reformed again. It was a river of trash and sludge again, this time fire dancing along its surface, and it flowed away from us, farther down the edge of the road. We watched, transfixed, as it eased its way back onto the asphalt, nearly out of sight, and then disappeared into the ground.
I waited for any signs of it coming back, but we were alone again. When I dared a step forward, expecting the creature to rise up again, nothing happened.
My soles tapped the asphalt as I strode to where the sludge had disappeared. As we neared, I slowed my pace, stopping in front of a hole in the ground.
I glanced around. “Where’s the manhole cover?”
“It probably ate it,” Sasmita muttered.
“So, we have a violent sludge monster that lives in the sewer?” I asked. “That’s what we got this time? Nothing that any normal person would expect, like a werewolf or a vampire. No, we got sludge monsters.”
“I mean, would you want to face a werewolf or vampire, though?” Randall asked. He looked at his blade, and then returned it to the sheath on his hip.
I sighed heavily, turning to check for Fiona. She stood in the distance, staring at us.
“Come on,” I called, waving her over.
She strode towards us, her bac
k strangely stiff. It was like I couldn’t stop noticing all the differences about her. They seemed to increase as time went on.
Randall surveyed the road ahead. “There’s some houses that way, I think.”
I nodded and took Fiona’s hand, and our little group set forward. We stepped off the road and cut through the brush, spiny branches pulling at my pant legs as we went. I no longer cared so much about snakes.
The heat hammered down, and there was no escaping it. Sweat drenched my underarms and back, and my hair flopped limp and wet against my face and neck.
When the neighborhood came into view, my heart lifted. A few old buildings nestled among new builds with landscaped front yards. Many had real estate signs posted in the front yard.
“This is the place,” I said, shaking my head as we stepped onto the sidewalk. “The next big thing.”
Randall slowed as he eyed the houses. “They look nice.”
“The prices are very good,” Sasmita said, nodding. “I saw some posted on the signs back there. You can’t get a three bedroom with that square footage for that in most places. I wonder if you can get highspeed out here?”
“Probably,” Randall replied as we continued our neighborhood stroll. “But they might not have a school district. Might have to go to the next town over.”
Sasmita tipped her head. “There might be a small school around here, but you would have to consider the commute to work. Gas prices add up fast, unless you can work from home a few days a week.”
I let out a disgusted groan. “Can we focus, please? Besides, I’m pretty sure the prices just got driven way down because there’s a sludge monster in the sewer system. That lowers property value, I hear.”
“Nah, that’s why we’re here,” Randall said, throwing his arm around my shoulder. “Besides, you never thought of where you’d like to settle down, start a family?”
I hip checked him, trying to force down the grin. “I’m not sure I make family material.”
“I think so,” he said, pecking the top of my head.
Before I could react, he released me and strode up ahead.
I fumbled in my step. My heart did all kinds of acrobatics as visions of marriage and children and a house—even one in the goddamned desert—flashed through my brain.
That prospect didn’t sound bad. Given where I was now and what I was planning to do, anything would have been better.
Still, I could see a future, suddenly, past all this.
Somehow, it contained Randall.
I pushed down the thought, stomped it back into its tiny luggage, and threw it into the back of my mental closet. I could not, would not date Randall.
Not on a train, not on a plane. Sam I fuckin’ am.
The neighborhood had deteriorated, and we found ourselves in what could only be the original part of town. The houses sagged, and many had tinfoil in the windows. More than a few front yards seemed to double as extra storage.
“Hey, Saf?” Randall called.
I joined where he stood with Sasmita, not releasing my grip on Fiona.
A manhole cover in the middle of the street shook in its spot, clattering and scraping.
“Yeah, no,” I said. “Let’s go before the sludge makes an appearance again.”
We picked up our pace, sticking to the sidewalk as we strode past the manhole cover. My knees faltered, and I braced them, forcing myself to keep going. I had faced scarier things than this, but somehow, this one was getting to me more.
Exhaustion. I needed sleep. I needed a break.
I needed this to be over. But it wasn’t, and if Sasmita’s handy map was accurate, we still had three more to go after this.
Three more mages to put back in their cages.
I smiled at the rhyme. I hated everything about this undertaking, especially since it wasn’t supposed to be mine, but we couldn’t let this madness happen. They were going to destroy everything, rippling out from their nucleus of mayhem. We were far from the right team for this battle, but as it stood now, we were the only volunteers. Until whoever had sent Joseph got another man on the job, we had to stave off as much destruction as we could.
At least, that was how Randall and I wound up here. Sasmita, on the other hand, had never been quite clear on why she came along, or why she had a map that showed where to find the mages. Or why she needed their blood.
So many questions.
Something thudded behind us. I looked over my shoulder, but I already knew what it was before I saw it: the manhole cover had been shot loose and landed in the dirt.
We took off, turning into an alley. My soles crunched over gravel and empty beer cans as we trooped toward the opposite street. A tall building rose up beside us, and Randall slowed, bringing the group to a halt.
Old furniture had been piled up around a door leading into the building: a sofa that was more stain than couch, a mattress that probably harbored generations of bed bugs, a lamp, and an assortment of odds and ends. A Santa Claus figurine had been propped against the stack.
Randall picked his way through the clutter.
The building stood four stories tall, with broken and rotted eaves, and more windows boarded up than ones with panes. It had been painted rusty orange and tan once, but most of it was peeling and dirty gray now. The gutters were overflowing with leaves and debris.
“I think it’s abandoned,” Randall said.
“Dear god, I hope it is.” I frowned at the thought of how many infestations this place must have. “Maybe they all got a great deal on those new houses.”
He gave me an amused look, and then strode forward toward a white door with dusty brass hardware. Even though the door had a deadbolt, he gave it a try. The knob didn’t turn, but the door jiggled in its frame. Bearing down, he put his shoulder into it and shoved harder. The frame cracked, but didn’t break all the way.
I pulled the knife from the sheath on my hip, and then pushed past him and knelt by the door, until I was eye level with the lock. Clamping my jaw, I wedged the blade of the knife between the frame and the door and maneuvered it up and down, twisting the knob, trying to pop the lock. It didn’t work, but part of the frame fell away in toothpicks. I yanked the knife free and started again, this time chiseling away at the rotting frame around the lock. Little by little, it came apart and fell into shreds at my knees.
Behind me, Randall stepped back. another shadow draped over me. Sasmita reached over my head and grabbed the lock, and with a little blue flare, it clicked. She pushed it and the door swung open, revealing a dark room beyond.
I tilted my head to look up at her, hand still posed with the knife on the frame.
“Tada,” she said in an even tone.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed to my feet and sheathed my knife. I dusted my pant legs, making a show of not being in any kind of hurry to enter the building that Sasmita had just sprung for us.
Finally, I let out a sigh and spun around to face her. “How? How did you do that?”
“Just think about the tumblers inside. If you know how a lock works, it’s even easier.”
As much as I tried to pick up a snide note, or a tint of condescending to her words, she seemed pleasant enough.
“It’s a bit like how you do this. Here, step back.” She waved us away.
Randall and I backed up, stumbling over the crates and boxes. My calves touched the sofa, and I recoiled, careful not to make contact with anything else in the alley.
Sasmita turned to the Santa Claus figurine. She pressed her palm to it and pulsed blue magic. The figure exploded like an overfilled balloon. I ducked stray shrapnel.
Oh, yeah. That one.
What would Jada think if she knew about all these other magic tricks?
“I’m pretty sure you just got put on the naughty list, indefinitely,” I said, heading for the door.
Sasmita laughed as she and Randall joined me. Fiona lingered in the distance, but when I motioned to her, she started for us again.
“So, that is th
e same magic,” Sasmita said.
“Yeah, well,” I muttered, stepping into the room.
It was all the same magic, in the end.
“You used it to kill Winston,” she said. “You’ve done way harder since then.”
I made an ugh sound, and then patted the wall, searching for the light switch. When I found it, I flipped it back and forth, but no light came on.
“I don’t suppose you have—” I began.
Something darted in the shadows. I yelped, jumping backwards and stumbling into Randall. He caught our fall, and wrapped one arm around me, over my shoulder and down my front. I pressed my back to his chest, panting.
“We shouldn’t try to tangle with anything in the dark,” I whispered.
A small light flicked on. I jerked my head to see what magic Sasmita had conjured this time, but found she was holding a keychain flashlight.
I had never been more relieved about something mundane. It was silly—her superior magic skills benefited me too—but I still hated the continual reminders of how confusing my magic had become.
I sort of preferred being a lame witch better. The alternative had too many implications, none of which I could formulate into coherent thoughts.
Noises rustled in the corner. Sasmita swiped the flashlight beam across the room, revealing old buckets, mops and brooms, and overturned crates.
Nothing.
She moved the beam up and down the wall and over the area, but there was nothing but piles of junk.
Randall pulled his knife. I tapped into my returned magic, and I held my breath, listening.
Silence.
Sasmita turned back to us, barely illuminated, and shrugged.
With my free hand, I grabbed Fiona’s forearm. We inched through the room, Sasmita in front, scanning the beam back and forth like a searchlight. My foot caught on an industrial sized bottle of cleaner and I stumbled a few steps before catching my balance.
Randall strode forward and shoved open the door directly ahead. We crept out into a hallway, lit by a stream of dirty light filtering in through a window with a broken pane. The scent of musk and mold invaded my head, and I tried to breathe it out, without much luck. The dirty carpet crunched with each step, and I pulled my arms in, careful to avoid brushing against the walls.