Escape The Deep

by S T Branton

  “No tacos?”

  His eyes narrowed as he shook his head.

  “No. We don’t serve tacos except on Wednesdays,” he told me without the regret and dismay he rightfully should have felt.

  “Wednesdays? What the hell do you mean you don’t serve tacos except on Wednesdays? Who ever heard of Taco Wednesday?” I asked indignantly.

  I slid the menu back toward him in disgust.

  “We already had an established Tortellini Tuesday,” the bartender explained.

  I glared at him for a few seconds.

  “Well, that sounds delicious,” I said bitterly.

  “But you still want a taco?”

  “Yes,” I told him.

  “Sorry. Is there something else I can get for you? Beer?”

  “Sure.”

  My body sagged under the weight of the sheer taco disappointment. He grabbed a mug from the rack above his head, performed a masterful pour, and set the frothy drink in front of me.

  Bubbles bounced around in the pale brew. Cheap and approachable. Everything you’re looking for when you wander into a bar alone at night. I scooped up the mug and took a cautious sip. The flavor that filled my mouth was better than anything I’d ever tasted, and I swigged the rest at a speed about ten degrees to the left of dignified.

  “Another one?” the bartender asked as I wiped away the bits of foam clinging to my lips.

  The lingering taste of the beer lured me in, and I nodded. While I waited for my drink, I glimpsed the TV above the bar. A cable news show played with the volume turned off, but it was the chyron that caught my attention.

  Charleston Congressional Race Grabs National Attention.

  It wasn’t often I saw my hometown discussed on cable news, but I was about ten years out of date on politics. Maybe things had changed since my last civics class.

  The bartender pulled my thoughts from the TV when he returned with a beer and a paper plate.

  “You look like you could use this.”

  It wasn’t a taco, but it was almost as seductive. A slice of pizza hung off the sides of the plate, and the smell of pepperoni made me dizzy with desire. I snatched it before it even touched the bar and shoved a massive bite in my mouth. It was incredible.

  Washing it down with a swig of the fresh beer he set down beside me nearly put me in a state of delirium. I ripped off a chunk of the crust and subtly slipped it to Splinter. His happy little sounds reminded me I wasn’t the only one who was finally free.

  “Want to dance?”

  I was so swept up in the joy of my pizza and beer that I almost didn’t process the question. It took a repeat for me to turn and look at the man standing far too close to my barstool. His shirt was at least two sizes too small.

  “Dance?” The closest thing I’d had to a dance partner in a decade was a demon who wanted to rip my arms off and use them for a necktie.

  The man laughed and nodded. His teeth looked like he washed them twice daily with bleach.

  “Yeah. This is a great tune, don’t you think?”

  I listened for a few seconds, expecting another caterwauling country song, but heard a loud girl’s voice belting out an almost indecipherable ballad.

  “Who is this?”

  The man looked at me like he knew I’d popped an eyeball out of a goblin earlier.

  “Ariana Grande.”

  “Who?”

  His head tilted to the side.

  “Have you been living under a rock?”

  Sort of.

  “I’m not that big into…current music.”

  After finishing my beer in one swig, I met eyes with the bartender.

  “Another one?” he asked.

  I shook my head. Then an idea struck me. Shiny Teeth might be useful after all.

  “I’m going to dance, then this fine gentleman’s going to pay my tab.”

  He swept the mug away, and it disappeared into an unseen sink. I already missed it.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” the man said as we made our way to the dance floor. “Where are you from?”

  “Charleston,” I told him.

  “What are you doing in Summerville?”

  My breath caught in my throat. Summerville was only half an hour outside of Charleston. I maintained my composure and let him wrap an arm around my waist. There were at least six ways I could break that arm, but none that worked in rhythm with the music.

  “Just…visiting,” I answered.

  I was relaxing and enjoying the music when something I spotted out of the corner of my eye made my stomach sink.

  A troll stood not twenty feet away, his eyes locked on a woman I knew he had plans for. Plans she wouldn’t enjoy.

  Before taking the blame for my father, I didn’t know a lick about The Deep or The Heights, or of the presence of Farsiders among our world. Hell, I didn’t even like vampire romances. But some time in The Deep quickly brought me up to speed. It was like knowing people who carry designer bags.

  After long enough, you learn to spot the fakes. No matter how hard they try, a doctored-up tote isn’t ever going to be the real deal. This man might look like a nice, chiseled specimen of perfectly human bar-goer, but he was no Prada.

  Of course, no one else noticed the Farsider. People would like to think a troll plugging himself into a room with a bunch of humans would be obvious. Unfortunately, magic didn’t make it that simple.

  No one frequenting the bar could hope to see a massive, foul-smelling creature wedged onto one of the barstools and easily steer clear. Likewise, no big empty eyes or tufts of neon hair marked the troll’s presence. Farsiders were much more adept at hiding themselves, as Solon had taught me. But I could tell.

  I was onto him.

  If he wasn’t a troll, then I wasn’t Sara Effing Slick.

  I needed to get the imposter out. As convincing as his human-poser game was, it would all go to hell if something pissed him off. And it wouldn’t take much to piss him off. If I didn’t get him out before then, he could cause serious damage and take out a staggering number of these people before anyone knew what was going on.

  Fighting with a troll couldn’t have been a worse move for my plan of laying low, but I couldn’t let him hurt these people. I was a fugitive, not a monster.

  Giving an apologetic look to my dance partner, I gestured toward where I hoped the bathrooms were, silently communicating that he was on his own. I broke through the rest of the dancing bar-goers and into the other half of the room.

  My eyes locked on the tall figure who leaned back against a wall, his ankles crossed like he was channeling the Marlboro Man as he chatted up a visibly swaying, barely clothed woman. Trying to plaster a smile on to cover the plan, I swaggered my way over to the troll in disguise.

  “Hey,” I said as smoothly as my disgust toward the creature would allow.

  The slow turn of his head told me my mad flirting skills hadn’t had any effect.

  He looked me up and down. “Not interested,” he spat.

  He didn’t bother to even slightly change his posture but simply turned his head away. I was dismissed. Sucked for him. I’d used up all my dancing, flirting, and patience skills. All I had left was getting dirty. Taking a step closer, I leaned toward him.

  “Look, you Farfucker, your getup isn’t fooling me. We both know you aren’t human, so let’s make this easy and leave these people alone. There’s no reason to get them involved.”

  The rune around my neck had enough power left to fuel me through another fight. Combined with adrenaline in my veins and pizza in my gut, I could have taken him down right there. But it would be better not to make a scene if I could avoid it.

  “Back the fuck off.” He scowled. “I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Yeah, you are.” I reached into my pocket for my switchblade.

  Chapter Ten

  At the sight of my blade, the disguised troll let out a sound that was somewhere bet
ween a grunt and a choke, but that I interpreted as a mirthless laugh.

  “Just try. I could snap half these people into pieces before you did any damage with that cute little knife of yours. Where did you get that thing, anyway? Does it have a spoon? Maybe lip gloss?”

  That was it.

  Masquerade as a human to pick up chicks. Fine. Commit some egregious social faux pas. Also fine. Threatening innocent people and insulting my switchblade? Too fucking far.

  My thumb flicked the blade open.

  In one swift movement, I slashed the blade across his face. It wasn’t a deep blow, but thick green blood dripped from behind his human mask. Gross. And revealing. The startled troll leaned toward me, and as he did, I kicked his knee. Not an elegant move, but effective. Trolls are a little top-heavy, and his sudden movement paired with the attack on his legs threw him off balance.

  He crashed to the floor with a heavy thud.

  The humans around us gasped and scattered, some trying to get as far away as they could and others hovering nearby to watch the circus unfold. All they needed was some popcorn.

  Dropping on top of him, I flung a smile in the general direction of whoever was watching.

  “My brother,” I said apologetically. “Doesn’t know his limits. Can’t hold his mimosas. Don’t mind us.”

  I held the small blade against his neck, pushing it deep enough to let him know I meant business, while pretending to pat the troll’s face lovingly.

  “Get the hell up and come outside with me willingly, and we can make this easier,” I whispered through the gritted teeth of my forced smile.

  There were too many inquisitive human eyes on us right then for me to finish this inside the bar. I still needed to get him outside to do the final takedown, and it looked like that would be more challenging than I’d hoped.

  All the starry-eyed optimism of getting out of that prison had warped me into thinking this would be My Evening with the Troll: The Musical. No chance we would hold hands and skip along merrily as he followed me out of the bar and let me send him back whence he came.

  I climbed to my feet and the blade slipped from his neck, giving him time to move. He let out an infuriated roar and pushed himself up surprisingly fast for someone so large. Bloodshot eyes locked on mine. They held promise of a battle he thought would be swift and easy.

  My name might be infamous among Farlings, but they would never stop underestimating me. I was only human after all—and a short, starved woman at that. What could little old me do against such a big bad beast?

  But this beast didn’t know me, didn’t know how dirty this human woman was willing to fight. I might not have known everything about The Far, but I knew myself and what the skills Solon taught me made me capable of doing.

  He swung a massive fist at my head. It would have knocked me flat on my ass if it made contact, but being considerably smaller gave me the advantage. I ducked it easily and stabbed the soft flesh under his armpit. Then I moved in close to him, throwing my arms around his waist in a fake hug I hoped would conceal my knee plowing directly into his groin.

  “I know, Big Brother,” I said loudly enough for everyone around us to hear. “Learning you have shriveling dick disease is hard. But I’m sure the doctors will find the right medicine. Let’s get you home.”

  The wheezing sound that escaped him was a few octaves higher than the growl he’d been talking in earlier, and I grabbed the back of his shirt, thinking he might be easier to get outside in his incapacitated state.

  “I don’t know who you think you are, but you’ll regret coming in here. Playtime is over, little girl,” the troll snarled.

  It was almost immediately obvious I had miscalculated the intensity of the impact as the troll spun out of my grip.

  I turned and caught a face full of flying chair, sending me crashing backward into an ancient jukebox. Some fun honky-tonk music popping on would have added atmosphere to the fight, but it moved with me, and I realized it was unplugged. The soundtrack to the fight would have been nice, but I didn’t have much time to be disappointed. I reached back, grabbed the cord that snaked along the ground, then shot to my feet.

  He lowered his head as he charged me—a primitive battle tactic from the days when trolls wore large horned helmets into battle. That was a piece of information I’d told Solon would never come up. As usual, he was right and I was wrong.

  I sidestepped him easily, wrapping the cord in my hand around his neck and lassoing him to the ground. His skin turned a sickly green color, which I knew meant we were running out of time. The human image was cracking and the troll within was leaking through. I needed to get him out of the bar fast.

  Pulling tight, I hoped to knock him out, gaining enough control to drag his unconscious carcass out of here, but the troll hadn’t given up yet. He pushed himself up to his knees, and the muscles in his neck strained until they snapped the cord.

  Shit.

  “Stop trying to be a hero,” the troll growled.

  “Come on,” I said. “I see your true colors.” As I hoped, the onlookers picked up the song. “Listen to that. We didn’t need the jukebox after all.”

  The big boy was pissed and shoved me like a linebacker trying to break through the defense. My body went soaring, crashing through a door and landing on a sticky tiled floor just beyond. I pulled myself up, brushing my hands on my legs and wondering why they were suddenly wet, when I realized I wasn’t alone in the room.

  Standing in front of me, his hands still on his zipper, was a very confused, heavily intoxicated man in his early thirties. Gross. Trolls weren’t known for their manners, but tossing me into the grimy bar bathroom was just wrong. My new inebriated friend swayed a little as his brow creased, trying to figure out where I had come from. He didn’t have a lot of time to think it through, because the troll barreled in after me, and I dove to avoid him.

  He crashed into the mirror and dislodged a urinal from its place as his body slid down the wall. Before I had time to react, he grabbed the urinal and ripped it off the wall. Water sprayed everywhere as he flung it spiraling toward the confused patron, narrowly missing his skull.

  “Hey…” he said in a tone that suggested that he realized something was offensive about the situation at hand, but he couldn’t quite place what it was yet.

  I didn’t stick around to let him finish his thought. I ran headlong into the troll’s stomach, ramming the back of his head into the shattered mirror.

  “You have got to stop throwing stuff. Keep your hands, feet, and urinals to yourself.”

  He let out a roar of pain and clubbed my back, but I yanked my knee up and planted it firmly into his gut.

  Unfortunately, trolls have quite a sizeable gut. He wheezed for a moment and crumpled, but suddenly exploded forward again, sending us crashing into the stalls. I rolled with the momentum and found myself behind him as he climbed up from the remains of one of the old wooden doors.

  I hopped up on his back and wrapped my arms around his throat, hoping to choke him into submission. At first, he thrashed and grabbed at me, but then he resorted to running backward at the wall. After the first bone-crushing smash, I kicked out my legs on the way back and as soon as they were in touch with the concrete I straightened my knees, propelling us both out of the door and back into the main room.

  “He feels so much better now,” I announced.

  The scattered applause reminded me of why drunk people were simultaneously some of my favorite and least favorite people before getting sent to The Deep.

  I tumbled off the troll and saw him slumped against the wall, seething with rage. A fluff of pink soap foam he must have collected during his encounter with the sink clung to his hair, taking some of the edge off his intimidation factor. Now he looked like a real troll.

  A hand touched my wrist, pulling me back, and a man stepped in front of me. It took a few seconds for me to process that it was the bartender who had poured me the heavenly beer to soothe my taco heartache.

&n
bsp; “I’ll take care of him for you,” he said heroically.

  Of course. Now he decided to swoop in and help. Not when a chair was flying at my face. Not when I was flopping around on the bathroom floor trying not to let any bare skin touch the tile. But now that I had already done the fight equivalent of loosening the jar lid for him. Outstanding.

  “Oh, shit,” I muttered under my breath. Ducking around him, I inserted myself between the two men again. “It’s fine,” I said. “I’ve got this.”

  “You leave her alone,” the bartender demanded. “Get out of here.”

  “I’ve really got this. We used to roughhouse like this all the time as kids. I just need to get him home.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Stretching my face into another smile I hoped would come across as confident and pleasant rather than terrifying, I turned to face the bartender again.

  “Absolutely,” I told him.

  His eyes grew wider than I would have thought the word warranted, and I whipped around to see the troll holding the jukebox over his head.

  Shit. Apparently, he thought we did still need it.

  The troll took a step forward as he lifted the jukebox higher. All pretense of this being a normal bar fight had officially evaporated. These humans would have a story to tell tomorrow, a story that would reach all the way to the Philosopher’s Guild. Which sucked for me. But it also meant that there was no more reason for me to pull my punches.

  Shoving the bartender out of the way, I darted to one side, hoping to divert the troll’s attention. It worked, and he launched the jukebox in that direction rather than at the crowd. I tried to drop to the ground to roll away, but the corner caught me in the back of the shoulder. Rather than a smooth Bond-esque move to escape the assault, I ended up crashing through a table and narrowly avoided the discography of several generations past crushing my head.

  If it wasn’t for the strength Solon’s locket gave me, a blow like that would have knocked me out of commission. Even with the rune, it hurt like hell.

  I looked down at myself. Piss and blood covered my new coat, and I even noticed a chunk of the troll’s hair plastered to the leather.