“How? I can’t cloak it. I don’t know how.”
“You can use fire,” he suggested. “Burn it to ash, and then we’ll dump the remains in the cauldron.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Sounds to me like you’ve dined and ashed before.”
“Dine and ash?” he queried.
I waved a hand. “It’s a play on ‘dine and dash.’ A Terrene expression. A dumb joke. Forget it.”
Hilda returned to see that our plates were still full. “Is something not to your liking?”
“We’re so sorry,” I said. “It’s not a reflection on your culinary skills at all. We’re worried about our friends.”
“Friends?” she repeated. “I thought it was one friend.”
“Yes, one friend was kidnapped by a demon,” I said. “But there were originally five of us in the search party. Three of us were taken by flying three-headed dogs.”
Hilda gave me a knowing look. “Guardians at the gate?”
I nodded. “They’re like me. Vessels.” I resisted the urge to cringe. I didn’t like referring to myself as a vessel. A vessel was an object.
“Do you know where they might have been taken?” Gray asked.
Hilda tapped her fingers on the table. “Could be a number of places. My best guess is a holding cell. Once they determine they’re vessels, they’ll be sent back to the overworld.”
Her answer surprised me. “They’ll let them go? Without hurting them?”
“Depends,” Hilda said. “Chances are the underworld bureaucracy won’t be interested in a public relations disaster. They’ll likely release them unharmed with a warning not to return unless they’re dead.”
That was the best news I’d heard all day.
Hilda studied Gray. “You should eat. A vampire like you needs to keep up his strength. Protect his young companion.”
He laughed. “She does fine on her own.”
“Praise for a woman?” Hilda remarked. “Not a sentiment I hear very often.”
“That’s a shame,” I said. “Gray is one of the good ones.”
“I don’t know about that,” Hilda replied. “In my experience, men are all bad. It’s simply a matter of degrees.”
Alrighty then. “I’m sorry you’ve had such negative experiences, Hilda,” I said diplomatically.
“Just you wait, my dear. You’re young. When you reach my age, you’ll share my point of view.” Her gaze drifted to the cauldron when it began to bubble. “Let me turn down the heat, so it doesn’t spill over.”
She reduced the flame and went back into the kitchen.
“Morrow, I need you to do something,” Gray said quietly.
I leaned forward. “What’s that?”
“I have a theory, but I need your magic.” He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Hilda wasn’t on her way back to the table. “Do you know any reveal spells?”
I bit my lip. “No, I don’t think so. What does it do?”
“Reveals magic at work.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Or we can use your blood.”
My heart jolted. “What do you mean?”
“Remember when your blood broke through the ward at Thumpkin Enterprises?” he asked. Gray and I had investigated a real estate developer and had broken into his warded office to search for clues. My blood accidentally spilled, collapsing the ward and allowing us entry.
I nodded. “I didn’t know I had blood magic then.”
“Similar to the ward, if you drop a trace amount of your blood on something that’s been manipulated by magic, it should break the spell.”
My brow lifted. “My blood is that potent?”
“Depends on the power of the original spellcaster, but my instinct is that your blood magic trumps whatever this witch can conjure.”
“So, you want me to drip blood on our food?” Even though I wasn’t easily grossed out, the idea was pretty disgusting.
“No.” He jerked his head to the side. “Let’s take a look at that livestock.”
The livestock? “Why? You think she’s created the meat by magic?” I’d heard of mystery meat, but magical meat was on a whole different level.
He scraped back his chair. “Come on, before she comes back.”
We slipped out the front door and walked around the side of the inn to the field. He vaulted over the fence like an Olympic gymnast, whereas I stared at it for a moment before getting my food lodged in between the posts and nearly falling backward.
Gray chuckled. “You move like a water nymph, Morrow.”
“Hey,” I objected, climbing over the fence and promptly landing in a mud puddle.
Two pigs came over to greet us, snorting and snuffling. I patted the closer one on the head, and immediately felt guilty for nearly devouring the roast pork.
“No time like the present,” Gray said.
I pulled out the dagger that was strapped to the inside of my calf and made a shallow cut across my palm. Blood sprinkled on the pig’s head. Sparks flew off the pig’s body and his limbs began to stretch. His snout reformed and his body grew tall and thin.
“Sweet mother of bacon,” I breathed.
An older man stood before us, his face wrinkled and tired. “Thank you,” he said.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Kristoff,” he said. “I was Hilda’s husband.”
“But she said you left her.” My mind was grappling with the pig’s transformation.
He shook his head sadly. “She wouldn’t allow me to leave. She was unhappy with me because I was not able to support us in the lifestyle she desired. This was my punishment.”
I glanced at the other pig. “What about him?”
Kristoff sighed gently. “She began to take her rage with me out on other men. Travelers who stopped for a meal ended up in the field with me. Some ended up as dinner for customers.”
A wave of nausea rolled over me. “How does she do it?”
“A potion in the cider.” He frowned. “You didn’t drink it, did you?”
Before I could panic, Gray placed a comforting hand on my arm. “It’s because you’re a vessel. It didn’t work.”
“And you didn’t drink it,” I said, grateful.
Kristoff inclined his head toward the pig. “This is Tom. He’s been here a month. There are a few chickens, too.”
I sprinkled blood on Tom’s head, and he morphed into a minotaur.
“You have my deepest thanks,” Tom said.
Once the other animals witnessed the transformations, they flocked to me for their turn. Only the goat remained in the background, lurking and watching.
“What about you?” I said, approaching the small horned animal.
“No can do, blossom,” the goat said, and I jumped back about a foot.
“You can talk? Then why can’t I change you back?”
The goat bleated. “The old witch didn’t turn me. This happened in the overworld.”
“I might still be able to break the spell,” I said. I dripped a bit of blood onto his white head and waited. Nothing happened.
“Nope. Didn’t think so. It’s cool. I didn’t expect any miracles. The name’s Clyde, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Clyde. I’m Bryn, and that’s my friend, Gray.”
The goat regarded Gray, who was talking to the former pigs and chickens. “He’s a vamp, right?”
“He is.”
“You’re some kind of witch?” Clyde asked.
Before I could answer, the side door opened and Hilda appeared outside. Her eyes widened when she realized what had happened, and she turned and tried to run inside. She wasn’t fast enough. Her victims grabbed her arms and held her firmly in place.
“What are you planning to do?” I asked, approaching the group. Clyde trotted beside me.
Gray voiced my concern. “We can’t let you kill her.”
“Why not?” one of the victims said. A dwarf. “Do you know how many men she’s butchered over the years?”
Kristof
f stepped forward. “Been a long time, Hilda.”
She peered at him, as though she barely recognized him. “Is it really you?”
He nodded. “It is.”
Hilda spat on the ground near my feet. “I knew I shouldn’t have allowed a witch inside my inn.”
So much for the sweet old lady routine.
“You will serve out your punishment the same way we served ours,” Kristoff told her.
Her lower lip began to tremble. “Please, dear husband. I beg you.”
The older man’s expression grew sad. “I said please. Begged you for mercy. You made me say it over and over, yet you still cast your wicked spell on me.”
Hilda squirmed in their tight grip. “Please don’t butcher me.”
“I have no intention of butchering you,” Kristoff said. “I shall put you to work in the field as my ox.”
Hilda gasped. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Someone fetch the cider,” Kristoff said. “Please.”
I peeked at Gray to see whether he agreed with the older man’s decision. He offered a quiet nod in response.
“We’ll leave you to it then,” I said. “We really need to be moving on.”
The goat bounded in front of me. “Take me with you, pretty please. I don’t want to stay here. This whole experience has scarred me for life. Or death. Both, really.”
I shot a quizzical look at Gray.
“How well do you know this terrain?” Gray asked.
“Super well,” Clyde said excitedly. “I can escort you anywhere you need to go. I know this underworld like it’s my own backyard.”
“We lost our map,” I said. “And we need to find the palace of a demon called Abraxas.”
“Ohhh,” Clyde said. “I’ve heard of that one. Nasty sucker. Likes to treat women as trophies.” The goat shot a disgruntled look in Hilda’s direction. “Not so different from that one.”
“He’s said to have built a palace on the other side of the blue hills,” Gray said. “Do you know where that is?”
“The blue hills? Do I ever?” Clyde replied. “Terrific hillsides over that way.”
While the men dragged Hilda inside to serve out her sentence, we left via the back gate.
“So, what’s your story, Clyde?” I asked. “How’d you end up at the inn?”
“A traveler found me in a field and hooked me to his cart. He traded me to the witch in exchange for a night’s lodging and a meal.”
“Did you know what she was doing?” Gray asked.
“Yep, so I pretended to be a regular goat. I figured I’d live longer if she didn’t know I’d been of the male persuasion in the overworld.”
“Who turned you into a goat?” I asked.
“A sorceress by the name of Lyssa.”
Gray smirked. “What’d you do to piss her off?”
“I wasn’t the most upstanding of citizens in my former life,” Clyde admitted. “I made my living selling potions on the road.”
“What kind of potions?” I asked.
The goat bleated. “The kind that didn’t really work. I was a charlatan, essentially. By the time they realized they’d been had, I was long gone.”
“Until you crossed Lyssa,” I said.
“Yep. She caught up with me and destined me to an eternity as a goat. Banished my soul to this underworld, and I’ve been here ever since.”
“That’s unfortunate,” I said.
“I deserved it,” Clyde said simply. He paused at a crossroads. “Blue hills are this way.”
“You’re sure?” I queried.
The goat blinked up at me. “My charlatan days are long over, Bryn. I’m on the up and up now. All good, all the time.”
“No one is all good, all the time,” I said.
“We’re glad to have you along for the journey,” Gray said.
Clyde trotted beside me as we made our way down a dirt path. “Speaking of all good, that was a good thing you did back there for those men.”
“Gray’s the one that figured out there was something rotten in Denmark,” I said.
“Huh?” Clyde turned to Gray. “Does she always say weird minotaur shit like that?”
“She’s from Terrene,” Gray explained.
“Really?” Clyde put a spring in his step. “How exciting! A witch from Terrene.”
“What were you?” I asked. “A wizard?”
“A reasonable guess, but no,” Clyde said. “I was a hamadryad.”
“A tree nymph?” I queried. “Why were you selling potions?”
“I told you, they weren’t real,” Clyde replied. “I wanted to see the world, not spend the rest of my life in the same forest like every other hamadryad I knew.”
“So you decided to sell false hope to innocent paranormals,” Gray said archly.
“More or less,” Clyde said. “Hey, I’m not proud, and I’ve more than paid for my sins as a goat in this thankless realm. I’m sure you’ve noticed, but it’s not a pretty place.”
“We’ve had some interesting experiences so far,” I said. “I’d really like to find our friend, though.” I was so worried about Cerys.
“If she’s with Abraxas, I don’t blame you,” Clyde said. “That demon is bad news. You don’t want to hear the details.”
No, I really didn’t.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got any food,” Clyde continued. “I’m so hungry, I could eat a unicorn.” He hesitated. “Not that I would ever do that. Unicorns are amazing creatures. They deserve our respect.”
“Don’t worry, Clyde,” Gray assured him. “We’re not the unicorn police.”
“Phew.” Clyde jogged alongside me. “Just promise me we can stop for food.”
“She promises,” Gray said, winking at me. “Trust me.”
12
“What in the underworld?” I breathed.
As we emerged from a thicket, I spotted a traditional two-story house complete with a manicured lawn and a white picket fence. White shutters and tastefully arranged flower boxes adorned each window.
Gray nudged me. “Try not to look so freaked out, Morrow. It’s only a house.”
“Yes, but why is it here?” The normal house seemed out of place amongst the ice monsters and unsettling landscape of the underworld. “There’s nothing else for miles.”
“There might be more houses just beyond it,” Gray said. “We won’t know until we get there.”
“I thought I came this way before,” Clyde said. “But I don’t remember this house.”
Gray eyed him closely. “Are you sure you’re not leading us astray, goat?”
“The name is Clyde,” he sniffed. “And, yes, I’m sure. It’s been a little while since I passed this way. It could have been built between now and then. This is the nether. Building permits aren’t exactly a priority.”
The front door creaked open, and I shot Gray a wary look. “What do you think?”
“I think it looks too good to be true,” he said. “Except for the picket fence. No self-respecting vampire would ever choose to surround his house with a death trap like that.”
“Vampires don’t have fences?” The thought had never occurred to me.
“My family has a moat,” he replied, as though a natural barrier was the most normal thing in the world.
“A moat?” Clyde queried. “You’re one of those aristocratic vampires, huh?”
“He’s Graydon Alastair Mappleworth III,” I said. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s a wealthy momma’s vampire.”
I snorted. “I don’t know about the momma part, but the rest is accurate.”
Gray fixed me with a hard stare. “We don’t want to start talking about families, do we?”
No, we most certainly did not. I faced the charming house. “The door’s ajar. What if it’s a sign that Cerys is in there?”
Gray scrutinized the house. “This doesn’t strike me as the type of place Abraxas would own. He’s supposed to have a palace, remember?”
“You said we needed to go beyond the blue hills,” Clyde said. “We’re not there yet.”
The sound of gentle laughter filled the air. It seemed to emanate from inside the house.
“We should at least investigate,” I said. I looked down at Clyde. “I bet there’s food.”
Clyde considered the possibility. “You go ahead and check it out. I’ll wait here.”
Gray seemed uncertain. “Most things in the underworld are unpleasant. I don’t see why this place should be the exception. The house may be pretty, but it’s like putting lipstick on a goblin.”
“The door’s already open,” I said. “How about we poke our heads in? If it seems like a bad idea, we’ll make a run for it.”
“Okay, Morrow. One quick peek and we’re moving on. Got it?”
I pushed open the front gate and strode up the brick pathway to the porch, where two empty rocking chairs flanked a small wooden table. “I could picture sitting here on a hot day with a nice glass of iced tea.”
Gray rested a hand on the back of the chair. “No sun down here, Morrow. The only heat is from all the blue fire and brimstone. Try to keep that in mind when you’re daydreaming about spending quality time here.”
“I’m not suggesting I make it my vacation home,” I said. I hovered in front of the partially open door, inhaling the wonderful aroma of…chili? “Do you smell that?”
Gray sniffed the air. “I don’t smell anything. Are you sure you’re not part werewolf?”
“Only when it comes to food.”
We crossed the threshold into the house. The foyer was bright and inviting, with cheerful yellow walls and a winding wooden staircase to the second floor.
“Hello,” I called. Despite the absence of a response, I had no desire to leave. The interior was captivating. “If I had to describe a happy home, this would be it.”
Gray seemed equally captivated. “It’s much cozier than the house I grew up in. I could imagine living in a place like this.”
“Really?” Hadn’t he just made fun of me for having a similar thought outside? I wasn’t sure. The memory was now escaping me. “I want to see the living room.” I took him by the hand. “Come on.”
Outlast: Spellslingers Academy of Magic (Warden of the West Book 3) Page 11