by Sam Cheever
“Why are you holding that creature? And you’re grinning at me. You know it makes me uncomfortable when you grin at me.”
“Hello, Naida.”
The voice didn’t register at first. I blinked, my mind trying to wrap itself around what I’d heard.
And then it hit me. Rustin?
5
At Last a Friend
My gaze whipped around.
Rustin was standing a few feet away, looking solid and happy and…really good.
Not trusting that he was real, I didn’t try to touch him. I couldn’t face the disappointment if he was a figment of my imagination. Goddess knew, if Sebille was grinning at me, it was highly possible I was stroking out on the spot. “I…” I forced my mouth to close and swallowed. “Rustin? How?”
Sebille laughed gaily.
I jumped, looking at her as if she’d been replaced by a doppelganger. But that wouldn’t be right either. Doppelgangers generally represented the ugly side of a person’s personality. The evil side. But then Sebille’s normal personality was pretty ugly. So maybe…
Yeah, I was definitely having a stroke. I reached up to see if one side of my face felt funny.
“It’s really him, Naida,” the Sprite told me. “He’s back.”
I looked at the witch, my gaze forming a silent question.
He nodded. “It’s true. Well, mostly. I’m here for a while. I can’t stay.”
The hope that had started to build in my soul sizzled and died, leaving me with a crestfallen look. “You can’t stay?”
“Probably not…”
Sebille hurried over and held up her hands, showing me the cute, multi-hued dragon, lizard thing. The little creature cocked its adorable head at me and burped, blowing pink and green and purple smoke into the air. “He’s hiding in Sadie.”
Crestfallen transformed to confused. My poor face was going to have muscle spasms at the current rate of emotional upheaval. “I don’t understand.”
“The experiments with Margot have been…” his handsome face folded into a frown. “Intense. I just needed some time to rest.”
As if his words were a veil being pulled away from him, I noticed the purple arcs beneath his piercing blue gaze and the weary slope of his broad shoulders.
Tired he might be, but he was still adorable.
A few years older than me, Rustin had thick, black hair that fell over his forehead to give him a boyish look and a classically perfect nose. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles that made him look slightly geeky, which I found irresistible.
Sebille’s words finally sunk in. “You’re hiding? Madeline doesn’t know you’re here?”
“Hopefully, she doesn’t know I’m even gone. Not yet.”
Sebille held Sadie up to her face and touched noses with the little creature, making nauseating cooing noises.
I grimaced, glancing at Rustin and finding him grinning. Suddenly, the reality sank in, and color infused my face as pleasure blossomed. “You’re really here.”
He opened his arms and I hurried into them, resting my head against a delightfully solid chest. He felt warm and wonderfully real. “You’re not ethereal anymore?” I could no longer call him ghost witch. Though the habit was pretty ingrained. I’d probably still do it.
He laughed. “No. During the time I’m able to be outside of my host, I’m perfectly normal.”
“What’s Madeline going to do when she finds out you’re gone,” I asked.
“She’ll be irritated. As soon as she figures out where I’ve gone, she’ll probably yank me back.”
Sebille’s bright green eyes went wide. “What about Sadie?”
Rustin shrugged. “I just don’t know. Maude assured me she’d be safe.”
“This was Maude’s spell?” As soon as I said the words, I realized the answer was obvious. Maude had orchestrated the whole thing. “She helped you get away. Madeline’s not going to be happy.”
“No,” he agreed. “But she thinks the sun rises and sets on that girl. Maude will be able to exert some control on Maddie.”
“Hopefully, my problem will help. It should keep Madeline busy for a couple of days anyway.”
“What problem?” Rustin asked. He dropped gracefully into a chair at the little reading table by the shelves.
“I’ll make tea,” Sebille said, happily.
I quickly filled him in on the dimensional wrinkle and my worries for Slimy and Bessy.
Rustin listened carefully but didn’t comment.
“What do you know about dimensional faults?” I asked the ghost witch.
“Not much. I don’t think anybody knows all that much. It’s a gray area in the Universe.”
Sebille set tea in front of each of us. I looked up to find Sadie peering down at me from Sebille’s shoulder. The little critter blinked and seemed to smile, her black lips curving upward to show me a lot of white teeth and two tiny fangs.
She really was cute.
“Thanks, Sebille,” I said.
Rustin nodded in agreement. “This smells delicious.”
Sebille returned to grab her own tea, and Rustin continued. “The PTBs are tied to the individual dimensions, as you know. One Power That Be is assigned to each one. And when dimensional magics go wonky, there are jurisdictional issues that need to be worked out.”
“What does that mean?” Sebille asked, sliding into the last chair with her tea.
“If this is what Madeline thinks it is, there’s a fold in the dimensions. When a plan folds, it partially encompasses another dimension. The two basically share the same space. That shared area creates a problem of jurisdictional management that affects everything from, who enforces Universal Laws, to how artifacts are managed and controlled.” He gave me a meaningful glance.
“Is that why Madeline says she’ll only give me two days to get Slimy and Bessy out of there?”
“It might be. Though, I’ve heard the spell to snip a wrinkle is complex. Only a really experienced witch can perform it. She might need every bit of that time to write the spell. And/or she’s trying to fix the issue before the other affected PTB finds out about it. That would be the simplest thing for everybody.”
I thought about the face of the person on the ladder and the cowbell I’d pulled off Bessy and asked, “When the two dimensions are sharing space, is it possible to see only part of an object in that space?”
Rustin nodded. “It’s called spacial bleed through. It’s a pretty common, though short-lived phenomena.” He frowned.
“What is it?” I asked.
Rustin shrugged. “Madeline might want to minimize this wrinkle for another reason. She’d never admit this to you but…” He hesitated as if trying to decide whether to go on.
“But what?” Sebille asked.
“There’s another problem. A couple of PTBs have gone missing. And others, not many, but enough to be concerning, have been compromised.”
I thought about the Power That Be who we’d faced off with not that long ago. He’d definitely been compromised, and when we’d confronted him, he’d turned into a giant stink bug and shot stinky goo at us. I shuddered violently at the memory. “The thing is, I don’t know if I can spring the frog and cow that fast. I have no idea how to accomplish it,” I told Rustin.
I looked up into Rustin’s blue eyes. “She told me it’s never been done. That there was no way I could find Slimy and bring him back.” I sniffed, appalled to feel tears burning my eyes.
Rustin stared at me for a long moment. Then he nodded. “She’s probably right.”
I stiffened, despair turning my lips downward.
But Rustin went on. “It probably hasn’t ever been done.” Then he grinned and the spiders crawling around in my stomach stilled. “But that will only make it sweeter when we manage to do it.”
“What are you thinking?” Sebille asked. Sadie scampered over her shoulder, across the back of her neck and over the other shoulder. The little creature flapped her small wings as if trying to fly and bur
ped tiny clouds of multi-hued smoke. Between burps, she chittered softly, her whole demeanor one of happiness and excitement.
I could see why Sebille was so captivated by her.
Rustin glanced around. “Where’s Hobs?”
His question brought Maude’s strange statement back to me. “He’s around here someplace.” I narrowed my gaze on the ghost witch. “Maude mentioned Hobs too. What are you two thinking?”
Rustin shook his head. “Nobody ever knows what Maude’s thinking.” He smiled. “But I was thinking that hobgoblins are really good at inter-dimensional travel.”
I had a head-smack moment. “Of course!”
Sebille reached up and gave Sadie her palm, lowering the little creature to the tabletop and smiling as she took off running, circling enthusiastically around Rustin and my teacups. “You’re thinking he could travel across the wrinkle and grab Slimy?”
Rustin nodded. “I’m not sure he’s got the magical mojo to pull the cow over with him. But he should be able to manage the frog bus, no problem.”
I grinned at the old name we’d had for Mr. Slimy, when he’d been the vehicle that allowed Rustin to exist after his body had been stolen from him. “I’ll see if I can find him.”
Sebille scooped up the tiny lizard, inadvertently sending a fragrant puff of smoke into the air as she carefully wrapped her fingers around the slender, five-inch-long reptile. “We’re going to need a lot of frosted brownies to keep him in line.”
Sebille was right. Once we took Hobs to a working farm, he was going to get himself into all kinds of mischief. “I’ll bring Wicked too. Hopefully, he can help us keep the hobgoblin in line.”
Famous last words, best-laid plans, and good intentions. Shame on me for thinking I had a handle on any of them. I needed someone to smack the idea right out of me whenever I’m tempted to develop any of the above-mentioned things.
Or, I could just wait until fate and reality poked me in the eye, and drove my hopes and dreams right out of my mind on a wave of irritation and pain.
It shouldn’t take long.
6
Again!
Thank the goddess the rain had stopped and the ground had mostly dried out as the sun and wind did their jobs to put things back to rights.
Mr. Wicked bounced over the bumpy pasture ground, happily batting at anything that moved, whether wind-blown or spurred by survival instincts after spotting us trudging along behind the cat.
Hobs rode on Rustin’s shoulders, his expressive face filled with delight and his nostrils flaring to take in the dubious fragrance of the post-torrential-rain farm experience.
Without warning, Hobs jumped to his feet and leaped over Rustin’s head, landing beside Wicked and mimicking his bug-hunting antics.
I grinned despite myself.
“Those two were made for each other,” Rustin said. I glanced his way to find him smiling too.
There was no happiness of any kind being exuded by the third member of our little group. In fact, in direct contrast to our enjoyment of the day and the moment, much harrumphing was going on right behind us.
I turned to find Sebille, her long, freckled face glowing pink with anger and folded into a glower of Sebille-like proportions. She was carefully picking her way across the bumpy and occasionally water-filled pocks that made up the pasture’s surface. The Sprite was mad that Lea had canceled at the last minute and Rustin had shamed her into joining us. She was mad about the mud, about the wind, about the bugs, the smell, the animals, the fact that toothpaste was twenty cents more expensive than last week. Basically, she was mad about everything there was to be mad about.
In a rare concession to practicality over fashion, Sebille had donned canvas coveralls that made her look like a car mechanic and wore sneakers rather than her usual glossy red Wicked Witch of the West shoes.
The sneakers were red. Of course. And, at the moment, one of them was dark with water and mud. The cuffs of her coveralls were stiff with muck.
Apparently, Sebille wasn’t having much luck avoiding the small amount of water still left on the ground. I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t smile at her discomfort.
Seeing the Sprite so discomfited over a bit of nature was a delightful irony since her kind is supposed to be at their most comfortable cradled in Mother Nature’s arms.
Unlike her family, the City Sprite, as I called her, would rather embrace her favorite television shows on a sixty-inch flat-screen TV and eat carry-out tacos than snuggle up to a vibrant green plant under a great, blue sky.
Never had my favorite moniker for my assistant seemed more appropriate.
“Where did Slimy disappear?” Rustin asked after several minutes of walking.
“Oh.” I’d been so fixated on my cat and the hobgoblin, and then Sebille’s reaction to being forced to embrace nature, that I’d almost forgotten what we were there for. “In that barn over there.”
Sebille stopped beside me, her iridescent green gaze going wide as she took in the ramshackle building. “That doesn’t look safe.”
“It’s perfectly safe,” I assured her, before realizing that wasn’t entirely true. “Structure-wise,” I amended. “Dimensional-wrinkle-wise, it’s not safe at all.”
Sebille rolled her eyes. Which was, unfortunately, her favorite response whenever I opened my mouth and words came out.
The ground rumbled beneath our feet. I jerked to a stop, going very still. “Do you think that’s the wrinkle growing?”
Rustin’s gaze slid past me, his dark eyebrows lifting at something he was seeing in the distance. “I’m thinking maybe it’s because of that.”
Sebille and I turned to see what he was looking at as the ground continued to vibrate beneath our shoes.
A dark shape thundered in our direction, dust rising in plumes above the ground around it. Horns curved toward the sky on either side of a long head, making the thing look like a…
“Is that a demon?” Sebille asked.
I watched it come, the thunderous beat of its progress throbbing in my chest, the shape was thick, bumpy, and a shiny circle pierced the thing’s dark, angry face. I suddenly realized what it was. “Eagle’s entrails!” I yelled, starting to turn. “Run!”
Rustin seemed to realize what it was at the same time I did. He yelped something at Sebille and started running, his footsteps so close to mine I think he stepped on the backs of my shoes a couple of times.
I barely noticed. At that point, I was pretty sure there were tiny little wings on my feet. I barely touched down as my legs stretched underneath me, and my shoes unerringly found the smooth patches of earth between the cow bumps.
A long, high-pitched sound inserted itself into my consciousness. I realized after a moment that it was Sebille. She was screeching as she ran, her fire-red braids streaming out behind her as she jetted past both Rustin and me. Sadie stood backward on her shoulder like a reverse figurehead, her slanted eyes wide as she took in the monster racing after us. The rainbow reptile’s mouth was moving. She was probably chittering excitedly, but I couldn’t hear her over the oncoming thunder of the enormous bull’s approach, and the cacophonous pounding of my own heart.
“We need to get to the barn!” I screamed to my friends, even as I comprehended that we’d never make it. Sebille was ten yards ahead of us and flying fast. I realized she would have shifted into fairy form already if she didn’t have the little dragon riding her shoulder. But the Sprite wasn’t letting that slow her down. I was pretty sure she was tapping into her Fae magics to give her unnatural speed.
“We’re never going to outrun it,” Rustin yelled.
Sebille half turned her head, her expression filled with terror. “I don’t need to outrun the bull. I just need to outrun one of you.”
“Ha, ha!” I yelled over the rumble of hooves. “Very funny.”
My heart pounded frantically against my ribs. I sucked desperate gulps of air that were making my chest hurt. And my legs burned as if somebody had set fire to my muscles
.
I was starting to think I’d drop dead from exhaustion before the bull even got to me.
And still, the barn didn’t seem to be getting any closer.
We were doomed!
A shrill cackle stabbed horror through my gasping chest.
The rumbling hooves behind us stuttered, slowed, and finally eased to a halt.
I ran several more steps before I heard the cackle again. Skimming to a stop, I whipped around and saw my worst nightmare turned real.
The bull stood about fifteen yards away, eyes so filled with rage they seemed to glow red in the afternoon sunlight. It was massive, its hairy chest heaving from the efforts of the acre-wide dash to kill and maim us. The thing’s head was bigger than I would be in the fetal position, which I was about to drop into as I looked up at Hobs, sitting astride the monster’s back, his spidery fingers clasped around the deadly curved horns and his enormous blue eyes wide with excitement.
Wicked bounced over to me, rubbing against my calf and purring as if his best friend hadn’t just climbed up onto the devil and asked for a bumpy ride to Hades.
“Bull boogers,” I murmured.
“Is that safe?” Rustin asked as if he’d never met the hobgoblin.
“Of course it’s not safe,” Sebille said from behind us…wayyyyy…behind us. “The hobgoblin’s an idiot.”
The bull forcefully snorted air through its huge nostrils, tiny droplets of bull snot spraying out to coat the air around its ridiculously enormous head.
The demonic bovine suddenly flew into the air, twisting and bucking and flinging its head down in an attempt to dislodge the intelligence-challenged invader on its back.
Hobs giggled like a maniac, keeping his hold on the horns even as he was flung forward, off the bull’s back and whipped through the air above the bull’s head like a bad comb-over in the wind.