by Danny Bell
“Ugh.” I sighed, refreshing the app on my phone for the tenth time. “Walk it or split it?”
“Split it?”
“Or, and hear me out, we walk it?”
“Monstrously bad idea,” Ann countered.
“Do you really have an extra twenty bucks right now?” I asked, glancing down at the bag with the remaining potions. “Because I don’t. Besides, there’s two of us and it’s, like, two blocks.”
“Lincoln is not at all two blocks!” Ann nearly shouted.
“Two major blocks,” I corrected. “Besides, I’ve got a lot of energy and very few dollars, and I know you feel that. If we can’t walk a mile to my car, we have zero chance of saving the city.”
A middle-aged man with a spray tan and a blonde crew cut drunkenly fell between us, putting an arm around each of us. “Did you say you need to save the city?” he slurred, looking at each of us. His tiki-style shirt smelled like it had been soaked in Old Spice and then drowned in an IPA.
“Hey, look, that’s your Uber,” Ann replied smoothly, slipping away from him.
The man’s attention was fully turned to someone else’s ride as he stumbled his way into an unfortunate conversation.
“So, we’re walking or hanging out with that guy?” I asked.
We watched as the man tried to climb into an occupied Prius, and I prepared for the ensuing scene. Ann grunted in resignation and stomped across the street.
There was a significant difference in the level of noise and stimulation once we’d made it across the street and even more of a difference was noticeable when we’d walked another block after that. Soon, the roads seemed to be empty, save for the two of us, and making the trip through the residential areas made it so even the sounds of cars were distant.
The rain, if you could even call it that, was nothing more than mist with a couple of legit droplets occasionally breaking through. It was still more than enough to wreak havoc with my hair even with my hood pulled up and, with time, it had soaked everything from the roads to the rooftops.
Magically speaking, it wasn’t a problem yet, but it would be. Running water is a problem with magical beings and energy all throughout mythology. Some things, like the Nuckelavee I fought last year, can’t cross running water; others are hurt by the rain. Even holy water has always had the water half of the equation prove just as necessary as the holy bit. Something about it is purifying and washes everything clean, both seen and unseen.
For someone like me, it was like static. In a mist like this, magical signals would still be clear enough, but trying to pull at those same threads in a downpour would be infinitely more complicated and require my full concentration for the simple things, and even that might not be enough.
I had no idea if it would be worse or not for Ann. On the one hand, her magical output was nothing at all to get excited about. At my absolute weakest, when a Blister shield and a couple of evocations without my rod wore me out for the day, I still had more juice than Ann. At the same time, she seemed to understand magic on some preternatural level. For shit’s sake, she made a goddamn spellbook. She made the most of what she had, so who knows? Maybe the rain wouldn’t bother her much at all. Magically, that is. Ann was already shivering through her mustard yellow hoodie and was continually wiping her glasses. All I could think about was how exciting it was going to be to break out my hat collection when we got back.
We eventually made it to Lincoln Boulevard. Jaywalking in the rain was always a risky proposition, but we went for it anyway. I’d parked on the street in front of an apartment complex behind a Ralph’s, one of the last and greatest parking secrets in the area. As we approached, though, something felt off.
“Are you feeling that?” I asked Ann softly as we moved toward the back streets.
“That spike of magic in the air? How was I supposed to miss it? It feels like…bait.”
The thought sent a shiver down my back. “Well, we’re not biting. Look, Big Sister is just ahead, we get in the car and go, right? No distractions.”
As if on cue, a scream pierced the night air ahead of us, a deliberate cry for help, and one that no one was making an effort to silence. I took off in a sprint toward the source, which happened to be the front entrance of the open-air complex.
I stopped in front of Big Sister long enough to notice that my driver’s side tire had been slashed, and another scream was all it took to refocus my attention. Ahead of us in the garden area of the complex, a terror-stricken young woman in pajamas about thirty yards away yelped again as a figure cloaked in shadows dragged her behind a building.
“Dude!” Ann said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Be genre-savvy here. This is clearly a trap, right?”
“Of course, it is,” I shot back. “This is basic training cliched villainy, but it’s effective because we are not letting anyone get hurt on our watch.”
“Then what are we doing? We don’t know what’s over there!”
“I’ll rush in headfirst like a goddamn idiot, you circle around the buildings to your right and save me when it all goes south.”
“You are way too confident about your bad idea, but I don’t have another one, so let’s do it,” Ann agreed.
I pulled out my rod and began to gather magical flakes of energy from the air around us. “You have a spellbook and a mystery potion, I’m in good hands,” I reassured her. “Go.”
For as much as I boasted about Leeroy Jenkinsing this thing, I still slowed down when I rounded the corner into the maze of units. This was part of the Orochi or maybe one of its goons, it had to be, and it was waiting for me. That level of screaming was bound to attract the police sooner or later. It was a sad state of affairs, if not otherwise predictable, that no one wanted to open their doors and get involved directly, but someone was calling the cops for sure. Anything intelligent enough to lay a trap knew it was working against the clock and, if I stayed out of said trap, it would cut bait, literally, and try again later. So, a life was likely about to be balanced against how foolhardy I was willing to be.
Then, something curious happened. Snow, to be specific. All around me, the airy light drops of water were replaced with delicate, lazily falling flakes of white. The screams went down to a low whimper, though I couldn’t tell from where. I moved slowly now, looking at every corner, focusing on making a solid Blister shield with my free hand.
“You know, they told me to wait,” a male voice said from the shadows. “They wanted to come at you in force, bolster our ranks. Maybe even give you the chance to return our master’s treasure, but that feels unnecessary, doesn’t it? A waste of everyone’s time.”
I couldn’t pinpoint the voice, but the frightened whimpers of the young woman were distinctly coming from a hallway leading to a car park or a laundry room or whatever was over that way. I rounded the corner to see someone no older than twenty-two, wide-eyed, and tear soaked.
“Are you hurt?” I asked, kneeling next to her. She stared, eyes incredulous at the translucent purple energy that made up my shield, but recovered and looked me in the eyes. I could see her labored, panicked breaths in the cold air as she tried to form a response.
“He…! Was he a snake?” she asked, gripping my coat. “What is he?”
“In a shitload of trouble.” I grimaced. “Can you do something for me? Can you stay inside and hide for me while I deal with this?”
She nodded vigorously, and I helped her to her feet. She scrambled away deeper into the structure in a blind hurry, and I renewed my grip on my coffee table leg of a rod and stepped back out into the snow.
“You think I’m afraid of you?” I called out into the night sky, hoping to goad him into revealing himself.
“Of course not,” the voice echoed off the buildings. “You’re the great and powerful Elana Black, champion of good and challenger of fate. Happy endings for all, right?”
Keep him talking. Ready a spell. Wait for your moment.
“All that and some crazy Brontë sisters trivia,” I
replied, searching for any signs of movement, moving my back along the wall. “Did you know that Emily once burned herself with a fireplace poker when she got bit by a rabid dog? I’ll bet she was a hell of a lot tougher than a coward like you, attacking helpless women and won’t even show your face to little old me. Embarrassed of a zit or something?”
“You think you’re a match for my power.” It wasn’t a question, more of an accusation.
I almost had him, it was just that damned snow messing with my senses. “Come on, kitten, we still have time to clean you up before the yearbook photographer gets here,” I taunted, focusing as hard as I could manage with my magical senses without giving myself away.
Without warning, the air went from chilly to freezing. It was so sudden that I dropped my rod and yelped in pain. The spell left my mind as I lost all concentration, and even my Blister shield popped. The ground in front of me began to ice over and, with unnatural speed, it grew up and over my body.
A young, gaunt Japanese man with unnaturally blue eyes, no older than me wearing an unbuttoned linen jacket that exposed his bare chest, leapt to the ground from somewhere above me. He casually strolled in my direction.
The pain from the ice was close to unbearable now. The shock kept me from screaming, and I clutched uselessly at my book bag with increasingly stiffening joints. I needed Ann here immediately, but I didn’t…I couldn’t know…!
“H…help…!” I croaked. “Help me!” My voice was raspy and my throat burned with the ice.
“That’s it,” the young man said softly. “Happy endings for all, starting with me and my brethren. This time tomorrow, we will be free of our obligations and you will have paid for your offense. Yes, there it is. Submit to the cold. Let it take you away, breathe deeply of it. As the ice forms around your lips, as your chest constricts, as your eyes grow heavy, take comfort in this knowledge—” he was inches away from me now, his hand gently gripped my jaw, and he brought my gaze to his—“your death is just what this fairy tale needs.”
Chapter Fifteen
My fingers were stiffening and I knew breathing was soon to be impossible. I was panicking and I couldn’t stop panicking; in another moment, maybe two, I’d be dead.
“Help…!” I managed one last plea to a friend who was too far away to hear it. Snow drifted and flaked softly into my eyes. I was already having trouble blinking.
I was dimly aware of my bookbag feeling heavier than it ever had, but, with every other sensation, it was hard to know if that was even the case at all and if I should really be worried about it if it were. My bag fell to the ground in front of me, and I watched with bewilderment as my baby pet hunk of gold, my Singasteinn, rolled out of the bag and expanded, taking the form of a little girl. Except, unlike most little girls, her smooth, flawless skin and her waist-length hair, even the billowing sundress she wore, all held the faint shimmer of gold. None of the snow seemed to touch her as she gave an exaggerated yawn, stretching both hands toward the sky and standing on her tippy toes—she still looked as if I could fit her in my pocket.
The guy in front of me heard the yawn, turned quizzically, and looked down to peer in her face. “What the f—?”
The little girl looked past him to me and interrupted. “Hey, stop that.” It wasn’t said with any authority or malice, but it was disruptive all the same. She spoke with the perfect penetrating clarity of a singing crystal wine glass.
His concentration on me faltered slightly as his expression grew stern. “Get the hell out of—!”
He never finished that sentence as the hideous sounds of impact where metal met flesh echoed impossibly against the walls. Bones crunched loudly as the Singasteinn’s fist collapsed his ribcage with the precision and force of a hydraulic piston. His eyes went wide with disbelief, blood shooting from his mouth like shotgun pellets. He went down in a heap and, in that instant, the ice in its entirety vanished all around us, replaced with water.
I fell to my knees, gasping for air and choking up the small amount of liquid that found its way into my lungs and throat. Furiously I rubbed at my eyes to refocus my vision. When it cleared, I saw the pained face of my attacker staring wildly at nothing as his face took on a more reptilian complexion.
“Take that, asshole!” the golden child said adorably, kicking the fallen man in his ruined ribs. “That’s what he is, right, Elana? I’ve heard you use that word a lot, and you always want to do bad things to assholes.”
I nodded vigorously, already mortified at what other words I might’ve taught a child who apparently didn’t understand double entendres.
“Are you okay?” she asked me wide-eyed, squatting to look me in the eyes. “Do you need a whiskey?” It was proposed with the sincerity that only a child could muster.
Inhumanly, the young man pulled his ruined body to his feet and began to limp away toward the street, but I still lacked the words to communicate that. His disabled, useless left arm slapped wetly like thick pasta against his body as he fled.
“I know what makes you feel better,” she said with more pride in her voice than I’d ever had for anything. “Books, and whiskey, and burritos, and being left the hell alone, and—”
“Breathing,” I said finally, falling back into the side of the building on my butt enjoying deep, comforting breaths. “Oh my gosh, you saved my life! Thank you so much!”
She beamed at that, sunny even in the light rain. “You’re welcome, Elana!”
Something clicked in my head, a question I’ve had for a long time. “You bet, but… what do I call you? What’s your name?”
A look like she was trying to do long division in her head formed on her face. “I don’t know, what do you think my name should be?”
I clamped my mouth shut even as I felt myself ready to say something stupid.
Don’t say Dorothy. Don’t say Rose. Don’t say Sophie. Oh my god, absolutely do not say Blanche!
“I think you should get to pick out your own name, if you don’t have one,” I answered instead.
“Oh, that’s nice of you.” She yawned, her enthusiasm abruptly leaving her. “Maybe when I wake up, I’m not ready yet.”
“Ready for what?” I asked. “And why is this the first time I’m seeing you like this?”
“It’s the first time you asked for my help, silly!”
Ann rounded the corner and stumbled as her eyes darted from me to my Singasteinn. “What…what is happening?”
The little golden child stood up and waved excitedly. “Hi, Ann! I love you!”
“It knows my name!” Ann shouted in disbelief. “And it loves me!”
“I’m gonna go back to sleep now,” my Singasteinn said, looking at me with tired eye. “You have to sing the balloons song to me later, you promise?”
“Promise,” I replied, my heart warming at how unfairly cute that was.
She smiled wearily then and laid on the ground, her next words coming airily as she closed her eyes. “Night-night!”
“Goodnight, kiddo,” I said with a sigh and, in a matter of seconds, the child shrank and shriveled until it was a fist-sized hunk of gold once more. I carefully scooped her up and set her into her little pouch in my bag, doing my best to shake some of the water off of it first. I don’t know if metal children can catch a cold, but I can’t imagine how badly I’d feel if I caused one.
“We’re going to talk about that,” a wide-eyed Ann insisted. “After we get out of here!”
I grunted, testing my joints. “I’m fine, by the way, how are you?”
“I’m swell, and I’m glad you’re alive,” Ann said patiently. “Now come on, time to run.”
I could hear sirens indicating that a cop car was on its way. “No, we’re not running,” I shook my head. “If we run, we look guilty with my car out front the way it is, someone will place us here. We still have a witness to take care of.”
“Okay,” Ann replied, thinking it through. “How? She saw us and that guy, she saw him too.”
“She saw me,
not us,” I corrected. “But my car’s not going anywhere right now anyway, so just…follow my lead, okay?”
Ann took a second to look around and nodded, following me into the hallway where I’d left that woman earlier. We both tried to rub some of the water out of our clothes once we were out of the misty rain. Around the corner was, sure enough, a laundry room, and in the back corner was the frightened young woman. The relief in her eyes was evident when she saw me as if she genuinely didn’t know which one of us she was going to see again, me or her attacker.
I had a better look at her now and I couldn’t have picked her out of a lineup if my life depended on it. For all the world, she looked like everyone else in Venice Beach, assuming you saw them at the end of the day in their pajamas. Short hair dyed a beautiful seafoam green, skin tanned in a way that made me think she was outside every day, and three and a half 8-bit hearts tattooed on her chest that I recognized from The Legend of Zelda. Oh, and a look of confusion one gets when the adrenaline comes down after a near-death experience. That part might not have been unique to the Venice Beach experience.
“Hey, are you okay?” I whispered, kneeling to meet her.
“Is he gone?” The question was expectant and breathless.
“Yeah, my friend and I took care of him. He’s not coming back,” I said reassuringly, nodding toward Ann.
I had the thought that I could take this woman’s hand and know her, find some information about her to make sure that she’d cooperate with us, wrap this up nice and clean.
And I was disgusted by it.
I’m not going to become a thought thief; I’m not going to steal the most precious moments of a person’s life. I’ve had mine taken before I knew it was possible, had my identity used against me, and I was going to be better than that. In front of me was someone frightened and confused, someone attacked as a way of getting to me, and I was going to try and work with that. I was going to own it if I couldn’t.