41. The Hot Guy is On the Way
41
The Hot Guy is On the Way
You
You hold your little sword at the ready, charging out the door after the elderly woman and her grandson.
You half expect the door to be locked.
But it isn’t.
The quaint old farmhouse creaks with every step as you pound down the stairs and throw open the front door—which is also strangely very unlocked.
Maybe they know they’ve taken you out so far into the middle of nowhere, you can’t possibly escape.
There’s nowhere for you to run.
Outside, the wind rushes eerily down the deserted dirt road between the houses, complete with wooden boardwalks like something out of a vintage Western.
Even a tumbleweed blows by.
Wow. It’s either cliché or cinematic, and you can’t decide which.
Maybe somehow both.
But…where did everyone go?
Even Elena and her grandson are nowhere to be seen.
There’s nothing but the eerie howl of the wind as it rushes around the corner of the house and buffets your hair, threatening to throw you off balance.
At least you’re feeling much better. That has to mean Ziros is close, right?
A fleeting thought races through your mind at that realization: What if this storm is caused by Ziros?
What are the chances he’s capable of such a thing?
But the old woman, Elena, made it sound like this has happened before.
Could it be…what if there’s another wind demigod out there?
You peer around the corner of the whitewashed siding, but there’s still not a single soul in sight. Just a quaint wooden picket fence and a tangle of wind chimes where they blow angrily against the side of the house.
“Ha!” comes a wizened old voice from behind you, making you jump. Her voice is all gravel and bones, creaking like the boards you stand on. “I should have known the Chosen One would be so fearless.”
It’s Elena.
The old woman stands behind you, one hand gripping the whitewashed railing to keep herself standing, her long gray hair billowing out behind her in the unrelenting wind.
Her grandson stands a few feet away, arms folded, glaring grumpily at the storm clouds. Like he’s more annoyed by their existence than he is scared.
Typical teenager. At least, of the magical cult variety.
He’s got the folded arms and grumpy glare and long, dark hair blowing in the wind that says he’d probably do well as the protagonist of a YA romance.
All he needs is a troubled teen love interest to fall into his life.
You blink, shaking your head.
You’ve definitely been reading too much. Now you’re projecting books onto real life.
Which is probably ironic, considering how fantastical your last few days have been.
“ Answers ,” you demand, brandishing your tiny sword at the old woman. And you have to shout to be heard over the roaring wind. Maybe this isn’t the best place or time for this conversation, but anger prickles beneath your skin as you remember how rudely you were kidnapped. “Give me answers, old woman. What makes me your so-called ‘Chosen One’? What exactly is it you expect me to do?”
‘Grandma’ Elena laughs as if your questions amuse her, but Eli just keeps glaring from behind her.
“The monsters will be here soon,” he says, that bored-annoyed frown still on his face. Like he’s not half as amused as his grandmother. “What are we standing around for? We need to be ready to fight.”
“You’re right,” she says, glancing at the dark clouds as rain bursts from their depths, pounding onto the dirt road and turning the street to mud. “But not today.”
“What?” He whips around to face his grandmother. “What’s the point of bringing the Chosen One here if we’re just gonna keep hiding? What’ll it be this time? Whose house will be destroyed? Life ruined?”
“There now,” Grandma Elena says, holding her hand up to quiet him. “Come,” she says to you, nodding. “Let us hurry down to the basement. We’ll wait out the storm there.”
Monsters?
You shiver, wondering if it’ll be more skaddlers like back in the alleyway behind your work.
But maybe now isn’t the time to find out if you can take one on alone.
You don’t even know how to reliably make the sword transform.
“This way,” Elena shouts over the wind as another gust picks up, roaring down the street between the houses, sending a half dozen loose shingles flying from the roof across the street.
She lets go of the railing long enough to grab the front door, but as soon as she opens it, it flies back in the wind with a bang .
Her grandson grabs it, yanking it shut as soon as the three of you pile inside.
“I still think we should stay and fight,” he grumbles, but follows along behind you as Elena leads you toward a door leading down into the basement.
She reaches for the light switch, but the power snaps out not a second after she turns it on.
“ Damn it all ,” she mutters under her breath. “Damn wind must have knocked it out again.”
You shiver.
You know you should be angry about being kidnapped, maybe even a little scared of your captors, but so far Granny Elena and her grandson, Eli, don’t seem so scary.
They hardly seem cult-y at all.
And though you have a lot of questions you’d like answers to, right now you’re starting to get more worried about the storm.
And the dark basement stairs you’re currently climbing down.
You grip the wooden railing, holding on with each creaking, blind step.
Just as you’re thinking how nice it would be if you could actually see what kind of cult dungeon you might be descending into, a pale white light glows in front of you.
Was that an answer to your wish?
No.
It’s Elena’s hand.
She’s holding a white light in her hand. A glowing orb that she turns, holding out so you can see where you’re going as you reach the bottom step.
And it takes you a second of blinking to realize that it’s not a flashlight or anything like that.
No.
“Is that… magic ?” you ask, unable to hide the awe in your voice.
Elena laughs.
“Of course it is, sweetheart. After all, I am the town sorceress.”
“How did you do that?” you ask, holding your own hands in front of you as you reach the bottom.
Elena laughs again. “It’s not so hard, dearie. I’ll show you.”
While she’s demonstrating how to make a magical orb with your hands, Eli grumbles from somewhere across the dark room.
It sounds like he’s picking stuff up and putting it down, but you can’t see exactly what.
Finally, he must have found what he’s looking for, because a bright beam of light flashes across the room—much brighter than Elena’s orb.
A flashlight.
And not just any flashlight—one of those really big ones with the handle and everything.
Pointing it very rudely at your face, he asks, “What was the point of even going out to check if we weren’t going to do anything?”
“ Eli ,” his grandmother scolds, and he turns the light away, leaving you squinting as your night vision slowly returns. “Sorry about him,” she says, turning back to you. “He’s just grumpy because he still hasn’t inherited my magic.”
Across the room, he snaps the light off, and the stairs creak as he sits heavily down in the dark.
But he doesn’t deny it.
“This way,” Elena says, gesturing with one glowing hand toward a weathered old couch that’s probably been down in this basement a good fifty years, by the tattered look of the plaid ‘70s fabric.
There’s not exactly any better place to sit, so you reluctantly drop down beside her, still feeling a little uncomfortable with the whole deal.
Mostly on account of the kidnapping.
Up above, the distant howling of the wind rattles the walls, and you try not to worry about what would happen if that storm turns into a tornado.
You hope the basement would protect you.
“That’s why we need your help,” she says, the soft blue-white glow of her magic casting her face in an odd, dull light that makes her look even older and more worn-out than before. “I’m old, Chosen One. Soon, I’ll depart this world. And I need to leave a legacy, someone who can protect our town. I thought that legacy would have fallen to Eli, but so far, his magic hasn’t manifested. Which leaves me no choice but to find a replacement from outside.”
“Let me guess,” you say dryly. “That’s where I come in?”
Eli laughs from across the room. “Told you, old woman. You can’t just kidnap people and expect them to help.”
He may be rude and grumpy, but at least he’s got some sense.
“It’s not forever, Chosen One,” Granny Elena says quickly. “Just until his magic unlocks.”
The little orb of light in her palms flickers and goes out momentarily before coming back, weaker and more faded than before.
“As you can see,” she says rather sadly. “My magic is waning. I can no longer protect our town.”
And when she looks up at you again, her eyes are full of desperation.
“Please, Chosen One. You’re our only hope.”
Ziros
What the hell kind of storm is this?
One minute it’s sunny.
The next the wind is so strong, I’d have struggled to maintain a gale like this even before I got my magic tied to my human.
Whatever this storm is, it doesn’t feel normal.
It’s giving me a bad feeling. Like there’s a fault here—a place where the divide between worlds is thin.
And it’s gotta be a real bad one to cause a storm the likes of this.
But at least I must be getting close to my human.
Wherever the hell June is, however the hell she got here, I finally feel alive again.
I sit up in the back of the truck, stretching my arms and cracking my neck as the driver pulls off the highway and onto a side road.
That’s my cue.
“Thanks for the lift, buddy,” I call over my shoulder as I jump down, boots crunching on gravel.
And when I close my eyes and focus on the link, I know exactly which way to go.
I frown.
It’s the same direction this wall of wind is heading. Deep into the dark storm clouds that swallow up the distant golden grass.
“I’m coming, human,” I mutter as I let myself fade into the wind. “Just you wait. I’ll be there.”