Chapter 15 #3
“You just stay there and keep an eye on him,” she said to the lion in a soothing tone, trying to project an aura of calm. “I’m, uh, just going to go and get help. But I’ll be back, I promise.”
And I’ll try to see if I can find Max, she added silently. Maybe he had managed to escape somehow, and was now limping around in the snow. She had to at least check outside for him.
The lion continued to fix her with its stare, and Poppy forced herself to smile, trying not to let her nerves show as she started to edge along the wall.
It kept tracking her as she moved, giving her its full attention, and she started to wonder just where, exactly, she had gotten the notion that it definitely wouldn’t attack her.
Making it to the door, she opened it up slowly and got ready to back out of the cabin. A quick glance outside confirmed the worst: it was almost dark now, the last of the sun just disappearing over the mountains. Getting lost or freezing to death were both real possibilities.
Still, she had to try. She couldn’t just sit in here with these two all night and hope for the best – and she really had to find Max.
She took another slow, careful step.
No sudden moves. Whether or not the lion wants to hurt you, you still don’t want to startle it.
The lion watched her, its eyes soulful, almost pleading – like it didn’t want her to leave. Poppy found herself wishing that she’d thought to bring some of the ham with her – maybe she could distract it with a treat.
“I promise I’ll be back soon,” she said again. “I’m just going to go get Levi and Margot, so they can help us.”
At the mention of those names, the lion blinked its eyes in confusion – before it nodded, like it both understood what she’d said and knew the people in question.
Poppy knew at this point that she was reading too much into everything.
She often thought that Geri understood what she was saying when she rambled her thoughts out loud to her, when in actuality she knew that the only word Geri understood was dinner.
There was no reason to think that this lion had a more than rudimentary grasp on the English language.
Still, it felt like the lion knew her. It was incredibly disconcerting, and it was seriously making her question her own sanity. She had to get away for a bit.
She started to back out of the building. The lion was watching her every step.
… And so was the man pinned beneath it.
He clearly wasn’t as out of it as he’d been pretending to be.
She watched, mouth falling open in horror, as his eyes locked with hers and his face split into a hideous grin that seemed to contain more teeth than a human mouth reasonably should.
Bracing herself, she prepared to be levitated up into the air once more, or possibly worse.
But instead, the man turned his attention back toward the lion – and before Poppy could even begin to call out a warning, the lion’s head snapped back, its paws lifting away from the man’s body, its mouth clamping shut.
“No!” Poppy managed to cry out, but it was too little, too late. Far too late.
The man’s arm shot upward, his hand slamming against the lion’s forehead.
The lion thrashed within its invisible chains, the telekinesis holding it mostly still, though its sheer strength and determination seemed to be giving the man’s powers a run for their money. Its eyes rolled up into its head, body jerking, a roar trying to escape its locked jaw.
Poppy knew exactly what was happening – the man was trying to drain the lion’s powers. And, given that the lion presumably actually had powers, he was probably going to be a lot more successful this time around than he had been with her.
And she couldn’t let that happen.
Looking around wildly, her eyes lit upon the knife where it had skittered across the floor. Lunging forward, she grabbed it and turned back around, not even hesitating before she raised it up high and then plunged it into the man’s shoulder with all her might.
The man screamed, a high-pitched, inhuman scream, and the lion landed heavily on the ground, one foot crashing brutally into the man’s chest and cutting off his scream with a horrible gasp.
The lion shook out its head for a moment, its mane flicking about wildly. It was clearly disoriented.
But its eyes regained their focus – and then it seemed to grow in size, its back arching, tail curving, wings seeming to fill the entire room. The man trapped beneath its paws seemed small and insignificant by comparison.
Its fury was truly a sight to behold, and Poppy watched, equal parts horrified and fascinated, as it slowly, steadily lowered its enormous head, until it was eyeballing the man from mere inches away, frightful fangs bared.
“I’m sorry! Please free me – I’ll leave straight away,” whimpered the man as he writhed about, the lion’s paw still grinding into his ribs, the knife still stuck in his shoulder.
He must have been in tremendous pain, but still, Poppy did not trust him in the slightest. They had to get him unconscious – and fast.
Apparently the lion had had the same idea, because suddenly its eyes lit up with a strange inner glow, its expression falling into what Poppy could only think of as intense stillness.
The man’s expression also became intense, but in a very different way.
His eyes widened and his jaw slackened, like the top half of his face had become rigid and the bottom half had had all its muscles severed.
Air wheezed out of his lungs as the lion pressed one enormous paw down on his throat, and their gazes locked, the lion obviously in control this time around.
Poppy’s hands twitched agitatedly, full of adrenaline with nowhere to go.
What on earth should she do in this situation?
While she was more inclined to let the man go to hell this time around, she still didn’t want the lion to kill him.
This was clearly no ordinary lion – beyond the fact that it had enormous wings, obviously – and she still hated the thought of letting it commit murder, even if it could potentially be justified.
She could only hope that if it came down to it, she would not only recognize the moment when she would need to step in, but be able to stop the lion from going too far.
And it seemed like that moment was close at hand, if the way the man was starting to jerk and judder was any indication. Poppy watched with growing fear as the lion’s eyes glowed an even deeper electric blue, casting the darkened room in an eerie glow.
I have to do something. I can’t let this go on.
She didn’t know what she was going to say, but she knew she had to say something.
Opening her mouth, she searched for the right words… and then, oddly, her eyes were drawn to where the lion’s paw was slowly bearing down on the man’s throat.
She hadn’t noticed earlier, what with everything going on, but now, in the dimness of the cabin, she could just make out what looked like a dark ring of crusted blood around the lion’s leg.
Which in and of itself wouldn’t have been so strange, given the battle to the death that had been going on, except for the fact that the strange man clearly favored forms of violence that didn’t involve actual physical contact.
And the pattern and color seemed wrong for the lion having gotten blood from the man’s stab wound on it – it was too high and too regular, and didn’t have the shine of fresh blood.
Heart pounding, a slow, dreadful feeling of realization crawling up her spine, she looked at the paw that was resting on the man’s chest.
It had the same pattern.
Like it had been shackled.
Suddenly, dreadfully, she realized what her subconscious mind had been slowly putting together – what her conscious, rational mind had been refusing to believe.
As if in slow motion, she sank to her knees.
“Max,” she whispered. “Oh, Max.”