Chapter Seventeen
Cottonmouth
Avelina woke the next day with far more pep in her step than Callum saw the day prior.
Her pallor was better for sure. She still coughed like she smoked tobacco pipes all day inside four steel walls with no windows or doors, but outside of the occasional rattle from her lungs, she was back on her feet.
Which meant they could at least leave the cabin in search of food.
Callum was grateful the last time Neddy helped him with a wound, that she’d left some of her special pixie dust behind.
It was meant to heal ailments, poisons, infections, etc.
Which didn’t help him much except for when his little warlock decided to call his bluff and race out into a storm.
The sun was brighter as they slid onto the soggy path beyond his cabin. “Where are we going?” Avelina glanced around.
“Get some fresh grub.”
“You…want me? To help you hunt?” Her face twisted up all kinds of disgusted and disgruntled.
“You wanna eat broth for another full day?” he countered.
“No, but don’t you have underlings to do this?” Her tone suggested she was teasing.
Callum stopped in the middle of the trees, twisting at the waist to stare at her. “You? Want me? To trust those buffoons with grabbing fish?”
He wouldn’t trust his crew to grab anything edible. They’d likely spend the whole day dicking around, panic at the last second, and bring home something poisonous in nature. Or worse, they’d actually try and fail.
“We’re getting fish?” Avelina immediately deflated.
Callum snorted, “Did you think we were gonna go skin a Paladin and throw them on the spit for dinner?”
“Oh! I’m sorry! Was that so far outside the realm of possibilities?” She threw her hands out in exasperation.
“First off, fuck you.” Callum jabbed a forefinger in her face, then stabbed it in the direction of the shed. “Secondly, get yer ass in the shed and grab the fishing trunk.”
She glanced past him with furrowed brows. “How will I know what’s the fishing trunk?”
“Ye’ll smell it.” Callum smirked as she stomped past him, through heavy, sticky mud toward ‘the shed’.
Which was less an actual shed and more a one-bedroom house with no working pipes, dangling from ropes instead of standing on legs.
Like a hanging pothos, it swung delicately in the humid breeze in a net.
Moss dangled out of its base, along with other rotten boards that swung beneath, creaking eerily.
No windows, no lights, just a door at the front.
She approached, stared up at it, then glanced over her shoulder at him.
Callum put his hands on his waist, smug as could be. “Need a boost, darlin?”
“Fuck you!” she spat, grabbing a hold of the door frame and hoisting herself up into it.
“Atta girl.” While he could have simply reached inside the door and grabbed it without having to look, he wouldn’t lie, he enjoyed hearing her curse and kick things about.
Five minutes later, she dropped out of the building, coughing up a storm.
He grinned from ear to ear as she foisted the crate into his chest. It hit him hard and he grunted in response.
She snarled with her teeth bared as she dusted herself off. “What’s in there, anyway?”
“Junk, mostly.” He slithered past her, leaving her to furiously stomp her foot, then cough hard into her elbow, then pitch another fit.
Eventually, his poor warlock followed him.
Callum continued steadily toward the docks, leaving the creaking shed behind.
The crate in his arms stunk. Hard enough to make eyes water, but he’d grown used to the stench of dead, hot fish.
During the summer—which was funny, as when it wasn’t storming, it was always summer—the swamp waters evaporated a bit.
Enough to catch some fish unaware and flopping in the mud.
On the hottest days in the middle of the year, the smell was enough to knock a person out of their boots.
Callum slithered up onto the dock, happy to find the river a foot lower than the dock.
Perfect. Setting the crate down, he pulled out the fishing rod and assembled it with a singular click.
As far as rods went, his was decent. It was a thick wooden base with a skinny metal extension with eyelets.
But this isn’t for me, not really. He threaded it before she made it up the steps.
When she approached, mouth open to likely sass him once more, he shoved the rod into her arms.
She made a sound that was between a squawk and snarl as she stumbled back a step.
He grinned, peeling off his shirt. One hand up and over his head, he tugged the fabric off his shoulders.
He dropped it over her head. She scrambled to remove it.
Callum took the momentary distraction to slip down into the water and wade out far enough that she couldn’t reach him.
Or cannon ball. He was bobbing a few feet out when she managed to throw his shirt onto the dock.
Callum harrumphed, “Now, that’s just rude. I’mma need that.”
“What!” she snapped with a hard click of her teeth. “Are you doing in there? What am I doing with the rod? I thought you were fishing?”
“I am!” He swiped a hand down into the water and snatched one of the looky-loos that swam up to see what all the splashing was about.
Callum threw it overhead onto the dock. It sank into the box and Avelina gasped.
Ducking down, he dropped into the rather steady lull of the water.
His tail flicked through patches of vegetation, hunting down the larger game.
After a tango with a school of roach fishes, and wrangling a gar, he returned to the dock with his catch.
Slapping the long, toothed beast onto the dock and Avelina shrieked. “Why does it have teeth?”
“The better to bite ya with, Darlin. Just wait till I find the paddlefish in here. That sonofabitch gonna feed us for days.” Before she could blast him with magic or backtalk, he sank back down into the river.
He circled the patches of moss and roots that reached up into the lake.
The paddlefish in his lake preferred to stay deeper, further away from the dock.
He found them when the largest fish, like the size of a hog, darted out of the mud.
Silt kicked up around him, but he zipped through it.
A knife through the water, he cut into the thing with his claws and dragged it back home.
It thrashed in his grasp until he hoisted it out of the water.
The dock rattled from the pure weight of it.
Callum panted for air, fishing himself out of the water. The paddlefish made a giant jump, but Avelina’s boot was faster. Before he could get hands on it, halfway out of the water, his warlock stomped the monster’s head in. Silence echoed over their heads as they looked at each other.
“Nice strike,” he blurted out.
“Does that one have teeth?” She stepped off the smashed face of the paddlefish.
Callum glanced down at the dead fish, then back up to Avelina. “I don’t think it much matters now, little viper.”
“Yeah, that’s fair,” she sighed, sinking down onto the edge of the dock next to him. Callum settled back into the water. Arms folded over the hard wood, he studied her. Her legs kicked, splashing the water lightly. The gore of her recent kill was washed away quickly.
“Don’t tell me yer feelin’ guilty over a fish?” he teased, elbowing her.
“No!” Her voice pitched defensively.
Callum rolled his eyes. “It’s a fish.”
“I know that!”
“So, stop feelin’ sorry over a fish.”
“I’m! Not! Feelin’! Sorry!” She whirled to swing on him.
He really should have seen it coming. Should have anticipated the way she toppled too far.
She squealed as she fell toward the water.
He struck forward, getting ahold of her, but there was nothing to keep him above water.
They both splashed against the lake’s surface.
He howled with laughter as she thrashed.
One knee into his kidneys, one of his hands into her ribs, they fought.
Tumbling over and over, two logs rolling in a bunch of foam.
They scared half the wild-life away from the dock.
He didn’t know how they even made it back.
She clawed up the side of it like a drenched cat.
Only, with each giggle, cackle, and snort, they slid back into the water.
He’d get a grip on the wood, and his claws would just slide through slime.
Their ruckus echoed off the trees and filled Gloomsdale with life.
It took an eternity to get up onto the dock, and when they did, they were both aching at the sides and gulping down air greedily.
“You fucker,” she wheezed.
“Me?” Callum laid on his back, staring at her next to him.
Pink in the cheeks, bright-eyed, smile plastered to her face, his warlock was pleased with herself.
Despite how they both looked identical to drowned swamp rats, she looked good.
Delicious. Perfect. The words swam in his head as he tried to catch his breath. From more than half drowning.
“You did that on purpose,” she sneered.
“If you wanted someone able to catch yer trout floppin’ ass from fallin’ in, ya shoulda found an outlaw with wings.”
She wheezed; hands slapped to her belly.
It was the most serene moment he’d had in ages, lying there on the dock, staring up through the swamp.
Well, she was staring up. His eyes were glued to her profile, memorizing it.
The slope of her bunny button nose, the curl of her lashes, and the color as it returned to her skin.
The cold bite of the water warmed up under the oppressive, trapped heat in the swamp.
When she turned her head to him, he saw his doom.
Because she smiled at him like she actually liked him, like she was some princess he’d stolen out of a castle tower and stashed away in his shit-hole cabin.
He was the big bad dragon, hoarding her for himself.
Fuck. Fuckin’ shit, fuckin’ damnit! This is what he got for letting her into his head.
That sounds lonely. He replayed her words over…because he was lonely.
Callum ‘Cottonmouth’ Zaspair was so unequivocally alone on his rickety throne of death and deceit that he couldn’t even fathom someone else existing there with him.
“Now who’s lost in their own head,” she murmured and his arm reached out of its own accord.
He dragged her across the dock, their lips meeting tenderly.
His tail curled up around one of the pillars as she leaned into it.
For the first time, their kiss wasn’t a frenzied need to unclothe the other.
There was no desperation. Hunger, certainly, as she rolled onto her side and cupped the side of his face with her hand.
But the usual desire to sink his fangs into her neck was somewhat subdued. Or all together missing. Odd.
Was this? A good time? Was he having a good time?
Grinning like a fool, gently slithering to lay stomach to stomach, chuckling softly.
Her fingers twirled his wet hair. There was a tint to her cheeks that deepened as he pulled back.
One quick kiss after another to other parts of her face while she giggled in between them.
Callum hummed with appreciation as he cupped the back of her head.
“I’m about to be lost in somethin’, alright. ”
“Don’t say this swamp, we’ll never get home.” Her laugh was a sweet twinkle of bells in his ears. Oh, I gotta hear that more often.
“What ever will we do?” he mumbled as she slowly leaned into another kiss.
Gold. A sharp glint of yellowy gold stabbed through the trees and directly into his eyeballs.
Seconds before he closed them, ready to forget the fish and spend the rest of the afternoon catching her left over cooties while playing jump rope with her tongue, he saw it.
Or rather, it carved through his corneas and he hissed.
Wrenching back from her, he sat up on the dock.
Avelina gasped, following him. Across the lake, five bodies emerged from the trees.
Two semi-familiar faces, the rest unknown, but all wearing the same uniform.
Paladins. The paladins from the cattle door.
“As I said,” an older elven man with long, flowing silver hair in gleaming armor.
The sun on the front of his chest reflected the light like a blade slicing through the air.
His giant morning star was as yellow and gaudy as the rest of his plate mail as he hoisted it high over him. “Follow the stench, find the wicked.”
“Lord Pavlin,” Avelina blurted out.
“Avelina Dalethorn.” They all brandished their weapons, but it was the man with the morning star that spoke.
The others fell in line behind him with their shields and religious judgement armed at the ready.
Lord Pavlin spoke again, “You have been marked a heretic and a murderer. I have come to see justice done for your father, and all those victims you claimed on the train.”
Callum glanced at his warlock, expecting to find her cowering or teary-eyed or even pale. Avelina glared darkly. She looked pissed. There was a poison in her eyes he knew all too well. Well, well, well…seems like I’ve rubbed off on you, sweetheart. His lips curled into a cruel smirk.
“Oh, ye’ve done it now,” he chuckled darkly, returning his attention to the fools across the lake. “If I were y’all, I’d pray to yer goddess that I get to ya before she does…”