Chapter Eighteen Something Wicked #2
Gordon takes the phone back at once. “Teachers are not paid enough,” Gordon growls out.
“Preaching to the choir, buddy. I— What the hell was that?”
“What?”
I get off the bed and slowly walk towards the living room. “I think something hit the cabin. It was like a thud outside.”
“A thud?”
“Mhm.”
“Andrea, I want you to stay inside. I’m coming to investigate. Hugo, get in the truck.”
“But what about fires?” I demand. “What if there is an emergency and people need you?”
“Not my truck, Hugo, the firetruck. The biggest one.”
“We’re going to ride in one? But you said we couldn’t,” Hugo protests.
“We are going on an emergency call. A wellness check.”
“Don’t the police usually do that?” I ask, but I’m so relieved Gordon is coming home. I hover in the hall, hands tight on the wall and my phone.
“When you are concerned, I am the police, I am the fire chief, and I am the doctor. I am whatever you need me to be. If there is an emergency, I have the pager and Big Red. I will go there first—but by the grace of God, there will not be an emergency between the time I leave the station and the time I check on my wife.”
I don’t correct him.
Hugo does. “I thought she was your girlfriend.”
“That is her temporary designation,” Gordon snarls. “She is mine. My wife. Just not yet.”
“Ah.”
“Gordon!” I yelp. A blazing flash just caught my eye out of the bedroom window. A bright orange streak.
“What?”
“I think there’s a fire in the woods. It could be that succubus, maybe?”
I hear the siren click on, and I’m instantly deafened. “I don’t know. It shouldn’t be. We’re coming!”
“Should I wait in the house or get in the car and drive away from the fire?” I flop down on the floor and drag the yowling, spitting Chopin out from under the bed by the scruff of his neck.
Gordon makes a frustrated noise. “I don’t know what it is.
If the cat is acting up, maybe someone is near the house, near the woods, and they set the fire.
If the woods are actually ablaze, you need to move.
Go take a look out the door and see what you can see.
We’re going to be there in three minutes, okay? ”
“This is very fast, Gordon!” I can hear Hugo cry.
“Shut up,” Gordon snaps.
“Don’t be rude to Hugo. He’s probably never ridden in a firetruck at Mach ten before,” I try to laugh while shoving Chopin in his carrier.
“From the living room window, I don’t see anything, but let me go out onto the porch.
” I open the door, purse, cat, and keys now in hand, flip-flops on my feet.
“I don’t smell a ton of smoke, but there’s a weird rotten egg—”
That’s the last thing I say before something huge throws me forward and my phone flies away. “Gordon!” I screech.
“Gordon. I knew I smelled two of my sons, not just one.”
I scramble up, looking over my shoulder.
On the porch, in the shadows, is a figure that’s easily as big as Gordon, but with an uneven stance, almost withered.
One side of its body leans forward, like it’s hard to walk or balance.
The sky this close to dawn is a fading lavender blue, still sprinkled with stars, but there’s a little more light than the pitch-black of midnight.
I can see long, matted black hair and tusks that stick out like bleached handlebars under scraggly locks and unkempt bangs.
There’s a smell that seeps from her, like rotten meat and fresh blood.
I love Gordon. I love his brother. Part of me immediately tries to jam this figure into the family, and that’s a mistake, because I should have started running the second I could.
Instead, I freeze, not knowing what to say, or why she’s there.
“Why are you here, human? Why do you smell like my sons?”
I rise and grab Chopin’s carrier, searching for my phone in the dark. “Hi. Mrs. Rockland?”
“Mrs. Rockland,” she mocks in a grating, falsetto voice. “Aw, the meals have such nice manners in this cesspit they call Pine Ridge.”
Meals.
That’s when I run. That’s when she jumps and lunges, throwing her entire stinking weight at me.
But I played soccer, and I did all the stupid Physical Fitness Awards at my school, and I’m just a little faster. She catches my shoulder, and pain sears down my back from what I assume are claws, but I keep running.
You’re faster than her. You’re faster. And Gordon is going to be here soon.
I head towards my car, only to find her suddenly in my path, a dark black blur that uses her bulk to block me.
There’s another orange streak of light from the woods, and I don’t know what to do. Troll or demon?
Panic mounts as I run towards the road, some part of my brain worried about Chopin and how he’s being rattled around in his carrier, and part of me thinking if I drop him, he’ll have less of a concussion but probably get eaten by my monster-in-law.
My summer vacation is back to the severely sucky portion.
And Mama Troll is gaining on me. “You don’t have to do this!” I scream, even though it’s a stupid waste of breath, which I really, really need right now.
“Ha! You’re just the appetizer. The boys are next. I’m better without them. They’re disgraces!” she howls.
“They are amazing! They are the best.... Sons...” I can’t do this. I can’t reason, can’t talk. I just have to run, and listen for sirens.
But instead, I hear another noise. A whistling shriek like a missile passing my head.
There’s a red and white blur beside me. A blur with large, leathery bat wings and clothes that look like they were made from reptile skins and modeled after every comic book’s depiction of a jungle warrior goddess—uneven raggedy skirt that barely reaches her thighs, midriff showing, and boobs barely held in by strips of fabric.
Great. The succubus wants to fight the troll for dinner. I’m tempted to let Chopin go, hoping he’ll run to freedom. I start to unzip the carrier as I continue to make my way to the road, only to hear,
“Don’t touch the human! Leave her alone!”
Adrenaline doesn’t let me stop, but it allows for a single look over my shoulder—and the demon babe is plowing Mama Troll to the ground with her claws and tail lashing.
“What the fuck?” I ask the universe.
The universe answers with the scream of a siren and distant white lights.
I think... I think I might be safe?
I’m not sure. I think I’ll just keep running until I see Gordon behind the wheel of Big Red.