Chapter 8 Galwell #2
The man scrutinized Galwell with crimson irises. “Not surprising he died,” he remarked reproachfully.
“You mean to insult my honor, sir,” Galwell replied.
“Not your honor. Your intelligence,” the wraith returned. “Looks like you mean to die a second time.”
Galwell held the man’s glare. “I don’t fear death. Do you?”
Quiet descended over the group like violet Vestriyan dusk. From the hush, Galwell felt it—the power of his presence. No heart
or head magic summoned his heroic self-possession. It just was. He felt the spark of his old self—inspiring. Leading. Great.
The man broke eye contact first.
“Not one of Ario’s men, are ye?” he demanded.
Thessia’s brow’s furrowed. Galwell had no idea what the man meant. “No,” he replied sincerely.
“No,” the man concurred, half to himself. “Shit spy you’d make, shouting Miss Mona’s name in the streets. I’ll take you to
her,” he muttered, spiteful. “I want to watch her gut you.”
Galwell gestured to the darkening street. “Lead the way, good sir.”
As they followed their disreputable escort, Galwell positioned himself close to Thessia, wary.
He was not expecting the glare he received from the queen. “I’m protecting you,” she insisted witheringly. “You’re not protecting
me.”
Galwell humphed. This was, he reckoned, not his finest questing party. His ex-fiancée, the assassin who sought to kill him
earlier this week, and a gossip scribesheet reporter. Have fun saving the realm.
The skeletal man led them from the loud Vestriyan street corner to—well, the cutest crumbiello shop he’d ever seen. Fit seamlessly
within the majestic, sculpted streets, the white-and-black checkered stone of the storefront complemented the vines spilling
from flowerpots hung on golden hooks. And inside the front window, rows and rows of soft crumbiellos.
Galwell loved the Vestriyan delicacies, which his family would import on special occasions.
The crumbly cake—hence the name—wrapped over molten cream was hand-magicked for eternal warmth.
Pastry culinarists crafted every imaginable combination of cake and filling.
Honey-rougeberry crumbiellos. Whitecake-citronelle crumbiellos.
Dark-brew-whipped-milk crumbiellos. And Galwell’s favorite, classic dark chocolate, sweet-cream crumbiellos.
Clare had clearly exaggerated. If Mona knew the value of delicious crumbiellos, she couldn’t be so bad. They would get on
just fine.
Their guide led them into the shop. The scent of sweetened dough overwhelmed Galwell. His stomach growled.
Then the man led them past the counter. Then into a shabby back room. Then they descended a rickety staircase, Galwell’s hopes
of crumbiellos and civilized conversation descending with them.
Reaching the bottom, whatever magic enveloped the shop lifted, for Galwell was suddenly nearly crushed under the loud beat
of thrumming music. They rounded a corner, and Galwell found himself in some sort of secret criminal clubhouse.
There were no crumbiellos here. Instead, dramatic, sharp shafts of light cut up the pitch-darkness of the subterranean room,
where bodies writhed provocatively to the punishing music. Scantily clad men thrusted to the beat in enormous dark-metal cages.
The whole room smelled of strange magic. From shadowy corners, sounds crept over the music that made Galwell blush. In his
twenty-seven years, give or take one resurrection, he’d never seen—never even imagined—so much debauchery.
“This is a secret criminal hideout,” Celine hissed, sounding less scandalized than fascinated. “Illegal deals are made here.
Illegal magics practiced. If I wrote about this, it would be front page—”
“You will not,” River ordered. Celine scowled.
“Galwell is right,” Thessia said more gently. “If we want to lure his enemies out, this is the perfect cover for it. We ought not ruin the opportunity.”
Their escort spoke to some hulking doorway guards. “Found this one outside hollering Mona’s name. Not working for the spymaster,
but still, figure it might be worth something to the boss lady to keep him quiet?”
One of the guards, rolling his eyes disdainfully, deposited some Vestriyan sterling coins in their disreputable escort’s hand.
“Good luck,” the man said menacingly to Galwell on his way out, rubbing the silver between his fingers.
The guards grasped Galwell. As they hauled him toward the dance floor, Galwell prepared himself to resist, feeling the hand-magical
strength coursing through his muscles.
“Gentlemen, though your establishment is lively, I do not wish to dance,” he said. He produced Clare’s letter from his tunic.
“I wish to confer with Mona the Merciless.”
One of Galwell’s escorts nodded toward the dance floor.
“Miss Grandhart,” the man replied, “is over there.”
Galwell turned just in time for the most striking woman he’d ever seen to lock eyes with him.
Mona Grandhart was dancing right in front of him. Her dress was very sheer, with nothing underneath. He could see every line
of her body, more of a woman than he’d ever seen in his twenty-seven years—give or take one resurrection—and it stunned him
speechless.
She sashayed forth, sweat shining on her shoulders, her chest. Her hair was dark brown, falling in glistening waves past her
collarbone. Dazed, Galwell couldn’t help but note that she didn’t much resemble her brother except for her eyes. Cerulean
like his, but cold. Where Clare’s glittered like the ocean, Mona’s glittered like a knife.
She stopped in front of them, smirking, her dagger eyes never leaving Galwell.
He did not speak. He could not. When River coughed something sounding like “so much for no romance,” he hardly heard her over the pounding in his head, his chest, his—
“You were shouting my name in the streets,” Mona said. “Yet now it seems you’ve nothing to say.”
Galwell started to suspect he’d made a profound miscalculation. He could not compel his concentration away from Mona’s curves.
She was a demon sculpted by the hands of the Ghosts themselves. She was a dirty dream from which he suspected he would never
wake up. When Vestriya whispered promises in his ears, they were in her voice.
River stepped in. “Clare sent us,” she announced. “We have a letter.”
Unceremoniously, she swiped the page from Galwell’s stiff hand and presented the sealed parchment to Mona.
Mona unstuck the seal. She read the contents. Then she grimaced and promptly tore the letter up.
“Lock this man in a cage,” Mona ordered. Her voice held no smirk whatsoever now. Galwell felt hands on him once more and knew—the
letter’s contents had failed. “The rest of you can enjoy the club if you wish, but know that there is magic in this place.
Speak its name to anyone or seek to destroy it and you will receive a curse of my choosing,” Mona went on. “I’m fond of changing
people into grumblefrogs this week.”
The guards clapped hands on Galwell. Too stunned, too distracted by Mona, he didn’t resist as they heaved him roughly into
one of the dance floor’s metal cages.
This was unfortunate. The metallic-purple-haired gyrating man in the neighboring cage winked when he caught Galwell’s eye.
Winked! First his odds-and-ends questing party, now sexy dance-cage confinement? Oh, this was not the heroism the legend of
Mythria expected.
He wrestled with the closed lock, which he found magic held shut. Not even his uncommon strength would permit him to rend metal from metal. No, Galwell the Great was left to watch the dance floor from his confinement.
Watch Mona, more precisely. She stepped right in front of him. Mona the Malevolent, Galwell deemed her, for he knew the way she danced was half intended for him.
Her movements captivated him, her hips as much a prison as his cage. The music punished him, for with every pounding pulse,
Mona’s supple form flexed, sweat running ecstasies down her skin.
Oh, Ghosts, give me back my ordinary, uncomplicated heroism.
She flung smirks over her shoulder at him like poisoned darts while Galwell looked on helplessly. When he searched the room
for his questing party, he couldn’t find them amid the crush of dancers.
With swaying movements following the rhythm, Mona slunk right up to his bars. “My brother should have warned you about me,”
she said.
“He did,” Galwell replied.
He fought for composure while Mona smiled pityingly. “Not well enough, it seems.”
Well-established objectives. Well-established objectives! “I seek—I seek an alliance with you,” Galwell managed.
Mona cocked her head, indulgent. Patronizing him. “And what,” she asked, “can you give me, Galwell the Gorgeous?”
Her eyes sparkled dangerously. Good. Galwell had little experience with sexy dancing women. He had lots of experience with danger. He stepped closer to his bars. “Release me and find out,” he returned. “I’m certain your brother
wouldn’t wish me confined.”
Mona’s smile sharpened. “Quite the contrary,” she chided. “My brother has merely asked me to keep you safe in exchange for something I have wanted for a very long time. Would you agree that you are perfectly safe in your cage?”
Squaring his shoulders, Galwell held her gaze. “I do not seek safety from you,” he replied.
He’d hoped to intrigue Mona or impress upon her his fearlessness. Instead, she slipped her hand into his cage to stroke his
chest.
“Do you seek danger, then?” Her voice stole over him, low and sultry. “I didn’t take you for someone who likes it rough, but
I’d love to find a man who can surprise me.”
He did seek danger, in fact, he wanted to say. Just not like this!
Regrettably, the physical contact damned his powers of speech. Startled, he withdrew sharply, stumbling—stumbling!—into the back of the cage.
Mona laughed, louder now. Victorious.
“On second thought, perhaps not,” she crowed. “Enjoy the club, Galwell. It’s more fun if you dance.”
She returned to the dance floor. Galwell looked on, quelling his frustration with more heroic strength.
He was not enjoying the club. He wished to be questing, in fresh sunlight, with resolute companions and well-defined objectives.
Not here, confined, with nothing to do except watch Mona, who maintained her position quite resolutely on the dance floor
in front of him. While Galwell looked on, helpless, she writhed to the pummeling music, no doubt inventing for Galwell’s own
torture entirely new ways of moving her voluptuous body.
Yet . . . with every passing, punishing moment in his dance prison, Galwell the Great began to second-guess his resistance.
Yes, perhaps his circumstances demanded innovation. New, unforeseeable measures of heroism. Perhaps his imprisonment was opportunity
in disguise.
Perhaps . . . yes, if he just . . . stayed in here, observing Mona, immersing himself in the world of her club, he could find some leverage, or discover some hidden secrets of the Vestriyan criminal underworld, which would surely help them—
“You all right, G?”
Galwell blinked, finding River at his side with a green drink in hand.
He cleared his throat, hastening to rationalize his surveillance of Mona the Merciless. He had just come into his new questing party. The last thing he needed was for them to find him useless. Weak. Needing more damnable help. “Yes,” he managed. “Yes, I’m very well. I’m—gathering intelligence.”
River grinned. “Is that what you’re calling it?” She appraised his very real, very honorable intelligence gathering. “Looks
to me like you’re”—her eyes went to Mona’s rear end—“held captive.”
Galwell grunted. Galwell the Grunting. Oh, this was wondrous. He could hear Mona’s mockery in his head now.
River sipped her emerald drink, looking perfectly content to leave Galwell to his “intelligence gathering.” While he hesitated
to demand help, if forced to choose, he would rather his questmates find him ineffective than distractible.
“You’re quite right,” he grumbled. “We must be on our way. Please—get me out.”
River said no more. She disappeared, instantly reappearing inside Galwell’s cage. She clasped the hero’s enormous biceps forcefully.
In the same moment, Mona’s head jerked up—her eyes met Galwell’s—
Crack.
Galwell found himself, stomach-churningly, dizzyingly, instantly on the dance floor outside his cage.
For the first time, real fury—not something coy—flickered darkly in Mona’s exquisite features. Ghosts, even her anger is alluring, Galwell heard himself think.
He locked the errant observation up in a little cage that he then cast into the darkest corner of his mind. “It was our pleasure
meeting you, Mona the Merciless,” he said. “My questing party and I shall be on our way. We seek your alliance in exposing
and defeating nefarious forces. While Clare wishes me kept only out of harm’s way, I do not want to be kept safe if safety
requires confinement—and as you’ve seen, my companion here can teleport me out of your clutches instantly. Unless you plan
to help us, I cannot help you in your well-intentioned if ultimately self-serving aim of securing my safety.”
He waited, proud of his compelling speech. He always was the speech giver in his quests.
When Mona said nothing, he nodded once in farewell, fighting down a strange disappointment. He moved toward the club’s clandestine
entry, fearing no guards—
“Wait,” he heard over the music.
Suppressing his smile, Galwell looked back. While he held his breath, something passed over Mona’s features. A question, he
discerned, and a decision.
“Very well, Galwell the Guileful,” Mona conceded, her voice like poison-laced crumbiello cream. “What do you have in mind?”