A Highland Sorcery Christmas

  ~~~

  The monster’s forefinger punctured through Alexander’s shoulder, pulling him upward while it tried to get its other arm past the bulging rock it was pinned behind. With the way its bulky form was positioned in the tight space, the monster’s other shoulder was wedged back.

  “Use your magic, Alexander.” Col gripped him from below, his arm snaked around his muddy ankles, but just like the monster, Col was stuck and only had use of one arm.

  Latching onto the beast’s hands, Alexander screamed, attempted to pull the claw tip out of his shoulder. Blood and rain and mud poured down him.

  His hands slipped on the blubbery flesh. This couldn’t’ be real, couldn’t be happening.

  His head pounded. Blue dots started bursting across the darkness. He’d been in the dark so long, felt blind by it and now a monster was going to bite his head off. He was glad he couldn’t see the disgusting mouth coming for him very well.

  “Pretty pretty sorcererrrrr.” The beast’s hot breath poured over him, smelling of blood and the overturned dirt of an open grave.

  Alexander punched out, colliding with hard bone beneath soggy skin.

  The claw twisted in his shoulder, dragging him up closer. He screamed against the pain.

  “Naughty, naughty.” Cold lips pressed onto his face, and then the roughness of a slavering tongue rasped his cheek. The stench of rot nearly gagged him.

  Those yellow gray teeth would come next, he knew it. He tried to brace himself, tried to be brave.

  He shoved his fists over and over again in the bulbous flesh. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to be here.

  He just wanted to be home.

  Safe.

  Where monsters didn’t exist.

  He hit the monster again, tried to twist away from the claws curled into the rounded part of his shoulder and digging into the front of his shoulder.

  He felt the monster draw close.

  Alexander turned his face away.

  “Alexander, now! Do something.” Col rasped in desperation, pulling at him. Light erupted from below. Col was going to transform to save him even though he couldn’t hold a form. It would kill him.

  The light illuminated the monster’s eyeless face. The darkness never had been a hindrance for it. It’d known where they were the entire time.

  Chuffing the air like an ape, it drew Alexander closer, its pale lips pulled back over glistening deadly teeth.

  Alexander shoved back.

  Teeth grazed his cheek. The monster was savoring this, playing. He didn’t want to be here.

  Then he felt it. A low twist in his belly. Something inside changing, unlocking, like the turn of a key.

  Col screamed his name.

  Alexander screamed too, and was swallowed in a haze of red.

  Not teeth. Gods, not teeth.

  He plowed into a tear in reality.

  A tear in the air where the monster just was. Alexander was pulled right up into it.

  He felt the creature’s claw pull out of his shoulder as he was sucked away into the void.

  He careened into his bed, jarred his arm and sent the bed scraping across the floor and into his chest of drawers.

  The breath knocked out of him, he blinked at his surroundings.

  Home. He was home?

  And completely naked. Mud and rainwater covered his bedspread and splattered his walls. He heaved in choking gasps of air, his lungs working a mile a minute.

  It made sense. He’d just been wishing he was home and…he’d worked magic. Desperate to not be eaten, his magic must have taken over and opened a rift to home.

  He sat up, head spinning. Col. Col was still in the sinkhole with the monster.

  “Mom!” He grabbed some sweat pants off the floor and raced out of the room, hopping on one foot to get the sweats on. “Dad!”

  A crash sounded in his room behind him, wood splintering, then a guttural squeal bit into his bones.

  He spun just as the monster barreled out of the door and leaped high, scampering along the wall like a freakish spider.

  “Dad!” Alexander ran into the kitchen. “Dad!”

  The monster cartwheeled in the air, landing on the table in front of him.

  Skidding, Alexander dropped beneath its claw, rolling to the floor, pulling a chair over with him.

  A sudden weight dropped on him, pushing the side of the chair into his ribs.

  Alexander shoved the chair up, catching one of the legs into the monster’s groin. It howled, body stiffened, and let go of the chair to cup itself.

  Good to know. Not wasting the distraction, Alexander twisted out from under and fled out of the house.

  His bare feet sank in the mud. The rain hit his uncovered chest, stinging the cut in his side and carrying rivulets of blood to soak the waistband of his sweat pants.

  No one was out in the dark or rain. He didn’t know where his parents were and he was afraid the monster would chase him into the lower village where no one else could help him without getting hurt worse.

  So he ran past his mom’s herbal shop and over to the blacksmith shed. His dad could stop the monster. He knew he could. His dad could do anything.

  He heard the galloping clops of the monster behind him. Alexander didn’t risk looking, just ran as hard as he could into the open doors of the old shed.

  “Dad!”

  It was dark, empty. Embers maintained a bare glow in the cooling forge.

  His pulse beat loud and rapid in his ears.

  “Da—“ He was thrown sideways, and hit his father’s worktable, falling with it in a tumble of tools and scraps of metal. He grabbed up the long tongs and came up around the overturned table, screaming. Enough was enough. He was done running.

  He swung the tongs like a baseball bat, hitting thin air. The beast was…?

  Behind him. He felt the ripple in the air as it dropped from the rafters.

  Alexander spun and was shoved to the ground before he could get a hit in. The monster leaped, but Alexander rolled away, and dived between the cooling barrels of water his dad used to plunge the hot metal into. Claws racked down his lower leg, tearing through his sweats, tearing skin.

  Alexander kicked away, gouging up dirt, and squeezed out between the barrels. Tongs still in hand, he ran toward the forge, toward the door.

  And was lifted off his feet and thrown across the forge. Warmth from the smoldering coals washed across his stomach. Claws scraped his shoulders, tossing him onto his back at the edge of the forge. Straddling his belly, the monster leaned in close, savoring, playing, wanting Alexander to know and see what was happening to him, like fear was an appetizer. Saliva dripped onto his cheek and a lone claw tip swept across his jaw in a horrifying caress.

  The blood rushed to Alexander’s head, heightening his heartbeat like a river of blood.

  “Noooo!” Alexander screamed and swept the tongs up. He meant to hit the monster, knock him off balance, but they caught open, slipping into the blubbery neck and Alexander squeezed. Oh, how he squeezed.

  Arms shaking, he held the monster off of him, squeezing, nearly going blind from the effort. The monster gagged and hissed, locking its claws into Alexander’s shoulders, puncturing flesh, scraping across his collarbones. But Alexander couldn’t let go, couldn’t stop. The moment he did, he was dead.

  But he couldn’t hold it off forever, he wasn’t strong enough. The monster’s weight alone bore down on him, crushing. He couldn’t—

  He didn’t have to. He flicked his gaze to the side, feeling the heat from the embers just inches away.

  “Bring the fire, Alexander.” Had it just been that morning that his father said that? “Feel the magic in you and give it to the flame.”

  He’d tried and couldn’t do it. Couldn’t feel any magic within him at all. Yet that had been before his survival instincts kicked in and open a rift in space.

  Alexander stared at the writhing angry eyeless face above him, felt the hot press of gnarled claws embedded
in his shoulders, crushing his collarbones, the slow drip of blood coating his shivering body, the quivering of his muscles…and let it all go.

  He sent all thought, all emotion, into the embers, felt their warmth, felt the flutter of heat and combustion and flame ready to come back to life. He pulled on that spark, drawing, drawing, lifting it out, seeing it grow…

  Flames erupted beside them, blue hot, singeing the hairs across his arm. Not expecting it, the monster shrieked, jerking back, and Alexander rolled, pushing the monster into the forge. The slide of its claws pulling out of his shoulders nearly buckled him, but he kept hold of the tongs, holding the monster in place, keeping it burning, burning. On his knees with heat flaring across his body, he held tight.

  The monster screamed and burned. Writhed and wept, slashing out, catching Alexander’s arm, but Alexander held firm as though his life depended on it. He gasped a terrified laugh, knowing his life did depend on keeping the monster in the flame.

  The flame that he fed. Hotter. Hotter. Hotter. It rose nearly touching the ceiling, smudging it in black. He felt the flames taking something from within, something very deep and unfamiliar. His magic, he supposed. The fire was welcome to it. It burned hotter and hotter, more than Alexander could stand. He was too close, knew his skin was boiling, bubbling, burning away too, but he was too afraid to let go.

  Finally the monster stilled, sagging, it’s dead weight taking more than Alexander could bear, and it slunk down into the forge, it’s bloated form hissing and spiting like a bag of boiling oil. The smell was awful.

  Hands burning, Alexander released his hold, pulling skin away, and toppled back off the forge, hitting the ground with his back where he looked up into the smoky rafters, exhausted and spent.

  Eyes stinging, he rolled over and pushed up to his knees. It wasn’t over. He had to help Col.