Fantastical

  “Honey,” I whispered against his skin, holding him tight but my arms still clenched in a futile effort to hold him tighter.

  In return, his arms gave me a squeeze.

  “I was dying without you,” I told him, my voice trembling with tears.

  “I know, sweets,” he told me.

  “You came to me,” I breathed. “I prayed you would.” I pulled my face out of his neck, his head came up and I smiled a tremulous smile into his beautiful face. “I prayed you’d crash into me, but, honey, I didn’t mean it literally.”

  A slow smile spread across his face and then he snatched me back into his arms. I shoved my face back into his neck and took him in with all my senses, opening them so I could suck everything I could from him.

  Which was why I immediately felt it when his body went solid.

  “Fuckin’ hell,” Noc muttered.

  Uh-oh.

  “By the gods, tell me you jest, Cora,” Tor stated.

  Uh-oh!

  I pulled my face from his neck and looked up at him. He was looking down but beyond me. I followed his gaze and saw Noc standing in the drizzling rain with his arms crossed on his chest, his feet planted wide looking a lot like Tor. Well, just like him, actually.

  Oh shit.

  “Uh…” I started and stopped when I felt the heat of Tor’s gaze so I looked back at him.

  “You were with this man.”

  “Tor, honey –”

  “Jesus, Cora, babe, fuck me. You weren’t lying,” I heard Noc say, his voice heavy with shocked surprise and Tor’s eyes narrowed.

  “Cora babe?” he asked.

  “Tor –”

  “I thought I told you that you were not to be in the presence of this man.”

  “You did, but –”

  “It appears to me, my sweet, that you’re in the presence of this man.”

  “I am, but, you see, he was –”

  “I was in my world, searching high and low for magic which would bring me back to you, and you were carrying on with this man,” he ground out.

  Now hang on a second.

  My back went straight and I pulled away as best I could (seeing as we were on Salem), snapping, “I was not carrying on with Noc! He was –”

  “You were in his transport with him,” Tor interrupted me to point out.

  “He was taking me to Clarabelle to find you, you jerk!” I shouted, Tor’s head jolted and I smacked his bicep before continuing. “A Clarabelle who Harold, Marlene, Phoebe, Brianna, Dad, Mom and half of Seattle have been looking high and low for but Noc found for me in, like, ten minutes. So you should be thanking him because we were on our way to her so I could get back to you before you came tearing through the sky on your mighty beast!” At my mention of him, Salem threw his head back and whinnied, alerting me to his presence and when he did, I instantly twisted and bent to pat his neck and coo, “Heya Salem, missed you, boy.”

  He snorted, shook his head and stamped a foot.

  “Thank you for coming to get me.” I kept cooing and stroking.

  Salem let out a soft, sweet whinny and I knew what that meant.

  “I love you too, buddy,” I whispered.

  “This is not unusual,” Tor announced. “Our souls are torn asunder, I move heaven and earth, tearing my kingdom apart to find magic that will bring me back to her, she spends approximately five minutes greeting me then she fawns over my horse.” I twisted back to look at him to see he was addressing Noc. “It vexes me,” he stated and his eyes cut to mine when he concluded, “Greatly.”

  “Jesus,” Noc muttered.

  I glared at my man. Then I stared at my man. Then I put my hands to both sides of his face, pulled it down to mine and I kissed him.

  He kissed me back.

  The kiss started to get heated in a good way when I heard Noc say, “Kids, I can see this is a touching reunion but it’s fuckin’ wet and we’re in the middle of the goddamned road.”

  Tor lifted his head and aimed his eyes to Noc. I kept my arms around him as I twisted to do the same.

  “You have found the witch?” Tor asked and I saw Noc staring at him.

  “Jesus, I don’t know whether to be creeped out I’m starin’ at another me, relieved I wasn’t tagging a head case or pissed I didn’t find this Cora before you,” Noc muttered, not tearing his eyes from Tor.

  I pressed my lips together to stop from giggling.

  Tor, on the other hand, didn’t find anything amusing.

  “Have you found the witch?” Tor semi-repeated, his tone edging toward impatience.

  “Yeah, man, I found the… witch,” Noc answered, saying the words like he really wished he didn’t have to say them.

  “You must take us to her,” Tor commanded.

  Noc stared at Tor another second then mumbled, “Fuck me, this shit is whacked.”

  “Sir, you must take us to her,” Tor ordered again, definitely losing patience.

  Noc lifted a hand and nodded his head. “Yeah, yeah, I get that. Let Cora down so she can get in the SUV with me,” he replied and Tor’s body got tight.

  Oh dear.

  “She will ride with me, we will follow,” Tor decreed.

  “Uh… Tor, yeah?” Noc asked his name.

  “That is me,” Tor confirmed his name.

  “I gotta point out, man, that it’s raining and you’re on a fuckin’ horse,” Noc noted.

  “I’m aware of that,” Tor retorted.

  “And your babe is pregnant. She needs to be in a car where it’s warm, dry and safe, not riding on the back of a horse in the rain,” Noc remarked sensibly and logically and, I will add, sweetly.

  I so totally had to hook him up with Phoebe.

  Tor’s arms convulsed around me and a low growl escaped his throat. He didn’t want to let me go but he knew he should.

  God, I loved my man.

  Noc moved a step forward and continued in a quiet voice. “I understand that you two have been separated awhile and had your souls torn apart and shit but I swear I won’t let anything hurt her. She’s safe with me. Yeah?”

  Tor scowled at Noc but I watched his face gentle when his neck bent so he could look at me.

  “You will ride with the other me,” he said softly.

  “Okay, honey,” I whispered.

  His arms gave me a squeeze and his lips brushed mine. Noc moved closer as Tor lowered me off of Salem and Noc’s hands caught my waist and steadied my descent. This made Tor’s jaw get tight and I had to admit, it was a weird sensation to have the hands of two of the exact same, but entirely different, men on me.

  When my feet were on the asphalt, Noc grabbed my hand and pulled me a couple of steps away from Tor and Salem.

  “We cannot waste time,” Tor announced, his eyes moving from Noc’s hand in mine to Noc.

  “I got a lot more horsepower under my hood than you’re sittin’ on,” Noc pointed out.

  “We will keep up, just proceed with haste,” Tor commanded.

  “Proceed with haste, gotcha,” Noc muttered under his breath and his voice was shaking with laughter.

  I squeezed his hand at the same time I shook it. “Tor’s from another world,” I hissed at him. “You know they talk differently.”

  Noc looked at me with amusement in his eyes.

  It was a good look.

  “Right,” he muttered then the amusement fled from his eyes as they moved over my face. His hand got tight in mine as I watched it hit him that I was who I said I was, not some crazy head case he was tagging and this was really happening. “Right,” he muttered again, his tone soft, even tender and he nodded before he whispered, “Let’s get you two home.”

  Jeez. Totally a sweet guy.

  We started to the SUV and as we did, Salem stamped a hoof and shook his neck. I looked toward the horse as I moved with Noc and saw Salem stamp his hoof again, throw his head back and whinny.

  Then he started dancing with agitation.

  Oh shit, I didn’t get a good feeling about
this.

  I stopped, Noc stopped with me and we both looked at Salem.

  “Salem, what do you feel?” Tor asked urgently, Salem danced, swung his head to Noc and me and whinnied more anxiously. That was when Tor shouted, “Get her to your transport!”

  Noc looked from the horse to Tor. “What?”

  “Now!” Tor roared, pulling the sword out of the scabbard in Salem’s saddle and Noc got still at my side when we heard the steel hiss as it went. Tor’s eyes were pointed into the dark distance but it was too late.

  The air all around us turned blue, I knew what that meant, my system flooded immediately with adrenalin but I had no time to react. The next instant the air surrounding us exploded in blue sparks that shot everywhere, filling the space, bouncing off our bodies.

  “What the fuck?” Noc shouted, his hand grasping mine hard at the same time and he started dragging me to his truck.

  But we didn’t get there because the sky was swarming with vickrants and worse, what looked like an army of hunched beings with two arms, two legs, huge, deformed pointed ears, wrinkled faces, bald heads and bulging eyes were marching straight at us.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Assistance

  “Head down!” Noc shouted, I was tucked into his body as we moved in a near-crouch around his truck to the passenger side, the blue sparks of the vickrants Tor’s sword was slicing through as he and Salem provided us cover bouncing off our bodies.

  Noc pulled the door to the SUV open but it was rocking, those other… things were at the other side of it, pushing at it to turn it to its side, probably doing this so we couldn’t use it to get away.

  Keeping me tucked to him, Noc didn’t delay. He reached in, pulled down the door to the glove box and grabbed a gun and two clips.

  He extended the clips to me. “Take these,” he ordered.

  I took them and shoved them in my back pockets as he pulled back the slide on the top of the gun and yanked us away from the shuddering SUV just as it teetered over and slammed on its side.

  “Cora!” Tor shouted, I peeked out from under Noc and looked at Tor. He was swinging his sword at vickrants one-handed at the same time pulling a dagger out of his belt.

  I ducked out from under Noc, raced swiftly to Tor, took the dagger from him and he reached around his other side and pulled out another one. I took that one too.

  “Rocks!” Noc yelled at Tor, his arm snaking around me, he tucked me back into him and we raced off the road, through some scrub and into the sand toward some huge rocks. The whole time, Tor and Salem followed us, continuing to provide cover overhead as Noc aimed his gun at the legged creatures advancing on us from behind.

  He pulled the trigger and one of the creatures howled, dropped to his back and exploded in blue sparks.

  “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Noc muttered, but didn’t hesitate, aimed again and pulled the trigger. Another creature howled, collapsed and exploded in blue sparks.

  The rest kept advancing as we kept going toward cover, not an easy thing to do through sand.

  A vickrant flew low, sailing under Salem’s neck, the horse whinnied but I swung my arm down across my body, yanked it back up and I sliced through the vickrant’s chest, blue sparks shot into my face and the vickrant disappeared. Another instantly followed and I did the same with the other dagger, catching the thing at its throat, it vanished in a shock of blue embers. I did all of this as Noc kept shooting and moving us, me in the middle, Salem and Tor close to my side.

  I took down another vickrant before we made it around the tall rock the underneath of which the sea had eroded away, giving us an overhang and cover from the vickrants who, unable to get to us but coming just the same, flew straight into the top of the rock in their kamikaze mission, exploding themselves.

  Whoa.

  Tor dismounted and Salem stood vigil beside us, using his huge body to cut off access at the front of the rock and I watched in shock as Salem took out a low-flying vickrant with a nasty chomp of his horse teeth.

  Uh… whoa!

  Then Noc shouted at me, “Clip!”

  I transferred one dagger to the other hand, pulled a clip out of my back pocket and handed it to him. He took it, instantly released the used clip, it fell with a thud into the sand and he shoved the next one in. Taking aim around the rock, he fired at the legged creatures, not missing though, it had to be said, they would be hard to miss seeing as there were so freaking many of them.

  “Talk to me,” he bit out to Tor who was standing, legs planted, just out from under the cover of the rock and striking vickrants down with every mighty swing.

  “The winged creatures, vickrants, the legged monsters, toilroys,” Tor explained, then grunted through another swing that took out three vickrants at once. Then he went on, “The good, anything pierces their skin, they perish.” Another swing, another grunt, another two vickrants exploding in blue. “The other good, they have no brain, they are programmed only with the mission so they aren’t tactical and are unable to adjust their advance, for instance, if they are confronted with terrain that is difficult to maneuver.”

  “And the bad?” Noc asked, aiming and firing at toilroys as another vickrant flew low, around Salem, toward me and I slashed out with my knife, catching it under its belly and blue flashes flew.

  “There are a lot of them,” Tor answered Noc.

  “Fuckin’ great,” Noc muttered, aimed, fired and another toilroy bit the dust. “I’m almost out of ammunition, man, got a clip and a half left,” Noc went on to inform Tor.

  “Salem!” Tor bellowed, the horse turned around and Tor stopped swinging just long enough to pull a lethal-looking axe out of a holder on the saddle, he turned and tossed it, head up, to Noc who caught it by the handle left-handed.

  Well, the other good was, my man was a warrior and he came heavily armed.

  “Terrific,” Noc muttered, not feeling my positive vibe but keeping hold on the axe and turning back to aim and shoot, taking down another toilroy, “I run outta ammo, I gotta get close to those fuckers to take them out.”

  “It takes an extraordinary amount of magic for Minerva to conjure this many creatures and I would assume an incomparable amount to send them to another world,” Tor stated as he kept swinging, the air rife with blue flashes where he connected, another vickrant came low, clawed feet first, aiming at me. I lunged forward and planted a dagger in his belly as another one came to the side and I swung wide with my other hand, catching it at its gullet. “We have learned in the past that if we’re able to reduce their number by half,” Tor went on, grunted with another swing and concluded, “they’ve orders to retreat.”

  “That’s good news, right?” I asked, plunging my dagger into another low-flying vickrant as two came flying in at my other side. I pivoted and swung wide again, catching them both with my other dagger.

  “Babe, there’s fuckin’ thousands of these fuckin’ things,” Noc growled, aimed, fired then released the clip and it fell to the sand under our feet. “Clip!” I pulled it out of my back pocket, turned and tossed it to him, he caught it then shouted, “Cora!”

  I felt them, talons in my shirt, starting to drag me back. I whirled quickly, the claws lost hold, I slashed out, my dagger tearing through the vickrant that had me and it exploded in blue just as another one came in and I threw out my other arm, catching it too.

  “Fuck!” Noc thundered, shoving the new clip in his gun.

  “Bloody hell!” Tor roared and both men moved closer to me.

  We carried on swinging, stabbing and firing.

  “You got any ideas?” Noc asked Tor as the creatures kept at us in an increasing wave.

  “Don’t give up,” Tor answered Noc.

  “Shit,” Noc muttered, aimed, fired and another toilroy collapsed in a ball of sparks.

  They kept coming at us, we kept fighting, my arms were getting tired but my body was singing from the adrenalin surging through my system.

  Salem screamed and shook his massive body. Noc moved o
ut from under cover, I saw his hand wielding the axe swoop up then down and blue flashes flew out. Salem shuffled further under the cover, closer to Tor and me.

  “Noc!” I shrieked. “Get back here!”

  He rounded the horse, a vickrant flew low, legs aimed at Noc’s back. They connected, Noc started to fly back but Tor charged forward and with a powerful upward swing, the vickrant exploded.

  Both men moved back under cover, Noc finished his clip, dropped his gun and advanced, both hands on the axe, he swung back and forth, tearing through the stream of advancing toilroys.

  “This is not,” he grunted on a swing, a toilroy disappeared, “goin’,” another grunt, another swing, another toilroy vanishing, “our way, man,” another grunt, another toilroy gone.

  Then the vickrants stopped swooping but this was because the toilroys had surrounded us, closing in from all sides. Salem shifted, pressing me to the rock face as Noc and Tor moved around the horse, Tor at his head, Noc at his flank and they kept fighting. They did this without word and I was cut off from the action.

  “Let me help!” I shouted over the horse as I watched them battle on.

  “Stay safe!” Tor shouted back.

  “Tor! I can help!”

  “Safe!” he bellowed.

  The toilroys pressed closer, blue sparks flew, dancing around, lighting the surface of the rock but where one evaporated, three more were there, pressing in.

  “Gods!” Tor exploded on a mighty swing that took out four toilroys but four more were instantly in their place.

  “God damn it!” Noc roared, slashing two toilroys with an axe but three surged in to fill their emptied space.

  I watched the advance over Salem’s back as my man, his horse and his twin were forced to close ranks as the toilroys relentlessly pressed in.

  We were losing. Losing.

  Shit!

  I closed my eyes, rested my forehead against Salem’s glossy fur, he pressed closer, pushing my back into the rock and I whispered, “Please, please, please, please, please.”

  I heard Tor grunt and then I heard Noc growl.

  Then I heard an almighty shriek pierce the air or, I should say, what sounded like about thousands of simultaneous almighty shrieks. I automatically dropped the daggers so I could cover my ears against the loud, hideous, ear-splitting sound, my head snapping back, my eyes shooting open and I saw a pink wave of light washing toward us, blue sparks blazing in its path, so many, the sky lit bright with blue and pink, illuminating everything all around us, saturating it with color so bright, I winced.