Fantasyland 03 Fantastical (43 page)

“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.

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.