Love Charms (113 page)

A muffled shout caught my attention and I
focused back on what was happening. The man in black, Tomas, and the zombie
Jason had become, had all reversed their direction on the stairs leading out of
the basement and were backing down. The man in black looked worried.

Curious, I moved up to see a tall, burly
man advance down the stairs. Seeing his face, I couldn't hold back a gasp of
surprise. It was Malcolm, my new neighbor, the guy I had thought resembled a
teddy bear, only now with his set jaw, narrowed eyes, and a white wand extended
in front of him like a sword, he looked dangerous.  So dangerous, I forgot he
couldn't see or touch me and I flitted back into a lone corner to watch what
would happen next.

"Halt in the name of the Druid
Council," Malcolm said, his voice a thunderous roar.

"You're too late to save anyone,
Druid," sneered the man in black glancing at Tomas out of the corner of
his eye.  An unspoken communication passed between the two and Tomas blinked
and inclined his head in a subtle nod.

Malcolm hadn't noticed their body
language and continued his descent down the stairs. "I can still stop this
abomination of the circle and mete out your punishment, necromancer."

"I think you have misjudged me,
Druid," the man in black said calmly.

Tomas shifted his weight onto the balls
of his feet and behind his back, his hands folded into fists. At the same time,
the man in black threw a dark powder into the air, and, when Malcolm flinched,
Tomas moved in, first knocking the wand out of the way and then smashing one fist
into Malcolm's temple. It happened so fast it was anti-climatic.

Moving quickly, Tomas dragged Malcolm's
body out of the way and bound his hands with a length of rope he picked up off
the floor.

"Damn druids," muttered the man
in black. "Always trying to interfere with their stupid circle code.
Pretending they work for the common good instead of power. The only difference
between them and me is at least I'm honest about my intentions." 

Tomas waved to the stairs. "We'd
better get going, the house is going to blow soon."

"Very well. Let's go," the man
in black said.  He motioned to Jason. "You lead the way."

With heavy, awkward steps, as if he'd
forgotten how to walk, Jason moved forward. His movements deliberate, he
gripped the banister and climbed the stairs, contemplating each one as if he'd
never seen a step before.

Behind him, the man in black sighed.
"I hate it when they first rise. They're always so slow. Come on, zombie,
pick up the pace." There was a hint of power in his voice, and, in my
altered consciousness, I could see how it tied into Jason's aura--if you could
call the black smog that cloaked him an aura.

My jaw dropped. This was no zombie with a
half rotted face and a strong craving for fresh brains. Aside from his stiff
movements and pale color, he looked normal. No one would look twice at him. Yet
Jason had become a slave to the man-in-black.

My mind raced, what if he also retained
his memories and they, too, were at the necromancer’s service? I shuddered. 
That meant all the bank pass codes, all the little key pieces of information
needed to access a vault were readily available. And the person caught on
camera committing the crime was already dead.

Wow.  My mind boggled. A zombie bank
heist. Who would’ve thought? Not me. Not in a million years. How was he so
life-like? I didn’t know a ton about zombies because necromancers weren’t
exactly common, but I did know they were supposed to rot. Jason looked more
alive than dead. It freaked me out.

I watched as Jason jerked in response to
the man’s command, stomping up the steps at a faster clip. All three men
disappeared up the staircase, and I listened as they left the house, a door
slamming behind them.

On the floor, Malcolm stirred and
groaned. I went to him, and even though I knew he wouldn't hear me, I said,
"Hurry up. This place is going to blow."

Of course he didn't respond, and I had to
content myself with knowing he survived. He had to or else how would I have met
him?  He had to regain consciousness and get out in time, there was no other
possibility. I went to the timer Tomas had set. There was a minute left, a
minute for Malcolm to wake up and get the hell out of the basement. It wasn't
enough time. Couldn't be, not unless Malcolm could run with superhuman speed,
which I didn't rule out, because, with druids you never knew. They were pretty
secretive about their powers.

Anxious, I returned to Malcolm and yelled
his name as loud as I could. Nothing. He was out, gone from this world and
about to be blown into the next. How was he going to survive?

A bright light flashed in the basement
just then, and I ducked, hands raised to cover my eyes. When my vision cleared,
two other druids in the traditional white robe, the fabric gathered against
their bodies with a black cord, stood over Malcolm, grim expressions on their
lined faces.

One of them kneeled down and checked
Malcolm's pulse. "He's still alive."

The other nodded. "Right then. Let's
get him back home so he can try again."

They each hooked an arm under Malcolm's
shoulder, and hoisted the druid up between them. As one muttered some words I
didn't understand, the other scanned the basement with detached curiosity.

  Just before a second burst of white
light blinded me again, he cocked his head and fixed his gaze on the corner
where I had taken refuge. I stared back, and when he waved at me, I returned
the gesture.

"You can see me?"

He nodded. "We can see anything
outside of time."

"What do you mean by that?" I
asked, but it was too late, the bomb detonated, the force of the blast pushing
me out of the past and into my body with a painful metaphysical thud. I didn't
have to be psychic to know what kind of headache that was going to cause.

I lay on the ruins of the basement floor
for several long minutes, allowing myself to slowly come back to the present.
And then I began to cry. Great, big heaving sobs. The kind that make your nose
red and eyes swell. It wasn't just grief, but fear, and shock, and pain both
physical and emotional.  I probably would've cried for hours if left alone, but
a scraping sound above me, followed by a pebble stinging the back of my neck
startled me.

 Putting a hand to my neck, I jumped to
my feet. Blinking to reconcile my double-vision, I looked up, trying to see
what was happening. Something, I couldn’t quite make out what, landed next to
me, the ground quivering underneath its weight. From what I could see, it was
too large to be a person. Had more of the cinder blocks that made up the
basement walls fallen in?

“Watch out," Mark yelled.

His warning came too late. A gnarled hand
wrapped itself around my wrist, and, next thing I knew, I was heaved over a
shoulder, my nose entirely too close to my captor's unwashed nether regions.
His
green
unwashed nether regions.

The lack of underwear and the skimpy
nature of the loin cloth trying--and failing--to cover things gave me an eyeful
I’d really rather not have seen. The view identified my captor as definitely,
no doubt about it, male. A green slime colored male specimen to be exact. What
exactly it was that had grabbed me, I didn’t know. What I did know was I had to
escape as soon as possible. The last thing I needed or wanted was to be
smuggled into Fairy by a green man.

I struggled to break my captor’s grip
only to be rewarded with a stinging slap to my rear end.

“Oh hell no." I redoubled my efforts
to squirm free. To Mark I said, “What is going on?”

“Trolls or ogres. Scavengers," he
said, matching my posture and floating upside down.

“Holy shit, you're kidding me?” I kicked
my legs doing my best to connect with my captor’s stomach. “What should I do?”

He shrugged, calmer than me. “I would
play along until you're out of the house. He seems to know how to get around,
it'll save you some time.”

I considered his suggestion and
reluctantly decided Mark was right. The hollow remains of a burned out house
did not make an ideal fighting ground. I didn’t know how to fight anyway. That
had been Mark’s department. It would be better to wait until I was on terra
firma, where it was easier to run. I went limp, resigned to the reality that I
was going to be staring up a dirty loincloth for at least the next several
minutes.

A shorter-than-most-miniskirts loincloth
that reeked of smoke and putrid things I didn't want to think about. His
oversized calves bulged with too much muscle and his thick, wedge shaped feet
had yellow calluses. Coarse hair corkscrewed out of his legs, and, in an effort
to make my feelings on my abduction known, I began to pluck them out one by one
taking great satisfaction when he hissed in pain.

“I'm not sure that is a good idea. You're
annoying him,” Mark said just as another slap to my rear came crashing down.

I bucked, yelping in surprise and pain.
My captor chuckled low in his throat and hit me again. I took the hint and
stopped pulling on his leg hair. Instead, I focused on bouncing extra hard off
his back with each step he took, a subtle rebellion he didn’t seem to notice. I
bounced harder in the hope of putting his back out. It would serve him right.

Mark trailed behind us openly laughing.
“You're big, but not big enough to hurt him.”

I glared at him. “Are you calling me
fat?”

Mark stopped mid-laugh as he realized his
mistake. “No. No. Not at all, just that, you know, you're taller than most
women.”

“Which makes me fat.”

“Sofia, you know I think you're
gorgeous.”

I harrumphed and ignored him. Easy to do
as we had cleared the ruins and hit firm ground. The troll or ogre or whatever
the hell it was that had been carrying me over its shoulder dumped me onto the
grass making no attempt to control my descent. One second I hung on a shoulder
the size of large ham, the next I was in a free fall.

I landed with a grunt and used the
momentum to somersault and roll onto my feet. I faced my captor and oriented
myself. The yawning maw of the house stretched between me and Jacob's car. I
would have to do some pretty fast running to make it to safety.

My captor grunted and I turned my
attention back to him. Brown eyes looked me up and down with blatant interest.
A square jaw led to a pointed chin and heavy jowls bulged, crowding his flat,
squat nose in a fight for space. His large belly, also green, poked out from
underneath an ill-fitting, once white shirt. From his appearance and the color
of his skin, I decided he was an ogre. Trolls were supposed to be smaller with
brown skin and goatees. Not that I had met either a troll or ogre before, but I
had watched a documentary once on the Sidhe Channel.

The ogre flashed a smile at me and raised
his hands in a placating gesture, but I had seen the sharp canines behind his
full lips and I had no intention of becoming someone's dinner. I slowly backed
away, body tense and ready to run. He seemed puzzled at first, but then matched
my pace, following, but not seeking to get closer.

After a few steps he began to hum a tune,
clapping his hands in time to the beat. I raised my eyebrows and looked to Mark
who shrugged. “I think he's dancing.”

I nodded my agreement as the ogre started
to hop in a pattern reminiscent of a polka, his  stomach jiggling with each
jump. The humming escalated into an off-key wailing that made my ear drums
cringe. He stopped after a moment and then gave me an expectant look as he said
something with a guttural grunt. When it didn't get the response he wanted, he
clapped his hands at me and stomped his feet.

“What do you think he wants?” I asked.

“Maybe he wants you to dance?”

“What is this? Some kind of ogre mating
ritual?” Mark didn't get a chance to answer as the ogre howled at me and made
to charge. I shuffled my feet and began to sing the first thing that came to
mind, the chorus of Lady Marmalade.

The ogre backed off with a smile of
satisfaction as Mark said, “Interesting song choice. You do know you're asking
him to sleep with you?”

“Shut up. It was the first thing I could
think of. Besides, he probably doesn't speak French anyway.” I executed a quick
twirl and switched to Amazing Grace.

My captor roared, startling me into
silence and began to hop and wail again. Guess it wasn't my turn anymore. This
time he raised his arms over his head showing off impressive sweat stains in
the armpits. Call me judgmental, but I suspected ogres didn't bathe all that
often.

We alternated like this all the way back
to Jacob's car. I sang everything from the ABC song to Bingo to church hymns. I
sang and danced myself right up to the car, and, before the ogre knew what was
happening, opened the door and jumped in.

“Lock the door, lock the door!” I pushed
buttons on the armrest at random.

“What the hell is going on?” Jacob peered
out the window at the ogre. “What is that?”

“Just lock the doors and go.” A fist hit
my window punctuated by a loud howl. The glass cracked but didn't shatter.