Storykiller (7 page)

Tessa was starting to think they were making up these words. They
sounded
made up.

The pebble froze in midair (very unlike a kid’s average marble) and then blue-white lightning snaked out of it, leaving behind
a flickering blue doorway of light in the middle of the room. Snow stepped through the doorway and disappeared. Tal gestured to Tessa. “C’mon.”

Tessa shook her head. “No freaking way.”

Tal sighed slightly, like she had been here before. “Don’t make me threaten to hurt your friends, okay?” Hecuba cast a growl at Micah and Brand, her eyes sparking even more brightly in her face.

“Fine, fine,” Tessa said, raising her hands and realizing she still had the axe. She set it down, and it promptly disappeared. Tessa suddenly wished she wasn’t covered in blood as she headed into whatever lay beyond that door. She stepped forward half a step and then looked at Micah and Brand. “I’m really sorry I got you guys into this. Really.”

Brand shook his head. “What are you talking about? You saved our lives.”

Tessa smiled weakly. “You guys are nice.” She stepped forward and, after a glare at Tal, walked through the doorway. Tal followed, Hecuba on her heels. No sooner had the dog disappeared, then Brand stepped toward the doorway.

“We’re going, right?”

Micah bit her lip, unsure.

“C’mon, Mike. If for no other reason than Tessa’s the first friend we’ve made in, like, a million years, and she saved our lives, and she’s in there alone.”

Micah nodded and grabbed his arm. The doorway was already shrinking as they jumped through.

Tessa opened her eyes to find herself in a hallway that actually seemed more like a cave. The walls were intricately carved but dark and windowless and made completely of rock. The markings on the walls made no sense to her but somewhere deep inside something pricked at her, like a memory she had never actually experienced. The space was illuminated only by candles, and the effect was both eerie and magical at once, with
shadows dancing across the walls.

Snow stood to the side, waiting anxiously. Tal and Hecuba appeared just behind Tessa. She was about to open her mouth and say something bitchy to Tal when Micah and Brand appeared as well.

Tal saw them and began to shout what could only be cuss words. “Tovaien kiaane! Neyersichita!”

Hecuba growled.

Tessa knew they shouldn’t have followed her but she couldn’t help but smile at them. She was still mad scared, but now just a fraction less. “Thanks, guys.”

They shrugged their shoulders as if it was nothing, which made Tessa chide herself for writing them off as nice and adorable. They were both those things, but they were so much more. There was steel in them, and goodness, and incredible bravery to have followed her here, wherever
here
was.

Tal looked down and spoke directly to Hecuba. “I’m not sticking around for this.” The dog snuffled in agreement and followed her into the darkness. Snow trailed after her, yelling something in the strange language Tessa couldn’t make out.

A voice behind Tessa rang out, and she whirled around to see that they were not in fact in a hallway but rather at the end of one. Just behind them was an entrance to a grand open space. The room, like the hallway attached to it, was shaped from what still seemed to Tessa to be a massive cave, windowless and mysterious, and well,
cavernous
. But it also resembled the inside of a magnificent castle, with a ceiling soaring up high above her and decorations etched into the walls, patterns swirling deeply through the floor and ceiling, jewels set into those patterns so that everything sparkled.

The room was mostly bare, relying on the splendor of its jeweled walls and floor to do the work. Except candles. There were candles everywhere, like bullshit romantic, chick-movie style, just
layers
of candles. It must have taken, like, half the day just to light all of them. The only other thing in the room was a massive dais and on it, sitting in chairs that were more like thrones positioned behind a massive stone table, were four figures robed in hooded cloaks of such a dark purple that they appeared almost black in the candlelight. One chair on the end was empty. The man at the center squinted at Tessa.

Tessa remained in the shadows, anxious about what horrible thing would happen next and not terribly eager to give him a better look at her. The man stood and threw up his arms theatrically, his big robed sleeves falling down to somewhere just below his elbows, his gloved hands spread wide and dramatically above him.

“Battle. Step forward, for you are
The Scion
!” his voice boomed, echoing off the stonewalls. Tessa opened her mouth to speak but found she had no idea what to say. She stumbled forward, away from Brand and Micah, who stood dumbstruck, as if turned to stone rivaling their surroundings. Tessa peered at the man to see if she could make him out from under the cloak, but all she could see was golden-blonde hair peeking out from beneath his hood. Tessa took a few more steps into the light, closer to the dais, and Brandon and Micah followed her, keeping a slight distance, their mouths still hanging open.

The robed figure spoke again, throwing his arms open even wider, attempting even more grandeur than the first time (which was saying something).

“Yes, Battle. Welcome to The Court! We have been awaiting you—” he stopped midsentence and then threw back his hood and narrowed his eyes at Tessa as she came fully into the light. He squinted at her and then, his hands on his hips, and in a much less impressive, authoritative voice said, “Wait. She’s…she’s a girl.” The three other robed figures leaned forward intently. He looked back at them, confused. “Why is The Scion a girl?!” he said to the others, almost as if he was offended. The rest of The Court threw their own hoods off and looked at her more closely, equally surprised.

Tessa walked closer to the dais, unsure, and Brand and Micah inched forward behind her. “Where are we?” Tessa asked.

The figures had been talking amongst themselves since the proclamation that Tessa was a girl, and Tessa had just decided to ignore it, annoying as it was. The man with the blonde hair, and Tessa could now see, an older man’s once handsome visage, turned back to her. He recoiled slightly, and Tessa could tell
he was looking at Brand and Micah.

“Oh great gods! Why does she have minions?!” he whined to the others. “Since when does The Scion come with minions?!”

Brand raised his hand tentatively in protest, “Um, we are definitely not minions.” But then he chewed his lip and looked around unsure. “Okay, I am like fifty percent sure we’re not minions.” Tessa looked at him and he shrugged his shoulders. Micah just stared back, her eyes huge behind her glasses.

“Then what are you?” The head figure asked haughtily.

Brand shrugged. “I don’t know, just along for the really weird ride?”

The man kept staring at them but muttered to the handsome, dark-skinned, dark-
eyed man next to him, “Sounds like minions to me.”

The handsome man nodded in agreement, “Mmmhmmm.”

Snow came back into the room, now wearing a long white gown perched precariously low on her shoulders and made, so far as Tessa could tell, of actual diamonds. She walked toward the dais, her own dark purple cloak in hand, and sent an ‘I told you so’ glance at Tessa.

“See? Minions.”

Tessa rolled her eyes. Snow ascended the dais, put on her own cloak to match the others, which seemed ridiculously formal, and sat in the only empty chair at the far end of the table. Fed up, Tessa stomped her foot like an angry child, forcing them to acknowledge her.

“Hey! Can you get it together up there!? What the hell is going on? Where are we?” The robed figures turned, and a few more whispers escaped before the blonde man shushed them.

“Okay. Yes. Sorry about that. A bit of confusion here. We weren’t expecting you.”

“Your people brought me here,” Tessa said angrily.

“Well, yes. Yes, we did send for you, but it’s your birthright that brought you. Traditionally on his 17
^th
birthday, The Scion is activated, and when that happens, we bring him here—to the dimension of Story. It’s just…usually you’re a boy.”

Tessa crossed her arms. “I’m
always
a girl.”

“Yes, of course,” he sniffed. “I mean, usually
The Scion
is a boy. Since you are, well,
not,
then that means you are something we have read about only in prophecy. Cryptic prophecy most of us stopped believing in a long time ago. You’re something called ‘The Last Scion’,” he said, with heavy emphasis on the word ‘last.’

Brand leaned forward to Tessa, “Oh yeah,
that’s
not too ominous.”

Tessa ignored him and tried to address the figures again. “And who are you?” she asked, getting angrier by the second. The man smiled broadly.

“I am Midas. I am the leader of The Court,” he said. When Tessa remained unimpressed, he sniffed again, trying to hide his disappointment. Tessa nodded at the rest.

“And they are?”

“The rest of The Court—at the end is The Frog Prince, this is this is Aladdin, Morgana, and of course you have already met Snow.” Tessa took them in. The Frog-man could only be described as just that, a Frog-Man. He stood and sat and gestured like a man, but he was simply a frog. Giant head and eyes, green skin, the whole package. The woman Midas called Morgana was stunning. Dark-eyed and dangerous-looking, with black hair that spilled over her shoulders and back like an overturned bottle of ink. Aladdin was painfully handsome, all enigmatic dark eyes and slicked back hair. Brand sucked in a breath behind her.

“What?” she whispered.

He sidled up to her. “They’re dressed up as fictional characters,” he breathed. “The Frog Prince, Morgan Le Fay, King Midas, Aladdin, Snow…I don’t know…”

“Snow White?” Micah broke in.

“No, the look is wrong—The Snow Queen maybe?” Brand posited. Tessa nodded but kept quiet.

Midas laughed. “Silly Mortal minion, we’re not “dressed up” as Fiction, we ARE Fiction. Though we prefer Stories. And that is where you are, in Story. It’s where we live, where all Fictional characters live.”

Tessa nodded. She wanted to laugh out loud and search the room for hidden cameras, but she’d also gotten superpowers, fought a Troll in her backyard, decapitated a guy named Bluebeard, seen an unbelievably giant dog, and an even more unbelievably giant wolf, felt a woman change the temperature in the air with her thoughts, and been teleported to another location via a shining blue doorway, so evidence was pretty piled up in favor of Fictional characters being real. She did worry that Brand and Micah’s heads might explode, however.

Instead, Brand’s eyes lit up. “Whoa. Like, Batman? Batman is real!?”

Midas sighed. “Yes. He’s real. And frankly? He’s kind of a dick.”

From behind Midas, Aladdin shook his head in an emphatic “No” and then very clearly mouthed, “HE’S AWESOME.”

Brand’s face could only be described as elated.

The dark-haired woman, Morgana, came down from the dais. Tessa felt herself instinctively tensing up. The woman had a calculated expression on her face, as if she was approaching a baby deer that might be
easily startled.

“Battle. We apologize for the frustration you must feel. Even for those that have been prepared, which you clearly have not, this can all come as a bit of a shock,” she smiled beatifically.

“But what is
this
?” Tessa asked.

“
This
is your birthright,” Morgana said. “The Scion has always been an important part of our world, bridging the gap between us, fighting to keep things balanced, policing the two worlds as is sometimes necessary. There is, as Midas said, a prophecy that the last of The Scions, who have all been male until now, would be female. So that means you’re the much vaunted ‘Last Scion’ that some Stories have been waiting for—well, for a very long time.”

“Because when I’m dead you guys won’t be able to get back and forth or something, right?” Tessa asked. Morgana pursed her lips and Tessa pushed. “Because that’s what Bluebeard said.”

Behind her, Brand looked at Micah and whispered. “Who’s Bluebeard?” Micah shrugged in response.

Morgana seemed to choose her words with care, “Yes, it is believed by most Stories that the death of The Last Scion will close the boundaries between our worlds permanently. Some Stories will want that very much and some will do anything to prevent it,” Morgana paused and glanced at Snow, “But surely Snow has told you all of this.”

Snow screwed up her mouth, “Well, about that.”

Morgana’s gaze hardened. “Yes?”

“I gave her the Cliff Notes. But we’re actually here because Tal was summoned by a Story death. The Scion killed Bluebeard.”

And then the shit hit the fan.

“She did what?!?” Midas roared from the dais, incensed. For her part, Morgana stepped back half a step, as if Tessa was poison. “How dare you!?” Midas continued,
all thunder and fury.

“How dare he try to kill
me
,” Tessa said, surprised by the steel in her voice, the anger.