Eric hurried us through the winding tunnel and in a short while I breathed the fresh air of the open park and flowing river. I cast a quick look down into the well and watched the water refill to the mold line.
Eric himself took a few steps away from the rock wall before he stopped and folded his arms. He bowed his head and closed his eyes.
I slipped up to his side with my head buzzing with questions. “So, I’m guessing you guys have known each other for a long time.”
He didn’t open his eyes. “Nearly as long as I’ve been in Vanar’s servitude.”
My mind recalled the grim trophy above the bar. “And good hasn’t always triumphed.”
His expression took on a world-weary look, and his voice was deep and tinged with exhaustion. “Far from it.”
I set a hand on his arm, and he finally opened his eyes. They fell on me, and I offered him a smile. “Now we have two against one, right? The odds should be better.”
Eric studied me face for a long while before he stared ahead. “Yeah…”
My eyebrows crashed down and I swatted his arm. He winced and whipped his face back to me. “Not in that voice! Like this!” I lifted my arms high and stretched myself to my full height which only reached about his shoulders. “We’re going to beat the pants off that pants-wearing serpent!”
A gentle smile appeared on his lips, and I heard the barely detectable sound of a chuckle from him. “Perhaps we will, but not by standing here.”
He tried to move away, but I pinched his sleeve between two of my fingers. “Wait, we’re really going to help him? He’s our enemy, isn’t he?”
“We’re not helping him, we’re helping us,” Eric revealed as he drew out the article he had caught. It turned out to be a small handkerchief with a few unmentionable yellow stains. “Most of his clientele are not the sort to suddenly come into possession of an honest job, and doesn’t the description of their eyes remind you of something?”
I furrowed my brow. “Yeah. Sort of like what happened to that hag. So, what you’re saying is his trouble and Death’s might be linked?”
He nodded. “It’s possible, but we’ll have to find the connection ourselves.”
I looked over my shoulder at the innocent well. “So, what is Gandra exactly? I’ve never even heard of someone who could transform their arm like that. Not even vampires can transform into bats.”
Eric pursed his lips as he tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. “He’s an old god.”
I whipped my head back to him and lifted an eyebrow. “Like Vanar?” Eric opened his mouth, but instead of replying he scrunched his face up as though in pain, and he clutched his head. My heart quickened as I grasped his arm. “Are you okay?”
He dropped his hand and shook off whatever ailed him before he nodded. “I’m fine.”
I leaned back and frowned at him. “That didn’t look fine.”
“It’s passed, but we shouldn’t let this night slip past,” he scolded us as he nodded in the direction of the car. “We have a few leads now, so we should follow them.”
Eric didn’t give me time to reply before he strode off down the path. I scurried after him. “Wait a sec! What about Gandra?”
A shadow creased Eric’s brow as he stared ahead and didn’t slow his quick pace. “Gandra is quite old. Far older than I am. He’s spoken about events which centuries ago I had only heard whispers about.”
I leaned forward and caught his eye. “What kind of events?”
He turned his face away. “Horrible ones.”
His expression and words tugged at my heartstrings. There was something heavy and heartbreaking in them, as though even the memory was too horrible to mention. So, I didn’t.
Instead, I inspected the shadows around us. “Speaking of old hairy, he’s been really quiet lately.”
Eric, too, swept his eyes over the area. “No more than is his usual custom.”
“Then he doesn’t talk to you much?”
“No, but you can feel him, can’t you?”
I set my hand on my chest and concentrated on the ground. There was a strange warm chill inside me. “Yeah. He felt far away in the bar, but it’s like he’s right behind us now.”
Eric lifted his eyes to the starry sky and spoke in a whispered voice. “Never far away… not really.”
I grasped his arm and dug in my heels, stopping us and turned Eric so we faced each other. “Have you ever tried telling him you don’t want to do this anymore?”
A bitter smile slipped onto his lips. “If not me, then who?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t need to be a psychiatrist to see that you’re miserable in this line of work.” He tried to turn his face away from me, but I set my hand on his cheek and turned him back, so he met my eyes. I offered him a small smile. “You’re not alone now. You’ve got more than just dark and scary with you now, and I,” I bit my lip and dropped my eyes to the ground. “I… I really care.”
His eyes widened and he grabbed my hand. “Get down!”
He shoved me to the ground and ended up on top of me. His weight pushed the air out of my lungs with a soft ‘whoosh’ and my head cracked against the ground hard enough that I saw stars, and not just the ones stuck in the sky. My anger quickly turned to terror as something wrapped around Eric’s waist and yanked him off me. He hovered in the air a moment before he was pulled some ten feet away to where a dark shape stood.
I choked on fresh air as I scrambled onto my arms. My blurry vision cleared, and I watched as Eric was righted and drawn against the voluptuous body of Miss Zaza, though parts of her had made drastic changes. The woman’s lower extremities had morphed into a long snake tail, and scales covered her arms. A colorful hood of skin like that of a cobra framed both sides of her face, and her eyes were now merely black slits.
She brushed a long fingernail against Eric’s chin as he glared at her. “My little love, why did you not visit me before leaving?”
Eric managed a sly smile. “It must have slipped my mind.”
He winced as she gave his body a squeeze that was less affectionate and more scolding. She drew his face close to hers and I noticed her eyes glowed a bright orange. “Your hide is worth a great deal to my master.”
Eric squirmed in her hold. “And you know you can’t have two masters, so you may as well let me go and return to the one that holds your soul.”
Zaza’s long, forked tongue flicked out and slapped him on the nose, leaving a bit of drool at the end. Eric’s smile froze on his face as her own grin widened. “What a pity you aren’t a mere mortal. You would be a tasty treat in so many ways.”
Eric tried to shrug. “Perhaps in another life.”
“Perhaps.”
Zaza slithered away, and in doing so slowly unwound him from her grip. She paused ten feet away from us and her slitted eyes fell on me. She lifted her blunt nose just slightly and sneered at me. “Why have you brought a child into these important matters?”
Eric cast a curious look at me that I read as either sadness or regret. Maybe both. “You could say she sort of dropped into the fray.”
Zaza waved a hand at me. “Then drop her back from whence she came.”
Eric returned his attention to her, and a bitter smile creased his lips. “You know as well as I do that there’s only one release to our fate.”
A wicked grin curled onto Zaza’s lips as she turned her back on us and slithered into the night. Her sultry voice floated back to us as she disappeared into the shadows. “How well do I know, but my suggestion still stands.”
I wasn’t sorry to see her go, but I was eager to have some new, and old, questions answered. Eric had other plans as he moved toward the car, but I grabbed his arm and tugged him back. He stopped, but he didn’t turn to face me.
“Eric, I know you’re trying to hide something from me.” I slipped around to stand in front of him and was presented with his impassive face. “I’m getting a lot of puzzle pieces, and some of them are starting to make a picture I don’t think I’m going to like, am I?”
He closed his eyes and pursed his lips. “Ask your questions. I won’t avoid-” He paused for a moment and slightly ground his teeth. The look of pain passed quickly, though, and he sighed. “Ask them.”
I furrowed my brow as my mind searched for the right way to ask them. “These roots we’re supposed to protect with magic, you said those things can be large enough to encircle the earth?”
Eric opened his eyes and forlornly looked at the ground. “They did once, but that was a long time ago. Now we can only hope to protect what remains from Gandra and his ilk.”
I grasped his shoulders, and I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking a little. “But why are we protecting these roots? What would happen if we weren’t there to keep Gandra from getting more trophies?”
Eric studied my face for a moment with an impassive expression before he sighed. “The roots belong to Yggdrasil. To allow them to die is to allow the world to be destroyed.”