THE MONSTER
I tensed as the monster stomped forward, but beside me, Keirran was already in motion. Raising his sword, he knelt and drove it point first into the ground, in a move I had seen from his father sometimes. I felt a pulse of frigid glamour go through the air. There was a flash of bright blue, and the ground was suddenly encased in a layer of ice several inches thick.
The monster bearing down on us stumbled as ice crawled up its legs, spread over its chest, and climbed toward its face, seeking to cocoon its whole body in crystallized water. Its furious roar was cut off as the ice flowed over its head, filled its jaws, and sealed it completely.
“Hurry,” Keirran urged, glancing up at me and Nyx. His expression was tight, his voice strained as he continued to grip the hilt of his blade. “Kill it quickly before it breaks loose. I don’t know how long this will hold—”
With a shattering of crystal that sounded like breaking lamps, the thing reared its head up with a howl, sending ice shards flying in every direction. Keirran staggered, and Nyx shot into motion, her moonlight blades appearing in her hand as she raced toward it. Pulling my daggers, I sprinted after her.
Tentacles flailing, the creature shook itself, shattering the ice prison with a roar. Ice shards went flying, and I ducked as one went spinning past my head and embedded itself in a nearby tree trunk. Thankfully, I had lots and lots of practice dodging frozen projectiles, particularly ice daggers. As the beast turned toward us, Nyx leaped forward, the moonlight gleaming off her blades.
The creature’s arm lashed out, faster than I would have thought possible, and curved black claws slammed into Nyx. Her body seemed to ripple and fray apart, like shafts of moonlight dissolving into shadow, leaving nothing behind. I didn’t have time to be surprised when she appeared from another angle, nearly behind the monster, and drove her blade deep into its thigh. It roared and spun, swatting at her with a tentacle, but she was already dancing away.
Not to be outdone, I drew on my glamour and leaped into the air, feeling my body shrink in seconds, growing wings, feathers, and beady bird eyes. Flapping my wings, I flew straight for the creature with a defiant caw, seeing Nyx dodge another swipe from the monster’s razor claws that raked deep gashes in the earth. Damn, she was fast. I didn’t normally stop to admire another faery’s fighting style, but this girl’s skill might rival the best swordsman I knew, and that was saying something. Even so, between the creature’s ferocity and the flailing tentacles, she was having trouble landing another blow. She could use a little help, or at least a good distraction.
I was very good at distractions.
Directly over the creature’s head, I released my bird form and dropped from the air in an explosion of feathers. With a whoop, I landed on the thing’s skull, between the huge, sweeping antlers of a monster.
“Hey, ugly. Let’s give you something else to think about. Bet you can’t get me off without ramming your face into something.”
The creature tossed its head with a roar. I, of course, had been expecting that and grabbed one of those sharp antler points to keep my balance. You ride one giant angry creature that wants to kill you, you’ve ridden them all. It was just a matter of timing, really. The only thing to watch out for was if it decided to headbutt a tree.
“Oh, come on,” I mocked as it hunched its shoulders and shook its head like a dog. “Is that your best attempt? I’ve piggybacked on giants and Minotaurs and once rode a very angry wild Pegasus without a saddle. You’re gonna have to do better than that.”
As I spoke, Keirran’s Summer glamour filled the air, and the ground under the monster’s feet erupted with vines, roots, and brambles. The creature halted, snarling as the vegetation wrapped around its limbs, coiling over its arms and dragging it toward the ground. The monster braced itself, fighting the inevitable pull. It was strong, but it wasn’t paying attention to us any longer.
I caught a streak of shadow as Nyx darted toward the monster, vaulted off a tree trunk, and slashed her blade through the creature’s thick neck. A very precise, deadly shot that would sever the jugular and bleed the thing out in seconds were it a normal beast.
I hoped it was a normal beast. Kneeling, I drove my daggers into the base of its skull, sinking them to the hilt. I wasn’t usually this ruthless, and I didn’t enjoy killing this way, but Keirran was right. Whatever this monster was, it had to die. No games, no playing around. Best get it over with quickly.
The creature staggered, falling to all fours. The vines and roots coiled around its body tightened even further, bringing its skull close to the ground. I saw Nyx emerge from the darkness again, both blades in hand as she rushed toward the monster’s head. Probably aiming to take it off this time, which was a good move, I thought. With very few exceptions, no matter how tough something was, it needed its head to stay alive. I took a quick step back, not wanting to be in the way when those blades of light came slashing down.
Under my feet, the monster stirred. I saw it lift its head, a chilling gleam in its blank white eyes as they fastened on Nyx, and I realized our mistake. It was baiting us.
“Nyx!” I yelled, just as the faery sprang toward it for the killing blow. “Don’t—!”
A massive claw shot out, tearing free of vines and roots as if they weren’t there, smashing into the Forgotten and pinning her to the ground. Curling its talons around her, the monster rose easily, vegetation ripping and tearing. Bringing a dazed, unresponsive Nyx close to its muzzle, it snarled, slavering jaws gaping wide as if to bite off her head.
Rage shot through me, and I threw myself forward, plunging my dagger into one blazing white eye.
With a shriek, the monster convulsed, shaking its head and stumbling back. It hurled the Forgotten away as the tendrils on the creature’s back and shoulders came to life, surging up like maddened snakes. They lashed out, and for a second, I could see nothing but black, shadowy tentacles swarming around me. I dodged one, slashed through two more, and then felt something cold and thin slam into the back of my head. I felt myself falling, saw the ground racing up at me. And then, something weird happened.
Images flared to life. Memories long forgotten flashed through my mind like a strobe light, blips of fleeting emotion and thought. A former best friend turning on me, his eyes cold with hate as he tried to end my life. The unyielding expression of the Summer King as he banished me from the Nevernever for some stupid, imagined offense. The woman I loved rejecting me, choosing instead my most bitter rival, the prince who’d tried to kill me many times over. The face of their son, a constant reminder of what I had lost, what would never be mine.
I didn’t remember landing. I opened my eyes and found myself lying on my back, the last of the images flickering through my head. Glancing up, I saw the monster looming over me, tentacles flailing. Its cold, hostile gaze met mine, and for just a moment, I understood its anger, its hate and loathing for all living things. I got it. People were the worst. Selfish, arrogant, destructive, evil. The ones you cared about would only betray you in the end. Why care for anything, if they were just going to put a knife in your back?
Then the creature’s talons came slamming down, and I barely rolled out of the way as they struck the log behind me, splitting it in two. Grabbing a handful of leaves, I scrambled upright, then flung out a hand with a pulse of magic. Two more Pucks joined the fray, whooping as they lunged toward the monster.
The creature’s tentacles lashed out in all directions and caught the Puck duplicates, popping them into small clouds of smoke and leaves. But it allowed me to get close, beneath the monster’s rib cage where its heart would lie. Smiling viciously, I drew back to stab the evil bastard, but as I did, something flickered through my head: the image of Meghan turning away from me, her gaze only for the figure behind her, a figure in black with an icy sword at his side. I faltered, my anger shifting targets, as the memory burned bright and painful through my mind.
With frightening speed, the monster spun, backhanding me as it did, and it felt like my rib cage imploded. I was hurled away and rolled several feet before I finally came to a painful stop, gasping, my entire chest on fire.
I felt its presence before I saw it, in the way the ground trembled as it loped toward me, in the noxious glamour radiating from its body. Anger, rage, fear, hatred, and loathing. The emotions swirled around me in a choking fog as I rolled onto my back and struggled to sit, feeling like a spear had been jammed through my lungs.
Pushing myself to my elbows, I looked up.
The monster loomed over me, just a lunge away. I felt its hot breath, smelled the sickening odor coming off its twisted hide. A flippant comment about someone needing a breath mint sprang to mind, but I couldn’t quite get my voice to work. The creature stared at me, blank white eyes boring into mine. As I gazed at it, I thought I could feel...something else. Another presence, maybe, peering out at me from the monster’s eyes. Just for a heartbeat, the space of a blink, and then it was gone. But cold spread from my heart and rushed into my veins. I felt like I had been perched at the edge of the abyss, staring into the void...and something had stared back.
“Puck, get down!”
There was a pulse of glamour, and a streak of lightning descended from the clear night sky, striking the thing directly in the skull. It roared, stumbling back as electricity coursed through it, filling the air with the acrid tang of ozone and singed fur.
His face tight, Keirran raised an arm and zotted it again, calling lightning out of the sky like a damn Norse god. But this time, though the monster shuddered as the bolt struck home, its lip curled up in a baleful snarl. Lowering its head, it charged the Forgotten King, ignoring the white-hot strands still raining around it, its thunderous footsteps shaking the ground.
I leaped to my feet, knowing it was probably too late to reach the kid or the monster barreling down on him. Keirran was strong, with the glamour of all three courts at his fingertips, but this thing was either immune to the effects of fey magic or was too angry to die. As I turned myself into a raven and flapped toward the creature once again, I wondered if I were about to watch Meghan and Ash’s son get smeared to paste right in front of me.
Why did I feel almost gleeful at the thought?
Keirran stood his ground, raising an arm and sending a storm of ice daggers into its face. Though most shattered on the monster’s thick antlers, the flurry was enough to make it flinch. Swooping in, I sank my talons into the monster’s flesh and drove my beak into one of those bulging white eyeballs. The one I had already stabbed earlier, I noted. It howled, shaking its head, but it did not slow down or change course.
Darkness rippled under Keirran’s feet, and Nyx rose out of the shadows behind him. Grabbing the Forgotten King around the waist, she vanished back into the ground, and I released my hold on the monster’s face just as it plowed into that spot, churning the earth and smashing through a tree. I dodged a flailing tentacle as it spun, roaring and lashing out at everything around it, snapping branches and churning the ground to mud in its rage.
Wheeling in the air, I saw Nyx emerge a safe distance from the raging monster, Keirran’s arm slung over her shoulders, and glided toward them. Nyx released the Forgotten King, who slumped against a tree trunk, breathing hard, as I swooped in to land on an overhead branch. The female faery’s eyes were concerned as she stared at Keirran, who was pale and trembling with the exertion of using so much magic at once.
“Are you hurt, my king?”
“It’s strong,” Keirran panted. “I blasted it with everything I had and barely slowed it down.” He ran a shaking hand through his hair, then cast a worried look at Nyx, not seeing me in the branches overhead. “Are you all right? I lost you when it went after Puck the second time.”
“I’m fine,” Nyx answered. But her voice was tight, and by the press of Keirran’s lips, he knew she wasn’t as fine as she claimed. “But we need to stop that thing. I don’t know where Goodfellow is, if he’s even conscious, so it might just be us now.”
Keirran nodded, though even he looked exhausted as he pushed himself off the trunk.
The monster had stopped its rampage and was now waiting for us in the circle of destruction it had created. I dug my talons into the branch beneath me. We weren’t in good shape, any of us. I ached, I was pretty sure Nyx was badly injured, and Keirran was barely on his feet. And we hadn’t even put a scratch on the thing. The odds didn’t look great.
In that second, I made a decision. The monster’s attention was solely on Keirran and Nyx. It hadn’t noticed me, a jet-black bird, in the branches of the tree. If I could surprise attack it, strike hard when it wasn’t expecting me, I might be able to take it down. Cut the big bastard’s head clean off from above. Yeah, that sounded doable.
The slightly tricky part was I couldn’t let Keirran or Nyx know the plan, in case the monster noticed and I lost the element of surprise. But that was fine; by the time they realized I was still in the fight, it would be over.
Nyx rose with grim determination, silvery blades appearing in her hands. “Stay back a moment, Your Majesty,” she told Keirran. “Let me engage the creature. I will try to distract it, and then you can finish it off.”
But Keirran gave his head a firm shake and drew his sword. “I’m not letting you fight that thing alone,” he stated. “As it happens, I can swing a sword pretty well, too.” He glanced to where the monster waited and narrowed his eyes. “Besides, glamour doesn’t seem to work on it. Maybe the answer is three feet of steel shoved through its heart.” He paused, a worried, frustrated look going through his eyes as he looked around. “Where is Puck? We could really use his help now. I hope nothing’s happened to him.”
Nyx didn’t say anything to that, but I saw her jaw tighten as if she disagreed with Keirran’s statement. I smiled to myself. Keep watching, nonbeliever. I’ll show you why Robin Goodfellow is famous round these parts.
In the center of the clearing, the monster reared up and bellowed a challenge but didn’t move forward. Lowering its head, it dug long talons into the churned mud and hunched its shoulders, as if bracing itself against something. The tendrils on its back and shoulders flared, coiling like serpents into the air, before they stabbed down, sinking into the earth around it.
Now.
Pushing off the branch, I flapped into the air, soaring toward the clearing and the creature in the center. Catching a current, I glided up until I was directly overhead the monstrous form, then tucked my wings and dove right for it. With a pulse of glamour and feathers, I shed my bird form and dropped toward its head, daggers raised to end this fight once and for all.
“Surprise, ugly!” I called, right before the ground beneath it came to life.
Shadowy tentacles exploded from the earth, surging into the air like an enraged kraken, hissing and flailing about. I yelped, twisting wildly to avoid them as they shot toward me, and managed to avoid two as they slithered by. Then something cold and sharp slammed into my ribs, driving the air from my lungs. I gave a breathless yell, instantly driving my blade into it, but the thing coiled around like a snake, pinning my arms even as it had me impaled through the middle.
Shockingly, there was no pain. But more images flashed through my mind like a strobe light, blips of thought and emotion, too fast to see. I felt something inside me pushing to get out, like a long-buried memory being dragged into the light. I was being torn in half from within, and my strangled yell caught halfway in my throat as I felt that other presence shuffling around in my head.
I see you.
There was a streak of light, and a spinning crescent shot beneath me, severing the tentacle as it passed. I fell, and it was a good thing I already had no air in my lungs, or I would’ve lost it all right then as I smashed face-first into the ground. The tentacles pinning my arms dissolved to shadow, and I pushed myself upright to see I was surrounded by a forest of flailing tendrils, and the monster looming overhead, blank white eyes fixed on me as it raised a claw.
A lightning bolt streaked overhead, slamming into the monster’s chest, causing it to stagger back with a roar. At the same time, something grabbed the back of my hoodie, yanked me upright, and slung my arm around their shoulders.
“Dammit, Goodfellow,” Nyx hissed in my ear. “Keep those things off us for a second. I need a shadow, and the only one big enough is the creature’s.”
“I have no idea what that means,” I wheezed. “But whatever you say—”
The tentacles flailed at us. I slashed at them one-armed, gritting my teeth, as Nyx dodged and yanked us out of the way. Overhead, the monster recovered with a snarl. Gazing down at us, its muzzle curled balefully, it took a thunderous step forward, raising its talons again. Nyx’s fingers tightened on my arm, and I felt a shiver go through me as a bit of my glamour was siphoned away.
“Hold on,” Nyx muttered and sprang forward, darting into the monster’s shadow as its talons scythed down at us. For a second, there was absolute darkness.
And then we were stumbling from the shadow of a tree into the open, collapsing to the ground as soon as we were clear. A few yards away, Keirran turned, eyes widening in relief as he spotted us.
Breathing hard, the Forgotten King jogged up to us, his face pale. “Nyx. Puck. Are you two all right?”
Something shifted in my head, like a worm oozing through a crack that hadn’t been there before. Disgust flickered, and I sneered at him, my tone cutting. “Oh sure, princeling. I just love getting my face kicked in for shits and giggles, don’t you?”
“It wouldn’t have happened,” Nyx said, her own voice cold, “if you hadn’t decided to attack the monster by yourself.”
“Stop it, both of you,” Keirran ordered, and the Forgotten immediately fell silent, bowing her head. “We don’t have time to argue. That thing is still coming.”
A rumbling growl punctuated his words. I glanced up to see the monster stalking toward us, surrounded by tentacles that sprouted from the earth and lashed the air around it. Its blank, dead white eyes were fixed on me.
I felt its absolute hatred and loathing for all living things, and for the first time in ages, a shiver of fear crawled down my back. This wasn’t the first time I had faced a creature that was seemingly invulnerable; there were many times in my life where a tactical retreat had been the only option. I knew, suddenly, that we couldn’t beat this thing. Even with the Forgotten King’s triple glamour on our side, the bastard was too strong. But there was no retreat this night, no discretion being the better part of valor. Keirran would never abandon the fight when his people were in danger, and the assassin sworn to protect him wouldn’t, either. They would die fighting this thing, and there was no way I was running away, only to tell Meghan and Ash I let their kid get torn apart by a monster that couldn’t be killed.
I shot a sideways glance at my companions. Keirran stared at the creature, his face pale but determined as he raised his weapon, the faint tremble of the sword betraying how tired he was. Nyx pushed herself upright, calling her blades to her hands, but I had seen that look on her face before. The one that said you knew you couldn’t win, but you were going to give it everything you had before you died, dammit.
I sighed, but drew my daggers and struggled to my feet. My chest hurt, my face felt like a Jeep had bounced over it a few times, and the persistent throbbing pain in my ribs and lungs was making it hard to breathe. But Keirran and Nyx weren’t going to run, and I’d be damned if I let them be heroically tragic without me.
All righty, then. This is gonna hurt.
The monster stalked closer, its silhouette blocking out the sky, the huge antlers crowning its skull stabbing up like tree branches. The tentacles on its back hissed and writhed, mirroring the ones sprouting from the earth. The monster reared up and roared, making the ground shake, then dropped to all fours with a crash, bristling and ready to charge.
I drew in a deep, painful breath, gathering what was left of my glamour to me, and felt a vicious grin cross my face. If Death had finally caught up, that was fine, but I was going to go out laughing at him, as I’d promised.
Suddenly, the creature paused. A ripple went through the air, the faintest tremor on the wind, making my skin prickle. The night darkened, and a ragged mist began creeping toward us, coiling along the ground and swirling around the field of tentacles.
The monster straightened and turned to gaze over its shoulder, as if sensing something we could not. Its nostrils flared, its breath writhing into the air as it huffed.
“What is it doing?” Nyx muttered, her voice strained. “Why doesn’t it attack?”
“I dunno,” I whispered. “Maybe there’s a hot dog joint nearby?”
The monster snarled. Its head swung toward us again but it hesitated, obviously torn between attacking and going toward whatever had caught its attention. Abruptly, it spun and loped into the trees, the fog curling around its body as it disappeared.
“Follow it.” Keirran raised a hand, frost and glamour sparkling from his fingertips. “We can’t let it escape. I’ll clear the way.”
He knelt and pressed his palm to the earth, releasing a pulse of icy glamour that caused the ground to freeze over. The carpet of flailing tentacles didn’t turn to ice and shatter like I was hoping, but they did dissolve into wisps of shadow and curl away into nothing. Keirran slumped, breathing hard, but then raised his head to glare at us.
“Go,” he ordered. “Find it. I think it’s headed for the River of Dreams.”
“Keirran...”
“Go! Don’t worry about me, I’ll catch up in a second. Just stop that thing before we lose it completely.”
Nyx looked reluctant but turned and sprinted into the trees, heading in the direction the monster had disappeared.
I groaned. “Right, chase down the unkillable monster instead of letting it walk away and leave us unmauled,” I said, and followed the Forgotten into the mist. “I love this plan.”
We came out of the trees, and the bank of the enormous River of Dreams stretched before us, its dark waters shrouded in the thick fog creeping up the bank. The largest body of water in Faery, the massive river wound its way through the Nevernever, into the Deep Wyld, and flowed all the way to the literal End of the World, where its waters cascaded off the edge into empty space. Very few had ever seen the End of the World (yours truly being one of them), but everyone in Faery knew about the River of Dreams, carrying the glamour of billions of snoozing humans through the Nevernever, infusing it with the magic of dreams and nightmares.
And speaking of nightmares.
It was standing at the edge of the river, a hulking, twisted form against the fog rolling up the bank. The tendrils on its back writhed as it turned and regarded us with those empty, baleful eyes that seemed to both chill and burn right though you. A section of fog curled away behind it, revealing a long, rickety dock extending out over the water and vanishing into the wall of mist.
The creature stared at us. For a moment, it seemed we would have another fight on our hands. Its lip curled up, showing jagged fangs, and its tentacles snapped eagerly as we sprinted toward the riverbank. Then it whirled and bounded onto the dock, its long, gangly limbs carrying it toward the river. Toward the wall of mist hovering on the water’s surface. It thundered down the dock and hurled itself off the edge. An enormous splash followed as the massive creature plunged headfirst into the River of Dreams.
I slid down the bank and sprinted to the end of the dock, searching for the monster as my boots thumped against the rickety planks. I caught a glimpse of the creature’s twisted body just as it vanished beneath the surface. In seconds, fog coiled around the hole left behind, the rippling waters stilled, and the monster was gone.