11

In Which Fighting Ogres Is a Popular Team-Building Activity

What was that?” Tala asked, watching as the firebird made short work of the rest of the icicles trapping Alex, the last shards melting into the ground. “The curse that ice maiden mentioned. ‘In shifting sands a prince you’ll kiss,’ and all that.”

Alex didn’t respond at first, gazing blankly at the puddle of water that was all that was left of the creature. He was still clutching the cell phone like it was a lifeline. “My curse,” he finally said. “It’s always been about my damn curse.”

“The frog spell?” By association, Tala cast a worried look around the room and relaxed when she saw the little frog hopping in between lockers, unharmed.

“It’s a threefold spell. The frog curse was just the first of it.”

“That…thing also said something about an old witch…”

“Yeah. A Baba Yaga.”

“A what?”

“A Baba Yaga. They’re powerful enough to rain down curses on people if they’ve a mind to. And one of them had a mind to, on me.”

“But why would she do something so awful?”

He looked away. “She didn’t,” he said quietly. “I asked her to.”

She should have pushed for answers. When she’d met him for the first time and she’d been suspicious about the extent of his curse, she should have asked, wheedled as much of his history as she could out of him, because he’d proven over the past year that he was willing to take on everything and bear the pain on his own with no one the wiser, refusing help because he thought it wasn’t fair to accept assistance for whatever it was he kept hidden and blamed himself for.

She should have known all these months ago instead of today, with her ass numb from the cold and from the wet floor, saddled with a firebird breathing warmth back to the room. “Tell me now. You owe me that much.”

Still he said nothing, looking tired and worn out, and in some other lifetime, Tala would have taken pity and allowed him time to process the last couple of days, but she was done with his secrets intruding into her own life.

“Damnit, Alex, tell me!”

“What do you want me to say?” he snapped, voice loud and angry in the stillness of the chilly room. “That I saw my parents killed in front of me? That my father fought to make sure my mother and I could escape, and was impaled through the heart for his troubles? That my mother tried to protect me, and paid for it when the Snow Queen encased her completely in ice, then shattered her remains? That they were going to kill me next? That I had to run, and run, and run, scrambling to hide, terrified because I was five years old and didn’t know better?”

“Alex…”

“I hid. I hid in a mirror that wasn’t a mirror, in a room that wasn’t a room, and the Baba Yaga was there. I was five years old, but I knew who she was. She offered me a three-pronged curse, and I took it because she promised me I would survive if I accepted. So I did, and I survived, exactly like she said.” He looked down at his hands.

“I was eight the first time I kissed someone,” he said harshly. “That’s how I learned about the first of the curses. Who knows? Maybe if I find the right person, it would break the frog’s curse, but that’s no one else’s business but mine.” His voice dipped lower, rough. “I don’t know what the rest of the curse means. The Cheshire’s been trying to figure out that riddle for years. You’re my best friend, Tala, but I don’t owe you or anyone else an explanation.”

Tala listened silently, combing the icicles out of her hair. “Point taken,” she said, just as quietly. “But at least tell me why you left without saying anything to anyone. You may have the right to hide your curse, but you just up and disappeared for no reason.”

“Yeah, well.” Alex sank down on a bench. “I freaked out and I knew I had to get this.” He handed her the cell phone.

They were photos of Alex and another boy Tala didn’t recognize; he had curly black hair, green eyes. The latter’s arm was wrapped around her friend’s waist. Alex was grinning up at him.

“He’s part of the family I stayed with before I moved here,” Alex mumbled. “They’re practically European royalty.”

“You mean, you guys were official?”

“No. Neither of us were out, and it lasted for about two days, tops. Should have deleted these from my phone when I moved, so that’s on me. Hughes saw, thought it’d be good blackmail. Like, I’d insulted his sister by being gay, apparently.”

“You should have told Lola Urduja or—”

“They don’t know about him, all right?” he interrupted fiercely. “It’ll be harder on him if it comes out, and I won’t have that. No one else can know but you.”

Tala closed her eyes. “You like him that much?”

Alex’s thumb moved, pressing the delete button, and his screen lit up, asking for confirmation. “And that’s the damn irony,” he said shortly. “I don’t.”

He hit yes. The photos disappeared.

The door flew open, ignoring the bench Tala had previously lugged across because it swung outward instead of in.

Zoe stood in the doorway. She held a needle in one hand and a whip looped around her waist like a hipster’s belt, with Lola Urduja and Tita Chedeng on either side of her.

“I see you’ve found him,” Zoe said calmly. “A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. I’m sure you’ll offer us some sound explanations later, but we must get going. Loki and West are back. Apparently, the rabbit hole at the Doering residence has been completely decimated. We don’t have much choice but to head back to the looking glass outside Invierno if we want to leave quickly.”

“Where’ve you all been?” Tala demanded.

“We had our hands full fighting off a sudden army of shades that sprouted up. Had to draw them away from the bonfire crowd. Ken and the others are still fighting. Your sharp-eyed Tito Jose spotted the firebird flying away from the celebrations several minutes earlier, though, and Loki thought it might be heading back to Elsmore.”

“You’ve given us a hard time, hijo,” Lola Urduja said severely, and Alex had the grace to look ashamed. “But there’s no time for pointing fingers. Anak ng Diyos, what the hell happened in here?”

“Ice maiden,” Alex admitted.

“An ice maiden was here?”

“We killed it,” Tala said defensively. “I don’t really see how this is our fault.”

“You didn’t kill her,” Zoe said tersely, her eyes trained on the floor. Was it Tala’s imagination, or did one of the puddles move, just a little? “Ice maidens are the Snow Queen’s right-hand women, her elite bodyguards. If she’d truly been killed, no trace of this ice would be left. Most likely she’s reconstituting herself somewhere else. She can only build herself back up in colder climate and it’ll take a while, so you’ve bought us time to escape, at least.”

“Wait!” Alex dashed toward the bench and scooped up the frog, which was nearly forgotten in all of the excitement. “You have to make sure she’s somewhere safe when she changes back,” he muttered, cheeks pink.

Lola Urduja accepted the frog without comment. “Very well. Follow Chedeng and the general. They’ll lead you back to Tala’s parents.”

“Am I leaving with Alex?” Tala asked hesitantly.

Lola Urduja nodded. “We all are. None of us have any choice in the matter. We’re all targets.”

The hallway was the scene of a bloodless massacre. The corridor was littered with the bodies of the zombie-like students who’d tried to accost Tala earlier.

“Are they all right?” She stared down at Langdon. The boy’s chest rose and fell, his glassy pale eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Zoe slid her needle into a thin cannister, then pocketed it. “They’re better off asleep, anyway. There’s nothing we can do for them at this point.”

“They’re among the Deathless now,” Alex said soberly from behind her.

“Deathless?”

“Named after Koschei. One of the most powerful weapons in the Snow Queen’s arsenal are shards from a particularly foul mirror, constructed by forbidden magic. Once any of those shards gets into your eyes, you become her thrall.” Zoe stepped carefully over one of the prone bodies. “There’s no known cure for it, I’m afraid. They’ll still be Deathless once they wake, and there’s nothing much we can do for them now.”

Mirror shards. The ice maiden had tried to place one of those in Alex’s eye.

“Yeah,” Alex said quietly, as if sensing where her thoughts had gone. “Thanks for rescuing me from that, by the way.”

Tala shuddered, realizing Alex’s panic then. If the ghoul had succeeded, all their work to protect him would have been for nothing.

“Punyeta!” they heard General Luna curse from somewhere up ahead.

“That’s our cue!” Lola Urduja snapped. “Let’s get out of here before the ogre catches up.”

Tala blinked, convinced she hadn’t heard her right.

So did Zoe. “Ogre? What ogre?”

A loud roar shook the building. Bits of concrete rained down on them from above. Out in the hallway, the lights flickered once, twice, then went dead as another hard tremor jolted through the corridor.

“That ogre,” Lola Urduja said.

* * *

An ogre, as it turned out, was a creature of mismatched rock and granite. Its lower jaw jutted out to reveal a pair of hideously long tusks and several rows of jagged, decaying teeth. It was an odd gray color, and carried with it a foul stench, like burning tires on a hot summer day.

It slammed a hand the size of a small car against the roof, and the whole place shuddered with every blow. Beady eyes, small in its monstrous face, raked through the throng of fleeing, screaming humans. Tita Teejay had hot-wired a nearby car, and they’d taken off quickly, leaving the ogre behind.

“It’ll be bespelled to find Alex,” Lola Urduja predicted grimly.

“There’s a blockade just outside of town,” Tita Nieves reminded her. “Probably swimming with agents.”

“Perhaps they’ll consider the ogre the more dangerous one and act accordingly. Any distraction they can provide, I’ll accept.”

They’d managed to make it back to the desert, which was now noticeably empty, the ogre several minutes behind them. The frozen bonfire was still unchanged, dripping water.

Kensington was already there, cleaving through several shades with his swords and limping ever so slightly. Her parents were there too, much to Tala’s relief. None of the shades could get within a few feet of her mother; a flick of her fingers sent them recoiling, their light-starved bodies wilting from her presence alone.

Her father was more hands-on with his methods. He wielded an ax nearly as tall as Tala, and chopped at every shadow that kept outside her mother’s magic-negating reach.

“Where have you been?” Tala yelled at them.

“Ambushed!” was the reply, as her mother drove her agimat into three shades at once, forcing them all to dissipate. “They attacked us on our way to the bonfire.”

“Tried to attack us,” her father corrected her, splitting another shadow in half.

“Your Highness,” Ken called out to Alex, pausing in midstroke to bow. A dark shape rose up from the ground behind him, but the boy lopped off its head with a swing of his shining sword without even turning.

“Would you put ‘rampaging ogre’ as a pro for the looking-glass route, Zo, or a con for the rabbit hole?”

“I think ‘rampaging ogre’ is a con however you put it,” Loki said, appearing from around the corner. Unlike Ken, they carried a long pole, which they batted at the shadows, keeping them at bay. “And the rabbit hole’s been destroyed, so that’s a no-go.”

“Destroyed?”

“Where did you think that ogre came out of?”

Ken shuddered. “I’m glad we weren’t going down that while it was on its way up, then.”

A black shape slithered toward them. Loki swung their rod almost aimlessly and would have been short of the snakelike shadow by several inches had not the stick lengthened on its own. There was a searing sound as the weapon passed through the shade, which promptly dissolved, squealing in anguish.

“Is that the firebird?” Ken asked. “Looks round enough to roll up like a hedgehog, doesn’t it?”

The firebird bared its beak at him, as if daring him to try.

“It’s adorable, is what I’m saying. Zo, you and His Highness should hightail it back to the sanctuary while we cover your asses.”

A large brown bear lumbered up, and Tala backpedaled several feet in panic. The animal blurred briefly, and where the bear once was, West now stood, peeking out from underneath his blanket of fur. “What’s wrong with your foot?” he asked Ken.

“I might have sort of broken a library,” the boy said. “It’s a long story.”

“I like stories.” West bowed politely to Alex. “Nice to meet you again, Your Royaltiness.” His face disappeared under the fur. The air darkened briefly, and a large tawny lion took his place, roaring and loping toward the direction of the ogre’s howls.

“How exactly do you ‘break’ a library?” Zoe asked, untying the whip from around her waist. It promptly changed color, now looking like it was made of an odd opaque glass that appeared nearly invisible at first glance, as if she were gripping something composed entirely of air.

“With lots of bookcases,” Ken said. “And an ogre, barreling into the wall. An actual, freaking ogre! When is the last time anyone has even seen an ogre? Behind you, Zo!”

Another shade had crept up behind them. The girl spun, rising on the tips of her toes. Her ethereal whip gleamed, and Tala saw sparks gathering around her body, following her movements. The cord whirled in the creature’s direction, and the collected currents slashed it through. Another shadow attempted to aid its brethren, and Zoe spun, the whip following her movements and coiling around her right leg. She leaped up and kicked, sending the length of its tail and the resulting whirlwind of lightning flying, tearing the shadow into ribbons.

“Ballet-fu,” Ken explained, grinning.

“Don’t be a hero, Ken,” Zoe warned. “We’re all supposed to get out of here in one piece.”

“But, Zoe,” the boy protested innocently, his eyes bright. “A hero is exactly what I want to be when I grow up.”

“If you ever grow up.”

Another loud roar told them the ogre had finally arrived. It took a step forward, and stopped as Loki blocked its path, swinging their staff with enough force to drive the steel deep into its shins, snapping sounds following in its wake. The ogre turned its head toward them, and Tala saw a pair of bloodshot eyes, cruel and bulging. The lion that had been West lunged, ripping into the immense legs with his teeth and claws.

Ken dashed forward. Tall as he was, the top of his head barely reached the ogre’s knees. Bright light issued forth from one of his swords. The ogre flinched, shielding his hands from the glare, even as the others continued to worry at his heels, inflicting deep cuts into the rough, leathery skin. The firebird had joined the fight, pelting the ogre’s hide with fire. The creature snarled and made a sudden grab for it, but the firebird ducked underneath its massive hands, flying just out of reach.

“Don’t let that thing get to His Highness!” Zoe warned.

To Tala’s horror, Loki bounded straight up, grabbing at the ogre’s knee to pull themselves up the beast. The ogre lifted its leg, trying to shake them off, but Loki had already latched on to its lower back. They hauled themselves up another several feet, literally climbing their way up the monster.

Battle cries echoed across the quad; the rest of Tala’s titos and titas had arrived, brandishing fans.

The ogre struggled, lifting one foot in front of the other, painstakingly closing the distance between them. It roared again, something incomprehensible, and lifted a large meaty fist the size of a boulder to slam against the concrete. The ground shuddered from the blow.

Her father brained a shade. “Get Tala out of here!” he ordered.

There was a tug at Tala’s elbow, insistent—Zoe, pulling her and Alex away from the fracas. “I can help!” she protested.

“I’m sure you can, but right now I’m following orders.”

Ken hacked at the coarse outstretched arm that had just missed him by inches. The sword shone again, and he swung it in an upward arc. This time, Tala clearly saw the thin streak of light that shot out from its tip, striking the ogre directly in the face. The smell of seared flesh sizzled through the air.

The ogre swiveled its head, distracted by the increase in combatants. As agile as a deer, Loki ran up the side of the ogre’s arm, bringing their staff down to crash against the side of the creature’s head, then somersaulting to cling to its back when the ogre shook itself violently, trying to dislodge them. It stopped when the firebird dove, unleashing a fresh torrent of fire in its face.

There was another hideous roar, and a second ogre burst through the clearing. Ken turned to gawk at the new threat.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Run!” Zoe yelled. This time, Tala didn’t argue, her feet already moving before the other girl had finished. Alex kept pace beside her, but the new ogre quickly closed the distance between them.

Her mother was fighting her way toward the ogre with her father half a step behind, swinging at anything unfortunate enough to get in his way. But there were far too many shades, several sentient enough to recognize that she was their most dangerous opponent, and their constant barrage forced her to fight them instead of the large titan.

The firebird dipped low to breathe balls of flame right into the ogre’s face, forcing it a step back. The monster made another attempt to snatch it, but the firebird deftly evaded its clutches.

Then the ogre’s head jerked back, dark brown liquid seeping out of a deep cut across its cheek. One of the Katipuneros had drawn their arms back in perfect synch, and then swung at the air again. Sharp new blades of wind cut even deeper into the monster’s arms.

Zoe lifted a hand and made a quick, cutting gesture, like she was drawing back a bow, the whip following her movements. Slices of lightning gathered, tore into the ogre, one blow lashing it right in the eye. Tala reeled back from the force of its scream.

She stumbled when the ground rocked again, the strongest upheaval so far. She heard Alex gasp as he, too, tripped and tumbled. The ogre, bloody and half-blind, was toppling down on them.

Tala saw the large fist crashing down toward her head. And felt Zoe slam squarely into her side, pushing her and Alex out of the way.

“Zoe!”

There was a sickening thud. Tala scrambled back up, heart in her throat.

The ogre’s fist settled atop a small spinning column of air, working as several inches of buffer between it and Zoe’s straining face. Lola Urduja’s fan was a blur, her face fatigued as she strove to maintain the barrier.

The ogre reached out for Zoe with its other hand. Slices from her whip swiftly reduced the ogre’s skin to shreds, burning and cutting the arm right off. The creature shrieked.

“Your Highness!” Zoe’s face was white and drawn. “Take Tala and run!”

But the sheared limb had a mind of its own, The fist uncurled and lunged for Lola Urduja. The old woman dodged, but her shield of air crumpled abruptly, spinning out of control, the force of it hurling Tala and Alex back several yards.

The fist hit the ground, missing Zoe by centimeters. She lashed out with her whip again. Streaks of more lightning punched straight into the forearm, tearing at the skin.

But the limb was oblivious to pain. Its grip tightened, the massive fingers working up her leg. Zoe struggled to get free.

The noises from the battlefield dimmed around Tala, receding into the distance until all she could hear was her rapid, panicked breathing, and the furious beating of her heart. It felt like time had fallen around her in slow motion, as if she could see the spaces in between every movement. Zoe said to run; she did just that.

“Tala!” Alex yelled as she scrambled toward Zoe, but the words sound muted, as if they came from underwater. Something roared at her from overhead. The second ogre swung its last good arm down on her.

Tala swung her arnis sticks right back at it.

The sound when she made contact with the ogre was both the most unnerving silence and the loudest thing she’d ever heard. It felt like she’d lost her hearing, and at the same time she could feel the ogre screaming in a voice she was sure could be heard around the world.

Then the arm disappeared. It didn’t evaporate like the shadows did, or explode into a disgusting mix of bone and blood, or even disintegrate. It simply vanished into thin air, like it had never existed to begin with.

The firebird lashed out, sensing an advantage, and this time, the air did explode, flames shooting out to envelop not only the ogre’s arm that was still attached to Zoe, but its face as well.

The monster surrendered its hold, and Zoe rolled away to safety as the ogre smashed its face against the ground in a noisy, anguished attempt to quell the flames, then struggled to stand again, its remaining horribly burned hand clutching at the stump where its other arm used to be. Its face was an ugly black ruin, horribly contorted, still aflame. It squealed, a thin high-pitched screech like fingernails scratching down a blackboard.

“Tala,” Zoe gasped, wide-eyed.

Tala stared down at her hands, trembling uncontrollably, even as Zoe and Alex dragged her out of harm’s way.

Then there were the unmistakable sounds of an engine, roaring loudly and growing stronger with every second.

A large motorcycle bore down on them, silver and black. Its rider was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair and steel-colored eyes, face square and grim—the boy from her English class, Tala realized. Cole Whatshisname.

He shot past them, drawing out what was to Tala’s eyes the most hideous-looking scythe she had ever seen. Several tiny knives were crisscrossed around the handle. They jutted haphazardly up like a bramble hedge toward the blade, which twisted rather than curved down the way normal scythes did. Where one of Ken’s swords was a shining ebony, this was black as soot, turbid with the suggestion of grime.

A nearby shade pounced, hissing, but the boy swung the frightful scythe, cutting right through the shade like it was made of paper. The boy lifted the blade again and cut straight into the motorbike’s tank. Gasoline spilled out.

At the last possible minute, the boy leaped off the bike, landing and rolling away. The motorcycle raced on ahead, slamming right into the still-burning creature and knocking it backward, away from Tala, Zoe, and Alex.

Both bike and ogre exploded, flames engulfing the beast. Tala was thrown back to the ground, ears ringing. The ogre twisted and writhed for several seconds, then shuddered one last time, its cries tapering off before it finally lay still.

The remaining ogre’s attention was divided. While Ken avoided the blows, Loki attacked the creature from the opposite side, the two switching strategies when the ogre’s attention was diverted by the other, the lion still worrying at its shins and heels.

Then Tala’s parents were there, having finally destroyed most of the shadows. Her father hacked at the ogre’s foot with one mighty blow, severing it completely. The ogre sank down to one knee. Her mother raised a hand, and the rest of that knee disappeared, in the same way Tala had done.

Overwhelmed, beset in all directions, the hideous creature bent, bellowing its frustration. Its snarls of rage were cut short when Kensington’s crackling-light sword slid smoothly into the center of its chest. At the same time, Loki, scampering up the top of its head, plunged their staff through its temple.

And finally, finally, the last ogre crashed, dead on its feet long before it hit the ground.

There was silence for a full minute, interrupted only by the sound of flames consuming the other ogre’s lifeless form.

“Everyone okay?” Ken pulled out his blade with an awful ripping sound. His face was flushed and bruised from battle. Loki was impassive, if a little dirty, while the large lion had disappeared. West tugged the heavy fur off his head with a flourish, revealing he was also completely naked underneath.

“Where’d you learn that?” Ken asked Tala, impressed.

“I don’t know?” The ringing in her head had not yet subsided.

Ken looked over to Cole. “Thanks for the help.” He added, if a little grudgingly, “Sorry about your bike.”

The other boy nodded in acknowledgment. “It’s not my bike.”

“West,” Zoe said delicately, taking great pains not to look directly at the boy. “Go find something to cover yourself up with, please?”

“Oh,” West said, looking down at himself. “I keep forgetting about that.”

“Who the hell are you again?” Alex asked, gaping at West.

“Weston-Clifford Beaujour Grethari Bannock Iognaidh-Under-Waves Brighteye Eddings VI, Your Highness.”

“Good grief,” Alex said. “You mean there’s five more of you?”

“We should leave,” Lola Urduja said, scanning the area, “before the authorities arrive.”

Zoe stared hard at Cole. “I suppose you’ll have to come with us.”

“Finally believe I’m here to help, Carlisle?”

“No, but if I leave you behind, you’re likely to cause trouble. I’d rather keep an eye on you, and on my own terms.”

The ogres’ blood stained the ground, inky-black night spreading across tainted soil, the rancid stench searing her nostrils. Tala looked at the smoldering face of the dead ogre, the ogre she had maimed, and the thick smell of charred flesh seemed to wrap around her.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she announced, rather feebly, and then did just that.