Page 5

CHAPTER 5

Fortunately, I didn’t have to figure out how best to fight an alligator—if that’s what had taken them?—

Zee shot from the water like a bullet from a gun and clung to a nearby tree, wings flapping, whipping up a chaotic storm of twigs, slime, and whatever else lurked in the swamp.

Behind him, Victor wrestled some kind of hideous, long-tailed, big-clawed, scaly-skinned, reptilian-eyed... wait a second...

“Hey!” I stomped forward. “Hey, you!”

The alligator—if that’s what it was—stopped thrashing and glared its cold eyes at me while keeping Victor’s arm firmly lodged between its teeth.

“He’s my vampire,” I told my distant—very distant, waaay back several million years—kinda cousin. “Bad alligator. Drop Victor.”

The alligator stared some more. It’s vertical black slits getting narrower.

“Adam, if I may continue wrestling for my freedom, as my arm is exceedingly painful trapped between its jaws.”

I stomped the rest of the way and pointed a stern finger at the alligator. “Bad. Drop. Now.”

With its cold glare locked on mine, the alligator dropped its lower jaw. Victor jerked backward, holding up his arm, and blood dribbled down his pale skin, soaking his torn shirt.

“It is very rude to eat people without their permission,” I scolded, reptile to reptile. “Don’t give me those sad eyes, mister.”

“Those are fuckin’ murder eyes, Kitten,” Zee said from his perch in the tree.

“Go on now.” I shooed the alligator away. “And tell your friends out there to leave us alone, or there’ll be real trouble—you know the trouble I mean.”

The alligator whipped its head around in a huff, thrashed its tail, and disappeared under the water.

“Victor, are you alright?” I waded over and winced at the mincemeat his arm had become. “Oh dear, that looks bad.”

“It will heal, but I should keep it out of the water.” He blinked through wet, algae-strewn bangs. “Where by the grace of the vampire queen are we, and why is Zodiac in a tree?”

Zee cleared his throat. “There was a uh...” He twirled a finger in his hair and his tail coiled around his leg. “Another one up here. I scared it off.” He vanished his wings, clambered down the tree, and shivered as he sank back into the water with us. “Ick. The water is hugging my balls. And I am not wearing the right heels for this soupy shit.”

“I’m so sorry, guys. I didn’t realize that was an alligator. But don’t worry, he won’t bother us again.”

Zee narrowed his eyes. “You speak fuckin’ alligator?”

“Kinda...” I shrugged. “It’s more about tone of voice. And I’m sort of at the top of the reptile food chain, I guess.”

“Chompy McBitey Face was not small, furry, or fuckin’ cute, Adam,” Zee pointed out, with special emphasis on the small and furry parts.

“I know. Yikes. I really got alligators wrong, didn’t I?” That was the last time I paid attention to any of the hotel’s books.

“I saw my life flash before my eyes—again! I had to drop Sassy Fangs or I’d have died!”

“You dropped me like bait,” Victor snarled.

“What else was I gonna do? Also, you’re like, chewable or something. My skin is precious. Did you see the size of its teeth?”

“Actually, I did, while it was thrashing me back and forth trying to dislocate my arm from my shoulder socket.”

“Pfft, you’re a million years old, and look... you’re fine. It probably would have dropped you anyway. Everyone knows vampires taste bad.”

“Actually, they taste like chicken.” Having been the only person here who had eaten a vampire, I could add some perspective to this conversation.

The pair of them fell silent and looked at me.

“As bewildering as this conversation is,” Victor sighed. “Perhaps we should get to dry land so I can tend my arm and my back, which also appears to have undergone some kind of trauma.”

“Yeah, you got shot in the back by a troll and slept through your own murder spree. Keep up.”

Victor stared. “Please, explain everything that has transpired since I lost consciousness.”

“Sure.” Zee waded ahead, toward what appeared to be a gap in the gnarly tree roots we could use to escape. “You used your new superpowers to freeze Toby’s gang, but missed one outside. He snuck in with a gun, shot you in the back. Snap .” Zee clicked his fingers, then clambered up a marshy bank, out of the water. “You killed all of ’em and knocked yourself out cold.”

“Well... that’s a development.” Victor took Zee’s offered hand to be hauled out of the swamp water.

Zee dragged me out next. “Thanks.”

“Cops showed up, so we scarpered into this hellscape?—”

“Everglades, I presume,” Victor said, looking around.

“Everglades sounds cute and nice, like it should be filled with fuckin’ fluffy bunnies, Disney princesses, and gay rainbows. This fuckin’ hellhole smells like Seb’s lube jar and has slimy fanged things livin’ in it. Also like Seb’s lube jar.”

As if to prove his point, a fat, dangling-legged bug bumbled its way through the air between us. Zee yelped, and swatted it. It plopped into the water somewhere out of sight, then something in that water sloshed, ending the flying thing’s life. Everything here was food for something bigger.

“This is not the tropical paradise I ordered, Kitten.”

“There’s a house up ahead...” As soon as I said it, I wasn’t sure house was the right word. A lamp glowed outside its door, illuminating a long deck over the water. Among all the croaking and ribbiting going on around us, I could just make out some tinny music that sounded as though it was playing from a cheap TV or radio. Someone was home. A few someones, if the trucks parked behind the shack were any indication of who was inside.

We were almost at the dwelling when Zee stopped, and in the dull lamplight he pointed down at his extended leg. “What...” Just below his knee, where his pants had torn, a black thing about an inch long appeared to be stuck to his skin. “What. The fuck. Is that ?”

“That is a leech,” Victor said, tugging weeds from his hair and snarling before tossing them aside.

“A leech?” Zee blinked. And blinked again. “Why is it on me?”

“I suspect it’s partaking of a free meal.”

“Excuse moi. What the fuck does that mean?”

Victor sauntered over to get a closer look. “Marvelous. You can’t feel it because—rather amusingly—like vampires, the leech is an amazing creature that secretes an anesthetic agent so its host is unaware it has latched on using three jaws and over a hundred teeth. Isn’t it glorious?”

Zee blinked some more. Was he pale? Or was that just the weird hue of the lamp?

“That industrious little champion also produces an anticoagulant,” Victor continued. “Preventing your blood from clotting so that it might feast until bloated, at which time it will harmlessly fall off.”

“Imma just... I just gotta... go over here...” Zee staggered, swayed, and collapsed. He would have hit the muddy ground had Victor not dashed in and caught him.

“Adam, my dear? It may be best if you remove the leech from Zodiac’s leg before he regains consciousness.”

“Me?” I squeaked.

“Well, I am rather stuck in this position of support until Zodiac recovers from his swooning.”

I approached carefully, in case the leech lunged at me. The thick black worm thing was definitely stuck to Zee’s skin. It would be fine, right? Just pluck it off. Done. I’d once unclogged a gremlin from the hotel’s sewer system, so... one little leech should be easy.

“Please do not also pass out. I doubt I can support the both of you.”

“No, I’m good, I just...” I pinched the leech, or tried to, but it was real slippery and the slimy sucker was properly rooted in Zee’s flesh.

“Before he wakes up, preferably.”

“Okay... I’ve got it.” The black slimy leech stretched thin, then slipped from my fingers, still latched on. “Yeah, uhm...” My stomach flopped. I puffed, flushing hot and cold. “I just need a second here...”

“You fellas havin’ some issues?” A drawling voice alerted us to the fact we were no longer alone.

“Oh, hey uhm... so... we uh... we got lost.” I had to say something about why we looked as though the swamp had spat us out at the back of this man’s shack. “And uhm, we saw your light, and my friend here... he uh... he’s a bit squeamish, I guess.” I gestured at the leech, still snacking on Zee.

“You got a hitchhiker.” The rotund guy pulled a lighter from his bib-overalls pocket, flicked the flame alight, and approached Zee—still out cold in Victor’s arms.

The little flame reflected in Victor’s silvery eyes, highlighting their warning, but the guy didn’t seem to notice or care. He held the flame against the leech, for just long enough that the critter curled up and plopped to the ground.

“Bring him inside. We’ll get that wound cleaned up.” The big guy turned around and strode back onto the front deck. When he noticed we weren’t following, he urged, “You comin’? I don’t bite.”

I glanced at Victor, who after a few seconds thought gave a small nod and scooped Zee’s limp body into his arms.

Following the friendly leech wrangler, I shoved open the shack door and blinked into the gloom inside. Several other heavyset people sat around makeshift tables made of cut wood, used pallets, and steel drums. All eight faces turned toward us.

“Oh, hello.” I smiled, and raised a hand in a small wave. A few waved back, then returned to their conversations. Was this some kind of meeting place, or a bar? In the middle of the swamp? Whatever it was, the locals seemed friendly enough.

“Let’s get your friend fixed up back here,” the leech wrangler said, waving us toward the back of the shack to a makeshift bed of wooden pallets and old blankets.

Victor laid Zee on the bed but Zee’s height meant his legs hung off the end. He may only have fainted, but concern squeezed my heart at the sight of him out cold and vulnerable. Zee was always in motion, always flouncing here and there, tail flicking, head tilted, lashes fluttering. Even when sleeping, he twitched and mumbled. Being still wasn’t in his nature.

The leech wrangler approached with a piece of rag and an unmarked bottle. He poured the bottle’s contents onto the rag and reached for Zee’s leg.

Victor got between them, grabbing the man’s wrist. “Explain.”

“Just a bit of rubbing alcohol. It’ll hurt, probably wake him up, but as you guys have been swimming in nature’s pea soup, you’re gonna need it to make sure that bite don’t get infected.”

“It’s alright, Victor,” I said. We were safe here, I felt that much. Something about this place and it’s people... It sort of felt right. More right than Toby’s house, or the Stephanie Hotel, or even the Pacific Northwest. It felt like the safest place we’d been since leaving the SOS Hotel.

Victor freed the man’s wrist. “What is your name?”

“Hooper,” the big guy drawled. His tufty chestnut hair stuck out at different angles, as though he’d been wearing a hat that had flattened the top part. His large eyes were kind. “This is my place... a safe place. No harm will come to you here.”

Reluctantly, Victor nodded and leaned back, letting Hooper kneel down and soak the rag with alcohol.

“You may wanna hold him,” Hooper suggested.

Victor gripped Zee’s shoulders from his position behind his head, pinning him down.

“Ready?”

Hooper waited for his nod, then pressed the rag to Zee’s leg.

Zee bucked. His eyes shot open and saw me.

“It’s alright.” I held his other leg, but it was Victor’s soothing words in his ear that instantly calmed him. Panic faded from his eyes, replaced by confusion, then skepticism.

“Easy there, friend,” Hooper said, his deep voice comforting. “Just a little ol’ fashioned antiseptic.” He rocked back on his heels. “Now then, anyone else got some unwanted hitchhikers you want seein’ to?”