Page 18 of Rescued By the Great Grim

I pull her up the stairs and give her a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m Hailey.” As I release her, she seems a little stunned, but I continue blabbing. “Nick said you might help me hide a magical trident that can possess people. Well, I don’t know if the trident possesses people or if there’s a demon that lives inside it that does it.”

“Okay,” Rae says slowly, looking to Nick for guidance.

He’s staring at her motorcycle. “How long have you had that?”

She blinks a few times. “For about a year.”

“How come I’ve never seen it before?” he asks accusingly.

“Because you hate any vehicles in the woods. I leave it down the trail and hike the rest of the way in when I visit. But you said this was an emergency.”

“Can I ride it?” I ask. The bike looks so cool. I really would like to test it out.

Rae sighs loudly. “People, what is the emergency?”

“You better come inside,” Nick says. “It might take a while to explain.”

She joins us inside and over cups of tea, we tell her the whole story. We’ve buried Johnny’s creepy mummified remains, but haven’t touched the trident. I described the area where I hid it to Nick and he’s confident he knows where the group of bouldersare. We should be able to find the artifact quickly, especially since I marked the place.

Nick told me I was smart for thinking to do that and I’m embarrassed over how much it pleases me every time he gives me a compliment.

Turns out I have a thing for praise kink. Who knew?

When we finish, Rae sits silent for a while. “You said the trident whispered to you when you touched it, Hailey?” When I nod, she continues. “But at that point, Johnny was presumably already possessed. So it sounds like this artifact is still dangerous.”

I shudder. “Yeah, I think so.”

She stands. “Let’s go have a look at it and decide what to do.”

“Can we ride the bike there?” I ask.

“No,” Nick says. “We’re walking. Who knows what a possessed trident can do to human technology?” He strides toward the front of the cabin.

Rae grins at me. “Don’t mind him. He’s a Luddite about vehicles.”

“Only in the woods,” Nick says. “I’m fine with them on roads.”

It doesn’t take us long to reach the boulders. “Wow,” I say. “I wondered around in circles for a while before I found the cabin.”

Nick squeezes my shoulders in a one-armed hug. “But the important thing is that you found it.”

The trident is exactly where I left it, still wrapped in my jacket. I reach for it, but Rae stops me. “Let me. You might be more susceptible to it if you’ve already touched it.” She pulls out a longwide sleeve made of some sort of canvas fabric. “I bought this from a witch. It’s supposed to shield from magic.”

“You just had this lying around?” Nick asks.

Rae grins. “I use it when I transport aquamarine through areas where magical creatures might detect me or the gems.” I have no idea what that means, but decide to ask Nick about it later. Right now, I’m more worried about the trident because even though I’m not touching it, I can feel it calling to me.

“You okay?” Nick asks.

“I want to touch it,” I say.

Nick puts his arm around me, and the whispers in my mind quiet immediately. I snuggle into him.

Rae slips the trident into the canvas cover and zips it up. We return to the cabin.

“Do you know what you’re going to do with it?” Nick asks.

She shakes her head. “Not yet. I need to do some research. I think it will be okay in this spelled fabric until I find a solution.”

---