Page 45 of Rune Assassin

She lifted an eyebrow. “I might be able to, but why do something that stupid? We’ll only be making the thing angry.”

“Making it angry and reckless enough so we could see where it is,” he pointed out.

My eyes lit up and I pushed off from the post. “And where it isn’t!”

Clara furrowed her brow but she rolled up her sleeves. “Alright. You come with me.”

My enthusiasm was sapped from me. “Come again?”

She grabbed my hand and tugged me into the house. “You broke all the jars so you can help me use what was in them.”

Oh boy. The things I had to touch that day were unspeakably gross and smelled like a cocktail of charnel house and a rat’s den with a sublet to a flatulent skunk. Clara tossed in I-don’t-know-what into the pot while I stirred. She finished adding the ingredients and took the stirring spoon from me.

“Now you repeat after me and we’ll see if we can’t get this to work,” she instructed me as she closed her eyes. When in Rome, so I closed mine, too. “Oh sacred gods whose names we dare not speak, cast these goods into the spell we seek.”

I took a deep breath. “Oh sacred gods whose names we dare not speak, cast these, um, things-”

“Goods!” Clara snapped as she swatted my hand with the spoon. “Now get it right or you’ll blow us all to our deaths!”

My eyes flew open and I found her glaring at me. The pot was also no longer a sludge but a glowing mess of gurgling green goo. “I’ll dowhat?”

She swatted me again. “Don’t interrupt with talking! Say them right and we may just survive this!”

My breathing was a little shakier as I gulped in a massive amount of air. “Oh sacred gods whose names we dare not speak, cast these-” Her evil glare charged my memory, “-goods into the spell we seek.”

The goop in the pot bubbled so exuberantly that it popped clear out of the cauldron. Clara and I scuttled back to avoid the sizzling mess. The droplets landed on the floor and left scorch marks.

“Blast it all!” Clara growled as she snatched a ladle from the wall beside the chimney. She wagged it at me as she scooped up a gourd. “You need to learn to control those powers of you or you’ll be the death of us all!”

I waved my hands at the bubbling mess. “How can I controlthat?”

“With more focus in your words and thought, if there is anything in that head of yours!” she scolded me as she scooped up some of the goop. The metal of the ladle sizzled but managed to carry the concoction to the mouth of the gourd. Clara poured it down the neck and tossed the melted ladle to the side before she popped a cork into the mouth. She held it up with a big grin. “Now we may have a chance against that fiend!”

I lifted an eyebrow and pointed at the dried vegetable. “With that?”

She shoved the gourd into my hands. “Never underestimate the power of a witch and never ever with two witches.”

I noticed her toss some of the herbs and spices into a pouch at her side. “What’s that for?”

Clara patted the pouch. “Just in case this doesn’t go well. Now then, dragon boy-” She snatched the gourd from me and pushed it into his hands, “-it’s time you helped out.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “How?”

She grabbed our arms and yanked us toward the front door. “You’re going to lob that at the creature when it pops out.”

I blinked at her. “But how are we going to get it to pop out?”

“Like this,” she instructed us as we scurried out onto the porch. She released Tegan and grabbed both my arms before she flung me forward.

I stumbled across the boards as Tegan gave a shout. His fingers brushed against my sleeve but weren’t enough to stop me from tripping onto the sand. I immediately froze some five feet from the edge of the porch. My heart pounded so hard in my chest that I thought it was going to leap out.

Then I felt it. A faint quiver in the ground. The prelude to problems. Big problems.

And it was right behind me.

I spun around and watched in horror as the ground was forced upward. The sand fell away to reveal our terrifying foe that rose some thirty feet into the air. My eyes bulged out of my head as I beheld not an earthworm but a giant-

I whipped my head to the pair on the porch. “Is that a shrimp?!”

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