Page 10 of Office of the Lost

The howling suddenly stopped, cut off as if someone had just flicked a switch, or maybe waved an enchanted wand.The forest was again as quiet as a graveyard, an association Crispin wished he hadn’t just made.A mounting dread seized his heart.What’s scary enough to shut up a pack of rab-cats?

He said a prayer to the Mother of Fae, who also happened to be his own mother.Which always made things a bit awkward, her being a semi-deity and all, when he asked for a blessing in her name.

Cerillia Ailedrin Moss’caladin had not been happy when he’d chosen a desk job over being a hunter.But that was drama for another day.Right now he had more pressing issues.

They tumbled into a moonlit clearing.When had the sun set?Not that he’d have been able to see it through all of the godsforsaken layers of forest canopy on this depressingly wild world.Wild had always been more of his brother’s thing.Give Aspin a bow and arrow and set him loose in a dark forest and he was in fae heaven.Crispin much preferred a cozy armchair under a woolly blanket in front of a fireplace hearth, a mug of hot chocolate in hand.

“Why… did… they… stop?”Leo was laying on Crispin’s stomach, somehow managing to make his brown fur look pale and wan.Or maybe it was the blue moonlight.

“I don’t know.”Crispin pushed away from Leo, disentangling his arms and legs.He looked back over his shoulder, expecting the toothy little rab-cats to burst out of the shadows at any moment.“Thea, a little help here?Are you… working yet?”

His little assistant responded with a sputtering of sparks and a column of smoke.

“That can’t be good,” observed Leopold.

He shook his head.“I’ve never seen her smoke before….”His gaze fell upon a large foot.Two of them, actually, covered in shaggy brown fur.They seemed to be connected to a pair of legs as thick as tree boles.

“So is there a repair shop for… for whatever that device is called?”Leo continued.

Crispin didn’t reply.His eyes were too busy traveling up the thick expanse of those legs, past the heavy belly that overhung them like a mushroom cap, and up to the giant head that even now was tilting down to look at them.

“Crispy?”Leo sounded annoyed.

“It’s… there’s a….”He stared at the… huge thing that stood before him.Its mouth spread in a toothy grin, and he felt faint.It’s going to eat me.

He had never been eaten before and was sure he would find the whole thing quite disagreeable.All those years of work, and it was to end in the pit of a giant’s stomach.It didn’t seem fair.

Leo must finally have noticed it too, because he responded with a particularly Earthian stream of words.“Well, fuck me sideways.What the holy hell is that?”

The shaggy beast opened its mouth, and Crispin closed his eyes, not wanting to see his own end.

“Could I interest you gents in a spot of ripple bark tea?”

Crispin started to hyperventilate.“Could you… some tea?”was all he could manage, followed by a series of hiccups.

“Yes, of course.Follow me back to the hedging and I’ll get you right and refreshed.”He turned and lifted one of his huge feet, and when he set it back onto the ground, the whole clearing shook.

“I think he’s invited us back to his place.”Of course Leo seemed much less frightened than Crispin was.

Crispin nodded.“Back to his flat.A giant invited us for a cup of tea.”It was all way too much.

His eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed, managing to just miss the soft patch of velvety purple moss he’d been aiming for.

6

Leopold

Leopold was beginning to suspect that spiked Zima wasn’t really his problem.

For one thing, this hallucination had gone on for a really long time and with way more sensory information than he’d normally attribute to drugs.His head was still sore from when his antlers collided with a tree branch, for instance, and he could still taste that delicious purple grass.While it was entirely plausible that a bad trip might include those nasty little rabbit things—and even a guy who looked like the love child of a bear and a redwood tree—Leopold doubted that his brain could manufacture an unconscious desk fae who was currently sort of a deer.

Also, Crispin washeavy.

“Is it much farther?”Worrying about sore arms was preferable to worrying about having ingested a doctored malt beverage.And a tainted Zima was preferable to the other alternative: that all of this was real.

Leopold shuddered, almost dropping Crispin in the process.

“I can carry him, you know,” said the giant cheerfully.“Wouldn’t bother me a bit.Last week I found a thermox lost in the forest, the poor thing.Tucked her into my pocket, she went to sleep, and I didn’t remember she was there until I went to change to pajamas.And a thermox weighs a lot more than your friend.”

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