Page 28 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“I’m here against my will, remember?” I hissed up at the twisted locks gathered at the back of his head. The trees had gone still, and there were no more orange bursts of light to disturb the shadows. “You can hate me all you want, but I promise—”
A twig snapped, and my attention fell from Tiernan to the shadows beyond his tree. I held my breath, waiting, and just when I decided I must have imagined the sound, two glowing eyes of orange emerged from the darkness.
The Grimguard took shape, stepping into the halo of silver light cast by my flails. His cowl was back over his mouth and nose, but he stood bowlegged, and blood dripped from the wounds I’d left in his thighs.
I gave one of my flails a swing, trying to look intimidating, but the Grimguard raised a condescending eyebrow at me.
“I’ll kill you all night if I have to, Blue.” A sword of orange sizzled to life in his hand.
He charged, and I side-stepped his first attack before fending him off with a sloppy flail swing.
“Nightmare!” Tiernan called down to me, and a ball of glowing gold formed in his arms like a miniature sun. He lobbed it into the air. “Catch!”
I stumbled to catch it, desperate for anything that might help me survive another round against the Grimguard. The tiny sun fell into my arms, searing against my skin.
“Squeeze it!” Tiernan’s command echoed overhead, and as the Grimguard bore down on me again, I had no choice but to obey.
I squeezed the orb, fighting through the burning pain, and waited for whatever it was to deploy and save me and—
Searing gold light ripped through my every molecule, and I was back on my bedroom floor, dripping sweat and wide awake.
8. Information Dissemination
The shop was busy for a Wednesday, which wasn’t to say that it was bustling by any means. Rather, it was just busy enough to annoy me that Liam Glass was late for work.
Gams had abandoned her workshop to help me in the store and was recommending Mom’s books to what appeared to be a Bachelorette Party passing through town on their way to the real festivities in a bigger city. They giggled and blushed as they poured through pages, giving me time to stare at the two new scars the night’s events had added to my hand.
The throat wound had luckily sealed itself shut during my second bout in Skalterra, but the blast Tiernan had subjected me to had left me sore and bruised.
My ribs and arms had taken the brunt of the explosion when I’d unknowingly detonated Tiernan’s Skal bomb. My forearms were painted in yellow bruises that looked weeks old, and my ribs were a mottled green and purple that had made pulling on my clothes that morning more painful than I cared to admit.
Luckily, the morning was cooler than usual, so Gams didn’t question the Keel Watch Harbor hoodie I wore to hide the injuries.
Worse than the physical remnants of Tiernan’s explosion, however, was the gentle panic broiling inside me. Skalterra was real, and not only was something evil trying to break through from there to here, but somehow I was the person to keep that from happening.
We were screwed.
Unless, of course, my sacrifice last night had been worth it and the Grimguard was already dead. He’d nearly been on top of me when the explosive had detonated. I hadn’t survived it. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the Grimguard hadn’t either.
The young women shopping in their matching “Laurel’s Bride Tribe” t-shirts carried two complete sets of Mom’s books to the register, along with three Keel Watch Harbor hoodies, and enough wine to last the week.
I stared at their haul for a moment, blinking slowly, before one of them cleared her throat and pushed the items closer to me from across the counter.
“Oh!” I shook my head. “Right. Sorry.”
I hurried to ring up their things, and the bell over the door chimed. Liam shuffled into the shop with his head down and his blue Von Leer hood up. I wanted to be angry at his tardiness, but something about his hunched shoulders and the bags under his eyes softened my edge.
Gams abandoned the shelves she was restocking to pull him into a hug that crushed his bag of bagels between them, but it was hard to feel jealous at the familiarity of their embrace when Liam looked so terrible.
The bachelorette party paid and went on their way, and I strained to listen to Gams and Liam’s hushed conversation as I rang up the ceramic chickens the next customer had picked out. Gams patted Liam’s shoulder, took a squashed bagel, and retreated to her workshop.
“Back for more chickens, Stanley?” she called as she crossed to the workshop door.
“As long as you keep making them, Miss Ethel.” The customer, a bespectacled man with a weak chin and a stiff button-up, raised a hand to her, took his chickens, and left.
Liam pulled his hood back as he came to meet me at the counter. He pulled another misshapen bagel from the bag and tried to smile.
“I promise it’s not scooped.”
