Sweet Shadows

Within seconds I see what Sillus has planned. The Hesperian dragon roars loud enough to shake the cavern and starts flailing around wildly. It knocks into monsters on all sides of it, beasts that don’t appreciate being shoved around, even by something as terrifying as a Hesperian dragon. They’re not terrified. They shove back, and shove into one another, and soon the entire line has erupted into chaos.

Sillus holds on for dear life, and the increasingly furious Hesperian dragon swings its other ninety-nine heads wide, sending creatures all around to the ground, creating a circle in the midst of all the fighting.

My opening.

I jump to my feet and take off at a dead sprint. I make a beeline for the circle, trying not to think about the sheer number of blood- and huntress-thirsty monsters around me. I make it to the line just as the gap is starting to contract. Then I’m through, racing on the other side and scanning the area for some cover. I spot a pile of rocks to my right, directly across from where the golden maiden said the Den should be.

Ducking behind the pile, I press my back up against the rocks and suck in breath after breath. It’s like breathing fire, in and out. My lungs are starting to calm down when Sillus appears in front of me.

“See,” he says with a giant grin. “Sillus distract.”

“That you did,” I say, my voice breathy as I work on my recovery. “How’d you get out of there?”

He shrugs. Needing to witness this for myself, I peer around the rocks and see the Hesperian dragon on the ground, unmoving. Several other monsters are tying its necks together in bunches of three or four.

Looking across the space I just ran through and back up the hill, I see the faint glimmer of the golden maiden. They’re still watching.

When I turn back, Sillus is gone and I’m staring at a pair of big, blackened feet that look as though they’ve been soaking in charcoal. Following the feet up the legs, waist, and torso to the hideous face on top, I realize I’m in big trouble. The cacus.

“Uh-oh.”

It grins, showing rough, uneven teeth with dark growth along the gums. It bends down, grabs me around the arms, and hauls me over its shoulder.

Well, at least now I don’t have to figure out how to get into the Den. The cacus is taking me there.

“Found this lurking outside, boss,” the cacus says as he drags me into what looks like an office.

The walls are the same black, shiny rock as the rest of the abyss. But ceiling lights illuminate the space, so I have no problem making out the old metal desk and the telchis sitting in the burgundy leather desk chair, his slobbering pit bull head drooling all over his own chest while his seal flippers smack together enthusiastically.

Nor do I miss the boy sitting in one of two bright-orange fiberglass chairs facing the desk.

“Nick?”

All my worst imaginings flash through my mind. Nick being tortured for information. Nick being torn to pieces by a mob of angry monsters. Nick being cast into the fires of Hades.

But Nick sitting in the boss’s office, casual as can be with a glass of what looks like iced tea in his hand? That never even crossed my mind as a possibility.

When he sees me, his demeanor changes. He looks scared. Not of the monsters in the room. He’s scared of me. Why?

“What’s going on here?” I ask.

“You two know each other?” the boss asks. “How wonderful. You’ve been doing your job well, Niko.”

“Job?” I echo. “What job?”

“Gretchen, it’s—” Nick doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t have to. The boss does.

“Niko here is one of our agents,” he says, sounding like a proud father. “One of our best.”

“Agents?”

Everything inside me goes still.

“Sent to find you, get close to you.” He glances from me to Nick. “Seduce you if he had to.”

I feel like retching. Right here, on the boss’s desk. If I’d had anything to eat in the last few days, I just might have.

Betrayal like I’ve never felt before turns my body to ice. There’s nothing to say. I clench my jaw and stare at the rough black wall behind the boss’s head.

“What you want me to do, boss?” the cacus asks. “Toss her over the edge?”

“No, you idiot. We need her alive.” The boss pushes himself to his feet, and I see that from the waist down, he isn’t as human as his torso would suggest. On clacking goat hooves he rounds the desk and steps up close to me. So close, I can smell his putrid breath.

Disgusting. Dog head, human chest, flipper arms, and goat legs. That’s one messed-up family tree. Or should I say family zoo?

“We need her and her lovely sisters to open the door,” he says, taking a loose chunk of my hair between his fingertips. “Then we can kill them.”

I let the saliva build in my mouth for a second before spitting in his face.

His fingers clamp down on my hair and yank. Hard.

“Ow!” I can’t stifle my scream.

Nick lurches out of his chair. “Don’t—”

The boss smacks a flipper against Nick’s chest, keeping him at a distance.

“This is between me and the pretty huntress,” the boss says. “You stay out of it.”

“I don’t need a rescuer,” I say, forcing myself to show more boldness than I feel at the moment. “I can take care of myself.”

I can’t—won’t—look at Nick, but I sense him backing off.