Happily Ever Awkward (The H.E.A. Files, #1)(47)
The people this Quest was supposed to impress.
The people who began to laugh at him.
He tried to run from their mockery, from their leering faces, from the horrible sound of their ridicule, but no matter where he ran, they were always there to shove him back. Unable to run any longer, he finally fell at the feet of a wickedly beautiful Princess Luscious.
“We don’t want you,” she sneered. “You’re not good enough to be one of us, and you know it. You make us sick.”
Paul sagged as the power of the Curse swirled around him and dropped him down a bottomless pit of jeers. He bowed his head in finality as if laying it upon the headsman’s chopping block.
Laura could see none of this since it all took place in Paul’s mind. She saw nothing but Paul standing frozen with the smoky-black hand of Fear-Luscious streaming into his eyes. She saw his Singing Sword fall to the ground.
At the moment, the Sword could sing nothing but the words, “Wake up wake up wake up wake up!”
Like something out of a nightmare, Fear-Luscious’ other arm rippled until it had transformed into a long black blade.
Laura couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t end here, not like this, not so quickly, not without a fight.
“Paul…?” she started to call out.
But it was too late. Fear-Luscious plunged the shadowy blade straight through Paul’s heart.
“No!” Laura cried. She would have collapsed if not for the tentacle holding her up.
Paul convulsed around the sword in his chest.
Laura screamed and tried to pull free, but only her tears managed to escape.
Fear-Luscious ripped the blade from the prince’s body as her own body dissolved into a seething mass of shadows.
Paul folded to the ground, his dead eyes wide in shock.
A fierce clap of thunder rolled across the sky.
Demog emerged from the cavern, two brass buckles undone over his chest cavity. As he crossed the sand, his Fear Essence swirled back inside him. He took possession of Laura before the tentacle retreated into his chest as well. While he refastened his buckles, Laura squirmed in his grip and ferociously bit his hand. Rather than releasing her, the Terror shoved it even farther into her mouth.
“Harder. Please.”
She tore her mouth away and continued to struggle fiercely but futilely against his unyielding grasp.
“How fascinating it will be to whittle away your strength, my dear,” he said.
He dragged her inside the cavern, pausing just long enough to kick a spray of sand over Paul’s body. “The earth shall inherit the weak.”
Laughing, he left Paul with a lone Zombie. It knelt beside the prince and gently closed the boy’s wide, tear-stained eyes.
As the Zombie stood, a single tear streaked his own cheek. Jeremy had seen many atrocities, but this one broke his unbeating heart. Picking up a shovel, he began to bury the body of the prince.
I’m sorry.
That part of the story always breaks my binding.
It’s so tragic, I…
…I don’t think I feel like being read right now.
. . .
. . .
Thank you.
I feel better now. Please, read on.
THE END
AND THEN…
33
PAIR-A-DICE
In case you were not sure, that was not “The End”.
It was “An End,” to be certain, but not the final, definitive, no-more-story-beyond-this-point “Ending.” That “The End” is still a few pages away.
Therefore, you should stop thinking about putting me down and start focusing on the fact that Paul blinked awake.
“Jahalael’s beard, what a dream,” he said.
He lifted a hand to wipe his eyes and was surprised to discover he could see right through it. Horrified, he flung his hand away, but since it would only go as far as the length of his arm, he could do little to escape its awful intangibility.
In the process of trying to do so, however, he discovered that his hand was not the only transparent part of his body — the rest of him was see-through as well!
Reeling from shock, he stood up only to experience an even greater shock.
He stood in a casino.
It was a vast casino, as wide as the very sky, but a casino nonetheless. Nothing but marble and gold, it reminded Paul very much of a temple.
And for good reason.
Large gods and small gods and horned gods and animal gods and bearded gods and bald gods and robed gods and naked gods and every other kind of god in between gambled heatedly, one with another, over strange games that involved balls dancing upon spinning wheels, or the alchemy of combining cards with different symbols, or the simple act of rolling a pair of dice.
Small, chubby angels drifted about the casino bearing goblets of ambrosia for the gaming gods. On a nearby stage, a small band plucked strangely soothing music on harps.
Paul wandered from one bizarre sight to the next. Completely dazed, he eventually wound up at a dice table where most of the activity appeared to be centered — a contest between two rival gods.