Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(29)

It was no use. Russell sat up. As he did so, the wind stung his face, bringing with it the stench of rotten flesh.

Stick with Lieutenant MacNeely. It’s like he can smell danger.

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He searched the embankment that ran down to the water. There.

He caught a flicker of movement along the riverbank. The lights from the bridge reflected off a pair of eyes peering out of a tangle of frozen weeds. The eyes disappeared and the weeds shifted and shook, a ribbon of motion coming toward him. Something was creeping closer, stalking him. Something big. Was it plotting with the nixies or was it here on its own?

Warrior Russell planted his feet under him, reached down and gripped his trusty iron bar.

Know your weapon.

You are the weapon.

With a roar, the creature burst from the underbrush, its claws clattering over the concrete as it bounded forward. It was incredibly tall, cadaverously thin, with long, snarled hair. Coming to his knees, Russell waited until it was nearly on top of him, then jack-knifed upward, swinging his iron bar, slamming it into the creature in mid-air. It screamed, a sound as lonely as a train whistle at night. Then burst into shards of ice that rained down on the riverbank until it looked like his campsite had been hit by a localized hailstorm.

“What the hell was that?” Russell muttered, brushing slush off his parka.

The nixies looked at each other, chattering excitedly, pointing at Russel . One of them slipped beneath the river’s surface and disappeared.

“Where’d she go?” Russell demanded, glaring at them. He stood, cradling the iron bar. “If she went for reinforcements, well, then bring it. I’m Russell G. MacNeely, and I’m not giving up this crib.”

The nixie reappeared a few minutes later, with reinforcements.

A reinforcement, rather. The newcomer—a girl—surfaced with scarcely a ripple, regarding Russell with luminous green eyes. Her skin was ashy white, with just a hint of blue, and her long red hair was caught into a braid just past her shoulders.

She raised one pale hand, and waved at him, a tentative flutter of fingers. Russell waved back.

She flinched back, eyes wide. “So you can see us.”

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“I’ll pretend I can’t, if that makes you feel better,” Russell said. “I’m used to it. It helps me fit in better in the world.”

“You killed the Wendigo,” she said, her voice the sound of moving water over stone.“I’m impressed. They aren’t easy to kill, one on one.”

“I killed the what?”

She scooped up a handful of ice. Tilting her hand, she let it fall, glittering in the lights from the bridge, clattering on the concrete.

“Uh, right. Wendigo,” Russell said. “Don’t they usually hang out further north?”

“Usually,” she said, with a sigh. “Not these days.” Sweeping bits of ice out of the way, she boosted herself onto the bank. She wore a skimpy dress of what looked like seaweed, and a necklace of water lilies and freshwater mussel shells. She was sleek and fit, her arms and legs well-muscled, as if she worked out. Though her skin was pale as permafrost, she was probably the loveliest thing Russell had ever seen.

Just stop it. You always get like this when you’re off your meds.

There’s just no point in that kind of thinking for someone like you.

Truth be told, he hated being on meds. He hated living in a black-and-white world, blinders over his eyes, cotton stuffed in his ears.

Sleepwalking. Sitting at the bottom of a well of sadness, unable to climb out.

He needed to stay alert. He needed to be able to defend himself.

I am not a violent person, but I will defend myself.

“I’m Russell, by the way,” he said. No reason he couldn’t be friendly.

“I’m Laurel,” she said. With nimble fingers, she unraveled her braid. Then rewove it—tighter.

Russell cast about for something else to say. “Um—you’re not as green as most nixies,” he said, hoping that would be taken for a compliment.

She shook her head. “I’m not a nixie. I’m a kelpie.” She’d been focused on her braid, but now she raised her eyes to Russell’s face, as if to assess his reaction. “A limnades kelpie, to be specific.”

The word was familiar, but all he could think of was seaweed.

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