Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback(34)

Russell looked back at Roy, hoping for direction. Roy sat in the snow, his tail beating on the ground, his red-coal eyes fixed on Russell.

“Is this it, Roy?” Russell asked. “Is this how it all ends?”

Roy said nothing.

“I can’t believe I’m asking advice from a dog I’ve only just met,”

Russell muttered.

He looked back at his crib under the railroad bridge, the meager campsite he’d defended like a junkyard dog, knowing it was the best he could hope for. He could stay here, and eke out a living, dumpster-diving and haunting the soup kitchens. He could go back to the world and start taking his medicine again. Or he could do this thing.

He could be a warrior, one more time. It was the one thing—the only thing—he’d ever wanted to be.

Laurel had her head twisted around, looking at him.

“Where is everyone?” Russell asked.

“They’re down in the harbor, waiting for you.”

“You said you had a plan?” Russell said.

“The nixies will lure her inside the breakwall,” Laurel said. “That ? 108 ?

? Cinda Williams Chima ?

will prevent her from taking advantage of the sturgeon’s speed. We can either run her aground or trap her against the breakwall. Then it’s up to you.”

It’s up to you, MacNeely. Somebody has to take out that gunner or we’l never get out of here.

Russell picked up the helm and slid it onto his head, strapped the baldric onto his back, and slid the sword into it. He retrieved his shield and strode to the kelpie’s side. Swinging his leg over, he twined his fingers into her mane. “Let’s do this thing,” he said.

The next thing he knew, they were flying over the concrete barrier at the water’s edge and plunging into the icy river. It was a good thing he was holding on tight, or he would’ve been pitched right off. The water was just as cold as Russell expected, but Laurel gave off heat like a furnace, warming his entire body. He could feel her muscles under him, extending and bunching, extending and bunching as she swam with the current, following the switchbacks of the crooked river toward the lake. The shoreline blurred by, faster than Russell could focus. Fleetingly, he wondered whether Laurel was in a hurry to act before he had second thoughts.

They swept under the Shoreway, under another railroad bridge, past Wendy Park on their left-hand side.

They burst out of the mouth of the river like a log out of a chute.

At that point the wind hit them, a furious pounding from the northwest, whipping up whitecaps even within the breakwall. Laurel kept swimming, angling across the flow of water to a spot just inside and to the east of the passage through the break into the greater lake.

There she hovered, constantly swimming just to keep from being swept out into the lake.

“We’ll wait here,” Laurel shouted, but Russell could barely hear her over the howling of the wind and the thunder of the waves crashing over the wall.

Just beyond the wall, the lake water seethed with swimming bodies—nixies and grindylows, watersprites, and selkies. This was the bait that was meant to lure the storm hag.

? 109 ?

? Warrior Dreams ?

She was on her way, if the weather was any indication. Sleet hissed into the water all around them, found its way under Russell’s collar, and bit into his face like a thousand tiny knives. If not for Laurel between his knees, he’d be frozen solid already. Swiping ice from his lashes, he peered into the distance, where the black horizon melted into the turbulent lake.

Then he saw it, something that looked like a massive tidal wave heading for the breakwall, higher than any other wave. Ahead of it, magical creatures peeled off to either side, desperate to escape.

“Is that something?” he asked Laurel.

“That’s her,” she said, and dove.

Russell clung desperately to her back, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. Pressure built in his ears until it seems like they might pop. He held his breath as long as he could, then tried to let go, so he could kick his way to the surface. He stuck to her back like a burr on Velcro, unable to free himself. He breathed in—he couldn’t help it—and to his surprise, it was fine. He reached up to his neck and found gills there—deep slits on either side. He was breathing underwater.

That’s when he knew he was having some kind of a major breakdown.

When you see things, MacNeely, what do you see?

Russell’s head broke the surface, and then Laurel’s, and he saw she’d come up just inside the breakwall. Russell turned to look just as the storm hag burst through the passage from the lake, driving a cryptozoological menagerie before her.