Page 36 of The Princes of Stone and Steel

We surfaced not in a smelly bog, I only wished at this point. Steele pulled me close, shoving me behind him, although it didn’t make a lick of difference. Not when we were surrounded. Long jaws full of sharp teeth hissed and snapped at us.

Alligators. Swamp land.

We were somewhere in the American south?

“Guess your father’s getting his wish.” I swallowed hard, tightening my grip on Steele’s shoulders and said to him.

They teased us. One would snap and pull back, only to have another catch us off-guard by snapping from a different direction. They inched closer, trapping us. I closed my eyes, sucked in a breath and kissed Steele’s cheek, my goodbye because there was no way we were getting out of here unscathed.

Steele held me closer. Tears, not from fear for myself, but from fear of Steele’s imminent end flowed, mixing with the swamp. I squeezed my eyes shut, pulling from deep in my soul, trying to harness any magic that might save us. But I connected with nothing. Not a wisp or a strand of power to be found.

As one of the gators got bolder, snapping his razor-sharp teeth and actually tearing my blouse, we heard the distinct caw of ravens above us. The caws grew steadily louder until they circled above us. Two giant ravens, the biggest birds I’d ever seen in my life. Then they swooped down, their talons out. Their shiny, black feathers rippled and ruffled, the force of which shoved the alligators back from us, keeping them away as if an invisible wall had been erected.

I screamed.

The ravens had faces. Human, female features. Hag faces. Mostly bald, with hair sticking out in patches, looking like broken straw, but their eyes… they had beady, black raven eyes. And they flew at us, one gripping my shoulders, one gripping Steele’s. They plucked us out of the water like we weighed nothing and flew for miles.

The high velocity wind whipped my wet hair against my face, stinging my skin. I felt the red welts forming, the only part of my body heated in the least. The rest of me had a layer of frost in some spots, ice in others. The cold kept me from being able to turn my head to check on Steele.

Then as we reached a break in the trees, the ravens released us. Both Steele and I tumbled toward the earth and would have fallen to our deaths, except the closer we drew to the ground, the slower we fell, finally touching ground with no more force than stepping off a curb.

Right in front of our eyes, as the ravens touched down, they transformed into full-on human figures draped in gray robes. Except those eyes stayed black and beady. Old, wrinkly women, more wrinkled than old Tom. Sagging, droopy skin hung from the arm of the hag closest to us as she gestured for us to enter a cave that just appeared behind us. I realized that the other hag had made it appear.

When a thousand-year-old-looking hag transforms from a raven and tells you to enter a cave, you enter that damn cave.

As soon as the last hag entered behind us, the opening sealed right up, plunging us into pitch darkness. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face until my eyes adjusted. We weren’t in a cave anymore, though. I mean, we were, but we weren’t. It was a home with chairs and tables and a fireplace licking up flames of blue and white around a cast-iron cauldron. Whatever they had cooking bubbled and squeaked and hissed.

“Stand in front of the flames,” Hag One ordered us. “They will dry you.”

I grabbed Steele’s hand and we stepped up to the hearth. It only took seconds for the fire to dry us. Literally seconds. I watched as every droplet of water lifted at once from my pants and blouse, only to evaporate in an instant. Tiny explosions that made my clothing grow lighter.

It was the kind of trippy experience that I wouldn’t have believed if I didn’t just see it happen before my eyes.

“How are you here?” I asked. “I mean, how did you know where to find us?”

“They’ve released the beast.” Hag One’s voice boomed in the small cavern, echoing off the walls.

“Who?” Steele asked, well, demanded really.

The hag didn’t answer his question, but she spoke over him. “It hunts you.” She pointed her needley, pruney finger at me. “It is here, and it hunts you.”

“Um… what hunts me?” I ventured to ask and looked to Steele. He sighed through a worried smile and I had a feeling he understood exactly what the witch referred to. That didn’t fill me with joy or mirth. To be honest, the whole situation creeped me out. Like, I knew I was beingchased, but beinghuntedsounded so much more ominous.

“The great beast.” The two hags answered together. Yeah, because that didn’t scream horror movie.

“Steele,” I whispered from the corner of my mouth. “Do you know what the great beast is?”

“Do you mean the Chimera?” he asked them.

Again, they didn’t answer, but one spoke over him. “We will keep you safe until you return home.”

“She can’t return yet,” said Steele. “It’s not safe.”

“She must return. The longer she stays in this world, the greater the threat to the mortals here. And the mighty one summons you.”

Just as my nerves began to settle, the hag ravens started scurrying around the space, plucking bottles and tiny boxes from old deadwood shelves that I only now noticed, that I swore weren’t there seconds before. And they tipped liquids and powders into the caldron.

With each new additive, a plume of purple smoke, yes, purple smoke, billowed up from the pot. Since I’d never seen purple smoke before, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Then I rubbed at them to make sure I actually saw what I was seeing.

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