Page 52 of Nexus
“What happened to me?” the bloodsucker asked. His voice had changed as well. It now sounded high and reedy.
Blinking until my vision finally cleared, I looked at my companion and gaped in horror. “Holy hell, Ruen! You’re freaking hideous!”
He’d somehow shrunk to the size of a child and was now skeletally thin. His clothes had turned into rotting black sackcloth. His ribs were prominent through the tears in the fabric. His hair had lengthened and hung over his face. Already hollow before his transformation, his cheeks were now even more sunken. The eyes that peered at me through the greasy strands were dead pools of blackness. Not only were his teeth longer and sharper than usual, there seemed to be a lot more of them. Colorless, odorless fluid oozed from his pores, giving him a slimy appearance.
“You’re hardly a beauty queen yourself, Ms. Sterling,” he retorted, straightening up as his pain subsided.
I looked down to see I’d transformed just as much as he had, if not more. My jeans and t-shirt had changed into a weird bra and loincloth made from what looked like animal skins. My shoes were gone and my feet were bare, from what I could see of them.
“I’m huge!” I wailed, poking the gigantic belly that clung to the front of my body. My boobs were far larger than they had been. Worst of all, my skin was now an ugly gray-green color. “What the hell am I?”
“I’d say by your tusks, size and general ugliness that you’re this world’s version of an ogress,” my companion told me.
“What do you mean my size?” I asked. “I’m normal. You shrank down and look like a kid now.”
“I believe I actually grew half a foot in height,” he said. “You, on the other hand, appear to be over ten feet tall.”
“Where are my weapons?” I asked, noticing that my knives and crossbow had vanished. I still had my backpack, but it now looked like a hessian sack. “The letter!” I said in alarm and opened the rope that held the bag shut.
“Is it still there?” Ruen asked in his girlish voice.
I took out a scroll that was sealed with red wax. An image of a dragon had been pressed into it. “It looks different, but it still looks official,” I said in relief. My keys hadn’t changed much and had made the journey intact.
Ruen’s borrowed weapons and sheaths had made it through the gate, but they looked handmade now. He drew a knife and tested it to find it was sharp. “At least I won’t be defenseless,” he muttered and slid it back into its sheath.
My eyesight was far sharper now that the blurriness was gone. My sense of smell and hearing were also better in this world. It was nighttime and the stars were out, but the moon was absent. The constellations were different here, which made my head spin for a few seconds. It was late fall back home and the temperature here seemed to be similar to ours.
A low murmur of voices drifted to me and I searched for the nearest weapon. All I could see were rocks, so I quickly scooped some up and clenched them in my left hand. It was large enough to hold dozens of projectiles.
“It would appear that we’re about to receive some company,” the vampire said, then grinned in anticipation.
“No killing unless we have to, remember?” I reminded him.
“I’m aware of my restrictions,” he replied. “Can you sense them?”
“Yeah. They’re fairly low on my monster scale and are just pimple level.”
“Get ready for action. I have a feeling they won’t believe we’re envoys,” he warned me.
Neither did I, but a girl could hope. It was doubtful the denizens of this realm would give us a chance to explain who and what we were once they got a look at us. If I were them, I’d probably run screaming in terror.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
IT WAS SO RARE FOR anyone to pass from earth to the underworld that the gate wasn’t closely guarded on this side. Since it was at the end of a path between two high rock walls, only someone with wings could have escaped without being noticed. We had nowhere to hide as a small contingent of guards rounded a curve just ahead.
My prediction that they would run screaming turned out to be wishful thinking. All seven creatures stopped dead when they saw me. Ruen quietly stepped behind me, staying out of sight. Vaguely humanoid, the guards were taller than humans and heavily muscled. Just like in my vision, their heads were lodged in their torsos, rather than sitting on their necks. Their faces were scrunched up, like someone had tried to push their chins up into their noses at birth. Glittering eyes that could see in the dark were locked on me.
Their foreheads were tattooed with matching images of a horned helmet. I recognized the helmet from the vision I’d been shown in my dream. These beings worked for the overlord of this realm. Armed with spears, they wore tough brown leather armor with holes in the center to expose their faces.
Their shock broke when one of them shouted. “It’s an ogre! Kill it!”
A spear was thrown at me and my training took over. Slapping the weapon to the ground, I tossed a rock at the guard in retaliation. It whistled through the air and hit him directly on the forehead. Blood exploded from him at the force of the blow and he was thrown backwards. His friends watched him tumble a few yards until he lay on his back, feet twitching in his death throes.
“Oops,” I said guiltily.
Either the smell of blood, or being attacked drew Ruen out from hiding. The remaining guards shouted in anger and converged on us. The vampire opened his mouth and his jaw seemed to become unhinged. His mouth opened far wider than should have been possible, then he screamed. His voice was so loud and shrill that I had to clap my hands over my ears. The guards fared much worse. A couple were rendered unconscious from the blast of noise. The others reeled on their feet with blood trickling from their shattered eardrums.
The rocks in my hand were mashed into my ear as I staggered away from him. My eyes were watering from the pain his scream had induced. I blinked them clear in time to see my assistant unleash his pent-up aggression on our foes.
