Chantress Fury (22 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

MONSTER

Pressina wasn’t alone. There were fewer of her followers than before, but the ones that were left were ferocious. No longer translucent, they’d sprouted barbed tentacles and sharp fangs.

Shrieking, Pressina ordered the horde to attack. “Separate them!”

As they swooped toward us, I stepped in front of my mother and held out my stone. At the sight of it, the horde’s line broke. Their confusion was all the greater when a detachment of spiked starfish and shark-toothed dolphins barreled into them.

“We’ll hold them off,” a starfish shouted to me. “You see to Pressina.”

They did more than merely hold the horde off. Trilling a strange high melody, they beat Pressina’s followers back the way they had come, then gave chase. In moments, friend and foe alike disappeared out of sight.

I thought Pressina would go to her followers’ defense. Instead she swung back toward us. “I’ll deal with you myself, then.”

I thrust out my stone as far as the chain would allow. “Touch us, and you die.”

“Touch you?” Pressina cackled. “There’s no need for that.”

Hovering well out of my reach, she sang a low and guttural melody. Her vast body blazed up and shot out bolts of blue lightning.

“Keep behind me!” I shouted to my mother. Odo had said that as long as I had the stone, Pressina’s magic couldn’t kill me. But it could kill my mother—and it was my mother that Pressina was aiming at.

Soon the bolts came so thick and fast that my whole body burned, and I could not catch a breath, but I always, always stayed between Pressina and my mother. And I drew courage from the fact that every bolt was costing Pressina precious strength—strength she could not afford to waste, now that she no longer had my mother’s magic to draw on.

The trouble was that my own strength was being tested too. The bolts couldn’t kill me, but as Pressina circled around us, I was finding it harder and harder to move quickly enough to intercept them. And I had an even bigger problem: While I was guarding my mother, I couldn’t attack Pressina. The closer Pressina came, the stronger her bolts were, but she was always careful to stay just out of reach.

Did I dare take off my stone and sling it at her? If my aim were true, I would be in danger for only a moment before the stone hit. I fumbled at the chain.

Behind my back, my mother saw what I was doing. “No,” she whispered, putting her hand over mine. “You mustn’t. It’s too great a risk.”

“I have to do something.” Letting my hand fall, I jumped to catch the next bolt. When it slammed into me, my whole body burned again.

Behind me, my mother whispered, “I can’t bear this.”

I didn’t look back, just concentrated on Pressina. “It’s all right, Mama. Just look out for yourself.”

“I won’t hold you back.” There was a sound like a gulp, and she started to sing something—nothing a Chantress would recognize, but a weird otherworldly song.

My heart turned over. What was she up to? Was she giving up and going back to Pressina? “Mama, no!”

Still watching Pressina, I reached back for my mother—and touched something thin and slimy. An instant later, the song stopped, and I felt nothing at all.

If I was shocked, so was Pressina. I saw her eyes spin. “NO!” She darted to my left, taking aim at a tiny green sea snake gliding for a hole in the cave wall.

I gaped. Was that my mother?

I leaped in front of it, cutting off Pressina’s water bolt, and the sea snake vanished into the rock.

Pressina let out a cry of fury. Remembering my mother’s advice, I didn’t try to throw the stone. There was no need. Pressina’s attack on the sea snake had brought her closer than ever before. And now that my mother was safe, I had nothing to lose. I charged straight for Pressina, stone outstretched.

She saw me coming. With another cry, she flew up and away, and I was left alone in the cave.

Where had she gone? What would she do next?

I glanced up and around the vast cavern, my head darting this way and that, every muscle tense. There were so many cave openings and clefts and tunnels that I couldn’t possibly keep watch on them all—and yet Pressina might emerge from any one of them. Indeed, she might even be here already, hiding just inside the mouth of one of the farther caves. . . .

Glancing around again, I saw something that made my heart stop—Nat peering out from one of the upper caves. He put his finger to his lips, warning me to keep quiet, then vanished back into the cave.

Was it really Nat?

Or was it Melisande?

SLAM!

A bolt rammed into me from behind. Reeling, I spun around and saw Pressina in the entrance of a cave above me. She had a tiny green sea snake in her tentacles.

“Now we shall have some fun,” she crooned. To my horror, she gave the snake a squeeze. It gasped like a human. Another squeeze, and I heard my mother’s moan.

Pressina looked from the snake to me and laughed. She knew I was too far away to touch her. Bending her eel-haired head over the sea snake, she started to squeeze again.

In one swift motion, I pulled off my stone and flung it at her.

As a roar of music enveloped me, I saw the stone hit her square in the stomach. A perfect throw. Pressina dropped the snake and grabbed the stone . . .

. . . and turned into Melisande.

I screamed.

Melisande had my stone, and she was too far away for me to get it back.

But even worse was to come. The little sea snake was now singing a tune that rose sinuously above the din around me—a song like the one I’d heard from my mother and other creatures as they’d transformed. Only it sounded immeasurably louder and stronger now that I didn’t have my stone.

It was a song for shifting, but the singer wasn’t my mother. It was Pressina.

The tiny snake snout reared up and shifted, and Pressina’s eel-haired face laughed at me. Below it, the slender green body started to lengthen and swell and ripple with sharp claws.

Behind me, my mother’s voice shrieked, “Don’t let her take your blood, Lucy! Don’t let her possess you. Shift!”

Shift.
It was my mother’s command. It was the song in the ether around me. Now that my head was no longer reeling from the first assault of unbridled Wild Magic, I heard it plainly. Odo was right—it was everywhere, the dominant tune of this place, spiraling out in never-ending tendrils and twists. But how did I find the start of the song? How did I choose what I became?

A tiny green sea snake shot out of a cave and dashed toward me, singing with brave ferocity. It was my mother, giving me a way into the music—not just the right notes but the emotional key to them.
Here we use our emotions to power our magic
, Odo had said, but I hadn’t understood what that meant till now. Following my mother’s lead, I tapped into my own fierceness and fury, taking up her song like a battle cry. As anger swelled inside me, I started to shift. My arms shortened, and my nails lengthened. My legs cleaved together, and my body twisted.

But even as I changed, my mother changed too. She was becoming larger and larger, impossible to miss. With a roar, Pressina went after her, slinging a bolt straight at her.

My mother burned just as Odo had. Her snake body fell to the floor, unmoving, a charred and lifeless coil.

She was dead. As Pressina rounded on me, I let out a cry of grief and fury.
Mama!

But the cry echoed strangely, for already my mother’s song had changed me completely. Like Pressina herself, I was full grown, sinuous, and green. My scaly hands had lethal talons. I was a serpent, a sea dragon, a monster.

Pressina shot toward me, claws outstretched. Despite my grief, my new body seemed to know just what to do. Indeed, my grief—and the rage that came with it—seemed to make me stronger. Although I was slightly smaller than Pressina, I was faster. I dived low and careened past her, unscathed.

Only a few breaths to recover, and then she launched herself at me again. This time I sprang upward, narrowly avoiding those long sharp nails. As I skimmed past the walls, I saw Melisande below me, hugging my stone to herself as she watched the battle from the mouth of the high cave where she and Pressina had tricked me.

Could I get the stone away from her? I reached out as I passed her, but she saw me coming and pulled back into the cleft. Was she about to work the magic that would destroy my stone forever?

I tried to double back to see, but Pressina headed straight for me. I escaped her by inches—and now the advantage was hers.

Up and down and all around the cavern she chased me. Yet as the minutes passed, I realized that either I was becoming more skilled or she was tiring. The distance between us was increasing. Still, I couldn’t see how to win without the stone. On my next dive away from Pressina, I twisted past Melisande’s small cave and tried to see if she still had it in her hands.

What I saw shocked me. Nat was tackling Melisande beside a pool of blue fire.

Was it the real Nat? It must be. There was no reason for anyone else to take that form to attack Melisande.

Hope jolted through me, then fear. Pressina must not see him. Determined to distract her, I flung myself to the other side of the cave. This time when Pressina dove for me, I didn’t evade her. I swiped at her side and drew blood.

My claws were sharper than I’d realized. Pressina howled and tumbled down to the cavern floor. The gash I’d opened up in her scales was enormous, and it pulsated with blood. For a moment I thought I’d finished her off.

But no, when I darted closer to check, there was still fire in her eyes, and she snapped at me. It seemed she was only nursing her injury.

Keeping well away from her teeth and claws, I soared up again—and saw Nat grappling with Melisande, trying to get my stone. Though he was bigger and stronger by nature, there was a pallor about him that frightened me. They were right by the edge of Melisande’s high cave. I was afraid Nat would fall, but as I hurtled toward him, he jerked and rolled, and it was Melisande who went tumbling down, bumping against the cave walls until she hit the rocky ground headfirst.

“You fool!” Pressina screamed. Melisande was past replying. She lay still, her limbs distorted.

My stone was in Nat’s hands now. He stood at the edge of the cave and held out the necklace, opening the chain wide.

My claws were dexterous as well as sharp, but there was no room for error. Banking abruptly, I wheeled toward Nat—and saw the dread in his eyes. Although he was helping me, he was horrified at the sight of me. Clearer than words, the look on his face said,
You are a monster
.

Sliding the tip of my smallest claw into the chain, I snatched the necklace away. Anger coursed through me, and bitterness and pain. I had the stone, but at what cost? Now I was a monster not only in the world’s eyes but in Nat’s.

Below me, Pressina snarled. I clamped down on my pain. Nothing mattered now except winning this battle. Landing well out of her reach, I twisted my neck down and worked the chain over the top of my head. That was enough. Seconds later, the stone was sliding against my skin, protecting me and deafening me. Within moments, I dwindled and became human again.

Small though I was, I still felt dragon-fierce as I looked in triumph at Pressina. She couldn’t possess me anymore, not while I had my stone. Her bolts couldn’t kill me. She couldn’t fly; she was still on the cave floor, bleeding. Victory was almost mine.

But there I was wrong.

With a roar, Pressina launched herself upward—not at me but at Nat. With a snatch of her claw, she caught him and sank to the floor some twenty feet away from me.

“Strike me with that stone, and he dies with me,” Pressina hissed.

In her coils Nat struggled, but he could not free himself. Aghast, I stood rooted to the floor, one hand cupped around my stone.

“Do you doubt me?” She tightened her grip on Nat. “Killing comes naturally to me, I promise you. And I myself am not so easily killed as you think.” Humming the shifting song, she lengthened and thinned and changed color, until she was almost impossible to see against the cave walls. The only parts of her that were clearly visible were her yellow-green eyes, her serpent tongue, and the coils still wrapped tightly around Nat. “You can throw that stone, but will you hit me?”

I stared at her, afraid to move a muscle. How could I be sure of hitting such a target? And what would happen to Nat if I did?

Breathing heavily, Pressina fixed serpent eyes on me. “What, so silent? Is your tongue still forked?” She laughed. “Let me make a suggestion: You shall bargain for his life.”

Nat twisted his head free and tried to speak. She lashed the tip of her tail against his mouth, silencing him.

“Yes, a bargain,” Pressina said. “If you will sing for me for just a short while, your friend goes free. We will send him back up to the world unharmed.”

We had been down this road before. “If I say yes, you will use me to drown the world. So he would die anyway.”

Pressina looked put out, then gave a sly laugh. “Yes, I’m afraid those would be the terms. But if they do not please you, I can suggest others. For this friend is more than a friend, is he not?”

My heart began to race.

Her pupils flicked from Nat to me, narrowing to tiny crescents. “You love him, but he does not love you. He doesn’t like your magic; he fears you are a monster. So they say in your world; so Melisande told me.”

My cheeks went hot.

“Do you think I do not know what that is like?” Pressina said softly. “I, too, was called a monster by the man I loved. But here, in my own world, I have the power to change things. I have the power to make this man love you.”

Don’t listen
, I told myself.
Don’t listen.

But her silky voice was mesmerizing. “Sing for me, Chantress, and I will keep him here just for you. You have my word on it. I need only a little of your power to finish my work, and after that I promise to give you what you want. He will forget the world above; he will care only for you. And together you will be happy—far happier than you ever could be on Earth.”