“Where the hells did they go?” Katsuro bellows, pacing in a circle. His tail flicks back and forth. The anger rolls off him in waves. It is nearly patable. The sheer fury. “Humans don’t just vanish out of thin air!” He kicks at a pebble and growls out at it as though the pebble is to bme.

  I gnash my fangs together and flex my hands. The floor opened and took them with it. “Standing here will yield no results,” I say after a moment. How the hells does the floor open and just stitch itself back together like that? It does not even appear that anything occurred here. Apollo stomps his hooves and lets out a sharp cry. “We will get her back,” I say, trying to keep the votile kelpie under control.

  He huffs and stomps his hooves once more, but this time, it sounds more like a decration.

  Or I am simply losing my mind in this gods forsaken pce.

  “Them back. Don’t leave Chloe out of this.”

  “It is a given that the other human will be rescued as well.” I stroll forward, sniffing the air as I walk. The scent is fresh, but it stops here. “They went down, so we need to find the way down the level.” Hopefully, they only went to the next level. If not, I will not rest until I find Megan. The seconds tick by, chipping away at my sanity.

  “How far down?”

  “I do not know,” I bite out. “But it is a starting point. We stick together for now.” Apollo walks in front and flicks his tail up. He lifts his snout to the air and lets out a stream of clicks before stomping his hooves. “Beating the ground is not going to force it to open. Save your energy.”

  Apollo huffs once more, but listens to my words.

  We walk until we come across a dark corridor. Katsuro generates a light ball, revealing roots and flowers growing on the walls. I pce a hand on the wall and watch the roots as my shadows spread across and strangle the flowers at their base. These things are nothing more than a nuisance.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Disarming this hall.” A green dust sprouts out of the mouth of the yellow flower. Poison. I press my lips together into a tight line as I wait for my shadows to move down the wall, disarming more of the potent flowers. My nose wrinkles. The smell is putrid and would have knocked me on my ass if I had been caught unaware. “The door must be at the end.” There are too many traps here. In this closed space, the poison from all sides would have spread fast.

  Katsuro taps his cws on his arms. Once the dust has settled, we press forward. Skeleton remains of long-past adventurers litter the floor. Interesting, so you can die in this cave. I snt my eyes at Apollo, who holds his head high and, for a kelpie, seems more stressed than he should be at the loss of Megan. Perhaps he does have a soft spot for her. This goes beyond wanting to gain the trust of someone, only to drag them down to the water’s depths. Is this kelpie truly capable of feelings of attachment?

  “Chloe is probably freaking out. She does that a lot,” Katsuro says, filling the corridor with the sound of his voice. “She was a mess when I met her, and she’s barely calmed down since then.”

  “You coddle her,” I quip. “She reacted as a human should.”

  “Like a scaredy cat?”

  I look over my shoulder and snort. “She spends her time in the company of one. Your human is fine. She is with Megan, and I trust in her ability to stay alive.”

  “Really?” His tone is dubious.

  “Megan charmed a kelpie. Wherever she is, I am sure she has everything under control.” My heart rate upticks. She better be safe, or I will rip every creatures’ limbs from their bodies for daring to go after my mate.

  “I dunno. Got a bad feelin’ about all this. Shit feels targeted. They only took them.”

  I shrug one shoulder. “What use is it to keep going down this line of thinking? It is not bringing us any closer. Your human is fine. She is with Megan. Stop worrying and focus your energy on rescuing her.” The door looms in front of us. Bright blue under the light. Yellow vines go up the wall, leading to wilted flowers. It was good I disarmed this area. If the earlier traps did not do us in, then this one would have.

  “Gettin’ real tired of all these traps. Fucking hate dungeons.” He brushes past and opens the door. His tail flicks back and forth.

  Agitated.

  At least he is not being brash in his agitation. “That is the gimmick of one. Traps and puzzles.” For once, there is no snark when I speak to him. My mind is only focused on getting Megan back. Someone is behind this pce. Someone wants my mate and for that, I want them dead. There is nothing outwardly special about this new floor. I sniff the air.

  Nothing.

  I bite down on my tongue, drawing blood, and then spit it out onto the floor. I do not have time for this. We do not have time for this.

  “Well, that doesn’t look promising,” Katsuro comments, as we walk further, coming across a bridge. I gnce down, noting how the shadows move.

  “Stop.”

  He whips his head around and bares his fangs at me. My hand twitches, but I stray it for now. “There is something lurking under the bridge.” I sniff the air. “It has no scent. Curious.” There are no smells here. I sniff again. Not even Katsuro has a scent, and the cat is standing right next to me.

  Katsuro clucks his tongue and squats down, watching the bridge. “We don’t have time for gods damn trolls or any other creature.”

  Apollo dashes forward, not waiting for a signal or a word. He lets out a series of clucks so shrill, my eardrums throb. So much for observing and coming up with some kind of game pn.

  This is why I work alone.

  “Let us go,” I say as I sprint forward, pulling my daggers free. The troll shouts and throws Apollo in the air, breaking the wooden bridge in half. And this is why he should not have taken off on his own. No matter. The shadows flicker. The troll is as rge as all of them are and as ugly as the dead. Its green skin shimmers bck for a moment, before settling back on green.

  So that is how it disguises itself.

  A whip wraps around its arm right as the shadows rise and take hold of its legs. It thrashes about, nearly sending Katsuro into a wall, but the cat demon is more nimble than I thought. Apollo grunts when he nds on the other side of the bridge. He struggles to his hooves and stares down at the troll.

  It stops moving.

  Good. So, he can use that ability on other creatures. For how long, I do not know, so I need to make a move now.

  “Keep his attention on you,” I instruct Katsuro, as I slink behind him. “I am going to attack from below.”

  “How the hell....” Katsuro nods. The whip glows yellow. The troll screams and fights against the restraints. I sink into the shadows. A welcome embrace.

  It is cold.

  Dark.

  My element.

  And this troll is as good as dead. I grimace as I come face to face with its loin cloth. My stomach churns. The smell is revolting. I take a moment to strengthen the holds my shadows have on it before lifting myself up.

  Of course, it must be rge and cumbersome.

  I grip the dagger handle tighter and leap forward. Its head is as rge as a boulder and damn if it is not as hard as one, too. I grit my fangs as I plunge the dagger into its eye. It thrashes about. The shadows are not holding as well as they should. Neither is Apollo’s magic. The troll sms its body into the wall.

  I grunt and pull out another dagger. Do not have time for this. This beast should roll over and die. The arm with the whip around it, smokes. Is Katsuro trying to sever the arm off? I plunge the dagger into its other eye and then use my cws to gorge the top of its right eye to its nearly nonexistent brows.

  It is bloody.

  Messy.

  And taking far too long. Every second wasted is a second that Megan can be in trouble. My heart beats in my chest like the sound of a pack of strotans. My body hums and a surge of power erupts. Purple fmes. The troll burns away, and I am left at the bottom of the ditch with nothing around me but a pile of ash. I grab my daggers and wipe my cws on my pants. The whip wraps around my bicep and pulls me up.

  “That was fucking reckless, Fox.”

  “It got the job done.” I shrug the whip off and walk forward with Apollo at my side. I give him a sideways gnce. There is blood leaking from between his eyes, but he does not seem all that bothered. “That troll took far too long. Let us make haste lest it rise from the ashes.” I look over my shoulder.

  “Why would you even say that?” he asks, though it comes out as if he is whining. Perhaps that is simply his default. Whining and loud.

  “I know not how these floors work, but Apollo could not die. At least not on the level we found him. I would rather not take that chance, and it is not as though we have time to stop and eat every beast we come across.”

  “You charred it. I’d say it’s dead as it’s gonna get.” He cracks his whip once and then slides it back to its pce at his hip. “But I agree we should move faster. There may be more out there, and this bridge only leads to a field.”

  It is on the tip of my tongue to remind him I have eyes and I can clearly see that we are in a field of sorts. My nose wrinkles. Disgusting. That scent is stuck in my nostrils, and I hate it. Not only are trolls disgusting, ugly beasts, but they stink like the seven hells. When I find Megan, I am not letting her out of my sight. The gods themselves will have to descend to pull me from her.

  “Ya think we should have tried to get some information out of it? Maybe the girls fell on this level. Trolls are thieves.”

  “No, it didn’t have any information for us.” Trolls hate the smell of saints and actively go out of their way to avoid them. One of the reasons cities are built around the temples. Safety from beasts like trolls, though that does not prevent dwellings in the alleys or shadows from taking root. “It was a mindless beast. But we will look around this level before moving on.” I sniff the air. My nostrils fre.

  Nothing.

  “You can’t smell anything either?” He snatches the bdes of grass from the ground and inhales.

  “The only thing I could smell was the troll once I was closer,” I admit. “Everything else has no scent.”

  “Is it this field?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You’re the damn genius, aren’t ya?”

  I cut my eyes at him and then backhand him. He falls off the dirt path into the grass. Apollo snorts and trots forward. I roll my arm back. Damn, my back hurts. That blow must have done more damage than I thought.

  “One of these days, I’m gonna kill you,” Katsuro seethes, dusting himself off. He sneezes. “My head feels woozy.” He grabs his head and sways.

  “Get back on the dirt path.”

  “On the what?” his words slur together.

  I close my eyes and inhale. Oh, for the seven heavens! I hold out a hand, conjuring a shadow, and pull him back on the path. “Keep walking. You will snap out of it in a few.”

  “Really?” He continues to sway. Every step forward is two steps to the left and then two steps to the right. “You sure it’ll pass quickly?”

  “... Yes.” I hope it does because knocking him out will be even more cumbersome. I eye the field for a moment. These flowers may come in handy. I pluck some and put them into my pouch. And if Katsuro does not snap out of it, then I may need to create an antidote.

  Gods, I hope not. That would be a waste of time. This is my karma for allowing my annoyance to get the better of me.

  “Hey, Fox...” Katsuro turns and thrusts his thumb in the air, pointing behind him. “I know I’m a little out of it.” He hiccups. “But is that a dead end?”

  I stride forward and curse. A smooth stone wall that goes up to the ceiling. I pce my hand on it and press. Either there is a gimmick here or the troll was a distraction.

  Fuck!

  AutumnBanks

  Thanks for reading! Next update will be this Friday, 26July.