leaned in. “You hesitated. There is something.”
“I … well, I’ve always worked hard to keep them away from alcohol. They have an … unhealthy reaction to it.”
“Unhealthy how?”
Axton looked conflicted, and Amber punched him.
“Ow! Why did you do that?”
“Because you have a face I like to punch, and you’re holding something back.”
“Fine,” he muttered. “I introduced five bogles to alcohol in a controlled environment in order to study the effects it might have on them. None survived.”
She frowned. “Alcohol kills them?”
“No, alcohol gets them drunk. Really fast. Once they’re drunk, they argue and kill each other. At first, I thought it merely heightened their violent tendencies. Then I realised it just made them bigger jerks than they already were.”
“They get drunk, they annoy each other, and they fight until they’re all dead,” said Amber. “Okay, that’s a definite weakness. So how do we get them to drink?”
“Well … that shouldn’t be a problem. You just need to show them booze, and they’ll do the rest.”
Amber jumped to her feet, took Axton with her.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked as she dragged him after her. “You’re going to lead them to the drinks? Where will I wait? I can wait over there, if you want.”
“You’re coming with me.”
“Is that strictly wise? As you have seen, I’m not very good at physical confrontation.”
“Is it my fault you sold your soul in order to be a bigger nerd than you already were?”
“I – I guess not.”
“Hey!” Amber shouted over the wail of the alarm. “Hey, bogles! Here we are! Come get us!”
Wet bogle heads popped up and out from around corners, and suddenly the aisles were swarming with them, their little feet splashing in water as they came.
Amber pulled Axton backwards and they ran, past the frozen meats and the chips and the sauces, and plunging down into the wine, spirits and beer section. They got to the very end before stopping and turning, just in time to see the bogles come round the corner like a wave, rolling towards them.
Then the little bastards noticed where they were, saw the bottles of booze all around them, and the wave slackened, and became smaller, and eventually stopped. The alarm cut off. A happy, gurgling cheer rose from the bogle ranks, and Amber and Axton stepped backwards, forgotten about.
It took fifteen minutes of revelry, arguments and carnage before the last bogle slumped to the ground, impaling itself on a broken beer bottle.
“So sad,” Axton said, wiping away a tear. “Such a tragic waste.”
“They wanted to kill you,” Amber reminded him.
“True,” said Axton, “but you can hardly blame—”
Amber slugged him across the jaw and he dropped, unconscious.
“No,” she said. “I guess you can’t.”
She returned to the sports section, found the activewear and picked out a dry pair of yoga pants and a tank top to replace her own ripped, wet clothes, then slipped her feet into a new pair of sneakers. By the time she was dressed, her scales were once again under her control. She took hold of Axton’s shirt collar and dragged him towards the exit.
She was halfway there when she stopped, hauled Axton back a few steps, then let him drop. She wandered over to where Milo Sebastian was tied to a large display table.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” said Milo. Like the rest of him, his dark hair, shot through with grey, was wet. That, combined with the stubble on his square jaw, made him look like a mature aftershave model who’d just emerged from the pool.
“Sorry about the sprinklers,” Amber said.
“That was you?”
“Kinda.”
“And all that singing and screeching?”
“I got them drunk,” she told him. “The bogles. Got them drunk and let them kill each other. Vicious little bastards.”
Milo grunted. “Yeah. Axton?”
She turned one of her fingers into a claw, and cut the ropes. “He’s over there. He was studying them, can you believe it? I get the feeling he knew way too much about their mating habits. Do you know they lay eggs?”
“I do,” said Milo, standing and wiping the slime off his chest. “I do know that.”
“They laid eggs on you, didn’t they?”
“Yeah,” said Milo. “You?”
“Nope,” she said. “They didn’t. They tried, but I got free.”
“You’re lucky. It was … disgusting.”
“I can only imagine,” said Amber. “The clothes section is behind me. You can get yourself a dry shirt. Maybe one that isn’t ripped. I’m going to deliver Axton.”
Milo nodded. “Meet you back at the car,” he said, and walked away.
She dragged Axton out into the parking lot, heard the sirens approaching. The Kingston Valley Fire Department was not the fastest to respond to possible emergencies, it had to be said. Amber dumped Axton behind a wall and used her claw to open a cut on her palm. Blood flowed freely and she turned on the spot, forming a circle of blood around both Axton and herself. When the circle was complete, the blood caught fire, and they weren’t in California anymore.
THEY WERE IN A castle with high stone walls that vanished into the darkness overhead, walls that were decorated with tapestries and punctured by stained glass. A cold wind blew through the castle, and carried with it the screams and sobbing of the damned. Amber threw Axton from the circle of fire, and he woke as he landed.
It took him a moment to realise where he was, and then he spun, eyes wide.
“No,” he said. “Please.”
Footsteps approached, from one of the five arched doorways ahead of them. Axton tried to scramble back into the circle, but Amber stepped out, pushing him away, as Bigmouth led Fool into the chamber.
The meat beneath Bigmouth’s peeled-back skin
