The boy's spiky hair no longer appeared to contain mousse or gel or whatever he had used to make it fit in with the typical teenager in the Other Realm, but was nonchalantly and somewhat more confidently natural. He was still incredibly thin, but there was something in his demeanor that made him appear more relaxed. Somehow this perplexed me even more than the fey-sense: he slew a cold-blooded and heartless assassin and yet he looked happier, more contented, and the angry cast to his brow that had made him blend in as a young punk had pretty much disappeared. At my compliment, a roguish, boyish grin, charming and crooked altered his demeanor from stranger to mischievous teen. The expression made him look younger and less jaded than when he stood on the sidewalk near my townhouse. I found this off-putting and disturbing. A kid like this shouldn’t be involved in this kind of life and death mess. Unknown saviors were becoming something of a habit for me, but this wasn’t the kind I ever imagined. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for this boy’s help, but what had he been doing watching me on my street? Was that really only a few days ago? It felt like years had flown away in those short passes of the sun.
My thoughts whizzed around at light speed, bouncing off of the confines of my skull. It was far beyond difficult to grasp at a single speeding notion; it was downright painful. Charming smile and awkwardness aside, this boy was a killer. Goldilocks was an assassin I wasn’t sure that I had the power to handle. Escape, sure, but kill? And here this slip of a boy, grinning at me, had just put a bolt through my stalker’s chest.
Tired of games, I asked him bluntly, “Why?” To illustrate my query, I motioned an aching hand down towards the still form of Goldilocks. Just because the kid was a killer didn’t mean he was a liar, right? My inner cynic laughed uproariously at my hopeful and dogged naïveté.
The boy’s grin faded and he rolled one shoulder in a silent shrug. His head dropped and his agile hands worked to loosen the bolt he had ready and loaded in his crossbow. Finished in seconds, he strapped it to his waist with a leather thong and lifted his blue gaze back to meet my eyes. His long artistic fingers rose to scratch his nose and I not only caught sight of the dirt under his fingernails, but the raw scratch reddening his upturned nose.
As he spoke, his tenor was hushed; robust in timbre with a promise of growing deeper with time. Though his words were soft, there was a melodious undertone. “I was sent to watch over you. To protect you if you needed it.” He broke his gaze from mine and blushed.
Incredulity had my eyebrows rising of their own volition. Someone had sent this kid to protect me? I wanted to grill him for details, but how aggressive can you really be with a boy who still blushed with embarrassment? “Who?” I demanded, trying to temper my voice with some kindness.
The red on his cheeks flamed anyhow. I was fairly certain this was no deception. “I don’t know,” he admitted as I stared at him in disbelief. He stole a peek at my expression. “No, really! I don’t.”
Dubiously, I asked him, “So on the basis of some would-be protector who you don’t even know, you just killed a man to rescue someone else you don’t know?”
The teenager squirmed under my speculative inspection, scowling defensively. “It isn’t like that. You’re twisting it around.”
A shout sounded through the trees. Even though it was some distance away, I still had no desire to meet up with either side of the skirmish. I stepped forward to grab the boy’s arm and drag him further away from the battlefield. “Let’s get out of here and you can tell me exactly what it is like. And your name, too.”
With a stubborn sidestep and a shuffle, the boy evaded my imploring hand and nodded. “Gus.”
I continued on a few paces, mouth open to spur the boy on, in case he didn’t understand the gravity of our predicament. His hand was faster than my mouth, however; and he unsheathed a nasty-looking shortsword. The metal of the weapon was dark and nicked, but it was apparently honed and sharp as Gus swung it down with all the boy’s strength against Goldilocks’ neck.
Death was no deterrent for the gout of blood that spurted forth and I felt my stomach give a single half-hearted turn. The kid drew the sword back again, blade glistening with dark liquid as it came down in a second swift blow to sever Goldilocks’ head from his body. I turned away at the last instant, loping painfully towards the deeper woods.
Gus ran up behind me with a soft shushing of leaves a few minutes later. The young bastard wasn’t even breathing heavily. I didn’t know what he did with the head or why he did that to the corpse. With a grimace, I realized I probably was just as well off without knowing the former. His sword was sheathed and flopped in its sheath against his leg.
“Gus,” I muttered through my labored breathing. “Really. Your parents named you Gus? Let me guess. Short for asparagus?”
This evoked another bright blush to my wonderment. What kind of kid murders in cold blood, rends the corpse so easily, but blushes at any female attention? “Agustus, actually,” he responded, “but everyone calls me Gus.” He didn’t deign to respond to my vegetable allusion.
I shook my head slightly. The name seemed more appropriate for a short, stocky and swarthy polka-aficionado than a young and gangly Adonis wannabe. “All right, Gus,” I sighed, “why the decapitation? And how did you come to protect me if you never met my benefactor?”
Gus studied me for a moment as he effortlessly kept up with my pace. His blue eyes seemed to drink me in and I wondered why the long pause. Was it a matter of trust or fear for my disbelief? Even though I kept most of my attention on dragging my feet without tripping over any roots that nefariously awaited my misstep and ensuing embarrassment, I stole a few glances upwards to study this boyish enigma.
Uncomfortably, he finally answered: “It’s a precaution.”
I waited, jerking on my leather sleeve as it was snared. When no answer was forthcoming, I finally urged, “Against?”
Gus sighed, clearly ill at ease with the topic and my persistence. “Did you sense the assassin?” he asked me with a poor attempt at patience.
I frowned, trying to remember. Back at my house, an eternity ago, I sensed someone. But was it him? And this time, there was turmoil, chaos, but under all of that, I couldn’t recall the telltale jangling of my fey sense. “A little, maybe?” I responded as I shook my head.
He elaborated further, encouragingly, “Yet he followed you across realms, past the barriers. Didn’t that make you wonder?”
I could feel my frown deepening into a scowl. “Are you telling me he wasn’t fey or human?”
Gus met my gaze levelly and didn’t speak. My mind raced. I hadn’t heard of anyone who could glimmer beyond the fey. And the creatures of Shadow, of course, but they were of the same stock, weren’t they? I tried to remember lessons where Dad or a tutor droned on about history and politics until the sound was as meaningless a background noise as the bees in the waiting summer day that I longed to enjoy. I knew what was taught was important now, even if I didn’t think so back then. It was even more so in that particular moment. I scoured the recesses of my mind, reasoning that just because I hadn’t paid attention didn’t mean it hadn’t sunk in on some level. I had this itchy feeling that there was something important about those of Shadow, if I could just catch hold of the thought.
There was no reason Goldilocks had to have glimmered himself here, either. There were other ways of passing through worlds. Just because the only other ways I had ever heard about were absurdly time and power-consuming didn’t mean it was impossible. I studied the ground passing beneath my sore feet. Not impossible, but it had been done at least twice in a week’s span of time, if it was responsible for Goldilocks’ travel. Thrice if he was the one who nailed my shoulder. Given his dying leap onto me, he seemed unlikely to have left me for dead as Tristam claimed, however.
Maybe I was taking the wrong approach about this. I only needed to figure out how he got here in order to figure out where he had come from. But that was secondary to the concern of who he served. Before I had wondered why I was a target, but that all depended upon who was behind Goldilocks.
My chin snapped up towards Gus and I asked, “What kind of precaution does beheading serve that your bolt didn’t? Who was he?”
Gus grimaced and shook his head. “Dunno.”
If he was going to answer the rest, I didn’t have the time to find out. There was a shimmer in the air like rippling water once a stone has been tossed into it. Something dark and exuding a scent like cold metal wrapped around my ankle like a snare and dragged me off of my feet. I landed on my back with a grunt. Before I could even get out a shout, my spine was jolted again and again across rocks and stones, mud and sticks indiscriminately. The experience was akin to getting a leg snagged in the stirrup after falling from a galloping wild horse. Especially if that horse was actually a finely tuned European sports car gunning the engine.
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