“You have your father’s eyes,” he hissed, and Poppy stared at him, her whole body rigid with terror.
This is it. This is where I die. And I’ve dragged Max down with me.
… Geri, I’m going to haunt you forever for sending me on this vacation. Dammit.
Poppy had always heard the old cliché about your life passing before your eyes when you were about to die, but this wasn’t quite it. There were flashes, yes, but mostly just of the people she loved, rather than specific events. There was regret about leaving them behind. Regret, too, about leaving Geri behind, maddening as she could be.
But most of all, there was regret for the future she’d thought she was going to have. Over the past day it had seemed like everything was going to turn around. For the first time in a long time it had felt like she was actually looking forward to the rest of her life, rather than just merely existing from day to day, working ungodly hours at a job she was pretty indifferent to, noromantic prospects anywhere to be seen… and now, suddenly, cruelly, it was being torn from her.
And she could cope with that, if her presence here had meant that she’d at least been able to save Max. But it seemed like not only was she going to die, but that she was going to be unable to save him as well… and, well, that was intolerable.
“Max…” she managed to whisper. “Max, I’m so sorry…”
She could hear him yelling something, could hear the furious rattle of chains, but it was all fading into nothingness as she stared into the strange man’s eyes.
They reallywerean odd shade of green.
Like the tint of my aunt’s Vespa scooter when I was a kid,she thought inanely.
One of his hands remained wrapped around her jaw so tightly that her bones creaked, his nails digging into her skin. The other one shifted to the top of her head, his oddly cool palm resting against her forehead.
“Enough talking,” the man whispered gently –
– and then there was apull.
The feeling was so strange that Poppy couldn’t quite make sense of it. It hurt a little, but in a far-off, distant way. It reminded her of nothing so much as when she’d just emptied her vacuum cleaner and then decided to give the floor one last once-over, but there was nothing left to suck up. The vacuum would be whirring for all it was worth, but the barrel would remain resolutely empty.
This guy is just like my vacuum cleaner,she thought dreamily, almost letting out a giggle.And I’m the clean floor. Not that that ever happens anyway, becausesomeonehas to go and shed cat hair all over it again before I’ve even finished vacuuming.
Poppy was fully aware that she was spacing out, but it was very hard to find the will or the ability to concentrate. Shewasgetting her brain sucked out through her forehead, after all. Or her powers, anyway. Maybe that was why it didn’t hurt as badly as she thought it probably should – she had no powers to suck, so there wasn’t really a whole lot going on.
Unless he’s vacuuming up my ability to do account reconciliations,she thought with a sudden pang of concern.I would really rather not lose that.
If nothing else, hewasplaying havoc with her general mental state. She felt as if her consciousness was starting to gently come apart at the seams, slowly detaching itself from her brain and threatening to float away entirely.
That, at least, probably explained the giant winged lion creature that was currently occupying half of the cabin. Well,appearingto occupy the cabin, anyway. Obviously it wasn’t actuallyhere.
It really did seem quite angry, though, if the way it was roaring and showing off its mouthful of razor-sharp teeth was anything to go by.
“Oh my God, shut up,” Poppy muttered, closing her eyes for a moment. She already had a headache from all this brain-sucking – did she now have to listen to an imaginary lion having a tantrum as well?
To be fair, though, the lion probably had a few things to be cranky about. After all, it had somehow found its way to Girdwood Springs in the middle of winter, and now it was trapped in a tiny cabin with its enormous wings pressed up against the ceiling. It was definitely not in a good mood, and Poppy couldn’t say she blamed it.
She took a moment to study the lion more closely. The wings weren’t soft and fluffy like a bird’s – they were more like what she imagined a dragon’s wings would be like, somehow simultaneously tough and translucent. They certainly fit in well with the lion’s current fearsome demeanor.
An image flittered through her mind, memory or imagination – of flying on a different winged lion’s back, the cold wind in her hair, a glimpse of eagle’s wings. This definitely wasn’t the same lion… and yet, she was glad of it. She knew that she should be scared out of her wits, but somehow she was completely calm. This lion wouldn’t hurt her. She knew it deep within her soul.
Whatwouldhurt her, though, was dropping to the floor suddenly. She cried out in pain as she landed hard on her butt, the invisible hold on her suddenly released – but then she looked up, and all pain was forgotten as she realized the reasonwhyshe was on the floor.
Because the winged lion had the creepy man pinned to the ground, its massive fangs poised directly above the man’s throat. It roared again, deafeningly loud, and Poppy watched with a growing sense of dread.
Not because she was worried that the lion would hurt her – she knew it wouldn’t, for whatever reason. No, it was because she was worried that it would kill that man. She didn’t particularly care about the man’s fate, but shedidknow that she didn’t want the lion to be a murderer.
Listen to yourself! Of course the lion isn’t a murderer. It’s a lion – killing is what they do. There isn’t a jury in the land that would convict it.
Okay, so she was still feeling a little muddled. But her mind was getting clearer by the moment, now that she was no longer getting her brain sucked out, and she simply knew that it would be a really bad thing if the lion killed the man. She didn’t know why she cared so much about the lion’s apparent ability to feel remorse, but she did.
“Stop!” she yelled. “Don’t kill him!”
