They were in lines, with an even space between them, planted by human hands before the world broke, but something had changed. The trees were allwrong. Some were giant, with humped roots that grew above ground. They were so big; they ate up the surrounding space, with everything under their canopy covered in a dark green mossy growth. The other trees, trapped in that lightless area, were dead, with black skeletal limbs. If there had been houses here once, they were now buried lumps under roots of dark green and bushy clusters of bog plants.
The change in scenery was gradual, but Micah could only drive around three of the monster trees before he had to park the car. He’d said they were going to a bogach. This must be it. An anomaly of Apocalypse Day, it was not a place that should exist in the middle of Old City.
“Where did this come from? How did it get here? You said there were things here like the barrens, but that’s a fog. Everything under the fog looks the same. I’ve studied what this city looked like.” Sophie started speaking when Micah opened her door. She turned circles as she got out, trying to take it all in. More than just an out-of-place forest, the temperature was different; wet, muggy, and warm; she felt like she couldn’t get any air. Tainted with a musty sulfur smell, the place had an unpleasant, ominous feel. It pressed in on her. If she stood still too long… would that green overtake her too?
Micah looked amused, but Sophie didn’t know why.
“How young were you when everything went to hell?” he asked.
“I was born after. Five years later,” she said.
“With the ice freaks the whole time?” he pressed.
“Yes.”
“And they told you nothing. What do you think happened on Apocalypse Day?” Micah asked, taking her hand and leading her away from the car.
“The gates of hell broke open and set the captives free,” she answered. It was what the vampir always said, and it was the only information she could find in the library.
Jumper and Dante laughed.
Micah frowned them to silence. “Something like that. I’m not a science guy or a fucking magic user, but I know it had something to do with ley lines and a massive time-dimension clash. I know that my world started to shrink, areas of it went missing.”
“You’d leave the den to go visit your girl and end up back at the den,” Dante said.
“Not knowing how you got there,” Jumper added.
“Your world was a fucking magnet, drawing everything to it; missing pieces showed up here. All on the same day, same time. Some of your great cities ceased to exist, some sucked away, some of your forests became deserts, landmasses became seas. And even different times lines got messed with, right? I heard about a dinosaur in the sewer near the lake. Do you understand?” Micah asked her.
For him, like for her, it was a story of significant loss. He didn’t even smirk when he mentioned the dinosaur. Sophie could see it in his eyes, hear it. She’d always thought of all the blue-bloods as enemy invaders to their human world. But they hadn’t intentionally come here. They just survived, like she survived.
“I understand.” She said softly, leaving it at that.
They didn’t walk very far, but it was enough that the green on the ground turned into a wet mush. Micah picked her up by the waist and set her on a slippery tree branch to keep her out of it. “This is far enough, then. In a bogach you get to the edge, where the water starts to touch your shoes. It only gets worse beyond that point. Hold on to me. And don’t slip off.”
He took his chain off, handing it to Jumper next to them. Sophie wanted to protest, if it was dangerous, but just like a troll bargain, calling his friend must have a protocol.
He took a breath and bellowed, “Syrinx!”
They waited. Silent.
He did it again. “Syrinx.”
Sophie felt his voice. The loud yell squeezed her bones. He wasn’t sayinghername. A hand on his shoulder to balance herself, still touching him, she wanted to respond to his command.
“Hello, Micah,” a beautiful voice said, its owner stepping out from behind a tree.
The shifters jumped back from her, obviously startled she was so close without them knowing. The smell of this place must cloud their senses, and since the woman smelled like everything here, they missed her approach. That, or else she appeared out of nothing.
Moss covered her naked shape in patchy growths of verdant green. The only not-green was her striking egg-yolk yellow eyes. Naked, with viny hair reaching her ankles, pouring over her shoulders and down her back, she was of average human size, but the woman’s shape was not a normal adult’s. She had the torso of a round-bellied toddler, two extra knuckles on each finger, and needle-like claws that went to her knees.
She smiled at them. “How have you been? And you have brought company? That is good. You know how restless the alligators here can get.”
Sophie didn’t blink. Syrinx’s voice was music, and she wasn’t even trying. Her face, which had slits for a nose and a mouth with double rows of teeth, did not match her voice’s mesmerizing beauty.
She watched Dante and Jumper go from alarm, because the woman surprised their shifter senses, to captivated, both of them enthralled by the blue-blood’s glamor of sensual beauty. They saw something different than Sophie did.
“It’s not them ’gators I worry about,” Micah answered.
