CHAPTER36
VESPER
“This is why I hate kids,” Locke growls, rushing over to my side. “What the fuck is that? What does a big one look like?”
We don’t have long to wait for an answer.
The small ones are less than a meter tall, their tiny bodies toddler-like and petite. They have large round heads, big black eyes, and they’re chubby. The big one isn’t anything like that.
“What trick of nature is this?” Svetlana asks as the parent comes into view.
It’s massive, at least three meters tall where it towers above us. Where the baby is all rounded and cute, this one is anything but. It’s white, too, and its head is slightly rounded, but that’s where the similarities end. This one is all hulking, icy muscles, its large arms thick and covered in icicle spikes at the shoulders and elbows. It’s hunched forward, as if its arms weigh too much to stand upright. It takes a step, and the ground shakes again. Ice and snow. It’s made of nothing but ice and snow.
The two babies shriek with happiness and rush forward, launching themselves at their mother. Or is it a father? I can’t tell. There’s a distinct lack of genitalia on the creature. Its face pulls into a sharp toothed grimace as the babies climb onto its back and hold on.
I hold up my hands. “We weren’t going to hurt them,” I try. “We were just playing.”
The parent roars and slams its fist into the ground, clearly a threat. Locke and I steady ourselves against each other to keep from falling. A frozen apple falls from the tree beside me and my fingers itch to pick it up.
The babies start to taunt us, sticking out their tongues as if we were ever a threat to them. The little bastards giggle and pat their parent on the head, pointing at us as the targets.
Though the babies hadn’t spoken a word to us during the snowball fight, the words that come out of the baby’s mouth now are loud and clear.
“Get ’em.”
I’ve survived many things in my life. The starvation month Dross suffered when the Luxe guards missed their supply shipment during the Harrow Gates opening, a broken arm when I fell from too high of a building, the terrible sex I’ve had throughout my life, gangs trying to kill me, Dox trying to tickle me to death, the Harrow Gate, and now this place. But staring into the dark void of this creature’s eyes makes me think that I haven’t survived anything yet.
“Watch out!” Locke growls, shoving me away from him as the creature launches at us.
We dive in separate directions, both trying to avoid the massive swinging fists of the creature as we crawl through the snow. It whirls toward Locke first, roaring and trying to crush him with its massive club-like fists. Locke rolls out of the way and then slams his hammer into the creature’s arm. It cracks off and falls to the ground before disintegrating into snow.
“Fuck yeah!” Locke shouts. “That wasn’t so ha?—”
The creature looks at its stump where an arm used to be and roars. Blue speckles start dancing at the end of the stump, and then slowly, a new arm starts to reform.
“Fuck,” Locke groans, rushing away. “It can rebuild itself? How is that fair?”
“Somehow, I don’t think fair is what this place is going for,” I answer.
The creature turns at the sound of my voice and roars at me. The babies stand on the ice spikes on its back and do their own little impersonations of a roar. It pisses me off that it’s still cute. Because now I’m going to feel bad when I have to kill it.
Or maybe . . . we don’t have to kill it at all.
“Svetlana,” I hiss as I rush away from the advancing creature.
“Yes?” she answers, still tucked in out of the cold.
“Can you hold a stick?”
“Can I hold a stick?” she repeats, poking her head out. “What kind of a question is that? Of course, I can hold a stick. Look at me.”
I pull one of the sticks and strip of fabric from my inventory. I wrap it around the end of the stick as I run, trying not to trip in the shin-deep snow. “What is the opposite of ice?”
“Fire,” Svetlana answers immediately.
“Exactly,” I hum, pulling out the small bottle of liquor I’d stolen from one of the other players on board the Titanic while he’d been passed out drunk. No one had been the wiser and after I’d smelled it in my room later, I knew I’d never drink it. But it’ll make one hell of a fire starter.
I pour a little bit of the liquor onto the fabric and whisk it back to my inventory before I pull out the lighter. I stop and spin, spreading my legs wide as I brace myself.
