Not a Moral Kidnapping

Sonny

Ten minutes of the license-plate game—which we had to abandon due to the lack of other vehicles on the road—fifteen minutes of eye spy and three hours of twenty questions, and I was about ready to give up on life.

“Are you an aquatic animal?” I said, while subtly peering down at my phone screen, desperately searching for any signal.

Apparently, nowhere in the Kingdom of the Fae had any service. My battery was on eighteen percent, too, and every time I clicked the button on the side, it seemed to deplete by another one percent. I had already wasted about three of them by texting Mash, though I had no idea when the message would be delivered.

Me:

If for some reason I’m not there to meet with Dr S, I need you to go to the meeting for me. I don’t care what they publish, but please protest the nuclear bees with everything you have.

“No,” said Jasper, giggling and catching my eye in the rear-view mirror. He watched me often. I think simply to make sure I wasn’t about to throw myself out of the moving vehicle to get away from him.

“Are you a person?”

“Nope.”

We had been on the road for nearly four hours, and the majority of it had been farmlands and winding country lanes that were far, far too small for a monster truck. But Jasper never slowed his hair-raising pace. He never moved to let a car pass, and he never swerved. Let’s face it, who in their right mind would argue with a monster truck? That wasn’t a fight anything smaller than an artic was going to win.

I tried to watch the roadside for signage, place names, landmarks, shops even, or any other type of indicators to tell me where we were, but we moved so quickly everything other than the distant forests was a blur.

“Are you a vague concept or social construct?”

“Not exactly vague,” he said.

“Are you an emotion?”

“Nah.”

And every time I pulled the compass out, the panel would say: Mend a broken heart. Mend a broken heart. No matter how many times I clicked that stupid dial. Technically, I was being kidnapped by a nine-foot fire daemon. Maybe at some point it might like to direct me towards, I don’t know, escaping!

“Are you used to describe something?”

“Yes,” he said, after some pondering.

“Do you describe something tangible or intangible?”

“That’s not a yes or no question.”

Fuck my life. “Are you onomatopoeia?”

Jasper swerved the truck. “What the... ?! Yes, how the fuck did you know that?”

I pulled my phone out. Still no signal. Seventeen percent battery. “Can we not play games anymore, please? I’m not sure how much more I can take. I’m honestly considering letting you duct tape my mouth closed so I don’t have to ask these questions.”

Jasper huffed. “What are we meant to do, then? Sit here in silence? We have another six hours before we get to Onyxshire.”

Out the window, a blue driver-location sign whizzed past, too quickly for me to read the white lettering, though I caught the number twenty-nine. Somewhere or something was twenty-nine miles away.

“Can’t we just talk like proper adults?” I said.

“Oh, no. I see what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?” No signal. Fifteen percent.

“You’re trying to get me to open up about my feelings and shit. Then I might reconsider kidnapping you and take you back.” Jasper stared me down in the rear-view. I tried to pretend I wasn’t desperate to read the name of a single lonely inn that zoomed past. Missed it. The Bear Ranger or the Bell Ringer, maybe.

“I still don’t understand why you’ve kidnapped me,” I said. It was the eleven hundredth time I’d asked. “If all you’re doing is taking me to a different railway station.”

“Because I need to make sure you’re on this train, on the way to Remy, not sitting at quaint little Agaricus Station changing your mind and hopping in a taxi back to Stinkhorn.”

“But, why? Did Claude send you?”

“Of course not. Claude has no idea where I am.”

“Then why does it matter to you whether I meet with Dr Sorrel?”

No signal. Fourteen percent.

“Who’s Dr Sorrel? What’re you talking about?” Jasper said.

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly who Dr Sorrel was, but something stopped me. My mind whirred. I had, on some absurd level, assumed Jasper was making sure I didn’t miss my appointment. Had assumed that even though he was kidnapping me, it was done with good intentions. A moral kidnapping, if you will. That Claude had sent him to ensure I didn’t throw away my future because of a couple of perfect months.

But Jasper didn’t know who Dr Sorrel was—what my meeting was for—and Claude hadn’t sent him.

What was I missing?

One bar of signal. Thirteen percent.

Oh, my gods, we were getting closer to civilisation.

None of it made sense. I was looking at this the wrong way.

Why did Jasper need me on the train, heading away from Agaricus? Why did he need to keep me off Stinkhorn Manor grounds?

What had he been doing the entire time I was there, and probably decades before I arrived?

Oh, fuck.

Attempting to kill Mrs Ziegler. That’s what he’d been doing. But Mrs Ziegler was unkillable. The only way to destroy her was to...

Destroy the house.

Still only one bar of signal. Twelve percent.

But Claude would be saving the house. In approximately thirteen hours. Unless...

He wouldn’t be. Because he didn’t know what the ritual was.

The ritual wasn’t the lightning.

Holy fuck, the ritual wasn’t the lightning. My gut had been right all along.

“Turn this truck around now!” I yelled.

But Jasper didn’t so much as swerve. Instead he laughed, long and loud, filling the cab with his sulfuric breath. “Finally figured it out, have you?”

“You know what the ritual is?” I said.

“I know it’s not what His Lordship thinks it is.”

“But we need to go back. We need to figure this out.”

He laughed again, and I winced at his fumes. “There’s no way in hell I’m going back now.”

“But... but you love her,” I said. It was the only thing I could think of that might have any effect on him.

Jasper slammed the brakes on, and the truck screamed to a stop. I was propelled into the rear of his seat.

“That’s a lie. Take it back,” he spat.

“I can’t, and you know it,” I said, but my voice was quiet, unsure. “So, you would seriously let the woman you love die?”

Jasper went quiet and my first thought was, if he doesn’t kill me now, my heart will probably palpitate itself into an attack.

“Get out of the car,” he said, the words no louder than a hiss. Yup, he was going to kill me. In the middle of the forest in Fuck Knows Where, Kingdom of the Fae.

Maybe if I invented a decent distraction, I could make a run for it. Flag down another vehicle heading in the opposite direction, if another vehicle were ever to pass us.

I still had thirteen hours to get back to Claude. And we were four hours south of Agaricus. I had plenty of time. Provided I figured out what the ritual was in that time.

Priorities. First, I needed to escape Jasper.

“OUT OF THE CAR!” he screamed. Instead of waiting for me to hop down, he flung the door wide open, grabbed my wrist, and tossed me onto his shoulder again so my head was hanging down his back between his wings. Right above his butt cheeks.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I was beyond being friendly and calm to this guy. He was a psychopath, and I was essentially talking to his ass. “If you’re gonna kill me, just kill me already. I need to pee, and I’m hungry, and I’ve literally had enough of your insanity.”

Jasper started walking. I tried to lift my head to see where we were going, but his grip was so Herculean, I was physically unable. “I’m not going to kill you. How many chances have I had to kill you over the past two months? Not once did I try. Even when you stepped out of the boundary line to prance around naked with His Lordship.”

“You were spying on us?”

“Don’t be disgusting. I’m not a pervert.”

“Are you entirely sure about that? Because I’ve seen a lot of contradicting evidence.”

Jasper shifted my weight on his shoulder, and my left arm popped free. At the same time, I managed to swing my head far enough to the side to peek around Jasper’s enormous back and wings. I caught a glimpse of where we were going. A petrol station.

Perfect.

“Exactly what evidence is this?”

Shit, what were we talking about? Right, Jasper being a total perv.

“Like when you wanted me to jerk off so I could study the benefits of jizz on... plants...” But I trailed off because I had just figured it out. “Oh, my gods.”

Overhead, a bell tinkled, and Jasper stepped inside the garage. I felt him nod a greeting, probably to the cashier. “What snacks do you want?”

Magia in sporis est.

The magic is in the spores.

In the spores.

“Why don’t you conduct this further research right now?”

The urine sample.

“You. You are the magic.”

The water from Claude’s butt. The flowers growing in the dusty courtyard.

Claude told me the house began speaking after he’d showered. Presumably that shower had been more enjoyable than he’d initially let on.

My beards. Those random beards I’d grown, only happened on mornings after I’d swallowed Claude’s...

The magic was in his spores. Not the house’s.

Amor sui vitas salvat.

Self-love saves lives.

It was him. All along.

It was crude, sure, but so perfect.

“What snacks do you want?!” Jasper bellowed. I heard a few gasps emitted from other garage patrons, but couldn’t pinpoint their location. “Honeymoon,” he said, for their benefit. “He loves role play.”

“You can put me down, you know?”

“And have you run away? Don’t be so fucking daft. What snacks do you want?”

“I don’t know. Peanut Goobers, please,” I said. I wasn’t hungry anymore, but I needed to give myself more thinking time.

I’d figured out the ritual. I was ninety-nine percent certain of it, but I was currently dangling between the very large and firm ass cheeks of an angry, supermassive surtr, who also happened to be my kidnapper.

Jasper paid for the snacks. Of course no one asked him any questions. Nobody seemed to care that he had a literal prisoner hanging down his back. He began heading towards the exit. I had to act now.

“I need to pee. Is there a bathroom here?”

He sighed, stomped farther back into the shop, and set me on my feet outside the bathroom. I opened the door and walked inside. Jasper made to follow.

“Woah, what are you doing?”

He burst out laughing. “You think I’m going to leave you alone? So you can fucking escape?”

“I can’t pee if you’re watching,” I said, which must have been the truth.

Jasper stuck his head in the door and looked around the tiny, one-stalled bathroom, probably for windows. After satisfying himself there was no obvious escape route, he straightened himself up to his full height. “You have two minutes. I’ll be right outside this door, so don’t try anything stupid.”

“Two minutes? What if I need to poop?”

“You hold it in,” he said with a sycophantic smile. “And give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Your phone. I’m not having you call anyone for help.”

“There’s not enough signal to make a call anyway,” I whined, but slapped my phone into his gigantic smoking hand regardless.

I shut the door and pulled the lock across. Right, two minutes to figure this out. I didn’t have my phone, there was no window, and my imprisoner was waiting for me one foot beyond a flimsy wooden door.

Think, Sonny.

I turned the tap on just fast enough for it to sound like I was peeing and extracted something from my pocket. Something I had taken only moments ago from Jasper’s hotpants.

Bingo.

One part was a shiny silver key with a black handle, and the other part was a diamond-shaped, blue plastic key fob which in silver lettering said MONSTER RENTALS with a telephone number.

For once, accidentally pickpocketing someone had actually done some good.

I stood on the toilet, one foot on either side of the seat, and poked at the panels on the ceiling. All solid metal. Upon pushing the panel up and peering into the void, I saw a space with height clearance of only a few inches at most. Fuck. No going up through the ceiling then.

I tapped the panels besides the pipes leading from the toilet. Also solid and unyielding. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

What was I going to do? How much of my two minutes was this eating into? I ran my hand along the wall, looking for any weaknesses. If worse came to worst, I could try smashing through to the outside... but Jasper, with his mythic ears, would undoubtedly hear, and I’d have a head start of a second or two at most.

I was out of options and almost out of time. In desperate panic mode, I took the compass from my pocket and clicked the dial once. The text flipped from Mend a broken heart to—

Escape from a mouldy, rat-infested, truck-stop bathroom.

The needle pointed towards the sink.

I slapped a hand over my mouth to muffle my triumphant yell.

And I saw it. Like a heavenly beam of light. I could practically hear the angels singing.

A crack—at its widest point only a few millimetres. I wouldn’t have noticed it had I not been standing at this super weird angle by the toilet bowl.

But there it was, in the wall, next to the mirror hanging above the sink. And daylight, actual daylight, spilled through. I dug my fingernails under the mirror. Not glass, cheapy plastic which was even better, but the thing stayed fixed in place.

Shit, okay. Breathe, Sonny, you can do this.

“You should be washing your hands by now. Doesn’t take that long to have a piss,” came Jasper’s voice through the door.

The mirror was about forty-five-centimetres tall, and thirty wide, and fixed to the wall by two screws. One at the top in the centre and one at the bottom. I dug around in my pockets, but the closest thing I found to any kind of screwdriver or tool was the flat edge on the plastic diamond key fob. It slotted perfectly into the groove of the screw, like it had been made to measure, and I worked the bottom one as quickly as I could.

It loosened and fell into the sink with an echoing clang. I winced, then pushed the mirror across to see what lay beyond. I was rewarded with a magnificent, obstruction-free passage to the rear side of the garage’s lot. I glimpsed a distant septic tank, and silos of... whatever, and trees. Wonderful, beautiful trees.

Jasper banged on the door. “If I don’t hear that flush within five seconds, I’m coming in.”

I squeaked. “I’ve just finished.” I didn’t say what I’d just finished. “I should wash my hands now.” I had to add the should to make it true. Then I flushed the toilet and climbed up onto the side of the bowl again.

With one hand, I pushed the mirror aside. Thankfully, the hole was only a single brick deep and then it dropped away to nothing but fresh air and wilderness.

I had to twist on my side to fit my shoulders through and brace my leg against the opposite wall.

And I thanked the gods that for all of my futile attempts, I had never been able to bulk up in the same way Mash had.

The bare brick scraped against the exposed skin on my forearms like sandpaper, and I was pretty sure I’d left a few decent chunks of flesh along the jagged mortar. But I was fae, I’d heal quickly. My biggest worry was just getting the fuck out of there.

I fell with a crunch onto my extended arm and shoulder, and hit the slabs outside what was probably once a window, but had perhaps since broken and been covered up with a flimsy, cost-effective mirror. I pushed to my feet as fast as I could, and I ran.

I ran in the direction I assumed the truck was parked in. How long would it take Jasper to smash down that door? How long would it take him to spot the screw in the sink, or the light coming from behind the mirror?

As I crested the hill, I saw the truck ahead of me.

And I heard Jasper behind me.

“SONNY!” His voice was so loud, it reverberated through the ground, through the trees lining either side of the road, and seemingly through the distant mountains. Every alarm on every car in the garage’s carpark began wailing.

I reached the truck and threw myself into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind me.

“SONNY!” he roared again.

Okay. I could do this. If Claude learned how to conjure lightning, I could drive a fucking car.

I stuck the key in the ignition and twisted it. The engine screamed into life.

But which was the go pedal, and which was the stop? Fuck fuck fuck. And why was there a third?

The clutch, was that the clutch?

Focus, Sonny, you can do this.

I took a punt and smashed my foot onto the right pedal. The car roared and bounded forwards.

Good, that was the right one.

I just needed to... I needed to put it in gear.

I needed to—

In the rear-view mirror I saw a bird-like creature zooming towards me with a wingspan of about ten feet. It blocked out all the light.

Holy fuck, Jasper was flying at me.

I slammed my foot onto the clutch, shoved the gear stick into the “one” position, and swapped it for the gas.

The truck lurched forward. And the engine cut out.

I’d stalled it.

I turned the ignition again, put my foot on the gas, and the car moved forward. It didn’t die.

I kept moving forward.

Pedal to the metal.

And now I was putting a gap between the truck and Jasper.

A wider gap.

The vehicle was screaming at me to change gears, but I didn’t want to risk stalling again.

A wider gap.

Wider still. Until Jasper stopped.

In the rear-view mirror, I watched his feet touch back down onto solid ground.

And he gave up the chase.

Once I could no longer see him, I attempted to change to second gear. I pressed my foot onto the clutch, slid the stick backwards into the number two position, and took my foot off the clutch. It was so much easier than I had expected it to be. The engine was still screaming, so I slid it into third, and then fourth. And I let my breath escape in one whoosh.

I still needed to figure out how to turn, and I wasn’t really sure what all the knobs and buttons and dials meant, but I didn’t care. So long as I stayed out of Jasper’s reach, and didn’t get pulled over by the police, I was sure I’d make it back to Stinkhorn Manor in time.