Excerpt: The Lawyer & the Leprechaun
Suddenly the speedboat lurched. Her snake vision couldn’t detect any anomalous heat sources in the vicinity.
“Now what?” Eleni asked.
She heard Owen messing around with the controls of the boat.
He groaned. “Only a few minor mishaps,” he said sarcastically. “The boat is out of gas, the radio is broken, the emergency flotation devices were replaced with concrete imitations, according to the message on them, as some kind of fraternity prank… Who in the fecking Light would do such a stupid prank?… Oh and…”
An immense roar reverberated through the air, as cold water drenched both of them. A huge serpentine body exploded out of the water. Now her snakes detected the anomalous heat source! It glowed green against the indigo background, although she could tell it was cold compared to a mammal. A monstrous primordial jaw opened and roared again. The sinuous outline of a cold, ichthyoid serpent reared even higher over their boat.
“… and some idiot released a wild, hungry loch serpent into the lake!” spat Owen.
“That is a complete violation of the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act!”
“No, you don’t say!” he said sarcastically. “Who would have imagined it would be illegal to dump a carnivorous, arcane monster the size of a dinosaur into a lake filled with tourists swimming and water-skiing?!”
“What! Do you think it’s a danger to us?”
“I don’t know for certain but...”
As if to answer, the serpent snapped its head forward, narrowly avoiding biting Eleni. She scrambled out of the way just in time. Owen grabbed a stick from the deck and whapped the serpent.
“These serpents are not native to this realm, but maybe some entrepreneur thought Arcana Glen needed its own Lock Ness,” he said conversationally, as he danced around the deck beating the serpent. “There are different species, some are herbivores, and some are carnivores. If we’re lucky, this one is an herbivore. You can tell by whether they have teeth or baleen, just like whales.”
The serpent opened it wide jaws again. It appeared to have jaws like an eel, that could open far wider than its head because the upper and lower mandibles were not attached. Eleni’s snake vision, although not good at detecting fine details, could still discern rows and rows of sharp, glinting, cold teeth. To her, they looked deep purple, almost black against the shining green light of the rest of the serpent’s body.
“I think it’s carnivorous!” Eleni cried.
The serpent snapped its jaws, trying to bite Owen. Instead, he fended it off with the stick and the serpent snapped it in half.
“I’m getting that impression!” Owen shouted.
They had run out of makeshift weapons, and manacled together, there was no way that they could properly maneuver themselves to separate, which would have been the best strategy to fight it one on one. Instead, they were bound together, like shrimps on a shish kebab.
Then, bad luck struck again. Owen tripped over something, fell backwards and dragged Eleni down on top of him.
She pressed down against his muscular chest. His scent was earthy and comforting, a contrast to the damp smells of the motorboat, and foul, fishy smell of the sea serpent, whose fetid breath stank like seaweed and rotten eggs.
The serpent reared back and snapped its head forward again, those impossibly large jaws yawning. Eleni knew there was no way they could avoid the third strike. She was hyper aware of every sensation in the moment, expecting it would be her last.
Owen could have used her as a human shield, to gain a few more minutes of life by feeding her to the serpent first.
But instead, he rolled Eleni onto her back and shielded her with his own body.
The serpent closed its dagger-like teeth around him.
Comments