SAVE POINT 54

Loading Sparo's Thoughts...& a Psychic Woman in A Bathrobe...100%

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Sparo

I watch you sleep, Rosabella, and I wonder what it would be like to lean down and kiss your forehead. Would your skin be soft and I'd catch a whiff of shampoo? Would your eyes flutter dreamily open? Someday. Just, unfortunately, not right now. Right now, you think of me as a friend. Right now, Rosabella, I'm your rock during these hard times. And, although sometimes I think it just might be shifting to something else in your eyes, I can't chance being premature in that movement. You mean too much to me. So, I resist the urge to hold you tighter—to snuggle into you. And I use a gentle nudge to wake you.

And not my lips. Even though that yearning deep within me purrs like a full-grown cat, stretching my heart wider.

Churches always seem so empty to me without their congregations, empty, shadowed corners and hollow halls. This one is no exception. The gothic architecture sweeps overhead in jagged points and columns. The stone walls and floor give the place an even chillier feel as the wood back of the long pew creates an unmovable dent in my back from having leaned against it all night.

The others are waking now; Dormouse rubs at his eyes from his lounged position with legs spread out on a pew, and Mimi cracks her neck from the next one over, her thin legs thrown over the side.

And, you, Rosabella, blink up at me, confused for a minute and, then, putting back together all the pieces of the puzzle that shouldn't fit but do. The tracker is out of the nerd—thank God. If I had to listen to him moaning from the hallway for another hour, I was liable to make an incredibly rude comment which would have them all hating me. But, in any case, whatever tracker might have been in the kid's intestines is now in the church plumbing somewhere, and we are free to find this Goran son of a bitch. I feel you shift away from me, leaning forward to stretch and wipe the sleep out of your eyes.

I take a deep, but regrettably shaky, breath in as I consider the task ahead.

It's time to face the witch-bitch.

Honestly, the thought of seeing Prickgada again right now scares the shit out of me. Maybe it's the fact that—yes—I stole from her; I'm not, by any means, pretending to be the good guy here. Or, maybe, it's just the fact that I'd really hoped I was done with her.

Forever.

Turning over a new leaf.

A blank page.

Maybe a page with your name on it, Rosabella. More adventure and care with less...drama.

Too bad apparently drama likes to find me...

"You guys ready to roll?" I call to our band of merry men.

Dormouse squints at me, "You know where we're going?"

I blow a raspberry, making a big show of confidence, "Of course, I know where it is!"

Loading...2 Hours Later...100%

We're lost. We're so very lost. My dragon ego still isn't quite ready to admit it to the group yet, but I haven't felt this uncertain in a long time.

Uncertain and lost. Did I mention that?

On another crowded NYC street. Grand Dragon, all these buildings are starting to look the same. How high was I when I'd been here last? How love-drunk all those years ago when Prickgada and I had been a thing and she'd wanted to show me what she called her 'million-dollar-side hustle'?

Damn it, I hate that woman.

"Uh, Sparo, haven't we been on this street before?" Dormouse crows.

Ugh, I hate nerds too.

Damnit, I hate everyone and everything right now. I clench my fists, feeling aggravation coil in me like a pissed-off viper.

I'm going to tell them I'm lost. I'm just going to have to fess up and admit that I've been walking in determined circles for the last twenty minutes.

"If you tell us what you're looking for," Rosabella tries, "We can help."

Her eyes are kind and beseeching, but I don't want anyone's help. I want to find Prickgada's place and have a win before I get my head and balls completely torn off by that damned woman.

There!

Something catches in the corner of my eye.

A sign!

Not metaphorically. Literally.

That's the sign, I'm sure of it! Faded and hanging by one chain instead of the two it needs, the rectangular piece of metal clatters loudly against a brick exterior. On it is a painting of an open, purple hand with a spiral on the palm.

'Psychic, Second Floor'

It reads in block font.

"It's here!" I call, excitedly, gesturing the group forward. I did it! I found Prickgada's lair! If I remember correctly, there's a set of stairs just around—

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I round the corner, and there they are, a set of worn, concrete steps, darkened by the shadow of an overhang over the stoop.

"Upward and through the creepy, peeling door we go," Dormouse says, shrugging and nodding to a wood door that looks like it's been painted more times than you could count.

And shade falls over our uncertain faces as we begin the climb upward.

And my stomach twists as I reach the top.

I turn the tarnished handle which is nearly falling off. I push open the door, hearing it give with a pop. And, as the door swings open, I recognize the place. A brick hallway opens to a pretty good size loft with sunlight streaming in from large, gridded windows. The room has an industrial feel and is similarly sparse with white, undecorated walls and an original, wood floor which is stripped and worn in patches.

But my eyes are already sweeping the premises and, unfortunately, they land.

On Prickgada.

On the willowy woman who slips through one of the two, closed, back doors, folding a bathrobe over her breast and tugging it tight around her with the furry cord. Curls of her unmanageable, dark hair spill over the collar as her vibrant green eyes flash up with alarm to my face.

And, then, we're there. In a deadlock stare. With her face hardening into granite.

Guess not much has changed in the last day...

And her eyes sweep over our group too, catching especially on Rosabella.

"What, your magical powers didn't tell you we were coming?" I blurt crassly. I don't know why I'm being such an asshole... actually I do know why but—

"You're not welcome here. I'm very busy," the woman titters, attempting to wave us off, "I have two clients—"

"Three guesses who one of them is," I interrupt.

I mean Goran, of course. There's no question that, if he came to her, she'd help him. She's a snake and can be bought for any price—

"Actually," the woman counters pointedly, "I'm entertaining a dragon, a warrior and your pink-haired friend who most certainly needs medical attention so if you wouldn't mind—"

She throws open the door on her left, revealing Joy, Rainer and a huge purple dragon flapping it's wings impatiently outside the window. The dragon must be using the invisibility cheat so the humans on the below, busy street don't see it. Smart.

But I'm only able to trust Prickgada as far as I can throw her, and I'm not very willing to throw her anywhere at this point. The question, now that door #1 is open, is what's behind door #2.

"Open the other door, Prickgada," I growl dryly.

And she clutches at her robe and does a whole song and dance, and that's when I know I'm right.

Goran's behind that fucking door.

I lunge forward, but Prickgada holds up a warning hand—what, is she going to pull some freaking magic on me or something? I know everything about her—

So, I go the voice-of-reason route. I try to give her a chance to make this right.

"You do know he's trying to destroy The Game right?" I tell her, "What did Goran promise you, huh? When The Game goes caput so do we...unless you have the immortality cheat code—"

The woman's expression wavers—wobbles—giving it away.

"Oh my Grand Dragon," I whisper in utter terror and—despite my best intentions—admiration, "She has the cheat code. That bastard Goran probably has it too. What would make her give it to him?!"

The shock of the discovery slows my reaction, but I hear metal slide on metal—a sword drawing? My eyes dart up to see a blade glinting in the blinding sun and a very pissed-off pink-haired girl behind it, holding the edge to the sorceress's throat.

"Open the damn door, bitch," Joy snarls, clearly not afraid to draw blood at this point.

Shoot! I never thought I'd say I like the girl but...

Prickgada gasps against the sharp blade.

And reaches for the doorknob, throwing it inward—

There he is.

Goran.

The escaped prisoner who destroyed my career...

The one who broke your heart, Rosabella, probably over 50 times.

Standing with hands outstretched and palms out on either side of him.

And his eyes a milky white.

Dormouse steps through our crowd, his brow furrowing deeply before he turns to Prickgada with an incredulous stare. "You sent him in the coding?!" he balks.

This looks so bad. Why does the kid look like this is really bad? My eyes flash to you, Rosabella. I watch your mind attempting to take all this in at once too. Then, my eyes are back on the witch—the witch who has seemingly made things go from bad to worse.

"What is wrong with you?!" I cry, finally lunging forward and into her face which is still tilted upwards uncomfortably from Joy's blade against the tender white skin there, "You helped him?"

"Is it so bad that I should want a man to hang around? To dote on me?" the hag shoots back, her eyes brimming fire and stubbornness like they always have.

"Trust me, woman; he's not the type." I lecture.

"Sparo, I—I think he slept here," you mumble and I turn to see the corner of balled up bedsheets slipping through the ends of your fingers, Rosabella. And, sure enough, there's a mattress on the floor that I'd failed to notice. And it looks like two slept there—she wouldn't.

Nope, I'm wrong she so would. Prickgada slept with the asshole. Oh my Grand Dragon, she'd slept with him!

"I showed him the path to the kill switch!" the woman hoots smugly, "All of you and your silly world of politics and power will evaporate into nothingness. You'll never catch him now!"

"Oh really?" I snap, "watch her."

Rosabella can do anything; the girl is liquid dynamite without a miniskirt.

"Rosabella, you have to go. NOW," Dormouse warns. His face looks more urgent than I've ever seen it as he pushes a sweaty string of dark hair out of his eyes.

The girl nods and moves towards him.

And I do too, protectiveness welling up in my chest like the armor I need, "I'm going with her—"

"You can't," the nerd explains, his fingers already typing rapidly on the laptop he balances in the air, "It's a one person enter and there has to be someone to code the entrance and exit from the outside. It's why Goran needed Prickgada—"

"But you can do it, Dormouse?" you ask, your eyes determined just like I love them, "You can get me in?"

The geek nods curtly, "Yes. The main thing to remember is to avoid the interwebs, they'll sting your skin, and the bugs in the software are killer—"

"You don't mean literally...right?" I watch you swallow hard, Rosabella, and it makes nervous butterflies dance in my stomach.

The kid's lips straighten in the grimmest line, "Unfortunately, yes. Find Goran, and I'll patch you a loophole out. Go now!"

At Dormouse's frantic key taps, a huge, black hole appears in the room.

You have to go in there, Rosabella?

...Alone?

My mouth is so dry—

"You guys are wrong about Goran," the witch hisses.

"Would you shut up?!" I blow up at her, ready to deck the woman in the fucking face. She's a no-good, lying, cheating whore who never even—

But your huge eyes and calming hand on my arm bring me back down to Earth, Rosabella—literally. "It's okay, Sparo," you whisper, "I've got this."

Except my stomach clenches tight and won't release. Because I want to believe you, I really do. ...But I've never been more scared for anyone in my entire life.