Malia shifted to her sand form the moment we entered the storm outside. Kain and Alaric sunk into their coats and braced themselves for the weather. We could have left a little later if we’d had the choice, but as it was we left right before noon. The sun at meridian height did little to warm the air, which made the coats the others had wrapped themselves in indispensable.

Tia clung to my chest, which I’d covered in a light jacket no one else could wear. Bundled from head to toe, she still needed to stay with me and Roo to keep from losing too much heat. And Reggie complained the entire trip. He wore even less than I did after all.

As with the last time we trekked through the unusual weather, Kain walked point. He’d followed Jeremy’s scavenging route several times in the last few days so had the best lay of the land. So many snow-filled days meant we had to trudge through snowdrifts that rose as high as our waists in some cases. With time, we might have made snowshoes, but the opportunity had already passed. After the way we parted with Amanda and Pearl, none of us would go back to the shop.

Around us, what should have been a winter wonderland looked more like the product of a nuclear winter. Buildings lay in ruins, whole sections collapsed in ways that recalled the demise of my university. The outline of the destruction of those buildings resembled a massive hand or claw print, as if the owner had stumbled through the streets and planted their hand to keep from falling. If they had fallen, based on those prints, whole blocks would have been totaled.

Aside from the shop, no other buildings had smoke trails rising from them, and even the shop was more of a constant low-level steam than smoke. The moms had sifted the smoke from their logs before burning, but they couldn’t do much about the relative warmth of the shop compared to the air outside.

As we walked away from the shop and from the district with the wendigos, the snow began to slow and lighten. The drifts we scrambled over grew smaller as well. At the same time, more and more buildings bore the imprint of a giant monster squashing them from height.

At every step, I expected one of those titanic beasts to make an appearance and crush our little group. It would have been easy for them to catch us and squish us. My shoulders ached from the constant nervousness and wary head-swiveling. Several more hours of this and I would turn myself in to a wreck.

Thankfully, Kain hustled us into one of the houses on the side of the street right as I started to sweat with worry. I started to ask him what was up when he clapped a hand over my mouth and shushed the rest of our group. This particular house had not barricaded their windows or doors and the glass remained intact. As a result we poked our eyes up over the lip of the window as the ground started to shake.

The panes rattled in their frames as a small host of small hopping multicolored beasts trailed down the road. They kicked up snow and made a racket as they approached. When I could see them clearly, they resembled Reggie though each one of them had distinct features. The closer they got, the clearer I could see them. They weren’t just kicking up snow, they were slaughtering each other. Biting, tearing, and slashing with improvised weapons, they formed a little murder ball as they scrambled forward.

More of the house we huddled in shook as the line of imps advanced. When I looked over at him Reggie trembled in the corner, as far from the other demons as he could get. Kain sucked in through his teeth when the snows parted and a pair of colossal legs burst through the flurries.

“It’s a giant!” Tia spoke and I clapped a hand over her mouth in response. This was bigger than any giant, easily twice the height of the clock tower at my university. Those feet were massive too, bigger even than the impressions that had been left in the buildings along the way.

As the imps murdered their way through the road and passed us, the giant rumbled with a laugh and brought a hammer the size of a semi-truck down on one of the houses across the street. That sent the imps rolling and screaming away from the impact, some of them too late to avoid flying debris.

If that giant hit the house we crouched it, we would all die quickly. It was a thin relief, but a relief nonetheless. As it strode on through the neighborhood, a stench wafted along with it it that watered my eyes and gagged my mouth. Covering my nose hardly helped as the foul odor of sewage and raw meat clung to my tongue and palette.

Malia waved back and forth in her sand form while the giant smashed yet another building with its hammer. A shout rose up from the vanguard of imps and I strained at the edge of the window to see what was coming.

A glowing host rose from the horizon. They included riders on griffons, drakes and unicorns. Most of the riders looking humanoid, taller on average than I would expect for a human. At a shout from the leader atop a pegasus, the host of glowing figures unleashed a shower of white arrows and streaking magical beams into the imps and giant. It roared in fury and swept its hammer through the front ranks of the attackers, taking out several of the imps in the process.

Those glowing figured shimmered as the hammer passed through them and then vanished. A hundred yards back, maybe more, a whole host of the same glowing figures reappeared. The giant bellowed out an invective and raised its hammer again. But this time, the brigade of fliers swarmed its head, firing magic and more darts into the giant’s unprotected head as it batted about itself. The hammer rang off its own skull as often as into one of the fliers. But when it did connect, the flier and mount were reduced to a spray of blood and dashed to the earth in a mess.

Walls of flame rose up in front of the demons and Kain shook his head with a soft curse. The imps sprang into the flames, heedless of the danger the fires posed. Or immune to the effects, I couldn’t say.

More elves and their allies rose over the fires and struck at the giant. Massive black pools swirled into existence and sliced their way through the giants flesh while fires exploded around its head. The fliers avoided the magical attacks from below, but I had no idea how they did so. There was no way to shout between those on the ground and those in the air.

The battle lasted only a few minutes, with explosions shaking the ground and changing the foul stench into one of sewage and burned flesh. A series of green beams gathered from the defenders and focused on the giant as it flailed about. Once caught in those beams, the giant gave a piteous wail and disintegrated. Black ash colored the snow as the few remaining imps routed. Riders on unicorn-back chased the demons through the streets, driving them toward our little hovel.

We pulled away from the window too slowly. An imp shrieked at us and shook its arm as it and a half dozen of its companions burst through the window. Kain wasted no time firing into the mass of demons, blowing their heads into showers of blood and fluids. The violence only stoked the imps’ rage, driving them onward and into our shelter.

Reggie screamed loud enough to be heard over the oncoming imps and threw himself over our heads. He tore into the rainbow mass like a berserker out of Norse legend. But his mad surge did little to stop the tide and he was soon pulled down by the weight of his brethren.

Malia swirled around the room in the shape of a tornado of sand. She scoured the flesh from any imps unlucky enough to cross into her radius while flinging their dead corpses into their fellows. Despite the gunfire and the twisting mass of sand, the imps began to overwhelm us.

Pressed into the corner of the main room without an option to escape, Tia and I cowered from the attacks as Kain fired again and again into the crowd. He never needed to reload his weapons, which I’d only just noticed. It was too late though. Malia’s scouring lost effectiveness as more thick skinned imps invaded.

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They looked up as us with an infernal hunger. My aura, my light was supposed to repel them, but it seemed to have the opposite effect as the imps made a semi-circle around us. There was nothing I could do, my pathetic shield of blue wouldn’t even rise to stop melee attacks. I braced myself for the final surge and covered Tia’s eyes as whistles sounded through the room.

In an instant, soot rose to my nose and I opened my eyes to find four elves standing at the door wearing glowing silver armor. Rods at their hands emitted green beams that swept over the imps, wiping them out in the process. Then they turned those rods on us.

One of them, a gorgeous woman with cherry red hair, spoke in a clipped series of syllables at her companions, who lowered their rods. A tall male elf sneered at the woman and pointed to us with his empty hand. I didn’t speak their language, but I was fairly certain he’d just suggested murdering us and being done with it.

I covered Tia with my body and focused on sending out my blue shield. At the sight of it, the other three elves in the door stepped back with gasps. The red-haired elf made a very human exasperated sound and motioned to me again.

This time her companions all tapped their arms as if nodding. The one who’d voted to kill us clicked his tongue and aimed his rod. A mass of red light shone over us and I lost consciousness. I’d grown to regret letting that happen by then.

At least I didn’t have any nightmares or dreams this time.

The scent of fresh fruit coaxed me out of slumber. I braced myself, the last time I’d woken up, I’d been in a mechanic’s shop in the freezing cold. But this time, I was warm. I could feel it even through Roo’s protections.

I lay on a soft bed, larger than any I’d ever been in and round. When I moved, I sank into the depths of the bed and wiggled about. A fluffy blanket covered me that had the texture of chinchilla fur. Rubbing my cheek against it, I had trouble conjuring the memory of what had happened before I passed out. Or had I passed out?

The red beam from the elf’s rod… it might have knocked me out on purpose. In fact, I was alive and that was the only explanation for what had happened. I threw myself back against the bed and stared up into the ceiling. Masses of vines, branches, and leaves covered the ceiling and gave it a clear three dimensional effect. As I squirmed in the softness, I noticed the vines and leaves had a strange depth, like one of those hologram paintings.

Curious, I pulled myself out of the covers and stood on the bed to cheek out the vines. Nothing about them was real, they’d been carved and painted to resemble nature with such incredible skill that they were almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Where I touched them, the wood they’d been carved from had the texture of short felt.

The door to the suite opened and the red-haired woman from the giant battle walked in. She tilted her head at me and uttered a series of unintelligible words. At least she smiled.

I wore Roo now, and nothing else. Someone must had undressed me while I was asleep. So soon after our encounter with Jeremy, my skin crawled at the thought of someone else touching me like that.

The elven woman said something else to me and pulled my wandering attention back to her. She wore a cerulean dress that sparkled with tiny white diamonds, as if arranged in a star pattern. The dress hugged her form, which was straight and thin. Her breasts were even smaller than my own, but her neckline dipped down almost to her belly to expose the modest valley between them.

She had long, thin fingers that shimmered as if she’d dipped them in glitter. Two rings on each hand drew my attention. One of them was a simple golden band, one held a blue stone in the shape of a seven-pointed star, and the third glowed with white light and resembled a clear plastic ring one might find in a candy vending machine. The last ring sucked in light like the new pure-black scientists had recently discovered. As with activated magical runes, my vision slid off the ring when I tried to focus on it.

I stared at those rings in part because the woman raised her hands and slowly swiveled them back and forth as she approached. Either she was casting some spell at me, or she was elaborately demonstrating her hands to be empty. Regardless, there was nothing I could do to her. I was confined on her own turf, incapable of fighting in hand to hand, and demonstrably not immune to the elven magics.

The woman shook her hand at me, extending it as if asking to shake. A part of me scoffed at the idea a totally alien culture shook hands as their greeting while another part mused that shaking hands could be common for various reasons.

I was still wary of accepting her offer. What if I messed up and my response declared myself her mortal enemy? As I tried to settle on an appropriate way to answer her offer, the elf sighed and turned her back to me, while folding her arm behind her, palm up. She spoke something in her language I couldn’t translate. But the tone mirrored that of the scornful elf who’d knocked me out: impatience.

The moment I touched her hand, the sounds she’d been making gained meaning. She sounded a bit like a native Texan now, speaking slowly and reassuringly to a frightened puppy. “…or you could live atop my bed for the rest of forever, which would make certain nighttime activities awkward.”

“What?”

The elf blushed as she turned around and faced me. “Ah, you’ve finally decided to accept my touch. Thank you.” She bowed with her hand at the tip of her chin. “My name is Yierie Qloriin.” She held her bow with her eyes raised to study me while I blinked at her.

The way her dress opened up gave me a full view of her naked breasts. The skin of her nipples was bright red, the same shade as her hair. It was a little distracting. I shook my head, averted my gaze and cleared my throat. “I’m Harriet. Harriet… Yeshe.” In my shock at being flashed, I’d almost forgotten my new last name.

“Harriet Yeshe, be welcome in my home.” Yierie stood from her bow and dropped her hand from her chin like a girl from a massive swing. “I am sorry for your…” she paused as if looking for the right word, “abduction.”

“Oh, it’s no…” At that moment, I remembered the rest of my group. “Where are my friends? Where’s my sister?”

Yierie smiled and moved her hands in a flat circle. “Your sister shares a room with my own sister. She very much wanted to be with you when you woke, so we had to keep her resting. I hope that is okay?”

“Can I see her?”

Yierie nodded and swept her arm toward her door. “Of course.” She paused at the door and pointed to my body. “Would you care for your clothing back?”

Once again, I was clad only in my shawl. “No, unless it’s a problem for your people?” Yierie had already been nicer to me than I could have expected.

“Not at all, though we find most humans are not comfortable dressed in a little as you.” As she spoke, she tapped the side of her mouth. She was saying something, but I could only guess at what.

“Yeah, I’ve been getting shit from half the people I’ve met. I’ll keep wearing this, thanks.”

Covering her mouth entirely, Yierie made a soft hacking noise into her palm that I realized was her version of laughter. It almost sounded like she was sick. “I pity your kind then, I would be honored for someone to accompany me with such an alluring form.”

Was she hitting on me? For a second, I hesitated in rejoining Tia. But I couldn’t ignore my grandpa’s last request. Besides, I needed to see that she was safe. “Which way to my sister?”

Yierie scooted between me and the door, pressing herself into my body as she did. I sucked in a breath in the process and my eyes bulged out of my skull. She turned and motioned with another sweep of her hand. “Right this way.”

The hallways glittered with more wood carved to resemble leaves and vines. Diamonds and other precious stones pocked the walls at regular intervals, as if to give the hallway greater depth. The floor was flat, but bore intricate carvings in the surface. Based on the way the carvings wiggled and tried to escape my vision, I guessed they were runes of some sort.

Yierie’s door had been silver, but the door we stopped in front of was made from spun gold woven to resemble thatch. Rather than touch the surface, Yierie hovered her hand over the door and the strands pulled themselves loose and exposed the interior. A blast of mint and sage-tinted air flowed over me as I followed Yierie into the room. An elven woman with golden hair that matched her door lay on the large bed in the center with her hands crossed over her chest. At the foot of that bed, a white wooden small bed sat. Tia snored in that bed, curled into the fetal position.

“Tia!” I ducked my head at once and winced. This time I whispered when I said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake anyone..”

Yierie waved her hand toward her sisters. “Reylana has not woken in over a decade, she will not awaken even if the Crystal Orchid should crash to the ground.” Dancing on impossibly light feet, Yierie twirled over to Tia’s bed. “To awaken your sister, you have only to touch her on the forehead and speak her name.”

“Okay, thank you.” I walked over and noticed Yierie staring at me again. She made just enough room for me to situate myself between Tia’s bed and her legs. I sighed and let my butt hit Yierie’e leg as I bent over and gently laid my hands on Tia’s forehead. “Wake up, Tia. It’s me, Harriet.”

Tia’s eyes fluttered open and she looked around the room as if disoriented. When she spotted me she squealed and jumped out of the bed. I hoisted her up and hugged her as she hooted. “Harriet! It’s you!! Woo!!!”