Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback

? Warrior Dreams ?

She was on her way, if the weather was any indication. Sleet hissed into the water all around them, found its way under Russell’s collar, and bit into his face like a thousand tiny knives. If not for Laurel between his knees, he’d be frozen solid already. Swiping ice from his lashes, he peered into the distance, where the black horizon melted into the turbulent lake.

Then he saw it, something that looked like a massive tidal wave heading for the breakwall, higher than any other wave. Ahead of it, magical creatures peeled off to either side, desperate to escape.

“Is that something?” he asked Laurel.

“That’s her,” she said, and dove.

Russell clung desperately to her back, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. Pressure built in his ears until it seems like they might pop. He held his breath as long as he could, then tried to let go, so he could kick his way to the surface. He stuck to her back like a burr on Velcro, unable to free himself. He breathed in—he couldn’t help it—and to his surprise, it was fine. He reached up to his neck and found gills there—deep slits on either side. He was breathing underwater.

That’s when he knew he was having some kind of a major breakdown.

When you see things, MacNeely, what do you see?

Russell’s head broke the surface, and then Laurel’s, and he saw she’d come up just inside the breakwall. Russell turned to look just as the storm hag burst through the passage from the lake, driving a cryptozoological menagerie before her.

Russell gaped at Jenny Greenteeth, pawing through his mental thesaurus of words for huge. Like colossal. Humongous. Statuesque.

Immense. She was as tall as the thunderclouds piling up behind her, and she rode a fish the size of a freight train.

Her skin was the color of verdigris, like copper after years of exposure to seawater and sunlight. Her hair was chartreuse, with jewels, shells, pearls, and other glitterbits woven into it. She wore what looked like a fortune in bling—pearls, diamonds, opals, and other gemstones roped around her neck. She controlled her steed with reins that looked to be made of moray eels.

? 110 ?

? Cinda Williams Chima ?

Her eyes were the mustard yellow of a sulfur spring, her teeth grass-green, and she wore a kind of armor made of brass plates.

“Shipbuilder’s plaques,” Laurel explained. “One for each ship she’s foundered.”

“Shit,” Russell said, looking down at his puny shield, then back up at his opponent. And laughed. “She’s colossal. We’re totally fucked.”

“Courage, Russell,” Laurel said.

The sturgeon surged forward, plowing into the school of fleeing lake creatures, magical and not. The storm hag sluiced her fingers through the water on either side, straining them out. She crammed fistfuls of nixies, kelpies, carp, and walleye indiscriminately into her mouth.

Even astride the fish, she towered over buildings on the shore.

And then, she began to sing.

Come into the water, love, Dance beneath the waves, Where dwell the bones of sailor lads Inside my saffron caves.

“What’s that all about?” Russell asked.

“It’s her thing,” Laurel said briskly. “Kind of a tradition. She likes to sing before a kill. The others are going to draw her this way, into the closed end of the breakwall, so she’s trapped. Then we’re going in.

Just be careful—her claws are deadly poisonous.”

“Now I’m worried,” Russell said, grinning. What the hell did he have to lose?

That MacNeely? He’s crazy brave.

There was a time when being crazy served a soldier well.

The surviving decoys made a sharp right turn past where Laurel and Russell lurked, making speed toward a small opening in the break water at the west end—too small for the sturgeon to fit through.

When Jenny saw where they were headed, she yanked her reins hard right, digging in spurs made of oyster shells. She lashed her mount with a small whip, screeching, “Don’t let them get away!”

? 111 ?