imPerfect Blades: A Gritty Urban Fantasy Series (The imPerfect Cathar Book 8) by C.N. Rowan

Author:C.N. Rowan [Rowan, C.N.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-05-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter sixteen

Home, 30 October, present day

They always told me I broke the mould. They never told me the mole’d break me.

Thankfully, I’m wrong. It’s not gigantic half-moles with rippling musculature made for shredding humans and elongated keratin claws to match. What it is instead is more. More creatures. More normal-sized creatures.

More normal-sized half-creatures.

They’re normal-sized, but suddenly the room is full of critters. Only critters that have been sundered. Half-foxes yip around the area, their high-pitched barks apparently not hindered by only having half a throat. What might be a large mouse or a small rat skitters across the floor behind one of them, its tail muscles bunching as it wiggles back and forth. My rodent identifying skills aren’t the best, even when the creature in question is whole. Twittering birds flutter past on half a wing, yet somehow don’t drop into a plunging death spiral – bluebirds, chaffinches, rooks. I even spot half a woodpecker, get to see its elongated tongue (perfectly designed for digging deep under tree bark for those tastiest of insects) is wrapped around the outside of its brain, wound around and around to keep it safe. Part of me wonders if it gets a headache each time it swallows involuntarily. Part of me is more concerned by how much of a headache the impossibility of everything we’re seeing is giving me.

‘Okay.’ Faust makes me almost jump out of my skin with one calm word. Apparently not everyone is as highly strung as I am. Probably no bad thing. ‘So what does all this mean?’

‘That someone felt what Pet Sematary was really lacking was some early Disney-film vibes to make it perfect?’ I’m still trying to get my head around the chaotic nature scene combined with a slice of 1980’s body horror we seem to have found ourselves in.

‘There was the mention of wings,’ Isaac says thoughtfully. ‘There are plenty of those around.’

‘Brilliant.’ I don’t break into a slow hand-clap but only because I’m still basically throwing ninja hand-shapes in all directions, waving the sword around, expecting the other shoe to drop at any moment and nature to show itself in bloody tooth and claw, even if said teeth are held in only half a mouth. ‘You’ve cracked the case, Columbo. We’ve spotted that, yes. Some of the creatures have wings, and the puzzle is solved. Next ridiculous trial please, Home.’

‘Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, Paul.’ Ouch. Faust’s tone is that of the perennially disappointed schoolteacher. The one who sees your potential and sees you squander it time after time. ‘None of us have any idea as to how to start in this strange and peculiar scenario. These seemingly pointless musings may be the very key in how to resolve this particular trial.’

I can feel my chin drooping with each word, my head hanging lower and lower. So much so that I don’t even point out that “strange” and “peculiar” mean the same thing. I don’t feel it’d really help my case.

‘Don’t worry, lad.’ Isaac’s gentle tone only makes me feel worse, like even more of a cad.

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