War of the Rose Covens by Lee French

Author:Lee French
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, female, protagonist, superhero, urban, fantasy, witch
Publisher: Clockwork Dragon
Published: 2019-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

I scrambled to my feet and kicked the plant. Gabe whacked it with his club. The thing dragged itself away, leaving us in peace. Wary of a trick, I watched it while Gabe panted to catch his breath and held his side.

“Thanks,” Gabe said. “I don’t know that I could’ve finished it without your help.”

“Are you okay?” I wasn’t usually the person who asked that question. My head spun.

“It got me a few times, but not too bad. You?”

As soon as he asked, the cuts on my calf flared with sharp, stinging pain. “Just my leg. I’ll be fine so long as we don’t have to run.”

“Same, I think.”

The rose monster kept wriggling away, so I ignored it. “It was so hard before, but seemed so easy this time.”

“Attitude makes a big difference. Also, those grenades hurt it and made it more careful. The thing learned. Which is kind of terrifying. Whoever made it knew what they were doing.”

I wondered if they’d negotiated with it somehow instead of making it. Not that it mattered. We’d beaten it. On to the next problem. “Now we just have to figure out what else is here.”

“Oh, is that all?” Gabe grinned and waved in both directions. “Which way do you want to go?”

“The rose monster went that way, so let’s go the other way.”

“Hard to argue with that logic.”

Though I had no hope of supporting him, I ducked under his arm to help him. Gabe slipped his hand around my waist. We leaned on each other.

Shambling up the road together, we split the duty of watching for something without having to say anything. I kept an eye to the right, and he did the left. Nothing seemed special about anything in particular. The trees waved in a gentle breeze filled with rose musk and sawdust, the sun formed whimsical shapes on the ground, and the old-fashioned buildings refused to focus through the mist.

I remembered the icky, foreboding doorway and hoped we found something else to investigate.

“That’s different,” Gabe said.

Of course it was the doorway of doom. I sighed when I saw that he pointed at it. “There must be another option.”

“I’m sure the spider responsible for those thick webs is friendly.”

Ugh. I grimaced and hunched my shoulders. He steered me toward it. The closer we shuffled, the weaker the sunshine became. Thin, sickly light cast a grotesque pall over the cobweb barrier between two puke-yellow, drooping birches.

Gabe poked the webbing with his club. The strands rippled like water. “It’s almost like someone doesn’t want us to go here.”

“It’s working.”

“Bah. That rosebush had at least a dozen branches. A giant spider only has eight legs and two fangs.”

“You’re assuming it’s a giant spider.” I wanted to stop and refuse to go through there. At this point, I didn’t think I’d ever again get what I wanted. “Swipe that stuff aside so we can go find the spider and discover this is the wrong way already.”

Chuckling, Gabe stabbed the webbing with his club. The strands tore easily and stuck to the wood.

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