“Careful of the toe,” Ceff said through clenched teeth.
I dodged the chunk of rotting flesh and shook my head.
“That’s toe-tally gross,” I said.
I have a habit of making bad puns when I’m stressed and overtired. Ceff raised an eyebrow and I started to laugh. I choked on the intake of air and gagged, covering my mouth with a gloved hand.
I now had one hand over my mouth and the other pinching my nose. The position left me feeling exposed, the back of my neck tingling. I hoped that I wouldn’t need to go for my weapons. I snuck a look over my shoulder, but the tunnel behind us was empty. The only movement was our shadows dancing on the walls. Our biggest threat was slipping in something nasty. I turned back toward Stinky, careful to watch my step.
I had to hand it to the ghoul, he was really trying. Stinky shuffled along at a near gallop, his gooey feet slapping on the stone floor. We made it to the exit in minutes.
At the top of the tunnel-like hallway, Stinky lifted a large ring of keys and unlocked the door to the outside. There was definitely something creepy about having the keyhole on the inside, so visitors couldn’t escape. Thankfully, the ghoul had been given orders to let us out.
The key turned in the lock and Ceff and I rushed out the door into fresh night air. I wanted to gulp in air like a kid drinks juice, but instead I turned to Stinky and forced a smile.
“Thanks for rushing,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
I tried to meet Stinky’s eyes and fought to keep disgust and pity off my face. The ghoul’s owner obviously didn’t take care of his servants with regular feedings and yet Stinky had done his best to comply with my request for speed.
Too bad his body wasn’t up to the task.
Stinky looked down at his abdomen as something started emitting a hissing sound. He was terribly bloated. The ghoul’s distended belly started to move beneath the threadbare dress shirt he’d been buried in. Before I could duck for cover, the buttons of his shirt shot free of the fabric, leaving gray flesh exposed—and then Stinky exploded.
A buildup of stomach gasses had filled Stinky’s abdomen like a corpse balloon. And when that balloon popped, it projected liquefied, rotten flesh all down the front of me.
I was covered in gangrenous ghoul goop. Try saying that three times fast.
“Get it off!” I choked.
“Hold still,” Ceff said.
I froze, praying that Ceff could do something to help. For the first time ever, I needed a white knight. I wanted to be rescued.
I held my breath and stared at Ceff with wide eyes. I tried to think positive. I smelled worse than a charnel house on a hot day, but I wasn’t experiencing nightmare visions. Miraculously, my skin was untouched. Too bad I couldn’t say the same for my clothes.
Ceff’s eyes began to glow and he cupped his hands together. A hint of a breeze brushed past my face as Ceff pulled moisture out of the air. A ball of water formed slowly between his hands.
“This may tickle,” he said.
A thread of water spun out from the sphere in his hands to run across my arms and down my torso. Ceff lifted the thread higher and spread the water into a fan to cascade over me. It was the closest thing to touching we’d managed in a while and it made my skin tingle.
I stared at Ceff and a smile tugged at his lips. I bit my lip, wishing I didn’t smell like the inside of a rotting corpse. After a few minutes, the water trickled to mist.
“That’s all the moisture I can manage to pull from the air,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. I sighed. There was no way I could go directly to Club Nexus looking and smelling like this. Making my grand entrance into fae society covered in rotting ghoul guts? Yeah, not an option. “I need a shower and a change of clothes.”
I looked up and down the street. It was after dark and the night crowd was beginning to come out to play. Pretty soon someone was going to notice that I was dripping liquefied corpse intestines.
The only thing keeping me from curious eyes was the fact that I was upwind from most of the revelers and standing in shadow. But I couldn’t stay that way for the entire walk home. The loft was too far away.
“If we can find a bigger water source, can you rinse more of this off?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, nodding.
I pulled a slip of paper from my jeans pocket and squinted at the address. Marvin’s new digs weren’t far from here. And where there’s a bridge, there’s usually water.
“Come on,” I said.
I started walking, but turned back to see if Stinky had made it safely inside. The doors to the vampire’s lair were closed and the stoop was empty. If I hadn’t stopped to thank the ghoul, I might not be covered in rotting, slimy, dead guy. I shook my head ruefully and continued walking.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Chapter 17
Thankfully we didn’t have far to go. A few people scowled and gave me a wide berth, but we stuck to the shadows and made it to the bridge without incident.
The bridge where Marvin had taken up residence was small, a single stone arch over a burbling stream. Homes and apartment buildings sat on a ridge where the land rose above on either side. The bridge itself sat low, hovering over the stream where a river had once cut its way into the earth.
As we approached, I heard snores echo from the shadows. The kid was asleep.
I made sure my booted feet hit every rock on the narrow trail that led down to the bridge. When we were only a few yards away, I called out to Marvin. The bridge troll had been attacked in his previous home and I didn’t want to frighten him.
The snores ceased and the kid rolled to his feet, a baseball bat dwarfed in his huge hands. Marvin had been sleeping armed. I wasn’t sure if I should be proud or cry.
“Hey, Marvin,” I said.
“Poison Ivy?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s me and Ceff,” I said.
“You stink,” he said.
“I sure do,” I said.
That was one thing about my troll friend. He got right to the point. And when a troll thinks you smell bad, you know that you seriously stink. I started to laugh and gagged, again. I’d been doing a lot of that since Stinky busted a gut all over me.
Normally, the only thing that comes between me and the contents of my stomach is a return trip to my body after a particularly nasty vision. But rotten ghoul gunk was a whole new can of maggots. I covered my mouth and tried to calm the churning in my belly. I didn’t want to foul Marvin’s new digs any worse than I already was.
When I caught my breath, I told Marvin about our visit to the vamp’s lair and the exploding ghoul. He was still chuckling as he led us downstream.
“Clean here,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. “I promise to bring a housewarming gift next time.”
“Don’t stink,” he said.
That was a gift I could manage—so long as no more ghouls exploded on me.
Marvin flashed a gap toothed grin and I smiled. There was something about being around the orphan bridge troll that made me feel comfortable, like coming home. We’d become each other’s surrogate family since the
