"The cage bit you?" Then I remembered - that was how you explained an electric shock to a toddler. Thyme had touched the cage, and it had given Gruesome a jolt. "Was the cage made of wood?"
"Yuh! Wood! Sticks!"
So. Anything made of plants, she could use to work magic. I laid a bet with myself that the "sticks" were still alive, plants that she had just told to grow into a huge box. "And while you weren't looking, the grass tied itself around your legs?"
"Yuh! Legs! Arms, too, after fell! Try get up, grass pull me down! Roar!" He gave a sample, letting loose a bellow that shook some nearby rocks and left waveforms in the sand. I winced and reminded myself to conjure up some mouthwash for him. "How'd you get loose?"
"Woman tell Goosum go stay near water, watch for Saw. Find him, eat him!"
"Saul!" I stared. "Me?" How the hell had Thyme known I was coming?
Exactly. Maybe she had a message from the Other Side. Or maybe she had asked Frisson. From what Gruesome said, he was so besotted he would have told her anything. Of course, he also would have told her that the moon was made of green cheese, if that was what she had wanted to hear, but she seemed to have overlooked that possibility.
Then the rest of what Gruesome had said percolated through to my undernourished brain. Something about if I showed up, he was supposed to have me for dinner. I swallowed thickly and looked up at him. Was that a hungry gleam in his eye, or was I just imagining it?
Chapter Twenty-Five
I wasn't imagining the drop of saliva that hung on his lower lip, but Gruesome was always drooling, anyway - I told myself. Myself wasn't really listening, though - it was paying too much attention to the cold, trickling dread that was pooling in my midsection. I started talking, slowly and soothingly, but getting faster and louder as I went.
"Gruesome. This is Saul speaking. You know, Saul,' The nice guy? Your buddy? The one who always lets you have time off to go hunting? Who stopped the nasty sorcerers who were throwing whammies at you?"
Gruesome nodded, but he still looked hungry. A huge slab of tongue lolled out and smacked around his mouth in a circle, cleaning up the drool with a sucking sound that lanced from my ears straight through my gizzard down to my boot soles. I talked faster.
"Gruesome," I said. "You remember the fairy folk? The ones who put a spell on you? That you would never eat people again?" Gruesome frowned-apparently, it was a less-than-pleasant memory-but he nodded.
"And remember the spell I laid on you?" I knew I was treading on thin ice, but I had to take the chance.
"Spell." Gruesome nodded. " 'Member. Yah."
"Those spells make sure you can't eat me, or even try to be mean to me," I reminded him.
"Spells no good no more," he informed me. "Time woman do something. Goosum no feel spells hold him back no more." Alarm thrilled through me, fire alarms with all the fire trucks already gone. The nymph had something to do with time, indeed. She had reached back into Gruesome's personal past somehow, countering the fairies' compulsion spell and my own binding spell. I started to edge away. "Uh-you aren't really all that hungry, are you, Gruesome?"
"Plenty hungry," he assured me.
Frantically, I tried to remember that binding spell.
"But Goosum no eat Saw," he explained. "Maybe yummy, but friend. Saw save Goosum, Goosum save Saw. If eat, no have friend."
I heaved a sigh and began to relax a little. Gruesome had realized that you can't have your friends, and eat them, too. "I-I'm really glad you had that insight, Gruesome."
Gruesome shrugged, somewhere up above his face. "Food plenty. Friends few. People yummy, but deer yummy, too. And sheep and bunnies. Even fish." And, of course, there was no shortage of finny dinners in the vicinity. Cautiously, I asked, "Eaten any good fish lately?"
"Yuh!" The tongue came out to slurp again. "Big fish, big as Goosum! Fin in middle back, pointy nose, teeth like Goosum. Yummy!"
A shark? He had fought a shark and won? Talk about eat or be eaten!
And it had only made one lunch?
I decided to make sure Gruesome was with me if I wanted to go wading.
I looked up at the big guy, studying him closely. Yes, the hungry gleam was there, but so was something else - some deep-seated, total trust, some light of admiration. It hit me with a shock - Gruesome had me on a pedestal. To him, I could do no wrong.
I felt shaken. I also felt like running for the hills. When someone is that loyal to you, you have to be loyal to him, too. Friendship means responsibility. Friends mean commitment. I felt as if the quicksands were running, sucking me down.
Then I remembered that I was here because of a friend. With a shock, I realized that, somewhere along the line, I had let myself become committed. Okay, Matt might not have thought so, but apparently I had.
Well, no, it wasn't complete commitment. If I'd been mad at him, I wouldn't have hesitated to run out on him-if he weren't in trouble. Of course, Matt never made any demands on me when he wasn't in trouble, except for company, which was mutually agreeable. Come to that, he hadn't made any demands when he was in trouble, either this little excursion had been my own idea.
Suddenly, I realized that this big, ugly troll saw more virtue in me than I did - but I wasn't about to tell him his mistake. Instead, I felt humbled and unworthy, simply because a living creature could value me more than his own strongest instincts.
I was touched.
So, of course, I couldn't let him know about it. I stepped closer in spite of the rank aroma, reached up to slap his stony hide, and said, "Come on. I hereby release you from any compulsion to patrol the seacoasts looking for me. After all, you've found me, so that order doesn't apply anymore. Let's go find our friends."
But he balked. "Saw?"
"Yes, Gruesome?"
"Could make spell 'gain? Don't like hunger for friend." I swallowed, and agreed very quickly. I rattled off the spell - after all, if he wanted temptation removed, I wasn't about to argue. Of course, I still didn't believe in magic. I looked him up and down, frowning dubiously, The glint was still in his eye. "I don't think that worked."
"Oh, yuh! Yuh!" he assured me. "No feel hunger for Saw now. Ev'thing else, but not Saw!"
"Or our friends, either?" I figured I'd better run the spell twice more, with Frisson's and Gilbert's names, just to be sure. Then I reconsidered. I'd run the spells again - after we'd found them. The spur of hunger might help overcome the remains of Thyme's compulsion to stay on the coasts.
"Friends! Yuh!" Gruesome said, with enthusiasm. "Go to friends! Now!"
And he plowed off into the undergrowth, heading inland and going fast.
I hurried after him, rehearsing the spells under my breath. After all, if Gruesome thought his hunger for me had abated, then it had, right? The magic worked in his mind, not his stomach-but it worked. Who was I to argue?
I could imagine how it must have been - Thyme appearing out of the jungle foliage, clothed in nothing but a vague notion, and Gilbert turning bright red as he spun about to rid his eyes of a sight that kindled desire that threatened to overwhelm all his ideas of the noble life. Frisson, however, labored under no such handicap - he stared like a hooked fish, probably gulping like one, too, and drifted toward her like a zombie. Not terribly difficult to manage, either of them, no.
Would I be?
I had time to consider the answer as I followed Gruesome into the bush. It wasn't a jungle here-the Mediterranean isn't far enough south-but it was certainly a rain forest of a more temperate disposition. The trees and flowers were all familiar to my North American eyes, but there were a lot more vines that I was used to, winding around the trunks and hanging from the limbs. The underbrush left off after a dozen yards or so, but the soil sprouted flowers everywhere there was a patch of sunlight. Their perfume filled the air, stirring memories of late-night dates and feminine companions who let down their hair in more ways than one, and let down ... No. I clamped down on that thought hard, and thought about oranges with great intensity. Maybe it was just the landscape, or maybe it was an enchantment-autosuggestion? But in either case, Thyme was softening me up, getting me into a sensuous mood, preparing me for her appearance.