“What are you doing here?” I ask, my mind replaying the moment General Mannix put a gun to his head over and over again. Pink spray, bits of bone and brain, the way his body slumped forward. I back up another step because, no matter how many times I tell myself that this is really, truly happening, it’s a strange pill to swallow. People who die do not get back up. That’s reality.
“I’ve been sent as a concert,” Stryker says, and then pauses, frowning. He reaches up to rub at his forehead, and I take note of the green star mark located beneath his dark bangs. The sunlight catches it, and for the briefest of seconds, it seems to wink at me. “No, no, wait, that’s not right …” He pauses again, staring at the floor while I stare back at him.
He really is alive, I think as I fist my fingers in Taavi’s fur. He had his brains blown out and he’s fucking alive.
“Not a concert,” Stryker says again, moving over to the table full of food and picking through the fruit with matte-black nails. “A convert? No, that’s not it either.”
“You’re scaring me,” I admit, moving a bit closer to him. His ebon-black hair hangs down on either side of his face, still shiny and sliding like silk over his shoulders. His skin looks good, too, a nice, bright healthy bronze. Still, I can’t get over the look in his eyes, this glassy, almost detached expression at odds with the sharp wit and intelligence I witnessed over the past few days.
“Consort!” he shouts finally, putting a piece of bright pink fruit in his mouth. “I’ve been sent here to be your consort which might turn out to be a very difficult task seeing as I’ve forgotten how to have sex.”
“Um … say what?” I ask, trying to blink through my confusion. Taavi and I exchange a look. I’d give fucking anything to hear his commentary on this shit right now. “First off, what do you mean you’re here to be a consort? Second … you’ve forgotten how to have sex?”
Stryker smiles at me, sliding another piece of fruit into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully.
“Consort, consort, consort,” he says, looking up at the ceiling in thought. “My job is to have sex with you, if you want me to. Also, I can give you a baby that you get to keep, no deals, no magic trades. That’s what Dorothy said.”
My jaw is very likely hanging off the bottom of my face as I gape at him.
“Dorothy sent you here?” I clarify as Stryker loads a small plate with cakes and then moves over to the window, looking out at the arena with a pinched brow.
“I was here before, once. I think …” He trails off and then looks over at me, still smiling in this absent, distant sort of way. “Let me know if you want to have sex; I’m sure I’ll remember how if I just try.”
“You’re under a spell or something, right?” I ask, because I just can’t quite grasp what I’m seeing here. It’s like he’s … brainless or something. Just like the scarecrow in the original book. My jaw clenches and I look down at Taavi again. But without shifting, there’s only so much he can tell me with two swiveling ears and a lowered tail.
“Well, I was shot in the head,” Stryker says, frowning again. “I think. Anyway, it takes a while for a wizard to regenerate after an accident. I mean, I’ve been told it does. For a few days, I might be a bit slow.”
The blood drains from my face as the crowd outside the skybox goes wild, cheering and shouting, tossing handfuls of green rice into the arena. Even without the goggles on, much of the shit around here really is green.
“It’s like my head is filled with straw, instead of brains,” he clarifies, as if I haven’t already gotten the picture. My mouth tightens into a thin line as I look to my right, at the massive green doors with the image of a floating fireball on them, a rectangle of emeralds creating a border around the outside edges.
They open and Dorothy herself appears, surrounded by little glowing balls that remind me of the fairy Bain keeps in his hat. As she walks, they keep her long hair and the train of her dress from dragging across the ground.
I turn back to Stryker, but he’s smiling and stuffing his face with cakes like nothing is wrong.
So much is.
I swallow a lump in my throat as two orbs in the front corners of the room light up and Dorothy’s voice fills the space as easily as speakers would back home.
“Citizens of Oz,” she calls out after taking a front row seat in one of the upper levels of the stadium. General Mannix stands on her right side, wearing the same uniform I saw in the forest, that deadly metal hand of his covered with a white glove. “Today, we commence the two-hundredth session of the Ruby Trials in our desperate search for a champion, one worthy enough to defend the great country of Central against the wickedness of the cardinal witch in the West.”
