“The Vain and Arrogant?” I ask, raising a brow as I study the man walking beside me in dirtied brown boots and blue slacks. Seeing him peel his own skin off was disturbing enough, but then he shed his pants, and stripped the flesh off his own cock … That was too much for me. I looked away.
“Every wizard has a title, Oz, the Great and Terrible,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders, pausing to pluck an apple from a tree. Stryker polishes it off on his jacket and then takes a bite. When I go to reach for an apple myself, Taavi grabs my wrist and pulls it away, handing me a piece of fruit from inside the duffel bag instead.
“You know who I am?” I ask, lifting a brow as Taavi snarls, baring his teeth at the newcomer.
“Fairies do talk, and I’ve been in that field for an awful long time.” Stryker takes another bite of the apple with his too-white teeth, and then turns to flash a grin at me. “You dropped a house on the Wicked Witch, huh? That’s clever, I must say.”
“What’s clever is how you peeled burned skin off and now you look like … well, that.” I gesture at his handsome form with no small amount of skepticism. The man just peeled his own skin off. I mean come on, that’s about as weird as it gets.
“A very carefully constructed spell,” Stryker says, finishing off his apple and then casually chucking the core over the fence. The scarecrows swarm it, swiping at one another until one of them swallows it whole. I shiver. He glances down at me, gold eyes brimming with mischief. “I’d tell you all about it, but a smart wizard never reveals his secrets.”
“A smart wizard would realize we saved his life, and that he owes us the information he promised. Putting yourself on the wrong side of Oz, the Great and Terrible, isn’t a very good idea.” Taavi slows his pace just enough for us to catch up.
We’ve been walking for a few hours now, right to the edge of evening. It’ll be full dark soon, and if those creepy zombie scarecrows are any indication, bad things come out at night.
Hopefully, we can find somewhere safe to sleep.
The road’s beginning to roughen, and the walking’s been getting so difficult that I’m starting to stumble over the yellow bricks. The path here is uneven, with bricks broken or missing altogether. The farms on the left side of the road aren’t nearly so well cared for like they were farther back. There are fewer houses, fewer fruit trees, and the more we walk, the more dismal and downright creepy the country becomes.
“Oz, the Great and Terrible,” Stryker says with a long sigh, the left side of his face covered in swirling black ink. His hair is longer in the front, shorter in the back. And when I say long, I mean long. While his bangs are feathered across his forehead, the hair on either side of his face falls nearly to his knees. Pretty sure it started growing the moment he peeled his skin off, and it’s kept at it since. “There are few sorcerers left in Oz, even fewer wizards. While your name sounds familiar, I can quite easily say we’ve never met.” He smiles at me, and it’s not in a very nice way. Lewd might be a more appropriate term. “If we had, I’d remember.”
“You’re demanding information from us?” Taavi asks, giving the wizard a look that could curdle milk. “When you have yet to offer us any answers to our own questions? That’s quite bold. If you’re not willing to elaborate, then you may as well find your way. We didn’t ask for you to travel with us.”
“Is your guardian always such a monster to deal with?” Stryker asks, addressing me instead of Taavi. “I’d never allow my own to speak in such a manner.”
“And where, exactly, is yours?” I ask, giving Taavi a look. I’m not going to let this guy walk all over us, but he did just peel his own skin off. I’m interested; I want to know more.
“Mm, that’s a question worth asking, certainly.” Stryker exhales and stretches his arms above his head, reveling in the freedom of movement. I wonder how long he was stuck up there like that? Or how long he might’ve survived if we hadn’t come along. “A Wizard without a guardian is bound to be bound, am I right?” He gives me a look, like this is a joke I should totally get.
Instead, I just cock a brow, and he sighs.
“If it’s worth asking, then it’s worth answering,” Taavi remarks with a curled lip.
“No sense of humor between the two of you. I figured that at the very least, the pretty wizard girl might have some.” Stryker gives me a once-over and smiles that come-hither smile of his again. A small flutter starts up in my lower belly, but I ignore the look, and he sighs. “Alright, fine. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that Stryker, the Vain and Arrogant, doesn’t help his fellow wizards. What do you want to know?”
