Page 10 of Of Monsters and Mazes

Above me, the sky was a wash of colors, more vividly pink and purple and orange than a California sunset, and hovering face down over the maze was a massive analog clock with seventy-two hours crammed into a single rotation of the wheel. A large hand pointed to the hours, a medium hand dragged it along with each passing minute, and a small hand ticked away every single second, crafting a melody of anxiety, constantly threatening me with the impending deadline.

But I wouldn’t fail. I’d survived and thrived in countless high pressure situations, and I’d never been one to turn down a challenge. While the parameters were extraordinary, so was my love for Pumpkin. Betrayed as I felt, my cat had been with me through thick and thin, comforting me and giving me strength at my lowest and hardest moments. He was the best fluff-nut and he still deserved the world. I would do everything in my power to assure I brought him home.

My only respite was knowing that, apparently, the two of them seemed to get along. Pumpkin had never been a good judge of character, but as long as he wasn’t scared, being starved, abused, traumatized, or mistreated, I could keep going and keep fighting.

My survey continued, and I attempted to memorize the corners and corridors of the stone wall maze with my eyes. Though time and again, every path seemed to hit a dead end at some point. Half of my view of the circular maze was hidden by the towering structure of the castle, and I had to consider that there could easily be traps or doors or tunnels I couldn’t see from this vantage point.

I refused to believe that there might not be a way through at all. Jericho seemed too playful for that. Too cocky. What fun would this be for him if he wasn’t actively besting me, after all. Men like that wanted to win because they were better than their opponents, not because they cheated.

How I’d gotten an almost noble impression of him, I really couldn’t explain.

With a sigh, I started looking for a way down the cliff. None of my analysis mattered if I couldn’t handle the first obstacle.

I crouched down and located the least steep portion of the jagged edge, where a good tug told me the tree at my side was secure and strong. I leveraged that stability to help myself down. A few more well-placed trees, jutting out of the side of the rock face, seemed like a good start for my descent.

I lowered myself down slowly, waiting until I had secure footing on the lateral arrangement of tree branches, before fully committing to the first step. I let go of the bark I’d been using as my lifeline, and I immediately hugged the branch of the new tree with everything I had. I listened for any sign the tree limb might be giving out under my weight, and I focused on any possible shifts in its stability that would tell me I needed to hurry.

When the branch proved secure, I exhaled and started planning out my next move. To my right was a steep but useable slope in the wall that could get me to another well placed tree. I could reach it with my toes and leverage myself from here to there, then another tree trunk, jutting out of the rock face, would be in easy scooting distance.

Fuck, this was going to take forever.

“It’s a little unfair to start the clock before I even get to your stupid maze, don’t you think?” I yelled into the air, hoping he would hear my bitterness loudly and clearly. The bark, the sticks, and the sparse leaves scratched at my skin as I hooked my elbow around the tree limb and stretched out my foot to the sloped rock about three feet below and beside me.

“You think so?”

The voice so suddenly in my ear made me jump, and I was quick to abort mission and koala myself back onto that safe and secure branch.

I glared up at Jericho, who was now sitting on the side of the cliff just overhead, kicking his feet like a girl reading a particularly sweet romance novel.

“What the fuck!” I heaved breaths in and out, trying to slow my spiked heart rate back to something further from a heart attack. “Jump scares while I’m literally climbing down a fucking cliff are a bull shit tactic to win this game.” I sneered up at him, and he shrugged.

“Oh? Are you easily startled, Fraulein?” That smirk filled me with pure hatred. “I thought you were ‘the boss.’ Sela Ariti: Vice President of Lazuli Studio, and mastermind behind the Den of Death franchise. A woman who has carved out a place in the world with nothing but force of will, who’s famously tough and cool under pressure. Is that not you?”

This motherfucker. His amusement as he recited a list of easily researchable fun facts only fueled my rage.

“This isn’t really a fair test of my ability to navigate stressful situations.” I growled back. “It also wasn’t fair to drug me, though I understand that you obviously didn’t think you could handle me conscious.”

Jericho’s laugh would have been charming if he wasn’t himself. “Even I know it takes time to tame a feral beast. Pumpkin is sitting happy and comfortable in a beautiful castle, because he’s already domesticated and house trained. You’re dangling off a cliff because you still need a lot of work.”

I gaped at him. Stunned. Fucking stunned. The audacity of this bastard. “Kidnapping an innocent cat to black mail me is also completely unfair, for the record.”

He tilted his head slightly to the side. The gesture seemed uncharacteristically cute and harmless. “You have so many opinions on what’s fair and what’s not. Maybe you should consider that the real problem is how you react to stimuli and not the existence of the stimuli itself.” Another nonchalant shrug made me want to punch him in his annoyingly pretty face.

“Right, because it’s my fault that you’re obsessed with me and transported me to hell. That’s totally on me.”

“You didn’t have to respond to my messages. If you’d ignored me, I wouldn’t have found you so very interesting.” His smile reflected in his emerald eyes, and the genuine happiness was nauseating. “Ignorance to the potential fallout does not excuse careless choices. Just because you hadn’t considered this scenario might be the immediate consequence, that doesn’t change the fact that your actions and desires are what got you here, Fraulein.”

My whole expression flattened, while I remained tense against the tree bark. “Come down here and say that when your face is in punching distance, asshole.”

Jericho lifted a finger and wagged it between us. “The difference between you and I is that I think things through. If I went down there and let you throw your cute little fist into my hardened, well-defined face, you would likely lose your balance, fall from the cliff, and die in a spectacular splatter of your bodily fluids. Your last act as a human would be watering my plants and feeding the forest scavengers with your flesh.” He sighed with exaggerated boredom. “While that would get the job done from a technical perspective, no part of that would serve or amuse me. I want you alive and struggling for as long as possible, because that amuses me.” He was practically sing song while talking about my violent death. “If you still get slaughtered in the end, that’s all well and good, but I only get to play this game once a year, so please make it count.”

“You keep calling this a game, but what does that even mean?” I tried next, hoping for some clarity on what exactly was happening here. While I’d come to accept the undeniable physical reality, specifically in the sense that this wasn’t the world I knew, and he was not a normal man, I was at a total loss as to what I’d actually been forced into.

“You have games on Earth, no?” Jericho asked coyly. I sighed, and he chuckled, then he continued without making me argue semantics. “Let me break it down for you then. I, Fraulein, am the King of the Realm.” He snapped his fingers, and the air seemed to distort around his head. Two large, circular horns appeared on each side of his skull, protruding from just above his temples and curling like a ram. The rounded pupils in his sparkling eyes narrowed into slits, and the canines in his mischievous grin extended into sharp fangs. His auburn hair grew a few extra inches, until it was an even more attractively shaggy mess, and his once business casual clothing was newly adorned with a corset vest, gemstones, and intricate patterns. He was both completely different and markedly the same. “Apologies. I should be speaking to you in my true form.”

“Wow. So you’re a psychopath, a stalker, an asshole, and a catfish?”

Though I’d have to admit, at least internally, that his so-called “true form” was… not worse. Not worse at all.