Undraland books 7 9 bund.., p.33
Undraland Books 7-9 Bundle, page 33
I brought Jamie to his knees without remorse. He held his temples and let out a cry of agony. “Stop it! Stop it!”
“I warned you! I have no limits when it comes to Linus. Nothing is too far! No fight is too big! Now back up, all of you!”
It was a side of me only Jens had seen, and he’d witnessed the PG version of what I was capable of. Getting a teacher fired for messing with my brother was nothing. That was all just for insulting Linus. This was quite literally life or death.
Tucker moved to Jamie’s side. “You can’t mess with him, Lucy! I have to keep him safe, but I can’t if you’re the one in his head. Leave him be!”
“My brother. My terms. No one touches Linus except for me.”
Foss glanced behind him toward the village. “What are you going to do when the Nøkken go about their day and come out here to find Queen Lucy holding a dead body? What then? Threaten us all you want, but you can’t ignore that.”
Foss had a fair point, so he earned a vicious glare. “We can rent a room at the nearest tavern and take Linus inside to wait it out. Know this: where I go, Linus goes, so don’t even think about separating us.”
Jens couldn’t even look at me clutching the lifeless Linus, so Foss took charge. “Fine. Let’s put him on the lid. We can use it like a stretcher to carry him back. One of the Toms’ll have to vanish him, though. We can’t just walk around Nøkken with a dead body.”
“Fine. But only the Tom touches him. No one else. And they vanish me, too, so I can see his body no matter what.”
Foss nodded. “Are you going to put him on the lid, or do you want me to?”
“Touch Linus and die,” I seethed, standing up to drag Linus to the lid that lay on the grass a few feet away. He was taller than me – a solid six feet. His dark blond hair was still short around the sides and the back, but had just enough on top to look messy if he wore a baseball cap. He’d refused chemo toward the end, causing his hair to start growing back.
When I’d affixed Linus in place, I took a moment to really look at him. Laid out like this, he looked merely asleep, his cheeks almost rosy under the sun’s glow.
A slight breeze sifted through his dirty hair.
There was a twitch. I’d been so focused on his face that I’d only caught it in my periphery, so I couldn’t tell where exactly the movement originated.
“Nobody move!” I stopped breathing when something base and soul-like inside of me shifted.
I knew that feeling.
Linus was lit by the full glow of the morning sun, and for the life of me, I couldn’t explain the fullness in his face that seemed to be growing in millimeters every minute I stared, transfixed. “Jens!” I gasped, waving him forward. Jens was by my side in the next second, willing Linus back to life right along with me. “Look at his face. It was gray and thin before, right?”
Jens studied Linus’s cheeks just as they plumped out by another degree. “I... Did you see that?” He went from Doubting Thomas to a kid on Christmas Eve in a hot second, pawing at me and shaking my shoulder in fearful excitement as he refused to take his eyes off Linus. “I saw something! I saw something move! Lucy!”
I nodded, too afraid to say anything more, lest I scare the progress away. When something that looked unmistakably like a breath moved through Linus’s chest, Jens fell to his knees and gripped my hand. “Linus? Can you hear me?”
The others approached cautiously and crowded above him, taking turns making noises of shock as they pointed out stark differences that were slowly morphing Linus back into my brother.
Then the progress slowed before it came to a stop. I connected the dots with alarm in my tone. “It’s the sun! You’re blocking the sun! He started to regenerate after the sun came out! Move! Everyone, back up!”
They fell away like bowling pins clattering to the ground. The mirrored look of shock painted each of their faces as Linus’s chest began to move in a steady rhythm that could only be described as breathing. “Linus!” Jens called, now frantic.
I watched my brother’s ankles thicken with strength that had been stolen from him toward the end of things. This wasn’t just Linus back from the dead; this was Linus as he would’ve been without the cancer.
I shrieked when the ankles I’d been studying shifted downward as his head moved upward. Linus was... growing? “What’s happening? Did anyone just see that?”
Jamie’s mouth was agape. “Did he just get taller? Am I imagining things?”
A whimper escaped my lips when his dark blond hair mutated with the grace of a painter’s brush to a light chestnut color. It was now closer to my dad’s shade than anything else.
Jens clutched my hand, and I honestly thought I might faint right at the good part. Just when I thought my heart might implode in my chest, the impossible happened.
Linus turned his head toward me and opened his hazel eyes.
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Linus at Large
Book Nine in the Undraland Series
An Undraland: Blood Novel
By
Mary E. Twomey
Copyright © 2015 Mary E. Twomey
Cover Art by Humble Nations
Author Photo by Lisabeth Photography
All rights reserved.
First Edition: January 2016
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
ISBN-13: 978-1522773214
ISBN-10: 1522773215
For more information:
www.maryetwomey.com
DEDICATION
For my brothers, Bruce and Brian.
There is nothing I would not do.
And for Vin Diesel,
Who I’m hoping is a good sport.
If not, I’m pretty sure my muscles are bigger.
I mean, I can lift like, fifty pounds.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This series would not have happened without the following walking miracles:
Bailey Soper and Ruth Gross,
Who edited this entire monster of a series and pretended that I wasn’t inconveniencing them by begging for their genius and their red pens.
The Write Club and the Powerhouse Summit,
Whose critiques, marketing advice and friendship catapulted me into a nine-part series I’m not sure I was ready for at the time.
Man, you guys make a great safety net.
Jen Like and Jason Dandy,
Who sat for hours at various coffee bars and restaurants across from me, building worlds out of bricks that actually held. Thanks for listening to my crazy, and encouraging me to put it into print.
My Wombats,
I have the best fanbase on earth, Undraland, the Moon, and beyond. Thank you for writing in to tell me what these books mean to you. Thank you for reviewing them online, and declaring your love of these books to your friends. You each deserve your own candy-dispensing rocket ship.
(I can’t actually buy you each one of those, but you so deserve one. Also, I think the ability to dispense candy is the one thing rocket ships are missing. I should probably let NASA know. Hold on, let me find my phone...)
One.
Hazel
When I was in grade school, I hated the color of my eyes. While hazel looks great on lots of people, the popular girl in the fourth grade at the school in Connecticut was blonde with bright blue eyes. I got over it and eventually stopped caring about things like pretty (which was doubly enforced by this trek spent mostly sleeping on the ground and bathing using splashes of water from an old basin or a river). But when my long-dead twin brother finally opened his eyes, I had never been more grateful to see the identical hazel staring back at me. It was the most beautiful color I’d ever seen. It was my brother, and I was home.
Actually, I was in Undraland. Nøkken, to be exact. We were in the grass next to the river Nik had died in, the lush greenery of Nøkken nothing compared to the sight of my brother.
Though it was my brother, he looked different. Somehow when I’d poured his soul into his mouth (don’t get me started explaining that long story), a slow change began morphing his body to look more Undran than his original one. He was taller now, easily as tall as Jamie. His blond hair that had been just a shade darker than mine mutated to a chestnut brown I couldn’t stop staring at. His chemo-deteriorated body that had been a bony shell when he’d died was now strong and well-kept.
But the eyes – the eyes were still his, and thus, were mine.
Jens was gentle as he and Jamie helped Linus to sit up on the slab of wood that had served as a stretcher. It was actually the lid to the coffin my brother had been buried in, and still had dirt caked in the crevices.
I wanted to help. Heck, I wanted to jump up and down screaming that my brother was back. I couldn’t move. So long had I been carrying my torch alone that suddenly having my other half reunited to me was a shock to my system I couldn’t compute. My brain was stuck on white noise.
Linus was blinking, turning his head to the left and right to size up the situation he’d awoken in. When his hazel eyes fell on me, there was the light of recognition I’d been holding my breath for. “Lucy? Are we dead?”
In the next heartbeat, my mouth dropped open, and I fainted. I collapsed on the grass in a pile of ungraceful limbs before anyone could catch me. I don’t actually recall the descent there, but suffice to say, I hit the ground with a thud – Jamie following soon after. Stupid laplanding bond.
I awoke some amount of time later to utter chaos. My body was floating, resting in Tucker’s arms as he stood in the corner of a room. My head was lolling over the crook of his arm, my mouth open like a guppy. The dingy inn was decorated in sailor garb, complete with a rusted anchor hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier. But I didn’t see any of it really; my only focus was Linus.
“Calm down, Linus! You have to take a breath! She’s alright; she just fainted, is all.” Jens was shouting as he gripped a thrashing Linus in a bear hug from behind.
“Get your perv hands off her, you dick!”
Tucker shot back, “At least get to know me first before calling out my true colors. Your sister knows exactly how perverted my hands can be, and she doesn’t mind one bit.” His smile was evil. “In fact, your sister’s seen all of me, and keeps coming around. Can’t. Get. Enough.”
This, of course, made Linus attack with renewed vigor, but Jens and Foss were ready. “Not helping, Tuck!” Jens glared at Tucker as he and Foss fought to restrain the man who was far stronger than he should have been. Luckily, Jens had recently been enhanced by his trip down to the bottom of the river in Nøkken, where he asked Havard, the Will o’ the Wisp, for the ability to be the best guard I could ask for. Havard had delivered, thank goodness. Linus was a little scary with the much larger muscles, swinging his fists around while still clad in his filthy hospital gown.
I made to stand on my own, but Tucker was careful with me, only allowing me enough motion so I didn’t swoon and lose it again. My feet tapped back on the floor, but Tucker’s arm stayed wrapped around my back. The tool of a fire elf maintained eye contact with Linus when he lowered his face to my cheek and brushed his lips against me, taking his time to draw out the tease and pucker his lips on the skin there. “You feeling better, love?”
Foss growled at the elf. “Shut up, slave!”
I didn’t answer Tuck; he didn’t need more than the annoyed swat I gave his cheek. With my mouth wide open and my limbs unsteady, I moved away from the shameless playboy and took a hesitant step toward my raging brother. I mouthed his name, eyes like a deer in stadium lights (headlights would have been too small a simile for the shock that was still rolling through me).
“Jens, let me go, you jag!” He snarled at Foss, “And who the smack are you? Back up off me, man!”
Jens tightened his hold. “If we let go right now, you’ll knock her clean over. You have to calm down, and I’ll let you go.”
Linus struggled in vain a few more times before he consented to ceasing his fight. He held up his hands, breathing like a race horse, our eyes locked in on each other. “I’m cool. See? I’m cool.”
Jens waited a few more seconds for safety’s sake before releasing Linus.
It was a crash, a crush and a hug that collected all the cells in my body and shook them up like a baby rattle. My world was upside down and finally, finally, right side up. “Is it... Is it you? Am I dreaming?” I knew that when words found me, they would be all the wrong ones. He didn’t feel or smell like Linus, but the click inside me was there. Something in me that had been broken slid back into its hinges, mending my shattered psyche by an unfathomably necessary degree.
“Of course it’s me. Are we dead? Is this dead? It’s not Heaven. Not Hell. Where are we?”
“Undraland,” I said, my voice coming out high pitched and strained. “You were dead, but I found you. You’re back. I got you back!” At this, the tears I was shocked had not started earlier began to shoot out of me. “I got you back!”
His tears were almost as steady as mine, wetting my hair and mixing with the emotion on my cheeks. “I remember dying. I remember the machines in the hospital. That stupid beeping that got slower and slower. I remember it all getting dark, and then I couldn’t feel you anymore.” He closed his eyes as he squeezed me harder than I could handle and still breathe, so I made the logical choice and stopped breathing rather than end the embrace.
It was worth it.
Jamie gasped as he came to on the bed. “Can’t... breathe!”
Jens tapped Linus on the shoulder. “Ease up, Line. You’re a lot stronger than you remember. You’re hurting her.”
Linus loosened his grip just enough to allow my ribs the space to contract. “I felt you gone, and it was awful. It was nothing. I’ve felt nothing and been nowhere for... how long? Was I really dead?”
I was useless for information. Let’s face it, since Linus opened his eyes, mine only saw him and processed precious little else.
Jens intervened. “You’ve been dead for two years. We dug you out of the ground and Lucy brought you back.”
Jamie fished around in his bag and pulled out a spare set of clothing. “Here. You might feel more like yourself in these. You can even wash up in the corner over there.”
Linus was reluctant to release me, but the promise of a bath and fresh clothing could not be ignored. “Thanks, man. Who the smack are you?”
Jamie chuckled at how similar Linus sounded to me. “I’m Jamie, but none of that matters right now. Go wash up. There’ll be plenty of time for the rest of us later. Lucy deserves to be with her brother.”
A light of recognition flickered over Linus’s features, and I loved how easy he made it to watch his brain play out on his face. “Jamie. Prince Jamie from Tonttu?” He extended his unsteady hand with a hesitant grin. “Jens’s best friend. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Jamie beamed. “Likewise. The famous Linus Kincaid. I knew I’d take one look at you and see a brother.”
Linus looked taken aback at the genuine kindness that was Jamie. His mouth opened and then closed, and then he nodded. “Well, alright then. I guess Jens wasn’t exaggerating about how cool you are.” He took the clothes. “Thanks for this.”
Linus left my side to go behind the partition, and a swoon hit me again. “I need to sit down.” I’d never been a fainter, but these were extreme circumstances.
Jens had his hand on my elbow, guiding me to the nearest chair and lowering me into it. “Tuck, could you grab us some fruit or something? Lucy needs some sugar. Actually, we haven’t eaten in who knows how long. Could you just order a crap ton of food for the whole lot of us?”
Tucker made an under the breath comment about being reduced to an errand boy, but decided upon being helpful so his charge didn’t pass out on the floor again. Jamie sat down on the bed, just in case.
“It’s real,” I whispered to Jens, whose nose was an inch from mine. “We did it. Linus is back. He... I... Linus!”
Jens nodded, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry we tried to bury him. You were right on this. I was wrong.” He kissed my lips once, and then leaned his forehead to mine with his eyes closed. “We did it.”
Foss had been silent, taking in magic he had never thought possible. He brought me a canteen, and when I took it, he caught my eye. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it could happen. I’d follow you across oceans, but I doubted you. Unforgiveable.”
“I don’t know how much I believed me,” I admitted. “But Linus. I mean, it’s real, right?” Then a fear stronger than reality punched me in the face with its power to rock my world. “Am I in the cell? Am I imagining this? Jamie?” I looked past Jens and Foss to find my buddy. “Jamie!”
He moved from the bed to stand at my other side so I was completely boxed against the wall in my chair by the three. “It’s real,” Jamie confirmed in a gentle voice. “I saw him. I touched his hand. Linus is real. We’re not in the cell.” He reached down and picked up my hand. “See? You can touch me. That couldn’t happen in the cell.”
Linus came out from behind the partition sparkling clean in new clothes and with a brilliant smile on his face. He was a sight for sore eyes, and when my tired eyes met his, I breathed. It was real. I couldn’t imagine the freaky twin pull I now felt that had been muted for two years. Jamie and Jens were connected to my heart, but Linus was a tug in my gut.
With all the swagger in the world, Linus draped himself down on the nearest empty chair. “So, other than yet another sponge bath, what’d I miss?”
