Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 598(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
He also had horns—curling ram’s horns that were rooted on either side of his broad forehead. But not even the horns could distract me from his eyes—they were black. Not just the pupils or the irises—I mean all of them—the entire eye socket was just filled with endless midnight.
The sight nearly scared me to death. Besides being a voracious reader, I’m also a big fan of horror movies. And I had seen enough of those to know that when you encounter a being that has pure black eyes like that, they are absolutely evil through and through. Usually they’re either a demon or possessed by a demon—either way it’s not a good scenario for the hapless person who happens to run into them.
Only I never expected that hapless person to be me.
For a moment I just stared at this strange and frightening face and then it—or he—spoke.
“Yes,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice. “She’ll do nicely.”
Was it my imagination or did he have a British accent? Was he a demon from the UK? Or some other monster who just happened to sound extremely civilized—like he might offer you a cup of tea before he gutted you?
A new voice cut into my wild speculation—a high, piping voice like a character in a kid’s film.
“An excellent choice, Overlord! A very fine specimen of a La-ti-zal!”
Wrong genre! I thought numbly. This is horror—definitely not family-friendly!
“I shall take her—she will make an excellent pet,” the male with the midnight black eyes rumbled.
“Acknowledged, Your Eminence. Beginning Transfer Sequence,” the second, higher voice remarked.
And then the whirling colors returned, bringing with them a howling wind that seemed to suck at me like a giant industrial strength vacuum cleaner.
I found my voice at last.
“Hey, wait—no!” I gasped, trying to pull back.
But it was too late—I was being sucked into the swirling vortex in the mirror and I wasn’t nearly strong enough to stop myself.
My last memory was of hearing Princess Prissy yapping in the tub and thinking that Great Aunt Maizy was going to have a hell of a time getting the dog shit out of that expensive Vera Wang gown…
And then I was sucked into the mirror, away from Earth and out of my old life forever.
TWO
ELLI
When I opened my eyes and looked around, I realized three things. One—I was freezing cold. At first, I thought that was because I was sitting on an icy metal floor. But then I realized thing number two which was that I was completely naked. And then thing number three—I was not alone.
Standing over me were two beings—I say beings, not people because at that point both of them seemed completely alien. The first one was a dark blue worm thing with what seemed like about a hundred arms that ended in razor-sharp claws. It had googly eyes on long stalks that swiveled to survey me.
All that sounds scary and it was, but at least the blue millipede-worm thing was only about three feet tall, which was not the case for the second being looming over me.
The second being was the face I had seen in the mirror—the evil but civilized demon with the full-black eyes and a British accent. But what the mirror hadn’t shown me was how big he was.
He was taller than a professional basketball player and bigger than a professional wrestler—in fact, if my estimate was right, he was at least nine feet or three meters tall.
What I’m trying to say is that he was a freaking giant—we’re talking Goliath from the Bible proportions. And yes, I was scared to death.
But as frightened as I was, I couldn’t help noticing that he was a well-dressed giant. He had on tight black trousers tucked into tall black boots so big I probably could have lived in one, like the Old Woman who lived in the Shoe. He was also wearing a crisp white shirt that looked to be made of some kind of linen. It had long sleeves, immaculate cuffs, and a rounded collar. It looked a little like something a businessman would wear on Earth, I thought numbly. Over the shirt the gray giant wore a kind of long maroon vest that hung down almost to his boots. But it seemed to be cut oddly and was only long on the sides and short in the back—from what I could see, anyway.
Enough about the gray giant’s fashion sense, though—he was still freaking huge and I was still freaking terrified.
“Who are you? Where am I? What do you want with me? Why am I here?”
The questions came pouring out of my mouth as I scrambled to my feet and started backing away, while trying to cover my goodies with my arms. They say you don’t know how you’re going to react to a life-threatening situation until you are actually in one. Will you freeze, fight, or flee? My response was apparently to play twenty questions.