Casey spent the next few hours helping Simon put together a pack. Assuming the portal opened in the same place in his homeworld, Simon would need items that he could immediately trade for passage aboard a ship, plus whatever might allow him to start a new life as a scholarly man somewhere far from his own land and the Hunt.

  The first was easily accomplished with a handful of jewelry. For the latter, they stuffed a backpack with half a dozen scientifically-oriented textbooks, plus a Model T repair manual that Casey had found and Simon had been ecstatic to receive. He thought the detailed pictures and drawings would allow him to recreate a combustion engine in his world.

  Simon also gratefully accepted one of the mall ninja katanas from the display case by the cash register. They both suspected it wouldn’t survive an actual fight, but Simon said it was better than nothing — as a deterrent, if nothing else. A sword at his waist would make common troublemakers think twice, regardless of the steel quality or style of the blade.

  “You are incredibly generous.” Simon gave him another one of those long, searching looks as Casey added a few pairs of jeans and t-shirts, a sweater, and a down coat to the pile on the basement table. Their style would be odd, but Simon’s own clothes were rags.

  “Do I have something on my face?” Casey said teasingly.

  “No.” Simon reached out and rested a hand briefly on Casey’s arm. Then, his lips pressed into a thin line, he looked away, and folded a pair of jeans before stuffing them into the pack.

  Casey thought he'd be haunted by the memory of bright green eyes and long pale hair for the rest of his life. Some treacherous part of his brain, ruled by gonads, wondered what would happen if he tried to kiss Simon goodbye. That wasn’t and the intrusive thought left him feeling filthy.

  They had decided to open the portal in the basement, in the clear space in front of the roll-up door. He moved the table of toy trains and his drum set to the side, retrieved the book, and set it on a second table that they normally used to fold clothes. Then, voice hoarse with strong emotions, Casey said, “Simon, you be careful, you hear? Find yourself a safe place, go be your world’s Ben Franklin or something.”

  “Who?”

  “A famous inventor and politician from centuries ago, with a very snarky sense of humor.”

  “I shall try to live up to that standard.” Simon flashed him another one of his gorgeous smiles. Then, he lifted the pack up with a grunt and shrugged into the straps.

  “I guess I just say the spell.” Casey took a step back, took a deep breath, and focused on the spell. He couldn’t quite keep his voice from shaking or thoughts that he was making a terrible mistake in his head.

  The first thing that happened was that a brilliant, prismatic portal, lit with a full spectrum of colors, opened in the middle of the room. He squinted to see it. Reality around it, and flashes of another world were visible through the thinning barriers between the two worlds. Slowly, the light subsided, though it remained brightly colored. In the middle, it was darker, and he could make out a passage.

  Deep down, he had not expected it to work. One little haiku shouldn’t be enough to open a portal to another dimension.

  He took an alarmed step backward as his Gift went crazy with warnings. Something was wrong. Frustratingly, he saw no threat. The darkness rippled and distorted like water. Beyond that, he could see broad daylight and a green forest.

  “It should be early morning, my time. Almost exactly two days have passed here. The position of the sun looks like it is just before, or just after, noon." Simon frowned.

  “What does that mean?"

  “Either that time does not pass at the same rate between our worlds, or the portal has opened a great distance away from where I was last,” Simon mused. He looked back at Casey. “Thank you, Casey. Your kindness to me matters more than you know.”

  Simon started for the portal, but Casey had one last question. “Simon! What do I do with the Book of Needs? Should I destroy it?”

  Simon turned back to stare at him, horror on his face. “No! You cannot!”

  There was a movement among the trees beyond the portal. Simon must have seen Casey’s alarmed expression, for he reached for the sword even as he began a turn to face the unseen threat.

  Weighed down with a heavy backpack, Simon wasn’t fast enough. His back was still to the portal when shot into the electric light of the basement. It had too many teeth, claws, and bloodshot orange eyes.

  The beast seized onto Simon’s backpack, sending the man sprawling helplessly to the floor. Fabric tore and paper flew as it savaged it. Simon, attached by the shoulder straps, was helpless to escape. He snarled threats and fought back with desperation, swinging the sword backward in a futile attempt to connect with the monster.

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  Someone was screaming like a little girl. Casey realized was the screamer only when he gasped for breath, and the noise stopped.

  Simon and the rolled across the floor, the pack still between them. Casey dodged, and they crashed into the table of trains, sending everything skidding into the wall and bits flying. Some collided with his drum set with a terrible racket, but he didn’t even have time to worry about damage. The Book of Needs hit the floor with a flutter of pages. The same chair that Avery had used as a weapon tipped over backward.

  Casey scrambled out of the way as the monster’s tail lashed wildly. He tripped over the Book, hit the ground hard, lunged aside, and put his hand on the back of the chair purely by accident.

  Simon was still shouting. He wasn’t sure the man was using words anymore, but his voice had far more rage than fear.

  Casey scrambled back upright, chair in his hands. He swung, aiming for the thing’s eyes. Terror and adrenaline gave him strength.

  The chair connected with enough force that the wood splintered into pieces. It let go of Simon’s pack, spun about, and charged. Casey grabbed the table and flung it between them.

  The creature tried to jump to the top of the table, and the legs broke. The beast’s momentum was so great that it flipped completely over and skidded back first into the wall. The remnants of the table flew in the other direction, into the door, with enough force to knock it ajar. Outside, a snow-laden wind howled, catching the door and slamming it all the way open against the side of the building.

  There was nothing between Casey and the monster now, and he saw his death in the creature's baleful stare as it rose onto two legs like a man. It resembled no naturally evolved creature, with its scaled skin, the warped head of a lizard, and the body and binocular vision of a hairless monkey. He could smell its carrion-foul breath from several feet away.

  Simon darted between Casey and the monster with a scream of pure rage. Two-handed, while still wearing the mangled backpack, he swung the sword full force at the monster’s neck.

  The monster ducked aside at the last second, and the blade slammed into its shoulder without evident damage. It screeched, a high and unnatural sound like metal grinding on metal, and then it bolted outside.

  Simon finally shed the backpack and ran outside. Casey, a bit slower and shaking from shock, followed.

  The monster charged across the driveway, sending snow flying. Simon pursued it through the knee-deep snow, but it quickly outdistanced him. For a moment, it was visible on the hillside behind the shop. Then, it disappeared over the ridge.

  “What the fuck was that?” Casey demanded.

  “Hellbeast. Apparently, I am not the halfling the spell referred to. Hellbeasts were human, once, though they were long ago twisted with the darkest of magic to the type of mindless creature that you saw," Simon said. He was breathing hard. He turned and limped back to the shop, where the Book of Needs was open on the floor. “Fuck. I hit it with the dull side of the sword. I’m not used to this type of blade, and it caught me completely by surprise.”

  “Ah. The sakabato school of swordsmanship. I think you bent it.”

  Simon eyed the now-crooked sword, then laid it on the floor, planted a foot on the end, and tugged upward. Casey froze, expecting the blade to break, with potentially injurious results. It didn’t, though, by the way Simon’s jaw was set and his face averted to the side, he seemed worried too. He paused from yanking on the hilt to say, in a sour tone, “Decorative, you said?”

  “Yeah. I think that one’s supposed to look like the sword wielded by a fictional immortal man who ran around lopping the heads off other immortals to get their power.”

  “A replica of a villain’s sword?" Simon looked at the blade with sudden distaste. "I am not superstitious, but—”

  “No, he was a good guy. The ones he killed were bad guys. Mostly, anyway."

  Simon looked a little relieved. Having more-or-less fixed the blade, he now addressed the Book directly, “We asked you to send me . We did not a hellbeast. You're only supposed to give us things we ."

  “Is that creature dangerous?” Casey asked.

  Simon gave him an incredulous look, with one eyebrow arched high.

  Casey clarified, "I mean, is it dangerous to anyone else? Will it attack people?"

  “Very, and yes,” Simon said. “It will try to kill and eat anything that moves until it is stopped.”

  “Then we need to stop it. I can go buy a gun, I guess. I’m, like, the only person in the whole of the Rim Country, other than Avery, who have one.”

  Simon shook his head. Casey wondered briefly if Simon's world had guns. His next words confirmed they did. “Shot won’t stop it immediately. Like a snake, it will keep moving long after a mortal wound. It must be beheaded and dismembered to end the threat. The best option is a blade.”

  “Wonderful. I do have a machete in the store that might work better than that sword. Sorry, I didn’t think of it before. It’s in with the gardening supplies, not the weapons.” Monster slaying had never been one of his life goals. He didn't even like to squish roaches with a shoe. He was beginning to suspect he might not be very good at it — had he not thought of the machete?

  “We need to pursue it quickly before it finds human prey. The way this snow falls, there is no time to delay. The tracks will be hidden within the hour.” Simon took a hobbling step. “We are not dressed for this weather."

  “How badly are you hurt?” Casey demanded.

  “I’m ...” Simon probably wanted to deny he was injured, but he flinched and pressed a hand to his head. The geas compelled him to admit, “I twisted my ankle in the fight. It is an old injury that is easily aggravated.”

  “Sit down,” Casey said firmly, as he grabbed an unbroken chair.

  Simon’s mouth pressed together in a thin line, but it wasn’t until Casey knelt on the floor next to him and pulled his boot off, revealing a mildly swollen ankle, that he realized that he’d given the man an order that he had no choice but to obey. Simon’s expression clearly indicated that he disagreed with Casey.

  That was quickly followed by the thought that he hadn’t been able to send Simon home. The book seemed to have deliberately screwed with them, which made him very wary of trying anything with it again.

  Simon was stuck here.

  With him.

  A geasbound thrall.

  He to treat the man better.

  But first, they had a monster to kill.