Exchange

by Katherine Rhodes

  “Kio mux’ sri’i.” She is ours.

  Lily walked up next to me, and stared at the creature. “Kio mux’ sri’i, ourfich tikanadich ep Ausviru Serandrijkrozh.” She is ours, in the service of Lord Morningstar.

  “Quili ‘urgij.” Little bug.

  Lily pulled up and stood tall staring at him. “Ausviro Serandrijkrozh.”

  Lady Morningstar.

  Why was my brain able to translate a language I’d never ever heard before. I couldn’t even identify the language—but I knew exactly what was said.

  I saw the creature draw up and freeze as he was about to drop the hammer again. It was probably the only chance I would get to take the hammer away, and I swung like I was standing in front of Sandy Koufax waiting for his fast ball.

  The flame sword sliced through the demon’s wrists like they weren’t even there. The hammer fell to the ground with a soul-shocking reverberation, and still had the hands attached.

  The demon started to howl, long, loud, and terrible. In what looked like a move they had practiced a thousand times, the massive, more-than-human forms of my best friends brought their own flaming weapons to bear on him. The blades met with a resounding crash—in the middle of his neck.

  I screamed and jumped back as his awful head rolled forward and crashed to the ground in front of me, spewing his hot, black blood everywhere.

  “Take the hammer!” Lily said, pushing me towards it. “Grab it and bring it over to Ellie!”

  “The fuck? I can’t lift that!”

  Miriam, winking suddenly back into the white-blonde and blue-eyed woman I knew, laughed and yelled, “You’re worthy! Grab it!”

  Thor. At the end of a battle with a demon spawned from Hell. Great. But, since I had sliced the damn demon’s hands off before his decapitation, there had to be something important about that hammer. I took strides back to it and wrapped my good hand around it.

  It was actually light. I plucked the useless, dead hands of the demon off and hefted it. It seemed to flicker and became more of a reasonable size as I tossed it on my shoulder.

  “Now what?”

  Lily jerked her head over to where Ellie was laying on the ground, curled into a fetal ball, red faced and panting. All I wanted to do in that instant was pick her up and hold her to me.

  “Laxmi, stand back with me,” Lily said, grabbing her arm. I noticed she was also back to the woman I was familiar with. “Miriam…”

  Miri nodded and knelt with me next to Ellie. She put a hand on my arm and gave me a tentative smile. “I’m sorry. You can see that this was way more complicated than just telling you.”

  “Plainly,” I snapped. I forced myself to take a deep breath. I was not normally someone who acted on anger.

  Miriam put her hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “Elutheria. Come on, look at us.”

  She unclenched a bit, and turned her eyes toward us.

  “This is yours,” I said, holding out the hammer. “Or so I’ve been told.”

  “How is that going to stop the pain?” she gasped.

  Miriam leaned forward. “Do you trust me?”

  Ellie nodded, just once, the pain clear on her face.

  “Take it, Ellie,” she said. “It’s not going to make anything easier, but it’s going to stop the pain and answer a whole lot of questions you have right now.”

  “She’s not the only one,” I mumbled. “Go on, Ellie. Grab it. Let’s see if they’re right about it.”

  Glancing at Miriam, she reached a tentative hand out to wrap her fingers around the hammer’s handle. As she did, Miriam wrapped her hand around it, managing to hold mine in place and not let go.

  “Born of Earth, meant for Hell, claimed by the armies of El, this child now is made guardian, for the safety of all life.”

  I knew she wasn’t speaking English again, but all I heard were the meanings of the words. I was so tired and worn out from all that had been going on, I didn’t even fight it or get upset.

  I did, however, get upset when Ellie screamed as some twisted light erupted from the hammer and enclosed the three of us. It danced and boiled around us and ripped through space and time reshaping Ellie and the tool we were all holding.

  Arching forward, a terrible scream tore from her throat as the back of her shirt exploded and—

  Big, black feathery wings erupted from her back.

  Her other hand came around and wrapped itself over the hammer’s handle and the tool threw both Miriam and I back off it as I watched the metal of the head flow up and reform into a gleaming white steel sword with black fire and lightning racing up and down the edge.

  I landed on Miriam with an oof, and she wrapped her arms around me to keep me from moving.

  “Hold on. It’s almost over.”

  There was a shock of red flame that appeared on the tip of the sword that flew up the shaft. It covered the hilt, jumped to her hands and raced up and down her body, leaving again through her feet. Her skin looked as if she had a bad sunburn, and she had a deep rich gold glow beneath it.

  Finally, finally, she slumped and Miriam let me go. I launched myself across the space between and grabbed her, pulling her into my lap.

  As best as I could with the fucking wings in my way.

  “Ellie?” I whispered.

  “What the ever loving fuck just happened?” she whispered at me through a very sore throat.

  Miriam, Laxmi, and Lily all dropped on the ground next to us as her skin slowly faded from the red-gold glow back to her normal pale cream.

  “Do I have fucking wings?”

  I looked over at my two best friends. “Answer the girl. I certainly don’t know what the hell is going on here. She does appear to have fucking wings.”

  “She does have wings,” Laxmi said, and reached out for her hand. All I wanted to do at that moment was slap her away from my daughter, but Ellie reached back and grasped her hand. “I am sorry, Elutheria. I am. This wasn’t supposed to happen yet. You were supposed to get in the car with Wren and drive away, angry at us and we would have taken care of the voral.”

  “You had dinner with us tonight to keep us away,” Ellie said.

  “Yes,” Miriam answered. “Well partly. We did want to have dinner with you. The marriage thing wasn’t supposed to come up…” She tossed a dirty look at Laxmi.

  “Yeah, neither were these fucking wings,” I snap. “How the hell am I supposed to drive her home with those? I can’t exactly roll down the windows and just have her stick them out.”

  Lily chuckled and I threw her a deadly look. She laughed harder. “Sorry. I’m just thinking of the wings as you speed down the Vine.”

  “You enigmatic bitch,” I grumbled. “Please, could someone help us both out here?”

  Miriam cleared her throat. “Ellie is a versilange. That is, a guardian. She was born to protect her little brother. Her father was a versilange, and he was killed. Once a versilange is killed, it is a decade before they can come back.”

  “Come back?” I asked.

  “They are immortal.”

  She said as if she was discussing the weather. I glanced at Ellie, whose mouth was hanging open. She waved her hand to stop Miriam from going on.

  “Excuse me. I’m immortal?”

  “Now, yes,” Laxmi answered, her eyes downcast. “Ten minutes ago, no.”

  “Could we please, please have straight answer about this?” I asked, my eyes shifting between the three women sitting with us.

  “Can we do something about the wings?” Ellie asked. “I’m supposed to go to homecoming with Mason Hilton, and I’d like to not have to explain them.”

  Laxmi laughed. “You’re in charge of them. They take a little getting used to, yes, but most of the time they won’t be there. You have to control them—make them fold up and fold in, like making a fist.”

  “But with a whole new appendage,” Miriam grumbled.

  I watched as Ellie flexed her hand, seeming to use the motion to guide her. The wings, which had been stretched t
o their fullest, pulled in toward her back, and folded up on themselves.

  “Good!” Miriam crowed.

  Nodding, Laxmi held her hand. “You control them. Make them hide. Just tell them they aren’t there.”

  Ellie’s face screwed up in concentration, and a moment later, there was a ripple up the wings and as it flickered back they disappeared.

  “Hhhholy shit,” Ellie whispered. “Where do they go?”

  “They simply don’t exist,” Lily answered. “Not until you will them back.”

  I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Can we get her off the ground? It’s chilly and the ground isn’t helping. At least my non-immortal ass.”

  Lily chuckled and we all climbed to our feet, Ellie seeming quite exhausted. “We all need to talk, but not here.”

  A quick glance back at where the creature had fallen had me doing a double take.

  It was gone.

  There wasn’t a drop of blood or a scrap of skin, or even the detached hand I had lopped off.

  I dropped my head into my hands. “What’s going on, please? Please? I’m stressed. I’m going to prescribe myself some Klonopin soon.”

  Miriam chuckled this time. “You can’t prescribe.”

  “Fischer can,” I snapped. “Explain, please.”

  “Let’s go to our house,” Laxmi said. “It’s closer and we can talk. Lily?”

  “Better without me for now.” She nodded once and took off toward her idling cruiser. Miriam and Laxmi were off to their car a moment later.

  Ellie looked up at me. “We left the sandwiches.”

  “Shit, we did. And I’m still hungry.” I looked at the still glowing sign of Slack’s Steaks. “Screw it. You just grew wings. We need food.”

  We giggled all the way to the counter.

  Miriam had her forehead together with Laxmi’s as we walked in about twenty minutes after that. I had been nice enough to send them a text to tell them we were eating, again, but we took our time.

  If my kid had wings, I needed to feed her.

  They looked up at us as we entered the kitchen. I walked straight to the liquor cabinet and grabbed the Tito’s and a shot glass. After taking one, a bottle of cranberry juice landed on the counter next to me, from a contrite Miriam. I mixed up two Vodka Crans in tall glasses and sat down, offering Ellie one of the drinks.

  “Fuck it, kid. Enjoy,” I said.

  She didn’t seem surprised at all and took a healthy gulp of the mixture. An almost expert drink of it, and I was reminded who my daughter was before she came into our lives.

  Miriam spun her chair around and sat. She studied the two of us for a minute, then sighed. “So if you hadn’t figured it out, Laxmi and I are versilange. Up until about three months ago, we were…clueless. Things happened—” She held up a hand just as I opened my mouth to tell her to elaborate. “We can’t tell you everything. We just can’t. Not yet, and please trust us that we desperately want to. We have a lot of secrets now we can’t share.”

  Staring at her for just a moment, I nodded. “I understand. We all have secrets.”

  Miriam nodded. “We’re versilange. Laxmi is a Tartarian and I’m an Elysian. That is, dark and light. All versilange have pairs. Dark and light.”

  “Tartarian…like Tartarus?” Ellie asked.

  “Yes,” Laxmi answered.

  “Isn’t that the bad part of Hades?”

  “The dark part. Not all who come from there are bad. Some of it is just our nature. Your nature.”

  Ellie slumped. “The black wings…”

  Miriam quickly covered her hand. “What we did tonight, with the voral and the hammer, insured that you are not part of the zhadanjir, the dark legions of Hades. They aren’t only in Tartarus, and you have to remember that. Zhadanjir are part of the light too. So just because your nature is dark doesn’t mean your soul is damned and cruel.”

  “Why didn’t Lily help you instead of me?” I asked, taking another sip of my drink.

  “Lily…is a wild card. We don’t know why, but she has said she had to remain neutral,” Laxmi said.

  “So, I’m a versilange. I have wings,” Ellie said. “Where did my sword go and why did this happen tonight?”

  “Your sword goes where your wings are,” Laxmi answered. “That is, nowhere until you bring them to you. You can call them separately, but only with practice. For now, when your wings go, your sword goes.”

  Ellie nodded. “Are you going to help me? Teach me? You said there were two of me…”

  Laughing, Miriam held up a hand. “I’m going to make you write down your questions, Ellie. Hold on. Let’s deal with why this happened tonight.”

  “Oh, right, yes.” She nodded. “So, why tonight?”

  “It wasn’t just tonight,” Laxmi answered. “They’ve been trying to wake you for a few months. About four.”

  Ellie’s eyes grew wide “Wake…No. You’ll get to that.”

  Miriam laughed as Laxmi nodded and continued. “And until tonight we’d had warnings and the ability to distract you away from the places we knew the voral were going to be. They have a finite time before they have to return to Hades and recharge.”

  “That one won’t be going back,” Miriam said, and nodded at me. “And that will send zhadanjir a message. Elutheria is not one of them.”

  “You were supposed to stay at the restaurant to celebrate with us,” Laxmi said. “It was part of our plan to keep you there, long enough for the voral to do his duty and die out.”

  I heaved a sigh. “If you had told me either you were this other…thing, or that you had gotten married, we wouldn’t have run.”

  Miriam sat back, and mimicked holding a phone to her ear. “Hey, girl. How are you? Yeah, no, got some Hadean business tonight. Gotta pull out the sword and behead a few of the barthanieras that Tartarus belched out. The usual, y’know. Smote thine enemies and shit.”

  I choked on the sip of water I had just taken as Ellie bleated out her own laugh.

  “Okay, so maybe not,” I conceded. “But you still should have told us you were married.”

  “Yes, we should have,” Miriam said. “You’re more than my best friend, and we shouldn’t have withheld that. And I swear to you we will explain it, but not right now.”

  I waved her off. “Fine. Continue the explanation here.”

  Nodding, Laxmi leaned forward. “The vorals they have been sending—”

  “Who are they?”

  Laxmi glanced at Miriam. “Zhadanjir.” She shrugged. “We’re actually not sure. That’s the thing about all of this. We’re really kind of just learning ourselves. We just don’t know who they are with any certainty. All we know for sure is they are able to summon from Hades. And not the souls sent there, but the native demons. The ones who revel in pain and hate.”

  “Joy,” Ellie said.

  Nodding, Laxmi went on. “So the vorals have been coming up, trying to wake you, Ellie. Most versilange don’t sprout their wings until after twenty-five, closer to thirty. But when their little minion died, they wanted to pull you into the fold faster.”

  “Versilange are born neutral, despite their dark or light nature,” Miriam said, “but when a Tartarian wakes a versilange, they will claim them, and force them to the zhadanjir. That’s why it was important for me and Wren to give you that hammer.”

  “Light.” Laxmi nodded. “I didn’t want to take the chance they might try to claim you through me.”

  “So, you’re a dark versilange?” I asked.

  “Dark,” Laxmi pointed to herself, “and light.” She pointed to Miriam. “Balance.”

  “But you’re not evil,” Ellie said, shaking her head.

  “Dark does not mean evil.” Miriam nodded. “I am light, Laxmi is dark, and we both align with Elysium.”

  “So, apparently, Hell’s a thing,” I said.

  “Well, not the Christian version of it, but yes,” Miriam said.

  “There is a lake of fire,” Laxmi reasoned.

  “That doesn�
��t make me feel better,” I answered.

  Miriam snorted. “It’s more like the Greek concept of Hades. We’ve all taken to calling it by those names because they seem to be the best descriptor.”

  I scrubbed a hand down my face and let out a breath. “You’re talking like you’re ancient.”

  Miriam shrugged. “I am. I always have been.”

  “Wait, what do you mean?” My brain was starting to muddle.

  “I am as I have always been. I was not born, I just merely exist. As do a lot of angel and demons. Time has flowed so long we don’t remember anymore.”

  “Like… God-ish?”

  “As you know the concept of God, He is older than me, and a supreme being.”

  I looked at Laxmi, who shook her head.

  “I’m not quite as old as she is. Just a handful of millennia.”

  “And you didn’t know this?” Ellie gasped. “God, how old am I?”

  “We just found out…remembered…in the past few months,” Laxmi said. “Creation hasn’t stopped. You’re all of sixteen, Ellie. You haven’t been recycled like the two of us.”

  “Recycled…” I chuckled. “Like you’re a wad of paper or water bottle.”

  “Now, once a versilange is found, and is awakened, they’re basically immortal,” Miriam said. “It wasn’t always that way, and it’s a little more complicated than that, but it’s a good way to put it.”

  “I can’t die?” Ellie gasped. I was right there with her.

  “Oh, you can die,” Laxmi said softly. “Your corporeal form can most definitely die. It’s what happened to your father.”

  They had mentioned her father, but, the full implication of that hit us this time. We were both struck dumb.

  “…my father?”

  Fischer

  Vance scrubbed his hands down his face. “I can’t…”

  “I don’t even know why you came here of all places,” I said.

  “Because you’re the best with the brain,” Vance answered. “It’s been two weeks and I can’t get him to move.”

  “Who?” I asked, taken back.

  “Lincoln.”

  That didn’t clear anything up. “What’s going on. Vance, you came in here, sat down and…I don’t know what’s going on.”