by Jamie Hawke
“We have to go,” she said. “Quickly, assign your prana.”
My blank stare told her she’d lost me again.
“It means life force, simplistically speaking,” she explained, talking quickly now as we needed to go. “What you get here as the Protector when you defeat Shades. Ichor is more powerful, essentially the same idea though when defeating a Legend… or a Myth, if it ever came to that. Okay?” When I still shrugged, she went to the screen, selected my strength and applied one, then my speed.
A green glow formed over my body, moving to my arms and legs, and then sunk into me, gone.
“Done,” she muttered, glancing at the screen again and then the door. “Like I said, not enough to make a noticeable difference yet, but you’ll get there.”
“Thanks…?” I clenched my hands into fists, wondering if I would feel any different, but I didn’t.
She paused, then tossed the blue sphere my way. “Hold onto that. It’ll help you track this stuff and assign the power where needed, though you don’t exactly need it to do so. We’ll get into all that later.”
I put my hands to my face, trying to understand all of this.
“You don’t have to get it,” she said as if reading my thoughts. “You just have to commit. And right now? Now you have to help me save Red, before it’s too late.”
“Of course,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. “You can understand if it’s all a bit much to swallow.”
“I do.” She held out her hand, in the same way the guy in the car had, which I frowned at, but then accepted as she added, “We can discuss on the road.”
“Great,” I replied, and then went for the door.
She pulled me back. “Not that way.”
“Oh?”
A grin actually spread across her face. “You’re going to like this. Just because we’re riding off to possible defeat, with friends’ lives on the line, doesn’t mean we can’t do it in style.”
Moving to the back wall, she scanned her hand on another section, which caused the bench to move out and reveal a small, narrow staircase. It looked dark and cramped down there—not my idea of ‘in style’ at all. But since she went first and didn’t flinch at the idea, I had no choice but to follow.
It led to a narrow box big enough for basically the two of us and something under a tarp. Pucky gave me a mischievous grin then stepped forward like a lady about to perform a magic trick, and swept the tarp away to reveal the most badass-looking motorcycle I’d ever seen.
The thing about me, though, was I was into painting, going to cons, stuff like that. Riding a motorcycle had never even really crossed my mind, except for maybe when playing with Ninja Turtles when I was young and imagining riding with them to go take down Shredder. And once when I wanted to be Ghost Rider for Halloween, but I quickly got over that idea when the prospect of lighting my head on fire scared me off (it was only later that I learned Chris had been bullshitting me about that requirement as part of the costume, and that I could’ve just bought a mask).
This bike was set up like a Harley with a front fairing (or shield, as Chris always liked to say when I got geeky with knowing the right terms) that reminded me of the prow of an old pirate ship, complete with the bust of a harpy with wings spreading back along the sides for extra protection. The bike itself was glowing green in the darkness, with a wheel on the back but what looked like a hover station on the front beneath the shield, along with a barrel of some sort of gun, I assumed.
“Hop on,” she said, handing me a helmet from a rack on the wall. She took one for herself, and then pulled down on the rack to reveal a small display of pistols and blades, each with their own glow of green, purple, or blue. She selected two of the pistols and tucked them in her belt.
“Like the agents had,” I muttered, almost to myself.
She turned, nodded, and said, “It’s how they fight us, and how we fight Legends. You need enchanted weapons, and this is pure—basically weaponized Ichor. Blood of the gods, they used to say. Now it’s this blood of ‘gods’ that fuels the fight between us.”
“And the agents?” I asked.
“Agents…” She frowned at that, selecting a large pistol for herself and then, considering me, handing over a sheathed knife. “That’s for the Shades, and it’s magic. But for the agents… I imagine you won’t want to be killing them, correct?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Good. We do our best not to. They’re people, after all. Humans who don’t really understand what they’re fighting here, or why. They’ve taken on the help of some Legends to hunt us, but most Legends are on their own, happy to kill human and my kind alike. Our war is not with the humans, as much as they might think it is.”
“So if I’m attacked by agents?”
“Unlikely, as they’d send their minions after you. But if it happens,” she selected another weapon, this time a taser. “Try that.”
“You’re fucking with me, right? I’m the Protector, and you give me a blade and a taser?”
“The blade should only be used when against the Shades or a Legend,” she said as she put on her helmet, one that modified for her as she did so to accommodate her horns. “Keep that in mind.”
“This isn’t fair,” I said.
“Level the fuck up, buttercup, and we’ll get you better weapons.”
“And us riding around on this?” I asked, putting my helmet on and climbing on behind her. “That won’t be a bit conspicuous?”
“Like my horns and Red’s cloak, masked to appear normal—well, still badass, but the magical elements won’t be seen by normal people. Now shut up, grab hold, and let’s ride.”
I obliged and she revved up the bike, kicked a section of the wall that opened a ramp leading to street level for us, and then we were off. We went with such force that I thought I’d go flying back, so I quickly grabbed hold of her—only to realize I was clutching boob, but didn’t want to let go for fear of becoming roadkill.
“A bit lower,” she said. “As much as that turns me on, you’re squeezing the hell out of them.”
“Sorry!” I shouted, only then realizing her voice had come through the helmet. She turned and I readjusted so that I was able to hold onto her sides instead, and she laughed.
“Next time you want to cop a feel, start gentle and then try the kinky pain stuff.”
“You’re into that?”
“How would I know until you try?” She laughed and then we skidded past several cars, ignoring the red light and flying through the city. Soon we passed Disneyland on our left, the convention center not far off, leading me to think about Chris again and wonder how he was doing. The idea that we’d never be able to hang out again was really irking me. We’d been best friends since meeting at a Baskin-Robbins when we were ten. I was celebrating my birthday with my parents because I didn’t have friends yet. He gave me a bouncy ball he got from one of the machines and then asked if he could celebrate with us. From then on we’d been inseparable until college, when he went off to spend a lot of time with his various girlfriends.
Today the guy would probably be wandering around looking for me. Maybe calling my parents to ask if they’d heard from me, or asking around with my two exes, which would be embarrassing as hell except for the fact that I wouldn’t see either of them again, either.
“You okay back there?” Pucky asked.
“I’ll be fine,” I replied, though my voice conveyed otherwise.
“First time on a bike, huh?” she asked, misunderstanding my discomfort. “Remember, Pucky rhymes with lucky. So…”
“That’s supposed to be comforting?” I asked, then laughed. “A rhyme?”
“In case you don’t know, rhymes have been making the world a better place as far back as I can remember, and that’s a damn long time.” She pulled onto the freeway, and now at least we were at a steady forward momentum so I could relax slightly. “Er, not that long.”
“Is this one of those situations where I’m not supposed to as
k how old you are?”
She groaned, then said, “Let’s just say I’m nineteen. Nineteen, but have been that for a long time.”
“Right, okay.”
“Does it really matter?” she asked irritably. “That’s how it is for us. Once we take over the role, we don’t really age. It’s all a blur, in a sense—the years go by, we fight, we survive. We watch new stories come up around us or the original versions of our mythology, and it’s all interesting and very fascinating, but the key is keeping the balance in check.”
“The balance between good and evil,” I said, to clarify.
“Simplistically speaking,” she replied. “But as I said before, the agents think they’re acting in humanity’s best interest. Once they learned who we were and which attacks Legends were responsible for—mostly in the form of what later was wiped to look like natural disasters—they made war against all fairy tales, not believing us when we told them the truth of it. Since some Legends spun their own yarn then offered to help hunt and destroy the rest of our kind, agents set up a temporary truce with them much like the CIA does with criminals to take down larger gangs or mafia bosses. It was backwards, but in some ways I understand. They’re scared of magic, which is one reason we try not to harm them. We don’t want to become the monsters they believe us to be.”
“And the Legends? What’s their excuse?”
Silence followed for a bit, and then she said, “Some are evil. Others have been warped… and some are lost souls who just need to find their way home.”
“So killing them isn’t a good thing either. This is going to be tough.”
“Is it?” She laughed. “I wasn’t aware you were such a killer, or that you solved so many problems back home with death.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Right. You play video games, so assume everything can be handled by ending a life, once you learn what’s going on here.” She sighed. “We handle each Legend on a case-by-case basis, using the intel in their files. The evil ones are usually tagged as ‘kill,’ except for a few in extraordinary circumstances. The ones who were warped get tagged with a mix of capture or kill—and sometimes a capture ends up becoming a kill due to circumstances. The lost souls… those we try to capture.” She sighed again. “Sometimes it’s tough, yes, but the thing is, they’ll usually try to fight with Shades. They don’t want to die, and summoning Shades uses energy. If you’ve defeated their Shades and the Legend’s energy is depleted, you can usually capture them or they’ll be pulled back to their home base. Some are incredibly well-connected to the Fae world, so they last longer. But it’s generally true.”
I let that linger, trying to digest it, then finally said, “It was my friend, and my parents.”
“What?”
“That I was thinking about, earlier. Worrying about, I should say.”
She nodded, considering this, then said, “Well, at least for your family you don’t have to worry. Part of being the Protector means a bit of magic that goes to protecting them, keeping them off the grid, you could say.”
“But friends?”
She avoided the question, riding in silence.
“I see,” I said. “Where are we going, exactly?”
“Let’s find out.” She freed one hand and swiped up on the front of the bike, causing a display to rise and turn on to show Mowgli again. “Status on Red?”
Mowgli’s voice came through our helmets as he said, “Scanning,” and a map appeared, showing that she wasn’t so far from us. But I recognized the location at the same time as Mowgli said, “John Wayne Airport, private jet. You’d better hurry. We’re heading there now.”
“Roger that,” Pucky said, closing the screen and accelerating.
“We’re going to fight this war in the middle of the John Wayne Airport?” I asked, a new sense of panic rising within me.
“Unfortunately, yes. But relax—not the whole war, just this little battle.”
“Wonderful,” I replied, watching as the first sign for the airport exit became visible. I could already imagine all the people running and screaming, me looking like a terrorist as agents tried to shoot me and take us down.
Maybe this Protector business was more than I could handle. I was about to find out.
8
Air zipped past me, my shirt fluttering like sails on a rough sea, and every car we passed threatened to end my life. More than once I saw it flash before my eyes, years of trying to get into college, studying and taking placement tests and submitting art projects… only to end up as a man fighting for fairy tales.
If there was any greater sign that I was high, this was it: clutching a female version of Puck while riding a science-fiction-meets-fantasy motorcycle into battle against more fairy tales.
But I wasn’t on drugs. Not only that, I was both accepting that this was real and starting to love it. Pucky was cute as hell, and her horns had only briefly made me unsure of that. Fighting the Shades had been scary, but now I was enjoying the thrill of the idea, intrigued to see what leveling up brought me.
“Hold on tight,” Pucky said. I asked why, but she just laughed. “TIGHT!”
So I did, wrapping my arms around her, preparing for some insanity, only to hear her laughing again.
“What?” I asked, still holding on but pulling back enough to look ahead. A clear road, nothing out of the ordinary.
“Sorry, I just love that feeling.”
“You jerk.”
Another laugh. “Want a reason to hold on? Fine, try this.”
“Oh, shit!” I shouted as she swerved, pulling over to the offramp and then angling the bike so that the front went up on its side at the railing and then up onto the railing. “SHIIITTT!”
“Woohoo!” she shouted, and when we were close to the bottom she went over the side, hitting the pavement with a thud of the back tire and careening back onto the main part of the road.
Cars swerved by, honking and blaring their horns, but then we were back in the flow of traffic and before long, pulling into the airport. Mowgli appeared on the screen and said, “We’re here. We have a team. What’s your status?”
“Just arriving,” Pucky said. “Eyes on Red?”
“Not yet,” he said. “We’re in the terminal. You go around back, look for signs of them from the other side. She’s here, no doubt about it.”
“On it,” Pucky said and darted to the right, going for the kiss and ride area, but then turning onto the restricted road that would take us onto the tarmac.
“We’re really doing this,” I muttered.
“Yes we are!” Pucky replied, excited. She grabbed my hand, moved it to her crotch and said, “In case we get shot, I want to feel that with my last breath.”
I laughed, enjoying the playfulness of this lady, and held on tight to her body with my left hand, her pussy with my right.
No shots fired yet, I noted as we veered around the airport, but two security cars were approaching to intercept us.
“Don’t ever let go, Jack,” she said with a chuckle, and then started fake moaning as we spun left, making for the back of the airport and avoiding the path of the security vehicles.
“Cut it out,” I said with a laugh. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“Says the guy with a handful of pussy,” she countered, but held my hand in place when I tried to move it. “Okay, okay. Keep your eyes on the glass. See if you can spot her cloak. And taking things seriously? If by that you mean not having fun while saving my friend, you’re nuts. What could be more fun?”
“Um…” I wiggled my finger down there and she moved her ass up against me.
“Touché,” she replied. “What about this, then? If I approach every dangerous situation seriously, in our line of work, I’m going to be damn serious all the time and probably depressed. Got it?”
“Well, just say so next time,” I replied, trying to ignore the fact that her tight ass was still pressed hard against my crotch.
“There!
” I said as a shot went off inside, but then glass shattered and the shot whizzed by. “Shit, never mind. Thought they were firing at her, but they’re firing at us.”
“Stay low,” she said and then veered right, but this time I did see them—agents in black suits that stood out in contrast with Red’s cloak. Red was fighting, but being pushed back toward a side terminal, the private jet type.
“They’re going for that hanger,” I said.
“Then we intercept them.” She veered right as more gunshots went off, so that we started around the building
More glass broke as they came at us, and we at them, and then two agents split off from the rest.
“Watch this,” Pucky said, and as the bullets flew at us she steered straight for them. The front with its banshee acted as a shield, deflecting the shots, and then when one shot got around it what looked like an energy shield popped up.
“You’re going to hit them!” I shouted, watching as it became inevitable.
“No, I’m going to shoot them,” she yelled back, pulling out a pistol with one hand and using her teeth to adjust the settings on the side. “Always hit agents with tranqs.”
And then she spun the bike, turning it so that I was certain she was going to lose control and go crashing right through them. Instead, she turned again at the last minute so that we skidded past them, her shots going strong as we passed, dropping three of them.
“Now!” she shouted, and I had no idea what she was talking about except that she turned, grabbed me, and pushed off. The bike went flying into the glass of the airport, shattering it, while we went rolling, the ground slamming into my side and stinging as I slid, tearing my pants.
“Dammit,” I shouted, forcing myself up and going for my knife as a line of Shades appeared around us. “A little warning next time!”
“You would’ve been more scared if you knew what was coming.”
I merely ground my teeth in response, watching with curiosity as the enemy closed in. Back in the terminal others were fighting, working toward Red.
