by Jamie Hawke
Red made her move, taking him out, but waved the Ichor over to me. The red light came to me, making me feel refreshed, though I could sense it wasn’t as strong as before. I wondered if it would still work in the same sense of upgrading, but for now was too stricken with the chaos we’d caused.
“Damn,” I said, looking at what we’d done.
“Make no mistake,” Red said, going for the exit the mummy had taken. “They are the enemy, and would do far worse to any of us.”
“You can’t go through there,” I noted, and she stopped short, holding her hand against the invisible wall to confirm it.
“The question is, then,” Pucky said, moving over to the wall that seemed to trap the two Myths, “how do we break them free, and then ourselves?”
“For them, it has to be a curse,” Red replied. “And the witch who cast it isn’t likely far off.”
“Jack, now might be a good time to let yourself slip slightly,” Red said.
“What?” Pucky asked, turning on her. “He’s not bait!”
“Whoa, bait?” I scrunched my nose, not liking the sound of that.
“You can’t do it,” Red said to her. “Not with your sister so close. But we have to reach into the darkness, see what’s dwelling here.”
“And you can’t?” I asked.
Pucky scoffed. “Red here’s Miss Pure. Never been touched by the darkness.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Sure, until moments like these when it’s all too convenient to let the new guy risk his life.”
“Risking my life, though… isn’t that what we’ve been doing this whole time?” As neither could argue against that, I said, “Tell me what to do.”
“Like you did back there, with the thoughts that pushed the darkness away,” Pucky said. “I sensed it from you—and you’ll be able to sense it in others too, in time.”
“To get this straight, I’m going to basically go negative, full-on dark… and what? Some witch will hopefully show up?”
“Pretty much.”
“Damn.” I ran a hand through my hair, shrugged, and said, “I’m not even sure what would get my mind dark.”
“Parents are happy and alive?” Red asked.
“Yes, but if they weren’t I wouldn’t like this game.”
She waved it off. “Gotta go deep. Come on.”
“Anything bad ever happen to you?” Pucky asked. “I mean, really… really bad.”
I frowned, trying to think, but shook my head. “Not me, per se. But… Okay, I think I got it.”
They both looked at me expectantly but forget that, I wasn’t about to open up like this in front of them. As intimate as we were getting, we’d still really just met.
Closing my eyes, I thought back to my youth and the days spent at Ocean Shores with my cousin, where we’d find driftwood or go out onto the water and float around when the waves were tame enough. I still remembered her face and the way she’d laugh, the corners of her eyes crinkling up, and the way she’d stick out her tongue slightly when she was having a really good time.
And then the time we couldn’t make it back, how we’d swum as hard as we could, calling out encouragement to each other. I remembered how we’d been going backwards, pulled by the tide, still too young to know that swimming at an angle was the key. How she’d almost drowned, but a man rescued her, performed CPR and saved her. I focused on the feeling of how great it felt to see her alive, how her life had been such a blessing after that.
I focused on that feeling, so that when I turned my thoughts to the day I’d found out she took her own life it would hurt that much more. It might not have been exactly a dark place as much as sad, but if there was one thing I’d ever been good at in life it was putting myself in other people’s shoes. What had those moments been like for her, so dire, leading up to that moment when she chose to throw away the blessing of life? Her second chance, gone… on her twentieth birthday.
My rage at that moment, the darkness of going through such pain that she’d even consider such an action, all built up in me. I embraced it. For the first time, I allowed myself to get mad at her—how dare she do that to everyone who loved her? How dare she be so fucking selfish!
And then my arms were shaking, my breathing heavy, and I sensed Pucky there, feeding me with negativity but also acting as a buffer, prepared in case I went too far.
Then… another presence.
It was unlike anything I’d ever felt. Like all my anger was mud but had suddenly been turned to sharp, jagged stones, cutting through me and tearing flesh, eating away at every molecule of my being, my soul even, until Pucky was shouting for me to come back and her spiritual hands were gripping my heart, holding me in place.
I felt certain I’d simply explode, but I pushed it aside, focusing again on the love I had for my cousin, the forgiveness.
A deep breath sounded in front of me. When I opened my eyes, I wished I hadn’t. There she was, wretched yet beautiful, bent and twisted yet stunning and proud. A woman with white hair flowing back and away from me, her shadow connected to me as she was pushed back and away. Pinkish-red eyes stared at me with fury.
“I haven’t finished feasting on you, boy,” she said, her voice a slow hiss. “Come into my embrace. Join me, so that we may become one.”
She spread her arms, and for a second the shadow in me wanted to go to her, but it lost out. Instead I scoffed, brandished my blade, and said, “I think this is the part where we kill you.” Glancing over at the ladies, I said, “Right? Yeah?”
Pucky nodded and shouted, “Attack!”
She shot with her rifle, bursts of gold light sizzling through the air. But the witch was fast, darting about the room in flashes of light and dark, as if she were made up of both and was everywhere at once. Then she was in front of me again, pinning me up against the wall where the others were frozen, so that I started to go partly into the wall as well. Except that my amulet lit up, and it stopped. I gripped the metal and focused on pushing out the shadows, on being one with my qi or the Fae or whatever, and emerged from the wall, able to slash out at her.
The knife drew black, smoking blood and she hissed, vanishing for a moment to dart around the room again. She had Red this time, but Red was slashing and moving about with her fancy cloak as well, so that the witch turned her attack to Pucky. Oddly, Pucky was sitting in the middle of the room, eyes closed and horns glowing white—and suddenly a burst of light hit the room. Not like the white from the witch, blinding and overwhelming, but a calm, clean white light that took on a form… the form of swans.
“Elisa!” Pucky shouted.
A voice called back, “I’m here now!”
The swans burst forth, still in light form, darting around the witch so that when she next tried to move, she was stuck in place. Red and I made our move at the same time, charging in and throwing ourselves into the light, she striking low with me striking high. More black blood, but as my knife started to dig into her, the witch screamed and all barriers—including the frozen wall—dropped away, her dark form fleeing down the same route Peter had gone.
I didn’t hesitate to race after her, the others close behind. The darkness hit more darkness, a portal like the one we’d entered through the oven, its black liquid-like surface shifting and oozing, but before I could reach it she was gone and so was the portal. All that remained was a stone dead end.
“Pucky…?” Elisa’s voice said, and we turned to see the shape of a woman surrounded by a white light that was slowly merging, becoming one with her.
15
Elisa stood in the room where we’d just fought off the witch, her swans fading into her. As they did she stood taller, stronger. She was a beauty by any objective standard. Slim, tall, with wavy blonde hair that fell over her shoulders and a white swan on a chain around her neck. She wore a light blue top that revealed her perfectly sculpted belly—making me wonder what was up with Myths and showing off their bellies—and she had a long skirt to match.
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“You did it,” Pucky said, beaming.
“With your help,” Elisa said, nodding and then accepted an embrace from Red.
“It’s good to see you,” Red said. “Smart, leading us here.”
“My swans told me you were here, that using them to guide you had worked,” Elisa said to Red and Pucky, looking my way with curiosity. “With Baba Yaga guarding me, I knew the only chance of escape was with your help. Who’s the Normie?”
“This Normie is your new Protector, Princess,” Pucky said with a sneer.
“Is that so?” Elisa looked me over, smiled, and said, “Great. Protect me—get my ass out of here.”
“Preferably with the rest of her attached,” Red added, laughing.
“Right, let’s just forget her royal ass and we all move, shall we?” Pucky was already heading for the door. “Before more witches show up. Witches creep me the hell out.”
“But don’t you use magic?” I asked.
“Not exactly, and that wouldn’t make me a witch,” she countered. “Magic works through me, you could say. But I don’t use magic.”
I didn’t know what to make of that, so let it go.
“It’s the agents we have to worry about,” Red said, and turned to the spot where a moment ago there had been a barrier trapping the two frozen Myths. Now that the barrier was gone, Kai and Gerda lay collapsed on the stone floor. “Help me get them up. We’re not leaving without them.”
“Of course,” I said, and we got to it.
We had the two up on our shoulders, me with Kai and Red with Gerda—Pucky was willing to sling her over one shoulder, but found the fireman’s carry too complicated with her horns getting in the way. Instead, she went ahead of us to scout the way, heading in the direction we’d just come from. Elisa was able to walk on her own, but was weaker than I would’ve guessed and stumbled from time to time, at one point needing Pucky’s help. As we neared the end of it all, they were—to my relief—starting to come to.
At the final exit, they were able to pull themselves together and we emerged through the portal into the oven to the sound of chatter and the sight of flashing police lights from outside. Whatever the Normies thought had happened here, now the cops were on it. I paused a moment at the sudden realization that I’d thought of them as ‘Normies.’
“Don’t worry,” Red said, looking relieved for a moment of rest. “With my cloak and Pucky’s ability to move us past them, we’ll look like newly-arrived bystanders.”
“Except…” Pucky was out of the oven now, crouched where those outside couldn’t see her, “Agents. One coming our way.”
“Then we’ll just have to make it fast.”
Pucky nodded and stood, grabbing us while we held tight to the two we’d saved. Those outside went into slow motion, and we glitched out, reappearing outside the pizza place and to the side—as far as she could get us within her line of sight from the spot she’d been. The cops were busy grilling a couple of people near the front, while other bystanders were standing about muttering about what had happened. None looked our way. At least, not until the third of three agents entered the building, paused, turned our way, and frowned.
“Fight or flight?” Pucky asked.
“Out in the open like this, with who knows how many other agents nearby?” Red wrapped her arm tight around Gerda, who was mostly alert but still needed some help. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Don’t need to tell me twice,” I said, already turning and heading back to where we’d left the car.
“We’ve got them,” the agent shouted maliciously, but Elisa turned and thrust out a hand so that white swans appeared like bursts of light in the man’s face.
He fell to his knees, cursing, while Red’s cloak flapped out and we ran. Kai was mostly recovered, thank God, so now he was groggily moving at my side instead of being carried on my shoulders. Our car pulled up at the first corner, the doors opening automatically. We piled in as Pucky turned with her massive rifle and exclaimed, “I love this shit!” before sending a volley of shots back at the agents. Normies screamed and ran, but the shots hit and acted like a taser—apparently only causing magic shots against Legends.
The car started moving as Pucky joined us, slamming the door shut and laughing as we peeled out, leaving more chaos in our wake. I was starting to learn this was the norm. We eyed our new friends, all on the edge of our seats at the idea that the agents could still be on our tails.
After a few changes of direction and a few minutes had passed, we seemed to be in the clear. Since everyone was awake now, Red leaned forward and asked, “How’d they get you?”
Elisa raised an eyebrow. “Carelessness. Hubris. Stupidity. Is that enough?”
“She was looking for us,” Kai said, blushing.
“Looking…?” Red started, then rolled her eyes. “Not again. Really?”
“Couple of horndogs,” Pucky said, nudging me and causing me to laugh at the irony of her saying so.
Gerda frowned. “Don’t make us look bad in front of the new guy. Kai happens to know how to please me. Has for hundreds of years—and didn’t I earn it?”
“They had a bad break when some of the troll mirror got in Kai’s eye, like the stories go,” Pucky explained.
“Troll mirror?” I asked.
“You really are new, huh?” Gerta chuckled. “You know, the mirror that caused people to see the worst in others? It’s a long story.”
Kai’s eyes darted to the floor momentarily, and I had to wonder if there was any truth to this mirror story or if he’d just had a lapse in judgment at some point. Wandering eyes and all that.
“So your guard was down?” Red said, frowning.
Elisa nodded. “Didn’t expect to see them… well, him putting it there and, then, like…” She tried showing us a position with her hands that didn’t make sense to me at all, but Gerda pulled Elisa’s hands down and cleared her throat.
“Again, new guy watching and listening,” Gerda said. “Bad first impression.”
“Right. Point was, it was shocking, and it was right then, with that image still burned into my brain, that the agents and Legends attacked. I barely had time to take down a half-dozen or so in the split second it took them to take us.”
“And we were… otherwise occupied,” Kai said, a hint of a smile on his lips.
Gerda rolled her eyes, but then turned my way with a pleasant smile. She wasn’t as thin as many of the others here, but her round face gave her a friendly, pleasant aura. “You’re the new Protector, huh?”
I nodded.
“A man.” Her eyes moved back to Red, then Pucky. “I’d like to place bets on how long it takes before that devolves into your own distractions.”
Pucky blushed, and Gerda chuckled. “I see.”
Elisa looked at Pucky, then me, and let out a pleasant laugh. “Well. Staking her claim already.”
“No claim,” Pucky countered, quickly. “It’s not like that.”
“No?”
Pucky looked at me for help, so I said, “No labels, other than Protector. It’s not like that.”
Elisa seemed pleased by that, her eyes lingering on mine a moment longer than seemed natural, and then she leaned back closed her eyes, and said, “Wake me when we get there, or if we’re attacked first. Or if Kai can’t keep it in his pants and I need to slap him.”
Chuckles followed, but the others were closing their eyes too, all but Pucky, who was staring out the window, lost in thought.
When she saw me looking at her, she whispered, “We really should get some rest,” and then cuddled up next to me on my right. Red was on my left, and whether she was awake and it was on purpose or asleep and not, her head rolled over to rest on my other shoulder.
Kai’s eyes opened briefly, sitting opposite me, and he took this in. With a grin and a wink, he closed his eyes and was back out. With their gentle breathing, a woman on each shoulder, and the feeling of victory lingering over me, I yawned, closed my eyes, and joined th
em.
I was pretty sure it was in my dream… the hand groping me, caressing my package, cupping my balls and then finding my cock to stroke through my jeans. Pretty sure, but not completely certain. When I woke up at one point, I looked around and saw that my raging boner was all too visible by the bulge in my pants, but no hands were caressing it.
Elisa stirred a few seats over, opened her eyes sleepily, and took in the sight. She smiled, turned, and closed her eyes again.
If there had been a hand, it couldn’t have been hers. Too far away, to say nothing of the way she’d been kind of chastising the other two. Right? I looked at Pucky asleep on me, her horns a bit too close for comfort when I turned my head. Likewise, Red was out.
Just a dream, I figured, and tried to adjust myself so that it wasn’t so visible, then went back to sleep.
When I next woke, it was sunset and we were pulling into a sanitation processing building.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Headquarters,” Elisa replied, the first of the others to wake. “What evil group is going to check somewhere like this for a Myth hideout?”
I shrugged, figuring the same could’ve been true of a billion types of places, but whatever. A Chinese restaurant, for example, would’ve been my first choice, because then you get to smell that delicious scent of kung pao or orange chicken all day. Apparently, I was hungry. The thought of pizza hadn’t left my mind yet either.
Soon we were all up and making our way in. At first, the interior looked as I expected—a real sanitation plant. Then a shimmer rippled past my eyes as we stepped further inside, as if I’d walked through a waterfall but not felt anything. Then I saw what was really there behind the illusion—there were all manner of Myths at work. Some were practicing experimental technology on magical items, I supposed, others were at desks conducting research. Or, as Red explained to me while glancing toward the upper floors, gathering intelligence. They weren’t joking around about this being a war.
Mowgli, the tall man I recognized from the fight at the airport but hadn’t had a chance to meet properly yet, approached. He now wore a suit. His hair was tied back into a ponytail, and he had a friendly grin on his face.
