by Amie Gibbons
I coughed and resisted the urge to rub my eyes, since that’d make the itching worse.
“You okay, Ari?” Pyro asked.
“I don’t understand my life right now,” I said honestly. “The cats showed up and that was one too many weird things for me to process.”
Smokey laughed a high, scratchy laugh.
“You’re in the land of Fae, because you’re something no one has a classification for, with massive amounts of power that was taken out of your head by a spider part of the magical Fae internet, and talking cats are where you draw the line?”
“It’s more like the straw that broke the camel’s back,” I said, petting his head on reflex as he crawled closer.
He lifted his chin and I scratched under it.
“You’re a good thumb monkey,” he said as he turned around to keep an eye up front.
He had blood on his massive fluffy black tail and it left little lines of red on Pyro when he swished it.
So, so weird.
I’d have to give Pyro a bath after this.
Had to bathe him myself. He still had nightmares from the one time I’d thrown him in the washing machine.
“In there!” Smokey said suddenly, jerking his head to the right and pointing with his whole body gone rigid in a straight line.
Carvi halted with the suddenness only a vamp, or a cat, could manage.
The cats stopped on a dime.
The humans, not so much.
There was some stumbling and cursing as they all crowded under us.
“It’s a wall,” one of the guards said.
“And?” Smokey said. “Y’all have bombs. Take out the wall. Her power’s in there.”
“How many Fae?” Carvi asked.
“Too many to count,” Smokey said. “And I can tell they’re going through a portal. Everyone, today is a good day to die, but let’s take out as many of these dogs as we can, and try to avoid the whole dying part.”
It sounded almost like he was quoting something, but I had no clue what.
His people cheered, and I looked over at Carvi.
He didn’t look like cheering.
He looked like he wanted to puke.
I would’ve asked what was wrong if I’d been able to with the mental speak.
Carvi nodded, mouth in a grim line. “Weapons out, spells up, I want shields on and offensive spells at the ready. We don’t know where the portal they opened is going out to, so we have to be careful to keep anything offensive from going through until we can get eyes on the ground. Cats?”
“We’ll do what we do best, take out Fae,” Smokey said. “If y’all have the magic part down, we can do the fighting part.”
“Thank you for all of this,” Carvi said. “I have not had the pleasure of working with palace cats for a very long time. You live up to my memory of your ancestors.”
The cats bowed like this was something formal.
“Now back the fuck up,” Carvi said, ruining the effect.
I snorted.
That was the Carvi I knew and loved.
My stomach lurched as we all backed up.
Would we die in there?
Some of us would.
I was sure of it.
Would it be me? Or Pyro or AB or Carvi?
I wanted to puke, and it had nothing to do with us being in Fairy right now.
I couldn’t lose anyone else. I wouldn’t be able to take losing someone else I loved today.
Thomas turned and wrapped his arms around AB, giving her a soft kiss as he pushed them both back to the edges of the crowd making a semicircle around Carvi.
I could tell it wasn’t a deep or passionate kiss, just a press of lips.
It wasn’t an in case we die kind of kiss.
It was a goodbye.
Because he was already dead.
And he didn’t feel for AB like she did for him.
So he was giving her a gift.
Something of him for her to remember him by.
It made me want to cry.
Because I knew she’d hang onto that kiss, wishing for more, for the rest of her life.
No, couldn’t focus on any of this right now.
Couldn’t let my mind go to Grant.
Or the fact that I’d never kissed him.
No matter how many times I’d wanted to.
Cuz he’d never wanted to kiss me, or at least, not enough to act on it.
“Cover your ears!” Carvi yelled.
Us humans did, and the cats bent down, pressing paws over ears, giving what cover they could.
Carvi put a small blinking mechanical thing on the wall and ran backward, tossing his hands up.
The boom was ridiculously loud, even with hands over ears.
I screamed as it tore into my ear drums, louder than a gun going off in this echoey stone hall would’ve been.
I wasn’t the only one.
Other screams came through, muffled by the partial deafness.
Some of the cats fell over with the sound, but hauled their butts up pretty skippy as the smoke cleared.
Leaving the hole in the wall.
Like someone really had yelled charge, the cats ran forward, a wave of fur jumping over the rubble and into the room.
Carvi zoomed in in the vamp superspeed way, his humans not far behind, and Pyro flew us in, screaming something I couldn’t quite make out.
I’m not sure it was in English.
The room was chaos as we busted through, Fae and cats going at it, fists flying, magic too, I was willing to bet, even though I couldn’t see it.
I couldn’t figure out where to start.
Luckily, Pyro was a bit faster on the uptake.
He pulled a push knife outta his little pocket and rushed forward, divebombing Fae and stabbing them from above.
I hung onto two fistfuls of his threads for dear life as he bobbed and weaved, dodging the Fae’s blades and probably magic as only a flying carpet could.
I couldn’t make out individuals in the fray.
No one ever tells you how chaotic battle, real battle, is.
There were clashes all over the place, and I couldn’t begin to understand how anyone was fighting anyone else with so many of the enemy around them.
Cats jumped on faces, swords swung, guns shot.
And I stayed on Pyro, above it all.
I had to do something.
But I was helpless until we found my magic.
No, no I wasn’t.
I pulled the gun outta my waistband, looking around.
“There!” I screamed, hitting Pyro with the butt of my gun when he didn’t respond. “There!” I pointed across the room to the hole in the world next to the throne.
A Fae sat in a circle in front of it, magical barrier obvious, since no one was going after her.
It was the queen.
“Magic?” I asked Pyro.
“Yep,” he said.
“Will it keep out everyone, or just magic?”
“Just magic, but you still have some little bit,” he said.
I grinned, finally seeing Carvi’s cold logic.
“Then let’s get someone who’s not magic,” I said, immediately looking around the crowd for the one null in the mess.
She was at the edge, shooting Fae with the marksmanship that’d made us all so proud, back to back with Thomas as he shot too.
“AB!” I yelled as we came from above, holding an arm out to her.
She immediately stopped shooting as we dipped down, so she wouldn’t risk hitting us, and paused, looking back at Thomas.
“Go!” he yelled, barely glancing over his shoulder as he kept his gun up, eyes working widely.
Just cuz he was already dead didn’t mean they couldn’t hurt him in here.
If he was corporeal, they could do stuff to him.
Including kill his soul.
“I can’t leave him,” AB said.
“You can and you will,” Thomas snapped. “AB, they need you. That’
s why we’re here, remember?”
AB sniffed as he reached behind him and shoved her without looking.
She stumbled forward, and Pyro dropped so she hit him and managed to climb on, keeping her gun pointed away from us like a good gunnie.
She sniffed, tears filling her eyes behind her glasses.
I’d be there for her later.
Right now, we honestly had more important things to think about.
“Need to you get to that barrier,” I said, pointing at the Fae kneeling in front of the portal.
For now, the Fae weren’t going through, probably so she could protect the portal while the rest of them fought, but for how long?
And how many had gone through before we busted in?
“Can we shoot her from here?” AB asked with another sniff, wiping under her eyes with the top of her shirt.
“No,” I said. “Kinda like the shield around the square. You can’t get fast moving stuff through it, but you can get a big slow moving one like a person through, as long as she’s not magic.”
“But you’re not,” AB said. “Not right now.”
“Still has some of it,” Pyro said. “She’s missing her life force, but that bit left in her is magic. You’re the only null, AB. It’s gotta be you.”
“What the rug said,” I said as Pyro slid to a stop just above the bubble of magic.
AB jumped off, screaming, “Yippee-ki-yay!”
I would’ve laughed if the situation wasn’t so dire.
She hadn’t even paused.
She landed on the Fae in a heap, and I flinched as she yelped loud enough for me to hear over the fray.
AB and the Fae struggled below us, grappling.
AB’s gun somehow on the floor.
How had that happened?
It was all moving too fast.
And AB wasn’t a brawler. She was a shooter, sure, but in hand to hand?
She was a five one, hundred-pound female.
Not a trained fighter.
“Pyro?” I asked.
“Not down yet,” he said.
“Fuck!” I said, pulling my gun and shooting at the shield.
The bullet bounced off thin air a few feet in front of us, ricocheting past me luckily.
I kept an eye around us, watching the violence unfold as everyone went at it.
But my big worry was AB.
She needed her gun.
Her and the Fae struggled on the ground, and the Fae got the upper hand, turning AB on her back.
Wait, magic and fast moving couldn’t go through.
But something else could.
I opened my mouth and started singing at the top of my lungs, focusing everything I had on the Fae queen.
I’d almost forgotten, I didn’t need magic to enchant a Fae.
Or all of them.
I turned my attention to the whole room.
Why didn’t I think of this earlier?
Who knew how many of us had died while I dithered.
I sang ‘If I Die Young’ by The Band Perry.
And the Fae rearing over AB slowed.
AB flipped her off and grabbed her gun, shooting the woman in the head as I kept singing.
Some of the Fae kept fighting, more focused or less affected than the others.
But the bulk were getting slow.
Our people weren’t.
I switched to Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy,’ for my next song, and more of the Fae fell as the music got to them.
There were so many of them. And we’d certainly lost people.
But this was workin’!
I sang louder and harder, throat tickling.
The cats were a double-edged sword since I was pretty sure the extra irritation was my allergies kicking up.
But they were well worth it.
They’d done some damage.
And taken serious casualties.
My heart ached as the Fae fell, revealing more and more balls of fur lying on the ground. Some in pools of blood.
Some in pieces.
The shield was still in place, and Pyro slammed his tassels against it.
AB grunted as she went in and out of it.
Trying to destabilize it?
She shot the queen in the head and then the heart.
Making sure she was dead.
Holy shitballs of crap on crackers and kittens too!
What did we have to do to get this shield down?
I couldn’t stop singing long enough to ask Carvi.
And more Fae were pouring into the room now.
Some of them slammed to a stop, staring at me like I was Taylor Swift on the street.
Others barreled in and started attacking.
Carvi was in his centaur form again, wielding a bow and arrow, taking out Fae with the precision of Robin Hood.
One of the Fae raised a hand, and a slash appeared across Carvi’s chest, blood flowing out at a rate I’d never seen in a vamp, except when they were cut with silver.
He screamed, clutching his chest.
And I saw it.
The silver claws in the air.
“AB, out!” I broke the song to scream, pointing at the ground.
Pyro dove down, and AB jumped out of the shield onto his back next to me as I picked up the song again, capturing more Fae as they kept coming in.
I switched to a Taylor Swift song since she was on my mind, and we flew over the crowd to Carvi.
I shot at the Fae advancing on Carvi, missing him.
And AB was outta bullets.
“Silver, suck,” I said as we dove again next to Carvi. “I have to sing.”
She rolled off the carpet to Carvi’s side, bending her head to his chest and sucking without hesitation.
When silver was that close to the heart, there was no time for it.
I sang louder, shooting at the Fae again.
The bullet hit some kinda shield and bounced off to the side.
I glanced at the pair below me.
A ricochet could hit them if I wasn’t careful.
And this guy didn’t seem to be affected by my voice.
Smokey bound outta nowhere and pounced on the Fae’s face, taking him down as quickly as he’d taken out Carvi.
I resisted the urge to scream in triumph.
My voice was making some of them stop in their tracks, and others slower, but more kept coming.
And at least half of our side was down.
Injured or worse.
I couldn’t see Thomas and I hoped for AB’s sake that they hadn’t captured or killed his soul.
I shot at one of the Fae still moving, and my gun clicked on empty.
Crap!
Always keep count of your bullets.
I knew that.
I pulled the machete up and tugged on Pyro’s threads, pointing at the Fae when I had his attention.
We rushed down and I swung in time with the song, making a dance outta it as the Fae dodged me.
Something slammed into me and I fell off Pyro to the ground, dropping the machete on the way.
The wind blew outta me and I barely managed to tuck my chin so my head didn’t slam into the ground.
I gasped for breath.
Unable to sing.
And the room erupted again.
The Fae launched himself at me, and Pyro caught him midleap, lifting him far above the crowd.
I didn’t see where Pyro took him, but a few seconds later, sparks shot up from around where the shield around the portal was.
I finally caught my breath and pushed up to my feet, still gasping for breath too much to sing, or at least sing well.
Pyro had the Fae’s ankles in a death grip and was slamming him into the portal like a flopping baseball bat.
I would’ve laughed if I could’ve.
Someone else did, and I grinned.
The goofy, booming laugh was Thomas’s.
He was still alive.
Well, kinda.
Pyro beat on the portal with
the Fae, who was long unconscious or dead from the battering.
I sucked in oxygen and started singing again.
Slowing more of the Fae around us.
But not as much as before.
The fall, the allergies, the stress, whatever, it was all affecting my voice.
And bad singing didn’t enchant anyone.
AB hit my side and I dropped the song to scream at Pyro to come back, waving at him.
I cleared my throat and picked up the singing again, but by now it was almost pointless.
Pyro dropped in front of us and we climbed on, flying back to the portal.
I stopped singing and shook my head. “Pyro, any idea how that shield’s still up?”
“Got to be something in there with a spell ingrained,” Pyro said. “AB?”
“Just tell me what to look for,” she said, pulling her rifle off her back.
I wished I had mine on me.
“No clue, destroy everything.”
She bobbed her head. “I can do that.”
“Could it be through the portal?” I asked as Pyro dropped us back down.
“No,” he said. “It wouldn’t be able to work this well if it wasn’t here.”
“Even with my powers boosting it?” I asked.
“Um,” he said, “crap, didn’t think of that. AB, destroy everything on this side. I don’t think we can risk you going through by yourself.”
“We may not have a choice,” she said, diving through the shield.
I slid off Pyro, keeping an eye out around us and walked right into a solid wall of air.
“Worth a try,” I said to him as he took us back up.
I drew a deep breath and started singing again.
It was all I could think to do, even as my scratchy throat made it less than perfect.
The break helped, cuz some of the Fae started swaying, dropping their weapons, or getting slower.
Somewhere in there, Carvi and Thomas had found each other in the fray, and they stood back to back as Thomas swung what I was pretty sure was my dropped machete and Carvi shot arrows into any Fae close enough.
He shot one through the heart, maybe an inch under the cat going to town on the Fae’s face.
He was good.
AB ripped up pillows and smashed chunks of stone and rock under us, making a mess around the portal.
But Pyro still pressed against hard air.
“What if it really is through the portal?” I dropped the singing long enough to ask. “Pyro, what will we do?”
“If she goes through by herself, they’ll tear her apart,” Pyro said. “And they could realize something’s wrong on this side and start coming back in.”
