Dragon Riders

by Elle Casey

  His face morphed through several expressions: surprise, disbelief, and then, finally, resignation. He reached out to touch me, but I moved out of range. Now was not the time for me to be traveling down memory lane…at least not down that particular lane. Ugh.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “It all gets taken care of in the near future, but believe me when I say that you were a badass that day, and I’ll never forget it. You saved my life in so many ways…I can’t even…” I started walking again, not wanting to lose my shit right there in the hallway or hear what he had to say about that stuff. Living through it once had been bad enough. Besides, destiny was waiting for me down that hall, and I was getting seriously tired of that bitch playing hard to get.

  “Jayne, I’m sorry I doubted you,” Tony said from behind me.

  “Don’t be. I’d doubt me too. This is some crazy stuff we’re going through.” I picked up the pace, leaving the others to jog to keep up.

  When we reached room 104, I stopped outside the door. I sensed a presence behind it, but its energy signature didn’t make any sense. I put my hand on the fake wood and closed my eyes.

  “What’re you doing?” Tony whispered.

  I shook my head, wishing he’d be quiet. It was hard to concentrate with all the pressure.

  “Dude, give her some space,” Brad’s voice said from behind.

  “How did it go with the chick at the front desk?” Long asked.

  “Shhhh,” Brad said. He was the only one who had figured me out. Wonders never cease.

  When everyone finally went silent, I was able to focus. Why in the hell do I sense…Maggie? It was her, but then again, it wasn’t. There was something definitely different about her, anyway, assuming it was her at all. I opened my eyes, giving up on solving the riddle that way, and knocked three times.

  I waited for an answer. I waited and waited and waited, but nothing happened. I warred with myself for several achingly long seconds before I decided what had to be done next. I’d tried to do it their way…I’d tried to be the mature adult fae I’d been trained to be…but that apparently wasn’t going to work. Time to do this Jayne-style. Screw being an adult.

  I raised my fist and banged about twenty times as hard as I could. “Open up, you old hag, or I’m gonna blow this mother down!”

  A second later, the door swung in, revealing the ugliest witch I had yet to lay eyes on. She was wearing flesh-colored, thick-soled orthotic shoes, dark beige compression hose up to her knobby, blue-veined knees, and a fluorescent green, hot pink, and yellow tropical floral patterned dress. Her gray-toned face was covered in hair-studded moles and skin tags that hung every which way. Her nose was bulbous, riddled with broken capillaries, and bright red, and the bags under her eyes were big enough that Tim would have had trouble lifting them. On her head, barely reining in her frizzy, yellowish gray hair, was a stained, green tennis visor that proclaimed to the world that she was a Senior and loving life! She may have been a Lilly Pulitzer ad gone very, very wrong, but she definitely wasn’t Maggie.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “ELEMENTAL JAYNE, I presume,” she said, her words whistling through the spaces in her mouth where teeth used to reside.

  “And you would be…?” I checked the floor in front of me for signs I was stepping into a witch-bitch circle. I saw nothing that should have caused me alarm, but that didn’t stop my butt hairs from standing on end. The power that hag was harboring was palpable. Only someone wielding some seriously otherworldly shit would have the balls to wear an outfit like that.

  “I am Judith,” she said.

  I shook my head, smiling when I got a zap of nasty energy that I recognized right away. I was on solid ground again, finally. I am so very back, bitches.

  “Lie.”

  Maybe she hadn’t heard the news—I’d already met old Judy Patootie, and this thang standing in front of me wasn’t her. Judith was about the same height as this hag was, but she had a different stylist. She also liked to whack people on the legs with her cane, and this old geezer hadn’t even tried to touch me yet. Judith would have already given my shins at least two new lumps.

  She frowned. “You may call me Judy.”

  “Nope. Not calling you that.”

  “Why not?!” she screeched at my face. Or it would have been my face if she’d been a foot taller, but since she had a hunchback worse than the dude at the Notre Dame, she shouted it at my boobs. I didn’t move, but I sensed my friends jumping back in shock.

  “Jesus almighty,” Long mumbled. “Hearing aid, anyone?”

  “Because it’s not your name, hag.” I paused to tap my chin. “How about if I call you…Maggie…” I knew this wasn’t her name either, but my instincts told me that my only hope of getting on top of this situation would be to throw her off her game. And who in their right mind would be okay with being called Maggie the witch? Any fae who’s anyfae knew it was like being called Sloth from The Goonies.

  “No! My name is not Maggie.”

  “Ah, so you do know how to tell the truth.” I grinned. “Well, until you give me your real name, I’ll just have to keep calling you Maggie. It kind of suits you, you know. You two could be sisters.”

  She flinched at that, and another jolt hit me. Truth! “Sisters….hmmmm…” If this hag was Maggie’s sister, it meant she could very possibly also be a fate, just like Judith had been—that nasty witch who was due a huge payback for sending my friends and me into Ishmail Windwalker’s time.

  Holy shit, I’m standing in front of another fate! I gritted my teeth together to keep them from chattering. I was half excited, half scared shitless. Could this be the one who’s been spelling the shit out of my human and fae worlds? Did she send me into the mental ward? Did she work with Red to mess me up?

  The thought that she could have been responsible for all that garbage fueled a fire in me. I pushed through the door, forcing her to back out of my way. Walking over to the windows that overlooked the parking lot, I shoved the sheer curtains out of the way so I could see better. Nothing seemed amiss out there—there was no demon army gathering, anyway…no bloody angels raining down from the heavens.

  “Where is Dardennes?” I asked, turning and surveying the empty room. This was where we’d had our private interviews…where Céline had taken my hand in hers and stolen a piece of my soul. “Ivar? Céline?”

  “Out.”

  “Be more specific,” I said, facing her. Today would be a day of sliding, running, and leaping through loopholes if she had her way. I was not going to let her trick me, though. I was done being duped and naive and innocent. There was too much at stake: my future, Tony’s future, the future of the entire human race…

  “Out is out! They are out, as in not in!” She shuffled over to the corner of the room and picked up what looked like a walking stick made out of a gnarled tree branch.

  “Ah, ah, ahhhh,” I said, throwing my hand out with a filament of Green power attached to it. I handily wrapped that power-filled strand around the staff, pulling it away from her and flinging it to the ground where she could no longer reach it.

  “Pick that up!” she shouted, jabbing her finger at me and the stick. “I’m handicapped! I need my cane!”

  I knew better than to touch something with my hand that I had no right to wield. “Sorry, no can do. Limp your ass over to that chair and have a seat. You’re not going to be walking anywhere anytime soon.”

  “Jayne?” Tony’s trembling voice came from the doorway. “Are you okay?”

  I looked over my shoulder at him. “Don’t worry, Tones. Everything’s going to be…”

  I didn’t get the last word out because a sudden shower of sparks bounced off the invisible bubble I’d put around me and knocked the sound out of the room for about five seconds. The fireworks were a mix of red, orange, and black—as impressive as they were impotent. I waited until they faded to a mere fizzle before turning my attention back to the witch or fate or whatever she was.

  “Naughty, naughty,
” I said in my best version of a British accent, moving toward her. She was messing with the wroooong former mental patient. Any patience or charity I might have held for a senior citizen fae was gone, now that I knew the full extent of the evil she was capable of using against me. Sending me back to live with Rick the Dick and my mother? Almost convincing me that I was just a normal human with mental problems, bound to live out her teen years in an institution? Cutting me off from my elements? Oh, hell no. There would be no pity for this old hag. Not from me.

  She held up a gnarled finger at me, backing up until her legs hit a chair. She sat down off balance and nearly fell from the side of her seat.

  I waited until she righted herself before I got closer. I stopped a few feet away, crossing my arms over my chest, waiting for whatever grand statement she was about to make.

  “You…,” she growled.

  I lifted an eyebrow and laughed. “Me?”

  “You!” she screeched. “You have no business being here!” Spittle flew from her mouth and arched up into the air. “There were spells! Agreements! Sacrifices!”

  I moved reflexively to the left, to avoid having that glob of angry drool make contact with my person before I remembered that I was protected from witch drool by my power bubble. I rolled my eyes and sighed loudly. “Geez, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that in my life…”

  She started mumbling what sounded like Latin under her breath—ubus, pluribus, unum, yiddy, yada, yoda—so I connected with both my elements and let them come into my eyes. I figured a little light show couldn’t hurt to help bring the message home…that message being as the awesome Mr. MC Hammer once said: “Can’t touch this.”

  Two elements combined with love, no magic stronger below or above, no harm to me or my friends either, show this hag and make her a believer. I threw both my arms out at my sides and smiled as the show began. Witch bitch fireworks ain’t got nothin’ on me. I am the Mother, after all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I COULD BARELY see the hag through the electric haze of blue and green I’d created. I was able to catch her expression, though; she was angry and frustrated. Whatever spell she’d tried to throw at me wasn’t working. Her arms were flailing around and her bent fingers were scratching at the air between us—it looked as if she were writing words in midair—but I felt nothing and a quick glance over my shoulder confirmed that my friends were cool too.

  The bubble of power I’d thrown at her swirled and pulsed with color and energy. Sparkles filled the spaces between the filaments of Earth and Water. I imagined that I could hear water sprites laughing joyfully from a distance. My heart soared as my connection solidified and I momentarily lost track of where I was and what I was doing. Memories of lying in the meadow with my friends and looking up at the sky filled me. My fae life was so wonderful. I wanted to go back there and be at one with my true self and my fae family again. I didn’t belong in the human world anymore. It was time for me to go.

  Something started pressing against my shield of power, bringing me fully back to the real world. I blinked a few times and realized I was still standing in the hotel meeting room. I looked through the light show at the witch in front of me, and I could see her as she’d once been: beautiful…tall…so similar looking to Samantha it was almost unreal… Then the vision of my cousin’s doppelgänger disappeared, and the nasty witch’s face was there in its place. I’d thought I could hold her off with nothing more than my connection to the elements and my righteous anger at being incarcerated and sent out of time, but I was wrong. This witch was no hack. The sickness I had on the highway was coming back, and her expression began to morph into one of satisfaction.

  “Oh, no you did not,” I said to no one in particular as I drew down into the earth and pulled additional power from both elements into my body and mind. It was more than I probably should have taken in, considering how little control I usually held over Water, but I was desperate. I had to make it work; failure was not an option. I had no backup, no friends to help me out, and no Samantha to whip up a spell to save my ass.

  Somebody help me! Calling all fae! Calling all fae! Come in, fae! Sweat droplets broke out across my body, and I started to lean to the left, a stitch in my side making it impossible to remain standing straight. Someone better come help me or I’m totally doomed and so are my friends standing just behind me…

  I was panting with the effort of holding the witch off while managing the pain of her spell, when a spark appeared from far away. I could see it over my left shoulder and feel it. At first I couldn’t tell if it was part of the witch’s spell or if it was something else—whether it was friend or foe I had no clue. I didn’t believe for a second that my desperate cries for help would actually be answered. And whatever it was, it was moving closer rapidly. I didn’t have the energy to be afraid of it, but when it was nearly to me, I latched onto the familiarity of it. This was no witch’s spell, no troll or demon coming to eat me alive. This was my only hope for salvation!

  Céline! Another spark came right behind the first. Dardennes! I concentrated with all my might, doing my best to ignore the pain building in my gut so I could send out my message. Help me! This Fate is going to take me down, and I have to talk to you before she does!

  Suddenly twin silver lights appeared, one to my left and one to my right. My bald head went instantly cold as a chill wind whipped through the dome of elemental power I’d created around us. I could no longer see my friends or vestiges of the hotel meeting room. We were locked in a space out of time all together—the hag, Céline, Dardennes, and I.

  “Mother…tell us what you need,” Céline said, her voice cool and calm. It was like a healing balm spread over my aching heart and belly.

  “You have called and we have answered,” Dardennes said. “What do you bid us to do?”

  I looked over at him, a little shocked at his formality. “Do you know me?” I needed to figure out how much explaining there was to do.

  “I know who you are and I know who she is,” he said, nodding toward our opponent.

  “Who is she?” I asked, thinking the information would put me in a better position to defeat her.

  “Her name is Victoria,” Céline answered. “She is a Fate. One of three.”

  Nailed it. “Yeah, I’ve met her sisters Maggie and Judith. I’m Maggie’s granddaughter to the tenth power.” I figured full disclosure was probably a good idea at that point. I wouldn’t want to be battling a hag and two silver elves at the same time. Talk about doomed.

  “You can explain later,” Dardennes said. “Now it is time to manage the problem before us.”

  “We need to send her away,” I said.

  “How many elements do you command?” asked Dardennes.

  “Only two. Earth and Water.”

  Céline was smiling, looking as if she were about to start laughing.

  “What?” I asked. It didn’t seem like an appropriate time to be joking around.

  “Only two.” She looked over my head at Dardennes. “She is modest.”

  “Oh my god, you guys, I’m not modest, okay? Normally I pretty much suck at this, so I called out and asked for help and you came. But how many elements do I need? Because I can only handle two. And barely that many.”

  “We can ask Wind to join you,” Dardennes said.

  “No need,” said a voice from behind us.

  We all spun around at the same time to find a sea of swirling reds and black surrounding the one person I’d hoped to avoid in Miami.

  “Ben,” I said in a near growl, “argh, why are you always turning up just in time to fuck up my day?”

  He glared at me. “Funny. Looks to me like I turned up just in time to save it.” He threw his hand out and shot twin beams of fire and wind at me.

  I watched them go by in slow motion, surprised when they went over my shoulder and not into my face. I turned and watched his colors meld with mine and hit the witch right in the gut full blast.

  While I’
d been chit-chatting with Céline and Dardennes, the witch had managed to get off her chair and retrieve her staff and was in the process of building up a big ball of light at the end of it. But Ben’s little addition to my party ended that nasty plan of hers.

  The power of all four elements blasted into her and lit her up like a Christmas tree. She was, for a very brief moment, a beautiful angel glowing in green, blue, red, and black…but then she turned into a sickly beast who was withered up into a black husk of a former fae woman.

  For a moment, we all saw the price she’d paid to wield the power she’d used to control the destinies of fae around the world—darkness and evil was all that was left of her—and then…it was over.

  An explosion knocked out my hearing and she was gone—poof. All that remained in the few seconds after was the stench of sulphur.

  “Damn,” I said, sticking my finger in my ear and twisting it around, trying to coax my hearing back. “I was wrong before. It wasn’t Judith in the Overworld causing a ruckus; it was Victoria.” That old biddy standing there with that glowing staff was definitely something I’d seen before. Victoria was the one who’d blasted Falco and me and sent us back to the Here and Now, not Judith. Hmmm…maybe I shouldn’t have just clobbered her, since she seemed to have the juice to send me where I want to go. Oops.

  I was grabbed from behind by Tony who pulled me into the strongest hug he was capable of. “What happened?!” he shouted. Apparently his hearing was screwed up too.

  I looked around to assess the rest of the damage. Sometimes my magic was loud and sometimes it just seemed loud, so I had no idea if this event had remained private or if it had resulted in the hotel manager calling in the local S.W.A.T. Team or bomb squad or whatever.