by Elle Casey
Believe in yourself. Believe in the magic. Believe in love. My dragon’s voice was like warm honey, thick with sweetness and healing powers.
I nodded. “I do. I do believe in those things.” I may have only been eighteen years old, but I’d lived a lifetime already. I’d lost friends and family, I’d fought evil and won, I’d fallen in love and made a new life. Oh my god, a baby?! And none of that could’ve happened without me being who I am—the good and the bad—and without magic and love being there for me in heavy doses. Biad the dragon was right; I just had to be open to the idea that I was deserving of all of those things and then they’d be there for the taking.
“Let’s ride,” I said, taking out my sword and pointing it to the nearest group of demon angels who were putting a serious hurt on some white-winged angels that reminded me way too much of Chase and Beau.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
OUR FIVE POINTED star formation worked great when there were only a few demons flying around. None of them even got near me, my friends easily dispatching them with the aid of their dragons. Tim even helped, poking a few unsuspecting black-winged angels in the eyes with his tiny dagger.
One demon came close to getting Scrum when it was able to jump on board his dragon’s back, but Scrum knocked him silly in mid-flight and then squeezed the life out of him before tossing him overboard. We all paused and watched the beast plummet to the ground and splat in a field. It was so Underworld-ish, it was unnerving. This was not at all what the Overworld was supposed to be like, I was sure of it. I could feel it in my bones that something had tainted this place and caused it to change. I had always imagined it to be a place that couldn’t be altered, no matter what, but I’d been wrong.
My thoughts were interrupted by a chorus of unholy shrieks coming from above me. Ten black-winged demon angels were flying in a v-formation with a half-naked female in the lead. As they circled us and got closer with every revolution, I recognized their leader: Moriah. She must have seen who I was at the same time because our eyes locked and a smile bloomed across her face.
“We meet again, Elemental!” she yelled as she swooped ever closer.
I pulled her old sword from my belt and held it out at her. It popped a demon blade boner and glowed blue. Sweet. Blue steel. “Come join me for a shish-kebab picnic!” I yelled back. My heart felt like it was going to explode. I was equal parts scared shitless and ready to cut off some demon heads.
I wasn’t expecting her to take me up on the offer, but on her next pass, she was able to slip past our badass pixie and our sweepers—who were kept busy fending off several of her friends—and she came right at me, her new sword held out. She got to me way quicker than I would have thought possible, too.
The metal of our blades clashed and sparks flew everywhere. My entire body shuddered with the impact, and I fell to one knee. Biad banked hard left, and my stomach flew up into my throat. I lost track of where my attacker was, but thank goodness Biad didn’t. A flash of black showed up in my peripheral vision to the left, but then we were sailing off to the right. I was pretty sure Biad had just saved my life. We’d outmaneuvered Moriah for the moment, but her screeches were right behind us.
She is a skilled demon. I will not be able to out-fly her.
“Can you flame her?” I asked, trying simultaneously to compel someone in who could help us. Chase! Beau! Shayla! Ben! Anyone! Help us! We’re here in the Overworld fighting demon angels! We’re losing the battle! I received no response at all, other than one from my dragon partner.
She is immune to dragon fire.
“Let’s see if my elements can help. On my count of three, we put them together, you and me. . .elements and dragonfire.” I stood on Biad’s head with my feet spread out, my demon blade in one hand, and my dragon fang in the other. I pictured the Earth and Water elements present in this realm coming out of the ground and funneling up to me on Biad’s back. Easy does it, I said to myself. I suspected they weren’t going to be easy to manage. “Ready, Biad?! One…two…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Tony’s dragon. I was momentarily distracted when I saw him engaged in a fight to the death with what looked like an actual angel of death. This beast was huge, a sickly greenish black, half-demon with black wings and clawed feet, and half-something I didn’t even recognize. Bull? Elephant? Leopard? Bat?
“Jared!” I screamed, pointing at our friend. Jared was the closest one to Tony, but still hundreds of feet above him.
Jared stopped flying in the opposite direction in pursuit of another enemy and turned to see what was freaking me out. His dragon didn’t even hesitate; it reversed direction and dove straight down, its wings folded into its sides and its head turned into an arrow that slowly spun as it spiraled toward my best friend.
I held my breath as I watched the events playing out, not sure Jared and his mount were going to make it in time to rescue my best friend. Tony had fallen onto his back between his dragon’s wings—he was digging his heels into his partner’s scales, scrambling and trying to push himself away from the demon. No matter what Tony’s dragon did—flips, circles, and midair jumps—it couldn’t dislodge the demon that was standing over my best friend with its sword held aloft, preparing to stab him in the chest.
Everything started to move in slow motion. The demon’s sword was coming down…Tony’s movements became even more desperate…then he seemed to give up hope and held up his scarred hand with the dragon scaled embedded in it to ward off the coming blade…the demon opened its mouth and let out an unholy shriek that I knew I would hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life… And then Jared arrived.
Jared and his dragon were a blur. They swooped in and completely blocked my view of everything happening. All I could hear were screams, and I was pretty sure they were of pain and that they were coming from Tony.
“Nooo!” I cried, my heart breaking in two. I could literally feel his pain rip into me. A rage and sorrow more intense than any I’d ever felt before rose up inside and nearly choked me. I called to my elements in desperation and nearly fell from Biad’s head when they arrived almost instantaneously. I had no time to prepare and no time to consider what I was doing or what I was going to do with the power I held in my hands. And it was way worse than the Earth and Water elements present in Ish’s time. These elements had intentions, not just a passive presence. They were full of energy, bright and lively, but also intense. They wanted to use me as a tool, not be used as a tool by me. I felt like I was wrestling a couple of mean ass alligators when I’d been expecting a plush, stuffed animal unicorn kind of experience.
On the outside I probably looked totally normal, standing there on my dragon’s head and gripping my weapons in both hands, but on the inside I was in big time distress. My brain felt like it was being squeezed in a giant fist. My broken heart stopped beating. My abdomen burned like it had been stabbed multiple times with a serrated Rambo knife. And Moriah was headed right for me, murder and glee shining bright in her eyes.
Biad’s voice barely made it through to my conscious brain. Elemental.
I didn’t have time to chitchat with the dragon who obviously sensed my discomfort. “Biad,” I panted out, “get ready to blast her with your furnace breath. I can’t hold onto these elements for much longer.”
Moriah was coming our way, following behind us as we flew through the air, getting closer as Biad slowed to give her a chance to catch up.
I was panting like an overheated dog, doing my best to resist the hold that The Green and its friend Water were trying to put on me. Their intentions were clear; somehow I knew that they wanted to funnel themselves through me and be let loose over the heavens to wipe the place clean of everything they deemed not worthy. And while I agreed with the concept of cleaning house and starting fresh, I wasn’t exactly certain that my friends and I wouldn’t make up part of the body count, so I had to continue to resist. “Not…on…my…watch…,” I said through breaths that were harder and harder in coming.
I felt Biad’s intention to shift course a moment before she did it. Suddenly, we were no longer running from Moriah; we were flipped around and facing her. The formation of dragons we had arrived in had fallen into a state of complete disarray, no longer a star but a random mix of fire-breathing beasts and their riders fighting off Moriah’s crew by whatever means necessary and possible. Grunts and shrieks mixed with the banging of metal on metal and the bass-toned blasts of dragon fire and its resulting smoke. I saw blood too, but I couldn’t be sure whose it was. I couldn’t see Tony anywhere. Two demons had fallen to the ground, but several more were gamely attacking my friends, showing off their aerial prowess in breathtaking dives and pivots that should have been impossible to accomplish.
Moriah’s face got closer and closer, pulling me away from spectating the disaster around me, and as it came within range, I could see very clearly the evil gleam of triumph in her eyes. She knew she could take me down in a hot second and that I was no match for her in my current state—barefoot and in scrubs with no dragon riding training to speak of and the soggy crumbs left over from half a ham sandwich in my pocket.
I had no other options. I was out of plans, out of ideas, and out of luck. I had only one thing left—the gift of elementalism that I’d somehow earned in a previous life or whatever but had never learned to fully control. I steadied myself as best I could while my dragon flew headlong into death’s maw. It was time for me to make my final and only move.
“Ready…aim…fire!” I shouted, throwing both my arms out toward the flying demon. I launched the energy that was almost eating me alive out into the air, letting the Earth and Water elements have their way. They came out of me as a solid beam of greenish blue light and mixed with the fountain of flames that were blasting out of Biad’s jaws.
For a moment, it reminded me of Christmas with all of that green and red swirling together, but then the elemental fireball hit Moriah right in the chest, and all thoughts of Jesus’s birth went right out of my head. She literally exploded, her body turning instantly into a huge evil bomb made of flaming black goo. The viscous liquid flew out in every direction, a blob of it punching a hole in Biad’s right wing.
My dragon partner faltered, dipping sharply to the side. I slipped and had to grab a horn to keep from being dislodged from her head entirely. I screamed when a piece of Biad’s head started smoking and then my foot felt like it was on fire as it slipped. I had stepped on some Moriah goo, and it burned like a mofo.
I let go of the horn, praying my connection to Biad would keep me from falling through the air, and I physically grabbed onto the thick stream of energy that was emanating from my midsection to pull it toward me. I imagined it as a giant glowing slinky that I had to re-coil, one ring at a time.
And damn, did it resist. That effing Earth-Water slinky laser was stubborn as hell. But I wasn’t going to give up. It was playing by my rules, not the other way around, and I needed it to get back to where it belonged.
Inside of you.
“What?” I asked. I paused in my efforts, only half of the energy-slinky returned to the earth where it belonged. I waited for Biad to explain herself.
It lives inside of you. Draw it in. It does not need to be so difficult for you.
“That’s easy for you to say,” I grunted out, going back to pulling my imaginary slinky coils in again. I was sweating like nobody’s business and my pit stink was almost as bad as Moriah’s remains. I lifted up my burning foot to wipe the bottom of it off on my pant leg. It left red and black stains behind. Great. I’m bleeding.
Heal yourself. Heal your friends.
I hadn’t even realized they’d needed healing, but when I looked up, I was horrified by what I found. Tony—thank God he was still alive—was down to one arm in action; the other hung limply at his side and he was clearly having trouble standing. Scrum was in his dragon’s mouth…not being eaten but being carried. He was either out cold or worse, and his dragon was doing its best to just survive and avoid being attacked. Jared’s dragon was so far away, I couldn’t see what he had going on. And the others were flying around in haphazard fits and starts, waving weapons and doing their best not to get killed. It was clear our offense had turned completely into pure defense—survival at any cost.
“Holy shit!” I screamed when I realized the state we were in. I was no battle captain, but even I could see that things were not looking good for us.
“Incoming!” Sam yelled, drawing my attention to the other side of my dragon. A whole other squadron of dark angels was on its way, the sight of a v-formation now able to loosen my bowels like I’d eaten an entire box of Ex-Lax.
“Fuck and double fuck, what am I supposed to do now?!” Chills ran over my body as a sense of doom like I’d never experienced before threatened to overwhelm me. I was quite certain I was having a premonition of my own death. I’d been close to the Grim Reaper’s doorstep a couple times in my life, but never this close. . .never right on it. This felt like destiny had finally come knocking and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Listen to your conscience. Let it guide you.
The problem with Biad’s advice was that I really didn’t feel like I had much of a conscience. I always did whatever I felt like doing and let the consequences be damned. The closest thing I had to an angel on my shoulder was Tony. Tony was always steering me in the right direction. If I had any kind of conscience at all, he was it.
A light blub went on in my head. Tony will know what to do. Ask Tony!
I sought him out in the mess that surrounded Biad and me. He was on his butt, fighting a demon who stood over him. My heart seized up when I realized how close he was to losing that battle. Again! He’d been saved from one only to be slaughtered by another. Time seemed to slow down as his former words came to me but delivered in Tim’s voice.
The pixie zoomed past me, his knife out and his face set in grim determination. “Do the right thing, Jayne! Like Tony said, just do the right thing! We’ve got your back!”
As usual, Tony and Tim were right. But why did doing the right thing always have to be so difficult? I looked down at my stomach and the blindingly green-blue light coming from it. It was swirling with barely bridled power. Was it hurting my baby? I prayed something that pure could do no harm to something so innocent.
Innocence.
That word rang through my head like a giant church bell. The innocent would have to be spared, right? If I let the elements do what they were created to do, everything had to turn out okay. The innocent would be spared, and the guilty would be punished. That’s how it was supposed to work, and if the right thing could happen anywhere, it had to be there in the Overworld with the elements flowing.
The elements represented pure good. Their intentions came from Earth’s and Water’s energies of creation and healing, of love and light, and of renewal. These powerful energies, emotions, and magic combined into one force were the basis of all things there in the Overworld, and it didn’t get any better than that. This was what the Overworld needed, not dragon riders and mythical beasts breathing fire at dark angels, and not fae and demons fighting for dominance and the right to assert their own wishes and desires on everyone else. Pure intentions and a shit load of magic is what would set things right.
I could feel the elements’ intentions still—they hadn’t changed. But now I knew what I had to do with them; I had to turn those intentions into action. All choice had been removed from the equation. This was the clearest I had ever been about anything in my entire life. I somehow knew, in the deepest part of my soul, that in order to save our lives and fix what had gone terribly, terribly wrong there in the Overworld, I had to let go.
“I’m going to do the right thing, Biad.” I loosened my hold on the power that was surging through me.
You always do.
I laughed at that. “Wouldn’t that be nice, for that to be true?”
Her voice came into my head at the exact moment that I released all control
of the Overworld’s Earth and Water elements and felt them combine with the invisible magical force of love—Spirit—that surrounded my friends and me.
Everything and nothing is real. Just let it go. My dragon’s words floating through my head were the last things I registered before I felt myself snuffed out of existence.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I WAS SITTING in a white room. Calling it a room was severely limiting, though, since the place didn’t seem to have any finite parts. There were no walls. There was no floor. I was floating in mid air with my legs crossed. As far as I could tell there was no ceiling either. It was just…white. Like the void, only way brighter and emptier. There were definitely no head-bonking trolls chilling in that place. I was fairly certain I was the only one around. I’d never felt so alone in my entire existence.
“Hello?” My voice echoed like the space surrounding me was bigger than a footfall field. Like, way bigger.
“Hellloooooo…” Several other versions of my greeting repeated off in the distance. I wondered if this was going to be my eternal torture…having to talk to echoes of my own conversations forever. I shrugged. As afterlives went, it wasn’t the worst. It wasn’t like I was being boiled alive or getting my ass burned off in a pit of fire or hearing the same geometry lecture over and over again.
I could have some fun with this. I stood and yelled as loudly as possible. “Hello! Jello! Smello! Tello! Oh, tello meeyo where-oh I am-oh!”
My nonsense came back to me no less than ten times, sometimes singly and sometimes several versions overlapping one another. Then it went silent again.
