New World Order

by Elle Casey

  “She’s right about what, boogieman?” I asked.

  “She’s right there’s a threat out there. And from what you all have said, it sounds like it’s coming.”

  “What kind of threat? From whom?” asked Tony, all seriousness. I knew his war planner game-face when I saw it.

  “From the creatures. The creatures of the Underworld.”

  Chapter 9

  I thought about what Gorm had said for a second, about the creatures from the Underworld coming here, and asked, “What creatures? Like the orcs we were talking about?”

  “Yes, like orcs. And probably others. Many others. If the orcs have found a way to get here, no reason to think the others won’t follow.”

  I looked at Tony and he stared back at me. I shrugged my shoulders, disregarding Gorm’s ominous tone. I’d seen orcs and so had all my friends, except Scrum. Sure, they were a pain in the ass and disgusting in general, but other than that, I didn’t think much about them. There were way more of us than them, so I’d never considered orcs a threat. Dwarves probably did, since they were so easily put on a spit and turned over an orc bar-b-que pit, but not me. I had Blackie, my trusty dragon fang weapon, and the orcs hated it.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is. We’ve run into orcs several times.”

  Gorm shook his head. “Well, that’s the problem. You should definitely not be seeing orcs ever in this realm. The fact that they’re here should tell you something is very wrong.”

  Tony shook his head as if trying to clear it. “Wait a minute. You mean, the orcs are here from the Underworld? And the Light Fae supposedly don’t know about it? That’s not right ... ” He reached up and scratched his head before continuing, “No, they know. They battled the orcs we ... or I should say, Jayne, released from the trees when we first came here during our changeling test. I don’t remember it actually, since I was erased afterwards, but I’ve been told the story by several fae. They knew the orcs were there then, and yet they’ve done nothing from a strategic planning perspective to deal with it. I’m sure they feel the threat has been neutralized.”

  “Well, it hasn’t,” said Becky, all pumped up now that she had an active listener. “There are more. And they will be joined soon by other creatures ... from there.”

  “Says who?” I asked, ready to call her bluff.

  “Says those who walk the Gray. And Chase.”

  “Ha! Now I know they’re feeding you a line of bullshit.” I smacked Tony on the arm with the back of my hand. “Tell her, Tones. You walk the Gray all the time. You would know if there was something going on. Go ahead, tell her.”

  I sat there smugly staring at Becky, waiting to hear the reassuring words of my friend telling her that she was being bamboozled by the Dark Fae who were still busy trying to recruit my friends.

  “Well. Um ... ”

  “Tony, what’s wrong?” said Scrum, walking over and bending down to look in his face.

  I jerked my head back in Tony’s direction and saw that he looked confused. “Tony, what the hell is wrong with you? Tell her there’s no threat. Tell her the only scary things in this forest are the buggane, the Dark Fae, and Scrum’s hair.” I winked at Scrum when he looked at me with questions in his eyes. I didn’t have time right now to talk to him about his gnome-head problem, but promised myself I would later. Poor kid was out in the weeds.

  “I’m sorry,” Tony said, shaking his head and lifting his eyes off the ground to look at all of us in turn, “I was just thinking about some things I saw when I was in the Gray recently. At the time they didn’t make a lot of sense, but now that Becky mentions this, it ... well, it kinda does.”

  I dropped my face into my hands. “Oh, for the love of all that is holy, Tony.” I lifted my head up and stared at him with my mean face. “Would you please, tell me what’s going on?!”

  “Yeah, I’m with Jayne on this one,” said Finn. “Ya’ll are just bein’ a bit too evasive for my likin’.” He stood up, brushing the leaves off his butt. “Tony, we got things to do here and we ain’t gettin’ any of ‘em done. Tell us what there is to know and then let’s go get Chase. If Becky’s still got some healin’ to do, well, I think she could do that at our clinic, but o’ course that’s her choice.” He looked at her and I noticed the pain in his eyes.

  I had been wondering for a while, but this look confirmed for me that the poor guy really liked her.

  Becky didn’t say anything in response and she didn’t meet Finn’s eyes.

  Things were not looking good there. I hoped like hell she wasn’t going to break his heart like I was starting to think Chase had begun to break mine. Her story made me doubt my staunch resolve that he’d joined the Dark Fae under coercion. Damn the Dark Fae to the Underworld!

  “Sorry, guys, I’m just trying to process it all,” said Tony. “What made me think there might be some truth to her words, is that I’ve noticed a lot of disturbances in the Gray. Normally it’s a pretty calm place – sure there are some dark forces in there and some unhappy souls, but for the most part, they all kind of exist in harmony. But lately, not so much. I feel an energy there that just doesn’t belong; and it’s definitely not a good energy. It’s been growing steadily. The gray elves don’t seem to sense it – I don’t think they have the same experiences in the Gray that I do. They kind of skim the surface of it, whereas I go in very deeply sometimes.” He looked at all of us and saw that we were mostly lost. “I’m sorry, I’m not explaining this well. It’s difficult if you haven’t been there.”

  I patted his arm. “Don’t worry about it, Baloney. If you say something’s up, something’s up. It’s that simple.” I sighed loudly, clearing my mind as I did. “So ... BFF of my heart ... do you think that what Becky is saying could have some truth to it? That maybe some mean-ass creatures are going to come and invade the Green Forest through the Gray and attack us?”

  He shrugged. “I guess there’s a chance. I’d like to speak to the gray elves and Dardennes about it. That’ll be the first thing I do as soon as we get back.”

  I looked at Scrum and Finn, and both of them were nodding their heads in assent.

  “What do you think, Tim?!” I yelled out into the forest.

  I was rewarded with the sound of buzzing wings and then a vision of the handsomest pixie I know doing a flip in midair in front of my face. He steadied himself, hovering just inches from my face, and said, “I think it’s time to take a vacation! Fiji anyone?!” And then he buzzed away.

  “What’d he say?” asked Finn.

  I rolled my eyes. “Nothing useful.” I turned my attention back to Becky. “Okay, so what’s the deal? Are you coming back with us, or are you a turncoat? An abandoner? A traitor to the cause?”

  Becky laughed and reached over to hug me. “I love you, Jayne. Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you?”

  I sat there patting her on her little back. “It’s not like you’ve been gone forever. It’s only been like a day or two, geez.”

  She let me go and sat back, saying, “Well, it feels a lot longer than that.” She looked cautiously up at Finn who was standing next to us, but he didn’t return her gaze. He was staring off into the distance, his mind elsewhere, or so it seemed.

  “I’m going to stay here a little while longer, but then after I’m better, maybe in a few days, I’ll come back.”

  I noticed Finn’s hand that had been white-knuckling his bow relax a little, and the frown between his eyebrows melted away.

  “I don’t know about Chase, though. He’s ... still in the process of working out his issues.”

  I grabbed her hand. “Tell me,” I begged. “Tell me what’s going on with him.”

  She smiled and patted my hand, apparently trying to soothe me. “He’s getting better. Much better. He’s not all delirious anymore. He just smiles a lot more than normal and occasionally laughs. He has to take injections every day though. They had to use ... uh ... pixie blood to make his antidote, so ... ”

  She had a totally
guilty look on her face, which set the alarm bells off in my head. I squeezed her hand a little harder. “Beckyyyy ... ?” The pixie blood thing wasn’t news to me, which she obviously knew, so I had a hunch there was something else going on.

  I could sense her trying to pull away from me, the way her eyes had gotten a faraway look in them all of a sudden. She tried to stand up as if she was leaving, but I pulled her back down. It was time to get tough. “I’m giving you two seconds to come clean before I put you in a permanent bubble.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she insisted.

  “I would. And I’ll probably be stuck in there with you, too, since I suck at it. So if you don’t want to be stuck with me in a green bubble for the rest of your very long fae life, you’ll fess up. I know you’re hiding secrets; and if they involve Chase, I have a right to know what they are.”

  Becky tilted her head. “How so?”

  I smacked her on the shoulder.

  “Ow! What was that for?” she said, reaching up to rub her arm, frowning at me with as much anger as she was capable of – which wasn’t much.

  “That was for asking me stupid questions. You know Chase is my daemon. Plus he’s my friend and who knows? ... He could be my possible future life mate. So out with it, or else.”

  “I’m not supposed to tell.” She pouted. “But I am very interested in hearing about your life mate plans. Can I be in the wedding?”

  Tony sighed. “Just tell her, Becky. Your attempts at distraction won’t work. You know she’ll get it out of you eventually.”

  I pulled some of The Green into me, sending it to my eyes, letting it sit there and glow. I meant it as a threat, to show my supposed power, but instead of scaring Becky, it mesmerized her.

  “Holy moly, Jayne, your eyes are so incredibly bright now ... bluuuue and greeeeen and bluuuuue and greeeen ... all swirly and whirly and girly and twirly ... ”

  “Becky!” I yelled, grabbing her upper arms and shaking her, “Snap out of it, you fluff brain! I need you to talk to me!”

  Her head snapped back and forth a couple times before she looked like she was back on this planet again. “Wh ... what happened there? Wow, I felt like I’d drank too much strawberry wine for a minute there.”

  “No, you goof, no strawberry wine here. Tell me about the pixie blood. I’m not kidding.”

  She looked up in the air around us and whispered, “Is Tim still here?”

  I whispered back, “I’m sure he is, but I have no idea where.”

  “Fine,” she capitulated, huffing out a breath and rolling her eyes, gesturing for me to come closer so she could whisper in my ear. “I was talking to one of the elves who works in the clinic, and he told me that they had run out of Tim’s blood, so they had to use another pixie’s blood for Chase’s antidote.”

  I whispered back, “Why would Tim care about that?”

  Becky spoke even quieter, “Because it had to be the blood of a relative of Tim.”

  “A relative?” I whispered back. “Like who?” I couldn’t imagine that the blood of his wife would have the right stuff they were looking for – unless pixies married their relatives, which was kind of gross. Tim didn’t strike me as the cousin-marrying type.

  “It was the blood of his son.”

  I sat straight up and yelled, “Whatthefuckareyoutalkingabout? Tim doesn’t have any kids!”

  Becky started flapping her hands at me madly, like a crazy girl in the middle of a slap fight to the death.

  I ducked, my arm held up in front of me as a shield, trying to avoid the worst of it. “Cut it out, you crazy bitch!”

  “I told you it was a secret, Jayne! Couldn’t you just keep your big mouth shut for once?” The slapping slowly died down as her energy faltered.

  I frowned at her, still keeping my arm up in front of my face for protection, but I could see she was too tired to continue with the physical abuse, so I lowered it cautiously. “Hey, watch it with the personal insults, lady. My mouth isn’t that big.”

  “I’m sorry, but geez. You know he heard you. Plus you called me the b-word.”

  “Well, you earned it, abusing my delicate person like that with your crazy ninja moves. And trust me, if Tim heard me, he’d be in our faces right now, buzzing like mad.”

  “Who’d be in your faces right now, buzzing like mad?”

  I jumped in fright, just now realizing he was standing on my shoulder.

  “Holy shit! Not funny, pixieman. I was having a private chat with my friend here.”

  “So I see. What did I miss?”

  “Uh, nothing.” I bugged my eyes out at Becky, hoping Tim wouldn’t see my signal telling her to play along.

  Becky was staring daggers back at me, so I did the only mature thing left to do and stuck my tongue out at her.

  “Why the death stare from old weenie water sprite over there?” he asked.

  “She doesn’t want me sharing her secrets.”

  “Are they secrets about me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Then you have to tell. It’s roommates’ honor code. You’re not allowed to keep secrets about the other roommate. If you do, you have to move out. You’ll have to room with Scrum probably.”

  “Or you will,” I said, trying not to laugh at his new code.

  “Nope. Only the person keeping secrets has to go. It’s in the book. Look it up.”

  “What book? I’ve never seen it.”

  “Sure you have. It’s on my nightstand.”

  I reached up to grab him, but he took flight.

  “Not so fast, Miss Grabbyfingers. You have secrets to share and I have places to go. Chop, chop. Out with it.”

  “What’s he saying?” asked Becky, her eyes following his flight path over our heads.

  “He wants to know what your big secret is. Apparently, he didn’t hear me and my big mouth.”

  “Well, you can’t tell him,” said Becky, firmly, back to staring me down again. “I’m serious. We cannot have a pixie war on our hands right now. That’s all those creatures from the Underworld would need – all of us laughing and dancing around, totally defenseless.”

  Tim buzzed down until he was in front of her face, nearly making her go cross-eyed. “You’re not her roommate, you watery little tart, so back off!”

  I burst out laughing. “Tim, easy, no need to get all worked up. You know your snores are the only ones I ever want to hear when I go to sleep at night.”

  He turned around and folded his arms, hovering there and getting himself into a real pixie snit. “You haven’t seen me worked up yet, believe me. And for the record, your drool glistening on your pillow across the room is the only drool I ever want to see.”

  “So sweet. And I think I have seen you lose your cool,” I frowned at him. “Chase? Remember?”

  I leaned to the side so I could see around him and lock Becky in my gaze. “So what’s the deal? Can you go get Chase for us? I need to see him.”

  Becky stood, glad to have an excuse to go. “Yes. I’ll go get him. And I’ll see you guys in a few days, when I’m feeling better.”

  She began walking away and Finn moved to walk with her. They went a few steps farther and then stopped, talking quietly between themselves. I tried to make out what they were saying but they were purposely being quiet. Then I watched as Finn bent over awkwardly to give Becky a kiss on her cheek. For the first time today, she had some color in her face – a delicate pink that belied her embarrassment. Or excitement if the smile on her face was any indication. I grinned, watching them. They were so adorable I wanted to puke. But in a nice way.

  “How cute is that?” asked Tim, sighing.

  “Seriously, it is,” I agreed. “I totally want to vom right now.”

  “I know, right?” asked Tim, coming to rest on my shoulder. “Young love ... ”

  “Huh,” said Tony.

  I looked at him curiously. “What’s the matter, Tones?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just ... didn’t realize they were ... a couple.” />
  I laughed. “I don’t think they realized it either.”

  He smiled. “I guess teen romance isn’t any easier in the fae world than it is in the human world.”

  “Why would it be?” I asked. “We’re just as clueless here as we were there.”

  “True, so true.”

  “I had a girlfriend once,” said Scrum, coming over to stand next to me, holding out his hands to help me up.

  “Oh yeah? What was her name?” I asked, grabbing his hands and getting to my feet, then turning to give Tony my hand to help him up. We stood there brushing leaves and twigs off our butts and legs while we listened to the tale of love lost as told by Scrum.

  “Her name was Millicent. She lived next door. When we were little we played together all the time – every day in the summer. She said she was my girlfriend. At school we were friends too, until the fifth grade. Then she got ... well ... boobs and it went all downhill from there.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Boobs? Boobs were the downfall of your relationship?”

  He shrugged. “Kinda seemed that way. One day she was flat-chested and hanging out on the swing set in my backyard, next day she has boobs and three different boys are trying to get her attention all the time. After a while she kinda forgot I existed.”

  Tony looked at him sadly. “Didn’t you try to talk to her?”

  “Yeah. A couple times. I tried to warn her that those guys didn’t have her best interests at heart; but she didn’t listen.”

  “What’d she do?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the sad answer.

  “She told me to get my scrubby face out of her face and to leave her alone.”

  “Woof. She sounds like one mean bitch, Scrum. I’m sure you’re better off without her.”

  “I know. That’s the common sense way to look at it. But it hurt anyway. Still does, actually. She was my best friend for a long time.”

  I looked at Tony and felt my heart squeeze a little bit. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if Tony told me to get out of his face. I wanted to hug him, but instead I hugged Scrum. I pulled a little of The Green into me and sent it to him, hoping I could bring him a small measure of peace. “She didn’t deserve you, Scrummers. She really didn’t. You’re a good guy.”