by Jamie Hawke
“Like my horns and Red’s cloak, masked to appear normal—well, still badass, but the magical elements won’t be seen by normal people. Now shut up, grab hold, and let’s ride.”
I obliged and she revved up the bike, kicked a section of the wall that opened a ramp leading to street level for us, and then we were off. We went with such force that I thought I’d go flying back, so I quickly grabbed hold of her—only to realize I was clutching boob, but didn’t want to let go for fear of becoming roadkill.
“A bit lower,” she said. “As much as that turns me on, you’re squeezing the hell out of them.”
“Sorry!” I shouted, only then realizing her voice had come through the helmet. She turned and I readjusted so that I was able to hold onto her sides instead, and she laughed.
“Next time you want to cop a feel, start gentle and then try the kinky pain stuff.”
“You’re into that?”
“How would I know until you try?” She laughed and then we skidded past several cars, ignoring the red light and flying through the city. Soon we passed Disneyland on our left, the convention center not far off, leading me to think about Chris again and wonder how he was doing. The idea that we’d never be able to hang out again was really irking me. We’d been best friends since meeting at a Baskin-Robbins when we were ten. I was celebrating my birthday with my parents because I didn’t have friends yet. He gave me a bouncy ball he got from one of the machines and then asked if he could celebrate with us. From then on we’d been inseparable until college, when he went off to spend a lot of time with his various girlfriends.
Today the guy would probably be wandering around looking for me. Maybe calling my parents to ask if they’d heard from me, or asking around with my two exes, which would be embarrassing as hell except for the fact that I wouldn’t see either of them again, either.
“You okay back there?” Pucky asked.
“I’ll be fine,” I replied, though my voice conveyed otherwise.
“First time on a bike, huh?” she asked, misunderstanding my discomfort. “Remember, Pucky rhymes with lucky. So…”
“That’s supposed to be comforting?” I asked, then laughed. “A rhyme?”
“In case you don’t know, rhymes have been making the world a better place as far back as I can remember, and that’s a damn long time.” She pulled onto the freeway, and now at least we were at a steady forward momentum so I could relax slightly. “Er, not that long.”
“Is this one of those situations where I’m not supposed to ask how old you are?”
She groaned, then said, “Let’s just say I’m nineteen. Nineteen, but have been that for a long time.”
“Right, okay.”
“Does it really matter?” she asked irritably. “That’s how it is for us. Once we take over the role, we don’t really age. It’s all a blur, in a sense—the years go by, we fight, we survive. We watch new stories come up around us or the original versions of our mythology, and it’s all interesting and very fascinating, but the key is keeping the balance in check.”
“The balance between good and evil,” I said, to clarify.
“Simplistically speaking,” she replied. “But as I said before, the agents think they’re acting in humanity’s best interest. Once they learned who we were and which attacks Legends were responsible for—mostly in the form of what later was wiped to look like natural disasters—they made war against all fairy tales, not believing us when we told them the truth of it. Since some Legends spun their own yarn then offered to help hunt and destroy the rest of our kind, agents set up a temporary truce with them much like the CIA does with criminals to take down larger gangs or mafia bosses. It was backwards, but in some ways I understand. They’re scared of magic, which is one reason we try not to harm them. We don’t want to become the monsters they believe us to be.”
“And the Legends? What’s their excuse?”
Silence followed for a bit, and then she said, “Some are evil. Others have been warped… and some are lost souls who just need to find their way home.”
“So killing them isn’t a good thing either. This is going to be tough.”
“Is it?” She laughed. “I wasn’t aware you were such a killer, or that you solved so many problems back home with death.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Right. You play video games, so assume everything can be handled by ending a life, once you learn what’s going on here.” She sighed. “We handle each Legend on a case-by-case basis, using the intel in their files. The evil ones are usually tagged as ‘kill,’ except for a few in extraordinary circumstances. The ones who were warped get tagged with a mix of capture or kill—and sometimes a capture ends up becoming a kill due to circumstances. The lost souls… those we try to capture.” She sighed again. “Sometimes it’s tough, yes, but the thing is, they’ll usually try to fight with Shades. They don’t want to die, and summoning Shades uses energy. If you’ve defeated their Shades and the Legend’s energy is depleted, you can usually capture them or they’ll be pulled back to their home base. Some are incredibly well-connected to the Fae world, so they last longer. But it’s generally true.”
I let that linger, trying to digest it, then finally said, “It was my friend, and my parents.”
“What?”
“That I was thinking about, earlier. Worrying about, I should say.”
She nodded, considering this, then said, “Well, at least for your family you don’t have to worry. Part of being the Protector means a bit of magic that goes to protecting them, keeping them off the grid, you could say.”
“But friends?”
She avoided the question, riding in silence.
“I see,” I said. “Where are we going, exactly?”
“Let’s find out.” She freed one hand and swiped up on the front of the bike, causing a display to rise and turn on to show Mowgli again. “Status on Red?”
Mowgli’s voice came through our helmets as he said, “Scanning,” and a map appeared, showing that she wasn’t so far from us. But I recognized the location at the same time as Mowgli said, “John Wayne Airport, private jet. You’d better hurry. We’re heading there now.”
“Roger that,” Pucky said, closing the screen and accelerating.
“We’re going to fight this war in the middle of the John Wayne Airport?” I asked, a new sense of panic rising within me.
“Unfortunately, yes. But relax—not the whole war, just this little battle.”
“Wonderful,” I replied, watching as the first sign for the airport exit became visible. I could already imagine all the people running and screaming, me looking like a terrorist as agents tried to shoot me and take us down.
Maybe this Protector business was more than I could handle. I was about to find out.
8
Air zipped past me, my shirt fluttering like sails on a rough sea, and every car we passed threatened to end my life. More than once I saw it flash before my eyes, years of trying to get into college, studying and taking placement tests and submitting art projects… only to end up as a man fighting for fairy tales.
If there was any greater sign that I was high, this was it: clutching a female version of Puck while riding a science-fiction-meets-fantasy motorcycle into battle against more fairy tales.
But I wasn’t on drugs. Not only that, I was both accepting that this was real and starting to love it. Pucky was cute as hell, and her horns had only briefly made me unsure of that. Fighting the Shades had been scary, but now I was enjoying the thrill of the idea, intrigued to see what leveling up brought me.
“Hold on tight,” Pucky said. I asked why, but she just laughed. “TIGHT!”
So I did, wrapping my arms around her, preparing for some insanity, only to hear her laughing again.
“What?” I asked, still holding on but pulling back enough to look ahead. A clear road, nothing out of the ordinary.
“Sorry, I just love that feeling.”
“You jerk.”
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Another laugh. “Want a reason to hold on? Fine, try this.”
“Oh, shit!” I shouted as she swerved, pulling over to the offramp and then angling the bike so that the front went up on its side at the railing and then up onto the railing. “SHIIITTT!”
“Woohoo!” she shouted, and when we were close to the bottom she went over the side, hitting the pavement with a thud of the back tire and careening back onto the main part of the road.
Cars swerved by, honking and blaring their horns, but then we were back in the flow of traffic and before long, pulling into the airport. Mowgli appeared on the screen and said, “We’re here. We have a team. What’s your status?”
“Just arriving,” Pucky said. “Eyes on Red?”
“Not yet,” he said. “We’re in the terminal. You go around back, look for signs of them from the other side. She’s here, no doubt about it.”
“On it,” Pucky said and darted to the right, going for the kiss and ride area, but then turning onto the restricted road that would take us onto the tarmac.
“We’re really doing this,” I muttered.
“Yes we are!” Pucky replied, excited. She grabbed my hand, moved it to her crotch and said, “In case we get shot, I want to feel that with my last breath.”
I laughed, enjoying the playfulness of this lady, and held on tight to her body with my left hand, her pussy with my right.
No shots fired yet, I noted as we veered around the airport, but two security cars were approaching to intercept us.
“Don’t ever let go, Jack,” she said with a chuckle, and then started fake moaning as we spun left, making for the back of the airport and avoiding the path of the security vehicles.
“Cut it out,” I said with a laugh. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“Says the guy with a handful of pussy,” she countered, but held my hand in place when I tried to move it. “Okay, okay. Keep your eyes on the glass. See if you can spot her cloak. And taking things seriously? If by that you mean not having fun while saving my friend, you’re nuts. What could be more fun?”
“Um…” I wiggled my finger down there and she moved her ass up against me.
“Touché,” she replied. “What about this, then? If I approach every dangerous situation seriously, in our line of work, I’m going to be damn serious all the time and probably depressed. Got it?”
“Well, just say so next time,” I replied, trying to ignore the fact that her tight ass was still pressed hard against my crotch.
“There!” I said as a shot went off inside, but then glass shattered and the shot whizzed by. “Shit, never mind. Thought they were firing at her, but they’re firing at us.”
“Stay low,” she said and then veered right, but this time I did see them—agents in black suits that stood out in contrast with Red’s cloak. Red was fighting, but being pushed back toward a side terminal, the private jet type.
“They’re going for that hanger,” I said.
“Then we intercept them.” She veered right as more gunshots went off, so that we started around the building
More glass broke as they came at us, and we at them, and then two agents split off from the rest.
“Watch this,” Pucky said, and as the bullets flew at us she steered straight for them. The front with its banshee acted as a shield, deflecting the shots, and then when one shot got around it what looked like an energy shield popped up.
“You’re going to hit them!” I shouted, watching as it became inevitable.
“No, I’m going to shoot them,” she yelled back, pulling out a pistol with one hand and using her teeth to adjust the settings on the side. “Always hit agents with tranqs.”
And then she spun the bike, turning it so that I was certain she was going to lose control and go crashing right through them. Instead, she turned again at the last minute so that we skidded past them, her shots going strong as we passed, dropping three of them.
“Now!” she shouted, and I had no idea what she was talking about except that she turned, grabbed me, and pushed off. The bike went flying into the glass of the airport, shattering it, while we went rolling, the ground slamming into my side and stinging as I slid, tearing my pants.
“Dammit,” I shouted, forcing myself up and going for my knife as a line of Shades appeared around us. “A little warning next time!”
“You would’ve been more scared if you knew what was coming.”
I merely ground my teeth in response, watching with curiosity as the enemy closed in. Back in the terminal others were fighting, working toward Red.
“Mowgli’s team,” Pucky said. “Fight toward them if you can, and…” She debated, then cursed and tossed me a pistol. “Remember, tranqs only!”
As she said that, a shot hit the ground at my feet. My adrenaline kicked into overtime with the realization that I was being shot at. Without much of a clue how to handle a pistol other than from laser tag and paintball, I ran for the cover of the building, shooting at the agents moving my way in the process.
“Let go of yourself,” a voice seemed to say, though I didn’t know where from, and halfway there, I realized I was growing in size, increasing in speed and power. The thoughts of tranqs or saving lives no longer lingered at the front of my mind but were floating around in some nebulous place that was my consciousness.
“Jack, no!” another voice said, but I was already gone, my new self leaping in through the shattered glass, shooting and clawing—yes, apparently I had claws—and roaring, and agents were actually retreating from my path.
“Protector!” a man shouted, and I recognized him as Mowgli but was too caught up in the fight, roaring for him to get out of my way or I’d knock him the fuck back too. “Not like this!”
An agent came for him but I pounced, slamming my pistol into his head and then kicking him away, and when I pounced again, this time claws at his throat, I realized my hand was covered in hair.
This was enough to stun me, to recall what they’d told me about the Big Bad Wolf, and I was staggering back by the time two men took me to the floor. One was a man with knuckles big and scary, a real thug type, the other more long and narrow, with a greenish tint to him.
“Get ‘im straight, Jiminy, or I will!” the thug said.
“He’s good,” Jiminy replied, waving a hand in front of my face. “Aren’t you, Protector? You’re new, you’ve been bitten—but you have the choice, and it’s yours alone. Resist… resist.”
It didn’t take more than that to fill me with hatred for what I had started to become. My mind flashed with images of me and Pucky running, of her laughing at some stupid joke of mine, of her hand in mine.
“He’s back,” Jiminy said, and then the thug had me on my feet, pointing me away from the main fight, to where three agents had Red and were moving to the area where the private jets were waiting.
I was about to take off after them when Pucky came jumping over the back of the closest ticket counter, shot over it, and then ducked down next to me.
“You sure you’re good?” Pucky said, signaling the other guys that she had this.
My breaths were coming hot and heavy, my mind swimming, but we had to get to Red. I knew that much, so nodded.
“Keep your shit together,” she said. “We’re going to train you on this, help you fight the wolf. No matter how much he huffs and puffs, don’t fucking let him in!”
“I’m good!” I shouted, seeing Red disappear from sight, and then pushed off in pursuit.
Pucky joined me, providing cover fire. Halfway there, a strange sight came from my right—more Legends, I supposed, in the form of flying monkeys!
“Stay on Red!” Pucky said as she moved to the nearest window and shot it out, then unloaded on the monkeys as people shouted and ran from the area Red had been taken. I went past them, amazed at the idea of how this would all look like some sort of terrorist attack. Running through the door, two airport security guys tackled me, but the thug from earlier came pounding in, slamming
one of them off of me and then turning to tackle the other.
“Don’t wait on me, princess,” he said with a grin that revealed wooden teeth, then went about putting the guard in his own restraints.
I turned toward the jet and ran out after it, into the hanger where Red was almost at the jet’s stairs and a team was moving my way. They paused though, turning and making room for someone else. I slowed to a jog.
A man strode forward, emerging from the jet. For the first time, I felt something dark within. Not large, not intimidating in any traditional sense. He was grinning at me wickedly, his pointy ears barely visible under his green cap and mop of brown hair. Clearly a man, but like he was trapped in a boy’s body.
“Peter…?” I said, trying to understand this darkness.
His hand lifted and he made a fist, and that’s when I saw his shadow was long, reaching, connected to my own. Neither made sense as the light was to our right and so our shadows should’ve been to our left, not straight ahead. The dark sensation came strong now. As he stood there, two men approached his side, both dressed as pirates. One was a living skeleton, the other a man with a hook.
“Take him,” Peter said, and they came for me as the darkness fell over my eyes so that suddenly I was seeing the airport as if through a veil. But it was in flames, embers falling from the ceiling, a woman running in the distance looking more like dinner to me than an actual person. My size started to increase again, and I imagined the hair and claws as well.
“No,” I said, pushing back, the darkness fading and the veil as well.
“Before he has a chance to fight it!” Peter said.
The pirates charged me now, but I was already pulling out of the darkness and, taking my magic knife out of its sheath, squared off against them.
9
“Not today, Hook,” I said, lunging for him. The tall pirate sneered and drew his saber, deftly parrying my silly knife strike aside and kicking me to the ground.
“Snotty child,” he said as the skeleton came up alongside him, going to my other side. “What makes you think you can possibly stand against us?”
