by Carrie Jones
I raise my eyebrows. The light is on in here, but nobody’s in sight. There aren’t even any bodies on the floor. The bed, full of satin and velvet sheets, isn’t even ruffled. The hall is dark, scary, tinged with the smells of blood and old carnage. Nick scowls and makes a hand motion, telling me to stay. I shake my head no and follow him anyway.
His eyes meet my eyes. His eyes plead. My eyes must plead back, because he nods slowly and takes my hand in his. Our hands clutch around the knife. We take another step inside. There are two large wooden doors off of the room, beyond the bed. There’s a dresser and a chair. There are shackles on the floor. I nod at the far doors and Nick’s whole body gets caught in a shudder. His hand in mine spasms and relaxes and then holds tight. He is going to change. He lets go of my hand as he spasms again, but not before I feel, for just a second, finger digits shorten and morph into something alien, something shorter, something furrier. I am afraid to even whisper. I push myself back against the wall. The seams in Nick’s pants rip. I won’t look. I won’t look. While he changes he is vulnerable. I’m vulnerable. I stare around the room, searching for threats, ready to protect him.
Nick snarls from somewhere down on the floor. Even though I know he won’t hurt me, something inside my stomach flips upside down. Obviously, our cover is blown. I snap my fingers to get him to come closer to me, which I know I’ll catch hell for later. He hates when I treat him like a dog. But he stands up and pushes himself against my side.
“What is it?” I whisper.
He answers with a low growl. His ears flatten against his head. His teeth bare. His eyes stare at the closest door.
I push my free hand down into the heavy fur on his back. Muscles ripple, ready. He’s going to jump, to attack something. My fingers long for a collar, something to grab on to so I can hold him back, keep him safe.
The door flies open.
“Ah, Zara, or should I say ‘princess’? Human still?” says the pixie standing there. He is tall, pale, dark-haired like me, older than we are. He licks his lips with a bloody tongue. He is not Astley. He is not my father. He is another one entirely and he exudes power. “Not for long, though. Look at that lovely blue tint. Getting close already.”
I don’t look at my arms or my hands. I stare into his eyes.
“You might want to check on Daddy.” He smiles.
Nick’s back muscles tense. My heart falls. The fur beneath my fingers is gone. “No, Nick! Stay.”
Nick leaps over the bed and plows into the pixie man, who has jumped as well. They meet in midair. Fur mixes with flesh. Nick’s jaws snap as the pixie opens his mouth to show teeth. They both move so quickly that they blur. The force of the jumps knock them sideways. They smash through a window and are gone.
“Nick!” My voice is a scream.
I stumble run to the window. They are on the ground, fighting. I can’t jump. It’s too far. I whip around. Something groans from the bathroom. “Zara.”
My father stumbles to the door. His neck is gashed and bleeding. Blood clots his dark hair. I gasp, reach out my hand.
“Go. I’ll be fine. Zara . . .” His voice cracks.
“What?” I reach out to him, pull him onto the bed even though the whole time I want to go down, to help Nick, to do a million things all at once.
“Be careful. Warn your mother about me, if I—”
I nod. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
His eyes meet my eyes. He looks away.
I run down the stairs so fast it is like I am flying. I break out into the yard, where wolf and pixie stand off against each other. They are both bleeding and winded. Their eyes are wild and feral. The dark-haired pixie king smiles. Claws flash where fingernails should be. The wolf leaps.
“Nick!” The word escapes my mouth before I realize it, and he turns toward me for a second. It is all the king needs.
Crazy-sharp teeth slash into Nick’s fur, ripping at his neck. Nick’s teeth snap and close on the pixie’s arm, but it isn’t enough. The pixie claws hack into Nick’s chest, throwing him to the ground. Nick’s body spasms and he whimpers as blood gushes out of his neck. Fear overtakes me.
“No!” I run. I run over the snow, my feet crunching into it. I grab a railroad tie and put myself between the pixie and Nick.
The pixie lifts the corner of his mouth in a slow, degrading smile. “How fun. Iron in one hand. A knife in the other.”
Nick’s tail flops idly on the snow next to me. He makes a tiny wolf noise, then a large huffing of breath.
“You will not hurt him.” I raise the tie higher. “Do you hear me? You will not hurt him.”
“Oh, scary human girl. I’m shivering.” The pixie laughs and lunges toward us despite his bleeding arm.
I swing the tie. It clonks the pixie in the head and he backs away. A giant burn mark mars his pale, perfect skin. His hand reaches up to his head.
“I shall remember this,” he says. He smiles—cocky—and reminds me, for a second, of my father. “Princess.”
“Enough with the princess crap!” I lift the bar again, move in front of Nick’s collapsed form. The bar is steady in my hands. My sprained wrist throbs but adrenaline is keeping me going. My voice is steady too, and for a second I don’t recognize it even though it’s coming out of my mouth. “I’ll give you more to remember if you want.”
His eyes widen, but so does his smile. He takes a step backward and lifts his arms to the sky. “I shall return for what is mine.”
But I don’t want him to go. I want to hurt him and this voice comes out of me, taunting, hard. “Why are you leaving now, huh? Why don’t you just take me now?”
His head tilts slightly toward me, just on the right side. He’s bleeding pretty badly from his ear and neck. “It pleases me more to leave you here watching your wolf die. I enjoy the melodrama. And I shall be back for you. Do not fret.”
He flashes fast through the sky and is gone. Nick makes a soft aching noise that breaks my heart. I drop the bar, drop myself, heave Nick’s heavy wolf body into my arms.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t keep you safe,” I whisper. “So sorry.”
His chest moves up and down, ragged. I touch his ribs; at least one has to be broken. His eyes slowly open. They are big and brown and full of reproach. A tear falls onto his nose. It is my tear. His tongue reaches out and softly touches my cheek. I yank off my jacket, press it against his neck wound.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say. “I never wanted anything to hurt you.”
He tries to lift his head up, but it falls back down. He closes his eyes again, letting unconsciousness take him in a way he would never let anything else. I settle him onto the snow, grab my new cell out of my pocket, and speed dial Issie, but of course there is no signal. Stupid granite mountains and bad cell phone towers.
I shift up, trying to pull Nick onto my lap and apply pressure to his wound. “I’m going to get you out of here,” I whisper. “I promise.”
When pixies die they lose their glamour. It’s the glamour that makes them look like they have people skin. In death their skin is a light blue covered with tiny vines that seem like ivy crossed with darker veins that circle around their arms, across their faces. It is beautiful in a severe, alien way.
In order to get Nick out of here I have to walk past several bodies. In order to get Nick out of here I have to go back in the house and find something to drag him with, because I am not strong enough to carry him to the snowmobile, and the snowmobile can’t cross the iron bars and broken wires.
I step inside the house and listen. There’s no movement anywhere. No moans. Just death.
“Dad?” I yell up the stairs that are covered with an ornate red rug and dead pixies.
Nothing.
I have never called him Dad.
“Pixie king?” I yell again.
Nothing again.
I run up the stairs, trying to avoid bluish limbs, blood. I smash through the hallway and into the bedroom. He’s gone.
&nbs
p; “Great,” I mutter. “Nice. Ditching me. Another nomination for Daddy of the Year right there.”
I grab the comforter off the bed and drape it over my shoulder, barreling back down the hallway and the stairs and back outside. Nick is still collapsed on the snow in wolf form and he is still bleeding.
Placing the comforter down, I try to pull him onto it as gently as I can, but it’s hard. He looks up at me with pained brown eyes. He squinches. His jowls flop and his eyes seem to ache with embarrassment as I move his hindquarters onto the blanket.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I’m trying to be gentle. I swear.”
He growls, just a tiny bit, and in a nice way.
I pull the comforter around him, grab on, and begin to drag.
Aristotle wrote, “We make war that we may live in peace.”
I don’t know what to think about that. I don’t know at all. All the wars, all the dangers that have happened have always seemed far away. Still, I don’t panic now that the dangers are here. I work methodically even though my face should be painted white with fear. My heart should be a drum machine, it thumps horribly hard. The entire time I work I scan the sky for predators, for pixies with sharp teeth, for women with black swan wings.
“You hold on,” I tell Nick. “You hold on. I’ll get you out of here.”
I manage to make a kind of sled out of the comforter and railroad ties and fasten it to the snowmobile with chains. My fingers freeze and numb and make me clumsier than I normally am, but eventually it works.
“You okay?” I ask and he doesn’t answer, barely whimpers. “You’re okay,” I tell him anyway. “This is the only life we have, so you have to be okay.”
The surface of his body heaves out these bewildered breaths. His eyes close and open. I reach my hand into his fur and watch as my fingers braid themselves deep. We are braided together. I know that. I know.
“I will not lose you,” I whisper and it is an order, not just to him but to me.
Before I climb on the sled and go, I take a second and glance back at the pixie house. It’s invisible again, protected by an old glamour that hides it from human eyes. But I know the middle of that field isn’t some idyllic New England scene of softly fallen snow surrounded by pine trees that stand sentry and blah, blah, blah. No, I know that the middle of that field is blood and carnage. It is all that’s left of the sentient beings that I trapped there.
This is my fault. It is at least partly my fault. And that knowledge presses against my ribs like some horrible, horrible weight that seems to suck all the hope out of me. And it’s done. It’s done. They are dead and Nick is hurt. There is nothing I can do to change it.
So I just rev up the snowmobile, check one more time to make sure Nick is secure, and try to move somewhere that my stupid cell phone will get reception and then I will call Issie and Betty and I will get help for Nick and I will try to figure out where my father is and how to stop the new pixie guy. Because it is obvious—really, really obvious—that he will be back, that he is not done, that the war has just begun.
Pixie Tip
Do not hesitate to kill a pixie. Just kill.
It takes about half a mile but I finally get reception. I stop the snowmobile, press speed dial, and rush back to Nick.
“Gram?” I blurt as soon as I hear a click.
“Nope. This is Officer Clark. This Zara?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” I stare at the gray sky peeking above the trees like it’s going to fix things. “Is Betty there?”
“Um.” Officer Clark clears his throat. “Things are bad right now, Zara. We’ve got . . . Well, there’s been an accident.”
“What?” I whip around, almost drop the phone. “Is Gram okay?”
“She’s fine. She’s attending. It’s just . . . it’s bad. I’ve got to go. I’ll have her call you.”
“Wait. Tell her—”
He’s hung up. A squirrel prances along a branch like a mad emperor. He chitters at me.
“I know, I know. Okay,” I grunt back.
I check Nick. He is barely breathing. Blood covers the jacket I put on him, soaks his own clothes. I growl at him to fight and then I call Issie. It rings and rings.
“Hey, Zara.” Her voice is dull but familiar.
I swallow hard, relieved. I go and squat by Nick, touch his sleeping form with the flat of my hand, scan the sky again for enemies.
“Zara?” Her voice wakes me up, solidifies me into something else.
“Issie. We have a problem. A big problem.”
“What?”
My hand touching his fur starts to tremble, shake really. I can’t control it. “It’s Nick. He’s hurt, really hurt. And the pixies—they’re dead and some are gone.”
“What do you mean? You weren’t on the bus, were you?”
“What bus? Issie, listen! There were other pixies. They attacked Nick and—”
I stop because it sounds like Issie has dropped the phone.
“Issie? Issie?”
Nick’s eyes flutter a little bit. His beautiful wolf lips move just the tiniest amount. Through my worry, through my fear, I can see him trying so desperately to hold on.
“Zara, this is Dev. Issie just passed out. Can I call you back?” Dev’s voice is distracted, harried.
“No!” I yell into the phone. “You cannot call me back. Nick is—”
But he’s gone. I call again but nobody answers.
“Crap!” The word frustrates out of me, loud, echoing.
I regret screaming it right away. There could be other pixies hanging out in the woods. They could have been watching me move the snowmobile slowly through the forest; watching Nick bump along behind me, watching and waiting for the perfect time to strike.
Attached to the side of the snowmobile is a fireplace poker. It’s made of iron. It’s not the best weapon, but it’s something. I rip off the duct tape that keeps it in place and hold it in my good arm. Then I rush back to Nick. He’s turned human.
“Nick?” My voice is tiny small. I drop the poker in the snow and fall to my knees, touch his face. His skin has lost all color. I move the blankets around so I can see his wounds. He’s bleeding everywhere. And bruised. I cover him up again. “Baby?”
He moans.
“Nick?” Something wet falls from my face and hits his cheek. Tears. “I’m getting you help, okay?”
His eyes open. They aren’t right. Pain clouds them. His lips move. I lean over him. “I can’t hear you.”
“I’m dying,” he whispers.
“No, you are not,” I insist. I kiss his forehead. It’s on fire. “You will not die.”
His eyes close. He thrashes. I press my hand against his shoulder. It almost burns me. “You have to stay still, baby. You have to stay still. You’ll make it worse.”
His eyelids flutter and his body quiets. It seems like a monumental fight but he gets his eyes open again. I lean back down and press my lips against his. “You’re going to be safe. I swear. I’ll keep you safe.”
His lips move beneath mine. “I love you.” His eyes are strong for a second, intense Nick eyes. “I will always love you. No matter what.”
“We’ll always love each other,” I say. “Okay? I’ve got to get you back. We’re going to get to the road and then I’ll get an ambulance and you’ll be just fine.”
His eyes close. “Don’t . . . worry . . . you . . . always . . .”
I grab his head in my hand and lift it. “Stay awake! Nick, baby, you have to stay with me.”
A woman’s voice comes from behind me. “He can’t.”
My whole body shudders. I don’t turn. I won’t look at her. I know who she is. The Valkyrie. Thruth. Something inside me goes feral. “Get the hell away from us.”
The air moves behind me. She vaults over us and lands on the other side of Nick. Her wings are massive. She glows. But her face is far from happy angel. It’s more like a cold knife. It rips me apart.
“You cannot save this warrior,” she says. Each wo
rd slices into my stomach. Each word is a death sentence that I refuse to hear.
I grab the poker and carefully step over Nick so I face her. She’ll have to go through me to get him. My fingers tighten around the cold iron. “I won’t let you take him.”
“You have no choice.”
“There’s always a choice.” I am not touching Nick. I want to be touching him somehow, making sure he’s there. I step back just enough so the heel of my foot grazes his arm. He doesn’t move.
Thruth’s wings remind me of a black, upside-down valentine heart. She says, “No, you are incorrect. There is not always a choice.”
The wind shifts around us. Snow whisks into my eyes, brittle and cold, and I wonder if she’s doing that somehow.
“You will let him die here rather than continue his existence as a warrior for good in the halls of Valhalla?” She sneers at me. “You are both greedy and selfish, typical for a human.”
“He is not going to die,” I insist.
She nods. For a second a kinder emotion flicks over her features. “Yes, he is. Soon.”
Something inside me crumples. Despair fills my head, my heart. My hands shake and my fingers loosen their grip on the metal. Nick is dying. He is dying and I can’t save him. He is so pale and he is barely breathing. His body is like a shell, a coat hanging on a coatrack, lifeless and empty. My body scrunches up in half and then I manage to straighten back up again. I try to hand her the poker. “Then kill me. Take me too. Just—just don’t . . . I can’t lose him.”
She shakes her head. Her hair flows out behind her, catching the wind. Her eyes harden. “You aren’t a warrior. You’re just a girl, a human girl.”
Someone sobs. It’s me. “Please,” I beg.
She doesn’t move. The wind stops. Everything is clear, unobstructed by flying snow crystals. I can see all of Thruth; every hair, every feather. Still, I beg and refuse to accept it.
“Please . . . I’m half pixie. I’m not a human.” I frantically push the poker her way. “I’m turning blue. That’s pixie. Take me. If you have to take him, take me too!”
