by Emma Hamm
In their silence, they did not notice the small shake as Wren’s creature took control over her body. The purple-haired woman’s eyes fell back in her head, and their whites focused on each person in the room.
“Sometimes talking to a Fairy can help,” Wren chirped.
Usually, when Wren’s creature took control, the voice was deep, sometimes echoing with thousands of voices. This time, it was only one. A high pitched, birdlike voice.
Lyra turned her intense gaze towards Wren. “And you are?”
“Marigold.”
“You’re a Fairy?”
Wren nodded. “I was a Fairy. I am now part of E.”
“And you think you can help?”
“It’s always good to talk to another of the same kind. Sometimes it helps to gain a little perspective.”
Lyra licked her lips. “All right then. What’s your perspective to share?”
“Fairies are possessive; that is correct. But some more so than others. Your friend doesn’t have a very nice type of Fairy inside him.”
“Bluebell?” Lyra snorted. “She’s a sensitive little thing with a mean streak, so I could believe it.”
“No.” Wren’s head shook in quick jerks. “You see, Fairies have a lot of different subspecies. We’re essentially the same thing. Little people with wings. But some of us err towards a darker side. Your Jasper is sharing a head-space with a Tooth Fairy.”
Wolfgang started laughing. “A Tooth Fairy? Like the things we used to leave teeth under the pillow for?”
“No. That would be the human legend. Tooth Fairies are not good creatures. They’re known for being the extreme side of a Fairy. They are selfish, controlling, obsessive, and known for attacking when their enemy is asleep. Their calling card on a dead body was taking out all of their teeth.”
“That’s disgusting,” Burke commented.
“Yes, most certainly disgusting. To them it was the ultimate disgrace. Losing one’s teeth meant that um… Well to be delicate, that there were many avenues with direct access to the brain through the holes where the teeth were.”
Lyra shuddered. “I don’t want to know any more about that. What should we expect?”
“Jasper is likely going to have to control himself in any way possible. He’s exhibiting signs of a male Tooth Fairy when it is preparing itself for war. Sometimes they would manage to destroy entire trees and, in the gravest of cases, entire forests.”
“And someone stealing his mate likely isn’t helping that?” Burke asked.
“Just remember that he’s still in a human body and because of that is weak. I hope that once he feels clean and is reminded that he is human this will go away. Otherwise, you’ll have to keep an eye on him. Tooth Fairies don’t fight fair.”
Wren’s eyes flipped back to her own. She shook herself slightly and flexed her fingers. “That doesn’t bode well for us.”
“No.” Lyra said. “We might be one man down in this fight.”
The popping sound of teleportation made them all jump. Jasper stood in the middle of the room, hands already fisted. His long hair dripped droplets of water onto the floor, and his shirt was on inside out. “Are we going?”
“We still don’t know where she is, Jasper,” Lyra replied.
“Then we need to find out.”
It took them longer than he wanted to locate her. Burke couldn’t latch onto Mercy’s dreams, which meant she wasn’t asleep. That was a relief in itself, but Jasper didn’t know why. Lyra tried to call in a few favors, but no one was talking to her. Wolfgang even contacted the other Lords of the Black Market, but none had ever heard of a Phoenix.
Malachi should have been running his mouth. He was known to brag, and their informants would have sent word. Yet, he remained silent.
Jasper paced back and forth in the kitchen, feeling useless. He hated feeling like this when she needed him. The others buzzed around him, using their various skills and contacts in an attempt to locate Mercy.
Wren tried to calm him. A few of the Fairies inside her even popped up every now and then to try and talk to him. He didn’t want to talk to his own kind. His kind were largely incompetent fools, easily distracted by pretty things and highly selfish.
“We should just go, Jasper,” Bluebell hissed. “We can find her on our own.”
“We can’t fight Malachi on our own.”
“We can damn well try. All we have to do is get close enough to let her go, and then she can take over. You know she’s strong enough.”
“She could get hurt.”
“So?” Bluebell’s voice rose to a shrill octave.
“So getting her hurt is the opposite of what we want.”
“Which is?”
Jasper stopped pacing and cracked his knuckles. “To get her home safe and in our arms.”
One of his arms went numb and lifted on its own. Bluebell usually didn’t force any kind of control over his body, but she did now, using his hand to pat his opposite shoulder.
“We’ll get her back. And we’ll make them pay.”
Lyra’s voice carried over to him. “Are you talking to that Fairy?”
“Yes.”
“Well tell her to stuff it! We’re getting close.”
Bluebell swore as Jasper rushed to Lyra’s side. “Where?”
She pointed to a spot on the map laid out across the kitchen island. “It looks like someone heard Malachi was here. Bones said there were a few sightings, but he couldn’t get anything concrete out of the messenger.”
“Bones? You’re still in touch with him?”
“Yeah, he’s not as bad as I thought.”
“The man that trained you to kill and turned you into a bodyguard for his own uses?”
Lyra glared up at him. “He taught me to stay alive. For that, I am grateful. Now do you want to listen or keep shoving your head up my ass?”
He gritted his teeth and gestured for her to continue.
“Here.” Lyra’s finger jabbed at the center of the city.
“Why there?”
“Apparently, he’s about to make a very important announcement.”
Everyone in the room stilled. A message from Malachi couldn’t be a good thing. And him choosing the very center of the city was even less encouraging.
“We have to go,” Jasper growled. “When is this happening?”
Lyra looked down at the glass globe in her hand. It pulsed with magic that was suspiciously the same color as Wolfgang’s before it went blank. She looked back up at him while the color drained from her face.
“Now. It’s happening now.”
Before he could teleport, Lyra slammed her hand down on the table. The noise startled Jasper just enough to make him hesitate.
“Don’t you dare,” Burke warned. “We go together as a unit. If Malachi is talking then we have a few minutes to suit up and get our weapons. Get your head in the game.”
They moved as one, each person calmly walking towards the weaponry at the other end of Haven. All except Jasper and Lyra. They remained staring at each other, both with their palms flat against the table.
“You need to get your shit together,” she told him. “I can’t be worrying about you and fighting at the same time.”
“I have a sick feeling in my stomach that you aren’t going to be fighting at all.”
“What?”
Jasper couldn’t explain it, but his gut said that his friends shouldn’t be going at all. This was something he had to do on his own. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“You should listen to yourself more often. That gut reaction is more of a true emotion than what your Fairy is telling you.”
“The Crone said to control her or I would hold a monster on a leash,” he told Lyra. “I don’t have control over her.”
Of all his friends, Lyra was the most likely to believe him. She believed in intuition, even when it wasn’t supported by evidence. More than that, she believed that the Maiden, Mother, and Crone were powerful creatures.
Their warning would mean something to her.
He was right.
Lyra lifted her hand to press it against the base of her spine where he knew glass globes were fitted. Each globe was filled with some kind of battle magic. “So she’s going to be out of control?”
“The Hag warned me again about the same thing, when we were at the campsite.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit.”
A muscle in Lyra’s jaw ticked. “Is it even worth bringing weapons?”
“I think you and Wolfgang are going to be our best weapon. Magic is the only thing that’s going to stop her.”
“Wolfgang isn’t certain how his magic will react to hers.”
“Then we should just go.”
Lyra nodded. Her gaze lost focus as her head tilted back slightly. Moments later, the others returned to the kitchen. Wolfgang, with a furious look upon his face, led the pack. He reached Lyra just as her eyes cleared and wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” he angrily growled. His tattooed hand reached up to frame her jaw. “When I tell you that you’re going to be safe, then you respond with ‘yes sir’.”
“You know I won’t.” Lyra grasped Wolfgang’s wrist, and his skin turned bloodless beneath her strong grip. “We might need the Lich for this one.”
“Hold back the dead guy for a while,” Jasper said. “Just…let me see what’s going on first.”
“Then let’s teleport.”
Jasper held out his arms for them. He wanted to say something grand. Something about how he appreciated them for risking their lives. How they were good friends and he missed them in the time he was gone. He should have at least cracked a joke like he would have before all this had happened.
But he didn’t. Instead, he let the heat of their hands sink into his skin and calm his soul. Then he reached into his memory for the image of the statue at the center of the city and focused on it.
They materialized in the exact location Jasper had planned; behind the statue, looking out on the square. It was filled with more people than he had expected. A teeming crowd full of dark and unnatural creatures loomed before them. He could feel the power that vibrated from their beings deep within his bones.
The large statue that hid them from view had once been a soldier seated upon a horse. Now it was missing a head and limbs. Vandalism had always plagued this section of New York. Now it was worse than it had ever been.
Red Bloods disappearing had made those who were against their existence rowdy. More people had started flocking to Malachi’s cause, easily seen by how many people had come to his call.
Burke peered around the corner of the statue, cursing as he ducked back into cover. “There’s a lot of them.”
“We can take ‘em,” Lyra said, palming a knife.
“No, we can’t,” Burke corrected. “I don’t want to leave this place with anyone on this team dead. There has to be another way.”
“We have time,” Jasper told them. “Malachi hasn’t started speaking yet.”
“Is he even here?” Wren asked. They heard a thunderous boom from the crowd. Wren’s eyes flipped back in her head, and E answered her question aloud so all the others could hear as well. “Now he’s here.”
A platform appeared in the square. Thankfully, it wasn’t far from them. Rickety wood creaked as Malachi and his men began to walk upon it.
Jasper leaned to peer around the edge of the stone and felt the blood in his veins turn to ice. The back of the stage held a familiar tall pillar of wood stretched towards the darkening sky.
It looked as though they were about to burn a Witch.
A small hand pressed against Jasper’s spine. He knew that touch. Lyra smoothed her palm against his back in an attempt to ground him. “I don’t see her.”
“She’ll be here.”
“Are you so sure?”
“Absolutely,” he growled. “There’s a reason he called everyone here.”
“It could be unrelated.”
“Not with a stake. He’s making a point, or a scene, or something else that I cannot comprehend. She cannot die by fire. So what is he up to?”
Jasper barely registered the movement behind him as Lyra backed away and someone else took her place. Blue light glowed at the edges of his vision.
“Let’s see what they are thinking, shall we?” Wolfgang’s hand reached forward. Jasper’s gaze fell on Wolfgang’s thumb, from which the tattoo of an eye stared back at him. As he watched, the eye began to bleed. Red droplets of blood, so rare these days, looked like tears as they fell to the ground.
“Wolfgang,” Lyra interrupted, “Malachi’s mind is too well-guarded. Even Wren couldn’t get into it.”
“I’m not peeking around in his head. I’ve been there, and I didn’t particularly like it.” The tattooed eye blinked. “But that Golem is well within my reach.”
Mist formed around them. At Wolfgang’s subtle nod, it rolled towards the podium and the creatures upon it. No one seemed to notice the unnatural weather event. But the white mist swirled around the Golem, crept up his back, and poured into his ears.
Jasper turned to look at Wolfgang, whose eyes had closed and were twitching underneath the lids. Lyra reached out to place her palm upon her lover’s hand. Her thumb began to bleed.
“You feed his power?” Jasper asked.
“Yes.”
Their relationship was more of a nightmare than Jasper had thought. He turned away from them as Wolfgang spoke.
“He didn’t tell his men what was happening.”
“What?” Lyra asked. “How do they not know what he’s doing?”
“He told no one.”
“Shit. Then what are we supposed to do? Just wait and see what happens?”
“He devoured a Howler.” Wolfgang’s voice shook.
Jasper turned then. “A what?”
“A Howler. They can summon people and creatures as long as they know their true name.”
“Mercy doesn’t even know her real name. She was named by Ignes.”
Malachi’s deep voice silenced them all. “Margaret Freeman! I summon you!”
“That name,” Jasper whispered. A pained expression marred his face as he looked towards Lyra.
She was staring over his shoulder with furrowed brows. “Jasper, it’s her.”
He started to turn, but Lyra grabbed his face. Her nails dug into his cheeks as she forced him to remain still. “You stay with me. You do nothing rash or dangerous. We will help you, but you cannot do anything other than stay with us.”
Jasper did not respond. He pulled against her hold, stilling only when she hissed at him.
“Jasper! It is not good. It’s not good what he did to her, and we will get back at him. But you have to stay with me.”
Water began leaking from Lyra’s ears. There were moments when she was sensitive, but Jasper could count on one hand the amount of times she had been affected like this. Those times had been when the loss of life was so overwhelming that even Lyra couldn’t restrain her emotions.
She shook him. “Promise me, Jasper.”
He lifted a hand to touch her shoulder. He was so large compared to her, always had been. It had been his sole purpose in life to protect her, for such a very long time.
“I will do what I must,” he replied.
“You do not die for her. You die for no one. Not today.”
He smiled. “We take nothing with us, so we must take what we can in life. I will take her or no one.”
Lyra’s lip trembled, and she sucked in a shaky breath. “I cannot let you go.”
Malachi’s voice was booming, but Jasper did not hear what he had to say. He did not care what the tyrant thought might be important to the people in the crowd. He did not care whether they believed his words or not. Malachi was a genius at getting people to do what he wanted.
Today, Malachi would learn the feeling of failure.
Jasper let his hands drop from Lyra’s shoul
der as she released him. He turned to place a hand firmly against the dirt, which dug into his palms. His eyes rose from the pale colors of the ground to look up at the podium where the woman he loved stood.
Mercy stood proud above the throngs of people shouting at her, shoulders squared. Her hands were relaxed at her sides, and her neck held high with pride.
Malachi had dressed her in a ceremonial robe. White and pure on top, it faded into a deep blue around her ankles. The ends of the long, bell sleeves were dyed in blue, and covered her hands.
A blindfold had been wrapped around her eyes. Only then did he realize what she was truly wearing. The blue was not dye.
It was her blood.
The blindfold was shredded at her temples, the tatters stuffed into her mouth as a gag. Twin rivers of blood streamed down her cheeks from where her eyes should have been. She could not speak. She could not see. Malachi had mutilated her.
Jasper’s eyes devoured these details while his body locked into place. She was a pillar of strength surrounded by madness and pain. There was nothing he could do for her now.
“Jasper.” The rough whisper came from Burke. “I know this is usually my place, but considering who that is…tell us what to do.”
He hesitated. What could he tell them to do? Malachi had his hands upon Mercy and had inflicted so much pain. They could rush the podium, but the angry crowd of Malachi’s supporters would stop them. He could teleport to her, but Malachi must have predicted that.
There was nothing. There was no way to save her, no way to help her.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I don’t know.”
He tore his eyes off Mercy to look at his friends. Helpless. They stared back at him with equal measures of shock and horror.
“What do we do?” he asked them.
Before they could answer, Malachi spoke again.
“Margaret, there are many here who are guilty of sin. I want you to look into their souls and wipe the earth clean.”
The words reverberated through the square. The crowd fell silent with confusion, but Jasper knew exactly what Malachi’s plan was. All along, it had been the same plan.
He reached for his friends and pulled them all towards him. He felt the scorching heat of fire on his back just as they teleported from the square. His magic brought them to the one place he was certain would be safe.
