Exile

by Caleb James

  Alice stared first at the fire burning through the ceiling in her bedroom and then at the impossible lizardy thing that landed on the floor. I should be afraid…. I’m not. It’s kind of cute. It’s talking to me…. I’m hallucinating. It’s the powder. I need to stop doing the powder. But it feels so good.

  “Of course it does,” the white salamander said. “It’s fairy dust. And now it’s time, Alice.”

  Alice struggled to find words. Something is wrong. I know that voice. I know what she wants. She wants…. But the drug was too strong. She could neither move nor resist, only watch as the salamander’s jaw unhinged and her mouth opened wide, wider, wider still.

  She’s going to swallow me.

  And she did.

  MAY BURROWED into Alice, keeping the teen’s pretty outside while taking control of the haffling’s insides.

  Free. May’s molecules raced up and down the girl’s spine and grabbed control of her brain, tapping her thoughts and her memories. Free to wear dresses and take back what’s mine. She paused over the image of an auburn-haired boy. That’s the one you like but think is too young. Interesting, and age is just a number. Still, not the one for us.

  She recoiled at scenes of Alice with her brother Alex. She hissed…. That one… that one we will kill. And his boyfriend too.

  Twenty-Six

  IT WAS barely 8:00 p.m., and Charlie had passed exhausted at their third fire, two fires ago. Now it was all nerves and shots of caffeine. The morning’s weirdness, from taking Finn to Katye Summer’s apartment to those wonderful moments with Liam, had been replaced by the smell of cookies, fire, and tragedy.

  His company, like every engine and hook and ladder in the five boroughs, was under siege.

  They barely managed to snuff one blaze when the call came for the next. And he knew, by the smell and the holes burned from tar and tin roof through to the basement, that these were all set by the same hand. Not the kind of thing he could, or would, voice to his station mates. Yeah, fairy queen wants to conquer Manhattan.

  He heard the frightened rumors among the crowds, and even the usually unflappable Kyle was on edge.

  “This is terrorist shit!”

  Charlie didn’t argue, just stayed the course, not wanting to look up at the night sky for fear he’d see another fireball. He wished he’d had time to get Liam a cell phone and worried about his brother Michael, ’cause it wasn’t just the FDNY but every first responder—cop, firefighter, medic, ER doc, and nurse—who were under fire.

  He focused on the tasks before him, hoping Alex, Jerod, and Liam would keep Gran, and one another, safe. Wherever he looked, the sky was filled with smoke plumes rising from Manhattan and far into the boroughs.

  The air was thick. More and more people caught the smell. Before, it was just a few who thought a bakery was burning. Now, even Kyle sensed it. “What the fuck is with the Betty Crocker smell?”

  As night dragged on and the fires kept coming, Charlie noticed something else. Perhaps it was fatigue or his experiences since meeting Liam, but from the corner of his eye, he’d catch a flash of wing, a woman’s ears and teeth that seemed too pointy, like the creatures in that fantastic wardrobe. A gnawing sense grew that something below the surface, something dark, was on the rise.

  At 10:00 p.m. his company was called to a high-rise on Lexington and Thirty-Sixth. At the wheel, he spotted the by-now-familiar column of smoke, like a chimney burned through the thirty-story structure.

  It was bad. Families on the street, wide-eyed children, and shocked residents. Oxygen-rich flames shot high through the roof, far too high for any cherry picker or even a crane, if they could get one.

  Charlie knew this was a night no one would forget. Residents frightened out of their homes, not knowing when the next building would be attacked. Like London during the Blitz, only there’d been no air-raid siren, and there were no well-drilled home guards directing people into shelters. Even Charlie, who’d been through dozens of disaster drills, was at a loss as to what to tell the desperate mother who’d grabbed his sleeve a couple of fires back and asked, “Where is it safe? Where are we supposed to go?”

  “Get out of the city, if you can.”

  “What if they take out the bridges and the tunnel?”

  “Ma’am, if you can take you and your kids and get out, I would.”

  People crowded streets and parted like waves before the screaming assortment of ambulances, fire trucks, and cops. Smartphones were affixed to everyone’s hands, thousands of videos uploaded through Instagram and Facebook, headers typed with trembling fingers and thumbs. Buildings on fire, fireballs from the sky…. Apocalypse!

  Charlie, at the wheel of Engine 25, Kyle next to him and six guys crammed in the back with full gear, were the first on the Murray Hill scene. He prayed others would follow but knew that even with companies pulled in from the entire eastern seaboard and en route from as far away as Chicago, it might just be them and the lone squad car parked fifty feet from the blaze.

  Jumping down, he spotted Alex and Jerod running toward him. “What are you doing here? Where’s Gran? Who’s keeping an eye on Gran?”

  “She’s okay,” Alex said. “My sister is inside.”

  “Okay, we’re on it. Try to get them on your cell. What’s the apartment number?”

  Alex couldn’t focus. He stared past Charlie as people, some he knew from the building, poured out the doors. He looked up and saw others trapped in their apartments. They screamed for help through open windows. The inrush of oxygen fueled the fire.

  Bouncing on the tips of his sneaks, Alex, with Nimby on his shoulder, felt like he was losing his mind. He’d tried to reach Alice dozens of times. Not even Clay had been able to locate her, and now….

  Before Charlie could stop him, Alex tore off into the building.

  Jerod shouted after him, “Alex, no!”

  “You, stay here,” Charlie yelled to Jerod. “What’s the number?”

  “They’re on the nineteenth floor, first door on the right as you face the elevators.”

  Charlie gauged Alex’s lead. The night was chaos, and the worst thing he could do was break ranks, abandon his post, and go after Alex, who’d stupidly run in… to save his sister and mother. He shouted back to Kyle that he was going in. Not waiting for a response, which would be, What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Fitzgerald? he raced in.

  Residents in the building’s hundred seventy apartments ran down the stairs as Alex, and three floors behind him, Charlie, headed up. Like salmon against the stream, they stumbled over and around abandoned suitcases, children’s toys, all the things people thought important enough to grab but not important enough to lose their lives over.

  Alex’s thoughts were fixed on Alice as he ran, on why she hadn’t returned his texts or voice messages. Is she okay? Nimby, on his shoulder, tried to speak, her chatter not making it over the noise and the sirens. In his gut he knew the fire in this building was no accident. Just as the one in their old place in the East Village had been deliberate.

  May needed a haffling. How could I not see this? How could I have left her alone? Stupid!

  His feet pounded up the stairs. The fleeing tenants grew fewer the higher he climbed. His eyes tracked the signs for the floors. Eight, nine…. Legs burning, ten, eleven, stop looking at the signs. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Charlie’s behind me. Crap…. What if I get all of us killed? Sixteen, seventeen. The smell of cookies and smoke dense in the stairwell from a fire door propped open on fifteen. His lungs burned. Charlie’s heavy footfalls got closer. Eighteen, nineteen, thank God! He threw open the fire door and stood in the hall. The smoke was not so bad, many of the apartment doors wide open.

  He jammed his hand into his pocket and grabbed the keys. He undid the dead bolt and opened the door. An unexpected wall of dense black smoke and heat burned his face, like getting too close to an oven. “Alice!” he shouted and doubled over as the smoke invaded his lungs.

  Behind him Charlie cleared the fire door.
“Alex! Get out! It’s too hot.”

  He coughed and ignored his warnings. “Charlie, she’s in here. She’s frightened. I know where she’ll be.” Alex gulped air, barreled into the smoke-filled hallway, and stumbled blind toward Alice’s room.

  Charlie, who’d gone in without helmet or respirator, ducked low and followed. He wrapped a kerchief around his nose and mouth. “Stay low!”

  The heat was intense. The fireball had passed through this unit. As with Finn’s pointed questions to Liam, he knew the target here was Alice Nevus. And if a fireball burned through her room or had landed on her bed, there was probably a real bad reason why she’d not returned Alex’s calls or texts.

  His theory proved correct when Alex threw open the door to his sister’s bedroom. Flames shot out, and Alex, unprepared, was almost immediately overcome by smoke inhalation. He crumpled unconscious to the floor. Nimby raced around his body in frantic circles. She looked at Charlie and screamed, but between the sirens, the roar and crackle of the flames, and the pulse pounding in Charlie’s ears, her tinny voice was lost.

  Charlie knelt by Alex. This was obviously his sister’s bedroom. The fireball had done its work, the hole, not in the bed but in the middle of the floor, ringed with fire. If she’d been in here, no way she’s alive.

  He scooped up Alex as Nimby grabbed his ear and shouted, “She’s in the closet, and she’s not she, she’s sidhe!”

  He hoisted Alex over his back. The door of the closet cracked open. He startled. Thank God. “Alice, I’m here to get you out of here.”

  “Run!” Nimby screamed.

  Charlie shook his head, prepared to coax a shell-shocked fourteen-year-old out into a room on fire. “Come on, Alice. You can do this. I’ve got Alex. We have to get out of here.”

  The closet opened wide, and Charlie caught his first look at Alice Nevus. A pretty teen with straight blonde hair and clear blue eyes, dressed in what looked like a ballet outfit, with a wide pink tutu covered with sparkles. That’s just weird. “Come on, Alice. Stay low. Stay away from the hot spot.”

  She did the exact opposite. With her highly flammable tutu and fluffy top, she straddled the flaming hole in the middle of her bedroom floor.

  “Get out of here!” Nimby screamed. “She is not Alice! Run!”

  The teen spoke. “So brave. I think we’ve met, and look at what you’ve brought me. Thought I’d have to hunt that one.” She waved a dainty hand in his direction.

  Charlie, with Alex across his back, could not move. He fought back panic. What’s going on? He tried to lift his foot. “What the fuck?”

  The teen’s eyes were on him as she sauntered across flames, which should have sent her up like a candle.

  It’s not touching her—not possible.

  Pointing to Alex, she clapped her hands and spoke. “Let that one burn. Stay with him…. You may both burn.”

  Charlie panicked. “I can’t move!”

  She brushed past him. “That’s because you’re paralyzed, stupid.” She stopped and looked at Alex, draped over his back. “Too perfect, too wonderfully, marvelously perfect. Yes, you can both burn.” She paused in the door. “But never let them say that Queen May was cruel, though I am, of course. But here, my brave soldier of fire, let me cloud your thoughts and give you peace. There, so much better.”

  And, humming the tune to Disco Inferno, she was gone.

  Nimby, who’d hidden in the collar of Charlie’s coat, tried to break the spell. It was no use. May had frozen the firefighter and blanketed his mind in forgetfulness and fog. “Move, Charlie Fitzgerald. Run, run, run! Take Alex and run, run, run!”

  Orange flames licked up through the hole in the floor, and somewhere deep in the building’s guts a gas line, which they’d not yet turned off, exploded.

  The fairy dived at his head. “Try, try, try, Charlie Fitzgerald, or you will die, die, die!”

  It was no use. Charlie willed his body to move, but nothing happened. It was like he’d been filled with plaster, which had hardened on the spot. Why am I here? He heard Alex’s shallow breath from his back. Who am I carrying? “Liam, is that you? I can’t move.” He thought of how they’d met. We’re in a fire again. “Liam, I can’t move. I have to get you out of here.” The fog in his head receded a bit. I can’t move. I’m never going to kiss you again or tell you what I feel. I should have told you. Tell him now, you chickenshit moron. He remembered that it wasn’t Liam over his shoulder but Alex. The thing he had to tell Liam rang like a bell in his mind. I love him. I love Liam. His right foot broke free. I love Liam. His left inched back.

  “Move. Move. Move, Charlie Fitzgerald!” Nimby screamed.

  “Liam,” Charlie spoke aloud, the soft syllable like an incantation. “Liam.” He remembered the feel of his hand in his, his lips. Why the fuck didn’t I do more? Because you love him, moron. Because you asked for one kiss, and you got two. I want more. The more he focused on Liam and what he felt, the easier he moved. He had no time to ponder, was it Liam, or this feeling? Great, so I’m going to die just when I fall in love. I do love him. And it has nothing to do with his fucking glamour. Well, then, get the hell out!

  With Alex on his back and Nimby dive-bombing around his head, he backed out of the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind him. Unable to see through the smoke and knowing he’d been stupid to leave without a helmet and breathing apparatus, he fixated on Liam. His eyes, the way he chewed his bottom lip when he was nervous. He remembered how he’d freaked out Gran’s cats, and then the next time he hadn’t. It helped. He repositioned Alex on his right shoulder as Nimby rode shotgun on his left. I am going to see him again. I will tell him I love him. And when he comes back with all those bullshit reasons why I shouldn’t, I’m going to kiss him. I’m not going to stop!

  He made it to the stairwell, his head still clouded with May’s magic. He halted and tried to remember what had just happened. It was useless, and knowing there wasn’t time, he recited one of Dad’s mantras. “Get the job done.” So with Alex Nevus passed out on one shoulder and Nimby on the other—Get the job done—he hauled ass down eighteen flights and got them out alive.

  Twenty-Seven

  ALICE STEPPED daintily out of her closet dressed in a rhinestone-studded tutu, white cashmere sweater, and ballet slippers to a world of smoke and fire. She is inside of me. Though that seemed not quite right. A tipping point had passed. She is in control.

  Of course I am, May thought as she spotted the tall firefighter with an unconscious Alex Nevus over his back. Her spirits soared. Goody for me! Here but moments and already brought tribute. Too wonderful!

  Alice tried to stop May from casting the spell over the firefighter who’d come to save her and who had hoisted Alex like he was a sack of potatoes. She’s in control. I can’t. She’d watched and listened to the horrible words leaving her mouth. “Let that one burn. Stay with him…. You may both burn.”

  Alice knew. This is what happened to Alex, and now she’s done it to me. Only unlike her brother, she had no true love to break the spell or to harness the powers of thousands in the audience and millions of live viewers who’d cast May out of his body.

  Not this time. May’s thoughts hissed like steam on burning coals. We shall be great friends, you and I.

  From her brother, who had been possessed for months, Alice knew he’d been unconscious for most of it. I’m still here. I’m still awake.

  Of course you are. And it’s wonderful. You feel better than you’ve ever felt. More powerful, more alive.

  As horrible as leaving her brother and that brave firefighter had been, Alice agreed. She felt light, unafraid… ecstatic.

  Fairy dust, my love. You shall never want for it.

  Alice remembered her backpack, forgotten upstairs in the fire. We have to go back for it… and maybe we can save Alex.

  May hissed. He burns, and smell the night, child.

  A firefighter ran toward them. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course I am.” May smiled bright and s
hone Alice’s clear blue eyes into his.

  The man stumbled. “You’re sure?”

  “Of course, and thank you for asking.” I am so hungry. May breathed deep. The scent of fairy fire was everywhere. And after the fire comes the dust. You will never go hungry, Alice. I will show you. So yes, we will be together, besties forever. You will tell me all I need to know of the See, and I will feed you mountains of fairy dust. Sorry about your brother… though he had it coming.

  Yes, of course, Alice thought, her mind clouded with the wonderful smoke and the promise of fresh dust. He did.

  Too excellent! How I love this city. May threw out her arms, and with her head back she twirled, loving the feel of the stiff pink skirt, which sparkled with streetlight and the flashing reds, yellows, and blues from the police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks. This is all my doing. A stage fit for her, filled with smoke and lights. Just minutes into this new body—pure joy. This time is perfect!

  She skipped down the street, trying to take it in, her gaze pulled to dozens of near and far plumes of smoke. Her mouth, or rather Alice’s mouth, watered. So hungry. I could eat them all… and maybe we will.

  She spoke aloud, loving the sound of her words through Alice’s voice. “This reminds me of home…. This once was my home. This all belonged to us.” With her slipper-clad feet firm on the pavement, she sensed the Unsee beneath them. Like layers of a sandwich.

  Alice listened in to May’s thoughts. Can we see the Unsee from here?

  “What a marvelous question. And because you are part of me, it comes without cost. Let me see if I can see the Unsee.” May shuddered, and gooseflesh popped along her arms. “I see the Mist. It doesn’t touch the See but comes right up to it. Yes, like a sandwich, where the Mist is the filling and the See and Unsee are the bread. I am starving….” She didn’t want to look at the Mist, at the place where she’d been tethered inside the body of the beast. How dare she! My own sister. This is much better… and she will pay. They will all pay.