by D. N. Hoxa
As if he just had just remembered where we were and what was happening with the world around us, Bender’s smile vanished and he nodded. “Follow me.”
Twenty eight
My aunt was alive and well. She and all the other coven leaders, including Blood and Green, were in the farmhouse, eating dinner. Bender hadn’t told them about our arrival before he ran out to us, so when they saw us at the door, they nearly choked.
Amelia hugged me, too. For the first time in my life. It felt strange—I couldn’t tell you if it was good strange or bad strange.
The farmhouse had more than enough space for all sixteen of us to sit comfortably on the leather couches and really heavy wooden chairs. The walls were decorated with deer heads—there was even a bear head in there somewhere—and it smelled of freshly painted wood in there.
When William Peterson from the Green coven saw Julian, his eyes nearly popped out of his skull. He stepped in front of him and analyzed his face for a long minute.
“Julian, you…I thought you were dead.” Peterson briefly looked at me. Yep, I had told him I’d killed Julian, but I’d lied to everybody else, too, so… “I thought you were a Blood witch.”
“I’m a fairy,” was all Julian said, and with a confused-as-fuck nod, Peterson stepped away and let us through.
Bender filled Julian and me in quickly. Apparently, the new treaty the coven had signed included an emergency plan for the leaders and their people. They’d had in mind something like what the Hedge witches had done—kidnapping and killing their children—but a fairy taking over the world was just as alarming. Joseph Davis’s farmhouse had been chosen as the evacuation spot, and it had been really convenient, too, because with the money that the Bone coven made by returning the dragon blood to the ECU, they’d bought a lot of weapons. Those weapons had been placed in the same farmhouse for safekeeping. It had taken a while for all the leaders to get together over there, but once they did, they locked the place down and no fairy could step even close to them.
Shivers washed over my back as I looked at the leaders. Fear was written all over their bodies. They couldn’t seem to be able to stand in one place for long—even Monica Raymond, though she was really old to be moving the way she did.
“Tell me, what have you got?” Bender asked me when he was done with the story.
I turned to Julian. He could explain this far better than I. He widened his eyes for a second, but soon realized it was best he told his story—and ours. As much as I hated it, we both knew it was time the people around us knew about my fairy magic. So clearing his throat, he began. This is going to be a lot of fun.
“The fairy who’s doing all of this is Galladar, the cousin of the Summer Queen,” he said. I looked at the leaders to catch any reactions, but they were all just holding their breath at the mention of that place. Julian being a fairy, apparently, wasn’t that concerning for them at the moment. “He’s shaped his magic in a way that absorbs every string of fairy magic he comes into contact with.”
“He absorbs magic?” Catrina Reigns, one of the Bone coven leaders, asked.
“He does,” Julian continued. “It’s why we haven’t been able to stop him in the fairy realm.”
“But he’s a fairy,” Austin Marshall from the Green coven said, a dumbfounded smile on his face. “He has other fairies with him from your world.”
“He’s destroyed everything in the fairy realm—” Julian said, but Simon Reed from the Blood coven cut him off.
“Are you insinuating that the fairy realm isn’t behind this?”
“Absolutely not,” said Julian, but Reed laughed coldly.
“Why should we believe anything you say? You lied your whole life to us all.” Oh. So he, too, had known Julian before.
“Because I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” I said reluctantly.
“Me, too,” said Lynn.
“I came here to ask Winter for her help because I believe her magic can defeat Galladar,” Julian continued.
“You came here?” Amelia asked, then looked at me with her brows narrowed. She obviously didn’t appreciate that Julian had lied to her about being a fairy, either. “Winter, you never told me…”
Her voice trailed off when I looked down at my lap. Yes, I hadn’t told her, but I’d done it for a reason. I hadn’t wanted her to worry—or to try and talk me out of going to the fairy realm.
“Wait a minute,” Joseph Davis said. “What magic? Winter has no magic.”
Here comes the cake…
“She does,” Julian said. “She has fairy magic in her because she is a fairy, at least part fairy.”
“But you said—” William Peterson said to me, but I cut him off.
“I know what I said. I had no other choice but to lie. We’re only telling you this because of what is happening, but my secret cannot leave this room.” Probably a lot to ask, but I had no other options.
“Did you know about this?” Austin Marshall asked my aunt Amelia.
“It doesn’t matter who knew,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What matters is that I have it and I can use it.” They all clamped their mouths shut, so I continued. “I went to the fairy realm to help Julian, but Galladar caught us and imprisoned us for some time. By the time we escaped, he’d already come here.”
“How were you in the fairy realm?” Joseph Davis asked. I was going to answer, but then I realized he was talking to his daughter. Lynn was sitting next to her mother Caroline, who refused to let go of her hand, though the girl looked uncomfortable. It made me want to smile.
“It’s a long story,” Lynn whispered.
“One we don’t have time for.” He wanted to know where his daughter had been, sure, but that conversation could wait for another time.
“How is Winter’s magic going to kill that fairy?” Amelia asked Julian before Joseph Davis could protest.
“Her magic is both Bone and fairy. Galladar can absorb fairy magic, but if Winter can wound him with her Bone magic, he can be killed.”
“So you’re saying that your magic is strong enough to defeat that guy?” Simon Reed asked, but for a change, he seemed only curious.
“Maybe,” I mumbled. Julian believed it. Me? Not so much.
“Galladar can be killed,” Julian insisted.
“By what?” Theodora Sullivan of the Green coven asked. “Bullets don’t work on him. Neither does our magic.”
“By fairy magic,” Julian said.
“But you said—” she started, but he cut her off.
“Let me finish, please. Winter’s fairy magic is laced with Bone, and vice versa. If she can wound him first, he won’t be able to separate her magic into Bone and fairy, so it will be impossible for him to absorb the energy. That’s what’s going to kill him.”
“I don’t understand,” Austin Marshall said. “First, she’s just a fairy/witch freak with no magic, and now she does have magic, and a lot of it, with the power to kill the most powerful fairy we’ve ever seen?” My blood boiled in seconds.
“The only freak in this room is you for having such a narrow mind,” Julian said before I could even open my mouth. He was calm, too. The way he looked at Marshall, though, it made you think about death. I almost grinned. That asshole had it coming, and when he lowered his head and looked down at the ground, everybody could see that he knew it, too.
“Good thing you don’t have understand,” said Bender and stood up, pissed as hell. “All we need to understand is how to get to that guy.”
Holy spell. He thought I was anywhere near ready to do something like this, too?
My mouth opened, but the hope in his eyes didn’t let me tell him that I had no idea how to even separate my magic. How to attack Galladar with one or the other. Something hard and bitter fell in the pit of my stomach. We were all so screwed if I didn’t figure out a way to do this, and fast.
“Do you have any idea where he’s staying?” Julian asked Bender.
“We have a few theories, the most probable one being the Empir
e State building in Manhattan,” Bender said.
“So you’re just going to attack him?” Amelia asked me, her voice shaking.
“I’m going to need your help,” I said reluctantly. “Julian thinks I’ll be able to wound him alone, but I’m not so sure. In the fairy realm, he put off my spells like they were nothing.”
“Because your magic is both fairy and Bone,” Julian whispered.
“Which is what’s going to kill him, if I get him weak enough first. I’m going to be able to do that much more efficiently if I’m not alone. If others with powerful witch magic are with me.” At least that way, maybe we had a chance.
“I’m in,” said Bender.
“We’ll be there, all of us who can,” Simon Reed said. The other Blood leaders nodded their heads, too, but others looked reluctant.
“So taking him to the fairy realm wouldn’t be a better idea?” Joseph Davis asked.
“Even if we could somehow manage that, it would be worse. Fairies are far stronger back home,” Julian said, shaking his head.
“So what we need now is a plan,” said Bender.
Yes. A plan. Everything worked better with a plan. With a plan, I’d have time to prepare. I could even squeeze in an hour of training with Julian.
“But before we get to the plan, though, I’d like to ask all of you again to not share what we talked about here with anyone, ever, after all of this is over,” I said. I didn’t want to be subject of their stares, but I would have felt guilty if I didn’t bring it up again. They had to know how important this was to me.
Slowly—very slowly—they all began to nod their agreement. I wasn’t a hundred percent reassured, not even close, but it was something.
“The plan,” I said and turned to Julian, and he didn’t hesitate.
“He’s a Summer fairy, so—” Julian started, but none of us heard the rest of it.
He was cut off by the roof falling over our heads.
Twenty nine
Everything happened so fast. One second, we were all sitting down and talking, and the next, things were falling onto our heads.
Was it an earthquake? Because the ground was shaking so badly, I could barely stand on my feet.
“Outside!” Bender shouted, but everyone was already running for the door, arms above their heads so that pieces of the ceiling didn’t knock them out.
Julian grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. The expression on his face said it all.
No, this wasn’t an earthquake. This was Galladar.
“Grab my hand,” I called to my aunt and reached out for her. As soon as her fingers wrapped around mine, I pushed towards the door.
The door was only about five feet away, but it took a lifetime before we made it there. Pieces of heavy wood fell on us every second. Good thing the house wasn’t made out of concrete, or we’d all already be dead.
I didn’t get a chance to look back when we made it out, because the whole house caved in right in front of my eyes, and with so much strength that it threw me backwards. I landed on my ass on the ground. Panic made the view in front of me blurry, and no matter how many times I tried to look at the people next to me, I couldn’t make out their faces. I had no idea if they all made it out safely. All I could do was hope and…
“Winter Wayne,” someone called.
The blood in my veins froze. I knew that voice.
Still dizzy from the fall, I struggled to keep my balance and turn around without hitting the ground again. I barely breathed when the view became clear, and I saw Galladar dressed in gold, standing twenty feet away from us, with an army of fairies at his back.
My God, he’d found us. He’d found us, and I was as weak as the first time I saw him. I looked at Julian who had his sword drawn and not a drop of blood in his face.
“You can do this,” he whispered, then met my eyes. “Winter, you can do this.”
The words reached my ears in an echo, extremely slowly. I moved my head towards Galladar again as if I was underwater. My muscles refused to cooperate. I couldn’t even reach my gun or my knives, though I knew how useless they’d be. This was happening. It was right in front of me, and the only person who seemed to believe that we were going to make it out alive was Julian.
“You know, I was on my way here to show your people what a pathetic excuse of defense they have against me, when I heard that you’d escaped my prison,” Galladar said.
My eyes refused to blink. Though I couldn’t see his face in detail, I could see his violet eyes. I could see the smile on his face. My whole body wanted me to turn around and run as fast and as far as my legs could take me.
“I waited because I knew that it was only a matter of time before you came here.” Galladar laughed.
His words were a slap to my face. I’d brought him there. He had come because of me.
“It feels good to be right, doesn’t it? Now, I’m going to make sure that everybody here sees what I do to people who have the courage to even think they can defeat me.”
I didn’t see it coming because the man didn’t even change the expression on his face before something hit me in the chest and threw me back all the way to the ruined farmhouse. Air refused to get through to my lungs. The back of my head hurt like it was split into two. The dark sky above us and the many stars in it was all I could see.
“Winter, get up!” Julian shouted before he grabbed both my hands and pulled me to my feet.
Could I stand?
“This world belongs to me now,” Galladar beamed. “And those of you who have a problem with it, die.”
All the fairies behind his back—at least a hundred—began to run toward us. My legs shook. I fell against Julian’s chest, but I never took my eyes off their angry faces—until witches and werewolves with rifles in their hands ran in front of us and began to shoot.
If there’s one thing I hate more than anything, it’s the sound of battle. The sound of gunshots, and of people screaming—and above all, the silence of death.
“Close your eyes,” Julian whispered against my hair. He wrapped his arms around me and moved me until my cheek was pressed to his neck. “I made a wish, Winter. Birthday wishes have to come true. We have to go back to that rooftop. Do you hear me? We just have to.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I wanted to be on that rooftop with him so badly.
“You’re stronger than you think. You are the bravest person I know, and your magic is the best of both kinds. With them together, you can do wonders.”
Did he really think that, or was he just saying it to make me think that?
“He’s here now. Let’s not let him get away.”
With his hands on my shoulders, Julian pulled me away from his chest. The sound of battle filled my head immediately. His eyes were wide and full of hope. Full of affection as he searched my face, and then offered me that half a smile I loved so much.
He really believed I could do this.
The coven soldiers were still shooting. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? It meant they weren’t dead. Galladar was still right where I last saw him, looking at his soldiers dying, and smiling about it.
“Look behind you,” Julian whispered.
When I did, I found coven leaders—and Bender—standing in a half circle, looking at me.
“We’re ready,” Bender said.
His confidence made my heart stop beating for a long second. All of those people, they were looking at me to end this. Julian believed in me, but then again, he always had. These people, now, they believed in me for the first time.
Suddenly, it was no longer an issue of can and can’t. It was an issue of have to.
Screw it. Who cared what I thought? If they thought we could do this, then we would. A renewed energy filled my every cell, and my magic burned brightly in my chest.
A plan was in order, and this one was going to be fairy-magic proof.
“I’m going to go to him on my own. All of you spread around and take positions somewhere he can’t see you
. When I begin to spell him, each one of you do the same. Throw whatever magic you can at him at the same time,” I said. Even my voice sounded different.
Without a word, all of them began to run to their places. Amelia and the other leaders who couldn’t fight stood in front of the ruined farmhouse. With her eyes, she wished me luck. For her sake, I winked at her.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Julian whispered.
Grabbed him by his mantle, I pulled him close to me and planted a kiss on his lips. Screw the circumstances. If this was the last time I was speaking to him, it would be the last time I kissed him, too.
“Stay alive,” I whispered against his lips, and before he could reply, I charged forward.
My gun in one hand and a knife in the other, I made it through the wall of witch, werewolf and vampire soldiers who were fighting off Galladar’s fairies. Trying to see who was winning could potentially ruin this sack of balls I’d developed and I couldn’t risk that.
Aiming my gun at a fairy forehead, I pulled the trigger, and jumped even before he hit the ground to catch the fairy behind him in his gut. He bent over and my knife slid into the back of his head. A sword was coming for me, but another stopped it halfway. Julian.
Another step forward and another dead fairy, I could see Galladar clearly now. He never stopped smiling as he waited for me. He thought I was doing him a favor by going to him—and maybe I was—but for now, I chose to think he was afraid. That he had a reason why he went through all that trouble just to get to me. That reason was because he feared what my magic could do to him.
Julian stabbed the last fairy standing between Galladar and me before I could. Cold shivers broke through my back. Time to think had now passed, so I took off running toward the asshole dressed in gold.
My shield was wrapped tightly around me, and I expected him to throw me back the way he did at first, but no. He let me get close to him, probably so he could see me better while he tortured me.
When I thought he was going to attack, I went down and rolled on the ground, dropped my shield and conjured an attack spell. By the time I was standing again, another spell was on its way to him—not to mention the spells of the others who were hiding all around us.
