“Oh. I’m really sorry,” Gen said. She knew the woman was sick, after all, that was why Pepper was after her in the first place, but she still felt bad when she heard it.
“Look out!” Ivy cried from above.
A bolt of fire shot out of the sky. Gen yanked Andi off the bench by the arm. The fire bolt hit the bench an instant later.
“It’s him,” Herron cried and flew upward. He readied his Exacto knife spear and charged toward Pepper.
“Get away from here! This has nothing to do with you!” Pepper yelled.
“It has everything to do with me!” Ivy shouted as she dived at Pepper and slashed with her dagger. He dodged out of the way and kicked her in the small of the back as she shot past him. Her wings couldn’t catch the air and she began to fall.
Herron swung at Pepper with the spear, catching him across the shoulder. A thick streak of blood showed under Pepper’s ripped clothes.
Ivy recovered from her fall before she hit the ground and flew back to where Herron and Pepper were fighting. Pepper saw Ivy trying to flank him and looked back at Herron, dodging away from another swipe with the pole arm. He stopped beating his wings and plunged downward and caught himself well below Herron.
Herron and Ivy descended quickly to catch up, but Pepper wasn’t interested in engaging Herron again. He was fixed on Andi. His hands began to glow, aflame. He summoned as much magical energy as he could take in, felt it burning through his body, then he thrust out his hands and fired a tremendous white-hot fireball at Andi.
Gen shoved Andi out of the way and the force of the fireball slammed her to the ground, then the ball of flame exploded.
“Gen!” Jim shouted.
Ivy plummeted from the sky. “Ivy!” Herron screamed. Jim looked up to Herron and saw Ivy falling. He ran as quickly as he could and caught her before she hit the ground.
Herron kicked Pepper in the face and Pepper fell, spinning, into the tree. Herron dived after him. Pepper landed on a large branch and got to his feet. Herron swung the Exacto knife and caught Pepper’s ankle, knocking him off the branch.
Pepper landed hard on his back on a lower branch and Herron leaped down on him and planted his knee into Pepper’s chest. Pepper’s hand lit up in flames just before he punched Herron across the jaw, knocking Herron off of him. Herron dropped the Exacto knife, which fell to the ground far beneath them.
Herron and Pepper each drew their swords. Herron went for a high slash. Pepper parried and feinted to the left, trying to knock Herron off balance. Herron spun to catch himself and cut at Pepper again, missing completely. Each of the fairies thrust, swung, and parried, dancing back and forth across the branch. Herron caught Pepper across the bicep, and Pepper almost dropped his sword. He switched to his left hand and shot a small blast of fire at Herron. As Herron ducked out of the way, Pepper brought his blade straight across Herron’s gut, slicing deep.
Herron doubled over and screamed and Pepper kicked up into Herron’s ribs, then shoved him off the tree with both hands. He watched Herron fall into the grass below them then looked up for Andi. He caught the motion to his side too late and was shoved against the trunk of the tree. His torso twisted in agony and he started to scream. Instead of sound, blood and vomit shot from his mouth. He looked down and saw a gigantic human hand holding the Exacto knife that pinned him to the tree, right through his belly. The knurled end of the long handle was nearly as wide as Pepper’s hips, and the tapered blade was all that held Pepper upright.
He saw his legs twitch but he couldn’t feel them. He couldn’t move anything except his neck. He tried to look at the human who had stabbed him, the male one.
Jim watched Pepper die, impaled on the Exacto knife that was wedged into the tree. He let go of the knife and rushed to Gen’s side and gently placed Ivy in the grass next to her.
Her shirt was partially melted to her body, which was almost completely covered in burns from the explosion. The right side of her face was disfigured, severely burned, and all of the hair on the right side of her head had been burned away, showing a shiny, bright red, blistered scalp. A trail of blood and saliva trickled from the corner of her mouth, her charred lips unable to close.
“Ji-ji—jiii,” Gen struggled to speak.
“No, no, sssh,” Jim said. He touched her shoulder and she howled in pain. He snatched his hand away. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Gen’s breath was unsteady and rasped through her mouth. Her nose had been almost completely burned away.
Ivy struggled to her feet and moaned in anguish when she saw Gen. She felt the strength draining out of her. She flew to Herron. He was alive.
“Bad… wound…” Herron gasped. “Not…”
Ivy cried. “No, you just need a healer. You’ve had worse. You’ve had way worse.”
Herron shook his head slowly. Ivy tried to think of some encouraging words then Gen called out in a howling, wordless moan of agony. Ivy’s energy was diminishing quickly. She flew back to Gen’s side as quickly as she could. She tried to land normally but her wings gave out and she crashed to the ground. Ivy struggled to get her feet under her and stood up.
Ivy looked at Jim, then at Pepper’s body in the tree. She nodded solemnly. Jim’s jaw dropped open and he shook his head.
“No,” Jim said.
Ivy nodded. Tears ran down her face. “You know what you have to do.”
Jim went to the tree and pulled the Exacto knife free, letting Pepper’s body fall to the ground. He ran back to Gen and placed it in Gen’s charred right hand, wrapping her fingers around the handle.
“You have to do this, Gen,” Ivy said quietly, “or we’ll both die. Do it, you’ll live, and you’ll live forever.”
Gen struggled to turn her head to face Ivy. “Don’t want to... live forever,” Gen coughed. “Not if I.. have to... take your life to do it.”
“I am offering my life to you. You’ve given me so much. You’ve given me your spirit and your joy.” She stood as straight and she could and walked toward the point of the Exacto knife, reflecting the burnt orange of the sky. She stopped with the point of it just barely touching her throat. “You gave me life. My life already belongs to you.”
“You’re dying,” Jim said. “If you die, Ivy dies anyway.”
Gen sobbed. “No... I can’t do it,” she said, struggling for breath. It was getting more and more difficult to keep her eyes open, and not having to take any more burning and painful breaths didn’t seem like a bad idea. “Just... let me go.”
“Gen,” Ivy said, firmly. She looked at Jim and nodded. She was weakening.
Jim called out, “Gen! Gen!”
She slowly shook her head. Ivy’s legs gave way and she fell to her knees.
“Genevieve!” Ivy called. “You have a responsibility to all of these worlds. You can’t let both of us die! Do it!”
“NO!” Gen said, hoarse and rasping. “No. You kill me, so you can go on.”
“Do it, Jim,” Ivy pleaded. “I know it will work. You have to do it.”
Jim took the knife from Gen’s hand, turned it around, and placed it back in her hand and curled her fingers around the metal handle. He placed his fingers on either side of Ivy’s shoulders and gently dragged her a few inches to the right. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
Ivy’s eyes were closed, but she nodded.
Jim took Gen’s hand and pulled it upward. Gen cried out at the sudden pain. Tears were spilling out of her eyes and blood was still trickling from the corner of her mouth. He pulled her arm across her chest until she started coughing violently, then he let go.
Releasing the tension flung Gen’s right arm in an arc back toward the ground. Her elbow hit the ground and her forearm straightened into its natural position, the blade of her hobby knife pointed downward. The weight of Gen’s arm was enough to plunge the sharp point through Ivy’s body.
Ivy screamed in pain, doubled up against the warm metal handle. The blade had pierced through her and stuck into
the dirt beneath her. She felt the warmth of her blood pooling on the ground, tickling the sides of her broken wings. She spasmed and coughed up a mouthful of blood, then fell still.
Gen gasped to fill her lungs with air and sat bolt upright, letting go of the knife. She opened her eyes, dazed. “What…?” She looked at Jim and saw that he was crying. Then she looked down to her right.
“No!” she cried. “No! What did you do?” She whirled her torso toward Jim. “What did you do?”
“I did what I had to do,” Jim said, crying. “I did what I had to do to save your life.” He started crying more forcefully. “I had to save you. I couldn’t let you die.”
“But you killed her!” Gen screamed at him. “You killed Ivy! You son of a bitch! You made me kill Ivy!”
“You would have both been dead in another minute,” Jim said. He sobbed. “I had to save you.”
Gen’s tears ran hot down her cheeks. She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and there was no pain. She looked at her hands. The burns were gone. Putting her hands to her head, she felt her hair, smooth and thick. She gazed down at Ivy, pinned to the ground. “Oh my god, Jimmy. What did you do?”
Then his arms were around her. She felt Jim’s shirt against her face, and Jim-with-a-J held her while she cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.
-
Gen slowly got to her feet, but she didn’t feel any pain anywhere. She felt strong and completely uninjured. She pulled her mostly destroyed shirt up and looked at her stomach. The tiny scar from her appendectomy was gone. She looked closely at the back of her left hand. The scar from the wood-burning tool she’d burned herself with when she was six years old was gone.
“Oh my god,” Gen said.
Herron coughed and tried to say something, but he couldn’t get any words out. Gen whirled toward him at the sound and ran to him. She kneeled in the grass and looked at him. He was in bad shape.
A wave of memories washed through Gen’s head. It was like she had just clearly remembered a dream that she lost when she awoke, like the answer to a question that she couldn’t remember suddenly popped into her head. The healers at The Peak will save him.
“Oh, no! Herron!” She was afraid to pick him up but she couldn’t get close enough to look at him. I just need to be his size and I could check him out! As soon as the thought was in her head, the world exploded around her. She was afraid she was fainting because the ground rushed at her fast. But she didn’t faint. She stood on the ground and the grass was slightly taller than her knees. She looked down at Herron, lying immediately beneath her.
“Jesus! Gen!” Jim cried.
Gen looked up at him. “I’m okay!”
“You’re fairy sized! How the fuck did you do that?”
“Jimmy!” Gen yelled. She looked at her hands, at her legs. She felt the same, except for an odd sensation at her back. She twisted around to see that she had wings on her back. She flexed them gently and was amazed when they moved.
Instead of the other fairies’ delicate, cicada-like wings, Gen’s wings were tall and full and soft, black and dotted with white along the edges with panels of shimmering orange. Her wings looked like Monarch Butterfly wings. They weren’t at all like what she expected to find. She marveled at them until Herron coughed up a mist of blood.
She kneeled down and gently picked him up in her arms, then the grass seemed to fall away from her, fast. She blinked, disoriented, and looked straight into Jim’s eyes. She was human sized again. She held Herron in her hand.
“I have to save him.”
“How?” Jim asked. “How? There are no fairy healers in fucking Chicago!”
“Jimmy!” Gen yelled.
Jim frowned. “You know I’m right, though.”
“You are right. I know what I have to do.” Gen reached into her pocket and took out the tiny golden arrow that Ivy had given her and nodded to herself. She started to cry again, and said, “Show me the Bridge.”
The arrow turned.
“No,” Jim said. “You can’t!”
“I have to! It’s the only way to save him! And I have to go. I have to go right now.”
“What am I supposed to tell your parents?” Jim asked. “What am I supposed to do without you?”
“I’ll be back,” Gen said. “Tell them that I know what I’m doing, and I’ll be back, and the password is super strudel.”
Jim sobbed, hiccupping from crying so hard.
“I have to do this. We don’t have much time.” Sirens blared in the distance, coming closer. “The police will be here soon. Probably the fire department, too. Take their bodies. You can’t let them find them! You should get out of here.”
“What about your bike? How am I supposed to run away and leave you behind? Leave your bike behind?”
“You’ll figure it out. I’m sorry, I have to save him.” Gen looked into Jim’s eyes. She saw so much of Hope in Jim, his eyes, his mannerisms, his features. Gen blinked her eyes. She knew she didn’t know what Hope looked like, but she saw her in Jim nonetheless.
“I love you, Jim.” She didn’t try at all to hold back her tears.
Jim was still crying. “I love you, too, Genny.”
She kissed him quickly on the lips, then pulled away. “I have to go.” She thought a thought of being small and she shrunk instantly. She beat her wings and slowly, shakily, her feet lifted off the ground. She flew uncertainly back to Jim’s eye level.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said, and she flew to the Bridge.
“You’ll be okay, Herron,” she kept telling him as she flew. It was getting dark quickly, but she found her way to the cemetery. The arrow pointed her to roughly the right spot but she couldn’t figure out where the Bridge was. She had no idea what it looked like.
“Hole… It’s a hole in the grass, under… that…” Herron pointed at one of the ornate statues.
Immediately, she recognized it. A shaft, a hole in the ground. Gen flew over to then statue and found the hole. She flew down and gently touched down on the stone dais at the bottom of the shaft. She faced an oval-shaped mirror, perfectly flat and reflective. She saw her wings behind her, the beauty of them took her breath away. She couldn’t believe how much she looked like Ivy.
“Just… step through… Then up to The… Peak…”
Right, Gen remembered. Through The Caves. See the ancient paintings of humans and fairies, then straight up the mountain to The Peak. How do I know this?
“You’ll be okay, Herron. They’ll help you.”
Gen took a deep breath, then walked through the Bridge.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan spends most of his time as a software developer and compulsively obsessing over too big a fleet of cars and motorcycles. He is an enthusiast of video, board, card, and role playing games. He lives in the Chicago suburbs and has fathered two delightful children (and, thankfully, no non-delightful ones).
Realmwalker is Jonathan’s first novel. Now that he’s finally finished a book, one of Jonathan’s next goal is to complete a Saddlesore 1000 (riding 1,000 miles in 24 hours on a motorcycle). He is not a vegan and he does not CrossFit.
Book two of the Realmwalker series, The Void Hunters, is available now.
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