by WB McKay
The pirates hadn't fared any better. All of them were nursing wounds, even the ice fae, who held their arm to their ribs.
It had been one hell of a battle, but now it was over. We had killed a kraken, but it wouldn't have been possible without the cooperation of the pirates. I had no idea how the Fleece would be awarded. I hadn't given myself much time to ponder those repercussions when I was coming up with the plan to keep us alive. Honestly, it didn't feel like much of a priority when I knew that even if the other team won it, I'd fight until I was walking away with it. I was so resolved on the issue it felt to me like it had already been decided that stealing it directly from the pirates was what was I going to have to do. So when the wraith opened his mouth, I had to replay his words through my head a few times before they sunk in.
"Sophie Morrigan, step forward to receive the Golden Fleece," said the wraith.
My jaw dropped. But what about… No. I knew better than to question something that went in my favor. I took the few steps forward to stand before the wraith. The gold shimmered before me, beautiful and perfect and wanting. I swallowed hard, fighting the knowledge that what was best for me--for my well-being--was to turn away and not let myself look at the thing. It was too pretty. I could sense its power. Something about the mythology of the whole thing had appealed to me early on; the Fleece had wheedled its way into my heart when it was only a possibility, an idea. The way I felt seeing it now… it was bad. So bad. But I had to take it--I'd risked my friend's lives to get ahold of the treasure--so I wrapped my wet suit around my hands to at least avoid direct contact.
"Hey," called Sylvia, the selkie pirate. "Why does she get the Fleece? We took down the kraken every bit as much as they did."
The wraith regarded the selkie with a strange mixture of amusement and contempt and then turned back to face me. I'd thought of the wraith as not having much of a personality before that look. "Sophie Morrigan, you have been deemed worthy of the Golden Fleece because of your leadership abilities as well as your strength of character. You led your team through the trials with the utmost care, but allowed them to prove their worth time and again, as any good leader should. When it came to the final trial, you assessed the situation and found the skills of your team alone not up to the task. That is a position every leader will find themselves in one day. Rather than accept defeat, you convinced your opponents to work with your team and devised a plan to defeat the kraken. This feat has only been accomplished one other time in history. I present you with the Golden Fleece, knowing that you will use its power to change the face of the world."
The selkie's lip stuck out in a comical pout, but she didn't say anything else. Apparently, while she didn't like the wraith's decision, she'd agreed with it. I might have argued that the strength it had taken Tara to agree to my plan had also shown great leadership skills; that she'd put aside her own ego and done what was best for her team. That wasn't my argument to make, though.
The wraith held out the glimmering lump of golden wool and placed it on the wet suit. I couldn't imagine what direct contact would have felt like. Even through the fabric I could feel its magic pushing and pulling. "I appreciate that you think me worthy of this honor, but I don't plan to use it. I will be turning it into the Faerie Affairs Bureau where it can be locked away safely. No one person should be given this much power. No good can come of it."
"On the contrary. The very few times when the world has made a great change for the better have been when one person has come into immense power and chosen to wield it fairly." The wraith gave me a beatific smile. "You shall be one such person, Sophie Morrigan."
I scowled at the wraith. I didn't like being told what I was going to do and what I wasn't. I didn't believe in prophecy, if that's what the wraith was spouting, and I wanted no part of it. "I'm turning this over to the Magical Object Division."
"Even so," said the wraith, and disappeared before I could get an answer about what that meant. It didn't matter, anyway. I needed to get back to MOD, and fast. Whatever happened to the Fleece would have to be up to them. I wanted the thing as far away from me as I could get. Or maybe I could just…
"Well, this is awkward," said Tara, stepping forward. "I do believe you deserved to win, but I also have to tell you that I can't let you leave here with the Fleece. What's a girl to do?"
I pulled Epic from the scabbard on my back. "A girl is supposed to let us take this to MOD, or get her ass kicked."
Tara pulled her sword in response. "Attack!"
The aches and pains of the battle were washed away on a fresh tide of adrenaline. I clutched the Fleece to my chest and advanced on Tara. Our swords met with the clang of steel on steel. We parried and lunged, moving in a circle while the rest of our teams battled it out with magic. The weapons in the arena had disappeared along with the body of the kraken.
It was a delicate game we played at. I didn't want to kill any of the pirates. Death was not a sentence I was prepared to pass unless I knew it was the only way. But I could not let the Fleece fall into the hands of Erik Bresnan, supervillain council member. I'd come this far. I couldn't lose now.
The battle raged on. Fire countered ice and water. Ghosts made fighters jerk and twitch, skewing their aim. Wind blasted from all directions, knocking people to the ground. Wounds were given and received.
I debated using my magical wail to lay everyone out, but we still had to escape afterward. My fear magic was out as well. It might shift this battle from a stalemate into a bloodbath.
All the while I fought, the Fleece called to the covetousness in my heart. Part of me was always attracted to golden objects. That this one was ridiculously powerful made it that much worse. As my arm grew weak, so did my resolve. I held a powerful potential weapon. Why shouldn't I see what it can do?
Tara dealt a blow that opened a shallow gash on my leg when I wasn't strong enough to deflect it entirely. The wound gave me a temporary rush of adrenaline, but I knew it would soon fade. I managed a lunge that pierced the shoulder of her sword arm, but her extra limbs sprouted from her side and the sword was shifted down to the next hand. She continued to fight with just as much skill.
"That's just not fair," I huffed out.
Tara's only response was maniacal laughter as she swung her sword at my legs.
My mind spun into overdrive. I had to figure out a way to end this. You've only got two choices now. You can use your death light and start killing, or you can use the Fleece and see if it offers another way.
There was no real choice to be made. These people were pirates, some of whom would probably kill in order to finish their job and get paid, but they were also misfits like me. If I had grown up without Belinda, I could have ended up one of them or worse. I didn't want to kill them just because I could. That would eat me alive when I finished this case and was finally able to crawl into my own bed.
One moment I was parrying a blow from Tara's sword, the next, time stood still. Tara was frozen in the middle of a spin that would pull her back out of my counterattack range. Everything further away was hidden by a hazy white light that hurt my eyes. The only place I could comfortably look was at the Fleece in my arms.
While I watched, the Fleece writhed and reshaped itself. Individual threads twisted around themselves to form what I would have called cloth if they weren't made of gold. Gradually those pieces of gold cloth were twisted into a circular braid and took on a familiar texture. When the transformation was complete, I held in my hand a crown of golden feathers. If they'd asked me what I would have wanted the Fleece to look like, it would have been this.
I placed it on my head. It fit perfectly.
The world changed. No, not the world. A switch inside of me flipped. Everything suddenly felt right. I knew myself. I knew what I was capable of more completely than I'd ever thought possible. I knew the depths of my magic, my body, my mind. The sensation flashed through me like a lightning strike. Like the answering clap of thunder, I knew exactly what to do in order to bring this stand
off to an end. I needed to use my death light. It would do what I wanted. Everything would be okay.
The world snapped back into real time. Tara finished her spin away from me. I stepped back and sheathed my sword, raising my hands. Twin balls of white light leapt to my palms.
"What the hell?" asked Tara, bringing her sword up into a guard position.
"It's time to end this," I replied, and my lights rushed away to find their targets. Three more followed in the blink of an eye, each one hitting a pirate in the chest. They went slack before they hit the ground.
The clarity I'd felt a moment before crumbled.
What had I done? Why had I thought everything would be okay if I used my death light? It had never caused anything other than death. Pain and death were what my magic did.
I pulled the crown off my head and let it fall. It hit with a resounding clang that felt like the end of the world. And really, it had been for the five pirates. They'd made it through the same trials I had; they deserved better than instant death at my hands.
I could feel the eyes of my people on me. They were in shock. It was understandable. They had been fighting for their lives moments before. Plus, through the haze of my own shock, I remembered that some of them didn't even know about my death light. Somewhere along the way that "secret" had become something I didn't bother to guard anymore, and I couldn't remember who knew and who didn't.
Without realizing it, I'd knelt beside Tara. She was lying on her back, her sword loose in her hand. Her mouth was parted slightly. I'd killed a lot of people now--I wasn't even sure how many--but I didn't think I'd ever get used to seeing a dead body. It was like I couldn't wrap my mind around what I was seeing.
I stared at Tara for a long time before I realized I wasn't hallucinating. Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.
"What?" I whispered, scooting back a few inches. She was breathing. Tara was alive. That couldn't be possible. She wasn't guarded like the kraken. The death light had hit her and she dropped. What type of fae was she? She had extra limbs like a spider. I'd seen her heal rapidly, but so did a lot of fae. That shouldn't mean… "What are you?" I asked her inert form, echoing the most annoying question in my own life.
"What just happened?" asked Enid from somewhere behind me.
I didn't know what to tell her. I had the same question, but we meant it in different ways. She wanted to know what my death light was. I wanted to know why it hadn't killed Tara.
After several long seconds of silence, Owen spoke up. I could see him out of the corner of my vision. Good. He knew what my death light was. He could explain it to the rest of them. "This one's alive," said Owen.
I looked up at him, expecting him to be pointing to Tara. Instead, he was pointing at Niko, the air fae. "What?" I asked. My tongue felt like a lead weight in my mouth.
Owen moved to the next body. It was Saya, the ice fae. "This one is alive, too."
I stumbled from body to body, checking them right after Owen. All five of them were alive. Unconscious, but alive. Relief surged through me.
Dumbfounded, I looked at the Fleece. Sunlight shone off the feather shaped gold, winking at me.
Like a coward, I asked Ava to pick it up. "Don't let it touch your skin. Use my wet suit. We need to get back to MOD and get rid of that thing." I never, ever, ever wanted to touch it again.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The return trip to MOD wasn't long, thanks to a portal that took us from what was probably the South Pacific to a furniture store in Volarus. It wasn't far back to the MOD offices.
It took some convincing, but Owen leaned on my shoulder to take the weight off his injured leg. He'd argued that my leg was wounded as well. I'd silenced him with a glare, and we limped to MOD together, the rest of our group in tow.
Art and I were the only ones authorized to take the Fleece to MOD's secure containment facility, so we dropped the others off at FAB's onsite infirmary and headed to the basement. Only one of us was required to sign off on the handover, but Art had stepped up to take it from Ava when she was taken to her treatment room. I hadn't argued. I needed to be the one to sign the paperwork, because I was going to take responsibility for any consequences of this wild job I'd sent us on, but I had no illusions that I could handle the Fleece again. Ava hadn't seemed uncomfortable while she held it. It didn't appear to be bothering Art, either. I was still tense just knowing it was within grabbing distance.
"What have we got?" asked the motherly attendant from behind her glass enclosure.
She pressed a button and a large metal drawer ejected from the wall. Art set the Fleece into the drawer and handed me the wet suit. For a paranoid second, I hesitated before touching the fabric that had touched the Fleece. I shook off the feeling. I'd already grabbed a spare set of clothes from my office, so I slung the suit over my shoulder. Part of me wanted to throw it out, but it was high quality and I could use a new one for surfing. I needed to stop being so ridiculous. The job was over. Everything was fine now. "Oh," I said, when the woman cleared her throat, indicating I'd spaced out for a bit. It had been a long day. "It's the Golden Fleece."
There was a long moment of silence where the woman's brown eyebrows moved through three different positions to hide in her dyed blond hair. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she asked. Her words were totally at odds with the carefully cultivated look that said "I do carpool three days a week". She pulled the drawer through the wall and into her small work area. She stared down at the feather crown, her eyes widening with every second. While it didn't look anything like a Fleece, there was no denying the power that it radiated. "Fuck me sideways. You found it."
The look of awe on her face was what finally made the enormity of what I'd just done hit home. I gave her my most devious grin. "I really did. Lock it up tight, Carol."
She shrugged off her shock and returned my grin. "How the hell do you always know it's me?"
I'd dropped off hundreds of dangerous magical objects during my time at MOD. Due to the nature of their jobs, the attendants wore the most sophisticated glamours I'd ever seen, and I'd never seen the same glamour twice. As best I could tell, there were about twelve people working in containment. They never wore name tags.
"It's that filthy mouth of yours," I replied, returning her grin. "Don't worry, the secret's safe with us."
Art nodded solemnly and mimed zipping his mouth shut.
We got on the elevator and I let out a happy sigh. "I still can't quite believe we did it. We completely thwarted Mr. Supervillain and we did it all within the bounds of our job."
"We retrieved the Golden Fleece," said Art, a grin parting his beard. "That's pretty cool. How are you going to celebrate? The usual?"
I shook my head. "No, I think this calls for something a little more fancy than a delicious cheeseburger. I think I'm going to take Owen somewhere with cloth napkins. Maybe a wine list." Afterward, I was going to give more thought to that whole vacation idea. I really could use one.
"Have fun," said Art. The elevator opened onto the medical floor. We both still had to get patched up. "Any time you have something crazy like this, feel free to put me on your team. You don't even need to ask me first. Definitely don't warn me like you did this time, boss."
Art got several steps ahead of me as my legs forgot to keep walking. His words felt even better than knowing we'd retrieved the Fleece. Art turned a corner and left my sight before I let myself get sappy. He was a damned good friend.
First things first, I checked in on Enid and Ava. They had both already been patched up and were sitting in the waiting room.
Enid looked up first, but I had no doubt that Ava knew I was there. Her friends would probably be watching me like hawks for the rest of my life. "You look like hell," said Enid, mischief in her eyes.
"You don't look much better and you already got healed," I replied. It was true. FAB's healers close up all the wounds and mend bones, but they don't do anything for bruises or dried blood and dirt.
She nodded. "Yeah, I
think I'll need about three showers before I feel clean, but I don't think I'll have much trouble getting hours in MOD now." She gave me a quick hug. "I really appreciate you pulling me in on this Sophie."
I didn't ruin the moment by saying that she was the only other person I could think of to put on my team. "If you need anything, let me know. You earned your stripes as an agent on this case. They either promote you or they'll have to deal with me."
She smiled down at her phone. She should have been playing Candy Crush, but like any work junkie, she was working her inbox for cases.
I turned to Ava who was looking at me with her usual unreadable look. "You turned it in. I was worried about you," said Ava.
Having grown up around dragons, Ava recognized covetousness when she saw it. "I was worried about me too. That thing was damned shiny."
That earned a twitch of her tiny nose. "Owen should be out soon. The healer said there wasn't any serious damage, mostly a lot of bruised muscles, maybe a hairline fracture."
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Owen limped into the room. We sat there and talked about our success. Art joined us after a while and we talked until it felt awkward sitting in the waiting room.
"I think it's about time for us superstars to head home," I said. "The staff is starting to look at us funny."
"It's probably because we smell like hot ocean garbage," said Enid, making a show of sniffing herself. "I think we all need to go take showers and sleep for about eight years."
That was enough to get us to go our separate ways. It was still surprisingly hard to leave them. We'd gone through so much together, and through it all, it had been my job to keep them in sight, to keep them alive. Letting them go felt counterintuitive now.
It was one of those rare moments of epiphany where I felt like I'd learned something. Gut first when I'm on the job, mind over gut once it's over. That sounded about right.
