by Bonnie Lamer
With teeth chattering hard enough I just know I’m going to crack a few, I nod. I pull my own magic and send its soothing warmth through me, finding the damaged blood cells and returning myself to a healthy state. I breathe a relieved sigh when I can finally keep my jaw still. I lean my head against Kallen’s shoulder and relax in his arms. “Well, that sucked.”
“Call him off!” Naja shouts at me.
I look over Kallen’s shoulder. When I realize what’s happening, I shout, “Taz, don’t kill it!” To Kallen, I urge, “Put me down.” As soon as he does, I am at Taz’s side. “I’m fine,” I assure him. “You can stop now.” I repeat the words over and over until my Familiar finally seems to hear them.
Slowly, he retracts his paws. His bloody paws. His little head swings toward me. “Why not let me kill it? It was going to kill you.”
I nod in agreement. “It was going to let the ghost kill me, yes. But, you, you are not a killer unless you need to be. Right now, I’m fine, so you don’t need to be.” I would have simply said, ‘you’re not a killer’ but that would be a bad thing to say in front of a sadistic little creature like the Pixie. She needs to believe Taz, and everyone else here, would do whatever it takes to protect our loved ones and ourselves. Ultimately, we would.
Inside the cage, the Pixie has curled up into a ball and is moaning loudly. She is covered in blood and there are several spots on her green body where the claw marks reach down to the bone. I sigh loudly. Despite the fact that it just tried to kill me, I can’t leave the creature in pain. “Back away,” I tell the guards who have huddled close and are staring down at the cage wearing expressions that are a cross between ‘is the King going to be pissed we let this creature almost kill it’ and ‘I am never, ever messing with a Tasmanian devil’. “Let me get to it,” I insist.
Kallen catches my arm. “Be careful,” he instructs. “We do not know much about these creatures other than the fact that they fight dirty. She may not be as injured as she seems.”
I glance down at the cage again and I’m not convinced. I’ve seen Fairies and other creatures many times her size who couldn’t handle those injuries. Regardless, I assure him, “I will.”
Kneeling down, I reach a finger tentatively toward the cage. When the Pixie doesn’t rear up and bite off the tip, something I’m not certain I could heal, I relax a little. I move my hand forward until I am lightly touching the Pixie’s back. It squeals and moves away from me. Fair enough. It has no idea why I am touching it. For all it knows, I could mean it more harm. “I am going to heal you,” I tell it. “Lay still.”
The Pixie’s response is to curl into a tighter ball. It reminds me of a turtle pulling its body into its shell. The Brillo pad head of green hair adds to the effect. If the situation wasn’t so tragic, I’d be amused. Reaching out, I try again. I place a finger on its back and wait. The Pixie doesn’t move away. It must believe I really am going to heal it. Closing my eyes, I pull magic from the ground.
“Son of a bitch!” I shout and quickly pull my hand back. This causes the Pixie’s face to get stuck between the bars of the cage. With its mouth still attached to my finger. The damn thing is trying to bite the tip of my finger off. Good lord, they are evil creatures.
Both Kallen and Taz are by my side. Taz is reaching in between the bars and clawing at the Pixie’s back. Kallen is twapping it, hard, in the face. I’m not certain which attack does it, but the Pixie finally lets go. A ring of blood forms around my finger tip and I cradle my hand against me while I use the magic I was going to use to heal the Pixie for myself. “You don’t have rabies, do you?” I demand. I’m not even being snarky. I want to make sure I only have the injury to heal because the Pixie is definitely acting like a crazed animal.
“Yeth, I do,” she rasps. She is slurring her words due to a combination of pain and blood in her mouth. My blood. “Thay away from me.”
I snort. “No problem there. I really was going to heal you, you know.” Her only response is to grunt and curl back up on the floor.
Kallen reaches out and grabs the cage. With a smooth flow of movement, he rights it. This causes the Pixie to fall from its side to the floor of it with a loud thump. My husband has a satisfied smile on his face when he glances at me. He sobers when he sees my raised brows and shrugs. “She deserved it.” She really did.
Naja turns to Dagda, who has been watching the scene in silence. “Sire, I believe we should move the creature to a more isolated location.”
“You could bury it in a cave,” Kegan suggests from the doorway. He is standing with his arm around a pale Alita. “That should be isolated enough.”
“Duck!” Tana calls to them. As soon as they do, the rest of us can see the vengeful spirit speeding toward the room. In front of it are my parents, fear and rage on their faces as they streak through the room. Tana is quick to begin the exorcism spell while the rest of us throw up a wall of magic to separate my parents from the spirit.
When it is gone, I take in my parents’ appearance. “Mom, are you missing a chunk of hair?”
Her hand flies to her head and she winces. “It attacked from behind and grabbed my hair.”
I shake my head in confusion. “But, I thought your hair was an illusion.”
Dad frowns down at me. “Xandra, we are very real to each other on our plane. We are not exactly corporeal as you are on yours, but we do have a physical presence.”
Weird. But, that could be a good thing. “Then physically, you can fight back if you aren’t ambushed?” I ask. Dad wasn’t a small man. I’m pretty sure he could hold his own in a fight.
Brow drawn in confusion, Kallen says, “You have form on your plane? You have hair, fingernails, toenails?”
I look up at him. “I guess you didn’t know that, either.”
“We do,” Mom says. Emphasis on ‘we’.
My eyes fly back to her. “Does that mean only you do? The spirits don’t’?”
She shrugs. “They exist here. They have matter. But, it feels different than how your father feels to me. I didn’t know this until just a moment ago when the thing attacked me, and your father and I struggled against it.”
“How is it different?” Isla asks. She is speaking to Mom but glaring at her husband and Tabitha who just entered the room. The ones we all thought were guarding my parents in the kitchen. “And how did the attack happen?”
“Our spells did not work,” Garren explains, embarrassment spread clear across his face. Stupid Pixies.
“It felt like the difference between touching Jell-O and touching cheese,” my father explains.
I get his reference. Those not from the Cowan realm are totally confused by it. “Jell-O is a clear food that is jiggly but doesn’t have a lot of substance. It’s close to being water. You could easily put a finger through it and it kind of separates, but goes back to being the same when you pull your finger out. Cheese, as you know, is solid.” Soft, but solid. And, I must say, I am really grossed out by the idea that my parents feel like cheese to each other. Better than Jell-O, though, I guess. At least they can still hold each other.
“Interesting,” Isla muses, staring intently at my parents now. “You are more than spirits.” Huh?
“What do you mean?” Kallen asks.
Isla drags her eyes from my parents to her grandson. “They are more. They are not simply spirits. Xandra’s magic has made them…something else.”
Okay, now she’s just making things up. I shake my head. “Impossible. The Angels said I am holding their spirits here. They said nothing about me ‘making them something else.’”
Isla raises an eyebrow. “Yes, and Angels are always forthcoming with the details of a situation.”
“For good reason, they sometimes are not,” Adriel interjects irritably.
Giving her a brief nod, Isla says, “Of course. Be that as it may, I do not believe Xandra was given all of the details regarding what happened to her parents.”
“Grandmother, you may be jumping to conclusions
. Perhaps their improved corporealness is due more to their level of consciousness than Xandra’s magic. Adriel explained that the other spirits lose form over time as their consciousness deteriorates more and more.”
Adriel speaks up again. “I believe Isla may be on to something here.”
Shocked, I whirl around to my friend. “What do you mean?”
She shrugs uncomfortably and pauses, giving me the indication she is about to enter Angel gray area in regards to information. Finally, she blurts out, “There is not a lot of information about you floating around in Angel time. You are an enigma, obviously, and your destiny has been closely guarded by the powers that be. So, I do not know everything you can do with your magic. What I do know is spirits.” She pauses again and glances at my parents before continuing. “They are not spirits in the typical sense of the word.”
When she doesn’t continue, I prod, “Meaning?”
Another glance at my parents. “Meaning, I do not see spirits such as them when I am working. I am not certain what they are.”
That explains her lack of certainty earlier when trying to reassure my mother she wouldn’t become like the vengeful spirits. “You are an Angel of Death, you’ve seen everything, every type of being,” I insist.
More awkward shrugging. “I thought I had until I met your parents.”
Hands on my hips, I demand, “You couldn’t have mentioned this earlier?”
Taking pity on our friend, Kallen asks, “To what end? What purpose would it have served other than to leave us all wondering like we are now?”
Glowering at him for taking her side, I snark, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe we would have been better prepared for them being hunted by vengeful spirits who want to be like them.”
My gorgeous husband quirks an eyebrow. “How?”
What is it called when you kill your husband? Oh yeah, mariticide. I am feeling very mariticidal right now. Unfortunately, though, I don’t have a snappy comeback for him. So, I throw my hands up in the air and go with, “I don’t know.”
While I fume, Dad takes up the conversation. “Adriel, can you tell us anything else?”
“If I could, I would not be able to give you any more details than I already have without fear of losing my wings. You need to discover these things on your own. But, I can honestly say that I do not know more. I have wondered myself since meeting you what makes you different and I have not been able to figure it out.” Comforting.
“As interesting as this is, what difference does it make?” Kegan’s comment is immediately followed by a yelp. Alita hit him with magic and he is suddenly flying sideways off his stool. He lands on the floor with a loud thud. Kallen laughs outright and annoyed as I am, even I have to try to hide a smile. That was such a ‘me’ move.
“What a horrible thing to say!” Alita admonishes. Not a trace of guilt on her face for shoving him off his seat.
Picking himself up and coddling the elbow that hit the floor before the rest of him, Kegan growls, “I was not finished speaking. What I meant is, how does that help us with the ghost problem? We already knew there was something special about Xandra’s parents and we know the spirits want to be like them. Having confirmation they are different does not bring us any closer to a solution.” He has a valid point.
Sighing, Alita grudgingly apologizes. “Sorry.” Kegan just grunts in response.
Kallen shakes his head. “I disagree. Knowing they are not true spirits is somehow the key to the solution.” After a moment of consideration, he makes his face a blank page and asks, “This is an indelicate question, but where are your parents’ bodies?”
My mouth drops open. “Do you mean their dead bodies?”
There are cracks in his blank page armor as his discomfort at having asked the question grows. “Yes.”
Isla gasps. “You do not think?”
With a surreptitious glance at Mom and Dad, he says, “It is a possibility.”
I am not getting this at all. “What is a possibility?”
Ignoring my question, Dad tells Kallen, “They are in a car on the side of a mountain. It was impossible to retrieve them after the accident. It would have put more lives at risk.” Yes, my parents’ bodies are in a mangled, metal grave on the side of a mountain. Not something any of us have ever been proud of or comfortable with. But, like Dad said, it would have put the lives of recovery crews at risk and what was the point? It’s not like we needed closure. Mom and Dad were still with us.
Kallen’s thought process is beginning to sink into my brain. It can’t be true. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Tana answers for him. “He believes your parents may not truly be dead.”
All the blood and oxygen leave my brain and I sway on my stool. If Kallen’s arm didn’t shoot around my waist to hold me up, I would be on the floor. Not dead? How is that possible?
“Are you okay?” Kallen asks softly, holding me close.
Instead of responding, I search for my parents. If I’m taking it this badly, how are they doing? Across the room, the two are hanging in the air with their mouths open, shocked and confused expressions on their faces.
Dad is the first to speak. He reasons, “If our bodies are dead, we are, in fact, dead. Medical science is pretty clear about that.”
He’s right. Their spirits are certainly still alive, but that is it. “Even if they weren’t dead when they left their bodies, it has been years. Even if they astral projected out before their bodies died, there is no way those bodies survived,” I insist. “That makes them dead.” I feel awful being so blunt about it, but it’s true.
“There is still a difference between astral projecting and dying,” Tana points out.
I take a deep, shaky, unhelpful breath. “Okay, that may be true. But, if they have no body to go back to, does it make a difference?”
“Maybe.” I am so surprised by Tana’s response that I almost fall off my stool again.
“How so?” Kallen asks his aunt.
It takes her a long moment to respond. Finally, she forces out, “Maybe they can still go back to those bodies.”
Horrified, Mom responds, “Oh my god, you are talking about killing us.”
It’s Tana’s turn to be horrified. And thank the lord she is. “No!” she exclaims. “I did not mean that at all!”
Dagda eyes her curiously. “What did you mean?” His words are filled with caution. He is remembering her in front of the Pixie’s cage, dangling between the edges of crazy and crazier. He suspects she has shifted toward the latter.
Taking a deep breath, Tana explains, “There may be a way to regenerate the bodies.”
“No,” Isla growls. “Not without the darkest of magic being used. And only monsters have come from such spells.”
“Dear, you cannot slip back to those ways,” Dagda says gently. “Even for the best of intentions.” He is trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. Hoping she has not already slipped back. More than I am ready to do at the moment. She wants to reanimate my parents? How creepy, freak show, horror movie is that? She is crazy.
Tabitha moves closer to Tana and lays a hand on her shoulder, spreading her calming magic through her. “Perhaps returning to the palace is better for your emotional wellbeing right now,” she suggests almost hypnotically.
I can’t help it. When Tana shakes Tabitha’s hand off and stands so quickly that her stool crashes to the floor, I pull magic. I am not the only one. Kallen is right there with me, ready to take on his aunt if she makes a turn around the psychotic bend again.
“I am not suggesting what you believe I am suggesting,” Tana insists in a much calmer voice than I would have thought possible at the moment. “I am not talking about reanimating a corpse or calling someone back from the dead. This is much simpler than that because the ones in question are not, in fact, dead.” Her eyes go to Mom and Dad and there is something there I haven’t seen before. At least, not towards them. Kindness. And a distinct lack of anger or resentment.
<
br /> The simple shock of it makes me release my magic and listen to what she is saying. “Explain,” Kallen urges. He is seeing the same thing I am.
“Do not encourage this,” Dagda hisses. He rises from his stool and moves toward his wife. “Dear, let us return to the palace. It was a long night and we could both use some rest.”
“No, let her speak,” Mom insists. She has floated closer, Dad right behind her.
Pushing past Dagda, Tana addresses Mom directly. Another new development since it has nothing to do with Zac. “Your bodies are simply vessels and vessels can be repaired.” With a sidelong glance at Isla, she adds, “Yes, it is still a form of dark magic. But not the evil magic of calling a soul back from the dead. When that is done, only the part of the soul stripped and sent to the Shadow world can be called back. Only the evil parts. But, you are here, whole and intact. Your soul has not been judged or separated. There is nothing to call back. All we would need to do is regenerate the cells of your bodies and return you to them.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Isla declares, “Impossible. It is still regeneration and at the stage of decomposition their bodies must be in, they are too far gone to even attempt such a thing.”
“Not necessarily,” Dad says thoughtfully. All eyes turn to him and he explains. “The accident occurred at a very high altitude. Even during the summer months, temperatures remain cool to cold. Sometimes there is even snow and ice in July. Decomposition may not have progressed as it would in lower altitudes.” How can he speak so clinically about his own corpse?
“Let me get this straight,” I interrupt. “You would be fine being put back into a body that has been dead on the side of a mountain for years? I know you would like a body, but Dad, that is so wrong.” I turn pleading eyes to my mother. “Mom, tell him.”
But, she doesn’t tell him. She glances back and forth between me and Tana. Ultimately, her eyes focus on the Fairy. “What are the chances our bodies could be returned to the state they were in when we died? Or, didn’t die,” she amends.
“Jim, Julienne, I can understand how appealing this sounds,” Isla begins.
