Bella appeared at the open door. “Lom?” She questioned, her eyes focused on a point about two feet from me. I still had the glamour on.
“Try the Sight,” I told her. She closed her eyes briefly.
“Oh. Now I see what you did.” She looked directly at me now. “Are we ready?”
“Can you pass me that bag? I need to sit on something so I can see out the window.”
She eyed me uncertainly. “Will you be able to reach the pedals?”
“Yeah, close but I can. It will do for a few miles, anyway. Now you, scoot. Find out how to shut down your magical signature?”
She nodded, looking pale and serious. I grinned down at her, having shoved the bag under me. “Don’t worry, Princess, it’s a drive in the Park.”
She glared at me. “Are you ever serious?”
“Nope. Close that door, will you?”
She slammed it and got into the car without a backward glance. I watched her pull away and thought about her unspoken question. Yes, I was scared. Maybe not as much as she was, but I didn’t know if this was going to work, I was improvising as fast as I could pull it out of my... well, it wasn’t the first time I’d faced Ogres. One Pixie was worth a half dozen of the big monsters.
As it turned out, there were seven of them. I could see the faint glows of their magical signatures as I squinted at the upcoming bridge over the Toutle River. Off to my right the ashy delta of the Toutle merged with the cleaner Cowlitz, carrying the debris of the still-active volcano down toward the sea. I was radiating as hard as I could, had been pretty much for the last five miles to make sure they would see me coming, and the magical use was making me sick to my stomach. Driving with one eye closed to use the Sight was also disorienting and sick making. I opened it and blinked rapidly. I’d be able to see them in real vision soon enough, not that I wanted to look at Ogres.
They were lurking under the bridge, all right. They swarmed up and onto the road as I barreled towards them, spreading out to form a roadblock of formidable proportions. I don’t know what they expected me to do, but it probably wasn’t what I did. I accelerated, passing seventy on that flat stretch in the big truck, and waited until I could see the reds of their eyes. They were just standing there watching me come, and I could almost see the wheels in their brains turning, and the smoke rising from their ugly, greasy green skulls.
They started to scatter, having realized that I wasn’t going to stop, and I threw the wheel hard to the right and set off the explosives as I felt the truck start to go over. I’ve always thought the movies had it wrong, trucks sliding sideways down the road at top speed. I wasn’t counting on the truck, I was counting on the twenty foot long logs of Western Red Cedar on that truck. There wasn’t a one on board that was less than eighteen inches in diameter, and at least two were almost as wide as I was tall.
I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and had my window down, planning for this contingency. As the truck started to roll onto its side, I went out the skyward window. I could feel my wings tear through my shirt, and I darted for the sky, pulling as much altitude as I could get. My head started to throb, not from altitude - I wasn’t that high - but from the use of magic. I didn’t have long, and I needed to find Bella. I banked to the South, and only then looked down at the chaos I’d created.
The roads had been empty, it still being just about dawn, since we had left the hotel in the middle of the night. I could see the logs and truck breaking through the barrier on the bridge and falling into the river, taking some of the beasts with them. One seemed to be sitting in the middle of the bridge with a smaller log jutting out of his torso. I had at the very least taken them out of the game for the time being.
I looked for the sedan and found it, pulled over to the side about a mile from the bridge. I could feel the effects of my flight acutely, and vomited in midair as I started to fly toward her. I wasn’t going to make it all the way there. I was about to lose my wings, I could feel the toxin levels climbing to intolerable, and I needed to be on the ground. I started dumping altitude, and saw her get out of the car, holding the MGL.
I was a few hundred feet short when I finally hit the ground, rolling on the cold, wet asphalt like a broken doll. That was going to hurt later. I added it to the list, and climbed to my feet, staggering toward her. She was looking past me, at something coming from the bridge. It couldn’t be traffic, I had effectively blocked the road with logs and debris. I tried to shamble faster.
I could feel it, now, the heavy thumps of running footsteps. It had to be a big one to make that much noise, but I didn’t dare look over my shoulder, I was having enough trouble staying upright as it was. I just kept going forward. She lifted the big weapon to her shoulder and her face smoothed out. I recognized that look of utter focus and veered slightly more out of her way as she fired. The first round missed, I could tell from the look on her face, but she didn’t pause, just angled the barrel a little upward and fired again.
Smart girl. She had figured out that it might look like a shotgun, but it fired like a bow. I heard a meaty thunk. She shouted as she fired the third time.
“Dammit! That just blew a hole in him, but he’s not stopping!”
I could imagine what it looked like, the ogre coming on like a freight train, bloody gobbets of his flesh in his wake. I pushed my last bit of strength for a burst of speed that wasn’t going to take me far... She fired the fourth time, and I knew there would be no time for a fifth round.
The projectile passed over my left shoulder, it felt like. I did feel the warmth on my cheek, and then processed that sensation. There were not supposed to have been incendiary rounds, he’d said he couldn’t get them... The explosion behind me lifted me off my feet. Not much, just enough to send me stumbling into the tail of the car. I did turn and look, then, holding onto the trunk for support.
There were two feet standing in the middle of the road, one slightly in front of the other like he had been in mid-step when she blew him apart. The rest of the ogre was scattered in flaming chunks across both lanes, and some of him was still floating downward, sparkling slightly.
“Holy Mother Titania, how did you do that?” I breathed.
“I used the library.” She slung the weapon and smiled sweetly at me. “There was a handy fire spell that stuck nicely to the grenade.”
I felt myself sliding off the car. She caught me before I hit the ground. I whispered “Well done. Very well done,” before I passed out.
Chapter 12 - Bella Takes the Wheel
She drove through or around Vancouver and Portland, I wasn’t sure which. I was in and out of it, trying not to vomit any more, and answering her questions of “are you all right?” with grunts.
She stopped in a small town I didn’t recognize around noon, having traveled below Portland, and got us lunch. I turned food down and sipped gratefully at the bottle of water.
“Lom, where are we going?”
I looked at her. She had leaned my seat back, so I was looking up at her.Well, further up than normal.
“Underhill.” I didn’t mean to be snappy, I was just tired and hurting.
“I expected us to hit the airport in Seattle. Or Portland, at least. Instead we’ve been driving for about four hours, and you don’t seem to have a destination.”
“What do you mean?” I was confused, trying to remember when I had said anything about taking a plane.
“Going to England? To get Underhill? You made sure I had my passport.”
“Oh. Um, there are ways to get Underhill that are close. We don’t need to fly anywhere, and the passport was for Canada, and because I don’t know where you will come out of Underhill.”
“So, how much further? I fueled up a while back, so we’re good to go another couple hundred miles. But I think you need rest.” She eyed me. I must look pretty green.
“I appreciate you driving.” I told her. She waved it off. “We’re headed for Florence, Oregon, and then a few miles out of town, it’s a pretty little town.”
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“OK, I can put that in the GPS, and you can sleep. How long?”
“I know it’s three hours from Portland.”
“A while then, yet. Have you been there before?”
“So many questions.” I smiled at her as I teased her. “Yes, I have. It’s kind of a back door to Underhill. As you can see, I’m a bit under the weather, so I don’t want to make a splashy entrance.”
“I’m fine with that. What is wrong with you?” She had a firm tone in her voice, and I knew I couldn’t evade this question.
I sighed and rubbed my face, buying a moment. She needed to know, it was going to make me less effective in protecting her, but she was showing me she was quite capable of taking care of herself. And me, if need be.
“I have to be careful how much magic I use. It’s... toxic to me. When I use it, the toxins build up to critical levels, and it needs time to bleed off again. If I push it too much, it will kill me.”
“So, this is from you using magic?” She tuned out on me for a moment.
I waited patiently, having learned to recognize the signs of her accessing the library. I didn’t think she would find anything. I was fairly sure I was the only Folke to have anything like this. I didn’t mind the delay, though, I was tired...
I woke up to find we were back on the road again. The gentle rumble of road noise was reassuring. Bella was driving with purpose, focussed on the highway. “Hey. Sorry I faded out on you.” I told her. She glanced over at me with a little smile.
“I was worried. Glad to see your eyes again.”
I yawned and rubbed my chin, feeling the stubble there. “How much longer?”
“About 30 minutes, according to the GPS. Pretty stretch of road, but tricky driving.”
“We on Hwy 1?” I sat up. The ocean was to my immediate right, and about a hundred feet below us. “Damn. I guess so.”
She didn’t look at me, and I didn’t blame her. “Can we stop for dinner when we get to Florence? I’m starving again already.”
“I think we should stop for the night, honestly. I want to cross just after daylight, not risk it getting dark while we find the door.”
“Find the door?” She echoed skeptically. “I thought you knew this place.”
“Well, two things. One, it’s been a while. Two, the borders and thin places we call doors move. Not a lot, but there’s some drift.”
“I see,” she told me in a tone that told me she didn’t fully understand. “I could use some sleep, too.”
“Hey, you’ve earned it. You blew up an ogre with magic today.”
She perked up at that. “Yes, I did, didn’t I? I had no idea I could do that, but I tapped into the library and it just came to me.”
“I can’t wait to see what else you can pull out of there.”
She sighed. “I’m hoping for not having to do that again. That was just too exciting.”
“I wish I could tell you that Underhill is safe. But it’s not. You’re unlikely to face Ogres there, though.”
“That’s a comfort.” She responded dryly.
I looked out the window at the vast Pacific. It crossed my mind again that if we ran, I could... No, look at me, I’m a wreck. I couldn’t take care of a kitten, let alone the two of us.
She must have heard my sigh, and although she couldn’t possibly have known what it was for, she reached over without looking and patted my shoulder. I accepted the comfort. Keep going forward. She pulled into a mom-and-pop diner and we both got out. I was wobbly and stiff. She got a booth, and I hit the bathroom.
Washing my face helped a little. I got back to the booth and slid in. She eyed my damp hair. “Feel better?”
“Yeah.”
“I ordered already. I was starting to worry about you.”
“You take after your Aunt Min, don’t you?”
She chuckled. “I hope so.” The laugh trailed off into a little misty eyed moment. “I miss them already.”
“It won’t be long.”
“Really? Because I’ve been researching the selection process. And I’m having a little trouble with the time differences between Underhill and um, the human world. Does it have another name?”
“Not really. And everyone has trouble with the time differences. There’s no logical algorithm for determining the passage of time in the two planes.”
“So I could go in, and come out 300 years later?”
“Oh. That story.”
“Yes, that story.”
The waitress arrived with our plates. She slid them onto the table and Bella smiled at her. I looked at what she’d ordered for me. A hamburger, big and juicy, with all the fixings on the side.
“I didn’t know how you liked it.” She made a wry, apologetic face.
I was struck by something, looking at her. This girl - no, woman - was something else. She was considerate, endlessly patient, brave... I looked quickly back down at my plate, aware I was staring at her. She was also beautiful. She was going to make a splash in Court, where a real woman was a rare commodity.
“This is perfect.” I told her and assembled my burger.
“There’s a chance,” I told her when I had put the last bite in my stomach, “that you might experience severe time slip. But it does not happen often. Most of the time I transit between worlds, I don’t experience any time dilation.”
She nodded. “I suppose I don’t have much choice.”
I shook my head. “I’m afraid not. We have to keep moving toward Court.”
“Why do I feel like we are being herded?”
“Because they know where we are going. They are trying to stop us from getting there.”
“Will they stop once I am presented at Court?”
“I think it will just get more subtle. Hey...”
She was drooping a little. I reached out to her, and she took my hand. The warmth reassured me. “I have your back. And you have mine. You showed me that today, and it impressed me. We’re a team, ok?”
She nodded, the corners of her lips quirking. “I like that idea. I need someone I can trust.”
I took a breath, knowing she wouldn’t understand this. “My hands are yours, my blade is at your service.”
Her eyes widened. I’d forgotten the library knowledge she could tap into. “Lom...”
“Yes, I’m serious. Now shush, finish your dinner, and lets get some rest.” I got up and went out into the cool evening air to calm myself. I’d just sworn fealty to her, dammit. Yes, my family duty was to her and should she be crowned Queen of Fairy I would be life-bound to her, but this wasn’t part of the plan. I also didn’t think she would hold me to a life-bond, if she got back to her family. So this was... temporary.
She came out and looked at me. “I did trust you before, you know.”
“I know. But this... has some magical power, too. Now I need sleep.”
She nodded, accepting that I didn’t want to talk about it more. We spent the night in a cheap hotel with decent beds, and I slept like a rock. In the morning we drove out to the Siuslaw River, and I called in a favor to return the rental car. We left it sitting on the side of the road where a sprite would pick it up and return it to the terminal. Bags on our shoulders, I led her up the hillside.
It had been clearcut last time I’d been through this way, about twenty mortal years before, and the undergrowth was wild. Rhododendrons, vine maple, and huckleberries tangled together with the regrowing cedars and firs. We walked in silence most of the way, and then broke out into a tiny glade with the sun shining into it. The golden shaft of light fell onto the tiny waterfall, no taller than I was high, where it splashed into a little pool. The gnarled old vine maple still hung over it, of no value to the loggers when they had passed though, so unmolested. It still pinned one corner of the door, just as I had left it.
I knelt and splashed water onto my face. The spring sunshine, rare for the Oregon coast, was warm. She had insisted we bring the MGL, and the damned thing was heavy. I wouldn’t let her carry it, tho
ugh. I was still not up to strength, but she wasn’t going to lug things. She joined me in kneeling by the pool.
“It’s so beautiful.”
I looked up at the sunbeam hitting the water. “It always is. One of my favorite places.”
“What are the yellow flowers growing from the rock?”
“Monkey flowers. If you squint a bit, you can see the face in the center of the flower.”
“They are pretty, in spite of the silly name.”
I smiled and let her absorb the place for a few moments, the birdsong filtering through the trees and adding to the splashing water. Then I smiled and told her, “Close your eyes and look with your Sight.”
She did so obediently, and gasped out loud. She reached out for me, and I took her hand. “Lom! Is that?”
“That’s the border to Underhill,” I confirmed.
“Oh, that’s amazing. It’s like the northern lights, only... more.”
“Yes. I’m glad you like it.”
Her eyes opened again, slowly. “I wish we could just stay here.”
“Nervous?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “I’m not sure what to do.”
“Just be yourself.”
We got up, and I held out my hand again. I was rather liking all this handholding, even if I couldn’t get used to it. “Ready?”
“No. But let’s go.” She squared her shoulders, and we walked through the door together.
Chapter 13 - Fairy Wings
Passing through the door to Underhill and the realm of the Folke was a chancy proposition. For one thing, there was always that chance of temporal slip that could put you back out into the human plane a hundred years later after a day in fairy land. For another, it felt strange, in a different way for any being who passed through that door. For me, that meant an intense itching between my shoulderblades, where my wings would erupt when I wanted to fly somewhere. Pixies get a choice. Fairies don’t.
Bella looked up at me. “That tasted like raspberries and cream.” Then her forehead wrinkled as she realized something. She was looking up at me. “Lom? Did you... grow?”
Pixie Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 1) Page 11
