Winged Warriors

by Elle Casey

  "I was aware of it, of course. However, I did not see nor feel the need for it." He lifted his chin and sniffed…a sure sign he was on the defensive and totally full of shit.

  Sam snorted. "Yeah, right. After all the crap Jayne's been through and all the time she's been messed with, you didn't see the need to put a protective spell over your incantation's subject?" She rolled her eyes. "Please."

  "You put me out there with only half a spell? You let me go out there totally vulnerable? Totally…naked…or whatever?" I was sputtering. I didn't know the details of what Sam was talking about, but it sure sounded like she was saying that Red had thrown me out into the wild, wild world of time travel without a protective coating.

  His jowls were jiggling as he argued back. "The result was unprecedented. What happened to her was…unthinkable."

  That was his totally lame excuse. Unprecedented…Unthinkable.

  "And since when has shit not been unprecedented or unthinkable where I'm concerned?" Spittle was flying from my lips. He should have known I would need that extra protective layer, that extra spice added to his brew. I was literally The Unprecedented, Unthinkable Jayne. How could he have been so stupid? Careless? It was hard to believe it was a mistake, really. Once again, Red's motivations were seriously questionable.

  I looked out over the crowd, angry not just at Red, but at every single one of those naïve fucknuts who'd stood idly by while everything went haywire around them. If they'd been badass fae—fae of action—I never would have gone to Red in the first place; but noooo…all they ever wanted to do was have the gray elves analyze the shit out of things until those things were no longer an issue. Their favorite strategy was to stick their heads in the sand and hope their guardian angels would swoop down from the Overworld to save them.

  "Am I the only one here who feels like this entire community is flying around by the seat of its pants? Afraid to do what needs to be done? Totally unprepared and disorganized?" I looked around, waiting for someone to speak up.

  Tim was suddenly in my ear, talking softly. "Not that I want to stop this freight train of awesome truthiness from flying down the tracks, but you maaaay want to chill on the shrill a little. They tend to listen better when things aren't shrieked at their faces."

  No one said a word. All I got back were expressions of shock. Even Sam remained silent, although I could sense she didn't disagree.

  I took a deep breath to calm myself. Tim was right; it was not going to help my situation to piss everybody off. I knew this, and yet I'd let my temper get away from me. Dammit. I was already forgetting my new plan of action, to be smarter and more mature. Better chill it before you kill it. Time to grow up or shut up. I lifted my hands in surrender, praying silently to the universe for more patience. "Listen, everyone. Like I mentioned a minute ago, I need a shower. I can't even tell you how long it's been since I've been clean. It's to the point that it's affecting my mood, and that's not good for anyone. Let me just…do this. I'll be back out in a few minutes."

  I dropped my hands and strode toward my bedroom, forcing people to move out of my way or get knocked over and possibly covered in my stink. I checked faces as I went by: Aidan and Jared were there. Scrum and Sam I could sense behind me. I identified several Council members as I got closer to my bedroom door, too, but I couldn't see Tony or Spike anywhere. It was starting to freak me out. They should've been the first ones waiting for me when I walked in the door.

  I paused halfway across the room. "Tim, where are Tony and Spike? Don't play games with me, just tell it like it is." A sick feeling was building in my gut, making it burn and roil.

  "Let's just get to the bathroom. You can de-stinkify yourself while I give you the lowdown on everything and everyone."

  He didn't sound like his jovial, sassy self at all. It made me feel even sicker. "Fine. I can wait about another thirty seconds, but that's it."

  As I was about to pass my changeling friends, Becky stepped forward and held out her arms. She had tears glistening in her eyes. "I was so afraid you weren't coming back." She wrapped her arms around my stiff body.

  I was afraid to hug her back, not because of the potential for emotional overload, but because it would have required that I lift my arms again, and there was enough pit stink under those babies to put the whole room in the gas chamber. "You may not want to do that. I smell pretty bad."

  "I don't care. I love you and I missed you."

  Ever the sucker for a heartfelt I-Love-You, I risked curling people's eyelashes with my stench by hugging her back. I let her go after five seconds, though. A girl can only handle so much, and I was making myself ill with my fermented odor. "Seriously, Beck, I need to get into the shower. And I need to pee like a racehorse, too."

  She pulled away, tears running down her cheeks. "I understand. Do you want me in there?"

  "No. Just him." I nodded at the pixie who was hovering just in front of me.

  She bowed her head and backed away.

  Finn draped an arm over her shoulders as he spoke to me. "Good to have you back, Mother."

  I shook my head at him. "Finn…Good to see you too, dude. Just call me Jayne, though, okay?"

  He put his fist on his chest and dropped into a half bow. I was guessing that meant that the Jayne thing wasn't going to be happening anytime soon, at least not with the green elves. Sigh.

  Standing at the door to my bedroom were the twins, Felicia and Theresa. They looked like hell. Neither of them were wearing any makeup, and their hair was lying flat against their scalps—none of the usual shine, body, or waves in sight. Where before they'd always looked like shampoo commercial models, they now looked practically homeless. It made me stop in my tracks. "What the heck happened to you guys?"

  Neither of them responded with words; they just pulled me into a three-way hug. They didn't even smell the same. Or maybe my stench was too powerful for their usual sweet perfumes to bust through.

  "Somebody'd better say something," I warned. "You're starting to freak me out." I paused but nothing happened. "Seriously. Don't piss me off. I'm on an ass-hair trigger here."

  "We're just glad you're home," Theresa said, sniffling. She was staring at the ground.

  I pulled back and looked Felicia in the eye. "What's going on? Where's Tony?"

  She shook her head and wiped tears from her cheeks. "He's around." I waited for more, but that was all she had to say on the matter.

  I wasn't totally dense. There was a ton of evasiveness going on, not just with Felicia, but with everyone else, too. They had bad news for me, that much was clear, and there was no doubt in my mind that I was about to hear some shit that was really going to piss me off, once Tim and I were alone in the bathroom. And I really, really wanted to get to the bottom of that bullshit, too…but more than that, I needed to look, smell, and feel like a fae girl again, and not like some escaped mental patient who'd gone swimming in the Eternal Bog of Stench. I needed to have all my wits about me when Tim hit me with the truth.

  I pointed at the twins as I turned and reversed myself into my bedroom. "You two don't go anywhere. I want to talk to you when I get out of the bathroom. I just need, like, fifteen minutes, max." Heck…I didn't have hair anymore, which meant I might be able to cut my bathroom time down by another five minutes. Sweet. "Make it ten."

  They both nodded and gave me half-bows as they moved out of the way. I really wanted to slap someone when I saw that. More idiocy, now coming from the fae who were supposed to know me best. Everyone was acting like I was a different person all of a sudden—like royalty or something. Was it because of the time traveling? The dragons? Or all this mature talking shit? What was with all the bowing, anyway? I was not down with that at all, especially since I was fresh off a trip into my past where my personality flaws were once again brought front and center for me to examine in detail and be embarrassed about. I wanted to yell at everyone to stop acting so weird around me, but instead, I decided to do something very un-Jayne-like. I walked into my empty bedroom a
nd kept my mouth shut, closing the door softly behind me.

  I would've been happy to see Spike lying in the bed waiting for me, but apparently he was busy elsewhere. My mattress was empty save for the quilt and two pillows. This was typical for Spike, to be running around in the forest doing weird cube-eye stuff while the rest of the fae world panicked. It didn't matter to me that he wasn't there, though. Not really. Our relationship wasn't one where I had to have him with me every second to know how he felt about me, and vice versa. It was probably the only truly mature thing about me. I would catch up with him soon enough. And I was kind of glad he wasn't around when I was looking like this. It was bad enough he'd seen me in Crocs, sporting the escaped mental patient look. He didn't need to smell me too.

  I waited for Tim to fly past me into the bathroom before I shut the door behind us. He stood on the edge of the sink while I looked in the mirror at my haggard face. "Oh my good God. I look terrible." I leaned in and pushed my eyes to the sides, my lips up and down, my cheeks backward and forward. "Jesus. I look like I'm thirty already."

  "We'll invest in some wrinkle cream later, Lellemental. We need to talk about more important things right now than your rapidly aging skin." Tim started pacing back and forth next to the soap dish. "First things first…let's talk Tony…"

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I STARED AT my reflection in the bathroom mirror as Tim's words washed over me. I couldn't bear to look at him, knowing just the sight of my friend as he delivered this bad news would make me start bawling. I let my eyes focus on everything and nothing at the same time so my brain could shift into neutral.

  "Well, as you know, we were fighting Godless evil in the Overworld, all of our crew who were unfortunate enough to be born without wings riding dragons and being awesome. Although we held our own for a while there, the tide started to turn on us when we were suddenly outnumbered. Not to be an alarmist, but things were not looking good for us. Those demons were pretty stabby." He paused, and I glanced down to see him frowning in contemplation. "…And very good at being stabby, now that I think about it," he continued. "I mean, props for that. If you're going to be all about jabbing people with pointy objects as a career choice, you should be good at it. And they were, for sure."

  I sighed. He wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know.

  He glared at me. "Listen, lady, I can read your thoughts like they're happening in my own head. Don't rush me. This is a process."

  I went back to staring at the mirror, preparing myself for his grand finale that was hopefully going to be delivered sometime this week.

  "So…then…just when everything was looking pretty hopeless…I mean, even I, despite being the superhero that I am, was starting to wonder if we had a snowball's chance in hell of surviving that nightmare, when—Whammo!—Jayne Sparks Blackthorn, our Mother and elemental extraordinaire, along with her badass dragon companion Biad, swooped in and saved the day."

  He sighed. I couldn't tell if it was happiness or just reliving the experience that had him pausing to think about it for a moment before he continued. "For a while there, I didn't know where I was. After the mighty explosion, we were surrounded by a green light, fire, possibly some brimstone, water, air, and then something else. General consensus is that it was Spirit that entered the mix at the end, coming in there like a giant broom to sweep everything out." He sighed again, this time sadly. "A lot of us were unceremoniously dumped outside the compound—a fine load of thanks we got for killing off all those demons—and the others…well…they didn't show up for a while."

  He stopped talking and I waited for him to continue, but he didn't. I finally looked down at him, finding it hard to see; the tears that had filled my eyes were getting in the way. "Just tell me the rest of it."

  "I am. Don't rush me." He looked frustrated. "I've sat with the Council for days now, and we spent the majority of that time trying to piece things together, but it's not all there yet. There are big holes in the story."

  "Just tell me what you know. Maybe I can fill in some of those blanks."

  He nodded. "Okay, so where was I? Oh, yeah…getting dumped outside the compound like unwanted trash. Anyway, Tony and Spike were not in the group that was dumped outside the compound like leftover cafeteria waste." Clearly, he was miffed about being in that category, but from where I was standing, it seemed to be the better of the two options: dropped off outside the compound doors or missing in action…

  I gripped the edge of the sink waiting for the rest of the bad news to hit me.

  "Of course we launched an investigation immediately. I mean, as soon as we were able to get on our feet, which only took about two days."

  "They're dead, aren't they?" A sob burst out of me and my hand flew up to slap itself over my mouth. I was either trying to hold in the sound or keep the vomit down in my stomach where it belonged. Maybe both. I'd never felt so sad and so sick in my life. I bent over, resting my forehead on the sink's edge. My ears were hot and my heart was pounding painfully in my chest.

  "No! They're not dead!" He started waving his hands all around, flying down near my face so I could see him. "Don't even say that. Talk about bad juju."

  I wasn't brave enough to pull my hand away from my mouth, but I was able to stop crying long enough to turn my head and look at my roommate. "Explain yourself," I whispered, slowly lifting my body to stand nearly straight. I left my fingertips on my lips, just in case.

  He held his hands out slightly to the side, like he was about to start tap dancing. "Okay, so we're not exactly sure what's going on, but we're fairly certain they're not dead. I mean, not dead dead like they were killed or anything, at least."

  Yeah—he was definitely tap dancing. "That was about as clear as mud, Tim. Try again." I dropped my hand to the edge of the sink and held on tightly.

  "I know. Don't rush me, I said. Geez." He ran his fingers through his hair several times until it was sticking out all over the place. "I still have to sort it out in my head. The Council members did a lot of talking, and some of their theories were complicated, so my memories are jumbled together—what actually happened, what might have happened—argh." He started pacing back and forth on the edge of the sink. A couple times his fluttering wings pulled him up into the air and then set him down gently onto his tiptoes as they slowed. I don't think he was even aware it was happening because his feet kept moving the entire time.

  Tim looked up at me. "You know we have another wrathe with us now, right?"

  "The only other wrathes I know of besides Tony are Leck and Goose," I said pulling my hand away from my mouth.

  "No, not Goose. I'm not talking about him. Goose is missing in action. Or he spends a lot of time out in the woods and he's hard to contact. Whatever. Not him."

  If Tim tried to tell me that Leck had suddenly turned into a good fae and was helping everybody out, I wasn't going to believe it for a second, and furthermore, that crazyass pixie would be done as my roommate. And if he even suggested or hinted at the idea that Leck was the reason why Tony hadn't been waiting for me at the compound when I finally showed up a half hour ago or whatever, I was definitely going on a murderous rampage, and that wrathe asshole Leck was going to be right in the center of my crosshairs.

  Tim frowned at me. "No, it's not Leck. Are you crazy? Don't even say his name in my presence or I'm liable to dust somebody. It's Brad. Brad Powers was his human name, which surprises me because when I heard that, I thought for sure he was going to end up being a witch or an ogre maybe, but whatever…the changeling amulet spoke, and now he's definitely a wrathe. I think he's a friend of yours, right?"

  "Brad?" I leaned in closer to Tim, almost afraid to believe what I was hearing. "My enemy…errr…friend from school? The guy who saved me from the mental hospital? That Brad Powers?" I was ninety-nine percent sure there weren't two former humans named Brad Powers running around the compound, but I had to verify. Too many crazy things had happened in my life lately to take anything for granted.

  "The v
ery same one, yes. Anyway, as you could probably guess, he's a total amateur, and he doesn't really know what the hell he's doing, but he sure is trying."

  I had to smile at that, even though there were still tears running down my face. I let out a choked laugh. "He does give it his all, that's for sure. He sure rescued my sorry ass. I have to tell you, that was one of the biggest shocks I have ever gotten in my life…the day he showed up in my past and told me he was there to break me out of that prison."

  "So I gathered. He spent a lot of time confessing his sins when he got through the forest." Tim shook his head as he rolled his eyes. "Seriously. I felt like we should bring him to a church with a team of Catholic priests inside so he could hang out in a confession booth for about a week and let it all out with someone more qualified. It got awkward at the last Waypoint, trust me. I mean, yeah, you're supposed to speak your truth there, but not that much truth. Be glad you weren't there to hear it."

  "They made him go through the obstacle course?"

  "No. That's another crazy thing about your friend; he volunteered. They were going to waive the requirement, seeing as how he'd already learned all about the fae from Ben and had kind of been given the all-clear by you when you waved your elements all over the place in his presence and all…but when he heard that it was something you had gone through, he wasn't having it. He wanted to prove himself worthy. I'm not exactly sure who he was trying to prove it to, whether it was all of us or just you, but whatever. He made it through and all's well that ends well."

  "And he's okay?"

  "Yeah, he's okay. Kind of."

  "What do you mean 'kind of'?" My hands went up to my mouth again. It seemed like I was living in a constant state of near nausea.

  "His job, as soon as he got confirmed as a wrathe, has been to rescue people from the Gray."

  "Rescue people?"

  "Rescue fae, you know what I mean. The ones who got flung in there when Spirit swept up the joint. He's been going in and out ever since he made his change."