Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 1, After the Fall (11 page)

"So who is she?  And why is she in my brain now?  And how did you know she was there?"

Maggie shook her head, adding a pinch of something from a nearby jar to her brew that caused a small explosion to come out of the top of her pot and envelope her in smoke.  She choked out her answer, waving the offensive-smelling blackness out of her face.  "Tears in the veil.  All kinds of unmentionables are getting through.  Many more are trying."  

She wheezed out a few more coughs, and I'm pretty sure brought up part of a lung with the last one.  I tried to tamp down the nausea that threatened to make itself known in the form of the tiny bit of dinner I'd eaten before abandoning my meal.

"Unmentionables?" I asked, trying to get Maggie back on track.  She had picked up a big spoon and was stirring the stuff in her pot around.  The stink that was wafting over to me made me reach over and crack the door open.

"Shut that door!" she yelled at me.

I slammed it closed.  "Geez, chill, Granny.  It friggin' stinks like burned rat shit in here."

"I need that odor here or the spell won't work, ignorant girl.  Now go over there and sit down before you blow up my tree."

My eyes widened at the idea of inadvertently making a nuclear bomb just by cracking a door open.  Maggie worked with some seriously dangerous shit, apparently.

I probably should have high-tailed it out of there like Tim had, but instead I followed her instructions, gingerly stepping over to sit on the lumpy chair in the corner.  At least I was as far away from her as I could get and still be inside the tree.

"Whatcha makin'?" I asked, not sure I even wanted to know but somehow sickly curious about how an escaped stink could alter a spell and turn it into something explosive.

"Demon bait."

I nodded my head slowly, letting that little nugget of awfulness roll around a little bit before responding.

"Uh-huh.  Yeah.  So you're baiting a demon toooo .... ?"  I lifted my eyebrows at her, hoping for an answer that wouldn't make me nauseous with fear.

"To capture it, of course.  Stop asking me stupid questions.  I don't have time for your nonsense today."

I frowned, deciding to change tactics.  "So, the council asked me to come here and ask you how the demons are getting into our realm and what we can do to stop it.  And also how they know about some sort of legend that says my baby will make it possible for the demons to come all the time."

She slammed her spoon down on the wooden table and fixed me with a one-eyed glare.  "The council, eh?  The
council
would like to know?!"

I gritted my teeth and pulled my lips back in a fake smile, not sure if I should laugh or be scared at her instant fury.  "Uh, yeah?"

She picked up the spoon and pointed it at my face, limping over to stand at the edge of her table nearest me.  "You can tell that council of yours to sit around their meeting and turn their heads to the
left
and the
right
.  Their answers are
there! 
Right in front of their ignorant noses!"  Her arm dropped to her side and she turned to go back to her stew, grumbling and muttering to herself things I couldn't discern.

"So what are you saying?  Do we have a mole?"

"A mole ...
ha!"
she responded, stirring and muttering again, staring down into her pot, her eyes blinking rapidly at the smoke that entered them.

"
Ha
, as in, yes we have a mole, or
ha
, as in, you're a stupid asshole, Jayne?"

She looked up at me and slowly withdrew her spoon from her brew, carefully placing it down on the table.  She leaned over and grabbed her rat by its back, lifting it towards her face and gathering it there by her mouth with both hands, kissing its side and staring at me over its dirty body.  She spoke into its fur.

"Do you hear her, Melvin?  She wants to know if they have a mole in their midst."  She laughed and her rat lifted its head, sniffing the air and then looking over at me.

If that thing fucking laughs, I'm outta here
, was all I could think.  But its beady eyes just looked around, as if searching for something.  Its nose stopped moving when it got over the pot.  It wiggled its head up and down twice before it started squirming, back-pedaling its little legs, trying to get away with everything it had.

Oh, that cannot be good if the disgusting rat doesn't even like it.
  I stood and moved slowly towards the door.  Maggie was always a little strange - or a lot strange.  But she had never seemed unhinged to me until now.

Maggie casually swept her arms out to her sides, flinging her rat onto the nearby shelf in the process, her eyes never leaving mine.

Melvin landed on his feet and scurried away, hiding behind the cloudy and dusty glass jars that were lined up like dirty fat soldiers.

"Okay, well, I can see you're busy today, so I'll just come back another time.  The council says hi and thanks for all your help."  I was at the door, my fingers scrabbling for the handle when she said one word that stopped me in my tracks.

"Shayla."

I'd heard that name once before.  A gray elf named Gregale had mentioned her when he'd told me about my weapon's history.  I looked down at the black dragon fang that was strapped to my leg.  I called it Blackie, mostly because it reminded me of my old badass-tempered dog of the same name and because I'm not all that creative with my nicknames; and this thing was potent enough that it seemed to
need
a name.  At the time I had assigned the moniker Blackie to it, I had no idea that it already had a name - the Dark of Blackthorn.  And it had once been in the mouth of the Dark Fae dragon who was known simply as The Dark.

"Shayla.  She's one of my ancestors, isn't she?"

"Yes.  She's the one who slayed the dragon whose fang you carry with you today."

"And you're saying she's the one in my head?  Talking to me?  Even though she's been dead for like a thousand years?"

"Yes."

"How is that even possible?"  Recognition dawned, causing me to sigh in defeat.  "I've lost it, haven't I?"  I let go of the door handle that I'd finally connected with and leaned my back against the wood, sliding down to land on my butt.  I stared at the floor as I thought Maggie's words through.  

"Dammit!" I exclaimed, hitting my fist on the floor.  "I wanted to stay sane for this!  I mean, okay, being nuts might make some things easier.  I'll be able to do whatever I want and never be held accountable ..." I was talking to myself now, mentally tallying the pros and cons.  "I guess there's a certain amount of freedom in leaving sanity and reason behind.  I can just wander around the compound, hanging out, taking naps in the garden, floating up into the ether and visiting with Chase ..."

Maggie rudely interrupted me.  "No!  You stay
out
of the Overworld and the Gray.  You have no business there!"

She had moved over to stand near me now, seeming intent on communicating, finally.

"Why?" I asked, looking up at her face so I wouldn't give myself too much time to contemplate her awful shoes that had holes in the toes, perfect for exposing her blackened, long and jagged toenails.  "If I wasn't meant to be there, don't you think I'd be cut off from it?"

"You should be, and that's the problem.  As I said ... the veil has tears in it.  We must repair it before it is too late."  She walked back to her brew and began stirring again.  "Get off the floor.  Come over here and help me with this."

I shook my head.  "No thanks.  I'm cool over here, away from the rat shit soup."

"I'm not asking.  Get over here or I'll cast a spell on you that amplifies your smelling capacity tenfold."

I shrugged.  "What's that gonna do?  I can already smell your crap from here without it."

"I believe your pixie has issues that would make this particular spell quite torturous for you."

I jumped up and ran over.  "Holy shit, Maggie.  You're threatening me with level-ten pixie fartage?  That's just cruel."

She shrugged.  "I do what I must.  Here."  She handed me her spoon.  "Keep stirring, and don't stop, no matter what happens.  We must keep it moving."

CHAPTER TEN

MAGGIE LEFT ME IN THE kitchen stirring the pot alone while she entered the attached room.  I yelled so she'd hear me.

"How did you know Shayla was in my head?"

"She's not in your head!" responded Maggie from the other room.  Her voice was muffled, making her sound like she was in a closet.

"Well, that's where I hear her," I yelled back.  I continued speaking in a quieter voice, "Shayla?  Are you there now?"

"She can't hear you in here," said Maggie, coming back into the kitchen carrying a wooden box in her hand.  She laid it gently down on the table before taking the spoon from me and continuing the stirring.

I stood on my tiptoes and started to lean in so I could take a look into her pot, but she pinched my arm, causing me to flinch and fall backwards onto my heels.

"Ow! 
That
hurt
, you old bag!"

"Keep away from the vapor.  I am fresh out of gecko testicles and without them you would perish."

I grimaced.  "Fresh out?  As in, you had some yesterday, but you don't today?"

"Yes."

I swallowed hard.  "You have a seriously strange appetite, Maggie."

Maggie cackled but said nothing to dissuade me from thinking she actually ate lizard balls for breakfast.  The bitterness of stomach acid burned my throat, and my salivary glands were working overtime.  I swallowed three more times, trying to get a grip on myself.

"Open the box.  Put the contents in, but only when I tell you to," she said, gesturing towards the thing she'd taken out of the other room.

I stepped over and picked it up, my hands trembling with fear and nausea.  I cleared my throat before speaking.  "What's in here?"  I almost dropped it when I thought I felt something moving inside, scratching at the wood.

She glanced at me and lifted an eyebrow.  "You really want to know?"

I shook my head fast. 
"No!
  No, don't tell me.  I was only kidding.  Keep your nasty secrets.  What I don't know won't hurt me, right?"  I smiled at her weakly, but all she did was shrug her shoulders.  I rolled my eyes. 
What did I expect?  Reassurances from a lunatic witch?  Don't hold your breath, Jayne.

I stood next to Maggie, holding the box up near the edge of the pot, keeping my face way back.  "So how do you know about Shayla talking to me?"

"I am hearing a lot of talk from the other realms.  Too much chatter.  The spirits are restless and others are waking."

"Others?"

"The Forsaken."

I gritted my teeth together, my jaw muscles bulging and loosening with the rhythm of my panic.  Every minute spent with Maggie was another chink in the armor of my sanity.  I could almost feel it falling away, piece by piece.

I opened my mouth wide, trying to stretch my aching jaw out before responding.  "Spirits?  Others?  The Forsaken?  Demons?  Gecko balls?  ... Maggie ...," I pleaded, "could you please stop doing this to me?  Seriously, I think I'm losing my mind."  I wasn't even kidding anymore.

Maggie was staring at the open pot, her stirring going faster now.  She had sweat glistening on her forehead, some of her greasy hair sticking to it.  "Open the box," she said, barely above a whisper.

I fumbled with the latch.  It was tiny and loose, refusing to cooperate with my shaking fingers.

"Quickly!  Open it!" she hissed.

"I'm trying!" I said, practically crying I was so freaked out.  I couldn't think of anything worse than fucking up a demon bait spell.

The box opened just as Maggie was about to hit me with her free hand, and she screeched, "Put it in!"

"The box?!"

"No, you fool, the thing
in
the box!"

I flipped up the lid and started screaming as soon as I saw what was inside.

Maggie grabbed the box from me and dumped it upside down over the pot, the contents falling into the brew.  A chorus of unholy shrieks followed shortly thereafter - some of them coming from me, and some of them coming from the creature who'd just become part of a rat turd demon bait spell.

"Oh my god, Maggie!  You just
killed
that thing whatever it was!"

A loud explosion came from the pot, throwing both of us backwards and onto the floor in a heap.

Maggie's nasty-ass, dirty robes tangled around my legs and her disgusting, rotten breath was blowing in my face.  I thought I was going to die from it until I realized there was a much bigger threat to my survival than Maggie's gingivitis that I had to deal with, and it was standing in the middle of the room now.

And I also realized in that moment that there actually
was
something worse than fucking up a demon bait brew: it was getting the brew exactly right, and successfully luring a demon into a house you were trapped inside.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I PULLED THE GREEN UP into me without thinking, tapping into the ley line so fast and without any finesse at all, that it sent my Element into a frenzy.  I hadn't connected in a while, so it was eager to be with me again; and with the amplification of the extra Earth magic running beneath Maggie's house, it made for a very potent combination.

Maggie and I were now surrounded by a thick green bubble of protective power, keeping us in and the demon out.  The elemental shield hummed and crackled with the energy, making my ears pop with the uneven pressures going higher and lower in the atmosphere immediately surrounding us.

We both sat up, a little groggy from the bomb's percussion and our rapid descent to the hard ground that I could tell already was going to be responsible for several bruises on my backside.  I rubbed it gingerly as I stood.

I kept my eyes on the demon the entire time.  It stood in the center of Maggie's living room, turning around slowly, taking everything in.  I was calling it a demon in my head because Maggie had said this brew was for demon baiting.  But if I had seen him out in the forest, I would have called him just a regular fae guy.  And not a bad-looking one, either.