Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 1, After the Fall (13 page)

I'm not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it.  The pain was sharp, and his bite stung like the bejeezus.  I kept waiting for it to get all sensual and pleasant like it was in the movies, but that never happened.  Before I could complain about getting ripped off, he pulled his mouth away from me, first licking the bite mark and then some crimson drops from his lips.  He used his thumb to press down hard where he'd bitten me and lifted my arm up above my head.

"What are you doing?" I asked, looking up at my hand, trying not to whimper over the pain.

"Stopping the blood, helping it coagulate.  I cannot have you bleeding to death on me, now, can I?"  He smiled and my stomach turned over at the blood in his teeth.

He closed his mouth quickly.  "My apologies.  How do you feel?"

"Queasy.  Confused.  Curious.  Cranky.  Sad.  Pick your adjective."

He smiled, almost guiltily.  "I do regret my hasty approach and hurried blood letting.  Our dear friend Maggie left me with little choice."

I turned my head and realized that she hadn't even noticed anything happening.  She was humming over her brew, stirring fast, the smoke coming up from the pot obscuring her vision.

"I'm not sure what will happen to you if she finishes that, and I need to talk to you," I whispered.  "She has one last ingredient to add if it's like the last brew, and then it'll be finished."

"What was the ingredient, do you remember?"

I grimaced.  "Are you kidding me?  I'll never forget it."

"What was it?  Tell me.  Perhaps if I know what it is she is brewing, I will be in a better position to know what we can do to thwart her efforts."

I didn't know about thwarting Maggie's efforts, since sending a demon back to where it belonged sounded like a good plan to me in theory, but I couldn't let her do it just yet.  Not when I was this close to getting some answers.

"She had a wooden box with a small creature in it."

"What kind of creature?" he urged.  He pulled my hand back down and quickly licked the small rivers of blood that had escaped his thumb to run down my arm, all the while leaving his finger on my wound.

I watched with barely concealed disgust, wondering how much damage demon spit would do to my fair skin.  "It looked like a tiny version of Torrie, actually."

Garrett squeezed my hand tight enough to make me squeak.  "Sorry ... but did you say she had a miniature version of Torrie?  The demon?"

I nodded.

His eyes slowly moved over to Maggie, almost as if he were afraid to look at her now.  "Who
is
this witch?"

I leaned in close to him, while looking at her still muttering over her pot.  "She's my grandmother," I said even quieter.

He turned to look at me at the same time I moved to look at him, putting us nose-to-nose.  "We need to get out of here," he whispered.

"Jayne!" barked Maggie from across the room, making me jump.  "Come stir this for me!"

I stood and pulled Garrett up with me, causing him to drop his thumb from my wrist.  I didn't bother to look at it, pressing it up against my stomach, hoping my tunic would stop the bleeding.

"Sure, Maggie.  I'll be right there."  I looked at Garrett briefly and then pulled him along a few steps towards Maggie, holding his hand in mine.

When we were even with the door, I yelled, "Run!" while throwing up a green shield between her and us.

"Great spirits alive ... you've done it again!" he said, staring at the green, crackling energy.

I dropped his hand and shoved him towards the entrance, grabbing the handle of the door and pulling on it with all my might.  It wouldn't budge.

"Maggie," I yelled over my shoulder, "let us go!"

"You have no idea what you're doing, Jayne.  Put this wall down and bring that vampire over here."

I felt for the Ancient One in my connection, pulling its essence towards me.  The door was part of its corporeal body, and I knew there was no way Maggie could hold me in here without the tree's approval.  I let it know that I needed to get outside and felt the answering acquiescence.  The door swung free of its locking spell.

Garrett seemed too in awe of the magic and show of elemental force going on around him to react appropriately, so I grabbed his tunic sleeve and yanked him out the door with me.

Once outside of Maggie's house, he snapped out of his trance and realized our dilemma, running so fast it was difficult for me to keep up.  He wasn't going quite as fast as the incubi and succubi normally did, otherwise I would have lost him in a second, but he was going fast enough that I thought I'd seen the last of him.  I had to stop a moment once we were in the trees a bit to release the Green from holding Maggie, calling it into me rather than letting it dissipate back into the earth.  I wouldn't put it past her to fling some kind of pixie-fart-smelling spell at my back, so I made sure to have a film of energy around me to repel anything nasty like that.

"Slow down!" I yelled at Garrett's fading back.  "I can't run that fast!"

Thankfully, he stopped and waited for me to catch up.  "Come here, Jayne.  It will be faster for both of us."  He swept me up in his arms and began running again, the trees and branches whipping by so fast, they were just a blur.

"Holy shiiiiiiiit, Gaaaarrett!  What are you doing?!" I yelled at first, freaking out about feeling like I'd been captured; but then I stopped when I realized it was a pretty decent way to travel.  I just hoped he had good enough vision with the fading sunlight that he didn't run smack into a tree and knock us both unconscious.

"Just hang on.  You'll be fine."

"Where exactly are you going?" I asked after a few seconds.

"Away from that place."

"Take a left," I said, pointing him in the direction of the Infinity Meadow.  It was the safest place I knew of, especially since my mother had been buried there and a huge oak had grown up over her grave in a great show of magic and the forces of nature coming together in harmony for a singular purpose.  I was probably dead wrong, but it seemed like only good could happen there - like evil couldn't touch it.  Despite the fact that it had been the scene of my bonding ceremony with Ben, it was still a place I felt where I could be at peace and think.

We arrived in less than ten minutes at a more relaxed pace, which made my stomach much happier.  Garrett set me down on my feet when we arrived at the edge of the grassy meadow.  The flowers were still in bloom here, but they were on their last legs.  I picked a few of the dried-out husks as we walked side-by-side over to the tree, plucking the petals off and letting them drop to the ground.  I was trying to work out in my mind what questions I wanted to ask him and what I was going to do with him once we were done. 
Maybe I can bring him back to Maggie and she'll send him off, no harm no foul.  Oooor maybe she'll bust my ass and let him eat me.  Hmmmm, what to do, what to do...

When we got to the base of the tree, I sat down, gesturing for Garrett to join me.  He smoothed his hands down his tunic and pants a couple of times before sitting with his back against the tree.  I was in front of him, facing the spot just over his left shoulder where my mom had been laid to rest.

"This place is special to you," said Garrett, watching me closely.

"Yes.  My mother is buried just over there."  I pointed and then threw the petal I'd been holding in my hand in the general direction.

"What race was she?"

"She wasn't fae.  She was human.  I'm a changeling."

He nodded slowly.  "I had heard this realm had begun to bring the changelings in greater numbers."  He smiled humorlessly.  "You hear things there, in the Underworld ... but it's impossible to know what is truth and what is merely hope."

"It's true.  The Light and Dark Fae were both doing it."

"And now?"

I shrugged.  "Now they're living and working together to try and figure out what to do about you guys coming here."

He raised his eyebrows.  "You mean to say that the Light and Dark are no more?  That they live as one?"

I nodded.  "That's the idea.  It just started today, actually, so it's not totally done."

"Wow.  Desperation is the word of the day, I see."

I huffed out a frustrated breath.  "You have
no
idea."

He tilted his head to the side.  "You remind me of someone."

"You remind me of someone, too.  Ben, like I said."  I studied his reaction but couldn't tell if he suddenly looked nervous or if I was just imagining it.  Even if he was nervous, it didn't necessarily mean it was because of Ben.  Neither of us knew what the heck was happening here or what the fallout for sneaking him into the Here and Now might be.  At least, I didn't.

"I knew a warrior once.  She was a silver elf."

The voice came back into my head without any notice, startling me with its sudden arrival.

"Ask him how his heart is holding up."

I frowned. 
What?
I asked the voice in my head - Shayla, I guess, if Maggie was correct.

"You heard me.  Ask him how his heart is holding up."

I cleared my throat, deciding that prodding him a little might help my cause or at least give me a direction to go in for my own questions.  "So, Garrett.  How's your heart holding up?"

His face blanched, and that's saying a lot because he was about as pale to begin with as Spike.  All of the incubi and succubi seemed to share that same almost undead complexion.  His hand drifted up to his chest and rubbed his muscle there - the one directly over his heart.

"What did you just say?" he whispered.

"I said, how's your heart holding up?"

"It's ... uhhh ... holding up just fine, thank you for asking."  His brow furrowed as he stared at me.

"Ask him how he likes your weapon.  Ask him if he wants to give it a go."

You're crazy.  I'm not going to do that.

"Come on.  It'll be fun!"

Shayla was obviously trying to torture the guy; but they had some sort of connection, and since she knew what it was and I didn't, I figured she'd know better than me how to re-forge it.

"So, Garrett.  Do you like my weapon?"  I pulled Blackie out of its sheath and held it out in front of me.  "Would you like to give it a go?"

Garret threw himself over to the side and then flipped over, scrambling to his feet, looking left, right, and then at me, suspicion darkening his eyes.  "Who are you?!" he growled.

I laid Blackie across my legs, leaning back on my hands, smiling.  "I think the question is, who are you?  And how do you know my ancestor, Shayla the dragon-slayer?"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

GARRETT STOOD SEVERAL PACES AWAY from me, off to the side of the large oak tree that cast a shadow over my mother's grave, his face a mask of suspicion.

"You ... you've said things ... things you couldn't possibly know to say ..."

I frowned.  "All I did was ask you about your heart and if you wanted to give the Dark a go.  What's the big deal?"

Garrett looked around us, speaking out into the air.  "Shayla!  I know you are here, you minx!  Come out and stop toying with me like this.  It tisn't proper."

Shayla giggled. 
"Don't you love how he's insisting we be proper, when he's a summoned demon and I'm a ... well, right now, a voice in your head?"

"Yeah, it's a laugh riot," I said sarcastically.

"What is a laugh riot?" Garrett asked, taking one more step away from me.

"I was talking to Shayla, not you."

He spun left and then right.  "She's here?!  Where?"  His arms were out at his sides now, ready for the attack he seemed certain would come.

I stood up slowly, brushing myself off, giving up on the idea of a relaxing evening under the tree getting to know one another's secrets.  "I have no idea where she is technically, but her voice is in my head."

Garrett stood up straighter, letting his hands fall to his sides.  "Come again?"

"I said, her voice is in my head.  But her body?  I have no idea where that part of her is."

"So she is talking to you?  Right now?"

"Not at this exact moment but she told me what to say to you just now."

"Tattletale."

I sighed.

"Did she just say something?"

"She called me a tattletale."

"Can she hear me talking to you?"

I nodded.  "I think so."

Garrett drew himself up, his posture rigid with formality.  "Shayla, show yourself.  Stop hiding behind this young girl like a coward."

"Tell him I said that I owe no presence to an hourly promise breaker."

I sighed.  "This is the last one, Shayla.  Then you can either come out and play yourself, or suffer in my head right along with me.  I'm done being your messenger girl."  I looked at Garrett.  "Sorry for this, Garrett, but she said she owes no presence to an hourly promise breaker, whatever that means."

His mouth thinned and he spoke in clipped tones.  "She slings insults using the weapons issuing from Shakespeare's own pen.  How cruel she always was and appears to still be."  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, in and out, before hanging his head, making him look defeated.

"I hope you're happy, Shayla.  He's sad now."

"I am not sad," he said, his head snapping up.  "I feel very sorry for her.  She never believed me, or
in
me, and for an eon has blamed me for something that was never my fault."  He turned his attention to the air around us.  "It must be a singular torture, dear Shayla, to be wrong for such a long and wasted time."

"Call me to you, Jayne.  I need to face him."

What do you mean?  How do I do that?

"Speak these words: Shayla Blackthorn, guardian to me and others of mine, come to me.  I am in need."

I wondered to myself how much trouble I was going to be in pulling an angel out of the Gray, but only for about two seconds before repeating her words.  "Shayla Blackthorn, guardian to me and others of mine, come to me.  I am in need."