New World Order (War of the Fae: Book 4) (17 page)

“Fine,” he said, all mopey.
 
“Mind if I ride your shoulder?
 
I’m feeling kinda tired.”

“Sure, Tim.
 
Hop on board the happy train!”

He mumbled as he settled down for the ride back.
 
“Happy train, my hairy pixie butt.
 
More like the train into the bottomless abyss of pain.”

I laughed.
 
A complaining Tim was as close to a happy Tim as I was going to get right now.
 
I would have been a lot more worried if he had been silent.
 
Fortunately, I didn’t have to concern myself.
 
Tim kept up a constant prattle of awesome cut downs and insults he could use on the mother of his child when he saw her again.
 
I noticed he said not one word, though, about the son he’d just discovered he has.

The guys and I trekked back through the forest and across the meadow to get to the dining hall in time for dinner.
 
On a whim I decided to go check my emails first, though; I hadn’t bothered to do it since before Tony had come back.
 
I couldn’t imagine any of my old friends sending me one, since they hadn’t in a long time, but maybe there’d be some funny ‘grow your penis five inches’ spam emails to laugh over.
 
That would cheer Tim up for sure.
 

I ended up going solo with Tim since the rest of them decided to go straight to dinner.
 
Scrum promised to keep a close eye on Gorm to make sure he stuck to the buffet menu and didn’t help himself to any of the fae in the dining room.
 

I sat down at the computer and logged onto my account, seeing right away that I had ten unread messages, all from my mother.
 
“Holy shit,” I said absently as I navigated with the mouse.
 
My mom never emails me.
 
I didn’t think she even cared that I was gone.
 

“What?
 
Any good penis ones?
 
How about boobs?
 
Do they have pictures this time?”
 
Tim jumped off my shoulder to hover in front of the screen.
 
“Who’s ‘m.blackthorn65 at gmail’?”

“It’s my mom.”
 
I clicked on the oldest one and started reading.

Dear Jayne,
 
Hi, I hope you are doing okay.
 
I really don’t even know where you are.
 
I hope you are safe and happy.
 
I have talked to Tony’s parents so I know you are together.
 
The reason I’m writing is because I was hoping I could convince you to come home.
 
I really need to see you.
 
Can you tell me where you are?
 
Maybe I could come to you.
 
Love, Mom.

“What the ... hell?”
 
My brain was short-circuiting.

Tim was still busy reading it.

“This can’t really be from my mom.
 
She would never write an email like this.”
 
The fact that it was just too unlike her made me feel kind of queasy.

“Why not?
 
It sounds like a normal mom.
 
Kind of.”

“Well, first of all, my mom’s not a normal mom.
 
She’s missing the critical protective mother instinct module.
 
And second, if she’s still married to Rick the Dick, she doesn’t want to see me.
 
I know that for a fact.”

“Open the other ones,” urged Tim.

I clicked on each one of them and they were all exactly the same, except for the last one.

Dear Jayne,
 
I haven’t received a reply from you.
 
I really need to see you.
 
It’s urgent.
 
Please, come home immediately.

I clicked through the windows to shut them all down and logged off as fast as I could.

“Why’d you do that?
 
I wasn’t finished reading it,” said Tim, his hands on his hips in indignation.

“I’m not sure.
 
I got a really creepy feeling is all.”

“Creepy as in ‘I really need to go see my mom’?”

“No, creepy as in ‘something’s out to get me’ creepy.”

Tim frowned at me.
 
“I think you’re reading a little too much into it.
 
Why would your mother be out to get you?”

I got an idea and quickly went back onto the computer.

“What are you doing?
 
Are you going to send her an email?”

“Hell no.
 
I’m going to hack into Tony’s account and see if his parents are sending him emails.”

“You have hacking skills you haven’t told me about?”
 
Tim sounded very impressed, in a devilish sort of way.

“Hardly.
 
Tony has one email account and I can guess what his password is in three guesses or less.
 
I’ll bet you.”

“No thanks.
 
You guys know way too much about each other.
 
I’ll just admire your skills from here.”
 
He flew to hover near the left side of the screen, adding, “I wonder if he gets penis emails too.”

“I think everyone does,” I said absently, as I clicked to his username and password screen.
 
“Let’s try this one for the password.
 
It’s one of his favorites.”

K-A-S-P-A-R-O-V.

I clicked ‘submit’ but received a red message that the password I had entered didn’t match their records.

“Shit.
  
I thought for sure that was it.”

“Who’s ... Kasparov ... ?”

“Some guy who beat a computer at chess a long time ago – Tony’s hero.”

“Nerd alert.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.
 
Alright, this is my second best guess ... ”

C-H-E-C-K-M-A-T-E

“That didn’t work either, did it?” asked Tim.

“Nope.
 
Last guess, then I’m going to have to go all honest and make Tony tell it to me.”

E-N-D-G-A-M-E

“Endgame.
 
Weird,” said Tim as he waited for the failure message to appear or not appear.

“Tony uses that term a lot, especially now.
 
It’s applicable to chess and the war stuff.”
 
I watched as the red warning message came up again.
 
“Dammit!
 
Punk changed his password on me.”

“Do you think he knows you hack in?”

“Of course he does.
 
Whenever I do, I change his display name on his email so when it goes out it doesn’t say Tony anymore.”

Tim giggled.
 
“What does it say?”

I shrugged.
 
“Depends on my mood.
 
If I could get in there today, it would say ‘Ass Wanker’.”

Tim clapped his hands with glee.
 
“Try one more time.
 
Just one more.
 
Let’s put in this one.”
 
He zipped over and started bouncing from one key to the next, tapping out his password guess.

J-A-Y-N-E.

“It’s not going to be that word, Tim, that’s too ... ”

I cut my sentence off abruptly when the screen started showing his emails appearing like magic.

“What in the ... ?”
 
I smiled.
 
“He loves me.
 
Kid can’t help himself.”
 
I felt all warm inside, knowing he had to have set this password before we got here.
 
That made me feel good all over again for bringing him back with me.

Tim was congratulating himself, taking bows to his invisible audience.
 
“Yes, ladies and gentlefae, I know, I know.
 
I am amazing, aren’t I?
 
That’s right.
 
I’m a hacker.
 
I hack stuff.
 
Did you see me hack that mother?
 
Yes, you did.
 
I hacked it.
 
I hack all the time, actually.”

I ignored him and stared at the list of ten unread messages, all from his family’s home email address.
 
His parents insisted on using one address for the whole family when they were around.
 
Tony ignored the rule when they weren’t.

I clicked on the oldest one and read it under my breath.

Dear Tony, Hello.
 
You are urgently needed at home.
 
Your mother is ill.
 
Sincerely, Dad.

“Wow.
 
Short and not so sweet,” said Tim.

“Yeah.
 
His parents suck ass.
 
If this isn’t them, it’s a good imitation.”

“So what’s up with the parents trying to get the kids home?
  
Normal human parent behavior, right?”

“I don’t know.
 
I guess. But it seems too weird to me for some reason.”
 
I clicked on all the messages in his box and they all said the same thing.
 
Every time I clicked a new one and the same message popped up, I felt sicker and sicker to my stomach.
 
I opened up another separate window and looked into my own account again.
 
I noticed immediately that the emails to my account had been sent on the same days as Tony’s, only minutes apart.
 
Maybe one of us with a bunch of repeat message in our inboxes I could believe ... but both of us with the exact same number of them?
 
Same dates and times?
 
No.
 
Not normal.
 
Our parents hated each other.
 
They were in cahoots with each other.

I shut down the accounts without remembering to change Tony’s display name.
 
It suddenly didn’t seem like so much fun anymore.
 
Asshole parents – sucking the joy out of life, once again.
 
But was it really our parents?
 
That, I wasn’t sure of.
 
I had a sick feeling in my stomach that I didn’t really want to know the answer.

“What?
 
What’s wrong?
 
I can tell when you squinch up your eyebrows like that you’re upset.”
 
Tim flew over to be in front of my face, blocking the computer screen.
 
“Talk to Doctor Tim.
 
Tell him aaaalllll your troubles and secrets.”

I was glad Tim was back to his sassy old self; but it wasn’t enough to block out the sense of doom that was now hanging over my head.
 
“I’ll tell you what’s bothering me, Doctor Tim, but can I do it when I have Tony and the others with me?
 
I want to cogitate on this for a minute.”

“Cogitate.
 
Wow, good word.
 
Okay, yeah, sure.
 
I wanted to go see if they have strawberries on the buffet anyway.
 
I have a craving for something juicy and red.”

I looked at him knowingly.
 
“So you can stab the poor thing with your vicious knife and make it bleed?”

He shrugged his shoulders, trying to look innocent.
 
“Maybe.”

“Maybe my ass.”
 
I got up and walked to the door.
 
“Come on.
 
Let’s go murder some fruit.”

“Woo hooo!” yelled Tim, as he flew out the door in front of me and down the hall, his knife pointed out in front of him and his body in superhero flying position.
 

I followed him slowly down the hallway, ruminating over the disturbing messages, trying to decide what they could mean.
 
Maybe they were really nothing more than anxious parents suddenly realizing they had kids that mattered.
 
But then again, maybe they were something else entirely.

I went to the dining hall and loaded up my plate with salad, a piece of chicken, and two strawberries.
 
I figured they would keep Tim busy with his massacre for a while so I could talk to Tony without too much interference.

I noticed a lot of new faces in the room, many of them older than the usual changeling bunch.
 
I figured these were some of the fae who Dardennes had mentioned would be coming to stay with us to arm up for the war.
 
I kept my head down and made my way over to our usual table.

I sat between Tony and Spike, interrupting their conversation with my body block.
 
Tim flew down to the table and attacked the first strawberry, making a few preliminary slashes in the air first, dancing around a bit, and then stabbing it mercilessly in the center, sending juice down to stain the table cloth.