by Lola StVil
“Let’s go,” I say to the team as I approach them.
They don’t need to be told twice. None of us are exactly comfortable here.
We make our way back along the tunnel, a lot more quickly than we entered it. I hear a terrible shriek go up behind us and footsteps gaining on us quickly.
“Run,” I shout.
We run as fast as we can, but Tania is still gaining on us quickly.
“How dare you step foot in my home? I’ll skin you all alive,” Tania shouts, and I have no doubt that she would do it given half a chance.
Saudia and Quinn burst from the cave followed by Langston and Perry. Remy and Regal are seconds behind them and then me. Just as I’m about to reach freedom, I feel hands clasp my shoulders. I try to shake myself free, but they’re too strong.
Regal turns and spots what’s happening as Tania pushes my hair back. Just as I feel Tania’s fangs graze my neck, Regal grabs me and pulls me roughly into the sunlight. Tania screams when the light hits her hands. She pulls them back as smoke starts to rise from them.
I don’t hang around to see what happens next.
“I won’t forget this,” Tania screeches in anger as we flee.
I’m almost certain she will.
“Well she was nice, wasn’t she?” Perry says when we’re a safe distance away from the cave.
“I guess it’s back to the drawing board on finding Dax then,” I say.
“Or we could just do what she said and go visit Fenton,” Langston says.
“Wait. You know who Fenton is?” I ask.
“No way. It’s too dangerous,” Regal says.
“Not necessarily,” Langston says, looking down at the ground.
“What do you propose we do? Drug him?” Saudia demands. “Regal’s right. It’s too dangerous.”
“A long time ago, I did something stupid,” Langston says. “A friend dared me to go to the Appalachian Trail and come back with a souvenir. I was afraid, but I wouldn’t back down from a bet. Fenton found me wandering around the trail, lost and afraid. I was so stupid; I tried to take him on. I was lucky. He showed me mercy. He gave me my souvenir in exchange for a lock of my hair. He knows me, guys. I’m pretty sure I can do the same deal again, only this time, it’ll be for Dax’s location.”
“You idiot. You could have been killed,” Regal interjects.
“But I wasn’t,” Langston says. “And I still have this. I know Fenton will remember me as soon as he sees it.”
She reaches into her top and pulls out a locket on the end of a long chain. She opens it up and shows us a large white tooth.
“Can someone please catch me up?” I say, feeing totally lost.
“Fenton is the alpha male in the largest pack of werewolves in the Appalachians,” Langston says. “Kids used to dare each other to get one of his teeth. It was just a game. No one was ever really stupid enough to try. I think that’s why he spared me that day. I think he recognized that spark of bravery in me.”
“Stupidity more like,” Perry interjects.
Langston glares at him, then carries on.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous it would be for him to have more than one lock of your hair?” Quinn asks.
Langston nods. “Yeah. I do. But if he wanted me dead, he’d have killed me then and there. I just have to trust nothing has changed.”
“Atlas, tell her she can’t do this,” Perry says.
“If Fenton has one lock of hair from an angel, he can use it to heal himself or a member of his pack after battle. If he has two or more, he can kill Langston by setting fire to it and blowing the ashes into the wind,” Quinn says bitterly.
“It’s a lot to ask, Langston,” I start.
“Is it?” she demands. “Because from where I’m standing, if we don’t get the object, we’re all dead anyway.”
She has a point, but I’m still not ready to have her with a curse hanging over her head because of me.
“Atlas, Fenton isn’t as bad as people think. He has a reasonable side, and I trust him. And now I’m asking you to trust me.”
“Lead the way,” I say, hoping I’ve made the right decision.
Langston walks back to where we sit waiting for her, our backs resting against large trees.
“Well she’s still alive,” Perry says.
“For now,” Remy adds.
Langston insisted on seeing Fenton alone. She argued that a whole swarm of us appearing to him would make him think we were a threat and the pack would tear us to pieces before we had a chance to speak.
“We have to go and see Millicent,” Langston says as she reaches us. “Fenton lost track of Dax a while back, but he’s pretty sure he’s still in touch with Millicent.”
She doesn’t pause. She just keeps walking.
She glances back over her shoulder as we get to our feet and hurry to catch up to her.
“And for the record, Fenton didn’t even ask for another piece of my hair in exchange for the information.”
I don’t know what it is, but something tells me she’s lying. Or at least not telling us everything. I make a mental note to find out later.
“So who’s Millicent? A fire-breathing dragon or something?” I ask as we walk.
“No.” Regal laughs.
“Millicent is a dwarf; dwarves are pretty peaceful creatures as a whole. They keep to themselves, but they’ll usually help out if they can. Especially if they know something important is at stake. And they’ll know who you are. They always know who everyone is.”
That sounds much better than the last two visits, but I’m not ready to believe it’ll be clear sailing just yet.
“What’s the catch?” I ask.
“There isn’t one. You’ll like Millicent. Just don’t upset her and you’ll be fine.”
This world continues to surprise me. Millicent doesn’t live in a toadstool or anything like that. She lives in a small, but modern house on the outskirts of New York.
Remy knocks on the door and we wait.
I’m surprised again when Millicent comes to the door. She’s a surprise all right. For starters, she isn’t wearing a pointy hat or anything else I’ve always associated with dwarves.
She is wearing a skintight leopard-print dress that wouldn’t look out of place on a Las Vegas hooker. She wears six-inch heels and her hair is piled on top of her head in an updo to rival the red carpet looks of Hollywood stars. Her makeup is applied perfectly, and in her hand she clutches a mirror.
“Hello, Remy.” She smiles warmly when she sees her.
She takes a second to look in the mirror. She pulls a lip gloss out of seemingly nowhere, reapplies it, and steps to one side.
“Come on in. I’ve been expecting you,” she says.
We all go in, following Remy into a sitting room. Everything is just like a normal house, except miniature. Millicent is barely a foot tall, even in her huge heels, so it makes sense that everything is small.
In one corner, a camera is set up with lights and reflectors all around it.
“Do a girl a favor, would you?” Millicent says to me as she comes into the room behind us.
She leads me to the corner with all of the equipment and flicks on the lights. She stands in the center of it all.
“Okay. I’m ready,” she says, posing.
She bends her knees slightly and pouts. After a moment of confusion, I realize she wants me to take a photograph.
There’s something comical about this vain little dwarf and her suggestive pose, and I feel a laugh deep down inside of me. I force it down, remembering what Regal said to me. She’ll help us as long as I don’t upset her.
I step up to the camera and click off a few shots. As I click away, Millicent goes through a variety of poses and expressions.
“Thanks, girl,” she says when I’ve taken around thirty shots. “That should keep my Instagram page going for a few days.”
She takes the camera out of its tripod and begins flicking through the shots.
“Does my nose look big in this one?” she asks Langston, showing her the picture that’s on her screen.
“No. You look fabulous,” Langston reassures her.
She nods and puts the camera down on the table behind her. She opens up a drawer in the table and hands me a sheet of paper.
“What’s this for?” I ask her.
“It’ll give you everything you need to know to find Dax,” she says.
“I… wait… how did you know that’s what we were here for?” I ask.
“How I know what I know is none of your business, Seeker,” she says.
I shrug. “Fair enough,” I say.
I turn the sheet of paper over in my hands, confirming what I thought. The paper is blank.
“Thank you for this, but I don’t really understand. The paper seems to be blank,” I say, being careful to choose my words in a way that doesn’t let her know I think she’s a nut job.
“The information will reveal itself when the time is right,” she informs me. “And then you’ll know I’m not a nut job.”
I gasp, and Millicent laughs.
“Now if you’ll all excuse me, I have a party to get ready for and my hair is a mess today.”
She reaches up and teases a tendril out of the updo. It falls into a perfect spiral beside her face.
“What’s a girl to do,” she muses to herself as she shows us out.
We head back to the house.
I put the sheet of paper on the coffee table. I’m not entirely sure anything will ever show itself to us, but I’m not taking any chances. Millicent did seem able to read my mind, and maybe she does know stuff. Or maybe this is all just a joke.
We all sit around talking about the day we’ve had, each of us giving the odd glance to the paper, watching, and waiting.
Quinn excuses herself, but she’s back in minutes.
“The Zent mixture is ready,” she announces.
Langston jumps to her feet.
“Let’s go,” she says.
With a shrug I stand up too, and the others follow suit. I can’t just sit here staring at this piece of paper. It’s driving me crazy already. I feel like I should be doing something.
And even if waking up Drew isn’t exactly a part of the quest, having him awake again will make Langston happy, so surely doing that is better than doing nothing.
We crowd around the bed where Drew lies. He doesn’t look ill or like he’s in pain. He just looks like he’s sleeping. His dark hair is pushed back off his forehead. Langston stands at the top of the bed on one side, Quinn on the other, with the rest of us fanning all along the sides of the bed.
Langston reaches out and tenderly pushes a stray strand of Drew’s hair back.
“Not long now,” she whispers to him, “and we’ll be together again.”
Her excitement is palpable, and we are all full of nerves as Quinn pulls a vial out of her bag. She gives it a gentle shake, and the black liquid inside swirls around at her touch.
“Try not to get your hopes up too much, Langston. Remember this is an experimental mixture and there’s a chance it could fail,” Quinn cautions.
Langston waves the warning away.
“It’ll work. It has to,” she says.
Quinn looks like she wants to say something else, but she can see that Langston isn’t in the right frame of mind to hear her.
“The mixture should soak into Drew’s skin and turn silver within thirty seconds of contact if it’s worked correctly,” Quinn says.
She opens the vial and dabs a small drop of the liquid onto Drew’s forehead.
Langston gropes out blindly, her eyes not leaving Drew, and catches Remy’s hand. No one breathes or moves as we all watch the liquid on Drew’s head.
I hope that this works so badly.
I can feel every second passing. Nothing is happening, and I start to lose hope. But then, after what feels like an eternity, the drop starts to fade. It’s working.
Langston gives a little gasp of delight, but the noise dies on her lips when the liquid settles again, back to its dark black color. The experiment has failed.
Langston runs out of the room, tears flooding her eyes. She tells the team she wants to be alone. Perry ignores her request and follows closely behind her.
The door to Drew’s room opens and I glance up, surprised that Perry was able to calm Langston down so quickly.
I feel my eyes widen and I’m on my feet within half a second when I see it’s not Perry and Langston who’ve entered the room, but a small band of demons. When I say small, I mean around ten of the bastards.
Two of them take Remy by surprise, one on either side of her. She actually grins as she twists her body slightly and reaches up. She places one hand on each of their heads and they drop to the floor, rolling in agony, clutching their heads as thick black blood pours from their eyes and ears.
Seeing two of their group dropped so quickly does nothing to deter the others, and they flood into the room. We’re all on our feet now, ready to defend ourselves.
A large demon with an ugly smile on his face advances on me. He reaches out with his overly long arms and grabs me by my shoulders, pulling me towards him. My shoulders burn where his hands touch, the pain searing through my body.
I won’t be beaten by a demon again. Not after Talon.
With a shriek that’s part pain, part anger, I raise my hands and fire a laser of light into the demon’s face. He lets go of me and brings his hands up to his face. I step closer, ducking underneath his arms, and place my palms flat on his chest and fire again. He goes down.
I take a look around the room. Quinn lies unconscious on the floor, Regal kneeling over her, desperately trying to heal her. Remy and Perry cover him, tackling the demons who are trying to get through.
Saudia is battling another demon, and two more are advancing on me.
“Saudia, get us out of here,” Perry shouts as one of the demons fires a nasty red ball at him.
He ducks just in time and the ball hits the wall behind him, instantly creating a hole the size of a football. I wince at what it would have done to him if he hadn’t ducked in time.
“No,” Saudia calls back. “Langston would never forgive us if anything happened to Drew.”
I forgot about Drew, lying helpless behind us.
Regal jumps to his feet, pulling Quinn to hers. I breathe a sigh of relief that she’s okay.
Perry throws out a red web from his right hand. It wraps itself around a demon’s head. I can’t tear my eyes away as the web cuts into the demon’s face and scalp, cutting his head into a thousand tiny pieces.
My moment of distraction left me vulnerable, and the two demons who were advancing on me reach me at the same time. I react without thinking, picking up the chair I was sitting in and smashing it down over the head of one of the demons.
The other one sees his chance, ducking beneath the chair as I raise it and launching himself at me. I fly through the air and land on the floor, the demon landing on top of me. It knocks the wind out of me, and my mouth gapes open, trying to suck in some oxygen.
The demon grins when he sees my predicament. He blinks hard, and I feel pain building in my head. At first it’s like a hangover headache, and then it’s like a migraine, and within seconds, it’s a blinding white agony. I press my fists into my temples, trying to stop the pain, but it intensifies.
I’m going to die.
Suddenly the weight is gone from on top of my body and the pain is gone from my head. I gasp in a shaky breath and scramble to my feet in time to see Saudia attack the demon she’s pulled off me.
She sends a rush of plasma over him. It squeezes the demon in on himself, tighter and tighter, until he implodes.
“You okay?” Saudia asks me.
I nod, not trusting my voice to come out steady.
I sense movement over Saudia’s shoulder.
“Duck,” I bark at her.
She does as I say as I fire a laser over the top of her, straig
ht into the advancing demon.
As I take another quick look around to check if any of the team needs any help, I see Regal use his telekinesis to throw a cart filled with mixtures at the last demon. The cart knocks him to the floor, and the mixtures rain down on him. Regal lifts the cart again and smashes it down onto the demon’s head.
“Is everyone okay?” I ask when the last demon is dead.
Everyone says they’re fine, although a quick glance tells me that’s not entirely true. We’re battered, bruised and bleeding, but at least we’re all alive.
“What the hell was that?” I ask.
“I’d put a bet on your boyfriend’s army coming to stop us from completing our quest,” Quinn says coldly.
I force myself to smile.
“That must mean we’re getting closer then.”
I only hope my words are the truth.
I’m behind the counter at the bookstore when the bell rings above the door. It’s been a long day between the battle and trying to console Langston, and I had to get out of the house, so I came here.
It’s my sanctuary, the one piece of normality that remains in my life.
I smile when Regal comes up to the counter.
“Hey, how are you?” he asks me.
“Fine.” I smile. “You?”
“I’m okay.” He shrugs. “That thing where the demon sent the pain through your head. Well, it was nasty, you know. You could have died… ” He trails off, worry etched on his face.
“It’ll take more than that to get rid of me,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood a little.
It doesn’t work. Regal looks just as worried as he did before. Where’s Perry when you need him? He’d have us both laughing by now.
“Atlas, can we talk? About… you know?” Regal says, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.
I nod. “I… ”
That’s as far as I get before the door slams open and Remy storms towards us. She marches up to Regal and shoves him roughly backwards.
“How could you? How could you do that to me?”
“Remy, stop,” Regal says as Remy continues to shove him backwards.
His back is pressed to the counter, and with nowhere left to push him, Remy begins hammering her fists on his chest.