The Angel's Fire

by Holley Trent

  Gulielmus hoped Charles brought back a larger slice of cake. A creature of his size could do much better than a one-inch wedge.

  He was about to stride through the horde of cougar and coyote shifters, witches, and whatever-else to personally supervise the slicing of the cake when Noelle’s friend Jenny skittered over, wide-eyed and with splotches of red spreading on her cheeks.

  “Noelle, where’s Clarissa?” she asked in a panic.

  Gulielmus couldn’t recall ever having seen her any other state but that one.

  Must be exhausting being so agitated all the time.

  Noelle’s forehead creased and eyes narrowed in a considering way.

  Gulielmus turned back to the gaggle. He hadn’t noticed Clarissa wasn’t there. Or, actually, he’d been trying to pretend he didn’t care if she was. The elf had spent a year convincing people that he was just an industrious farmer. He’d spent more hours on her eastern North Carolina farm crammed into the driver’s seat of her tractor than he had on his knees in three years, and that was saying something. He couldn’t even get hard anymore without the memory of tractor vibrations settling in and dousing his libido. He hoped to break that mental association, and soon. The persistent ache in his balls couldn’t go away soon enough to suit him.

  “Noelle’s asking what you mean,” Tamatsu said. He and Noelle shared a telepathic connection when they were touching.

  Gulielmus had given up on trying to make sense of elf magic. The race was so frustratingly secretive. Tamatsu didn’t seem to mind being tapped into the mysteries. If anything, he relished it. For as long as Gulielmus had known the mighty warrior, he’d never seen him so curious of and enamored by trivial earthly matters.

  “She’s supposed to be here,” Jenny said breathlessly. “She was adamant that she’d be here by nine. She said she was going to get the little ones squared away at the farm and then she was going to have one of Gulielmus’s kids pop her over.”

  That would have to be either John or Julia. They were the only two of his living eight children who had the ability to teleport.

  “Why was it so critical that she be here by nine?” Gulielmus asked blandly.

  “Noelle says that Samhain’s a particularly dangerous time for elves,” Tamatsu said.

  Sure enough, the usually staid former guard of the elf queen was shifting her weight anxiously and eying the exits.

  “Why?” Gulielmus asked.

  He suspected the information was the sort he probably should have already known, but he couldn’t well keep up with every damned thing the menagerie threw at him. It would have been too much even for the Encyclopedia Britannica, if it even existed anymore. The hell if he knew.

  “The veil between this realm and the elf realm is incredibly thin,” Jenny said. “With the elf realm being in the dilapidated state it is, it’d be like visiting a nightmare. We could fall asleep and not only have our minds pulled in but our bodies, too, if we’re not being closely watched.”

  “Certainly, this is something you’ve been dealing with for centuries, “Gulielmus said. “You abandoned the realm, what, a thousand years ago?”

  “Yes, but Clarissa has only recently had to deal with the realm disturbances again,” Jenny explained. “When her magic was gone, she…” She let the explanation trail off.

  Gulielmus didn’t need the story, He got the gist.

  The reason Clarissa’s magic had returned after a large absence was because he’d returned it to her.

  Unwittingly.

  At the time, his intention had only been to get John in check. His son was supposed to be doing incubus work, not falling in love with the first woman to pay any attention to him.

  That woman just happened to be one of Clarissa’s granddaughters. Unbeknownst to Gulielmus at the time, Clarissa had relinquished the lion’s share of her magic and long-livedness when she’d taken a human man as a husband. Gulielmus had restored her youth and beauty, truly just to mock John, and there Clarissa was—the same as she’d been when she’d abandoned the elf realm, minus the queenly trappings.

  Only Gulielmus would have such luck that he’d choose the last queen of the elves to antagonize.

  Whether they liked it or not, they were bound together. John had her granddaughter Ariel. Charles had her granddaughter Marion.

  Gulielmus had a pain in his ass.

  “Tamatsu usually watches over us on nights like this,” Jenny continued demurely. “He knows what to look out for.”

  Gulielmus accepted a new slice of cake from Charles and speared his fork into the frosting. “Ask Marion if she knows where her grandmother is. The elves are concerned.”

  Charles’ dark brows knit. “Concerned why? She arrived right behind us.”

  “Here?”

  “No. She said she needed to run down to the shops and pick up a gift she’d ordered. She’s not here?” He turned and scanned the room, motioning to his wife when she looked over from the gaggle of witches she was standing in.

  “She didn’t wish to be accompanied?” Lola asked. “She’s always accompanied.”

  Clarissa didn’t go anywhere without a werewolf shadowing her. She’d been stuck with the furry shadows ever since Jenny and Noelle had rediscovered her after her being in hiding in the human world for hundreds of years. Noelle had once been her primary guard, but Clarissa insisted that the elf live her life. Noelle had in turn insisted that her queen have adequate protection whenever she left the farm. Mostly, Clarissa relented.

  “What’s wrong?” Marion asked, looking directly at Gulielmus without even knowing what the issue was. She just assumed that he was at fault for whatever it was.

  Somehow, he managed to hold his tongue. He wasn’t going to get into yet another squabble with his daughter-in-law. He never won. Charles wouldn’t let him win.

  “Where’s Clarissa?” he asked. “She’s not here.”

  Marion looked about the room, just as Charles had, and rooted her phone out of her purse. “She didn’t make it here?”

  “Wouldn’t you know? You can sense the woman whenever she’s nearby.”

  “Usually, but we’re in a room filled with supernaturals different from the ones at the farm. That throws my senses off. Plus, she doesn’t always want to be sensed. She likes to be able to slip in and out of rooms without being noticed.”

  “I’ll go look for her,” Charles said, already moving toward the door.

  Reflexively, Gulielmus grabbed his elbow. “I’ll go.”

  He wanted out of that party. The cake was delicious, but the conversation was getting tedious. He didn’t want to talk about other people’s children or their plans to make more of them. He most certainly didn’t want to stand there being ogled and judged by a crowd of lessers eager to see when he’d next slip up.

  Of course he’d slip up. He wasn’t perfect—nowhere close to it, and he’d been aware of that since his creation. He’d chosen to fall from grace so that he could have the freedom to be imperfect, even if seeking imperfection meant immortal punishment.

  And immortal desires.

  As well as perpetually aching nuts and a cock with a hair trigger.

  Charles’s expression dripped with incredulity.

  “Truly,” Gulielmus huffed. He finished the cake and handed his second-eldest son the soiled plate. “No one needs me to stay here. I’ve already given the birthday demigod my felicitations, and I can move about town discreetly and efficiently.”

  “I feel like someone who isn’t lacking in motivation should look for her,” Marion sniped.

  “You have lovely children,” Gulielmus said through clenched teeth. That’s what John told him to do whenever he was annoyed at members of his rapidly swelling family. That cornfed optimist had sat him down and suggested that Gulielmus think up a compliment to deescalate the situation.

  Her mouth fell open and eyes narrowed.

  He took her stunned silence as an opportunity to complete his exit. “What store was she going to?” he asked Charles, reaching
for his phone.

  “It was a place called Desert Pearl. It’s about three blocks from here.”

  “Fine.”

  Gulielmus stepped outside with his phone to his ear and fairly shuddered with the relief of leaving all that paranormal energy behind him.

  John answered on the third ring. “Pop?”

  “Is Clarissa with you?” Gulielmus headed toward downtown. Maria wasn’t a large town by any stretch of the imagination. He’d seen larger postage stamps. If Clarissa was there, he’d find her.

  “No, I dropped her off behind Lola’s house. When she didn’t go inside, I asked her why. She said she needed to run an errand.”

  “And?”

  “I told her I’d go with her since she left her Wolf at home.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I came home. Wasn’t fair to make Ariel watch all of our kids and Charles’, too. Clarissa insisted she wasn’t going far. She seemed determined to have some time to herself.”

  Gulielmus grimaced and shifted his phone to his other ear. He certainly understood the feeling. By nature, he was an incredibly social creature, but since the coma, far too often he’d felt crowded. Perhaps he was still getting used to having so many of his children nearby and having to interact with them in ways that had nothing to do with ensuring they were meeting the quotas the demonic bureaucrats prescribed for them.

  Being a father required…effort. There were so many things to remember and so many hurt feelings all the time.

  It was wearying.

  “The elves are concerned that she didn’t turn up at Lola’s,” Gulielmus said. “I’m heading toward the shops to look for her.”

  “Shit. I shouldn’t have left her.”

  “Don’t blame yourself.” Gulielmus rounded the corner and paused at the sight of an unusual gleam in the air in front of the shoe repair shop.

  A couple of humans passed through the sparkling disturbance unscathed. They couldn’t see it. Couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t enter the passageway it certainly marked.

  That portal wasn’t supposed to be there, and Gulielmus would have known better than anyone. He’d spent eons with Tarik and Tamatsu creating doorways between realms and destroying aberrant ones. That had been part of their job in aiding humankind—preventing them from veering to realms they weren’t equipped to see.

  He moved closer to it, his disguised wings twitching ominously against the back of his woolen coat. That involuntary movement never boded well. It generally meant shit was going to hit the proverbial fan. He hated being right about those sorts of things.

  Elves were an extremely marginalized race, so Gulielmus hadn’t had the opportunity to encounter any of their wild portals, but the magic was undeniable. Clarissa may have tried to keep her magic suppressed around him, but the taste of it had become familiar. Even if he wasn’t able to describe the magic, he knew it when he sensed it. The portal wasn’t hers, but it was of the elven world.

  Scanning the street both ways, he grasped the edge of the portal, curious about its constitution. It seemed malleable enough, but more importantly, moveable.

  As small as the portal was, Gulielmus could likely close it with no trouble, but he didn’t think that would be necessary. It was already shrinking. If Clarissa was in there, he needed to get her out quickly.

  He pulled the magical doorway all the way back to Lola’s, guiding it like a helium balloon.

  Charles was on the porch with Marion. They were obviously waiting for Clarissa’s return.

  “What are you doing?” Marion asked.

  “Can you see it? You’re part elf.”

  “Only a quarter. I’m not affected by things the way my grandmother is.” Still, Marion squinted. “What is that?”

  “So, you do see it?”

  The children followed him to the dark rear of the house where Gulielmus deposited the portal. He knelt in front of it and tried to peer through.

  “I see a gauzy sort of thing, but not with any consistency.”

  Gulielmus grunted. “It’s an elf portal. I found it near the shoe—”

  Suddenly, Marion went skidding toward the portal as though she were being vacuumed in. She waved her arms wildly, and a shriek erupted from her lungs.

  Charles grabbed her around the waist before she made impact with the gleam and yanked her back. “What the fuck?”

  “I suppose a quarter is enough,” Gulielmus murmured. He could see broken trees through the portal. There was a dark forest on the other side and fire.

  The portal was getting smaller.

  “Shit,” he said, standing. “Go get Jenny or Noelle. It’s closing. If Clarissa got sucked in there somehow, she may need to be fetched.”

  Marion sprinted to the back door.

  “Is your plan to send one of them in there?” Charles asked.

  “No.” Carefully, Gulielmus lifted his wings and pulled his long coat over and off them. He handed the expensive garment to his son, who draped it over his arm. “If this portal seals in before they’ve located her, they may get trapped inside and we’ll have no way to access any of them.”

  “Then can you hold it open until we figure this out?”

  “No. Elf magic is far too arcane, even for me. Angels were never offered access to the place. We couldn’t teleport to it. I’ve never been inside.”

  The elf contingency rushed out the back door with Noelle in the lead.

  Tamatsu scooped her up before she got near and grabbed Jenny by the back of her dress. “Stop. No, I don’t know what that is. Obviously, I’m not going to let you dive through it.”

  Noelle gave his shoulder a hard poke and gestured wildly toward the opening.

  Tamatsu gave Gulielmus a long-suffering look. “She says that portal is similar to the one the elves escaped through. Only a few people are able to create them.”

  “Ah. So it’s not wild, then.” Gulielmus rolled up his sleeves. “I imagine that Clarissa was one who could create them?”

  “Yes,” Jenny said. “But she’d had Noelle to help her back then. She’d never open a portal without a guard around.”

  “I didn’t think the magic felt specifically like hers, only that it was elven. Could this be one of Clarissa’s portals? Is that why it’s shrinking so rapidly?”

  “Noelle doesn’t think it’s one of hers,” Tamatsu said. “Clarissa would never create a portal that would draw others into it.”

  “But she might investigate one that appeared and stay hush-hush about it,” Jenny said with a sigh.

  If the portal contracted any more, Gulielmus wouldn’t be able to squeeze through it. “Find a witch to pin this thing,” he ordered as he put a foot through. “As long as there’s the tiniest opening, you should be able to locate me.”

  “But not get you out?” Charles asked.

  “I trust that the lot of you will figure something out. Put your heads together. Isn’t that how the saying goes?”

  Gripping the portal edge, he bent into the dark hole and tried to quickly orient himself. “Woods,” he said. “Devastated, though. Still smoky from a receding fire. It’s moving toward the west. Half the trunks are broken or charred. Very little new growth at the unscathed edge. Just ugly weeds.”

  “Can you see a stone wall?” Jenny asked.

  Gulielmus looked over a shoulder than the other, being careful not to lose his grip on the portal edge. “About ten yards from here.”

  “You’re near the eastern boundary of royal lands.”

  Something glinted on the ground, just within reach.

  Gulielmus picked up the ring, scowling at it. Small. Perfectly sized for a slim-fingered woman of barely five feet tall. “Does it look familiar?” Gulielmus held it up to the shrinking hole?”

  Jenny gasped. “That was the ring Lorcann—her first husband, the king—gave her. I haven’t seen that in…centuries.”

  “Noelle said Clarissa had buried it deep when she cast the spell to ruin the realm,” Tamatsu said. “So deep that the only way for it
to be out now is if someone had purposefully dug it up.”

  “Would Clarissa have dug it up?”

  “I’m here!” It took Gulielmus a moment to identify the owner of the voice as Ellery. She was a sister of his son Claude’s Gail.

  Witch.

  She shoved her dagger through the portal and leaned in. Even as small as she was, she was barely able to squeeze through. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Do you remember how to pin a portal open?”

  “It’s been a while, but I think I can manage.”

  “As long as it’s open, I’ll be able to communicate with Tarik or Tamatsu. I’m going to—”

  “Ow!” The portal contracted once more, squeezing her out. She kept her dagger inside, though, and murmured a few words that seemed to stabilize the opening. “What are you going to do, Gulielmus? Hurry and tell me. I need to pull this dagger out a little.”

  “If she’s in here, I’ll find her. It’ll be up to you to figure out how to rip this thing back open.”

  The collection of creatures on the other side all started shouting questions into the portal, but Gulielmus was already moving. He unsheathed his sword from the scabbard between his wings and leaped onto the stone wall for a better view.

  He seemed heavier in the place, and his wings weaker. His ability to move was somehow dampened. Curious, he attempted to do a short teleport to a few feet away, but he couldn’t.

  “Fuck,” he spat.

  “What’s wrong?” came Charles’s voice.

  “My magic doesn’t work the same here. I don’t know what I have left.” He tried to bounce a bit of telepathy toward Tamatsu. “Friend?”

  “Weak, but I hear you.”

  “Well, at least there’s that.”

  Gulielmus stood on the wall and took in the sight of the wrecked kingdom.

  She’d done that. She’d destroyed her homeland to save her people.

  He should have been listening more carefully to the story about what had transpired between that meddlesome crone and the elf king, but he couldn’t. For some reason, every time the tale was spun, Gulielmus went into a quiet rage state and tuned out the words. He didn’t need to know anything at all about Lorcann. He was a dead man who meant nothing to him.