by Elle Casey
“You know that fae promises made on their own lives can’t be broken, right?”
“No, I didn’t – but thanks for telling me.”
“Fine. I agree to your terms.”
“Okay then.” I took a deep breath, wondering if I was going to regret this. “I was told by Becky that your blood that the Dark Fae healers used, ran out – so they needed to find a relative of yours to get a fresh batch.”
Tim looked confused for a second. “And they found one?”
“Yes.” I eyed him warily. So far, so good.
“Where?”
“In the Dark Fae compound.”
Now Tim looked suspicious which made me nervous. Shit, here it comes.
“I don’t have any relatives in the Dark Fae compound except She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named ... Abby. The abandoner of husbands.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I thought we weren’t supposed to name her.”
“Shut up. I’m under duress right now. I can’t be held accountable.”
“Yes you can ... you promised.”
“Okay, okay, I know already. Just tell me the rest. Stick the knife the rest of the way in and twist it. I’m ready for the pain.”
I doubt it, was all I could think, before I said, “You have one other relative in the Dark Fae compound with Abby. Your child. You and Abby have a son.”
Tim’s face went white and he faltered in midair. I shot my hand out just in time to catch him before he went into a death spiral onto the forest floor. He landed on his back in the palm of my hand, his eyes closed. He looked unconscious.
“Tim?!” I yelled, in full panic.
Finn, Tony and Scrum came rushing over. “What happened?” asked Tony, his voice full of concern.
“I just gave him some amazingly awful news.”
“What?” asked Finn. “Did ya tell him he has to give his wings up again?”
“No, worse. But I can’t tell you what I said. If he wants to tell you he can, but it’s kind of private.” I didn’t even spare them a glance. All of my attention was focused on Tim’s prone body.
“Tim, wake up, please,” I begged.
“Is he ... dead?” whispered Scrum.
“No. I think he fainted,” I said.
Tony reached over carefully and used his finger to push on Tim’s leg. “Hey. Tim. Buddy. Wake up. We’re all here for ya.”
I nudged Tony with my elbow, letting him know I appreciated his support for Tim. I had a feeling Tim was going to need a lot of it. Man did that pixie-girl do a number on his heart.
Tim began to stir.
Scrum leaned in and got really close to Tim’s body, saying, “I think he’s waking up. Do you think he’s okay? Maybe he had a heart attack or something.”
Tim got a disgusted look on his face. “Holy gnome-head!” he groaned out angrily. His eyes shot open and he quickly scrambled crab-like over the side of my hand farthest from Scrum’s face. “Get that foul stench away from me!”
I touched Scrum’s shoulder. “He wants you to move back. You’re too close.”
Scrum stood up. “Oh. Sorry about that. I know, big faces can be scary.”
“Yeah,” said Tim, standing up and brushing invisible smells off his arms and chest, scowling, “and the stink of a gnome’s head can be downright nightmarish.”
I tried not to laugh but a small giggle escaped. I was tentatively hopeful about how this was progressing, but then one look at Tim’s white face and tiny pinched lips told me not to be so hasty.
“So. I have a son. Well. Isn’t that just peachy.”
“Tim, I have reason to believe it’s not what it seems like.”
“Not like what?” he feigned innocent casualness. “Not like she’s a heartless pixie wench who left me, bore my child, and then hid him from me? No. It can’t be that.”
“Sarcasm is for slackers, Tim.”
“Sarcasm is for angry pixies who have sworn not to pixelate others or fly off to handle matters themselves.”
I nodded my head. “Okay. Be sarcastic if you need to be. Just understand that both Becky and Chase said things aren’t as they seem. So I think the most mature and un-Jayne-like thing we could do is arrange to have a nice civil conversation with the wench who shall not be named, called Abby, and see what she has to say for herself.”
“And what would the Jayne-like thing to do be?”
“Mmmm ... probably go in there, guns blazing, blasting her ass off and then asking questions later?”
“I choose Plan B,” said Tim, nodding for emphasis.
“Nope. I can’t let you do it.”
“Why? You know that’s what you’d do!”
“Yeah, Tim, but you’re smarter than me.”
“Can I get that in writing?”
“No, shut up. So what’s the plan then? Do you want to try now or do this another day?”
“I’m not in the mood now. I have to think about this. It’s too much to process all at once. I need to be in top shape to deal with that she-pixie. My wings are too new.” He folded his fingers together and turned them backwards, cracking all his knuckles. It made me wonder if he’d resort to physical violence against his ex-wife, but I dismissed that thought from my head as quickly as it came. Tim was no wife-beater. He might be a wife-berater though – and that would be more effective, since he was practically a master at that. I’d been on the receiving end of his verbal assaults often enough to be a good judge.
“Okay, fair enough. We’ll come back then, when you’re ready. Want to head back? To the compound? It must be time to eat dinner by now.” I looked up above our heads, through the treetops. The sun was definitely going down and the air was taking on a chill.
“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.
Chapter 12
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 bu
sy 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.
Chapter 13
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, an
d then stabbing it mercilessly in the center, sending juice down to stain the table cloth.
“Hello, boys,” I said. “What’d I miss?”
Spike gestured with his fork towards Scrum and Gorm, isolated from the rest of the diners at a table together in the corner. “Not much. Just a little excitement over the cannibal in our midst again.”
“Yeah, well, they need to deal with it for a while longer.”
“I thought he said his debt was paid,” said Tony. “Why is he still here?”
I looked over at Gorm and he noticed me, waving with his fork and grinning enough that I could see the squiggly meats in his mouth only half-chewed. I waved back and tried to smile at him, but I’m sure it came out more like a grimace. After having my moments with Chase earlier, seeing this perverted image of him was just too unnerving. I had to work hard to keep visions of Gorm putting his arms around me, from intruding into my conscious mind.
“Good question. I have no idea. Maybe he likes us. Anyway, Tony, I need to talk to you about something super urgent. Like level-nine disturbing shit, just behind orc visitations.”
Tony put his fork down and wiped his mouth. “Talk to me. I’m all ears.”
Spike leaned in and I gestured at Finn, letting him know he should listen in too. “I went onto our email accounts.”
“Oh, isn’t that cute. You guys share an email account?” asked Spike winking at me and shoving me a little with his elbow.
Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. More like she constantly hacks into my email account.”
Finn’s eyebrows rose up at that. “You’re a hacker?”
“Pfft. Right. You don’t need to be a hacker to get into Tony’s email account. A two year old could do it.”
“Hey. It’s not that easy,” said Tony, in mock offense.
“You have three passwords you use over and over – and anyone who’s known you for more than an hour could guess what they are.”
Tony smiled. “I’m surprised you guessed the latest one.”
I smiled back at him. “I didn’t. Tim did.”
Tony’s eyes bugged out. “So now Tim’s hacking my account too?”