Three Burning Red Runaway Brides

by Kevin James Breaux

  When the wind shifted, she finally moved. Amber had prepared herself for a fight, but there was no way for her to physically combat the foul smell of the dump.

  Oh…it smells like shit. I guess it’s time to get off the pot.

  Los Angeles had many public dumps, but Dunyasha/War had instructed her to go to the largest one. From the outside, the place appeared abandoned. But when she reached the gates, she knew better; she could sense them—otherworldlies by the thousands, if not tens of thousands. Amber had stepped behind enemy lines once before, and this was exactly how it felt: terrifying and exhilarating.

  Before she could touch the rusty, old intercom, the gates opened. She spotted something shimmer and saw the black ooze, like thick, shiny oil, that was adhered to the sides of the gate, stretched up from two drums on either side. Living oil, she figured.

  Sabrina had told her a lot about the different Tainted beings she had encountered in the past. It was clear to Amber that Sabrina had been most afraid of the slimes, but it was the living oil creatures that troubled Amber the most.

  Amber knew she could burn the slimes to ash instantly with her fire—they were truly of little concern to her. But how, she wondered, would she defend herself against the oil? That vexed her. While she knew the living oil would burn, she also knew she could not simply set them ablaze.

  Amber remembered when one of her siblings accidentally started an oil well fire during a trip, years ago, to Jordan. They were visiting one of the many lava caves in the Black Desert when several of her cousins and her three sisters came upon a large guarded structure in the middle of the night.

  Her eldest sister, in her endless desire to prove herself, accepted a challenge from her male cousins to summon elementals and destroy the structure.

  Amber was still very young and did not know what was about to happen, only that she feared her eldest sister’s elementals; they were always so big and angry. The moment they were summoned, Amber moved far back and away, while her sister and one cousin moved closer.

  The fire elementals did as commanded and attacked the strange place. Before Amber knew what had happened, there was an explosion of intense heat that threw her back. When she opened her eyes, her sister and one cousin were covered in oil— although fire resistant, to Amber’s young and inexperienced eyes, it seemed as though they were burning alive.

  Amber thought she had removed the image from her mind a long time ago and wished she had not thought of it in this moment. She needed a clear head, now more than ever.

  It’s time to go to work.

  “This place fucking stinks!” She mimicked Sabrina’s voice. “You better not expect me to have my wedding here. I can’t wear white surrounded by all this dirt, not like I should wear white anyway…”

  She stood before piles and piles of trash and filth, mountains of it as tall as the walls that surrounded the dump. She did not know which way to go and for a second, she wanted to release her wings to fly herself up and away from it all.

  Easy. Go slow and steady. Stick to the plan, she thought as she watched one and then another rodent scurry by. Are those rats or slimes? Probably slimes…could be either, I guess.

  “Where is he?” she asked. “Where do I go?”

  The trash in front of her parted like the Red Sea, and when it did, she could suddenly sense more otherworldlies; they were all around her. Their numbers doubled and tripled; they seemed limitless.

  “This way,” a voice gurgled.

  “Down the yellow shit path?” Amber shook her head. She sounded too aggressive and needed to dial it back. Sabrina would be scared and horrified by all this; I need to act the part.

  “Which-which way?” her voice quavered. “Hello?”

  The gurgle returned a moment later. “Take the path, Water Fairy.”

  “Who’s there? Do I know you?” She did her best to play frightened. “Show yourself.”

  “Walk down the path.”

  When she did not move, there was a rumble from both sides of the path. The trash shook, and suddenly several hundred rats spilled out. Silent at first, they all turned to face her and began to squeak.

  “Follow them.”

  “Rats!” Amber shrieked, albeit a little late. She hoped they did not realize her distress was phony.

  “Slimes. Follow the slimes.”

  Amber took a short step and then another. The ground felt oddly mushy, soft and slick. If I need to fight, I may need to find a better surface to stand on…or just take flight.

  She looked over her shoulder as the trash heap closed behind her. There was no way out except up. It was then that Amber realized her surroundings had grown darker.

  There’s a haze…and it’s getting thicker. The Tainted, their smog creatures are here too.

  “Fuck,” she whispered. This just got a whole lot more difficult. Damn it, Duny. I needed you here. You were going to be my exit strategy. Now, I have no choice but to fly and—she looked up into the foggy sky—they’re waiting for me up there.

  The rats squeaked louder. The path ahead of her squeezed between two tall buildings and toward a third that looked like an open warehouse.

  Amber could see several construction vehicles inside the structure, draped in shadows: a dump truck and at least three backhoes by her count. They looked to be surrounded by tall and bulky shapes, and as she got closer, she realized what they were.

  “Are those…irradiated earth golems?”

  “Yes,” the voice gurgled.

  “But their radiation—”

  “Is no worse than yours…unless they decide to purge it.”

  Amber fought off a smirk. This thing that spoke to her, it had no idea just how powerful her fire was.

  I’ll give them irradiated Earth, she thought, amused. If I go nuclear that’s all that will be left. Without Dunyasha present, there was no need to be subtle. I could go full force—volcanic. I really could go nuclear. I’d wipe this place and everything here out in one move. Fucking genius. No…I need witnesses. I need some Tainted to survive, to tell the Otherworldly Assembly that I am their rightful ruler.

  She stared forward into the dark warehouse until a pair of red eyes cut through the deep shadows in the back of the dump truck—it was him, the ruler of the Tainted.

  Tonight, you die, Lord Raion.

  “Keep moving,” the voice gurgled behind her a second before something struck her midback and shoved her forward.

  She turned to confront what hit her, and instead of a trash heap at her back, there was nothing to see but black, shiny oil. The oil seemed to cover everything: the ground, the walls, and especially the trash.

  “What the hell?”

  It oozed toward her, the closest puddle undulating with bubbles popping on its surface.

  “Move,” it said.

  She emulated Sabrina, but the sentiment would have been the same: “Gross.”

  This was what she’d expected from day one—surrounded by the Tainted, her life at risk. It did not shock her. It did not scare her. Danger fired her up. Through the flames, we are born anew.

  Amber straightened her spine. This is what you trained for. Not that ridiculous training from Sabrina and the Water Kingdom—this is what you were conditioned for. You were forged by the Fire Kingdom. Through the flames, we fight to survive, and by fire, we are awarded survival.

  Amber walked toward the opening of the warehouse. She knew all eyes were on her, so she fidgeted with Sabrina’s bangle to further sell her performance.

  Once inside the dark space, the living oil that was directly behind her stretched up to her height and leaned in to whisper in her ear.

  “Show some respect, fairy. Release your wings and bow.”

  A multitude of whispers followed:

  “Yeah, show us your wings.”

  “Release your wings.”

  “Show your wings.”

  “Your wings.”

  “Wings…”

  I’ll show you my wings… Amber wanted to release he
r true wings, but she controlled her rage, took a deep breath, and bowed.

  “I’m here, Lord Raion, j-just as promised.”

  As she bent at the waist, she slowly unfurled her wings. She had seen Sabrina do this once—it was meant to entice—Amber figured there was no better time than now for that. Inch by inch, her wings peeled up and out of her skin, bursting into bright, colorful lights. The hum of their power was louder than Amber expected.

  There really are advantages to being the ruler of a kingdom.

  As she pushed her wings farther out, she realized their grandness. Good thing I took Sabrina’s advice and wore one of her backless dresses. My wings are bigger than ever. My gods, I can barely keep them from igniting, they’re vibrating with so much power.

  She heard gasps from the creatures that surrounded her, some born from fear, while others, she imagined, arousal.

  When she looked up to read Lord Raion’s reaction, two torches were lit on either side of the dump truck’s cab. They illuminated him in an orange light that danced across his jagged features and made Amber wonder if he might be part troll.

  “Sabrina London, Queen of the Water Kingdom.”

  You’re not so scary. You look like a troll had sex with a stalagmite and birthed something out of a sick hentai movie. Lucky for you, and thanks to the real Sabrina, I like a good hentai flick.

  Lord Raion was seated in the back of the dump truck, his throne of filth made of all manner of things; she could see aluminum cans, boxes, plastic food wrappers, even bones, and it smelled rancid.

  She covered her mouth and nose. “There has to be another place where we can do this.”

  As Raion stood, her opinion changed. He must have been at least seven feet tall, and his limbs were long and roughly shaped all the way to their sharp ends.

  As he shuffled forward, he took in deep, laborious breaths, and the rocks that held his chest together cracked, while the fissures beneath burned with a bright-red glow. From his spot at the edge of the back of the dump truck, he towered above her, and when he lifted his stony arms, he appeared almost godlike.

  He rules his people through fear—not unlike my father.

  Amber may not have been scared, but she did find the Tainted’s king very creepy and now understood why Sabrina found the thought of his touch so loathsome.

  “Another place, she asks.” Lord Raion looked over her at the crowds of Tainted and then back down to her. “There is no other place! We were disposed of and forced to live with that which rots. My people are not welcome in the human or otherworldly realms. Not yet at least.”

  “Not until we marry.”

  “Once our union is official, the Otherworldly Assembly and its kings will have to recognize the Tainted as one of their own. We will become the fifth elemental kingdom.”

  “Did you say fifth or filth kingdom?” Amber asked.

  There were grumbles behind her and squeaks in front of her. Her comment was clearly unwelcome.

  “Remember your place, fairy. Remember why you are here.”

  “I’m here because you killed my parents, threatened my friends, and ruined my life.”

  “And I planned to kill you. But you offered me something better.”

  “We were deadlocked.”

  “Deadlocked?” he laughed, and then opened his arms and waved them about. “Months ago, I was ready to destroy all of this.”

  “Months ago, I was not queen. I did not have the power.”

  “And you have power now, fairy?”

  “I do. I’m Queen of the Water Kingdom and hold dominion over all elements of water!”

  Amber knew her boasts were only half-truths. She may have been queen, but she had destroyed the Water Kingdom’s mantle of power. All water elementals had been unmade, and she was unsure how else that may have affected her new abilities.

  Can I control the rain? Form bottled water into shapes, or hold back the ocean tides as Sabrina does? Or is that only something a fairy born of the Water Kingdom can do?

  Amber had not felt any connection to the elemental realm of water when she had taken Sabrina’s crown. She only felt fire—her fire—burn inside her. It always did, that had not changed.

  “So, was that your plan all along? Make me promises to stay my hand? Prevent your execution? Was your hope to become queen and learn the secrets of your kingdom, then come here and break our arrangement?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Did you think we would feel threatened and just allow you to fly away?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Then call your rains. Summon your floods.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “No. No you will not!” he suddenly shouted. “Not here—not in my fortress!”

  “I—”

  “We prepared for this moment, just like we prepared for the events that led up to it,” Lord Raion said. “Call your rains and see them turned to acid by my living smog. Call your floods and see them swallowed up in fissures created by my irradiated earth. Try and fly, Sabrina—you will only find yourself caught in a net of living oil or bought down by hundreds of slime bats.”

  “Slime bats…”

  “Yes, you remember those, don’t you?”

  “You disgust me!”

  “I hope so.”

  “My kingdom has—” Before she could finish, the ground began to shake, and she nearly stumbled backward.

  “Nothing yours or any elemental kingdom has is more powerful that Pollution! Nothing!” he shouted. “Months ago, I considered sinking this vile state of California. Then you…you, Sabrina, made me think differently.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Your Water Kingdom sits safe and sound in the middle of the ocean. Safe from humans and equally safe from us. Even the Fire Kingdom dare not go there. So instead of sinking this human-infested place, I have ordered Pollution to damage the fault lines. On my command, Pollution will separate the state of California from the North American continent and it will become its own island.”

  “But you’ll be trapped living here among the humans.”

  “No, we will eradicate them. My smog will enclose California in a bubble and then Pollution will release its toxic gasses. Only the Tainted will survive.”

  “What about me?”

  “What about you?” Lord Raion jumped down from the dump truck and stood in front of Amber. “The choice you make here and now will determine your future.”

  “What choice do I have?”

  “Live or die, fairy,” he laughed. “Marry me and legitimize my kingdom or defy me and die right where you stand.”

  “I could fight you.”

  “You could”—his rock-hard mouth turned up in a smirk—“but then I wouldn’t have much use for them.” Lord Raion waved his hand, and his irradiated earth kin each stepped into one of the backhoes and spun the arms around, so the digging buckets were forward. Then, at a gesture from Lord Raion, they tilted the buckets, and three people were dropped to the ground only fifteen feet from Amber.

  “What the…”

  Although the three people were bound and gagged, she instantly recognized them all as fairies, more specifically fairy princesses. The eldest daughter of each line: Aspen of the Earth Kingdom, Aella of the Air Kingdom and her sister, Carnelian, of the Fire Kingdom.

  “Carns,” she said under her breath.

  “Our marriage needed witnesses from the Elemental Kingdom. And I needed assurances you would not deny me.”

  “Let them go,” she said meekly.

  “No.” Raion stepped closer. At this proximity, she could feel the radiation he gave off, and it made her slightly queasy.

  “What do you want?” she asked with a grimace.

  “I want what your promised. We marry today; we consummate tonight. And tomorrow—”

  “I die of embarrassment.”

  “Tomorrow we go to the Otherworldly Assembly and I take my rightful spot.”

  “What of the—”

  “Wraith
s?” Lord Raion guessed.

  She stepped back. “Yes, the wraiths.”

  “Don’t you think…that if such a thing really existed, they’d have been dispatched by now? Your kings would have sent them to wipe me and my kind out ages ago. And still, after I kidnap their heirs, the kings do nothing. They send no one.” He faced the princesses. “Only one person can save you all now, and that person is Sabrina London.”

  Amber could only imagine how scared the girls were. Aspen was barely eighteen, and Aella had only ever been seen once outside of her kingdom, at a pilgrimage. And Carns—Amber imagined she must have been disgusted by the idea of Sabrina London saving her life.

  Carns hates Sabrina. Would she hate her any less if she knew I am me? Would she hate me any less? Amber held in a chuckle. Carns, you’re in for one helluva surprise.

  Amber needed to make Lord Raion think he’d won, so she shook her head and slumped her shoulders. It was time for her to play timid—beaten.

  “I will do as I promised, Lord Raion. I-I will marry you.”

  Runaway Bride

  Sabrina ran across the beach until she felt like she would drop. Jackson, the Tainted, Skipper—she was afraid she’d messed it all up. She knew she should have stayed hidden, but she had to see Jackson, and she had to know what had happened to her world since she’d left it. Being in Los Angeles it brought up a lot of old memories—ghosts that both haunted and entertained her.

  “Stupid,” she said under her breath for the near hundredth time. “So stupid.”

  As she flopped to her knees, she spotted several people closer to the water. They looked like hippies, the women with hair in dreads and braids, and the men with long beards. It reminded her of the island. Some of the fairies who lived topside looked the same.

  Before she moved to the island, Sabrina could not relate to them— hippies. But now, now she saw them—she saw every human—the same. She saw them as just that: not fairy—not otherworldly. Just human.

  There was a time when that was all she wanted to be too—just human. But being queen of the Water Kingdom changed that; it gave her purpose and it finally connected her to her kind. Sabrina had embraced it, and now that it was gone, she was having trouble identifying herself.