by J. A. Curtis
“No,” Jazrael said, clutching baby queen Morrigan closer. “We... we are here to visit someone... someone in the place where they keep the babies.”
Kelsey smiled. “Oh, you want to visit someone who had a baby. You mean the maternity ward?”
“Yes,” Jazrael said.
“Well then! Come with me, I’ll show you where to go,” Kelsey said.
Relief flitted across Jazrael’s face as she followed the very helpful nurse through the halls of the hospital and up an elevator level. They came upon a set of double doors.
“The maternity ward is through here,” she said. “Tell the nurse at the front desk who it is that you would like to visit, and she will tell you the room number—”
Jazrael stopped walking. “Where are the restrooms?”
“We barely passed them, they are right back here,” she said, turning back down the hall and pointing to the bathrooms.
Jazrael followed. “Thank you,” she said when she reached the bathroom door and made to enter.
“Well, now that you know where to go, I will head back to the front unless you need anything else?” Kelsey asked.
Jazrael shook her head, pushed the bathroom door open, and entered. Jazrael shut the door of the single stall bathroom and locked it, checking on the baby. Queen Morrigan lay fast asleep. After a few minutes, Jazrael unlocked the bathroom and cracked the door. She could see up to the double doors in the hallway. A short, plump nurse with white, pink, and blue pinstriped scrubs walked past, looking as if she would like nothing better than to collapse and take a long nap. Jazrael ducked back into the darkness of the bathroom as the nurse passed.
Her hand moved to the emerald jewel on her arm, and instantly, she shrank and rounded out to look like the woman who had walked past mere moments before. Still, Jazrael waited and watched. A small family walked past the bathroom door toward the double doors. Two rambunctious children, a girl and a boy, ran up and down the hall in front of their parents. Jazrael slipped out of the bathroom. She slid through the closing double doors as the family burst through and moved up to the nurse’s desk. The parents tried to wrangle their rowdy children enough to address the nurse. The nurse stood, frowning at the children and the parents. Jazrael kept her shoulder turned away from the nurse, keeping the baby in her arms as hidden as possible against her great bosom. It only took a moment for her to spot and follow the signs to the baby nursery.
She opened the door to the nursery and stepped inside. A nurse stood next to a baby in what looked like a clear bin as she made gentle shushing noises. She looked up when Jazrael entered.
“Oh good, Martha, you’re here. They told me they would send me someone so I could go on break like half an hour ago. I thought they had forgotten about me,” she said and stretched. “It’s been a long shift, and this one has been fussing nonstop.”
She eyed the baby held in Jazrael’s arms, “You are supposed to keep them in their bassinets—identification and hospital rules and blah, blah, blah but whatever. I won’t say anything, but don’t let the head nurse see you. She’s on one. But who can blame her? Everyone gets a little testy when we’re this short-staffed. Ah well, I’ll be back in about thirty minutes.” And with that, the nurse made her way out the door, leaving Jazrael alone with a room full of babies.
There were five babies in the nursery. Jazrael examined each one—three girls and two boys, including the squalling child. Jazrael lifted one girl out of the clear bassinette and set Queen Morrigan down in its place. She looked over the tiny human baby and searched the room until she found a tag similar to the one the human baby wore on her ankle. Snatching a pen off the nearby counter, she filled in the information on the tag as it appeared on the human baby in her arms.
Chelsea Herrington
Weight: 7’2
Height:26”
Mother: Rochelle Herrington
She slipped the tag around Queen Morrigan’s small ankle, grabbed a pair of scissors, and cut the tag on the human baby’s ankle. Then she wrapped the human baby up in the blankets she had been carrying Queen Morrigan in.
She paused, looking down at the queen in her bassinet. “You’ll be fine.”
Her jaw squared, and she walked from the nursery. The nursery door closed behind her, and she glanced up and down the hallway of the maternity ward. She paused for a moment, then her faerie guardian appeared in front of her—a replica of the rambunctious little boy from earlier. She sent the faerie guardian boy running and shouting past the nurse’s desk. The nurse at the desk exclaimed and jumped to her feet, charging after the little boy.
Jazrael walked out the double doors. She had her faerie guardian round one more corner, out of sight of any nurses before calling it back. Then she hurried into the bathroom, where she touched her emerald jewel again and transformed back into the woman with the T-shirt and jeans. Jazrael walked out the front doors of the hospital. Kelsey waved. She had no clue that Jazrael left with a different baby than when she entered.
Jazrael carried the human baby as she walked the city blocks, covering a couple miles at a fast stride. She came to a second hospital. This time, her faerie guardian took on the persona of the woman with a T-shirt, jeans, and hair pulled up in a ponytail. Jazrael handed the human baby to the faerie guardian, and without a word, the faerie guardian strode into the entrance of the new hospital. For several minutes, Jazrael stared intently at the hospital entrance from a park across the street, and then her faerie guardian was back on her arm. A woman dressed in scrubs ran out the hospital doors, glancing around in all directions, now clutching the wrapped newborn baby. Jazrael ducked down behind the cement wall. When she peered back over, the nurse had reentered the hospital with the baby held safely in her arms.
Jazrael flew back to the manor on her pegasus as soon as the sun was lost to the horizon. When she drew near to the Haven, she began to descend. A giant bird floated above the trees and caught fire. Jazrael angled her pegasus so she headed right toward the flaming winged creature. The bird led her down to the ground where she found three men and a woman waiting for her.
“M’lady,” said a man with the dark mark of the golem on his arm. He bowed. “The battle has been fierce. We are the only ones who remain.”
Iris’s bird had returned and now lay as a 2D figure on his upper bicep. He also bowed. “I am sure you must have the queen well hidden by now.”
Jazrael glanced over those standing before her—two brothers along with another man and a woman. The man had what appeared to be a dinosaur without arms on his upper bicep. The woman had a strange winged creature, but even though her hair was long and pale, there was a familiar shape to her face.
“The queen—” Jazrael began but stopped and started again. “I left searching for a suitable place to hide her. I have returned to secure her safety.”
The pale haired lady bowed. “My lady, perhaps I should scout ahead?” And before Jazrael could respond, the woman disappeared into the woods.
Jazrael turned to Arius. “Where is Dramian?”
Arius’s brows drew together. “He left. Said he had orders, from you, m’lady.”
Jazrael’s shoulders sagged for a moment, then she straightened. “Then all is as it should be.”
The confusion on Arius’s face deepened. But then his eyes focused past her and he grew tense. He stared out into the woods in the direction the woman had left. “They’re coming.”
“Prepare for battle,” Jazrael said as she drew her sword. Both her and Arius’s faerie guardians came to life—his, a large, looming monster of rock and strength, and hers an angry green dragon. Iris’s bird and the other man’s neo-dinosaur came to life as well.
“How many?” Jazrael asked Arius.
“More than our small numbers can handle,” he responded. “Go ahead, get to the queen. We will hold them off.”
She shook her head. “Hold them off as long as you can, no matter what happens.”
“I shall m’lady,” he said, and he and his golem charged
toward the onslaught.
Jazrael turned and attacked Iris. Being the under-swordsman, he barely held her off. “You should have alerted us to their presence from miles away,” Jazrael snarled.
Her dragon attacked the smaller phoenix. The bird seemed to know it was no match for her and flew for its life. She almost had her prey in her jaws when the neo-dinosaur with wings broadsided her dragon. The unexpected move gave Jazrael just enough notice to move to meet the second man’s attack down on the ground.
She threw herself into her fight. The swords clanged together in a fury, the rage on Jazrael’s face evident. She pinned him against a tree at the same moment that her faerie guardian’s tail whipped his flying dinosaur to the ground.
“Margus,” Jazrael growled. “Why?”
Iris tried to attack from behind, but Jazrael anticipated his attack and responded, leaving Margus to engage the other traitor. She disarmed Iris, and her faerie guardian changed into a floating woman with a long cloak and a tall wooden white staff. The woman pointed her staff and drenched his bird in a blast of ice. The frozen, fireless bird plummeted to the ground and shattered. Iris’s body fell to the ground, unmoving.
But more faeries were coming, surrounding her. Above, her faerie guardian was up against a gargoyle, a giant bird of prey with glowing red eyes and a giant flying serpent bird. She fought them, switching between a dragon and a flying ice queen and back again, taking them all on. But Margus’s faerie guardian rejoined the fight. The dinosaur teeth sank into the dragon’s underbelly, and Jazrael bent double, clutching her stomach. Arius’s golem roared from somewhere off in the forest.
Too many.
Hands gripped her arms and pulled her back. Somebody tore her sword from her grasp. Faeries surrounded her, pinning her to the ground. A face came forward with a strange winged creature on her arm and pale long hair.
“Fand,” Jazrael seethed. “Traitor!”
“The queen is ours,” she sneered in an all too familiar voice.
Jazrael’s eyes narrowed, and her faerie guardian dove toward the woman in the form of a dragon, snatching her arm in its jaws and slamming her into a nearby tree.
The woman, Fand, writhed in pain. “Make her fall!” she screamed.
Margus stood over Jazrael, sword in hand. The sword rose, and Jazrael’s eyes closed, her body relaxing in acceptance. The sword came down.
21
Imprisoned
“When you understand that which expands your view, you will change. But don’t expect others to change.”
I AWOKE, MY HANDS ON my throat. The room spun as the murky walls and austere bars settled back around me. I lay there, breathless with all the information my vision provided.
The past—no questions anymore—I saw the past, a vision of the last battle. The long-awaited answers were all there. Margus and Iris were traitors and... Nuada. The woman in the vision that Jazrael called Fand had been Nuada—her face, her voice all too familiar. She was part of it. Yes, she had scouted ahead, but all the faeries who had attacked came from the direction in which she had disappeared among the trees.
In my vision, she had not only a faerie guardian on her arm, but long, pale hair. She must have changed her appearance and name so that if I saw her in a vision, I might not recognize her right away. And Margus—it had all been worked conveniently so I would never even see him at all. Margus, Nuada, and Iris. The three of them were working together.
And if I saw the past, that meant I was Jazrael, the general, queen’s protector.
Not like it mattered now. If the vision came even a day ago, it might have meant something. But I had lost all respect among the faeries. They’d locked me up in a stupid dungeon, and nobody cared anymore. Great timing.
I glanced down at the faerie guardian on my arm. So it was a shapeshifter, huh? I only ever saw it as a griffin. How did I make it change shape?
If I willed it into another shape, would it change? I would start simple, something I knew it could change into because I had seen it in my vision. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the creature in my mind.
Change into a pegasus, I thought and released my faerie guardian.
The faerie guardian leapt from my arm, but it wasn’t a pegasus that stood before me. It was me. A replica of myself. My hair, my eyes, even my faerie armor—it was a complete match. Impressive, perhaps, but for another time.
I pulled my faerie guardian back, and it reappeared on my arm as a griffin. I hadn’t made that choice. Maybe the griffin was the default setting? I tried to refocus. A pegasus. Please, change into a pegasus. Again, I released my faerie guardian, and again, I stood looking into my own face. I tried again and again, over twenty times, but each time I released my faerie guardian, all I would see was myself, standing before me and staring back at me.
I growled in frustration. I am in control. Stop giving me useless replicas. The last thing I need is another me.
I drew my faerie guardian back on my arm, still depicted as a griffin, and kicked over the empty bucket in the corner of my cell. How stupid was I to think I could master this? I had mastered nothing since I came here. No wonder none of the faeries had given me a second thought once Arius and Nuada turned against me. I was pathetic.
Caelm again brought me food, which he slid in a small opening at the bottom of the bars. I wolfed it down, this time a lot more hungry than my previous meal. Were they only feeding me once a day? Better than not at all. Before he left, he whispered he would collect my tray and anything I had in the bucket next time he came down. His cheeks grew red at that, and he scurried back up the steps and out of the dungeons.
I broke down and used the bucket. It was so demeaning, having to squat over the little opening and try not to make a mess all over myself. Not to mention if someone came down to visit me, there was no way to shield my bare body from their eyes.
The magic of the Haven wore thin.
I sat in my dark, dank cell, dozing against the cold stone and imagining ways I might escape and leave this place behind for good—all of them too fanciful to attempt. Another failing of the great Jazrael. Arius would’ve found a way out by now. His golem would’ve torn the prison cells to shreds with one swing of its massive arm.
Another reason I should stop pretending I had any right to lead. Knowing the truth wasn’t enough. You needed to have people’s respect, you needed to be popular or nobody followed you.
Nuada was popular. Arius was popular. I had never been popular.
The need to breathe awoke me. My eyes flew open. A dark pressure over my whole face like someone held a pillow over my mouth and nose. Thrashing back and forth, I grasped into darkness, trying to release the pressure, trying to gasp for air.
The pressure ended. I leaned into my knees, taking in large gulps and searching my dimly lit cell for the culprit. But nobody lurked inside. Jumping to my feet, I hurried over to the bars, but no unusual forms lurked in the murky hallway between the cells. I stepped back, finally getting a hold on my breathing, and touched my hands to my face. What... why...
“You must leave,” said a low, hollow voice. I spun in a circle, my heart pounding, searching for the source of the voice. My faerie guardian twitched on my shoulder.
“You have brought anger, contention, and violence here,” the hollow voice bemoaned. “You must go. Leave here.”
Domovye, I thought, remembering the house spirits who ran the manor. Even they hated me.
“You must go before worse befalls,” the voice said, followed by many voices crying and wailing at the top of their lungs. I grimaced and clapped my ears with my hands as the sound echoed throughout my cell.
“I would! I would!” I shouted at the noise and the wailing stopped. “I would, except there is a locked cell door in my way.”
With a click, the cell door opened.
“Go,” the voice said.
To be honest, the domovye hadn’t been that helpful. The door at the top of the stairs leading out of the dungeons was still locked and gu
arded. But I had the opportunity to leave my dank, and by now smelly, cell. I should at least try to get to freedom.
I crept up the long, narrow flight of stairs, worried any moment the door above me might creak open, my attempt at escape ending just as it began. But the heavy steel door remained shut, and I pressed a hand against its cool surface. This was as far as I would get. So much for escape. I should head back to my cell and see if I could find a way to re-lock the door. At least then I wouldn’t be embarrassed that I was too incompetent to take advantage of such an opportunity.
I bet the domovye could unlock this door for me, but what good would it do? Not only would there be a guard waiting, but I’d be up against a whole manor full of faeries. Even if by some miracle I made it outside, I couldn’t outrun Thaya and her flying warrior woman. And the chances I’d make it all the way to Dramian’s camp again? Psh, I wouldn’t make it to the front door.
My eyes dropped to the faerie guardian tattoo.
Unless I had a distraction.
I shut my eyes and prayed this would work. I released my faerie guardian on the other side of the door. Like Arius taught me, I let myself sink down into my faerie guardian, and the scene on the other side became clear in my mind.
A stout boy with long dark hair and broad shoulders—his name was Jorgeral or something—stood guard outside the steel door. My faerie guardian stood about five feet from him in the form of my exact twin. His eyes grew wide, and other Mina smiled and wiggled her fingers at him.
“Hey,” other Mina said.
“How did you....” Jorgeral spluttered, but other Mina didn’t wait for him to finish. She sprinted down the hallway past the cafeteria. Jorgeral’s racing feet pounded behind her.
“Prisoner escape!” Jorgeral shouted. “Stop her! Stop Mina!”
Other Mina barely stopped as she threw the double doors open and burst out into the summer sun. Faeries were out training all around the manor. Swords banged and crossbows hummed, but all became still as Jorgeral’s voice blared across the lawn like a siren.