True of Blood (Witch Fairy Series)

by Lamer, Bonnie

  Chapter 5

  I wake up early the next morning feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. I pull on some jeans and a dark green turtle neck and then pull another long sleeved gray cardigan over it. The cold makes layering a necessity. Mom and Dad are in the kitchen when I wander in there for a bowl of cereal since it’s too early for Aunt Barb or Zac to be up yet.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” Mom asks as I pull a bowl from the cupboard.

  “Not much,” I reply. I grab a box of Fruity Pebbles from the pantry and get the milk. I’m too tired to speak in anything other than monosyllables. Mom and Dad seem to pick up on that and they leave me to my cereal for a few minutes.

  Breaking the silence, Dad peers out the window and says, “I can’t believe he’s still there. He hasn’t moved all night.”

  “He thinks he’s protecting me,” I say around a mouth full of fruity goodness.

  Dad looks at me with a dumbfounded expression, his translucent mouth hanging open. “He’s protecting you?” He looks over at Mom. “I thought the Fairies wanted to take her back to their world?”

  “They do,” Mom says and then adds reluctantly, “But this one says that he’s not Pooka and that he’s here to protect her from them.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  Mom shakes her head. “No.”

  I swallow the last bite of my cereal. “I do.” Both of my parents look at me like I’ve lost my mind. Yeah, like I’m the one who seems crazy after all the stuff they’ve said over the last couple of days.

  “Why do you believe him?” Mom asks.

  I shrug as I stand up to put my bowl in the sink. “Because he hates what he’s doing but he won’t go even though I keep asking him to. Plus he saved me from those other Fairies in the woods yesterday.”

  “What other Fairies? I thought he was the one that pushed you against the tree. You mean there are more of them here?” Dad is so angry now he almost has some color in his face.

  Honestly, for the first time in my life, I don’t care if my parents are upset with me. None of this is my fault. “Yup. There were two Pooka warriors who tried to kidnap me yesterday and Kallen stopped them.”

  “Xandra, you should have told us this yesterday,” Mom scolds. “We need to know these things so we can protect you.”

  “There was so much going on I guess I forgot.” That sounds lame even to me but it’s the truth.

  Dad looks at me as if I have the sense of a two year old who just tried to stick her hand in a light socket. “You forgot that you were attacked by two other Fairies?”

  Color creeps into my cheeks. “It was a rough day,” I mumble barely loud enough for even me to hear it.

  Dad starts to say something but Mom cuts him off. “Jim, she’s right. It was a rough day yesterday and we really didn’t give her a chance to tell us what happened. We just assumed that the Fairy who got snared in my protection spell was the one who attacked her.” Dad still looks like he wants to say something but he presses his ghost lips into a straight line and doesn’t.

  A loud cawing from outside saves me from having to say anything else. Mom and Dad both rush to the window to see what the racket is about. “Oh my god,” Dad says quietly.

  I look out the window myself and see Kallen shed his raven body for his human one. What does it say that I’m already not impressed with it? I think the last couple of days have made me numb to the weird and supernatural. I’m pleased, but I’ll admit just a little bit disappointed, that as he finishes transforming he clothes himself in something other than air.

  Seeing the three of us looking at him through the window, he motions towards the woods. I’m pretty sure he’s trying to tell us that Maurelle and Olwyn are coming. “Um, Mom, do you know what to do when two Pooka warriors attack?”

  Mom turns her attention back to me. “What?”

  “I think the other two Fairies are on their way.”

  For the first time in my life, I see my dad look scared. That’s not comforting. At least Mom looks more determined than scared. Looking at me, she says, “Xandra, go to your room and stay there.”

  “Um, wouldn’t it be safer if I stayed by you?” Being alone in my room just doesn’t seem all that safe to me. What am I going to do by myself if they make it through Mom’s protection field or whatever it is.

  Mom looks like she’s going to insist I go to my room but after a hard stare, she relents. “Fine, but you are to stay behind me and for no reason are you to step outside. Understood?”

  I nod. I’m starting to get a sense of how dangerous all this really is and I don’t think I’m going to handle it well at all. Right now, hysteria seems the way to go but I’ll try to keep it at bay as long as I can. How did my life flip upside down so quickly?

  “Jim, please get Barb and Zac. Bring them in here.” Dad nods and passes through the wall towards the garage. A minute later, a very confused Aunt Barb joins us in the kitchen and Zac comes trailing in after her. He doesn’t look concerned at all so Dad must not have told him anything.

  With a severe look over her shoulder warning us to stay put, Mom floats through the outside wall just as Maurelle and Olwyn come into view. They are still in their animal forms but Mom seems to be able to tell what they really are as she faces them down. Kallen has climbed down from his perch in the tree and is facing them as well. He’s holding a small satchel that I hadn’t seen before. He must have had it stashed somewhere because it looks too big for his raven form to carry.

  As they near, Maurelle and Olwyn shimmer out of their animal form and I hear Aunt Barb gasp behind me. Zac reacts like an eight year old boy. “Whoa, that’s so cool!”

  “What the hell are they?” Aunt Barb asks when she finds her voice again.

  “Fairies,” I tell her but she looks as doubtful as I had when I first heard Fairies existed.

  We can’t hear what anyone is saying but Maurelle’s mouth is twisted into the sneer she had when she was attacking me. Kallen has turned towards the other two Fairies and he has something clasped in his hand. Olwyn is looking at him warily but with confidence. They are obviously ready for Kallen and his Fairy darts this time. I wonder if they have some sort of defensive magic for them.

  Aunt Barb apparently can’t stand not being able to hear what’s going on so she leans over the sink and pushes the kitchen window open. Dad gives her a worried look but she ignores it. We all lean towards the window straining to hear what we can.

  Olwyn is turned towards Kallen. “If you throw another dart at me, Sheehogue,” he says this as if it’s a dirty word, “I will kill you where you stand.”

  Kallen looks unfazed by the threat. “Just because you are the Pooka King’s runner does not mean that you are more powerful than I am.”

  Maurelle turns her attention to Kallen instead of my mother. “I am sure King Dagda will be surprised to hear his favorite nia has turned Brathadóir. We will be sure to inform him when we bring him your body.”

  Kallen’s lips twist upwards but it looks more like a snarl than a smile. “King Dagda may have you on a leash like the dog you are but he has always known my position on reopening our world to this one. I will not let it happen.”

  Olwyn grins and his teeth look like they didn’t quite transform all the way from his mountain lion self. His incisors are long and sharp. “I will take great pleasure in proving you wrong.”

  As the three Fairies passed their barbs back and forth, none of them were paying attention to my mother who is whispering something. Just as Maurelle turns to face her, my mother raises her arms and something explodes from the ground and small pieces of what look like rusted nails rain down on the Fairies and everywhere they graze or puncture their skin, large bloody welts appear. Since Maurelle and Olwyn had been closer to her, they were hit by most of the shrapnel. Kallen, who must have been paying some attention to my mother, had tried to take cover right before the explosion and he had only been hit by a couple of stray nails. Taking advantage of the fact that Olwyn and Maurelle have both once a
gain been brought to their knees in pain, he flings what he has in his hand towards both of them. A large explosion of black smoke engulfs them both and when the smoke clears, they are both gone.

  “Wicked!” Zac says loudly from next to me. I had forgotten that he was watching all of this. Probably wasn’t the most responsible thing on any of our parts to let him do that. What if something had happened to Mom?

  Dad must have had the same thought because he turns to Zac and says, “Zac, why don’t you sit at the table and play with your DSI?”

  “Aw, Dad,” Zac whines but he trudges over to the table as if his feet are covered in lead and makes a big show of sitting down and folding his arms on the table and resting his chin on them. I can’t help a small smile for his fine dramatics.

  Looking back out the window, I see Kallen sink to his knees as he holds his hand to his side. He must have been more hurt in the explosion than he originally let on. Ignoring Mom’s instructions to stay inside, I open the back door and run out into the snow. I stop about five feet from him. Mom yells at me to get away from him but I ignore her.

  “Kallen, are you alright?” I can tell from the pained look on his face that he’s not but he turns a stony face towards me and through gritted teeth he says, “I am well enough.”

  I snort. “Liar.”

  He narrows his eyes and attempts a contemptuous look at me but his eyes betray him. Turning back towards Mom who is almost next to me now, I say, “We have to help him.”

  Mom shakes her head adamantly. “This could be a ruse, Xandra. They may have planned this so that we let our guard down. We can’t do that.”

  I give her a sour look. “So, we’re just supposed to leave him out here to suffer? I don’t think he’s faking his injuries and he did make the other Fairies disappear.” Looking back at Kallen, I ask, “Where did you send them, anyway?”

  “They have been sent back to the passage to the Fae land. If the passage was open, they would have been thrust through it. The best I could do was having them start from the beginning. Their injuries will stall their return.” All of this was said through a clenched jaw as he held his hands to his side.

  A line of blood began to seep through his fingers and I whirl around towards my mother. “How can we leave him when he’s obviously hurt so badly? Haven’t you always taught me to be compassionate? Where is your compassion?”

  “Xandra…” Mom starts but I cut her off. “No, I don’t want to hear that this could be a trick. He’s fought those other two off twice now. I think we need to give him the benefit of the doubt. Please,” I add for good measure. I’m not quite sure why I’m fighting to help someone who so obviously dislikes me but it seems like the right thing to do.

  Mom looks torn as she looks back and forth between Kallen and me. Finally, she lets out a long sigh even though as a ghost she doesn’t really breathe. “Earth, water and air combine, protect my home, protect what’s mine. This Fairy who claims a friend to be, if there is no trace of treachery, shall pass unharmed through this Witch’s charm but if his heart is not true his course of action he shall rue.”

  I don’t know what I expected. Maybe smoke or shimmering or something that indicated that Kallen would be able to pass through the shield that had stopped him yesterday but all I got was a big nothing. I look at Mom questioningly and she gives me a small tight nod. She doesn’t look at all pleased but she makes a gesture with her hand for Kallen to come to the house.

  Kallen looks just as unhappy as my mother as I approach him and he leans away from me. And he called me an ungrateful snit. I put my hands on my hips. “Do you want help or not? My dad’s a doctor, he could tell me what to do.”

  Kallen scoffs. “When is the last time he treated a Fairy?”

  Okay, he does have a point. “I’m sure between him and my mom they can figure something out.”

  Kallen gives a doubtful look to my mother and I can tell she’s just itching to take back her spell that will let him come into the house. His side must be getting worse because his face contorts in pain. He nods once and attempts to rise to his feet, which is obviously difficult. I reach out to help him up.

  He yells, “No!” just as my mother says, “Xandra, don’t touch him!”

  When my hand touches his bare skin, he hisses loudly and falls back to the ground. The amulet around my neck glows brightly and I realize the mistake that I had made. You can’t help a Fairy if you’re wearing a Fairy repellant. I start to take it off but Mom puts a cold hand on mine. “No, go get your Aunt Barb and she can help him. You mustn’t remove the amulet.”

  Reluctantly, I nod and I walk towards the house. Aunt Barb must have heard Mom because she is already pulling her boots on to come outside. She walks through the snow to Kallen and she kneels down next to him. She gingerly puts an arm around his waist and puts his arm that isn’t pressed against his injury around her neck. He’s about ten inches taller than her so it’s awkward but she manages to slowly get him to the house.

  “Where?” she asks Mom and her voice is strained from exertion.

  “On the couch.”

  Aunt Barb helps Kallen to the couch and he slumps down onto the overstuffed cushions. His face is pale and blood is still trickling through his fingers. “Thank you,” he says to Aunt Barb and he must be in pain because his voice has lost some of its haughtiness. He didn’t even complain about a lowly Cowan helping him.

  After a moment, I realize I am staring at him and when his cold green eyes find mine, I blush and turn to Mom. “What should we do?”

  “I need you to go into the kitchen and pull down the plastic box on the top shelf. It has all of my healing herbs and flowers in it.”

  Mom has healing herbs in the pantry? The things I don’t know about my parents just keep adding up. Trying not to feel like I have been betrayed yet again by being kept in the dark, I nod stiffly and go to retrieve the box. I hear Mom ask Aunt Barb to get a pan of warm water, a bowl and some clean towels.

  I have to use the step stool in the pantry to get the box down. It’s on the very top shelf and pushed all the way to the back behind some old camping supplies. No wonder I never saw it before. I push the lanterns and the metal plates and silverware aside that we haven’t used since Dad died. He was a lover of camping, Aunt Barb not so much.

  The box is heavier than I thought it would be. I bring it down the ladder and take off the lid to gaze into it. The plastic box is sectioned off into a bunch of compartments and each one is filled with some sort of plant or herb and each one is giving off a distinct odor. Individually, they probably smell fine, but all together? It smells a little bit like the compost pile we have in the woods behind the house. I quickly put the lid back on and bring the box into the living room.

  Kallen is still on the couch and Dad is examining his wound. Looking up at Mom, he says, “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s as if a hole was burned straight into his body. It’s about three inches deep from what I can tell. What did you throw at them?”

  “Iron,” Mom says. “It’s poison to a Fairy and reacts the same way a hot poker would on a human. As soon as it touches them, the iron begins to burrow inside causing as much damage as possible.”

  “How did you do it?” I ask. Mom’s a ghost, how did she throw something at the Fairies?

  “I have Witch’s bottles buried all around the house. It’s just a matter of releasing them.”

  Kallen looks at Mom with some degree of respect as she says this. Obviously, she had planned ahead for some things. Apparently it’s a good defense but I have no idea what she’s talking about. “What’s a Witch’s bottle?” Kallen doesn’t look at me with respect when I ask this. His expression is condescending and annoyed.

  “Have you not taught her anything?” he asks Mom.

  Mom narrows her eyes and gives him a hard look. For a second or two, I think she’s going to hex him or something but she chooses to ignore him instead. Turning to me, she explains, “A Witch’s bottle is similar to a small bomb but it
can only be called forth by the Witch who created it. It’s rather simple in design. A glass bottle is filled with whatever you need, in this instance I wanted to ward off Fairies so I filled it with iron nails, and then you mix in your urine to claim the bottle as your own and you can set it aside or bury it until you need it. You call it forth with a simple incantation.”

  Okay, the ick factor of this conversation just increased by a million. “You threw iron nails and urine at them?” Gross.

  Ignoring the fact that I am thoroughly disgusted, Kallen turns to my mom. “Are you wortcunning?” he asks. Mom nods her translucent head as she looks into the box. She has made her long blonde hair appear to be pulled back in a pony tail so it doesn’t fall into her face. I don’t know if she had to or if she is just trying to seem as alive as possible.