by A W Hartoin
A brown wing flew from behind the sofa and threw his sword. It zinged through the air and sliced through Lrag’s shoulder and back. I felt a pop and there was Gerald looking at me, his mouth open in a scream. We were visible.
Iris was right behind us with Miss Penrose. She was screaming Lrag’s name as he sunk to one knee.
Bentha ran to me. “You must go, my lady. The second wave comes.”
A stream of rebels poured through the hole in the window. So many I couldn’t guess at the number. We’d never make it.
“Percy?” yelled Bentha. “Now!”
Percy and Penelope flew in from the hall full speed with flames spewing from their nostrils. They went into a spiral and let out a tremendous raging sound as they flew at the fairies flying in. Fireballs burst out of their mouths and with a sonic boom, the balls burst apart striking dozens of fairies. On fire they flew out of control and rammed into each other and the furniture. One hurdled through the air in our direction. I caught sight of his eyes. He was aiming at us. We couldn’t outrun him. I grabbed Gerald and shielded him, Fidéle, and Horc with my body. The fairy slammed into me, taking me out at the legs. Horc went flying out of my arms. He rolled away like a lumpy green bowling ball. The gargoyle bounded after him, trying to catch him with his long claws. The fire was all over me, but I’m immune. Gerald wasn’t. His pants were torches. He screamed and I dove on top of him, smothering the flames with my body.
“Horc,” he said.
I looked up. Horc was still rolling with Fidéle behind him. Penelope banked right, flattened her wings to her body and dove down. She snatched up Horc and Fidéle in her mouth, banked again, and then tossed the two of them in the air, high over head. She rolled over and caught them in her claws, at the same time frying another half dozen brown wings with a flame ball.
Behind us Iris struggled to help Miss Penrose, who was on her knees. “Go, Iris,” she said. “Please go!”
A phalanx who’d survived Lrag’s wind battled to get past Bentha. “A Bourbon!” he screamed. “A Bourbon!”
The whole room seemed to hold its breath and look at Miss Penrose. I watched her face go from confusion to realization that everyone was looking at her. A golden ball arced through the air and landed at her feet. The horen smiled at her, his claws out. “Bon jour, Princess.”
“No!” I screamed at him.
“Shut up, kindler. I’ll deal with you soon enough.”
A kind of zing went through me. Every flame I’d held back during our time in Paris burst out of my palms. They hit him so hard he tumbled through the air head over heels, completely engulfed in my flames.
“The kindler!” cried the brown wings. “The Bourbon!”
Percy turned overhead and went into a dive. He grabbed up Miss Penrose and Iris in his long claws. He circled the room, turning in front of the window. Too close. The sea serpent launched itself off the glass and landed on Percy’s side, carving huge gashes before it fell, taking out a china lamp.
Judd and Tess were in the center of the room. They were surrounded by a cloud of flyers. I shot dozens of flame balls at them, but I was weak. Most of them fell short. I used all the strength I had on the horen. Gerald had me around the waist as he tried to pull me away. My knees buckled. A third wave was coming through the window. So many.
Evan and Rebecca ran into the living room. Judd swung his bat and hit a brown wing. It went splat against the wall.
“Help us!” yelled Tess, stomping on some phalanx that were stabbing her ankle.
“What the heck is going on?” asked Evan.
“Look, Dad!” yelled Judd. Just then a gold feather got past the bat and slit open Judd’s cheek from ear to nose.
Rebecca screamed and smacked the fairy. Then she grabbed a coffeetable book and swung it at a couple more, connecting with a crack.
Evan stood with his mouth open. “Fairies. Oh my god, Rebecca. I’ve finally lost it. I’m seeing fairies.”
“Shut up and get a book,” said Rebecca.
The sea serpent crawled up on the back of the sofa and hissed at her. Evan didn’t get a book. He ran to the sofa, grabbed the sea serpent, drew back, and threw it out the broken window like a major-league pitcher.
My vision narrowed. Gerald was pulling me. The remaining phalanx had reformed and were blocking our way to the door. Judd dropped to the ground, a swarm around his head, and then a dozen jam bombs hit the swarm. Tess gave her mom her tennis racket, pivoted and scooped me and Gerald up. She jumped over the phalanx even as they loosed their shells at her bare ankles, and ran into the hall, bumping into the wall and knocking a lamp off the table. She fumbled with the lock and then flung open the door. Percy and Penelope shot past her head as she ran into the hall.
“Close the door!” I screamed.
She spun around and slammed it in the face of two dozen gold feathers. They hit the door so hard I could see it rattle. Then it rattled a second time. They couldn’t break through it. They just couldn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE DOOR SHOOK violently and a gold wing appeared in the keyhole. Percy shot a stream of flames and charcoaled him where he flew. Tess ran down the hall to a door marked SORTIE D'URGENCE SEULEMENT and yanked it open. She ran down the stairs and out the front door of the apartment building. The door closed behind her and the dragons wheeled around and hissed at the glass. A group of gold wings flew out of the elevator and saw us. Tess ran down the steps and frantically looked right and left.
“The metro!” I yelled.
She ran down the street, weaving around humans and holding us tight against her chest. Her hand was sweating. Gerald and I slipped down to her pinkie. I climbed up her slick fingers and peeked over her forefinger as she reached the metro stop. A large group of passengers were coming up the stairs. Tess dodged to the right. I got a glimpse of greasy hair and blue overalls, but Tess was running so fast, I couldn’t tell if it was Earl and Stanley.
Tess darted through the station and managed to squeeze through the ticket barrier with her supremely skinny body. A train pulled in and the doors slid open. Tess bolted onto the train and set Gerald and me on an empty seat next to a foul stain.
“Be safe,” she said and ran back out just before the car doors closed.
I flew up to the window ledge and landed on the window frame. Tess ran to the ticket barrier and squeezed through. A swarm of gold feathers flew down the stairs and got to her before she could escape. They flew around her head, stabbing and slashing at her.
The train jerked forward and Gerald was beside me. “Save her!”
I pressed my hands against the glass. My palms grew hot, but not nearly hot enough to melt the glass. I’d lost my fire to the horen’s venom again.
“Hurry!” yelled Gerald in my ear.
“I’m trying!”
The train pulled away. Humans were watching Tess scream and swat the air. No one moved to help her. Then Earl and Stanley ran down the stairs. Earl had a can. He sprayed the gold feathers and Stanley picked up Tess. They ran up the stairs and out of sight. No gold feathers followed. My last glimpse was of a human walking over them. Squish.
I put my arm around Gerald. “Earl and Stanley saved her.”
“It’s unbelievable,” said Gerald.
We fluttered down to the seat as Penelope landed lightly next to Iris. Percy hovered wobbling to and fro and then dropped onto the seat. We all flew into the air with the impact. Iris ran over to his side and screamed. Great gushes of blood flowed out of the slices the sea serpent had made in his side. It was a ridiculous amount of blood.
“Are they known to be bleeders?” I asked.
“I don’t have the Speciesapedia,” she wailed.
“You don’t need it,” said Gerald. “I know everything about dragons.”
Of course you do. You’re Gerald.
“Is this right?” I asked.
“No. Moroccan spice dragons are made to fight.”
“Get to the point!”
“They onl
y bleed with deep puncture wounds, which these aren’t,” said Gerald with a hint of his know-it-all self.
“Like Lrag,” said Iris. “It has to be the spell. There were phalanx there. Do the spell.”
“I need human blood and garlic. The words don’t work by themselves.”
“Do something!” yelled Iris.
Mrs. Marfisi came over. “She can’t cure a dragon, Iris.”
I hate the word can’t, especially when it comes to me. I can do anything and frequently have. I looked at the blood running onto the orange plastic seat. What could I do? What did I have? Only me and the only spell I knew that required only me was Miss Penrose’s spell.
I laid on Percy’s side over the slices. The blood rose up in great heaves with every beat of his large heart. I looked at his eye, dull with the pupil blown wide open. He was dying. I closed my eyes and went through the steps that Ibn died to teach me. It came easy. I saw inside Percy. Every part of him in a flash. I saw the vessels, torn in his side. I closed them. At the same time, a ripping pain exploded in my leg. Hands were on my shoulders, trying to pull me away, but I held on and the gushing stopped. I opened my eyes to see Percy’s pupil contract and focus. He lifted his head and gave me a gentle lick.
I fell off the dragon’s side into a river of his blood. Miss Penrose was over me. “What did you do?”
“Her leg!” yelled Mrs. Marfisi. “I can’t stop it.”
They got fuzzy, but I felt warm and oddly comfortable.
Gerald came into view. “Use the antidote.”
Miss Penrose got the amulet from around my neck, uncorked the bottle, and dropped three drops into my mouth. My tongue sizzled, then my whole body, even my fingernails. I can’t tell you how odd it is to feel your fingernails sizzle. It should’ve been horribly painful, unbearable, but it wasn’t. It felt good, like something was being put to rights.
Then Mrs. Marfisi’s face was close to mine. “Can you hear me?”
In a manner of speaking.
I nodded.
“Better?” she asked.
Mrs. Marfisi was in sharp focus and my body was no longer sizzling, but felt soft and floppy, sort of like I was brand new and perfect.
“I feel really great. Help me up,” I said.
Iris and Gerald pulled me upright and put me against a soft gray striped cushion. I lit a flame in my palm. It snapped happily across my fingers.
“My fire’s back. That antidote really works.”
“I’ll say,” said Miss Penrose. “When you cured Percy, your leg just about exploded with blood and pus. We couldn’t stop the flow. You would’ve died.”
“I haven’t felt this good in months.” I jerked upright. “When does the train stop again? I have to get off. I can help Mom and Dad now.”
Miss Penrose smoothed my hair. “It’s too late for that. We’re miles from Paris.”
“Are you crazy? We’ve been on this train for like three minutes.”
“You’ve been unconscious for three hours.”
The train was different, more expensive with cloth seats instead of plastic and soft lighting.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“On a train to Vienna,” said Mrs. Marfisi.
“Why?”
“Because the Austrian royal family is firmly in control there. Penrose will be safe.”
“I still think you’re wrong,” said Miss Penrose. “It can’t be true.”
“You told her,” I said.
“Yes, and I’m not wrong,” said Mrs. Marfisi.
“Well, you can go to Vienna, if you want to. I’m going back. We don’t even know what happened at the apartment.”
“I do,” said Gerald and he turned away, his shoulders shaking.
Miss Penrose took him in her arms and he buried his face in her neck.
“Where’s Iris and Horc?” I asked.
Mrs. Marfisi pointed to them on the seat next to a tall coil of Penelope’s tail. Ibn’s gargoyle was perched on the coil with Rufus. They were both swishing their tails furiously. Iris and Horc huddled together talking. I got to my feet, still unsteady, and went over.
“What are you two up to?” I asked.
“Examining the implications,” said Horc.
Iris said nothing. Her head was bowed and I couldn’t see her face. I knelt beside her and rubbed her back in slow circles. “It’s alright, Iris. Evan and Rebecca saw. I’m sure Earl and Stanley went back to the apartment with Tess. Mom and Dad are fine. Everyone else, too.” I was by no means sure, but it sounded good.
She raised her face. I expected watery blue eyes, streaming tears, but her eyes were dry and filled with wonder. “It’s not that. Mom and Dad have to be fine. They have to be.”
“What then?”
“A complication to our situation,” said Horc.
“Are you trying to irritate me?” I said. “It’s been a long day.”
Horc sniffed and pulled a bit of lint-covered bacon from his pocket and popped it in his mouth. “I am trying to tell you to brace yourself.”
“It can’t be as bad as all that. Look what we’ve already been through.”
He smiled. “Bad is not the right word. Show her, Iris.”
Iris climbed up Penelope’s coils and reached in between Fidéle and Rufus. She lifted out the commander’s egg.
“So?” I said. “You’ve got the egg. Good job.”
Iris put the small black sphere in my lap. I ran my hands over the shell. Where it had been smooth and shiny, it now had a crack in the side.
Iris put her hands on mine. “It’s hatching.”
The End
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HERE IS AN excerpt from A Wicked Chill by A.W. Hartoin, the fourth in the thrilling Away From Whipplethorn Series.
Chapter One
The empress was Austria and the empress was ill. Or so I was told everyday since I’d arrived in Vienna. Every fairy from the cardinal’s bookkeeper to the elf that delivered the firewood reminded me of the fact. Whenever they said it their faces puckered in worry and I wondered what in the world the empress had to do with me or with them. None of us were likely to meet her majesty. She was on the top and we were firmly on the bottom.
At least I was on the bottom. It was hard to escape that fact. I never expected to be where I was. Alone in Vienna, standing on a stone skull, covered in blisters and smelling like Frau Snigglebit’s Troublesome Troll Remover. I felt terrible and I smelled worse. Plus, I’d failed to remove any of the trolls that were covering St. Catherine’s altar, which was a big part of my job. I, also, never expected to have a job.
I dipped each of my buckets into the holy water that filled the skull font and set them on the wing that sprouted from the side of it. I closed my eyes and arched my aching back. Ten little claws cut into my shoulder and I jerked upright. Fidelé, the little gargoyle I’d acquired in Paris, hissed and then settled down on my shoulder like a parrot. I suppose Fidelé’s being there meant that I wasn’t alone, if you want to get technical about it, which I didn’t. Alone is relative and as far as I was concerned I was by myself in St. Stephen's Cathedral where I was employed as a maid of all work. It was even less glamorous than it sounded, but desperate times and all that. I certainly was desperate or I should say we were. I’d managed to escape Paris with three kids, a phalanx egg, two practically useless adults, and a couple of obese dragons. Did I mention that I was alone?
I sat down next to my buckets and allowed myself a moment to admire the cathedral. It was so glorious it made my chest hurt and fill with gratitude. St. Stephen's had saved us. I was sure of it. It’d taken nearly a month to make our way from Paris to Vienna. Avoiding the French revolutionaries and loyalists searching our first train had caused us to get off in a tiny village. We made our way from there. Village to village, hiding. If we hadn’t had the Moroccan Spice dragons stealing food for us, we would’ve starved. But we m
ade it to Vienna, only to realize winter was coming and living in Vienna’s Stadtpark under a purple petunia plant wasn’t going to do it. I had to get a job because I was the only one who could. I heard a rumor about a position in St. Stephen's for a maid. It was the first lucky break we’d gotten and I took it. Yes, the cathedral saved us. I’d tried to think about that instead of the blisters and the fact that our parents weren’t there and we didn’t know if they were still in Paris or even alive. Most of the time I’d rather have thought about the blisters instead of them.
A soft hand landed on my shoulder and I turned to see my friend, Lonica, looking down at me. She was smiling, although it was hard to tell. The paint on her face concealed much. Lonica was a willow dryad, the first I’d ever met. Like the dryads I’d known before coming to Vienna, Lonica’s skin and clothing were painted to resemble her tree, the weeping willow, so her skin appeared white and like it was about to peel off. Long pendulous branches with little green leaves flowed off her head and down all the way to her ankles. It was quite a length of hair because, like all dryads, Lonica was very tall.
“Do you see who…” Lonica turned her head and I lost sight of her lips and thus her words. I’d had a hard time in Vienna. Being mostly deaf was bad enough, but the Austrian fairies rarely stayed still, making lip reading a challenge, even when they were speaking English.
I tapped her shoulder. “What was that?
Her head turned and her branches swung wide, smacking against my head. “I must apologize, Mattie. I forgot.”
The name Mattie continued to surprise me. My name like everything about my life had changed. I was no longer Matilda Grace Whipplethorn, but Mattie Van Winkle, a girl who was nobody and nothing special. The one thing I couldn’t change was my hearing and Lonica was the only one in Vienna who had noticed I was deaf. Fairies can be amazingly dense.
“Look there.” She pointed out into the cathedral’s golden glow. The sun was going down and chandeliers were lit, making the creamy stone pillars and arched ceiling panels appear warm and almost cozy, despite the cathedral’s immense size. I’d been in the Louvre and Notre Dame, but nothing affected me like St. Stephen's beauty. It was something special, something unique, like me. It made me forget how bad things were and remember how far we’d come. We were still alive. Mom and Dad would make it to Vienna and find us. St. Stephen's made me believe that.