by Amber Lynn
“Omar!” I yelled, running towards and wrapping my arms around him. “What are you doing here, and please remind me what name you prefer these days?” I should’ve known the answer to the last question. I was sure it’d been brought up in conversation at some point.
“It’s Charles these days and Dad gave me the lowdown on what you guys are planning, and we agreed that someone with my knowledge of uniques might come in handy,” he said. “Plus, now that you remember who I am, I’m one of only two of your children you actually get to see.”
“I’m sure the other three have no problem being out of touch with me.”
“You’re joking, right? We didn’t all go crazy like Dad after your resurrection malfunction, but it wasn’t any easier on us kids. Just like every other phoenix in the world, when you were gone, our hearts were missing. The sooner you can remember the rest of them, the better it will be for all of our sanity.”
“You guys really think you’re phoenixes?” Nadine asked. I’d forgotten all about her when one of my children appeared in the picture.
“Of course we are,” Charles answered. It was going to take me a while to remember the new name. “I can prove it to you if you’d like. Unlike the rest of my family, I have the ability to change without losing my clothes.” I remembered seeing him do it before, so I knew he spoke the truth.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Nadine said, still skeptical.
“Sure. I haven’t changed for a little while, so it’s probably a good thing,” he said, stepping back and creating his fire wall. Within a second, a striking phoenix appeared in his place. He must come from good genes, I thought to myself.
He did a couple laps around the room as Nadine stared in awe. When he was done showing off, he landed next to me and changed back. For claiming not to have changed in a while, I was surprised he changed back so quickly.
“I’m sorry, Nadine, I was so busy catching up that I forgot to introduce you two when he came in. Nadine, I would like you to meet my eldest son Charles, Charles this is Nadine. She’s a sorceress who’s helping me understand my new abilities,” I said.
“Nice to meet you, Nadine,” Charles said, reaching out his hand to shake. Nadine was frozen in place with her mouth hanging open. “Did you say some kind of spell to freeze her, Mom?”
“No, I think she’s just starstruck. Hopefully it will wear off soon,” I replied. “Let me get a good look at you.”
I turned him to face me and inspected him. He had short, brown, goofily styled hair and his daddy’s brown eyes. Even though he was fully grown, he looked youthful.
“Stop it, Mom, you’ll embarrass me in front of your frozen friend,” he said, trying to step away from me.
“Wow,” Nadine said. Her brain must have finally processed what she saw. “You really are phoenixes. No one is ever going to believe this.”
“I would caution you on telling anyone else what you know until we give you the okay,” I said. “It’s not knowledge humans currently have, and at least for a little while longer, we’d like to keep it that way.”
“Oh, of course. I just really can’t believe I’m actually in a house owned by phoenixes. This is totally a dream come true,” she said. It was kind of an odd feeling when an elderly lady went all groupie on you.
“Nadine, if you don’t mind me asking, just how old are you?” I inquired.
“I’m one hundred and twenty years old. I won’t live forever like you guys, but as a sorceress I have a few extra years compared to a normal human,” she replied. That made the groupie comparison even creepier.
“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I haven’t eaten in days and I’m getting hungry. Why don’t we head upstairs and see if there’s anything to eat,” I said, grabbing Charles and heading for the door. I left Nadine behind to follow if she felt like it.
We made it up to the kitchen to find my berserkers at it again. Out of all my recent meals, I think they’d made about half of them.
“Dollface, it’s great to see you up and about,” Kyle said, coming over to give me a hug. “We just got up for the day ourselves and heard you might be gracing us with your presence.”
“We’ve spent the last couple days coming up with the perfect French toast recipe for when you wake up,” Liam said, joining his brother in the hugfest.
“Thanks guys. I’m really hungry, so I hope you’re making enough,” I replied.
“Sweetheart, if you want them, they’re all yours,” Liam responded. “I’m pretty sure everyone in this house would do without for you.”
“As big as the majority of the men in this household, I hope I’m not that hungry. Did Elan happen to come back with you guys?” I asked. I hadn’t seen him anywhere and hadn’t had a chance to take a deep breath and search for the tobacco in the air.
“Sure did. He really freaked out when he saw you go down. Not quite as bad as Vinnie, but Elan isn’t used to seeing you collapse, so he had an excuse,” Kyle said.
“Vinnie has seen the aftereffects of quite a few misadventures, why would he freak?” I asked.
“Can’t really say, but I’m pretty sure he’s been locked up in his lab trying to create you a bubble suit so nothing will ever harm you again,” Kyle informed me.
“So Nate wants to shackle me to my bed and Vinnie wants to wrap me in a bubble. Any other threats I should know about?”
“Other than the threat from just about every warlock on the planet, I think that’s about it,” Liam said with a smile. “Now sit down and eat your French toast, so you can go soothe your robot.”
I was ushered to a chair where a plate with five pieces of French toast appeared in front of me. Too hungry to care whether the recipe was good or not, I dove right in.
“Mmm. Guys I think you found winner with this one,” I said, shoveling bite after bite into my mouth.
“Good, let us know if you need any more,” Liam answered.
“I’m going to go check in with Uncle Rick if that’s okay,” Charles told me.
“Go ahead, someone’s got to try to keep him out of trouble. We can catch up later,” I replied. He smiled and then walked away.
I quickly finished my food and stood up to leave. I got a bit of a head rush from moving so fast. I dismissed it as just an effect of being in a coma for three days.
“Thanks guys, I’m off to find Vinnie if anyone comes looking for me,” I said and headed towards the lab.
When I got there, I found Vinnie concentrating on some paperwork. “Read anything good lately?” I asked.
He looked up and I swear if robots could cry he would’ve been. He jumped up and walked over and gave me a hug. I was fairly certain it was a first for us.
“You’re awake,” he said.
“Yeah, one little spell can’t keep me down for long,” I told him with a smile as he stepped back.
“I was worried you wouldn’t wake up, and it would have been my fault,” he said, looking down at the ground.
“Hey, who installed the guilt chip?” I asked. “There’s no way me getting hit by that spell was your fault.”
“But it was my job to protect you. I should’ve done something more to keep the spell from hitting you.”
“Look, Vinnie, I don’t know who gave you the messed up dose of estrogen, but you really need to ask for your money back. Could you see the spell coming at me?” I asked.
“No,” he replied softly.
“Then how in the world would you have stopped it? I could have maybe stopped it if I was able to see it, but since I couldn’t, I got hit. It’s no big thing. As far as I know, only one thing out there can permanently kill me, and believe me, I ain’t going to be taken down by a measly spell,” I said.
He finally smiled at me. “I’m really glad you’re awake. I want to show you what I’ve been working on. Then at some time I’ll need your magical assistance, so we can try to come up with a solution for fighting invisible magic.”
“Great, I’m glad to see that you’ve been working on something other th
an a bubble suit for me. I heard rumors that was what you were doing in here.”
“That only took a few hours, and I was going to wait until you’d been awake a little longer before recommending you try it on,” he said, pointing in the corner, where sure enough there was a suit on a mannequin with a full-face helmet, gloves and matching boots. It didn’t look like a giant sphere, like I’d feared. It was more like a cat woman suit, and could be kind of cool to wear. I bet Kyle would be jealous of my crime-fighter outfit.
“That’s pretty spiffy looking. You might actually catch me wearing something like that,” I said. Well, at least on the battlefield. In normal, everyday life I’d be sticking to my jeans.
“Here’s the first thing I wanted to show you,” he said, handing me something that resembled a canister of pepper spray. “Be very careful where you point it.”
“What is it?” I said, looking at it from every angle.
“It’s short-term memory loss spray. You mentioned that it might be something to look into. So I went ahead and found the perfect combination of chemicals to essentially wipe a person’s short-term memory. You can get in, do your thing, give them a little spray, and then be on your way.”
“It even has a little catchy jingle. Have you done any testing with it?”
“Sure did. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and used it on a couple girls who wouldn’t stop following me around. After the spray, they got confused and tried to figure out how they made it to the grocery store,” he said.
“That’s a little dangerous just using it out in public isn’t it?” I didn’t know how else he’d test it, but the risk of exposure seemed a bit high in the middle of a store.
“I thought if it had any adverse effect, you’d be upset if I used it on one of our roommates, so I didn’t see a lot of options.”
“I think that’s a topic we’re going to have to discuss in detail before the next time you test your inventions. Did you have something else to show me?”
“Sure. I know that Nate ordered a bunch of heavy artillery, but I know you also like your knives, so I made you a couple that are easily concealed in plain sight, so you can wear more of them. Neither design is exactly groundbreaking, but I think you’ll like them. First, I know you don’t usually do much with your hair, but after you see these you might,” he said, handing me two sticks that looked similar to chopsticks.
“Are they for eating tasty lo mein?” I asked.
“No, see here,” he said, pressing the top of one of the chopsticks. When he did, a small blade popped out the bottom, making it a thin knife. “Be careful. I coated them neurotoxin that will cause paralysis in whoever is stabbed with it.”
Holy crap, Vinnie wasn’t playing around.
“Wow, these are amazing. I think you might be right about me finding a reason to wear my hair up more.”
“The other design I did is similar, but is in the pen variety,” he said, offering me a ballpoint pen.
I pressed the clicker and sure enough instead of something to write with, I had another little knife.
“You’re turning into a great Q, Vinnie. Maybe you should watch some old Bond movies to find some more cool ideas.”
“Already have, and don’t worry, I’ll have more prototypes available for you soon,” he replied, taking back the pen and chopsticks for the moment. “I won’t ask you now, because you’re still recovering, but within the next week I’d like for you to try some silent spells, so I can check for atmospheric changes to see if there is anything I can work with.”
“It would probably be best to give me a couple days. I don’t want Nate to get worked up about me overexerting myself, and we have a lot of guests running around right now,” I said.
“No problem, I just wanted to catch you up on what I’ve been working on.”
“Well, thank you for all your hard work. I’m going to go try to find Elan and thank him for coming with us to the meeting with the warlocks. If you need anything from me non-magical, just holler,” I said, walking towards the door.
“Will do, and, Avery, it’s really great to see you up and about again,” he said, waving as he went back to his paperwork.
CHAPTER 25
Warning: Lovey dovey stuff inside, read with caution