by Louisa Lo
Serafina and I teleported onto the pavement in front of my parents’ house. We were stopped outside the boundary, landing as close as their safeguard allowed. While my parents hardly had any unexpected visitors, the standard safeguard was still employed. Nobody wanted people popping in and out of their houses unannounced.
I loved the middle-class, suburban neighborhood my parents chose to raise me in. It was considered a “mixed” neighborhood, and by that it meant the area was on the vengeance plane, but consisted mostly of non-vengeance-demon immigrants. Due to war, de-forestation, and lack of job prospects, many magical folks couldn’t stay on their own planes anymore. What better place to go to live than on the vengeance plane, among the guardians of the Cosmic Balance? It was like the peace of mind of living right next to a police station, perceived or otherwise.
Here the neighbors ranged from displaced woodland nymphs from the human plane, to paid-by-the-wail banshee who relied on payday loans, to retired hags brewing love potions on the side to supplement their income. Not exactly the supernatural upper crust. But growing up I got to play hide and seek with the Invisible Kid, and draw hangman with zombies. No complaints there.
So as I said, I love my old hood. It didn’t matter that I’d already moved out and couldn’t be happier with my human roommate and personal space; this area would always hold a special place in my heart. But that being said, carrying a semi-conscious guy fireman-style and hurrying toward my parents’ house wasn’t exactly what I’d call a regular visit, especially with Miss Neringa, our nosy giantess neighbor right out on her lawn. I did a quick wave to her, yanked open my parents’ side door and dashed in, neatly avoiding her attempt to grill some juicy gossip out of me. Serafina followed right at my heels and closed the door.
“This way.” I gestured to her to follow me down to the basement.
Now, when I thought of eventually bringing a guy home to meet my parents, this wasn’t what I had in mind. For one, he wasn’t my type—I preferred a guy free of grime and back alley stench. Two, as I said, the guy in question wasn’t entirely conscious. Three, my parents weren’t even home. Dad was on an off-plane assignment. Top secret. So of course Mom went with him.
I tramped down the stairs and placed Prince Eldon on the floor at the back of the family room. On the other side of the room was a large TV screen, and planted firmly in front of it was my trickster half-brother, Fir.
Just one more thing about tricksters that vengeance demons looked down upon: they didn’t have a plane of their own like most supernatural did. Tricksters had little use for that, as they needed a constant supply of fresh victims. Unlike many of her kind, Mom didn’t abandon my half-brothers at birth. Still, if my vengeance dad hadn’t married my trickster mom and formed a stable household, my half-brothers would’ve left home by the age of seven.
Instead, they now embodied the worst of both worlds—failure-to-launch tricksters in their early to late twenties who were addicted to video games and beer.
Fir was totally into the fight currently displayed on the screen. It was some kind of alien battle game. He was surrounded and losing. Badly.
“Hey, Clef,” Fir yelled, not taking his eyes off the battle at hand while calling for my second trickster half-brother. His ginger hair, which used to be spiky, grew so long that his bangs were now partially blocking his vision. He shook his head impatiently to get them out of the way. “Man, you came at the right time. Get your ass over here. I can’t fend off these bastards on my own.”
I ignored Fir, yanking open the futon sofa so it became a bed, and put Prince Eldon on it.
Fir let out a frustrated groan, and I glanced at the screen. His avatar was dead. Game over.
Fir threw his console onto the floor and turned toward me. “Why didn’t you come help me—oh, hey, Megan. I thought you were Clef.”
“You between gigs?” Fir was home instead of being out making mischief like my other three half-brothers. A trickster without a job was never a good thing for those around him. I remembered the fiasco at Grandma Aequitas’s vengeance ball and shuddered.
Fir crossed his arms just a little too defensively. His body held the stubborn hunch of a mule. “I just finished one. Didn’t you see that cosmetic-surgery-gone-bad debacle on the news? The one with patients accidently getting half a denture implanted on each of their butt cheeks then the two sides kept wanting to get back together? That was me.”
“That was three weeks ago.” Too long. Uh-oh. He must be itching for trouble by now.
“Said the girl who’s got no trickster cred to her name.” Fir snorted, then his gaze shifted to the futon. “Um. Megan, why is there a changeling on my bed?”
“Because I have to hide him somewhere. It’s not even really your bed. You’ve got a room upstairs and only sleep down here when you’re too drunk on junk food to climb a few steps. Besides, in a real trickster family you wouldn’t even have a bed because our kind doesn’t usually raise their young, let alone let them live in the house long after they come of age.” I rumbled off the reasoning I rehearsed in my head before coming here until I realized that I totally missed the most important part of Fir’s words. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘why is there a changeling on my bed’?”
Fir just gave me a coy look and said nothing.
“It means Eldon is a changeling.” Serafina stepped closer. “Megan, meet His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Eldon of Dualsing, the plane of the changelings. We grew up together.”
Eldon, however, wasn’t up for any formal introduction. His eyes were closed on his ashen face, his breathing shallow. “We have to get him some medical help. Are you sure we can’t go to a hospital?”
“Yes,” Serafina said, her refusal was gentler but no less determined this time. “We can’t. We can’t afford to let anyone know he’s here. I’ll see to him. He doesn’t have any outward injury that I can see, and I learned a bit of healing in the past year. Let’s see if I can tell what’s happening.”
“Well, I’m out of here,” Fir huffed as Serafina settled next to Eldon. “My game is lost and my refuge is taken over. I need to find a place for a nice cold beer.”
“Fir, you’re not going to tell anyone what you saw here, right?” I wasn’t sure why Serafina wanted the secrecy, but I could find that out later. Right now I needed Fir’s word that he wouldn’t bring further chaos into this situation. Tricksters were known for their big mouths.
“By Fleur’s name, I won’t tell anyone,” Fir promised. The use of the name of the most celebrated trickster in all history should’ve made me feel assured, but with Fir you just never knew.
No time to think about that now. Serafina was kneeling by Eldon, her eyes shut tight. I knew that she was sending her spirit out of her body, hovering above in order to “see” his medical state of being. I understood how healing worked, but I never had any real experience with it. The healing art passed down through the generations, and it was never a strong suit in my own family. It was in Serafina’s clan, though.
Moments later, Serafina took a shaky breath and opened her eyes. “He’ll be fine. He has some superficial wounds, and most of his magic was drained out of him. But he isn’t injured in any way that a visit to the doctor would’ve helped. He needs to rest, more than anything.”
I waited while Serafina washed as much grime off Eldon as she could with a sponge, then finished the rest with magic. Then she changed him into one of Fir’s multi-layered outfits—with magic again, with her face turned away in modesty. I bit my tongue until she gently closed the door to the basement and we sat down upstairs by the breakfast bar in the kitchen. Then I couldn’t hold back anymore. “What the hell is going on? Why are we hiding this guy? Why can’t we go seek medical help for him?”
Serafina hesitated.
“Come on, you owe me, girlfriend,” I pressed. “Geez, I put Mr. Prince in my parents’ basement for you.”
She stared at me for a long time, and then finally started talking. “You know I was raised by the Dualsingians
—I mean, the changelings.”
“I know the changelings are like a type of fae, but I had no idea until today that they called themselves a different name.” I pursed my lips. “I would’ve used names like Scumbags of the Universe or the Big Fat Baby Robbers.”
Serafina sighed. “A lot of people in the Concord share that sentiment, and who could blame them? The stealing of children offends all of us at the basest level. The Dualsingians are generational baby-switchers, and they have done this since the beginning of time. It’s in the very identity of their culture. They’re like the cuckoo birds. Brood parasites, the humans called it. But what nobody talks about is the why.”
“I wondered about that. I mean, they’re missing their own kids’ childhood, too. What’s in it for them?”
“When a changeling child returns home, they reveal to their real family all the secrets they learned while masquerading as a valued member of another race’s household. It could be anything from ancient spells passed from father to son, knowledge of secret political alliances, or cutting edge product formulas. All that information gets sold to black marketeers, who in turn sell them to political spies, the host family’s enemies, and even corporations eager for a competitive advantage. That’s how the changelings as a race have made their living since time eternal. Stealing secrets by planting their young to be nurtured and cherished by other races.”
“Those bastards!” I slapped my thigh, and then lowered my voice as I glanced at the basement door. “And this guy is the prince of people like that? And you’re helping him?”
“He’s…important to me.” Serafina’s face was solemn. “And his being here, on the vengeance plane, is very dangerous for him. The location of the changeling plane is a well-guarded secret. Nobody knows where they live; otherwise the victims of their crimes would have torn that plane apart a long time ago. If they ever find out who Eldon is, there’s going to be a lot of supernaturals out there who want to claim him as their prisoner. They’ll try to force Eldon to tell them how to get on the changeling plane in order to have their revenge. He will be hunted for the rest of his life.”
Oh, crap. And he was in my parents’ basement. What kind of trouble had I just brought onto their doorstep? “Can’t he just go back?”
“He’s in no shape to travel. Even if he was, there’s only so much inter-dimensional crossing a changeling’s body can take. I think he has almost used up his by now.”
“So he’s stuck on this plane.” A growing sense of dread gnawed at my insides.
“More or less. Eldon really has nowhere to go.” Serafina, too, glanced at the basement door. With sympathy, and something else. Something that was close to—could it be?—guilt-laced joy?
There was something else that had been bothering me since the alleyway.
“You keep dropping his title when you say his name,” I accused. In the vengeance demon society, it was considered polite to address a stranger by their full name when possible. If today was the first day I met Serafina, I would be calling her Serafina Anastassia Advocatus. I’ve been calling this guy Eldon in my head since I found out whom he was a prince of, but that was because his royal title kinda got neutralized by the whole coming-from-a-scumbag-race thing. But what about Serafina? Why wasn’t she more deferent to a royalty she was probably conditioned to respect and fear from her former life? “You said you grew up with him.”
“Yes. For every child that the changelings took, they left behind a child of their own to be raised by their unsuspecting host family. Eldon’s sister, Deirdre, was my imposter on the vengeance plane. I grew up living in the Mirage Palace with him.”
“Wait.” I was beginning to put two and two together. I knew Serafina had an older cousin, a certified vengeance demon by the name of Gabriella Bethany Advocatus. She was murdered by the changeling who impersonated Serafina. In other words, the queen who was now residing on the throne of the changelings had a blood debt with the house of Advocatus.
And she was the sister of the dude who was currently in my parents’ basement. Great.
“Look, Megan, I’m aware of the difficult position I put you in—”
“You like him,” I dared to guess. I’d never seen Serafina into a guy in all the time I knew her, but there was no mistaking the tenderness that she had shown toward Eldon.
“It’s…complicated.” Serafina avoided my eyes.
“Huh. Does that connection tie into the whole I-already-got-a-magical-baseline-to-find-him thing?”
Rather than answering that, she touched my forearm, her eyes pleading. “Please try to help him. I know we don’t have a lot of information yet, but what we do know, it’s not good. I don’t think Deirdre understands the trouble she’s inviting by simply dumping Eldon somewhere away from Dualsing. She’s let her arrogance blind her, but she might just realize her mistake tomorrow and come and finish him off. One of Eldon’s legs is impaired since birth, so he couldn’t even run in a fight, and now he has no magic to protect himself.”
I didn’t know about Eldon’s impaired leg. But then again, ever since I met him he was in one unconscious state or another, and he certainly hadn’t really stood on his own for me to get a good look.
“Megan, I need your help in this. I-I can’t go to my family.”
No kidding.
The mighty Advocatus family was utterly humiliated by the switching of one family member and the murder of another. They would be the first out for the changeling prince’s blood.
With Serafina’s hand on my forearm, I was much more in tune with her mood than usual. I could feel the anxiety and distress rolling off her, and right then I made up my mind to help.
She obviously cared about Eldon a great deal. And I cared about her. Besides, I seriously didn’t believe Eldon deserved to be punished for the misdeed of an entire race. I would be a hypocrite if I thought that way.
Besides, I watched TV. Human interrogations, in the event of being captured, were never pretty. I could only imagine that the supernatural version of it would be worse. There had always been rumors whispering of the Council’s brutality. Not that vengeance demons usually paid it much heed, it was the whole “they’re evil, but they’re our evil” mentality.
Not so much for Eldon, though.
I gave Serafina a hug. “It’ll be alright. Nobody knows that he’s here, and this house gives off some really confusing energy signatures—a cocktail mix of vengeance demons, tricksters, and hybrid. Most supernaturals are used to the weirdness and just dismiss it as white noise. It’ll most likely mask Eldon’s changeling signature.”
I took out my cell phone and called my parents and grandma. When they didn’t answer, I left each of them messages with a brief rundown of the situation. I felt no shame in enlisting my family’s help in these circumstances.
I’d outgrown it.
Toddlers ran to their families for protection. Young adults refused do the same in a bid to be grownups. True adults call for help real fast when there’s genuine trouble because they know they could use all the help they could get.
Grandma Aequitas was my grandmother from the vengeance side of the family. More importantly, she was a longtime influential member of the Concord Council. In fact, she served there for so many decades that she didn’t get her hands dirty with the daily operational stuff anymore. With her honorary seat on the Council and my dad being an arch vengeance demon, I would be stupid to allow pride to dismiss the value of their help.
See, I felt so much more mature already. What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter Four
Sui-Ling
SOMETHING WAS VERY WRONG.
I was raiding the pantry for some of Mom’s truly awesome chocolate chip cookies when I felt it—the first sign that something was amiss. The air felt…heavier. Like the low rumbling of thunder right before a storm. Then the wall itself vibrated, and a woman’s voice was nowhere and everywhere at the same time, both inside and outside the house. “I, Sui-Ling, from the house of Gong, would like to re
quest an audience with the head of the Aequitas household.”
Something about the speaker’s family name tickled at my mind, but I couldn’t place it. I exchanged a puzzled look with Serafina. This kind of formal pronouncement would be more suitable in front of a vast mansion on estate grounds, not a modest bungalow with a birdbath and a pink plastic flamingo on the lawn.
Miss Neringa the nosy giantess was going to have a field day.
“Head of the Aequitas household, please respond.” The voice repeated the request, which really wasn’t a request at all.
Well, my parents weren’t home. Fir wasn’t home. The rest of my trickster older half-siblings weren’t home. I guess that made me the head of the household.
I squared my shoulders and headed for the door, gesturing for Serafina to stay put.
“No.” Her lips formed a tight line. “I want to come and see who’s there. I got you into this mess to begin with.”
“Actually, it’s more like Gregory got me into this mess…” I trailed off. One look at Serafina’s face and I knew there would be no arguing with her. She might appear meek and sweet to the world, but through the last few months I’d come to see that under all that gentleness was a deep reservoir of steadfast will and quiet determination.
I pushed open the door and let Serafina pass before closing it. The night had settled in, but the street lamps basked everything with an orange glow.
Waiting on the front lawn of my parents’ house, next to the silly pink plastic flamingo, was a long-limbed Asian woman with sleek waist-length hair and a nasty looking sword in her hands. The sword had the same intricate carving of the ceremonial dagger every vengeance demon got upon being professionally certified, but the way the woman was holding it, it was obvious that she was trained to use it for more than decorative purpose.