by A. J. Menden
Sadly, Emily and the others weren’t likely to visit me here. That meant I had to leave home to see her.
CHAPTER TWO
Some magic just requires the right words spoken in the spellcaster’s preferred language; others, words and a deed, like a hand motion or a combination of special powders. Still others use all of the above, and a select few can be evoked with just a thought, if the caster is powerful enough. I am. Portal travel is one of the easiest spells for me, and that was the way I made my way between my reality and others. I can appear anywhere, and in this case, I appeared right in the middle of the Elite Hands of Justice war room. Instantly I heard alarms screaming to life.
Mindy Clark-Christian, aka Tekgrrl, was the first on the scene, training a rather large gun of some sort, probably of her own design, on me. Seeing my identity, she relaxed and pointed the weapon away. “Damn it, Fantazia! I’m going to have to reset the alarms.” She sighed. “Computer, override security, per my access.”
The alarms died out in midscreech.
I surveyed Mindy coolly. “I thought I had security clearance here.”
“You do if you come in the proper way instead of just popping into our dimension all willy-nilly.” She walked over to the computer bank on the side of the room and started typing furiously. I caught a glimpse of my name and the words “interdimensional bartender” on the screen. I guess they’re pretty serious about logging in visitors. “Wesley had to up security after one of the Dragon’s cronies tried to fake his magic signature to get in here. Now, anyone sets off the alarm who magically transports inside, regardless if they’re allowed to be here or not.”
I hadn’t heard about that. The Dragon is my father’s archnemesis. He’s a powerful magic-user who wants to bring about the apocalypse by recalling to our world a group of superpowered beings called the Ancient Ones, who had been locked away long ago by a group of magic-users, supposedly forever. The Dragon tried to use his cult to cast a spell so he could eventually free them with the help of the DarkLight, who happens to be my baby sister, Emily. Whom my father desperately wants to protect.
The Dragon was still stuck in the DarkLands dimension, thanks to my father, but his minions were still trying to find a way to get him back. It was pretty much an exercise in futility: my father had locked the Dragon away and threw away the key, casting a spell so powerful it was darn near impossible to circumvent. But that wasn’t going to stop those little cultists from trying to, at the very least, corrupt little Emily. Had Wesley said something about his current problem I would have cast a spell to help him, but of course I’m the last one he ever thinks to contact.
Paul Christian, aka White Heat, coleader of the EHJ along with Wesley, came striding in. His limp, which he got after fighting an alien invasion in our last big adventure, was barely noticeable. “What the hell is going on?” Seeing Mindy clicking away at the computer, he sighed. “Why are you the first on the scene?”
“Because I’m the fastest,” she retorted.
“You should be the last one on the scene. You shouldn’t be running into trouble right now, Mindy.”
“Paul, I had a transport gun.” Without looking up she raised the weapon, which I suppose would have sent me straight to jail had she fired it. Mindy and Paul, the resident scientists, were the ones responsible for all of the high-tech gadgets of the EHJ. That’s why she’s Tekgrrl. I remember her discussing the particular weapon back when the team lived with me.
“Besides,” she continued, straightening up to face him. “It’s just Fantazia.”
I frowned. “You don’t have to say that like I’m some homeless person you stepped over on the street.”
They both ignored me in favor of their argument. “You didn’t know it was just Fantazia when you ran in here,” Paul growled. “Where’s Toby? Where’s Selena?”
“Toby’s visiting Forrest in Washington today, and Selena’s handling a press conference. I’m still a hero, Paul.”
“A hero who’s heavily pregnant and doesn’t need to go running into danger. A hero who’s my wife.”
“This isn’t the 1950s, and I’m not some delicate flower!” Mindy blasted.
I interrupted. “While I’m enjoying this peek at wedded bliss, I didn’t come here to see all the reasons why I never got married. Where’s Wesley?”
Paul frowned. “That’s the eternal question. Never around when we need him.”
Mindy sighed. “Boy, you’re grouchy today. I’m the one with the hormone troubles, babe, not you.”
“I’m the one that has to live with you,” he replied with a smile.
“You’re so going to pay for that.” But she smiled, too, and there was no mistaking the glimmer in their eyes. I remembered long ago when someone used to look at me like that. No one ever realizes how impermanent love is until it’s gone.
“I’m leaving before you two end up either killing each other or screwing on the table,” I said, starting for the door. “I’ll look for him myself.”
“Good luck with that,” Mindy called as the door slithered shut behind me.
Stepping out into the hallway, I heard my name called and turned to see Lainey Livingston-Charles, also known as Phenomenal Girl 5, who was in a weird way my stepmother. She made her way toward me. “Was that you who set off the alarms?”
“Yeah, it was me. I hadn’t heard there was another attack,” I said. She hugged me, and I almost jumped in surprise. Ever since I started taking an active interest in her and Wesley’s daughter’s life, she’d gotten friendlier.
“Wes sent them to the DarkLands to live with the Dragon, but still, better safe than sorry,” she said. She gave me a curious look. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but . . . why are you here? You never leave home.”
“I left to fight your alien invasion,” I reminded her.
“Under duress, if I remember correctly. Is something wrong?”
She was right: I usually let people come to me. I very rarely set foot outside my pocket universe. I’d done so recently, but only to help the EHJ in a battle, and then only because Wesley nagged me until I gave in. I’m like Switzerland. I don’t take sides. Or hadn’t until I got pathetic and lonely.
I didn’t want to tell Lainey the real reason I was here, so I just said, “I just thought I’d see Emily. Is Wesley around?”
“He’s watching her, in case there’s another attack,” she said. “They’re back in the common room. I’ll just shut down the wards. Come on.” She motioned me to follow.
I have to admire the glam atmosphere the EHJ have for their headquarters. They’re the biggest hero team in all of the United States, maybe even the world, and more than live up to their celebrity status. They’d been a bit of a joke for a while, more celebrities than heroes, until Wesley rejoined them and set things straight. No matter which life he was living, my father always was a take-charge kind of man.
We reached a doorway and Lainey said softly, “Apri I reparti.” The magic took effect and the door swung open as the wards surrounding the room broke, revealing comfortable living quarters with a widescreen television taking up one whole wall.
Inside the room I was greeted with an exuberant, “Fay!” the bizarre rendition of my name I was given by my two-year-old half sister, and then her chubby arms wrapped my leg.
I smiled in spite of myself. Emily is the only person on Earth who has that effect.
“Hey, kiddo,” I said, bending over to pick her up. “Are you driving Daddy crazy like I told you?”
She nodded, blonde hair like her mother’s bobbing as she did. “You come to play magic?” Her blue eyes—just like her father’s—sparkled with hope.
Emily was still young enough to be enthused by simple tricks, like making things appear and disappear or making her toys dance. Truth be told, she was powerful enough to do these things herself, if someone would teach her how. Usually a natural-born magic-user wouldn’t be able to access such powers until the onset of puberty, but Emily’s an anomaly. She’d started wo
rking small bits of magic at the tender age of one, likely to both her parents’ horror. You think normal kids’ temper tantrums are bad? Try telling a kid who can work magic that she can’t have a cookie. It’s even worse when that kid is prophesied to be the world’s most powerful magic-user who will either save the world or destroy it by releasing powerful creatures locked away since the dawn of time.
Everyone’s doing their part to make sure she comes down on the save-the-world side.
“Here ya go,” I said, sitting her back down. “Fai delle farfalle.” Brightly colored butterflies flashed into appearance and flew around the room. Emily laughed and clapped her hands.
“You shouldn’t be teaching her that.”
I narrowed my eyes at the speaker. “Lighten up. They’re just butterflies. Harmless.”
“You know better,” Wesley Charles said. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and glared at me. “It’s creating life out of nothing. That’s dangerous.”
It was weird seeing him as a twentysomething. So many years ago, practically the dawn of time, he was my father. His powers made it so that instead of dying at the end of each life, he reincarnates as a twenty-year-old—a twenty-year-old who remembers nothing about his previous relationships.
Since I don’t age and can’t die, I’d tried over the years to remind him. Over and over. Eventually, I got tired of rehashing that pain and gave up. That was around about the time he started writing down personal details in journals. He’d try to contact me. I’d ignore him. Eventually I grew bored with that and just treated him like he always treated me: a stranger with a few similar interests. Things had been awkward for his last couple of lives, but we’d come to an uneasy truce since Emily’s birth.
“She’s not going to get a God complex from creating a few butterflies,” I grumbled, watching my sister spin around the room.
“Why are you here?” Wesley asked. “Is something wrong?”
Something was wrong, but I wasn’t going to tell him. I’d known yesterday that this was going to happen, but I couldn’t help it. Today of all days I felt the need to be around family. He was all I had.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said, shrugging. “I just felt the need to spoil Emily. I thought I’d take her to get some ice cream, maybe visit the toy store, make a few butterflies appear and fly around the room. You know, normal big-sister stuff.”
Wesley frowned. “She doesn’t need to be out gallivanting.” He left the with you unspoken, but I could feel the words hovering in the air. I can always feel other people’s disapproval.
I put my hands on my hips. “So, I’m good enough to watch her when you want to go out gallivanting, but when I want to do it, it’s bad?”
“When you’re watching her, we’re out saving the world,” Wesley snapped. “Not having a good time.”
“Wesley!” Lainey interjected. “Let Emily go out with Fantazia.”
Wesley turned, astonished. “But . . .”
“I know reclusiveness is a family trait,” she said, motioning between me and my reincarnated father, “but I will not have my daughter end up that way. Let her go.”
“B-but it could be dangerous!” Wesley sputtered. “The Dragon—”
“Is in the DarkLands. We haven’t had any trouble with his cronies since we threw that last batch in the DarkLands with him, and Fantazia is probably the safest person your daughter could be with. Emily has to have as normal a life as we can give her, and going out for ice cream and visiting the toy store is what every two-year-old does with her relatives.” She eyed me again, taking in my outfit. “Well, maybe not relatives dressed like they came off the set of Male Fantasy Monthly.”
I sighed and magically changed my outfit to a pleated skirt and a long-sleeved shirt, a bit like a Catholic schoolgirl outfit that would definitely be in the magazine Lainey just described. Like all of my clothes, the skirt was just a little too short and was paired with killer boots, and the V-neck was just this side of being too low, but I just scooched in on the correct side of good taste and the change seemed to satisfy Lainey. She picked up Emily and handed her to me. “Go. Have fun. Wesley’s taking me out to lunch. We’ll see you later this afternoon.”
Emily threw her arms around my neck and squeezed. “Yay! I go with Fay.”
“Yes, you do.” Lainey kissed the top of her head. “Tell Mommy and Daddy bye-bye.”
“Bye!” She blew them both kisses and grinned.
Wesley came over to drop a kiss on her head. “Love you, Emmy-cake. Be good for Fantazia.” His dark blue eyes bored holes into me. “Take good care of her.”
“Yes, Dad,” I said. “I won’t let her run into traffic or take over the world. Not today, at any rate.” I turned and walked out of the room before he could say anything else.
“So what kind of ice cream you want, Em?” I asked as we headed for the main doors of the EHJ headquarters. I’d decided to take the civilian exit, as who knew what kind of trouble I’d get into with Wesley for teleporting from one place to another with Emily.
“Vanilla.”
We stepped into the elevator. “Vanilla? That’s boring! We’ve got to live it up today, be crazy!” I hugged her closer and whispered in her ear, “Today’s Fay’s birthday.”
We got triple chocolate fudge with strawberries, and I returned hours later with a sugared-up Emily in tow, laden down with bags. I know that on your birthday people are supposed to give you gifts, not vice versa, but for me, returning a kid on a sugar high with all kinds of obnoxious new toys to her unsuspecting parents is present enough.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” a male voice asked as I maneuvered Emily and her various packages into the elevator. “It looks like you have your hands full.”
I looked up with a grateful smile, but it died on my lips. “What are you doing here, Cyrus?”
The stocky bald man was at least a head taller than I, and he took a few of my bags and ushered me and Emily inside the elevator. “I work here.”
His sharp blue eyes caught mine, arrested me. It wasn’t as if he was good-looking. Well, not in the conventional sense. The shaved head, the piercing blue eyes, the tattoos, the stocky physique. His presence was . . . scary. Most women would walk across the street if they saw him approaching.
“Please. You’re a lurker not a worker.”
Cyrus Ramsey, or the Virus, as he’s known among the magic-user set, had once been a regular visitor to my pocket universe. He’s something of a rarity, being what we magic-users call a techno mage: someone whose precise control is over magic as it relates to technology. While I can use my magic like a hammer to smash a computer—the only good solution to one, really—Cyrus can use his to go in and completely change the workings. It requires a good bit of scientific knowledge about the technology, something completely foreign to me.
Back then he’d been a petty villain making ends meet by hacking into bank accounts. He’d been just another face in the crowd until coming to me for a rather unusual favor. Then he’d gone to prison. He’d been out for a few years now and supposedly on the straight and narrow. He still owed me, though. Even helping out the EHJ at my insistence hadn’t been payment in full. It had been a big favor, one neither of us liked to discuss. In my circle, the less you discuss things, the better.
“Same difference,” he said. “How else would I have this?” He held up a gold security card and let the elevator scan it. The penthouse placard instantly lit up, and the car began rising.
“You probably hacked into the system and stole it.”
“Those days are behind me, Fantazia. I only hack for the Old One and his cronies now. So it’s legal.” All magic-users call my father the Old One. It was his name among us before he took up the mantle of the Reincarnist and crime-fighting back during World War II.
“Criminals. Do they ever really go legit?” I mused.
“Don’t talk about my shady past in front of the kid,” the techno mage mock whispered. “Besides, you’re one to talk.” He smiled and
his voice softened. “Hey, Em. How’d you get stuck with the old lady for the afternoon?”
She grinned back at him. “It’s Fay’s birthday!”
“Emily!” I chided. “That was supposed to be our little secret, remember? Fay said not to tell anyone.” My tone betrayed my annoyance that she’d to let this spill in front of Cyrus of all people, and her exuberance faded a bit and she looked down at the floor. Which just proves that I’m not good at being maternal.
Cyrus chuckled. “All these years and you’ve never learned not to tell a toddler secrets?”
“Well, as a general rule I don’t spend a lot of time with toddlers,” I growled. “I didn’t know you were such an expert.”
I noticed the corners of his mouth twist down. “I guess I’m just full of useless information. So what is this, Fantazia—the big one-zero-zero-zero?”
“Something like that,” I muttered, regretting even more the weakness that had dragged me back into the real world.
“Don’t know how you manage to be out and about, what with your advanced age,” he joked.
“Look, don’t say anything to the others,” I growled.
He grinned. “What’s it worth to you?”
Ugh. I went on the offensive, my fallback approach that always distracts men when I need to get them off topic. Angling my body in a seductive pose, I looked up at him from under long black eyelashes, flaunting my ageless beauty, the one gift of my long life. “What do you want?”
Cyrus must be the only man on earth immune to my distraction-by-flirting skills. Instead of rising to the bait and then being disappointed later when I didn’t follow through, he just frowned. “Definitely not that. And don’t do that in front of Emily.” He shook his head as if disturbed. “Too bad you were gone for the feminist movement, Fantazia. You might have learned a few things.”
I dropped all pretense of interest. “Well, what do you want?”
That irksome grin returned. “I’ll let you know. I like the thought of you owing me for a change.”